Page:Braddon--Wyllard's weird.djvu/84

76 answered Heathcote. "My sister announced to me only yesterday that there is some kind of contingent engagement between her and Mr. Grahame; and that, he being free to wed her, she means to marry him when she comes of age, with or without my consent."

"My noble Hilda!" exclaimed Dora; "yes, it is just like her to accept him now when all the world is against him."

"Say that it is just like a woman," said Heathcote. "There is a leaven of Quixotism in all your sex, from the Queen to the wife-beater's victim in Seven Dials. Well, dear Mrs. Wyllard, for your sake and for Hilda's, I will be Quixotic. I will make it the business of my life to discover the mystery of that unknown girl's fate. I will pledge myself to think of nothing else, to undertake no other work or duty until I have exhausted all possible means of discovery."

"God bless you for the promise," she answered fervently. "I knew that I had one friend in the world."

A sob almost choked her utterance of those last words. She was deeply wounded by her husband's coldness in this matter of Bothwell's position. She had expected him to be as indignant as she was, to be ready to take up arms against all the world for her cousin; and he had been cold, silent, and gloomy when she tried to discuss the burning question with him. His manner had implied that he, too, suspected Bothwell, though he would not go so far as to give utterance to his suspicion.

And now to have won over this strong advocate, this brave, true-hearted champion, was a relief to her mind that almost overcame her feelings; here, where she had ever sought to preserve the calm dignity of manner which became her as Julian Wyllard's wife.

"I thank you with all my heart," she faltered, "and I am sure that my husband will be as rejoiced as I shall, if you can clear Bothwell's name from this stigma."

Heathcote rose to take leave. He felt that the business of his visit was accomplished, that he had no right to linger in Dora Wyllard's sanctum. It was the first time he had ever been admitted to her own particular nest, the one room in which she was secure from the possibility of interruption.

"Tell Hilda to come and see me," she said, as they shook hands. "She has deserted me most cruelly of late."

"Perhaps it is better for her not to be here until her engagement to your cousin is on a more definite footing."

"Ah, there is the secret in Bothwell's life—some entanglement which he half admitted to me the other day. He said that he was bound to one woman while he loved another. I guessed that Hilda was the one he loved. But who can the other be? I know of no one."

"Some lady whom he met in India, no doubt. The very air