THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.
Once inside the house, Heather, all in a flutter, ran up to her own
room, and asked herself why she had returned. Even now—even with the
consciousness on her that she had done a very foolish thing, at which
Arthur would be naturally vexed—she felt she could not have gone on;
that the journey, with, that awful dread weighing her down, would have
been one of pain instead of pleasure; that it would be far more a
holiday to her—far and away more, to stay behind with her husband—her
poor, careworn, miserable husband—than to travel through the loveliest
scenery on earth.
She had told Alick it was a feeling, a foolish though uncontrollable
feeling, which made her turn back; but she would have spoken more
correctly had she said it was the love of her heart—that love which is
stronger than death, more constant than sorrow.
Yet she knew she never could make Arthur understand this; knew she never
could hope to impress upon him how miserable she had felt after the
farewell at the station; how utterly impossible it was for her to go on
and be happy, while he remained behind alone.
How should she tell him? With a vague desire to break the fact of her
return to others before facing her husband, she went downstairs again,
and into the kitchen, meaning to tell Prissy, she feared Mr. Dudley
would be lonely, and so returned, sending the rest of the family on. She
meant to have a comfortable chat with Prissy, for her heart was very
full, and she longed to have a good talk with some one; but, when she
entered the kitchen, no Prissy was there; no Prissy was in the
back-kitchen either, nor in the washhouse, nor in the larder, nor in the
coal-cellar, for even into that last hiding-place Heather peeped.
Then it suddenly occurred to Mrs. Dudley that there was a terrible look
of order about the kitchen; about the pots and pans, the plates and
dishes; everything was in its proper position; the chairs were ranged
against the wall, the table had no crockery heaped upon it, there was
not even a glass-cloth flung carelessly aside.
What could it mean? Heather stood considering this question, and all at
once her heart gave a great leap; not of joy, but fear. There was no
fire; the fact had not struck her at first—perhaps because she was then
intent on looking for Prissy—now, however, it came home to her, not
merely that there was no fire, but that the wood, paper, and coals, were
laid ready for lighting; ready for lighting in both kitchens. A woman
must, like Heather, be a practical housekeeper to understand the full
significance of such a spectacle.
Both fires out; both laid ready for lighting; that bespoke
premeditation.
Now, premeditation meant, not that Prissy had gone upstairs to dress,
and forgotten her fires; not that Prissy had gone out shopping, and
remained to gossip; not that Prissy had met her lover, who made time
pass so pleasantly, that minutes and fuel were alike forgotten; but that
Prissy had gone out with leave to do so granted, and that she had
conscientiously waited to put the house into apple-pie order before her
departure.
One of Heather’s greatest comforts, in leaving home, had been the idea
that Prissy would see that her husband wanted for nothing; that she
would be always on guard, always at hand to get him whatever he wanted.
Mrs. Dudley had arranged that Prissy’s mother was to come up by the late
train that night, and keep her company while the family were away; and
the very last words she spoke, before leaving home, were, “Don’t forget,
Prissy, to write to me often; and if Mr. Dudley should be ill, I depend
upon your sending for me;” in answer to which Prissy said, “I will see
to everything, mum, as if you was at home; and I’ll write every two
days, and never be out of the house till you come back.”
After that, to return and find the bird flown, was rather disheartening.
Mrs. Dudley could not unravel the enigma, and she thereupon slowly
ascended the stairs, wondering as she went what it all could mean.
She passed her own room, and wending her way up another flight of
stairs, entered that belonging to Prissy. There, on the foot of the bed,
hung the girl’s cotton gown, her apron, and various other articles of
apparel which Heather recognized at a glance as her every-day
habiliments.
With an awful creeping dread upon her, Heather opened the door of the
closet where Prissy hung up her gown, and found, not the girl’s best
dress, bonnet, and shawl, but empty pegs—a fearful vacancy.
What could it all mean? She looked again around the apartment, and
perceived Prissy’s box was gone. Clearly, her trusty domestic had
departed, not merely for the afternoon but for a longer period.
With a sense of suffocation on her, Heather walked to the small window
which was partially open, and stood there wondering what she should do
next.
The state of the house increased her difficulty as to the best means of
explaining her return to Arthur. Supposing he had made any arrangement
with which her presence would interfere; supposing it should seem as
though she had come back to play the part of a spy, to be a torment
instead of a blessing; what could he say, what was there he might not
imagine?
That Prissy ever left the house of her own good-will, Heather’s
understanding refused to credit; and why Arthur should have sent her
away, Heather likewise could not comprehend.
If she had done anything wrong, and been discharged, she would have
taken all her clothes; if she had not done anything wrong, why did
Arthur let her go? Over this question, Heather, still with her bonnet
on, stood puzzling; and, as she stood, she saw the men leave off work
and don their coats, and pass out of the yard; at first, in gangs,
afterwards in twos and threes—finally, one by one.
There they went—foremen, overlookers, clerks, sub-manager; finally,
Arthur went down to the gate, talking to Morrison as they walked.
At the gate Morrison paused and seemed impressing something earnestly on
Mr. Dudley, to which the latter listened with an appearance of interest.
Then Arthur replied; and, at length satisfied, as it seemed, Morrison
touched his hat, and passed through the gate, while Arthur looked after
him. As he came up the yard, Heather, from her post of observation,
could see his face distinctly; that face which had struck her girlish
fancy, but which was now so changed—so changed! oh, God!
As she looked at him, and remembered the first day they had ever set
eyes on one another, the tears came welling up, and for a moment she
could not see him because of the mist which blinded her.
Poor Arthur! Poor Arthur! In the after days it was a comfort to her to
recollect that at that moment there came no thought of selfish pity into
her mind for poor Heather. Poor Heather! changed and broken too.
If he had suffered, had not she? if he had borne, had not she? if he had
found his cross almost heavier than he could endure, had not hers also
bowed her to the very ground? had not she wept her tears, and fought
with her anguish? Yea, truly; and yet Heather, looking at that pale,
worn, haggard man, who came slowly lounging up the yard, thought of none
of these things, but only of the blasted hopes, of the proud,
disappointed, broken heart of the husband of her youth.
The sunlight, flaring down into the court-yard, shone full upon his face
as he walked back from the entrance gates, swinging the great key on his
forefinger; and Heather, sheltered from observation by the
window-curtain, looked down on the man she had returned to comfort, not
knowing exactly what to do—in what terms to announce her change of
purpose.
The expression on his countenance, which had so struck her while the
train moved out of the station, was on his countenance still. He was all
alone, as he thought, now; with no need to put on a mask, with no
necessity to smile, or speak, or deceive; and as Heather, watching him,
beheld that look of misery deepen and deepen, while he walked so slowly
back, an awful dread took possession of her—a dread of something being
about to happen which made her tremble as though in an ague-fit.
He was now beside the well—an old-fashioned one, with rope and windlass,
up which the men had in former days drawn buckets of water, but now
neglected and disused. It had long been covered over for fear of
accidents, and though the boards had shrunk one from another with the
heat of many summers, still the planking was secure enough to render all
fear of accident unnecessary.
Beside this well, Arthur now paused for a moment, apparently irresolute;
then he stooped, and through the stillness the sound of a splash, of
something falling down, and then touching water, ascended to where
Heather stood.
At that moment she could not have moved had it been to save her life;
but she could watch, and she did, to see Arthur rise with a face from
which even despair was blotted out; for despair implies a certain
ability left to wrestle against, or, at all events, to feel utter
hopelessness; but now, the sun looked down upon a man who had passed
even that stage, who had gone through his last struggle, cast his last
die.
It was with the expression of a person already dead, Arthur turned from
the well and walked across the court-yard, with the key no longer
swinging on his forefinger.
What could he be intending to do? Heather dropped on her knees beside
the window, and watched him enter the carpenter’s shop. She dared not
have met him then. There came upon her such an access of terror when she
heard that key splash into the water, as swept everything else out of
her heart for the time being, save the most unconquerable, abject fear—a
fear which prevented her even thinking, which took away the power of
putting two and two together, and conceiving what project it might be
Arthur had in hand.
She was like one in a dream—with a great horror on her, she fell on her
knees and watched. Through it all, there was a vague, night-mare kind of
consciousness that she and Arthur were locked up alone together—that
escape for either of them was not possible—that if help were needed,
help was now unattainable.
In her despair she prayed—holding on by the window-sill as if she were
going to be torn from it, she framed some sort of petition to God to
help her. Wearied and exhausted, frightened, and with that awful, vague,
nameless dread at length taking a tangible form, it seemed to her as
though, for a moment, everything faded from her eyes—as though, even
while her lips were moving and her heart uttering some terrified words
of supplication, her senses left her for a moment—the yard swam round,
the buildings went up and down before her sight, the sunlight turned to
darkness, and then——
Then, as if, after having been swung out into space for an immeasurable
distance, she came back to the same point again—and the mist melted
away, and the light was clear once more; and with a keen vision, though
still with a giddy and confused feeling in her head, Heather beheld
Arthur coming out of the carpenter’s shop, dragging a bag of shavings
after him, which he shot out into one of the lower floors of the silk
factory.
Still she watched him. He piled shavings, sackful after sackful, among
the bales of raw silk—he carried the old wrapperings and more shavings
into the counting-house—she saw him bring jars of oil and turpentine and
empty them on the heap he had already collected.
“He has gone mad,” she decided, rising up; “he has gone mad, and he is
going to set the place on fire; and we cannot get out, and there is no
help to be had.”
None, for they were locked in. She dared not go downstairs and beat at
the gates, for she felt more afraid now of encountering Arthur than even
of remaining where she was.
Oh! those cruel walls, those dead, eyeless, earless walls, to which she
might scream herself hoarse in vain—this solitude in the midst of
numbers—this helplessness, with help within a few feet of her—this
prison without a gaoler—this cage in which they were both about to be
burned to death.
Well enough she knew that if once the factory caught fire, no living
creature could long breathe within that confined space. It would be like
trying to exist in a brick oven with a furnace alight at the one end.
Already she seemed to feel the hot tongues of flame licking her
cheek—already the struggle for life, dear life, appeared to have
begun—already the scorching heat was drying up her blood—already she was
beating against the closed gates, beating with her clenched hands till
they were bruised and bleeding, while the fire raged behind, and the air
became hotter and hotter, the flames fiercer and fiercer.
Already the horror she had often felt of fire in that enclosed place
seemed to have become a tangible reality; and, with a low cry, Heather
rushed from the room, and down the staircase.
A moment before Arthur had come back across the yard, instinctively she
felt for matches. Another second and it would be too late; all fear of
meeting him was gone; all fear, save the dread of an awful death for
both; and so she flew down the stairs and met him as he came out of his
own apartment, with a box of vestas in his hand.
She need not have feared meeting him; all the dread she had felt was as
nothing compared to the terror which came into his face at sight of his
wife. They had changed places now, and it was she, not he, who was
strong and mad; in her frenzy, she struck the box out of his hand, and
it fell over the banisters, the matches scattering on the floor-cloth
below. Then she threw herself upon him, and asked if he knew what it was
he had been about to do. With passionate sobs she prayed him to stay his
hand, and to spare them both. Scarcely knowing what she said, she asked
what could have tempted him to such a deed; if he were insane to think
of committing so great a sin. With her arms twined around him, and her
words flowing fast and unpremeditated, she poured out all her dread, her
trouble, her horror, in a few hurried sentences.
She might as well have spared her remonstrances and her entreaties. From
the moment he beheld his wife, all hope of escape, honourable escape,
even by death, from the position in which he had placed himself,
vanished. He had laid his plans so well, as he thought; and behold, in a
moment, her love overthrew them all! While she, clinging to him, went on
praying and pleading, weeping and sobbing, all this passed through the
man’s mind. For the time, he had been stunned, cowed, as though he had
met a phantom; but now, pushing her from him, with a sudden force which
made her stagger and reel, he disengaged himself from her, and backing
into the room he had just left, locked and bolted the door behind him.
“Arthur!” she cried; but there came no answer. “Arthur!” she only heard
him walking across the floor.
“Arthur!” she shook the handle, and put her knee against the panel.
“Arthur! for God’s sake open the door, and let me speak to you!” still
no reply.
Would he drop out by the window, and so escape and finish the work he
had begun? She ran downstairs and out of the house; but the sash was not
lifted. Would he try to fire the place from within? She returned to the
door, and beat against it, crying, “only a word, dear; only one word.”
And in reply there came something which sounded like a gurgle and a sob,
followed by a heavy fall, which seemed to shake the house to its very
foundation.
“Arthur!”—there was dead silence. “Arthur!” there was not even a breath
in answer; nothing but silence—a silence which might be felt.
She knelt down and tried to look through the keyhole, but could
distinguish nothing. As she rose, she chanced to look down at her light
muslin dress, and saw that there was blood upon it—blood oozing under
the door, trickling in a narrow stream out upon the landing.
She ran back the whole width of the lobby, and flung herself against the
door; but of what avail was her poor strength? Then she rushed out upon
the roof of the house, with a vague intention of pulling up the ladder
after her, and fleeing over other roofs for help and succour; but the
inexorable walls rose high above;—there were no means of escape, no
chance of assistance.
Then she sped down the stairs once more—down the stairs and past the
landing where there was already a dark pool of blood forming outside the
door. She crossed the yard to the carpenter’s shop, and, seizing a
hammer, ran to the outer gates, and struck blow after blow, striving to
break the lock; she called and cried, but the people sweeping by never
heard her, for the noise of passing conveyances deadened a voice already
hoarse with excitement, exhausted with fear. She beat against the solid
wood, and her blows were but woman’s blows, faint, and feeble, and weak;
she screamed for help, but there was no one to hear.
In her anguish, in that awful extremity of her life, she looked once
again round the yard; and, as she did so, her eye fell on the factory
bell, which hung suspended on the highest point of the building.
That was her last hope; desperately, almost, she flung aside the useless
hammer, and sprung to the bell; she seized the rope with her soft, fair
hands, and clang, clang, clang, went the clapper—clang, clang, clang.
Through the summer evening’s air, through the gathering twilight, the
bell rang out—clang, clang; cling, clang, clang; the arms never grew
tired, the hands never felt the blistering of the rope. Clang, clang;
Heather never ceased till she heard a knocking at the gate, and the
police inquiring what was the matter?—“who’s inside?”
Thrice Heather tried to answer them, but her lips refused to utter any
articulate sound.
Then, “Break open the gate!” she at length managed to reply. “Make
haste!—make haste!”
They sent for picks and crowbars, and beat in the wood-work; then a
couple of policemen stepped inside, whilst a couple more kept the crowd
back.
“Come upstairs!” Heather said; and when they reached the landing, she
pointed to the floor, and then to the room, where some tragedy, she
knew, had taken place.
“It is locked!” she replied. “My husband!”
One of the men put his shoulder to the door and forced it open. He could
not fling it wide, on account of something which barred the entrance;
but, squeezing himself through the aperture, he entered the room, and
found Arthur lying on the floor with his throat cut, and a razor beside
him!
“Bear a hand here,” the man whispered to his fellow, “and don’t let her
come in;” but Heather was not to be kept back. She crept through the
opening likewise, and stood face to face with that, the visible presence
of the dread which had brought her back miles and miles to preserve him
from one crime only—so it seemed to her—in order that he might commit
another!
Between them, the men lifted the body and placed it on the bed; then one
went for a doctor, and the other stood waiting for Mrs. Dudley, who had
gone groping after a light.
She knew where there were matches, and she soon found a candle; and when
she had lighted it, she returned, and, bravely enough, looked on the
face of the only man she ever loved.
“I don’t think he’s dead, ma’am,” said the policeman, with a rough
sympathy. “I have been trying to stop the bleeding; and, if you will
give me some more handkerchiefs, I’ll see what we can do till the doctor
comes.”
Mechanically, almost, Heather gave him what he asked for. Even in the
midst of this tremendous sorrow, she could not shut out the memory of
all those upheaped shavings, soaked in oil—of all, perhaps, those
terrible men, now they were free of the premises, might discover.
If he were dead, he had left it all—the shame, the discovery, the
punishment behind; but if he were not dead, and that detection then took
place?
Had it not been for the fact of the door being secured inside, the man
would have begun to suspect strange things of Heather; her manner was so
singular, so wandering, so incomprehensible.
“Do you know how this happened?” he asked.
“He went mad, I think,” she answered. “I am sure he was mad; he has been
odd, and unlike himself for some time;” and then she began to sob
convulsively.
“Come, come, ma’am, you must not give way like this, you know,” said the
doctor, who just then entered the apartment. “Take charge of her, will
you?” he added, to a person who followed him in, “and don’t allow her to
come back here at present. There, ma’am, pray go with this gentleman;
we’ll see to whatever is necessary; you will only be in our way.”
“That is quite true, Mrs. Dudley,” said a familiar voice, tenderly and
pityingly, and, at the sound of it, Heather looked up.
“Oh! Mr. Croft,” she cried, at sight of his dark face, bent down towards
her with an ineffable compassion; “thank God—thank God for this!” and,
clinging to his arm, she rather took him, than he her; out of the
apartment, and into one of the lower rooms, where her first prayer was
that “he would keep the people out—keep them away—till she had told him
everything—ev-e-ry thing!”
In a few minutes, Douglas Croft was in possession of the facts of the
case, so far as Heather herself was cognisant of them, but his clear
head saw farther than she had been able to do. He understood there must
be some cause for this sudden freak of madness—some reason why Arthur
wished the place destroyed.
“And we shall have to find out the reason before morning,” he said.
“Now, Mrs. Dudley, may I depend upon your calmness—may I be certain of
your assistance? There has evidently been more than life involved in
this matter, and we must sift it thoroughly to the bottom. I suppose I
may examine any papers I find upstairs? Pray remain here for the
present; I shall be back again directly.”
It was no very difficult undertaking for a man like Douglas Croft to
satisfy the police that anything which had happened in Lukin’s factory
during the course of the last few hours was perfectly correct, and in
the ordinary course of every-day events, and that the only plan now to
be adopted was to send for a locksmith, have a new fastening put upon
the gates, and the needful repairs in the wood-work effected without
delay.
Neither did he experience any greater trouble in making the doctor
understand that there was something which had preceded the attempt at
suicide, and which it was desirable on all accounts to attribute to
temporary insanity.
“Whether he live or die,” finished Mr. Croft, “and, in my opinion, it
matters very little which he does, this freak must be regarded as that
of a lunatic. Meantime, if you have no objection to meeting my friend
Mr. Rymner Henry, I think it might be a satisfaction to Mrs. Dudley to
know you have had a consultation.”
In reply to which speech, Doctor Milworth, bowing low, expressed himself
to the effect, that he had no objection whatever to meeting Mr.
Henry—that he should like to meet him, in fact, which may seem the less
astonishing, perhaps, when it is explained, that during the entire time
Doctor Milworth took charge of the case, he was in the habit of going
about among his other patients, watch in hand, and casually remarking he
was rather in a hurry to-day, because he had to meet Mr. Rymner Henry at
a quarter past two, or a quarter to five, or four precisely, according
to the hour mentioned by that celebrated surgeon, “in consultation on a
most important case.”
Why Mr. Croft considered it necessary to send for further advice, he
himself perhaps could not very clearly have told, for he knew that if
Arthur Dudley were to live, Dr. Milworth had done everything which could
be done towards compassing that object. Possibly he might have some idea
of thereby winning the doctor’s greater confidence, ensuring his greater
secrecy, for already Douglas Croft held in his hand a letter which he
believed would prove a clue to all this mystery.
It was from Mr. Lukin, stating that on the 23rd he should be in London
to _inspect the books_.
“That is the secret, then,” thought Douglas Croft; “before you inspect
the books, though, Mr. Lukin, I will take a look at them myself. I do
not think there will be much difficulty in unravelling the skein; I am
greatly mistaken if he possessed brains sufficient to cook his accounts,
and perhaps for that very reason he may have got them into a confounded
mess.”
When Mr. Croft, however, tried to pass into the office he failed to do
so, by reason of the piles of shavings and other combustible materials
which stopped the entrance.
“I want a reliable man, Mrs. Dudley,” he said, returning to her; “a man
who can be trusted to hold his tongue, if he be paid for doing so. Is
there amongst the workpeople such a treasure to be found?”
“Yes,” she answered; “Morrison. I am certain we may trust him.”
“Where is he to be found?” asked her friend.
“I do not know his address, though I could find my way to his house. I
will go and fetch him this moment.”
“I will accompany you,” he said; but next moment, remembering some one
in the Dudley interest ought to remain on the premises, he stood
perplexed and silent, while Heather said,—
“I am not afraid of going. Do you think, after to-night, any small thing
will ever frighten me again?”
“Poor child, poor child,” he murmured, “what a life yours has been!”
“Don’t pity me,” she said; “do not, or my heart will break; it feels
almost breaking as it is, and a kind word chokes me. I will go for
Morrison; I will go at once.”
There was no help for it; so he went with her as far as the gate and
watched her while she flitted away along the street—watched her till she
turned a corner and was lost to view.
Then he went upstairs again to hear how the patient was doing, and after
a chat with the doctor and nurse, for whom the doctor had sent, walked
down to the gates again, and waited till Heather entered, bringing
Morrison with her.
“A nice business this!” remarked Mr. Croft, when Mrs. Dudley had left
the two men standing together in the yard; “a nice business it might
have turned out. Where could your eyes have been not to see Mr. Dudley
was as mad as a March hare when you left off work? If it had not been
for Mrs. Dudley, there would have been a fine bonfire here to-night.”
“Well, sir, my mind did misgive me,” was the reply; “and more especially
along of these here shavings. I told Mr. Dudley they were not safe
stowed away in that there carpenter’s shop, with the gas escaping like
anything. I wanted to have them cleared out, and offered to wait and see
it properly done, but he said he wanted to go out and could not have
them moved till Monday. He looked real down wild when he said it, and my
mind misgave me; but I never thought of him trying such a start as
this.”
“Mr. Lukin will be here on Monday, and you can tell him all about it,
just as it happened,” said Mr. Croft; “but don’t let the men get hold of
his having tried to fire the place. It would not be pleasant for poor
Mrs. Dudley.”
“Which a real lady is,” finished Morrison; “many a time I was sorry to
see her here, so unsuitable it seemed. Never fear, sir, nobody shall
hear the story from me, not even Mr. Lukin. I need not tell him Mrs.
Dudley came for me; and when we get these things out of the way, and the
place to rights a bit, no one need be any the wiser.”
“And, as I cannot find any of the keys, I will take the books in for
security, if you will hand them to me,” said Mr. Croft. And so he had
the books carried across the yard and placed on the dining-room table,
where in five minutes he discovered the deficiency.
“If I can only now open the safe, we may snap our fingers at Mr. Lukin,”
thought Heather’s friend, as he closed the books and shut in the record
of the borrowed money which had almost overturned Arthur’s reason.
Then he sought Mrs. Dudley, who was seated in an arm-chair, resting her
head on both hands. And before her on the table lay a little locket,
which Mr. Croft recognised as having been taken from the poor broken
creature who, still hanging between life and death, was quiet enough
upstairs—quiet enough and low enough to have contented his enemy, if he
had one.
“You are very ill, I fear,” Mr. Croft said, in that almost caressing
tone which had won its way to Bessie’s heart in the sunshiny days that
seemed now so far—so far away. He had two natures, this man, who had
loved the girl so passionately and deceived her so grossly: one tender
and compassionate, the other reckless and cynical. “You are very ill, I
fear; in the press of other matters you have been neglected. Let me see
to you now a little—what is there you can have, likely to do you any
good?”
“I do not know,” she answered. “I have been upstairs and seen him. Oh!
Mr. Croft, what are the chances of his recovery? tell me the truth. It
is not likely the doctor would be frank with me.”
“I think it greatly depends on his being kept quiet; there is nothing
now that ought to distress or worry him. I have discovered the cause of
all this misery; it is a very trifling cause indeed which has produced
such results.”
“Is it?” she lifted her head for a moment as she said this, and looked
into Mr. Croft’s face, then her glance wandered towards the locket. He
could not quite comprehend her.
“A mere trifle,” he repeated; and then he told her all. He thought it
best to do this—better that she should understand the whole of the
circumstances clearly, so as to be able to comprehend exactly how he
intended setting the affair straight.
“And I had that money of yours in the house all the time,” Heather said,
with that weary, weary look in her face which seemed to Mr. Croft worse
than the most violent sorrow—“what you gave me, you know, to
keep—for—Bessie!”
The last word was spoken more like an exclamation than as though it had
belonged in any way to the previous part of the sentence; and Mr. Croft,
following the direction of her eyes, beheld the door closed hurriedly,
and heard the rustle of a dress in the passage.
In a moment he was out in the hall, and had caught the retreating
figure.
“Bessie!” he cried; “Bessie—Bessie! don’t go! I will leave, if you
object to my staying here, but we can both help Mrs. Dudley. See, I will
not follow you in!”
She covered her face with the corner of her shawl, covered it that he
might not even look upon her, and passed back into the parlour without a
word. “Heather, my darling, what is this?” she asked. “Morrison came
round for me, but could only give the most confused account of what had
happened. Tell me, love—tell me all; don’t sit looking at me like that,
but speak, dear; what is it?” And she crouched down on the ground, and,
winding her arms round Heather’s neck, drew the dear face close to her
own. “What is this trouble, sweet?” she persisted; but the only answer
Heather could make was—“Oh! Bessie—oh! Bessie,” as she held the locket
towards her, moaning, moaning all the while.
“Do you wish me to open it?” Bessie inquired; and Heather made a gesture
of assent. She had always been a little jealous, and now she was afraid
to reveal, with her own hands, the secret it contained. And yet she
longed to know—was it portrait or hair—was it an old love token, or a
more recent souvenir which her husband had worn next his heart, next
where she ought to have been alone? God keep us all from hard and hasty
and suspicious judgments. With the man upstairs hovering between life
and death, Heather still could not help misjudging him. Worse than the
whole of the long ordeal she had passed through was the sight of that
golden trifle, which she dared not examine, which Bessie first turned
over and then opened, holding it up to the light as she did so.
There was a scrap of hair in it—a tiny curl of golden red, and “Lally”
engraved in black letters round the edge.
“Where did you get this, Heather?” she inquired.
“He wore it,” Heather answered.
“He! Oh! poor—poor Arthur!” and the tears poured from Bessie’s eyes as
she looked upon the trinket. She had never thought to like Arthur
greatly, or to be sorry for him over much; but now it seemed to her,
thinking of the tragedy which had just been enacted, that no one had
ever quite understood him, ever imagined it possible Arthur should find
out his error, and try to repair it too late—too late!
“Why do you say ‘Poor Arthur?’” Heather broke forth, passionately; “why
do you not pity me, finding out, after all, he was wearing next his
heart a love token from that woman—that bad, cruel——”
“Hush, Heather!—hush—hush!” and Bessie put the open locket into her
friend’s hand. “See what it really is—not what you imagine at all.”
Incredulously almost, Heather did as she was requested; then
“Lally—Lally!” said the bereaved mother; “Lally, Lally!” and she covered
the locket with hungry kisses.
“I have passed through the bitterness of death to-night, Bessie!” she
exclaimed, at length. “I think it must be near morning now.”