What to do? How to bear it? How far she--woman of purest thought--had
sinned in participating as she had in Hallam's crime?
It was as if the shock had blunted and confused her understanding, so
that she could not think clearly or make out any plan for her future
proceeding. And all the time she was haunted as by a great horror.
Now light would come, and she would seem to see her course clearly and
wonder that she should have hesitated before. It was all so simple.
Sir Gordon was there in Sydney, her oldest friend. He it was who had
been the sufferer by her husband's defalcations, and of course it was
her duty to go straight to him and tell him all.
No sooner had she arrived at this than she shrank from the idea with
horror. What could she have been thinking! To go to Sir Gordon was to
denounce her husband as a criminal, and the result would be to send him
back to the prison lines and the hideous convict life that had changed
him from a man of refinement to a brutal sensualist, from whom in future
she felt that she must shrink with horror.
Those last thoughts distracted her. Shrink with horror from him whom
she had so dearly loved, from him whom she had believed a martyr to a
terribly involved chain of evidence! It was too terrible!
But what was she to do? She could not lead this life of luxury,
purchased by the money she had so innocently brought; that was certain.
She and Julia must leave there at once. They could not stay.
She shivered as she thought of the difficulties that would rise up. For
where were they? Out here, in this half-civilised place, penniless; and
what defence had she to bring forward if Robert Hallam, her husband and
master, said no, she should stay, and claimed her and her child as his?
There was light again. She could appeal to the governor, for Hallam had
forfeited his social rights, and she would be free.
Down came the darkness and shut out that light, closing her in with a
blackness so terrible that she shuddered.
It was impossible--impossible!
"He is my husband," she moaned, "and were he ten times the sinner, I
could not take a step that would injure the man I loved--the father of
my child!"
Christie Bayle!
Yes; Christie Bayle, truest and most faithful of friends, who in the
days of his boyish love had resigned himself to her wishes, and promised
to be her brother through life.
How good he had been; and how she had in her agony of spirit reviled
him, and called him her husband's enemy! How his conduct seemed to
stand out now, bright and shining! How full of patient self-denial!
Brother, indeed, through all, while she had been--she knew it now, and
shivered in her agony--so obstinately blind.
Christie Bayle would help her and protect Julia, whom he loved as if she
were his child. He would--yes, she reiterated the thought with a
strange feeling of joy--he would help her, as he had helped her before,
in this time of anguish, and protect Julia from that man.
For now came, in all its solid horror, the reality of that which had
only been cast, so far, as a shadow across her path.
This man, Crellock, who had seemed like Hallam's evil genius from the
first, but whom she saw now as her husband's willing tool, had conceived
a passion for her darling child. More--he was her husband's chosen
companion in pleasure and in guilt, and Hallam would--if he had not done
so already--accept him.
"And I sit here bemoaning my suffering," she cried passionately, "when
such a blow is impending for my darling. Shame! shame! Am I ever to be
so weak a woman, so mere a puppet in others' hands? Heaven give me
strength to be forgetful of self, and strong in defence of my child!"
She pressed back her hair from her brow, which became full of lines,
and, resting her elbows upon her knees, her chin upon her hands, she sat
there gazing as it were into the future, as she told herself that her
own sufferings must be as nought, but that she must save Julia from such
a fate.
Sir Gordon? Bayle? No! no! Only as a last resource. Not even then;
they must be left. They had known the truth from the first--she saw it
now--and in pity for her had borne all she had said, and helped her.
No! to ask their aid was to punish her husband. That could not be. She
must act alone, weak woman as she was. She must be strong now, and she
and Julia must leave this man at once. They must take some cottage or
lodging in the town, and work for a living. That must be the first
step.
Then came the black cloud again, to shut out the hope. Hallam would not
allow them to go; and if they could steal away they were absolutely
penniless.
She sat gazing before her, feeling as if old age had come suddenly to
freeze her faculties and render her helpless; but, starting from her
blank sense of misery, she forced herself to think.
What should she do? Julia should not be a convict's wife; she felt that
she would rather see her dead.
Once more a ray of hope--a thin, bright ray of light piercing the cloud
of darkness ahead.
Lieutenant Eaton!
He loved her child, and it had seemed as if Julia cared for him, but in
her maiden innocency she had always shrunk from anything more than a
friendly show of attachment.
"But he is manly, and evidently devoted to her," said Mrs Hallam in a
low voice. "She would soon learn to love him."
She ran over in her own mind all that had passed since the acquaintance
on ship-board began. Eaton's attentions, the pleasant hours Julia had
seemed to spend in his company, the young officer's manner--everything
pointed to its being on his part more than the gallant attention of one
of his stamp. Then there was the life here since they had landed. His
occasional calls; his evident hesitancy. It was all so plain. He loved
Julia dearly, but he was kept back from proposing for her by her
connections.
"But he will ignore them for her sake," she cried at last joyously. "He
must be learning day by day how true and good she is. He will forget
everything, and she will be saved."
Mrs Hallam started up with the ray of hope cutting its way more and
more brightly through the dark cloud ahead; and then her senses seemed
to reel, a terrible fit of giddiness came over her as she tottered,
caught at a chair, and then fell heavily upon the floor.