Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/44

36 “How happy we were!” she went on; “how proud my poor Vi was of you, and of her poor baby—how fond—how devoted! She would have given her life for you, Wilford, at any moment. Violet, my sweet sister—so good—so pure—so true, who loved you with her whole soul, whose gentle heart was yours, for ever, Wilford. Oh, how have you repaid that love!”

He moaned piteously, and the tears stood in his glaring blood-shot eyes.

“And we—miles away in the country—at Grilling Abbots. Papa and I alone, in our little white cottage, were always with you and Violet, Wilford, in our thoughts. Yes,” she added, in a soft, low voice; “and in our prayers. I never went to bed at night,” she continued, “but I prayed to God for your happiness—for the safety of Violet and her poor little child; and for your safety, too, Wilford: it was but praying for myself, for what was your happiness, after all, but mine? Yes, and we shared her joy, her pride in you, her devotion to you, as now,—now we must share her sorrow, her great and cruel anguish. You never gave us a thought, perhaps; you had other things to occupy you here, in this great London, but we were always full of you; it was our comfort in the evening to draw together and talk of you, wondering what you were doing, what you were saying then, at that moment, whether by chance you were near us in thought as we were near you. And papa, how proud he was of Violet, how tenderly he loved her! You will never know how cruelly it pained him to part with her, even to give her to you, whom he loved and trusted for years and years, as his own son. Oh, how dreadfully all this has ended! Who could have looked forward to this! And then, to please him, I learnt to play Violet’s favourite airs on the piano, and the Mozart songs from the old book, that you were so fond of. It was only so, in thinking of her constantly, we could find consolation for her absence—in thinking of her and remembering that she was happy here, as we thought, with her husband and her baby child. You cannot know how I loved my sister Vi: as, indeed, I ought to love her, for was she not good, and true, and beautiful, as one of God’s angels? My poor, poor sister—” and Madge surrendered herself to a tearful grief that would permit of no more words.

“Spare me, Madge—my sister,” said Wilford; and he dragged himself along the ground to her, and took her hand, pressing it to his lips. She made only a feeble effort to withdraw it—indeed, her sorrow seemed quite to have deprived her of strength.

“I didn’t intend to come here and cry like this,” she said, after a pause; “but—but indeed I can’t help it. Each time I think of poor Vi, the tears will come into my eyes. I thought I was above such weakness. I thought I was too angry, and stern, and indignant, to cry; and I came here to learn from you—from your own lips, Wilford, whether Violet had heard aright, whether the story that woman told—that other dreadful woman—whether her story was true. There was a hope—a weak one, perhaps, for she brought proofs with her, it seems—a hope that she was a cheat and a forger, as she was a bold, bad, shameful woman, or she wouldn’t have treated Violet so cruelly—would never have said to her the wicked, wicked things she did say, or have spoken of the poor unoffending baby as she did. I can’t say her cruel, heartless words. What had Violet or her child ever done to her? What wrong? What injustice? None—none; they could not; they would not! My poor Vi, who never did an injustice in word, or deed, or thought, to any living creature; who would step aside to spare a worm; nay, she would remove it rather with her own hands to a place where it was likely to be safe from other feet. What wrong could she have done to this unfeeling, heartless woman? I came here, if not at Vi’s request, at least with her sanction. I wrung it from her, ere she went to sleep last night, in my arms, the tears still wet upon her pale cheeks—”

“Tell me of her, Madge,” Wilford interrupted, passionately. “Speak to me of her—tell me she lives and loves me still; at least she does not hate—does not scorn me.”

“Have you a right to ask for her love?—ask yourself that question,” said Madge, the fire of her eyes not quite quenched by her tears; “haven’t you earned her hatred and her scorn?—if indeed it were possible for her to hate and to scorn anybody or anything!”

“But speak to me of her, Madge—I will ask that only,” he urged, with an earnest humbleness.

“Tell me first, then. Is it true? When you married Violet, you had been already married to this bad, foreign woman?”

“God help me!” he moaned. “It is true!”

“And this woman still lives?”

“Yes!” he said, utterly prostrated.

“And Violet is without a husband! Your child is without a father! Oh! Wilford, how could you bring this unutterable shame upon us? How could you wrong so infamously one who loved and trusted you so purely and wholly as Violet loved and trusted? She would have staked her life upon your truth and honour, Wilford: how could you stoop to this wrong-doing? She was warned when she married you that your early life had been strange and wild, but she would not listen to such words in her boundless faith in you. With her own true nobleness she waved away these hints and rumours; she trusted in the future—in you. She gave herself, her heart, her all, to your keeping. She never once looked back with a regret or forward with a suspicion. She was wholly yours. Oh, Wilford, I will speak the words—you are a monster, and a coward, and a villain! You have wronged, past all reparation, one of the best and purest and noblest creatures that ever lived upon God’s earth. Shame on you! Violet may not hate or despise, but I do. I am less forgiving, as I am less good, less beautiful: in every way inferior to her. I loathe and scorn you with all my heart and soul!”

She moved away, tore her hand from him, and swept her skirts from his reach. She stood at length at some paces’ distance, glowing with passion—very beautiful, but very fierce, very angry.

“Madge!” he cried, hoarsely, with a painful