The mouse fell from the ceiling, and the cat cried, "Allah!"
--Syrian Proverb.
That help should come through such a recognized channel as a Bishop
could surprise no one, least of all Lady Newhaven, who had had the
greatest faith in the clergy all her life, but, nevertheless, so
overwhelmed was she by despair and its physical sensations, that she
very nearly refused to see the Bishop when he called. Her faith even in
lawn sleeves momentarily tottered. Who would show her any good? Poor
Lady Newhaven was crushed into a state of prostration so frightful that
we must not blame her if she felt that even an Archbishop would have
been powerless to help her.
She had thought, after the engagement was announced, of rushing up to
London and insisting on seeing Hugh; but always, after she had looked
out the trains, her courage had shrunk back at the last moment. There
had been a look on Hugh's face during that last momentary meeting which
she could not nerve herself to see again. She had been to London already
once to see him, without success.
She knew Rachel was at the Palace at Southminster nursing Hester, and
twice she had ordered the carriage to drive over to see her, and make a
desperate appeal to her to give up Hugh. But she knew that she should
fail. And Rachel would triumph over her. Women always did over a
defeated rival. Lady Newhaven had not gone. The frightful injustice of
it all wrung Lady Newhaven's heart to the point of agony. To see her own
property deliberately stolen from her in the light of day, as it were,
in the very market-place, before everybody, without being able to raise
a finger to regain him! It was intolerable. For she loved Hugh as far as
she was capable of loving anything. And her mind had grown round the
idea that he was hers as entirely as a tree will grow round a nail
fastened into it.
And now he was to marry Rachel, and soon. Let no one think they know
pain until they know jealousy.
But when the Bishop sent up a second time, asking to see her on
business, she consented.
It was too soon to see callers, of course. But a Bishop was different.
And how could she refuse to admit him when she had admitted that odious
Captain Pratt only four days before. She hoped no one would become aware
of that fact. It was as well for her that she could not hear the remarks
of Selina and Ada Pratt, as they skated on the frozen meadows with half,
not the better-half, of Middleshire.
"Poor Vi Newhaven. Yes, she won't see a creature. She saw Algy for a few
minutes last week, but then he is an old friend, and does not count. He
said she was quite heart-broken. He was quite upset himself. He was so
fond of Ted Newhaven."
The Bishop would not even sit down. He said he was on the way to a
confirmation, and added that he had been entrusted with a letter for
her, and held it towards her.
"It is my husband's handwriting," she said, drawing back, with
instinctive fear.
"It is from your husband," said the Bishop, gently, softening somewhat
at the sight of the ravages which despair had made in the lovely face
since he had last seen it. "He asked me to give it into your own hand a
month after his death."
"Then he told you that--"
"He told me nothing, and I wish to hear nothing."
"I should like to confess all to you, to feel myself absolved," said
Lady Newhaven in a low voice, the letter in her trembling hand.
He looked at her, and he saw that she would not say all. She would
arrange details to suit herself, and would omit the main point
altogether, whatever it might be, if, as it was more than probable, it
told against herself. He would at least save her from the hypocrisy of a
half-confession.
"If in a month's time you wish to make a full confession to me," he
said, "I will hear it. But I solemnly charge you in the meanwhile to
speak to no one of this difficulty between you and your husband.
Whatever it may have been, it is past. If he sinned against you, he is
dead, and the least you can do is to keep silence. If you wronged
him"--Lady Newhaven shook her head vehemently--"if you wronged him,"
repeated the Bishop, his face hardening, "be silent for the sake of the
children. It is the only miserable reparation you can make him."
"You don't understand," she said, feebly.
"I know that he was a kindly, gentle-natured man, and that he died a
hard and bitter one," said the Bishop. "God knows what is in that
letter, but your husband said it would be of the greatest comfort and
assistance to you in a difficulty which he foresaw for you. I will leave
you to read it."
And he left the room.
The early December twilight was creeping over everything. Lady Newhaven
took the letter to the window, and after several futile attempts
succeeded in opening it.
It ran as follows:
"It is irreligious to mourn too long for the dead. 'I shall go to
him, but he shall not return to me'--II. Sam. xii. 23. In the
meanwhile, until you rejoin me, I trust you will remember that it
is my especial wish that you should allow one who is in every way
worthy of you to console you for my loss, who will make you as
happy as you both deserve to be. That I died by my own hand you and
your so-called friend Miss West are of course aware. That 'the one
love of your life' drew the short lighter you are perhaps not
aware. I waited two days to see if he would fulfil the compact, and
as he did not--I never thought he would--I retired in his place. I
present to you this small piece of information as a
wedding-present, which, if adroitly handled, may add to the harmony
of domestic life. And if by any chance he should have conceived the
dastardly, the immoral idea of deserting you in favor of some
mercenary marriage--of which I rather suspect him--you will find
this piece of information invaluable in restoring his allegiance at
once. He is yours by every sacred tie, and no treacherous female
friend must wrest him from you.
"NEWHAVEN."
Lady Newhaven put the letter in her pocket, and then fainted away, with
her fair head on the window-ledge.