This Man's Wife Part 66

In a flash, as it were, Christie Bayle seemed to see into the future, and in that future he saw, as it were, the simple happy little home he had made for the woman he had once loved crumbling away into nothingness, the years of peace gone for ever, and a dark future of pain and misery usurping their place. The dew upon his brow grew heavier, and as Sir Gordon's eyes ranged from one to the other he could read that the anguish in the countenance of the man he had made his friend was as great as that suffered by the woman to whom, in the happy past, they had talked of love. He started as Bayle spoke; his voice sounded so calm and emotionless; at times it was slightly husky, but it gained strength as he went on, its effect being, as he took Mrs Hallam's hands to make her sink upon her knees at his feet her anger gone, and the calm of his spirit seeming to influence her own.

"I hesitated to speak," he said, "until I had prepared you for what I had to say."

"Prepared?" she cried. "What have all these terrible years been but my probation?"

"Yes, I know," said Bayle; "but still I hesitated. Yes," he said quickly, "I have heard from Mr Hallam. He has written to me--enclosing a letter for his wife." As he spoke he took the letter from his breast, and Mrs Hallam caught it, reading the direction with swimming eyes.

"Julie!" she panted, starting to her feet, "read--read it--quickly-- whisper, my child!"

She turned her back to the men, and held the unopened letter beneath the lamp.

Julia stretched out her hand to take the letter, but her mother drew it quickly back, with an alarmed look at her child, holding it tightly with both hands the next moment to the light; and Julia read through her tears in a low quick voice:

"Private and confidential.

"To Mrs Robert Hallam, formerly Miss Millicent Luttrell, of King's Castor, in the county of Lincoln.

"N.B.--If the lady to whom this letter is addressed be dead, it is to be returned unopened to--

"Robert Hallam,--

"9749,--

"Nulla Nulla Prison,--

"Port Jackson."

"Mrs Hallam," said Bayle in his calm, clear voice, "Sir Gordon and I are going. You would like to be alone. Could you bear to see us again--say to-night--in an hour or two?"

"Yes, yes," she cried, catching his hand; "you will come back. There!

you see I am calm now. Dear friends, make some excuse for me if I seem half mad." Sir Gordon took the hand that Bayle dropped, and kissed it respectfully.

Bayle was holding Julia's.

"G.o.d protect you both, and give you counsel," he whispered, half speaking to himself. "Julie, you will help her now."

"Help her!" panted Julia. "Why, it is a time of joy, Mr Bayle; and you don't seem glad."

"Glad!" he said in a low voice, looking at her wistfully. "Heaven knows how I should rejoice if there were good news for both."

The next minute he and Sir Gordon were arm-in-arm walking about the square; for though Bayle had left the place intending to go to his own rooms, Mrs Hallam's house seemed to possess an attraction for them both, and they stayed within sight of the quiet little home.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FIVE.

THE WIFE SPEAKS.

Sir Gordon was the first to break the silence, and his voice trembled with pa.s.sion and excitement.

"The villain!" he said in an angry whisper. "How dare he write to her!

She suffered, but it was a calm and patient suffering, softened by time.

Now he has torn open the wound to make it bleed afresh, and it will never heal again."

"I have lived in an agonising dread of this night for the past ten years," said Bayle hoa.r.s.ely.

"You?"

"Yes: I. Does it seem strange? I have seen her gradually growing more restful and happy in the love of her child. I have gone on loving that child as if she were my own. Was it not reasonable that I should dread the hour when that man might come and claim them once again?"

"But they are not his now," cried Sir Gordon. "The man is socially dead."

"To us and to the law," said Bayle; "but is the husband of her young love dead to the heart of such a woman as Millicent Hallam?"

"Luttrell, man; Luttrell," cried Sir Gordon excitedly; "don't utter his accursed name!"

"As Millicent Hallam," said Bayle gravely. "She is his wife. She will never change."

"She must be made to change," cried Sir Gordon, whose excitement and anger were in strong contrast to the calm, patient suffering of the man upon whose arm he hung heavily as they tramped on round and round the circular railings within the square. "It is monstrous that he should be allowed to disturb her peace, Bayle. Look here! Did you say that letter came enclosed to you?"

"Yes."

"Then--then you were a fool, man--a fool! You call yourself her friend--the friend of that sweet girl?"

"Their truest, best friend, I hope."

"You call yourself my friend," continued Sir Gordon, in the same angry, unreasoning way, "and yet you give them that letter? You should have sent it back to the scoundrel, marked dead. They are dead to him.

Bayle, you were a fool."

"Do you think so?" he said smiling, and looking round at his companion.

"My dear sir, is your Christianity at so low an ebb that you speak those words?"

"Now you are beginning to preach, sir, to excuse yourself."

"No," replied Bayle quietly. "I was only about to say, suppose these long years of suffering for his crime have changed the man; are we to say there is to be no ray of hope in his darkened life?"

"I can't argue with you, Bayle," cried Sir Gordon. "Forgive me. I grow old and easily excited. I called you a fool: I was the fool. It was misplaced. You are not very angry with me?"

"My dear old friend!"

"My dear boy!"

Sir Gordon's voice sounded strange, and something wonderfully like a sob was heard. Then, for some time they paced on round and round the square, glancing at the illumined window-blind, both longing to be back in the pleasant little room.

And now the same feeling that had troubled Bayle seemed to have made its way into Sir Gordon's breast. The little home, with its tokens of feminine taste and traces of mother and daughter everywhere, had grown to be so delightful an oasis in his desert life that he looked with dismay at the chance of losing it for ever.

He knew nothing yet, but that home seemed to be gliding away. He had not heard the letter read, but a strange horror of what it might contain made him shudder for what he knew; and as the future began to paint terrors without end, he suddenly nipped the arm of his silent, thoughtful companion.

"There! there!" he said, "we are thinking about ourselves, man."

"No," said Bayle, in a deep, sad voice, "I was thinking about them."