Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/497

484 it placed close to his bed, so that he could both see and feel it; but his former interest in the lawsuit seemed to have partly died away; and, though he often talked of resuming his labours, it was in a hopeless despairing way, as though he saw at last how fruitless all his efforts would be. Still the old idea never left him,—that some mysterious foe was endeavouring to track him out in his retreat; and it was a source of much anxiety to him that he could no longer look after the proper security of the house, and see that no strangers were, on any account, allowed to set foot across the threshold. It was not that he had any want of confidence in the discretion either of Carry or of Parish, but it was a matter that he would have preferred looking after himself: women are so easily imposed upon, as he often remarked.

What then would have been his surprise and anger had he seen Parish enter the house, as she did one evening, accompanied by a woman whom she had apparently picked up in the street; who followed her down the steps into the basement-story, stepping lightly in the echo of the housekeeper’s resonant footfall!

Parish struck a light, and then turned round and confronted her companion with a stern searching gaze, as though asking her by what right she had intruded there.

She was a woman who, years before, had probably been fair enough to look upon; and a faint shadow of the beauty of former times still clung to her. But whatever of sweet bloom and culture her life might once have shown, was now choked up, overgrown, and all but lost to view beneath the coarse growth of after years—years of despair, and hopeless misery, and disbelief in her better self.

“Thus, then, we meet again,” said Parish, in a low, stern, concentrated voice.

“Thus again,” replied the woman, “after seventeen weary years.”

“It should have been seventeen more before we met. Why have you sought me?”

“Not to ask your pity; nor to make any claim on the forgiveness which you, perhaps, think yourself entitled to dispense. I come to see him.”

“Madness! What is he to you, or you to him? Nothing—less than nothing—less than if he had never seen you!”

“So you think, so you preach, as ignorance ever preaches till suffering brings knowledge. Nothing to me! O heaven! can I ever forget that he once called me his wife; that his lips kissed me; that his arms sheltered me; that his child called me mother; that he lived but to make me happy! Nothing to me!”

“You forget,” said the stern unmoved housekeeper, “that when you left his house of your own accord, that when in one day he lost both his wife and his friend—that wife and that friend became, in point of fact, dead to him for ever; as dead as if the green sod had been laid over them both; that he wore mourning for them as if such had been the case; and that for him there are no such persons as Emily Luard and Richard Marfleet in existence.”

“I forget nothing. I know everything you would say—all the reproaches you would heap upon me, and how your wrath has been gathering strength through long years. What then? I know things that you can never know; that if he has suffered, I have suffered, too—Oh! how bitterly! that if I wrecked his happiness, I wrecked my own also. I make no claim on that score either on your compassion or on his. What would it avail me if he were to forgive me the great wrong I did him? If he were to pardon me a thousand times, I could never pardon myself, and there lies the sting. But let that pass. I came neither to talk about myself, nor to exchange idle words with you. The man whom I once called my husband lies ill, perhaps dying, up-stairs; and him once more I am determined to see.”

“You cannot—he would not receive you.”

“I do not want him to receive me. All I want is to see him again, even though he be asleep.”

Parish considered for a moment.

“Wait here,” she said, “while I go up-stairs and see how he is.”

The woman bowed her head, and Parish took the candle and went up-stairs. In a minute or two she returned.

“Come,” she said; and the woman flitted upstairs, behind her, noiseless as a shadow.

“He is asleep,” whispered Parish, when they reached the door of Captain Luard’s room. “Remember that you look only, and do not speak. I would not for the world that he should awake and find you here.”

“Fear not,” replied the stranger. “Let me but see him, and I shall go on my way content.”

Parish opened the door gently, and holding the candle aloft with one hand, shaded it with the other, so that the light should not fall too strongly on the sleeper’s eyes. He lay there calmly enough, one arm thrown over the coverlid, and the other coiled beneath his head; his thin and careworn face looking more wan and ghastly still from its setting of beard and moustache.

“What a change! What a change!” muttered the woman. “Lost to me for ever!” It was all that she could say.

“Enough,” said Parish, at length, turning to leave the room. But before she was aware the woman had glided from her side, and stooping over the sick man, had imprinted a light kiss on his lips. Light as it was, it was sufficient to break his feverish slumber, and he called out feebly:

“Parish, is that you? You should not have disturbed me. Give me something to drink.”

Parish was too angry at what she had just seen to venture a reply, and gave her master a drink without speaking. At that moment, Caroline, who had been out to purchase some little delicacy for her father, entered the house. The woman had disappeared from the room, and Parish was in an agony of fear lest Caroline should encounter her on the stairs. No such meeting, however, took place; for Carry entered the room as quietly as usual, and sat down by her father’s side.

The captain again disposed himself for sleep; so, leaving Caroline at her post, Parish hastened down to see what had become of her strange guest.

She found her kneeling on the rug before the