The reason of his separation from his wife revealed, Lord Arleigh again
put the question:
"Do you think, Lord Mountdean, that I have done wrong?"
The earl looked at him.
"No," he replied, "I cannot say that you have."
"I loved her," continued Lord Arleigh, "but I could not make the
daughter of a convict the mistress of my house, the mother of my
children. I could not let my children point to a felon's cell as the
cradle of their origin. I could not sully my name, outrage a long line
of noble ancestors, by making my poor wife mistress of Beechgrove. Say,
if the same thing had happened to you, would you not have acted in like
manner?"
"I believe that I should," answered the earl, gravely.
"However dearly you might love a woman, you could not place your coronet
on the brow of a convict's daughter," said Lord Arleigh. "I love my wife
a thousand times better than my life, yet I could not make her mistress
of Beechgrove."
"It was a cruel deception," observed the earl--"one that it is
impossible to understand. She herself--the lady you have made your
wife--must be quite as unhappy as yourself."
"If it be possible she is more so," returned Lord Arleigh; "but tell me,
if I had appealed to you in the dilemma--if I had asked your
advice--what would you have said to me?"
"I should have no resource but to tell you to act as you have done,"
replied the earl; "no matter what pain and sorrow it entailed you could
not have done otherwise."
"I thought you would agree with me. And now, Mountdean, tell me, do you
see any escape from my difficulty?"
"I do not, indeed," replied the earl.
"I had one hope," resumed Lord Arleigh; "and that was that the father
had perhaps been unjustly sentenced, or that he might after all prove
to be innocent. I went to see him--he is one of the convicts working at
Chatham."
"You went to see him!" echoed the earl, in surprise.
"Yes; and I gave up all hope from the moment I saw him. He is simply a
handsome reprobate. I asked him if it was true that he had committed the
crime, and he answered me quite frank, 'Yes.' I asked him if there were
any extenuating circumstances; he replied 'want of money.' When I had
seen and spoken to him, I felt convinced that the step I had taken with
regard to my wife was a wise one, however cruel it may have been. No man
in his senses would voluntarily admit a criminal's daughter into his
family."
"No; it is even a harder case than I thought it," said the earl. "The
only thing I can recommend is resignation."
Lord Mountdean thought that he would like to see the hapless young wife,
and learn if she suffered as her husband did. He wondered too what she
could be like, this convict's daughter who had been gifted with a regal
dower of grace and beauty--this lowly-born child of the people who had
been fair enough to charm the fastidious Lord Arleigh.
Meanwhile Madaline was all unconscious of the strides that destiny was
making in her favor. She had thought her husband's letter all that was
most kind; and, though she felt that there was no real grounds for it,
she impressed upon her mother the need of the utmost reticence. Margaret
Dornham understood from the first.
"Never have a moment's uneasiness, Madaline," she said. "From the hour I
cross your threshold until I leave, your father's name shall never pass
my lips."
It was a little less dreary for Madaline when her mother was with her.
Though they did not talk much, and had but few tastes alike, Margaret
was all devotion, all attention to her child.
She was sadly at a loss to understand matters. She had quite expected to
find Madaline living at Beechgrove--she could not imagine why she was
alone in Winiston House. The arrangement had seemed reasonable enough
while Lord Arleigh was abroad, but now that he had returned to England,
why did he not come to his wife, or why did not she go to him? She could
not understand it; and as Madaline volunteered no explanation, her
mother asked for none.
But, when day after day she saw her daughter fading away--when she saw
the fair face lose its color, the eyes their light--when she saw the
girl shrink from the sunshine and the flowers, from all that was bright
and beautiful, from all that was cheerful and exhilarating--she knew
that her soul was sick unto death. She would look with longing eyes at
the calm, resigned face, wishing with all her heart that she might
speak, yet not daring to do so.
What seemed to her even more surprising[8] was that no one appeared to
think such a state of things strange; and when she had been at Winiston
some few weeks, she discovered that, as far as the occupants of the
house were concerned, the condition of matters was not viewed as
extraordinary. She offered no remark to the servants, and they offered
none to her, but from casual observations she gathered that her daughter
had never been to Beechgrove, but had lived at Winiston all her married
life, and that Lord Arleigh had never been to visit her.
How was this? What did the terrible pain in her daughter's face mean?
Why was her bright young life so slowly but surely fading away? She
noted it for some time in silence, and then she decided to speak.
One morning when Madaline had turned with a sigh from the old-fashioned
garden with its wilderness of flowers, Margaret said, gently:
"Madaline, I never hear you speak of the Duchess of Hazlewood who was so
very kind to you. Does she never come to see you?"
She saw the vivid crimson mount to the white brow, to be speedily
replaced by a pallor terrible to behold.
"My darling," she cried, in distress, "I did not expect to grieve you!"
"Why should I be grieved?" said the girl, quietly. "The duchess does not
come to see me because she acted to me very cruelly; and I never write
to her now."
Then Margaret for awhile was silent. How was she to bring forward the
subject nearest to her heart? She cast about for words in which to
express her thoughts.
"Madaline," she said, at last, "no one has a greater respect than I have
for the honor of husband and wife; I mean for the good faith and
confidence there should be between them. In days gone by I never spoke
of your poor father's faults--I never allowed any one to mention them to
me. If any of the neighbors ever tried to talk about him, I would not
allow it. So, my darling, do not consider that there is any idle
curiosity in what I am about to say to you. I thought you were so
happily married, my dear; and it is a bitter disappointment to me to
find that such is not the case."
There came no reply from Lady Arleigh; her hands were held before her
eyes.
"I am almost afraid, dearly as I love you, to ask you the question,"
Margaret continued; "but, Madaline, will you tell me why you do not live
with your husband?"
"I cannot, mother," was the brief reply.
"Is it--oh, tell me, dear!--is it any fault of yours? Have you
displeased him?"
"It is through no fault of mine, mother. He says so himself."
"Is it from any fault of his? Has he done anything to displease you?"
"No," she answered, with sudden warmth, "he has not--indeed, he could
not, I love him so."
"Then, if you have not displeased each other, and really love each
other, why are you parted in this strange fashion? It seems to me,
Madaline, that you are his wife only in name."
"You are right, mother--and I shall never be any more; but do not ask me
why--I can never tell you. The secret must live and die with me."
"Then I shall never know it, Madaline?"
"Never, mother," she answered.
"But do you know, my darling, that it is wearing your life away?"
"Yes, I know it, but I cannot alter matters. And, mother," she
continued, "if we are to be good friends and live together, you must
never mention this to me again."
"I will remember," said Margaret, kissing the thin white hands, but to
herself she said matters should not so continue. Were Lord Arleigh
twenty times a lord, he should not break his wife's heart in that cold,
cruel fashion.
A sudden resolve came to Mrs. Dornham--she would go to Beechgrove and
see him herself. It he were angry and sent her away from Winiston House,
it would not matter--she would have told him the truth. And the truth
that she had to tell him was that the separation was slowly but surely
killing his wife.