Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/580

562 never filled to the brim! There is always space left for more; always the little vacancy in the midst of evil where mercy stands, and where larger sorrow could come in.

Presently the two seekers returned. "We have not met her!" the first exclamation on Bessie's lips, said in rather a frightened voice.

"No, I should suppose not," was Mrs. Kinniside's answer, quite quietly rendered—a quietness that had just a touch of sarcasm in it—as if she had said, "Why that agitated voice? what was there for remark in a morning walk?" She turned to Sir James, with well-bred composure. "She has been at home for more than half an hour," she said, fitting on her gloves, "having gone, dear girl! to give a message which I would have done, but, not liking to disturb me, she went herself; which, I think, was so sweet and pretty! She is a very loving nature," continued Mrs. Kinniside, buttoning her glove.

"Very," said Sir James, but not in his usual hearty manner.

Mrs. Kinniside saw that something was wrong, and was not unwilling to let the whole burden of her trouble fall upon her at once. There are some people to whom the heaviest load is better than suspense, and who prefer a pitched battle, even against odds, to a series of skirmishes, where they must be ever watching against surprises.

"Go up-stairs to Clementina, my dear," she said, addressing Bessie, "I think she has something to show you.

And Bessie went, feeling that a storm was coming, and knowing that she had innocently helped it on by her incautious retailing of old Hannah's confidences.

"I am glad to have a word alone with you, Mrs. Kinniside," said Sir James, for him coldly.

"As many as you like, dear Sir James," was her response, smiling.

"I have been told to-day that you had once a son?" began the baronet.

"Yes," said the lady tranquilly; but she sighed, and looked oppressed.

"And that there is some mystery connected with him?" continued Sir James; "that he went away from home one day—disappeared, in fact, and was then reported dead, though no one ever knew for a fact whether he were dead or no."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Kinniside, "if I had but that flattering hope of mystery, delusive as it might be!"

"What do you mean, Mrs. Kinniside? Your own words make the mystery greater," Sir James cried, almost impatiently. Beating about the bush, and allusions instead of explanations—anything, in short, that savored of mystery or concealment, always put him out of temper, as being just the one condition of life most abhorrent to him, and most foreign to his own nature.

"That he has not 'disappeared' in the sense in which you used the word, dear Sir James; and that I know but too well what has become of him!" And she put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"But why did you never tell me anything about him, Mrs. Kinniside?" urged Sir James, tenaciously. "It is not pleasant to hear suddenly of secrets and mysteries attached to a family which is soon to be one's own, without having had the smallest hint beforehand."

"No, it is not; you are quite right. Sir James," replied Mrs. Kinniside, with tearful humility; "but the subject is one of such pain to me that I have never been able to bring myself to speak of it. " [sic]Ah! my poor, dear son; he was all that a mother could love, and all that a mother could lose! He killed himself, Sir James, from despair and love."

Sir James recoiled. "A suicide?" he said, in a moved, almost horror-stricken voice; and Mrs. Kinniside read his heart.