JOHN TEMPLE LEAVES WOODLEA.
A minute later Henderson and Mr. Churchill entered the room.
Henderson's face was flushed a dusky red, but Mr. Churchill's looked
pale, angry, and determined. He gave a quick, sharp glance around, and
then advanced toward the squire, who gravely held out his hand, which,
however, his tenant scarcely touched.
"I've come on unpleasant business, Mr. Temple," he said, quickly; and
then he looked at John Temple.
"You mean about--" began the squire in faltering tones.
"I mean about my daughter, sir! This gentleman," and he turned to
Henderson, "has come to me this morning with a fine tale; he says my
girl is living in London, and that your nephew has placed her there."
For a moment or two no one spoke. Mr. Churchill was looking indignantly
at John Temple, and the dark flush on Henderson's face had deepened,
while his eyes also were fixed with an angry scowl on Temple.
"John," said the squire, in a firmer voice, after a brief silence; "you
hear what Mr. Churchill says; is this charge true or false?"
John Temple looked slowly round at each man in turn.
"I decline to answer any questions on the subject," he said, in a
clear, firm voice.
"But I've a right to ask questions on the subject, sir!" almost shouted
Mr. Churchill, angrily. "This girl, my daughter, disappeared from her
home and nothing has been heard of her since; and now I hear she is
writing to you in a way that if she isn't married to you she ought to
be."
"I admit your right to ask questions, Mr. Churchill," answered John
Temple, still firmly; "but I have no right to betray the secrets of
others. And if this spy," and his eyes kindled, and he stretched out
his arm in the direction of Henderson, "has already told you so much,
he had better tell you more."
"You dare to call me a spy, sir!" cried Henderson, in a voice hoarse
with passion.
"Yes, and something worse," answered John Temple, fiercely; "because
this young lady rejected your insolent advances--advances which were an
insult to her from a man like you; a man who had betrayed and broken
another woman's heart, and then, as I believe there is a God above us,
murdered her--!"
For an instant Henderson turned ghastly pale, as this terrible
accusation reached his ears, and then, with a scream of rage, he sprang
forward and struck John Temple a violent blow on the chest. But he had
met his match. For the next moment a swift, hammer-like thud from
John's clenched fist hit his brow, and he reeled back, and striking his
head as he did so against the sharp corner of the writing table, he
fell heavily on the floor.
Mrs. Temple gave a cry, and both Mr. Temple and Mr. Churchill ran
forward to his assistance. They lifted up his head, but he was
seemingly unconscious, and a sudden fear darted into the squire's heart.
"He--is not dead," he said, falteringly.
"What matter if he is?" said John Temple, still fiercely; and then
without another word he turned and left the room, while the others
raised Henderson on a couch, and Mrs. Temple violently rang the bell
for further help.
In the meantime John Temple had gone to his own rooms, and for a moment
stood there, panting still from his recent encounter, thinking how he
should act. But his hesitation was very brief. He would go to May; in
her hands alone now lay the course of their future lives.
"If she loves me as I love her, we shall not part," he thought; "the
world is wide."
This was his decision, and he quickly acted on it. He pulled out a
portmanteau, and was thrusting into it some things that he would
require, when a rap sounded at his sitting-room door, and the next
moment Mrs. Temple, pale and excited, entered the room.
In a second she saw the preparations for his departure.
"You are going away?" she said, quickly.
"Do you think I would stay?" he answered, scornfully.
Mrs. Temple made no answer; she stood there looking at him, and a
strange revulsion of feeling swept through her breast.
"I--I do not want to drive you away," she said.
"Yet you have done so," answered John Temple, looking up at her, for he
was kneeling on the ground, packing his portmanteau. "But for you this
never would have happened."
Mrs. Temple's tall form swayed restlessly, and her pale, handsome face
quivered.
"I hated to think," she said, with sudden passion, "of your degrading
yourself so."
"I have not done so," replied John Temple, rising to his feet and
looking at her steadily.
"You have! This girl should have been nothing to you, nothing! And if
in some hour of madness you had been betrayed into any folly, if you
had trusted me I would have helped you if I could."
"I have been betrayed into nothing," answered John, coldly; "whatever I
have done is by my own will."
Mrs. Temple began walking restlessly up and down the room, and then she
suddenly stopped before John.
"You came here," she began; "you took my boy's place--"
"You know how deeply I grieved for you," said John Temple; "in
everything I wished to consider you."
"Yet you made love to this girl--this girl, a farmer's daughter, whose
brothers were playing in the fatal game when my boy was killed! One of
them may have been his murderer; was I believe; and this is how you
showed your consideration for me!"
"Mrs. Temple, this is unreasonable."
"What is she to you? Answer this question at least; is she your wife?"
"As I told them down-stairs, I will betray no one's secrets without
their leave."
"If she is, you need never bring her here! You heard what your uncle
said about your marrying her, but I will not receive her here."
"You shall never be asked to do so, nor will I ever return. What my
uncle said was worthy of him--the words of a good man, whom I most
heartily like and respect--but I will trouble you with my presence here
no more."
Again Mrs. Temple began those restless pacings up and down the floor;
in her anger she had done what she did not wish to do--driven John
Temple away--and now she was sorely repenting her own action.
"And there is one thing I wish to say before I go," continued John
Temple, "that I thank you for all your kindness to me while I have
been here. I came to your house under most painful circumstances, but
you over-looked this--"
"Do not go!" broke in Mrs. Temple, impetuously; "at least, not yet; let
us think what can be done, what it will be best to do."
"I know what it is best for me to do," answered John Temple, who was
now in the act of locking the small portmanteau he meant to carry away
with him, "and that is to leave Woodlea at once--good-by, Mrs. Temple."
He did not offer her his hand, but she took it almost against his will,
and held it.
"I have been so lonely," she said, in a broken voice; "so miserably
lonely--and now I will be more lonely still."
John Temple made no answer to this appeal.
"Bid good-by to my uncle for me," he said, "as I do not care, in my
present temper, to encounter again those two men down-stairs."
"What if you have killed Henderson? They were sending for the doctor
for him as I came upstairs."
"If I have I can not say I shall deeply regret it, and I am ready to
answer for this, as for the rest. But not he! A brute like that is not
killed by a blow on the head; and now once more good-by."
He was gone before she could speak again, and Mrs. Temple sat down and
looked around the desolate rooms. She had admired him during the last
half-hour; admired his bravery and independence.
"After all he had a right to choose a woman he liked best," she
thought; "but it is a terrible mistake. A man who marries a woman of
inferior birth and position always repents it--and with such relations!"
After awhile, however, she pulled herself together, and went
down-stairs, and when she entered the library she found the village
doctor there, as well as her husband and Mr. Churchill.
Henderson was lying on the couch ghastly pale, with a handkerchief
bound around his head, and still insensible, and the doctor was
bending over him holding his wrist.
Then when the squire saw his wife, he stepped back toward her and
half-whispered in her ear:
"Where is John Temple?" he said.
"He is gone," she answered, "and he says he will never return."
Mr. Temple upon this beckoned to Mr. Churchill.
"Mrs. Temple says my nephew has left the house, Mr. Churchill," he said.
"Then I'll follow him," answered the farmer, sturdily; "you have told
me, squire, that if he has not already done my girl justice that you
wish him and authorize him to do so?"
"Most certainly," replied Mr. Temple; "I am ready and wishful to
receive your daughter as his wife."
"I thank you, sir, with all my heart. Will you give me the address,
madam, where she is, for all this has well-nigh put it out of my head,"
he added, addressing Mrs. Temple, "and I'll go up to London to-night,
or to-morrow at latest."
Mrs. Temple went to the writing-table without a word, and wrote down
Miss Webster's address in Pembridge Terrace, which she remembered only
too well, and handed it to Mr. Churchill.
"Thank you kindly, madam," he said, "and now, as the doctor's here,
and the squire, I think I'll go, as I leave Mr. Henderson in such
good hands, and I have my missus to consult a bit, and some business
to see about before I can get off to London. Good-morning, madam;
good-morning, squire."
So Mr. Churchill went away, but he was scarcely gone when Mrs. Layton
rushed hastily into the room. She had heard a report somehow that there
had been a quarrel between young Henderson and John Temple, and that
the doctor had been sent for, so she had hurried up to the Hall to see
and hear all about it.
"What is this, Rachel!" she cried, looking at the prostrate figure on
the couch. "Whatever has happened?"
Mrs. Temple shrugged her shoulders.
"It means a fight," she said, scornfully, "and there is the fallen
one!" And she pointed to Henderson.
"But what on earth did they quarrel about?" asked Mrs. Layton, eagerly.
"The village beauty," answered Mrs. Temple, still more scornfully; "it
seems my nephew, John Temple, had run away with Miss Churchill, and his
uncle has given his consent to his marriage with her, so we may expect
her here."
"What!" almost screamed Mrs. Layton.
"Rachel," said the squire in grave reproof, "is this a way in which to
speak of a most painful affair? If John Temple did induce this young
lady to leave her home, as you say he did, he is bound in honor to make
her his wife."
"To make Margaret Churchill his wife!" screamed Mrs. Layton. "Why,
squire, you must be mad to dream of such a thing!"
The squire gave a contemptuous bow.
"You may have your ideas, madam," he said, "and I have mine. I have
told you what mine are, and in my own house. I'll see they are
respected."
Mrs. Layton's face fell; the squire might be mad, was mad to talk thus,
but still he was the master of the house from which so many good things
went to the vicarage, and she could not afford to quarrel with him.
"Of course, I did not mean that," she began, but with another bow Mr.
Temple left the room, and Mrs. Layton was alone with her daughter,
except for the presence of the doctor and the unconscious Henderson,
who were quite at the other end of it.
"Did I not tell you long ago," hissed Mrs. Layton in her daughter's
ear, "what this John Temple was? A viper, a scorpion, and now he's
turned and stung you! Oh! that I should ever live to see that upstart
here! Margaret Churchill indeed!"
"She's not here yet," answered Mrs. Temple, bitterly; "ten to one John
Temple will never marry her--why should he?"