A Changed Heart Part 74

"We were married, Val," he said, looking up again, "and the month that followed was the happiest I ever knew. Our marriage was very recent, and I took my darling on a Southern tour, hoping that would make her forget the past and be happy. But it did not. Nothing could ever make her happy, she said, but seeing retribution fall on the unjust, and returning to her native town. Not openly, that was out of the question--but in secret, where she could know for herself that her wrongs had been avenged. So I left her in New York, and came here, and, Blake, you know the rest. I did frustrate that bad man, of whom I do not wish to speak since he is dead. I did marry the heiress, or we went through the ceremony that our friends took to be such. We understood each other perfectly from the first. I found her precisely what I had thought her--a bold, ambitious woman, reveling in wealth that was the birthright of another; ready to marry a man for whom she did not care a jot, because she hoped he would some day place a coronet on her head. I had little pity for such a woman, and besides, I was bound by a solemn promise to my dear one, who never would see me again if I failed. I married the heiress of Redmon, and had a legal right to share the wealth that should have been all my own true wife's. I purchased this cottage--I brought Nathalie here--I secured the services of her faithful old servant, and Speckport thought it was my sick mother!

"Very slowly some dim shadow of the truth came into my mind--very slowly--for I turned cold with horror only at the thought. Her mind was going--I saw it now--and the horror and anguish and despair of that discovery is known only to Heaven and myself. I had been so happy in spite of all--happy in this cottage with my darling wife--and now my punishment was coming, and was heavier than I could bear. My own act brought on the crisis. I was always urging her to let me take her out--I knew it would do her good; but she had such a dread of discovery that I never could persuade her. You remember the Sunday you saw us at the cathedral. She had often said she would like to go there, and that day I persuaded her to go, to hear the popular preacher. The sermon was a fearful one--you recollect it--and it completed the work remorse and suffering had begun. My wife was a hopeless lunatic from that day. O my love! my love! surely your punishment was greater than your sin!"

Val did not speak. The white anguish on Paul Wyndham's face was beyond all wordy consolation.

"It was after that she took to wandering out. She was haunted by one idea now--the sin she had committed against Olive; and tormented by a ceaseless desire to find her out, and kneel at her feet for forgiveness.

She wandered to the Redmon road on the night you saw her first, with some such idea, and fled in terror at Laura's scream. Midge had followed and found her, and led her home. From that time, Midge had to watch her ceaselessly to keep her in; but sometimes, in spite of all, she would make her way out. She went to the cemetery to see her own grave, poor child! and Midge found her there, too; she went to the cathedral this evening in the same way. All the old familiar places drew her to them with an irresistible power of attraction, and I knew this discovery must come, sooner or later. I am deeply thankful you were the first to make it, for I can trust you, dear old Val! I dare not call in medical service, but I know her case is quite hopeless. She is never otherwise than gentle and patient--she is like a little child, and I know reason has gone forever. Blake, I know I have done wrong. I know I have deserved this, but it breaks my heart!"

"And this is the end of your story," said Val, looking at him with a stony face.

"This is the end--a pitiful story of weakness and wrong-doing, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Val, rising, and flinging his smoked-out cigar in the fire, "it is. A bad and cruel story as ever I heard. A story I never should have given you the credit of being the hero of, Paul Wyndham. You have profaned a holy rite--you have broken the laws of G.o.d and man--you have committed a felony, for which life-long imprisonment is the penalty. You are a bigamist, sir. The laws of this matter-of-fact land recognize no romantic glossing over of facts. You have married two wives--that humbug about one marriage meaning nothing, being only a business arrangement, is only bosh. You are a bigamist, Mr. Wyndham, and you cannot expect me to hoodwink your crime from the eyes of the land."

"No," said Mr. Wyndham, bitterly, "I expect nothing. You will turn Rhadamanthus, and have justice, though the heavens fall, I dare say. You will publish my misdoings on the house-tops, and at the street-corners.

It will be a rare treat for Speckport, and Mr. Val Blake will awake all at once, and find himself famous!"

Mr. Blake listened with the same face of stone.

"I will do what is right and above-board, Mr. Wyndham. I will have no act or part in any plot as long as I live. The only one I ever had a hand in was that affair of Cherrie's, and I was sorry enough for that afterward. If Nathalie Marsh were my sister, I could scarcely care more for her than I do; but I tell you I would sooner know she was dead and buried out there, than living, and as she is. I am sorry for you, Mr.

Wyndham, for I had some faith in you; but it is out of all reason to ask me to conceal such a crime as this."

"I ask for nothing," Paul Wyndham said, more in sorrow than in anger. "I am entirely at your mercy. Heaven knows it does not matter much what becomes of me, but it is hard to think of her name--my poor dear!--dragged through the slime of the streets."

Perhaps Val Blake was sorry for him in his secret heart--for it was a kindly heart, too, was Val's--but his face did not show it. He lifted his hat, and turned to go.

"I shall be as merciful as is compatible with justice," he said; "before I make this matter known to the proper authorities, you shall be warned.

But there are others who must be told to-morrow. She must have medical advice at once, for she is evidently dying by inches; her mother must know, and--" His hand was on the lock of the door as he stopped, and faced round--"and the woman you have wronged. As to your secret power over her, you need not make such a mystery of it. I know what it is!"

"You!" Paul Wyndham said, turning his powerful gray eyes upon him. "You, Blake! Impossible!"

Mr. Blake nodded intelligently.

"She is not the true heiress! Ah! I see I am right! I have had reason to think so for some time past; but I never was sure until to-night. Oh, yes! I know the secret, and I know more. I think I can put my hand on one who is the heiress, before to-morrow's sun goes down."

There flashed through Paul Wyndham's mind what Olive had said, in that first stormy interview they had held, about the true heiress, who had made over to her the true estate. What if it had been true?

"Who is it?" he asked. "You cannot! She is dead!"

"Not a bit of it. She is worth half a dozen dead people yet! I shall see her to-morrow, and find out if I am not right."

"See her to-morrow! Then she is in Speckport?"

"To be sure she is! I will visit the other one, too--Harriet, you know.

She must be told at once."

"You know her name! Blake, who has told you all this?"

"Not now!" said Val, opening the door; "some other time I will tell you.

You are at liberty to make what use of your time you please. You have between this and to-morrow."

"I shall not make use of it to fly," said Mr. Wyndham, coolly; "whatever comes, I shall stay here and meet it. I have only one request to make--be as tender with that poor girl at Redmon as you can. I do not think she is happy, and I believe she is a far better woman than I took her to be. I am sorry for the wrong I have done her, but it is too late in the day for all that now. I do not ask you to spare me, but do spare her?"

"I shall not add to the truth--be sure of it. Good night!"

"Good night!" Paul Wyndham said, locking and closing the door after him, and returning to the room they had left. So it was all over, and the discovery he had dreaded and foreseen all along, had come at last. It was all over, and the scheme of his life was at an end. He had been happy here--oh, very, very happy! with the wife he loved, and who had trusted and clung to him, as a timid child does to a father. How often he had sat in this very room, reading to her dreamy, misty Sh.e.l.ley, or Byron, or Owen Meredith, and she had sat on a low stool at his feet, her blue eyes looking up in his face, her hazy gold hair rippling loose about her, like a cloud of sunlight, or with that golden head pillowed on his knee, while she dropped asleep in the blue summer twilight, listening. Yes, he had been unspeakably happy there, while some one had sat unthought of at Redmon, eating out her own heart in her grand miserable solitude. He had been very happy here; but it was all over now, and his life seemed closing black around him, like a sort of iron shroud. It would all pa.s.s, and he would exist for years, perhaps, yet, and eat, and drink, and sleep, and go on with the dull routine of existence, but his life was at an end. He had sinned, and the retribution that always follows sin in this world, or the next, had overtaken him. He had been happy here, but it was gone forever--nevermore to be--nevermore--nevermore!

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

DRIFTING OUT.

In Mrs. Major Wheatly's pretty drawing-room in their new house in Golden Row sat Miss Winnie Rose, the governess. She is dressed in slight mourning, very simple, as becomes a governess, but fitting the small, light figure with exquisite neatness, and she is counting time for Miss Wheatly, who sits strumming out her music-lesson at the piano. Mrs.

Wheatly lies on a sofa at the window, dawdling over a novel and looking listlessly at the pa.s.sers-by, and wis.h.i.+ng some one would call. She started up, thinking her mental prayer was granted, as a servant entered with a card. But it was not for her. It was handed to the governess.

"Mr. Blake!" said Miss Rose, hesitatingly. "This cannot be for me, Margaret."

"O yes'm, it is! He requested particularly to see Miss Rose."

"Is it Mr. Blake?" inquired Mrs. Wheatly. "What can he want with you, I wonder?"

Miss Rose smiled as she got up.

"I am sure I don't know. I may go down, I suppose?"

"Oh, certainly, my dear!" said Mrs. Wheatly, yawning. "And ask him if he has heard from his sister lately. Stop your strumming, Louisa, it makes my head ache."

Mr. Blake was sitting in what was called the morning-room, and shook hands with Miss Rose when she came in. But how strangely grave he was!

What could he want with her? Her heart fluttered a little as she looked at him.

"My dear young lady!" he began, with an ominously grave face, "it is very serious business that brings me here this morning. Are you quite sure no one can overhear us?"

Awful beginning! The little governess turned pale as she listened.

"No one," she faltered. "What is it you mean, Mr. Blake?"

"My dear," said Mr. Blake, as if he were speaking to a young lady of ten years, "don't look so frightened. I want to ask you a question, and you must pardon me if it sounds impertinent. Is your name, your family-name, really Rose?"

The governess uttered a low cry, and covered her face with both hands.

"I am answered," said Val. "Your name is Henderson--Olive Henderson; and you should be heiress of Redmon, instead of--of the person whose name is Harriet, and who reigns there now. Oh, my dear young lady, how is this?

Is there no one in the world to be trusted?"

She rose from her seat suddenly, and sank on her knees at his feet with a gus.h.i.+ng sob.

"I have done wrong," she cried, "for all deceit is wrong; and though Rose is my name, it is not my father's. But oh, Mr. Blake! if you only knew all, I don't think you would blame me so much. It was not I who changed it. It has been the name by which I have gone for years, and I could not resume my rightful one without suspicion and explanation that involved the honor of the dead; and so I was silent. No one was wronged by it--no one in the wide world; and I did not think it so very wrong."