 CHAPTER 1 Note, addressed to the reader. In offering this book to you, I have no preface to write. I have only to request that you will bear in mind certain established truths, which occasionally escape your memory when you are reading a work of fiction. Be pleased, then, to remember, first, that the actions of human beings are not invariably governed by the laws of pure reason. Secondly, that we are by no means always in the habit of bestowing our love on the objects which are the most deserving of it, in the opinions of our friends. Thirdly, and lastly, that characters which may not have appeared and events which may not have taken place within the limits of our own individual experience may nevertheless be perfectly natural characters and perfectly probable events for all that. Having said these few words, I have said all that seems to be necessary at the present time in presenting my new story to your notice. CHAPTER 1 THE BRIDES MISTAKE For after this manner in the old time the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands, even as sorrow obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord, whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. Concluding the marriage service of the Church of England in those well-known words, my uncle Stark Weather shut up his book and looked at me across the altar rails with a hearty expression of interest on his broad red face. At the same time my aunt, Mrs. Stark Weather, standing by my side, tapped me smartly on the shoulder and said, Valeria, you are married. There were my thoughts. What had become of my attention, I was too bewildered to know. I started and looked at my new husband. He seemed to be almost as much bewildered as I was. The same thought had, as I believe, occurred to us both at the same moment. Was it really possible, in spite of his mother's opposition to our marriage, that we were men and wife? My aunt Stark Weather settled the question by a second tap on my shoulder. Take his arm! She whispered, in a tone of a woman who had lost all patience with me. I took his arm. Follow your uncle! Holding fast by my husband's arm, I followed my uncle and the curate who had assisted him at the marriage. The two clergymen led us into the vestry. The church was in one of the dreary quarters of London, situated between the city and the west end. The day was dull, the atmosphere was heavy and damp. We were a melancholy little wedding-party, worthy of the dreary neighbourhood and the dull day. No relatives or friends of my husband's were present. His family, as I have already hinted, disapproved of his marriage. Except my uncle and my aunt, no other relations appeared on my side. I had lost both my parents, and I had but few friends. My dear father's faithful old clerk, Benjamin, attended the wedding to give me away as the phrase is. He had known me from a child, and in my fallen position he was as good as a father to me. The last ceremony left to be performed was, as usual, the signing of the marriage register. In the confusion of the moment and in the absence of any information to guide me, I committed a mistake. Ominous, in my aunt's dark weather's opinion of evil to come, I signed my marriage instead of my maiden name. What! cried my uncle in his loudest and cheeryest tones. You've forgotten your own name already? Well, well, let us hope you will never repent parting with it so readily. Try again, Valeria, try again. With trembling fingers I struck the pen through my first effort, and wrote my maiden name very badly indeed, as follows, Valeria Brinton. When it came to my husband's turn I noticed with surprise that his hand trembled too, and that he produced a very poor specimen of his customary signature, Hugh Starr's Woodwill. My aunt, on being requested to sign, complied under protest. A bad beginning, she said, pointing to my first unfortunate signature with the feather end of her pen. I hope, my dear, you may not live to regret it! Even then, in the days of my ignorance and my innocence, that curious outbreak of my aunt's superstition produced a certain uneasy sensation in my mind. It was a consolation to me to feel the reassuring pressure of my husband's hand. It was an indescribable relief to hear my uncle's hearty voice wishing me a happy life at parting. The good man had left his North Country vicarage, my home, since the death of my parents, expressly to read the service at my marriage, and he and my aunt had arranged a return by the midday train. He folded me in his great, strong arms, and he gave me a kiss which must certainly have been heard by the eyedless waiting for the bride and bridegroom outside the church door. I wish you health and happiness, my love, with all my heart. You are old enough to choose for yourself, and, now offends Mr. Woodwill, you and I are new friends, and I pray, God Valeria, it may turn out that you've chosen well. Our house will be dreary enough without you, but I don't complain, my dear. On the contrary, if this change in your life makes you happier, I rejoice. Come, come, don't cry, or you will set your aunt off, and it's no joke at her time of life. Besides, crying will spoil your beauty. Dry your eyes and look in the glass there, and you will see that I'm right. Goodbye, child, and God bless you." He tucked my aunt under his arm, and hurried off. My heart sank a little, dearly as I loved my husband, when I had seen the last of the true friend and protector of my maiden days. The parting with old Benjamin came next. I wish you well, my dear, don't forget me," was all he said, but the old days at home came back on me at those few words. Benjamin always dined with us on Sundays in my father's time, and always brought some little present with him for his master's child. I was very near to spoiling my beauty, as my uncle had put it, when I offered the old man my cheek to kiss, and hurt him sigh to himself, as if he, too, were not quite hopeful about my future life. My husband's voice roused me, and turned my mind to happier thoughts. Shall we go, Valeria? he asked. I stopped him on our way out to take advantage of my uncle's advice, in other words, to see how I looked in the glass over the vestry fireplace. What does the glass show me? The glass shows a tall and slender young woman of three and twenty years of age. She is not at all the sort of person who attracts attention in the street, seeing that she fails to exhibit the popular yellow hair and the popular painted cheeks. Her hair is black, dressed in these later days, as it was dressed years since to please her father, in broad ripples drawn back from the forehead, and gathered into a simple knot behind, like the hair of the venus de midisces, so as to show the neck beneath. Her complexion is pale, except in moments of violent agitation there is no colour to be seen in her face. Her eyes are of so dark a blue that they are generally mistaken for black. Her eyebrows are well enough in form, but they are too dark and too strongly marked. Her nose just inclines toward the aquiline bend, and is considered a little too large by persons difficult to please in the matter of noses. The mouth, her best feature, is very delicately shaped and is capable of presenting great varieties of expression. As to the face in general, it is too narrow and too long at the lower part, too broad and too low in the higher regions of the eyes and the head. The whole picture, as reflected in the glass, represents a woman of some elegance, rather too pale and rather too sedate and serious in her moments of silence and repose. In short, a person who fails to strike the ordinary observer at first sight, but who gains in general estimation on a second and sometimes on a third view. As for her dress, it studiously conceals, instead of proclaims, that she has been married that morning. She wears a grey cashmere tunic, trimmed with grey silk, and having a skirt of the same material and colour beneath it. On her head is a bonnet to match, relieved by a quilling of white muslin with one deep red rose, as a morsel of positive colour, to complete the effect of the whole dress. Have I succeeded or failed in describing the picture of myself which I see in the glass? It is not for me to say. I have done my best to keep clear of the two vanities, the vanity of depreciating and the vanity of praising my own personal appearance. For the rest, well-britten or badly-britten, thank heaven it's done. And whom do I see in the glass standing by my side? I see a man who is not quite so tall as I am, and who has the misfortune of looking older than his years. His forehead is prematurely bald. His big chestnut-coloured beard and his long overhanging moustache are prematurely streaked with grey. He has the colour in the face which my face wants, and the firmness in his figure which my figure wants. He looks at me with the tenderest and gentlest eyes of a light brown that I ever saw in the countenance of a man. His smile is rare and sweet. His manner perfectly quiet and retiring has yet a latent persuasiveness in it which is, to women, irresistibly winning. He just hauls a little in his walk, from the effect of an injury received in past years, when he was a soldier serving in India, and he carries a thick bamboo cane with a curious crutch handle, an old favourite, to help himself along whenever he gets on his feet, indoors or out. With his own little drawback, if it is a drawback, there is nothing infirm or old or awkward about him. His slight limp when he walks has, perhaps to my partialise, a certain quaint grace of its own, which is pleasanter to see than the unrestrained activity of other men. At last, and best of all, I love him. I love him, I love him, and there is an end of my portray of my husband on our wedding day. The glass has told me all I want to know. We leave the vestry at last. The sky cloudy since the morning has darkened while we have been in the church, and the rain is beginning to fall heavily. The eyeless outside stare at us grimly under their umbrellas as we pass through their ranks and hasten into our carriage. No cheering, no sunshine, no flowers strewn in our path, no grand breakfast, no genial speeches, no bridesmaids, no fathers or mothers' blessing. It's really a wedding. There is no denying it, and if an stark weather is right, a bad beginning as well. A coup has been reserved for us at the railway station. The attentive porter on the lookout for his fee pulls down the blinds over the side window of the carriage and chats out all prying eyes in that way. Now it seems to be an interminable delay the train starts. My husband winds his arm round me. At last, he whispers, with a love in his eyes that no words can utter and presses me to him gently. My arm steals round his neck, my eyes answer his eyes. Our lips meet in the first long, lingering kiss of our married life. Oh! what recollections of that journey rise in me as I write. Let me dry my eyes and shut up my paper for the day. We had been travelling for a little more than an hour when a change passed insensibly over us both. Still sitting close together, with my hand on his, with my head on his shoulder, little by little we fell insensibly into silence. Had we already exhausted the narrow yet eloquent vocabulary of love, or had we determined by unexpressed consent after enjoying the luxury of passion that speaks, to try the deeper and finer rapture of passion that thinks? I can hardly determine. I only know that a time came when, under some strange influence, our lips were close toward each other. We travelled along, each of us absorbed in our own reverie. Was he thinking exclusively of me, as I was thinking exclusively of him? Before the journey's end I had my doubts. At a little later time I knew for certain that his thoughts wandering far away from his young wife were all turned inward on his own unhappy self. For me the secret pleasure of filling my mind with him, while I felt him by my side, was a luxury in itself. I pictured in my thoughts our first meeting in the neighborhood of my uncle's house. Our famous North Country trout stream warned its flashing and foaming way through a ravine in the rocky moorland. It was a windy, shadowy evening. A heavily clouded sunset lay low and red in the west. A solitary angler stood casting his fly at a turn in the stream, where the back water lay still and deep under an overhanging bank. A girl, myself, standing on the bank, invisible to the fishermen beneath, waited eagerly to see the trout rise. The moment came, the fish took the fly. Sometimes on the little level strip of sand at the foot of the bank, sometimes when the stream turned again, in the shallower water rushing over its rocky bed, the angler followed the captured trout, now letting the line run out and now winding it in again, in the difficult and delicate process of playing the fish. Along the bank I followed to watch the contest of skill and cunning between the man and the trout. I had lived long enough with my uncle's dark weather to catch some of his enthusiasm for field sports and to learn something especially of the angler's art. Still following the stranger with my eyes intently fixed on every movement of his rod and line, and with not so much as a chance fragment of my attention to spare for the rough path along which I was walking, I stepped by chance on the loose, overhanging earth at the edge of the bank and fell into the stream in an instant. The distance was trifling, the water was shallow, the bed of the river was fortunately for me of sand. Beyond the fright and the wetting I had nothing to complain of. In a few moments I was out of the water and up again, very much ashamed of myself on the firm ground. Short as the interval was it proved long enough to favor the escape of the fish. The angle had heard my first instinctive cry of alarm had turned and had thrown aside his rod to help me. We confronted each other for the first time, high on the bank and he in the shallow water below. Our eyes encountered, and I very little believe our hearts encountered at the same moment. This I know for certain. We forgot our breathing as lady and gentlemen. We looked at each other in barbarous silence. I was the first to recover myself. What did I say to him? I said something about my not being hurt and then something more urging him to run back and try if he might not yet recover the fish. He went back unwillingly. He returned to me, of course, without the fish. Knowing how bitterly disappointed my uncle would have been in his place, I apologized very earnestly. In my eagerness to make atonement I even offered to show him a spot where he might try again, lower down the stream. He would not hear of it. He entreated me to go home and change my wet dress. I cared nothing for the wetting, but I obeyed him without knowing why. He walked with me. My way back to the vicarage was his way back to the inn. He had come to our parts. He told me for the quiet and retirement as much as for the fishing. He had noticed me once or twice from the window of his room at the inn. He asked if I were not the vicar's daughter. I said him right. I told him that the vicar had married my mother's sister, and that the two had been father and mother to me since the death of my parents. He asked if you might venture to call on Dr. Stark weather the next day, mentioning the name of a friend of his with whom he believed the vicar to be acquainted. I invited him to visit us, as if it had been my house. I was spellbound under his eyes and under his voice. I had fancied, honestly fancied, myself to have been in love often and often before this time, never in any other man's company had I felt as I now felt in the presence of this man. Night seemed to fall suddenly over the evening landscape when he left me. I leaned against the vicarage gate. I could not breathe. I could not think. My heart fluttered as if it would fly out of my bosom, and all this for a stranger. I burned with shame, but oh, in spite of it all, I was so happy. And now, when little more than a few weeks had passed since that first meeting, I had him by my side. He was mine for life. I lifted my head from his bosom to look at him. I was like a child with a new toy. I wanted to make sure that he was really my own. He never noticed the action. He never moved in his corner of the carriage. Was he deep in his own thoughts, or were they thoughts of me? I laid down my head again softly, so as not to disturb him. My thoughts wandered backward one more, and showed me another picture in the golden gallery of the past. The garden at the vicarage formed the new scene. The time was night. We had met together in secret. We were walking slowly to and fro out of sight of the house, now in the shadowy paths of the shrubbery, now in the lovely moonlight on the open lawn. We had long sins owned our love and devoted our lives to each other. Already our interests were one. Already we shared the pleasures and the pains of life. I had gone out to meet him that night with a heavy heart, to seek comfort in his presence and to find encouragement in his voice. He noticed that I sighed when he first took me in his arms, and he gently turned my head towards the moonlight to read my trouble in my face. How often he had read my happiness there in the earlier days of our love. You bring that news, my angel, he said, lifting my head tenderly from my forehead as he spoke. I see the lines here which tell me of anxiety and distress. I almost wish I loved you less dearly, Valeria." Why? I might give you back your freedom. I have only to leave this place, and your uncle would be satisfied, and you would be relieved from all the cares that are pressing on you now. Don't speak of it, you stars. If you want me to forget my cares, say you love me more dearly than ever." He said it in a kiss. We had a moment of exquisite forgetfulness of the hard ways of life, a moment of delicious absorption in each other. I came back to realities fortified and composed, rewarded for all that I had gone through, ready to go through it all over again for another kiss. Only give a woman love, and there is nothing she will not venture, suffer, and do. No, they have done with objecting. They have remembered at last that I am of age and that I can choose for myself. They have been pleading with me, you stars, to give you up. My aunt, whom I thought rather a hard woman has been crying for the first time in my experience of her, my uncle always kind and good to me, has been kinder and better than ever. He has told me that if I persist in becoming your wife, I shall not be deserted on my wedding day. Wherever we may marry, he will be there to read the service, and my aunt will go to the church with me, but he entreats me to consider seriously what I am doing, to consent to separation from you for a time, to consult other people on my position toward you if I am not satisfied with his opinion. Oh, my darling, they are as anxious to part us as if you were the worst instead of the best of men. Has anything happened since yesterday to increase their distrust of me? He asked. Yes. What is it? You remember referring my uncle to a friend of yours and of his? Yes, to Major Fitz-David. My uncle has written to Major Fitz-David. Why? He pronounced that one word in a tone so utterly unlike his natural tone that his voice sounded quite strange to me. He won't be angry, you stars, if I tell you. I said, my uncle, as I understood him, had several motives for of writing to the Major. One of them was to inquire if he knew your mother's address. You stars suddenly stood still. I paused at the same moment, feeling that I could venture no further without the risk of offending him. To speak the truth, his conduct, when he first mentioned our engagement to my uncle, had been, so far as appearances, went a little flighty and strange. The vicar had naturally questioned him about his family. He had answered that his father was dead, and he had consented, though not very readily, to announce his contemplated marriage to his mother, informing us that she too lived in the country he had gone to see her without more particularly mentioning her address. In two days he had returned to the vicarage with a very startling message. His mother intended no disrespect to me or my relatives, but he disapproved so absolutely of her son's marriage that she and the members of her family, who all agreed with her, would refuse to be present at the ceremony. If Mr. Woodville persisted in keeping his engagement with Dr. Stark with his niece. Being asked to explain this extraordinary communication, you stars had told us that his mother and his sisters were bent on his marrying another lady, and that they were bitterly mortified and disappointed by his choosing a stranger to the family. This explanation was enough for me. It implied, so far as I was concerned, a compliment on my superior influence over you stars, which a woman always receives with pleasure. But it failed to satisfy my uncle and my aunt. The vicar expressed to Mr. Woodville a wish to write to his mother or to see her on a subject of a strange message. He stars obstinately declined to mention his mother's address, on the ground that the vicar's interference would be utterly useless. My uncle had once drew the conclusion that the mystery about the address indicated something wrong. He refused to favor Mr. Woodville's renewed proposal for my hand, and he wrote the same day to make inquiries of Mr. Woodville's reference and of his own friend, Major Fitz-David. Under such circumstances as these, to speak of my uncle's motives was to venture on very delicate ground. Your stars relieved me from further embarrassment by asking a question to which I could easily reply. Has your uncle received any answer from Major Fitz-David? he inquired. Yes. Were you allowed to read it? His voice sank, as he said those words. His face betrayed a sudden anxiety which it pained me to see. I have got the answer with me to show you, I said. He almost snatched the letter out of my hand. He turned his back on me to read it by the light of the moon. The letter was short enough to be soon read. I could have repeated it at the time. I can repeat it now. Dear vicar, Mr. Eustace Woodville is quite correct in stating to you that he is a gentleman by birth and position, and that he inherits under his dequeased father's will an independent fortune of two thousand a year. Always yours, Lawrence Fitz-David. Can anybody wish for a plainer answer than that, you stars asked, handing the letter back to me. If I had written for information about you, I answered, it would have been plain enough for me. Is it not plain enough for your uncle? No. What does he say? Why need you care to know, my darling? I want to know, Valeria. There must be no secret between us in this matter. Did your uncle say anything when he showed you the Major's letter? Yes. What was it? My uncle told me that his letter of inquiry filled three pages, and he made me observe that the Major's answer contained one sentence only. He said, I volunteered to go to Major Fitz-David and talk the matter over. You see, he takes no notice of my proposal. I asked him for the address of Mr. Woodville's mother. He passes over my request, as he has passed over my proposal. He studiously confines himself to the shortest possible statement of bare facts. Use your common sense, Valeria. Isn't this rudeness rather remarkable on the part of a man who is a gentleman by birth and breeding, and who is also a friend of mine? You stars stopped me there. Did you answer your uncle's question? He asked. No, I replied. I only said I did not understand the Major's conduct. And what did your uncle say next? If you love me, Valeria, tell me the truth. He used very strong language, you stars. He's an old man. You must not be offended with him. I am not offended. What did he say? He said, Mark my words, there is something under the surface in connection with Mr. Woodville, or with his family, to which Major Fitz-David has not had liberty to allude. He interpreted, Valeria, that letter is a warning. Show it to Mr. Woodville and tell him, if you like, what I have just told you. You stars stopped me again. You are sure your uncle said those words, he asked, scanning my face attentively in the moonlight? Quite sure, but I don't say what my uncle says. Pray don't think that. He suddenly pressed me to his bosom and fixed his eyes on mine. His look frightened me. Goodbye, Valeria, he said. Try and think kindly of me, my darling, when you are married to some happier man. He attempted to leave me. I clung to him in an agony of terror that took me from head to foot. What do you mean? I asked, as soon as I could speak. I am yours, and yours only. What have I said? What have I done to deserve those dreadful words? We must part, my angel, he answered sadly. The fault is none of yours. The misfortune is all mine. My Valeria, how can you marry a man who is an object of suspicion to your nearest and dearest friends? I have led a dreary life. I have never found in any other woman the sympathy with me, the sweet comfort and companionship that I find in you. Oh, it is hard to lose you. It is hard to go back again to my unfriended life. I must make the sacrifice, love, for your sake. I know no more why that letter is what it is then you do. Will your uncle believe me? Will your friends believe me? One last kiss, Valeria. Forgive me for having loved you, passionately, devotely loved you. Forgive me and let me go." I held him desperately, recklessly. His eyes put me beside myself, his words filled me with a frenzy of despair. Go where you may, I said, I go with you. Friends, reputation, it came nothing who I lose or what I lose. Oh, you stars, I am only a woman, don't modern me. I can't live without you. I must and will be your wife. Those wild words were all I could say before the misery and madness in me forced their way outward in a burst of sobs and tears. He yielded. He soothed me with his charming voice. He brought me back to myself with his tender caresses. He called the bright heaven above us to witness that he devoted his whole life to me. He vowed, oh, in such solemn, such eloquent words, that his one thought, night and day, should be to prove himself worthy of such love as mine. And had he not nobly redeemed the pledge, had not the betrothal of that memorable night been followed by the betrothal at the altar, by the vows before God. Ah, what a life was before me! What more than mortal happiness was mine! Again I lifted my head from his bosom to taste the dear delight of seeing him by my side, my life, my love, my husband, my own. Already awake, and yet from the absorbing memories of the past to the sweet realities of the present, I let my cheek touch his cheek. I whispered to him softly, oh, how I love you, how I love you! The next instant I started back from him, my heart stood still. I put my hand up to my face. What did I feel on my cheek? I had not been weeping. I was too happy. What did I feel on my cheek? A tear! His face was still averted from me. I turned it toward me, with my own hands, by main force. I looked at him, and saw my husband on our wedding day, with his eyes full of tears. End of chapter 2. Chapter number 3 of The Law and the Lady. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Vipgamula. The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins. Chapter 3. Ramsgate Sands. Ustas succeeded in quieting my alarm, but I can hardly say that he succeeded in satisfying my mind as well. He had been thinking, he told me, of the contrast between his past and his present life, bit of remembrance of the years that had gone had risen in his memory, and had filled him with melancholy misgivings of his capacity to make my life with him a happy one. He had asked himself if he had not met me too late, if he were not already a man soured and broken by the disappointments and disenchantments of the past. Doubts such as these, weighing more and more heavily on his mind, had filled his eyes with the tears which I had discovered, tears which he now entreated me by my love for him to dismiss from my memory for ever. I forgave him, comforted him, revived him, but there were moments when the remembrance of what I had seen troubled me in secret, and when I asked myself if I really possessed my husband's full confidence as he possessed mine. We left the train at Ramsgate. The favourite watering-place was empty, the season was just over. Our arrangements for the wedding tour included a cruise to the Mediterranean in a yacht lent to Ustas by a friend. We were both fond of the sea, and we were equally desirous considering the circumstances under which we had married, of escaping the notice of friends and acquaintances. With this object in view, having celebrated our marriage privately in London, we had decided on instructing the sailing master of the yacht to join us at Ramsgate. At this point, when the season for visitors was at an end, we could embark far more privately than at the popular yachting-stations situated in the Isle of Wight. Three days passed, days of delicious solitude, of exquisite happiness, never to be forgotten, never to be lived over again, to the end of our lives. Early on the morning of the fourth day, just before sunrise, a trifling incident happened which was noticeable, nevertheless as being strange to me in my experience of myself. I awoke, suddenly and unaccountably, from a deep and dreamless sleep with an all-pervading sensation of nervous uneasiness which I had never felt before. In the old days at the vicarage my capacity as a sound sleeper had been the subject of many a little harmless joke. From the moment when my head was on the pillow I had never known what it was to awake until the maid knocked at my door. At all seasons and times the long and uninterrupted repose of a child was the repose that I enjoyed. And now I had awakened, without any assignable course, hours before my usual time. I tried to compose myself to sleep again. The effort was useless. Such arrestlessness possessed me that I was not even able to lie still in the bed. My husband was sleeping soundly by my side. In the fear of disturbing him I rose and put on my dressing gown and slippers. I went to the window. The sun was just rising over the calm grey sea. For a while the majestic spectacle before me exercised a tranquilising influence on the irritable condition of my nerves. But ear-long the old restlessness returned upon me. I walked slowly to and fro in the room until I was weary of the monotony of the exercise. I took up a book and laid it aside again. My attention wandered. The author was powerless to recall it. I got on my feet once more and looked at you stars, and admired him and loved him in his tranquil sleep. I went back to the window and weary of the beautiful morning. I sat down before the glass and looked at myself. How haggard and worn I was already through awakening before my usual time. I rose again not knowing what to do next. The confinement to the four walls of the room began to be intolerable to me. I opened the door that led into my husband's dressing-room and entered it to try if the change would relieve me. The first object that I noticed was his dressing-case, open on the toilet-table. I took out the bottles and pots and brushers and coombs, the knives and scissors in one compartment, the writing materials in another. I smelled the perfumes and foam-atoms. I busily cleaned and dusted the bottles with my handkerchief as I took them out. Little by little I completely emptied the dressing-case. It was lined with blue velvet. In one corner I noticed a tiny slip of loose blue silk, taking it between my finger and thumb and drawing it upward. I discovered that there was a false bottom to the case, warming a secret compartment for letters and papers. In my strange condition, capricious, idle, inquisitive, it was an amusement to me to take out the papers, just as I had taken out everything else. I found some receipted bills which failed to interest me. Some letters which is as needless to say I laid aside after only looking at the addresses and, under all, a photograph, faced downward with the writing on the back of it. I looked at the writing and saw these words. To my dear son, Yustas, his mother, the woman who had so obstinately and mercilessly opposed herself to our marriage, I eagerly turned the photograph, expecting to see a woman with a stern ill-tempered, forbidding countenance. Under my surprise, the face showed the remains of great beauty. The expression, though remarkably firm, was yet winning, tender and kind. The grey hair was arranged in rows of little quaint, old-fashioned curls on either side of the head under a plain lace cap. At one corner of the mouth there was a mark, apparently a mole which added to the characteristic peculiarity of the face. I looked and looked, fixing the portrait thoroughly in my mind. This woman, who had almost insulted me and my relatives, was beyond all doubt a dispute, so far as appearances went a person possessing unusual attractions, a person whom it would be a pleasure and a privilege to know. I fell into deep thought. The discovery of the photograph quieted me as nothing had quieted me yet. The striking of a clock downstairs in the hall warned me of the flight of time. I carefully put back all the objects in the dressing-case, beginning with the photograph, exactly as I had found them, and returned to the bedroom. As I looked at my husband, still sleeping peacefully, the question forced itself into my mind. What had made the genial, gentle mother of his so sternly bent on parting us, so harshly and pitilessly resolute in asserting her disapproval of our marriage? Could I put my question openly to you, stars, when he awoke? No, I was afraid to venture that length. It had been tacitly understood between us that we were not to speak of his mother, and besides, he might be angry if he knew that I had opened the private compartment of his dressing-case. After breakfast that morning we had news at last of the Yacht. The vessel was safely moored in the inner harbour, and the sailing master was waiting to receive my husband's orders on board. Hustars hesitated at asking me to accompany him to the Yacht. It would be necessary for him to examine the inventory of the vessel, and to decide questions not very interesting to a woman relating to charts and barometers, provisions and water. He asked me if I would wait for his return, the day was enticingly beautiful, and the tide was on the ebb. We went for a walk on the sands, and the landlady at our lodgings, who happened to be in the room at the time, volunteered to accompany me and take care of me. It was agreed that we should walk as far as we felt inclined in the direction of broad stairs, and that Hustars should follow and meet us on the sands after having completed his arrangements on board the Yacht. In half an hour more the landlady and I were out on the beach. The scene on that fine autumn morning was nothing less than enchanting. The brisk breeze, the brilliant sky, the flashing blue sea, the sun-bright cliffs, and the tawny sands at their feet, the gliding procession of ships on the great marine highway of the English Channel. It was all so exhilarating, it was all so delightful, that I really believe if I had been by myself I could have danced for joy like a child. The one drawback to my happiness was the landlady's untiring tongue. She was a forward, good-natured, empty-headed woman, who persisted in talking whether I listened or not, and who had a habit of perpetually addressing me as Mrs. Woodville, which I thought a little overfamiliar as an assertion of equality from a person in her position to a person in mine. We had been out, I should think, more than half an hour, when we overtook a lady walking before us on the beach. Just as we were about to pass the stranger she took a handkerchief from her pocket and accidentally drew out with it a letter which fell unnoticed by her on the sand. I was nearest to the letter and picked it up and offered it to the lady. The instant she turned to thank me I stood rooted to the spot. There was the original of the photographic portrait in the dressing-case. There was my husband's mother standing face-to-face with me. I recognised the quaint little grey curls, the gentle genial expression, the mole at the corner of the mouth. No mistake was possible—his mother herself. The old lady, naturally enough, mistook my confusion for shyness. With perfect tact and kindness she entered into conversation with me. In another minute I was walking side by side with a woman who had sternly repudiated me as a member of her family, feeling I owned terribly discomposed and not knowing in the least whether I ought or ought not to assume the responsibility in my husband's absence of telling her who I was. In another minute my familiar landlady, walking on the other side of my mother-in-law, decided the question for me. I happened to say that I supposed we must by that time be near the end of our walk, the little watering-place called Broadstairs. Oh, no, Mrs. Woodwill cried the irrepressible woman calling me by my name, as usual—nothing like so near as you think. I looked with a beating heart at the old lady. To my unutterable amazement not the faintest gleam of recognition appeared in her face. Old Mrs. Woodville went on talking to young Mrs. Woodwill just as compositely as if she had never heard her own name before in her life. My face and manner must have betrayed something of the agitation that I was suffering. Happening to look at me at the end of her next sentence, the old lady started and said in her kind way, I am afraid you have overexerted yourself. You are very pale. You are looking quite exhausted. Come and sit down here. Let me lend you my smelling-bottle. I followed her quite helplessly to the base of the cliff. Some torn fragments of chalk offered us a seat. I vaguely heard the voluble landlady's expressions of sympathy and regret. I mechanically took the smelling-bottle which my husband's mother offered to me after hearing my name as an act of kindness to a stranger. If I had only had myself to think of, I believe I should have provoked an explanation on the spot. But I had used stars to think of. I was entirely ignorant of the relations, hostile or friendly which existed between his mother and himself. What could I do? In the meantime the old lady was still speaking to me with a most considerate sympathy. She too was fatigued, she said. She had passed a weary night at the bedside of a near relative staying at Ramsgate. Only the day before she had received a telegram announcing that one of her sisters was seriously ill, she was herself, thank God, still active and strong, and she had thought of her duty to start at once for Ramsgate. Toward the morning the state of the patient had improved. The doctors assured me, ma'am, that there is no immediate danger, and I thought it might revive me after my long night at the bedside if I took a little walk on the beach. I heard the words. I understood what they meant, but I was still too bewildered and too intimidated by my extraordinary position to be able to continue the conversation. The landlady had a sensible suggestion to make. The landlady was the next person who spoke. Here is a gentleman coming, she said to me, pointing in the direction of Ramsgate. You can never walk back. While we asked him to send a chase from broad stairs to the gap in the cliff. The gentleman advanced a little nearer. The landlady and I recognized him at the same moment. It was you stars coming to meet us as we had arranged. The irrepressible landlady gave the freest expression to her feelings. Oh, Mrs. Woodwill, ain't it lucky, here is Mr. Woodwill himself! Once more I looked at my mother-in-law. Once more the name failed to produce the slightest effect on her. Her sight was not so keen as ours, she had not recognized her son yet. He had young eyes like us, and he recognized his mother. For a moment he stopped like a man thunderstruck. Then he came on, his ruddy face, white with suppressed emotion, his eyes fixed on his mother. You here, he said to her. How do you do, you stars? She quietly rejoined. Have you heard of your aunt's illness, too? Did you know she was staying at Ramsgate? He made no answer. The landlady, drawing the inevitable inference from the words that she had just heard, looked from me to my mother-in-law in a state of amazement which paralyzed even her tongue. I waited with my eyes on my husband to see what he would do. If he had delayed acknowledging me another moment, the whole future course of my life might have been altered. I should have despised him. He did not delay. He came to my side and took my hand. Do you know who this is? He said to his mother. She answered, looking at me with the courteous bend of her head. A lady I met on the beach, she stars, who kindly restored to me a letter that I dropped. I think I heard the name. She turned to the landlady. Mrs. Woodwill, was it not? My husband's fingers unconsciously closed on my hand with a grasp that hurt me. He said his mother right, it is only just a say, without one cowardly moment of hesitation. Mother, he said to her, very quietly, this lady is my wife. She had hit her toe, kept her seat. She now rose slowly and faced her son in silence. The first expression of surprise passed from her face. It was succeeded by the most terrible look of mingled indignation and contempt that I ever saw in a woman's eyes. I pity your wife, she said. With those words and no more, lifting her hand she waved him back from her and went on her way again, as we had first found her, alone. CHAPTER IV Left by ourselves there was a moment of silence among us. You stars spoke first. Are you able to walk back, he said to me? Or shall we go on to broad stairs and return to Ramsgate by the railway? He put those questions as composedly, so far as his manner was concerned, as if nothing remarkable had happened. But his eyes and his lips betrayed him. They told me that he was suffering keenly and secret. The extraordinary scene that had just passed, far from depriving me of the last remains of my garage, had strung up my nerves and restored my self-possession. I must have been more or less than woman if my self-respect had not been wounded, if my curiosity had not been raw to the highest pitch, by the extraordinary conduct of my husband's mother when you stars presented me to her. What was the secret of her despising him and pitying me? Where was the explanation of her incomprehensible apathy when my name was twice pronounced in her hearing? Why had she left us, as if the beer idea of remaining in our company was abhorrent to her? The foremost interest of my life was now the interest of penetrating these mysteries. Walk! I was in such a fever of expectation that I felt as if I could have walked to the world's end if I could only keep my husband by my side and question him on the way. I am quite recovered, I said. Let us go back as we came on foot. The stars glanced at the landlady. The landlady understood him. I went and trod my company on you, sir, she said sharply. I have some business to do at broadstayers, and now I am so near I may as well go on. Good morning, Mrs. Woodwill. She laid a market emphasis on my name, and she added one significant look at parting, which in the preoccupied state of my mind at that moment I entirely failed to comprehend. There was neither time nor opportunity to ask her what she meant. With a stiff little bow addressed to you stars, she left us as his mother had left us taking the way to broadstayers and walking rapidly. At last we were alone. I lost no time in beginning my inquiries. I wasted no words and prefertory phrases. In the plainest terms I put the question to him. What does your mother's conduct mean? Instead of answering he burst into a fit of laughter, a loud, coarse, hard laughter, so utterly unlike any sound I had ever yet heard issue from his lips, so strangely and shockingly foreign to his character as I understood it, that I stood still on the sands and openly remonstrated with him. You stars, you're not like yourself. I said, you almost frightened me. He took no notice. He seemed to be pursuing some pleasant train of thought just started in his mind. So like my mother, he exclaimed, with the air of a man who felt irresistibly diverted by some humorous idea of his own. Tell me all about it, Valyria. Tell you, I repeated, after what has happened all it is your duty to enlighten me. You don't see the joke, he said. I not only failed to see the joke, I rejoined. I see something in your mother's language and your mother's behaviour which justifies me in asking you for serious explanation. My dear Valyria, if you understood my mother as well as I do with serious explanation of her conduct, would be the last thing in the world that you would expect from me, the idea of taking my mother seriously. He burst out laughing again. My darling, you don't know how you amuse me. It was all forced. It was all unnatural. He, the most delicate, the most refined of men, a gentleman in the highest sense of the word, was cause and loud and vulgar. My heart sank under a sudden sense of misgiving, which with all my love for him it was impossible to resist. In unutterable distress and alarm I asked myself, is my husband beginning to deceive me? Is he acting apart and acting it badly, before we have been married a week? I set myself to witness confidence in a new way. He was evidently determined to force his own point of view on me. I determined on my side to accept his point of view. You tell me I don't understand your mother, I said gently, will you help me to understand her? It is not easy to help you to understand a woman who doesn't understand herself, he answered, but I will try. The key to my poor dear mother's character is, in one word, eccentricity. If he had picked out the most inappropriate word in the whole dictionary to describe the lady whom I had met on the beach, eccentricity would have been that word. A child who had seen what I saw, who had heard what I heard, would have discovered that he was trifling, grossly, recklessly trifling, with the truth. Bear in mind what I have said, he proceeded, and if you want to understand my mother, do what I asked you to do a minute since, tell me all about it. How came you to speak to her, to begin with? Your mother told you, Eustace. I was walking just behind her when she dropped a letter by accident. No accident, he interposed. The letter was dropped on purpose. Impossible, I exclaimed. Why should your mother drop the letter on purpose? Used the key to her character, my dear eccentricity, my mother's odd way of making acquaintance with you. Making acquaintance with me, I've just told you that I was walking behind her. She could not have known of the existence of such a person as myself until I spoke to her first. So you suppose, Valyria, I am certain of it. Pardon me, you don't know my mother as I do. I began to lose all patience with him. Do you mean to tell me, I said, that your mother was out on the sands today for the express purpose of making acquaintance with me? I have not the slightest doubt of it, he answered coolly. Why, she didn't even recognise my name, I burst out. Twice over the landlady caught me, Mrs Woodwill, in your mother's hearing, and twice over I declared to you on my word of honour it failed to produce the slightest impression on her. She looked and acted as if she had never heard her own name before in her life. Acted is the right word, he said, just as compositely as before. The women on the stage are not the only women who can act. My mother's object was to make herself thoroughly acquainted with you, and to throw you off your guard by speaking in the character of a stranger. It is exactly like her to take that round about way of satisfying your curiosity about a daughter-in-law she disapproves of. If I had not joined you when I did, you would have been examined and cross-examined about yourself and about me, and you would innocently have answered under the impression that you were speaking to a chance acquaintance. There's my mother all over. She's your enemy, remember, not your friend. She's not in search of your merits, but of your faults. And you wonder why no impression was produced on her when she heard you redressed by your name, poor innocent. I can tell you this, you only discovered my mother in her own character when I put an end to the mystification by presenting you to each other. You saw how angry she was, and now you know why. I let him go on without saying a word. I listened, O, with such a heavy heart, with such a crushing sense of disenchantment and despair. The idol of my worship, the companion, guide, protector of my life, had he fallen so low could he stoop to such aimless prevarication as this? Was there one word of truth in all that he said to me? Yes, if I had not discovered his mother's portrait it was certainly true that I should not have known, not even have vaguely suspected, who she really was. Apart from this the rest was lying, clumsy lying, which said one thing at least for him that he was not accustomed to false identity. Good heavens! If my husband was to be believed his mother must have tracked us to London, tracked us to the church, tracked us to the railway station, tracked us to Ramsgate, to assert that she knew me by my side as the wife of few stars, and that she had waited at the sand and dropped her letter, for the express purpose of making acquaintance with me was also to assert every one of these monstrous probabilities to be facts that had actually happened. I could say no more. I walked by his side in silence, feeling the miserable conviction that there was an abyss in the shape of a family secret between my husband and me. In the spirit, if not in the body, we were separated after a married life of barely four days. Valeria, he asked, have you nothing to say to me? Nothing? Are you not satisfied with my explanation? I detected a slight tremor in his voice as he put that question. The tone was, for the first time since we had spoken together, a tone that my experience associated with him in certain moods of his which I had already learned to know well. Among the hundred thousand mysterious influences which a man exercises over a woman who loves him, I doubt that there is one more irresistible to her than the influence of his voice. I am not one of those women who shed tears on the smallest provocation. It is not in my temperament, I suppose. But when I heard that little natural change in his tone, my mind went back. I can't say why to the happy day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst out crying. He suddenly stood still and took me by the hand. He tried to look at me. I kept my head down and my eyes on the ground. I was ashamed of my weakness and my want of spirit. I was determined not to look at him. In the silence that followed he suddenly dropped on his knees at my feet with a cry of despair that cut through me like a knife. Valeria, I am vile, I am false, I am unworthy of you. Don't believe a word of what I've been saying. Lies, lies, cowardly and contemptible lies. You don't know what I've gone through. You don't know how I've been tortured. Oh, my darling, try not to despise me. I must have been beside myself when I spoke to you as I did. You looked hurt. You looked offended. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to spare you even a moment's pain. I wanted to hush it up and have done with it. For God's sake, don't ask me to tell you any more. My love, my angel, it's something between my mother and me. It's nothing that need to disturb you. It's nothing to anybody now. I love you. I adore you. My whole heart and soul are yours. Be satisfied with that. Forget what has happened. You shall never see my mother again. We will leave this place tomorrow. We will go away in the yacht. Does it matter where we live so long as we live for each other? Forgive and forget. Unutterable misery was in his face. Unutterable misery was in his voice. Remember this and remember that I loved him. It is easy to forgive, I said sadly. For your sake, you stars, I will try to forget. I raced him gently as I spoke. He kissed my hands with the ear of a man who was too humble to venture on any more familiar expression of his gratitude than that. The sense of embarrassment between us as we slowly walked on again was so unendurable that I actually cast about in my mind for a subject of conversation as if I had been in the company of a stranger. In mercy to him, I asked him to tell me about the yacht. He seized on the subject as a drowning man seizes on the hand that rescues him. On that one poor little topic of the yacht he talked, talked, talked as if his life depended upon his not being silent for an instant on the rest of the way back. To me it was dreadful to hear him. I could estimate what he was suffering by the violence which he, ordinarily a silent and thoughtful man, was now doing to his true nature and to the prejudices and habits of his life. With the greatest difficulty I preserved my self-control until we reached the door of our lodgings. There I was obliged to plead fatigued and asked him to let me rest for a little while in the solitude of my own room. Shall we sail to-morrow? He called after me suddenly as I ascended the stairs. Sailed with him to the Mediterranean the next day. Past weeks and weeks absolutely alone with him in the narrow limits of a vessel with his horrible secret parting us in sympathy further and further from each other day by day I shuddered at the thought of it. Tomorrow is rather a short notice, I said. Will you give me a little longer time to prepare for the voyage? Oh, yes! Take any time you like. He answered, not as I thought very willingly. While you're resting there are still one or two little things to be settled. I think I will go back to the yacht. Is there anything I can do for you, Valeria, before I go? Nothing. Thank you, you stars. He hastened away to the harbour. Was he afraid of his own thoughts, if he were left by himself in the house? Was the company of the sailing master and the steward better than no company at all? It was useless to ask. What did I know about him or his thoughts? I locked myself into my room. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of the Law and the Lady This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. I sat down and tried to compose my spirits. Now I never was the time to decide what it was my duty to my husband and my duty to myself to do next. The effort was beyond me, worn out in mind and body alike. I was perfectly incapable of pursuing any regular train of thought. I vaguely felt, if I felt things as they were, that I could never hope to remove the shadow which now rested on the married life that had begun so brightly. We might live together, so as to save appearances, but to forget what had happened, or to feel satisfied with my position, was beyond the power of my will. My tranquility as a woman, perhaps my dearest interests as a wife, depended absolutely on penetrating the mystery of my mother-in-law's conduct, and on discovering the true meaning of the wild words of penitence and self-reproach which my husband had addressed to me on our way home. So far I could advance toward realizing my position, and no further. When I asked myself what was to be done next, hopeless confusion, maddening doubt filled my mind, and transformed me into the most listless and helpless of living women. I gave up the struggle. In dull, stupid obstinacy spare, I threw myself on my bed, and fell from sheer fatigue into a broken, uneasy sleep. I was awakened by a knock at the door of my room. Was it my husband? I started to my feet as the idea occurred to me. Was some new trial of my patience and my fortitude at hand? Half nervously, half irritably, I asked who was there. The landlady's voice answered me. Can I speak to you for a moment, if you please? I opened the door. There is no disguising it, though I loved him so dearly, though I had left home and friends for his sake, it was a relief to me at that miserable time to know that you stars had not returned to the house. The landlady came in and took a seat, without waiting to be invited close by my side. She was no longer satisfied with merely asserting herself as my equal, ascending another step on the social ladder. She took her stand on the platform of patronage, and charitably looked down on me as an object of pity. I have just returned from broad stares. She began. I hope you will do me the justice to believe that I sincerely regret what has happened. I bowed, and said nothing. As a gentlewoman myself, proceeded the landlady, reduced by family misfortune to let lodgings, but still a gentlewoman, I feel sincere sympathy with you. I will even go further than that. I will take it on myself to say that I don't blame you. No, no, I noticed that you were as much shocked and surprised at your mother-in-law's conduct as I was, and that's saying a great deal, a great deal indeed. However, I have a duty to perform. It is disagreeable, but it is not the lesser duty on that account. I am a single woman. Not from want of opportunities of changing my condition, I beg you will understand that, but from choice. Situated as I am, I receive only the most respectable persons into my house. There must be no mystery about the positions of my lodges. Mystery in the position of a lodger carries with it. Shall I say? I don't wish to offend you. I will say a certain taint. Very well. Now I put it to you own common sense. Can a person in my position be expected to expose herself to taint? I make these remarks in a sisterly and Christian spirit. As a lady herself, I will even go the lengths of saying a cruelly used lady you will, I am sure, understand. I couldn't do it no longer. I stopped her there. I understand, I said, that you wish to give us notice to quit your lodgings. When do you want us to go? The landlady held up a long, lean red hand in a sorrowful and sisterly protest. No, she said, not that tone, not those looks. It's natural you should be annoyed. It's natural you should be angry, but do— Now do please try and control yourself. I put it to your own common sense. We will say a week for the notice to quit. Why not treat me like a friend? You don't know what a sacrifice, what a cruel sacrifice I have made entirely for your sake. You, I exclaimed, what sacrifice? What sacrifice? repeated the landlady. I have degraded myself as a gentlewoman. I have forfeited my own self-respect. She paused for a moment and suddenly seized my hand in a perfect frenzy of friendship. Oh, my poor dear! cried this intolerable person. I have discovered everything. A villain has deceived you. You are no more married than I am. I snatched my hand out of her as it rose angrily from my chair. Are you mad? I asked. The landlady raised her eyes to the ceiling with the ear of a person who had deserved myrtidum and who submitted to it cheerfully. Yes, she said, I begin to think I am mad, mad to have devoted myself to an ungrateful woman, to a person who doesn't appreciate a sisterly and Christian sacrifice of self. Well, I won't do it again. Heaven forgive me. I won't do it again. Do what again? I asked. Follow your mother-in-law, cried the landlady, suddenly dropping the character of a mertire and assuming the character of a vixen in its place. I blushed when I think of it. I followed that most respectable person every step of the way to her own home. Thus far my pride had held me up. It sustained me no longer. I dropped back again into my chair in undisguised dread of what was coming next. I gave you a look when I left you on the beach, pursued the landlady, throwing louder and louder and redder and redder as she went on. A grateful woman would have understood that look. Never mind. I won't do it again. I overtook your mother-in-law at the gap in the cliff. I followed her. Oh, how I feel that disgrace of it now! I followed her to the station in broad stairs. She went back by train to Ramsgate. I went back by train to Ramsgate. She walked to her lodgings. I walked to her lodgings. Behind her, like a dog. Oh, the disgrace of it! Providentially, as I then thought, I don't know what to think of it now. The landlord of the house happened to be a friend of mine and happened to be at home. We have no secrets from each other, where lodges are concerned. I'm in a position to tell you, madam, what your mother-in-law's name really is. She knows nothing about any such person as Mrs Woodwill for an excellent reason. Her name is not Woodwill. Her name, and consequently her son's name, is MacAllen. Mrs MacAllen, widow of the late General MacAllen. Yes, your husband is not your husband. You are neither maid, wife, nor widow. You are worse than nothing, madam, and you leave my house. I stopped her as she opened the door to go out. She had roused my temper, but this time the doubt that she had cast on my marriage was more than mortal resignation could endure. Give me Mrs MacAllen's address, I said. The landlady's anger receded into the background, and the landlady's astonishment appeared in its place. You don't mean to tell me you are going to the old lady herself, she said. Nobody but the old lady can tell me what I want to know, I answered. Your discovery, as you call it, may be enough for you, it is not enough for me. How do we know that Mrs MacAllen may not have been twice married, and that her first husband's name may not have been Woodwill? The landlady's astonishment subsided in its turn, and the landlady's curiosity succeeded as the ruling influence of the moment. Substantially, as I have already said of her, she was a good-natured woman. Her fits of temper, as is usual with good-natured people, were of the hot and short-lived sort, easily aroused and easily appeased. I never thought of that, she said. Look here, if I give you the address, will you promise to tell me all about it when you come back? I gave the required promise and received the address in return. No malice, said the landlady, suddenly resuming all her old familiarity with me. No malice, I answered, with all possible cordiality on my side. In ten minutes more I was at my mother-in-law's lodgings. Fortunately for me, the landlord did not open the door when I rang. A stupid maid of all work, who never thought of asking me for my name, let me in. Mrs. MacAllen was at home, and had no visitors with her. Giving me this information, the maid led the way upstairs, and showed me into the drawing-room, without a word of announcement. My mother-in-law was sitting alone, near a work-table, knitting. The moment I appeared in the doorway, she laid aside her work, and rising, signed to me with a commanding gesture of her hand to let her speak first. I know what you have come here for, she said. You have come here to ask questions. Spare yourself, and spare me. I warn you beforehand that I will not answer any questions relating to my son. It was firmly but not harshly said. I spoke firmly in my turn. I have not come here, madam, to ask questions about your son, I answered. I have come, if you will, excuse me, to ask you a question about yourself." She started, and looked at me keenly over her spectacles. I had evidently taken her by surprise. What is the question? she inquired. I know now, for the first time, madam, that your name is MacAllen, I said. Your son has married me under the name of Woodwill. The only honourable explanation of this circumstance, so far as I know, is that my husband is your son by a first marriage. The happiness of my life is at stake. Will you kindly consider my position? Will you let me ask you if you have been twice married, and if the name of your first husband was Woodwill? She considered a little before she replied. The question is a perfectly natural one in your position, she said. But I think I had better not answer it. May I ask why? Certainly, if I answered you, I should only lead to other questions, and I should be obliged to decline replying to them. I am sorry to disappoint you. I repeat what I said on the beach. I have no other feeling than a feeling of sympathy toward you. If you had consulted me before your marriage, I should willingly have admitted you to my fullest confidence. It is now too late. You are married. I recommend you to make the best of your position and to rest satisfied with things as they are. Pardon me, madam. I remonstrate it. As things are, I don't know that I am married. All I know, unless you enlighten me, is that your son has married me under a name that is not his own. How can I be sure whether I am or am not his lawful wife? I believe there can be no doubt that you are lawfully my son's wife. Mrs. MacAllen answered, At any rate, it is easy to take a legal opinion on the subject. If the opinion is that you are not lawfully married, my son, whatever his faults and failings may be, is a gentleman. He is incapable of willfully deceiving a woman who loves and trusts him. He will do you justice. On my side I will do you justice too. If the legal opinion is adverse to your rightful claims, I will promise to answer any question which you may choose to put to me. As it is, I believe you to be lawfully my son's wife, and, I say again, make the best of your position. Be satisfied with your husband's affectionate devotion to you. If you value your peace of mind and the happiness of your life to come, abstain from attempting to know more than you know now. She sat down again with the ear of a woman who had said her last word. Further remonstrance would be useless. I could see it in her face. I could hear it in her voice. I turned round to open the drawing-room door. You are hard on me, madam, I said at parting. I am at your mercy, and I must submit. She suddenly looked up and answered me with a flush on her kind and handsome old face. As God is my witness-child, I pity you from the bottom of my heart. After that extraordinary outburst of feeling, she took up her work with one hand and signed to me with the other to leave her, about to her in silence, and went out. I had entered the house far from feeling sure of the cause I would to take in the future. I left the house positively resolved, come what might of it, to discover the secret which the mother and son were hiding from me, as to the question of their name. I saw it now in the light in which I ought to have seen it from the first. If Mrs. MacAllen HAD been twice married, as I had rashly chosen to suppose, she would certainly have shown some signs of recognition when she heard me addressed by her first husband's name. Where all else was mystery, there was no mystery here. Whatever his reasons might be, Ustaz had assuredly married me under an assumed name. Approaching the door of our lodgings, I saw my husband walking backward and forward before it evidently waiting for my return. If he asked me the question, I decided to tell him frankly where I had been, and what had passed between his mother and myself. He hurried to meet me with signs of disturbance in his face and manner. I have a favour to ask of you, Valeria, he said, do you mind returning with me to London by the next train? I looked at him, and the popular phrase I could hardly believe my own is. It's a matter of business he went on, of no interest to any one but myself, and it requires my presence in London. You don't wish to sail just yet, as I understand. I can't leave you here by yourself. Have you any objection to going to London for a day or two? I made no objection. I too was eager to go back. In London I could obtain the legal opinion, which would tell me whether I were lawfully married to Ustaz or not. In London I should be within reach of the help and advice of my father's faithful old clerk. I could confide in Benjamin as I could confide in no one else. Nearly as I loved my uncle's dark weather, I shrank from communicating with him in my present need. His wife had told me that I made it bad beginning when I signed the wrong name in the marriage register. Shall I own it? My pride shrank from acknowledging before the honeymoon was over that his wife was right. In two hours more we were on the railway again. Ah! what a contrast that second journey presented to the first. On our way to Ramsgate everybody could see that we were a newly wedded couple. On our way to London nobody noticed us. Nobody would have doubted that we had been married for years. We went to a private hotel in the neighbourhood of Portland Place. After breakfast the next morning Ustaz announced that he must leave me to attend to his business. I had previously mentioned to him that I had some purchases to make in London. He was quite willing to let me go out alone on the condition that I should take a carriage provided by the hotel. My heart was heavy that morning. I felt the unknowledge of strangers that had grown up between us very keenly. My husband opened the door to go out and came back to kiss me before he left me by myself. That little laughter thought of tenderness touched me. Acting on the impulse of the moment I put my arm round his neck and held him to me gently. My darling, I said, Give me all your confidence. I know that you love me. Show that you can trust me too. He sighed bitterly and drew back from me, in sorrow, not in anger. I thought we had agreed, Valeria, not to return to that subject again, he said. You only distress yourself and distress me. He left the room abruptly as if he dare not trust himself to say more. It is better not to dwell on what I felt after this last repulse. I ordered the carriage at once. I was eager to find a refuge from my own thoughts in movement and change. I drove to the shops first and made the purchases which I had mentioned to you stars by way of giving a reason for going out. Then I devoted myself to the object which I really had at heart. I went to old Benjamin's little villa in the byways of St. John's Wood. As soon as he had got over the first surprise of seeing me, he noticed that I looked pale and care-worn. I confessed at once that I was in trouble. We sat down together by the bright fireside in his little library. Benjamin, as far as his means would allow, was a great collector of books, and there I told my old friend, frankly and truly, all that I have told here. He was too distressed to say much. He fervently pressed my hand. He fervently thanked God that my father had not to live to hear what he had heard. Then, after a pause, he repeated my mother-in-law's name to himself in a doubting, questioning tone. MacAllen, he said. MacAllen, where have I heard that name? Why does it sound as if it wasn't strange to me? He gave up pursuing the lost recollection and asked very earnestly what he could do for me. I answered that he could help me in the first place to put an end to the doubt, an unendurable doubt to me, whether I were loofly married or not. His energy of the old days when he had conducted my father's business out itself again the moment I said those words. Your carriage is at the door, my dear, he answered, come with me to my own lawyer without wasting another moment. We drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields. At my request, Benjamin put my case to the lawyers, the case of a friend in whom I was interested. The answer was given without hesitation. I had married, honestly believing my husband's name to be the name under which I had known him. The witnesses to my marriage, my uncle, my aunt and Benjamin, had acted as I had acted in perfect good faith. Under those circumstances, there was no doubt about the law. I was legally married. MacElna Woodwill, I was his wife. This decisive answer relieved me of a heavy anxiety. I accepted my old friend's invitation to return with him to St. John's Wood and to make my luncheon at his early dinner. And our way back I reverted to the one other subject, which was now uppermost in my mind. I reiterated my resolution to discover why Eustace had not married me under the name that was really his own. My companion shook his head and treated me to consider well beforehand what I proposed doing. His advice to me, so strangely do extremes meet, was my mother-in-law's advice, repeated almost word for word. Leave things as they are, my dear. In the interest of your own peace of mind, be satisfied with your husband's affection. You know that you're his wife, and you know that he loves you. Surely that's enough? I had but one answer to this. Life, on such conditions as my good friend had just stated, would be simply unendurable to me. Nothing could order my resolution, for this plain reason, that nothing could reconcile me to living with my husband on the terms in which we were living now. It only rested with Benjamin to say whether he would give a helping hand to his master's daughter or not. The old man's answer was thoroughly characteristic of him. Mention what you want of me, my dear, was all he said. We were then passing a street in the neighbourhood of Portman Square. I was on the point of speaking again when the words were suspended on my lips. I saw my husband. He was just descending the steps of a house, as if leaving it after a visit. His eyes were on the ground. He did not look up when the carriage passed. As the servant closed the door behind him, I noticed that the number of the house was 16. At the next corner I saw the name of the street. It was Vivian Place. Till you happen to know who lives at number 16 Vivian Place, I inquired of my companion. Benjamin started. My question was certainly a strange one, after what he had just said to me. No, he replied. Why do you ask? I've just seen you start leaving that house. Well, my dear, and what of that? My mind's in a bad way, Benjamin. Everything my husband does that I don't understand rouses my suspicion now. Benjamin lifted his withered old hands and let them drop on his knees again in mute lamentation over me. I tell you again I went on. My life is unendurable to me. I won't answer for what I may do if I am left much longer to live in doubt of the one man on earth whom I love. You have had experience of the world. Suppose you were shut out from your star's confidence as I am. Suppose you were as fond of him as I am, and felt your position as bitterly as I feel it. What would you do? The question was plain. Benjamin met it with a plain answer. I think I should find my way, my dear, to some intimate friend of your husbands, he said, and make a few discreet inquiries in that quarter first. Some intimate friend of my husband's? I considered with myself. There was but one friend of his whom I knew of, my uncle's correspondent, Major Fitz David. My heart bet fastest than aim recurred to my memory. Suppose I followed Benjamin's advice. Suppose I applied to Major Fitz David. Even if he, too, refused to answer my questions, my position would not be more helpless than it was now. I determined to make the attempt. The only difficulty in the way, so far, was to discover the Major's address. I had given back his letter to Dr. Starkweather at my uncle's own request. I remembered that the address from which the Major wrote was somewhere in London, and I remembered no more. Thank you, old friend. You have given me an idea already. I said to Benjamin, have you got a directory in your house? No, my dear, he rejoined, looking very much puzzled, but again easily sent out and borrowed one. We returned to the villa. The servant was sent at once to the nearest station to borrow a directory. She returned with the book just as we sat down to dinner. Searching for the Major's name under the letter F, I was startled by a new discovery. Benjamin, I said, this is a strange coincidence. Look here! He looked where I pointed. Major Fitz David's address was number 16, Vivian Place, the very house which I had seen my husband leaving as we passed in the carriage. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of The Law and the Lady This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Vipgamula. The Law and the Lady, by Wilkie Collins. Chapter 7 On the Way to the Major Yes, said Benjamin. It is a coincidence, certainly. Still... He stopped and looked at me. He seemed a little doubtful how I might receive what he had it in his mind to say to me next. Go on, I said. Still, my dear, I see nothing suspicious in what has happened, he resumed. To my mind it's quite natural that your husband, being in London, should pay a visit to one of his friends, and it's equally natural that we should pass through Vivian Place on our way back here. This seems to be the reasonable view. What do you say? I have told you already that my mind is in a bad way about you, Stas, I answered. I say there is some motive at the bottom of his visit to Major Fitz David. It is not an ordinary call. I am firmly convinced it is not an ordinary call. Suppose we get on with our dinner, said Benjamin, resignedly. Here is a loin of mutton, my dear, an ordinary loin of mutton. Is there anything suspicious in that? Very well, then. Show me you have confidence in the mutton. Please, eat. There's the wine again. No, Mr. Eviluria, in that clare. I'll take my oath. It's nothing but innocent juice of the grape. If we can't believe in anything else, let's believe in juice of the grape. You got health, my dear. I adapted myself to the old man's genial humour as readily as I could. We ate, and we drank, and we talked of bygone days. For a little while I was almost happy in the company of my fatherly old friend. Why was I not old, too? Why had I not done with the love, with its certain miseries, its transient delights, its cruel losses, its bitterly doubtful gains? The last autumn flowers in the wind air basked brightly in the last of the autumn sunlight. Benjamin's little dog digested his dinner in perfect comfort on the hearth. The parrot and the next house screeched his vocal accomplishments cheerfully. I don't doubt that it is a great privilege to be a human being, but may it not be the happier destiny to be an animal or a plant? The brief respite was soon over. All my anxieties came back. I was once more a doubting, discontented, depressed creature when I rose to say good-bye. Promise, my dear, you will do nothing rash, said Benjamin as he opened the door for me. Is it rash to go to Major Fitz-David? I asked. Yes, if you go by yourself, you don't know what sort of man he is. You don't know how he may receive you. Let me try first and pave the way, as the saying is. Trust my experience, my dear, in matters of this sort there is nothing like paving the way. I considered a moment. It was due my good friend to consider before I said no. Reflection decided me on taking the responsibility whatever it might be upon my own shoulders. Good or bad, compassionate or cruel, the Major was a man. A woman's influence was the safest influence to trust with him, where the end to be gained was such an end as I had in view. It was not easy to say this to Benjamin without the danger of mortifying him. I made an appointment with the old men to call on me the next morning at the hotel and talk the matter over again. Is it very disgraceful to me to add that I privately determined if the thing could be accomplished to see Major Fitz-David in the interval? Do nothing rash, my dear, in your own interest do nothing rash. Those were Benjamin's last words when we parted for the day. I found you starts waiting for me in our sitting-room at the hotel. His spirit seemed to have revived since I had seen him last. He advanced to meet me cheerfully with an open sheet of paper in his hand. My business has settled malaria sooner than I had expected. He began gaily. Are your purchases all completed, fair lady? Are you free to? I had learned already God helped me to distrust his fits of gaiety. I asked cautiously, do you mean free for today? Free for today and tomorrow and next week and next month and next year, too, for all I know to the contrary, he answered, putting his arm boisterously round my waist. Look here. He lifted the open sheet of paper which I had noticed in his hand and held it for me to read. It was a telegram to the sailing-master of the Yacht informing him that we had arranged to return to Ramsgate that evening, and that we should be ready to sail for the Mediterranean with the next tide. I only waited for your return, said you stars, to send the telegram to the office. He crossed the room as he spoke to ring the bell. I stopped him. I am afraid I can't go to Ramsgate today, I said. Why not? he asked, suddenly changing his tone and speaking sharply. I dare say it will seem ridiculous to some people, but it is really true that he shook my resolution to code a major fits David when he put his arm round me. Even a mere passing caress from him stole away my heart and softly tempted me to yield, but the ominous alteration his tone made another woman of me. I felt once more, and felt more strongly than ever, that in my critical position it was useless to stand still and worse than useless to draw back. I am sorry to disappoint you, I answered. It is impossible for me, as I told you at Ramsgate to be ready to sail at a moment's notice. I want time. What for? Not only his tone, but his look when he put that second question jarred on every nerve in me. He roused in my mind, I can't tell how or why, an angry sense of the indignity that he had put upon his wife in marrying her under a fool's name, fearing that I should answer rashly, that I should say something which my better sins might regret if I spoke at that moment, I said nothing. Women alone can estimate what it cost me to be silent, and men alone can understand how irritating my silence must have been to my husband. You want time, he repeated. I ask you again, what for? My self-control pushed to its extremist limits, failed me. The rash reply flew out of my lips like a bird set free from a cage. I want time, I said, to accustom myself to my right name. He suddenly stepped up to me with a dark look. What do you mean by your right name? Surely you know, I answered. I once thought I was Mrs Woodwill. I have now discovered that I am Mrs MacEllen. He started back at the sound of his own name as if I had struck him. He started back and turned so deadly pale that I feared he was going to drop at my feet in a swoon. Oh, my tongue, my tongue! Why had I not controlled my miserable mischievous woman's tongue? I didn't mean to alarm you, you stas, I said. I spoke at random. Pray forgive me. He waved his hand impatiently as if my penitent words were tangible things, ruffling, worrying things like flies and summer which he was putting away from him. What else have you discovered? He asked in low stern tones. Nothing, you stas. Nothing! He paused as he repeated the word and passed his hand over his forehead in a weary way. Nothing, of course, he resumed speaking to himself, or she would not be here. He paused once more and looked at me searchingly. Don't say again what you said just now, he went on, for your own sake valeria as well as for mine. He dropped into the nearest chair and said no more. I certainly heard the warning, but the only words would really produce an impression on my mind were the words preceding it which he had spoken to himself. He had said, nothing, of course, or she could not be here. If I had found out some other truth beside the truth about the name, would it have prevented me from ever returning to my husband? Was that what he meant? Did this sort of discovery that he contemplated mean something so dreadful that it would have parted us at once and for ever? I stood by his chair in silence and tried to find the answer to those terrible questions in his face. It used to speak to me so eloquently when it spoke of his love. It told me nothing now. He said for some time without looking at me, lost in his own thoughts, then he rose on a sudden and took his head. The friend who lent me the yacht is in town, he said. I suppose I had better see him and say our plans are changed. He tore up the telegram with an ear of sullen resignation as he spoke. You are evidently determined not to go to sea with me, he resumed. We had better give it up. I don't see what else is to be done, do you? His tone was almost a tone of contempt. I was too depressed about myself to alarmed about him to resent it. Decide as you think best, you stars. I said sadly. Every way the prospect seems a hopeless one. As long as I am charred out from your confidence, it matters little whether we live on land or at sea. We cannot live happily. If you could control your curiosity, he answered sternly. We might live happily enough. I thought I had married a woman who was superior to the vulgar failings of her six. A good wife should know better than to pry into affairs of her husbands with which she has no concern. Surely it was hard to bear this. However, I bore it. Is it no concern of mine, I asked gently, when I find that my husband has not married me under his family name. Is it no concern of mine when I hear your mother say in so many words that she pities your wife? It is hard, you stars, to accuse me of curiosity, because I cannot accept the unendurable position in which you have placed me. Your cruel silence is a blight on my happiness and a threat to my future. Your cruel silences is changing us from each other at the beginning of our married life. And you blame me for feeling this? You tell me I am prying into affairs which are yours only? They are not yours only. I have my interest in them too. Oh my darling, why do you travel with our love and our confidence in each other? Why do you keep me in the dark? He answered with a stern and pitiless brevity. For your own good. I turned away from him in silence. He was treating me like a child. He followed me, putting one hand heavily on my shoulder he forced me to face him once more. Listen to this, he said. What I am now going to say to you I say for the first and last time. Valeria, if you ever discover what I am now keeping from your knowledge, from that moment you live a life of torture, your tranquility is gone, your days will be days of terror, your nights will be full of horrid dreams, through no fault of mine, mind, through no fault of mine. Every day of your life you will feel some new distrust, some growing fear of me. You will be doing me the vilest injustice all the time. On my faith as a Christian, on my honor as a man, if you stir a step further in this matter there is an end to your happiness for the rest of your life. Think seriously of what I have said to you. You will have time to reflect. I am going to tell my friend that our plans for the Mediterranean are given up. I shall not be back before the evening. He sighed and looked at me with unutterable sadness. I love you, Valeria, he said. In spite of all that has passed as God is my witness, I love you more dearly than ever. So he spoke, so he left me. I must write the truth about myself however strange it may appear. I don't pretend to be able to analyze my own motives. I don't pretend even to guess how other women might have acted in my place. It is true of me that my husband's terrible warning, all the more terrible in its mystery and its vagueness, produced no deterrent effect on my mind. It only stimulated my resolution to discover what he was hiding from me. He had not been gone two minutes before I rang the bell and ordered the carriage to take me to Major Fitz-David's house in Vivian Place. Walking to and fro while I was waiting, I was in such a fever of excitement that it was impossible for me to sit still. I accidentally caught sight of myself in the glass. My own face startled me. It looked so haggard and so wild. Could I present myself to a stranger? Could I hope to produce the necessary impression in my favor, looking as I looked at that moment? For all I knew to the contrary, my whole future might depend upon the effect which I produced on Major Fitz-David at first sight. I rang the bell again and sent a message to one of the chambermates to follow me to my room. I had no maid of my own with me. The stewardess of the Yacht would have acted as my attendant if we had held to our first arrangement. It mattered little as long as I had a woman to help me. The chambermate appeared. I can give no better idea of the disordered and desperate condition of my mind at that time than by owning that I actually consulted this perfect stranger on the question of my personal appearance. She was a middle-aged woman with a large experience of the world and its wickedness, written legibly in her manner and on her face. I put money into the woman's hand, enough of it to surprise her. She thanked me with a cynical smile, evidently placing her own evil interpretation on my motive for bribing her. What can I do for you, ma'am? she asked in a confidential whisper. Don't speak loud. There's somebody in the next room. I want to look my best, I said, and I have sent for you to help me. I understand, ma'am. What do you understand? She nodded her head significantly and whispered to me again. Lord bless you, I'm used to this, she said. There's a gentleman in the case. Don't mind me, ma'am. It's the way I have. I mean no harm. She stopped and looked at me critically. I wouldn't change my dress if I were you, she went on. The colour becomes you. It was too late to resent the woman's impertinence. There was no help for it but to make use of her. Besides, she was right about the dress. It was of a delicate maze colour, prettily trimmed with lace. I could wear nothing which suited me better. My hair, however, stood in need of some skilled attention. Champermaid rearranged it with a ready hand which showed that she was no beginner in the art of dressing hair. She laid down the coombs and brushes and looked at me. Then looked at the toilet table, searching for something which she apparently failed to find. Where do you keep it? She asked. What do you mean? Look at your complexion, ma'am. You will frighten him if he sees you like that, a touch of colour you must have. Where do you keep it? What, you haven't got it? You never use it! Dear, dear, dear me! For a moment's surprise fairly deprived her of her self-possession. Recovering herself, she begged permission to leave me for a minute. I let her go, knowing what her errand was. She came back with a box of paint and powders, and I said nothing to check her. I saw in the glass my skin take a fool's fairness, my cheeks a fool's colour, my eyes a fool's brightness, and I never rang from it. No, I let the odious conceit go on. I even admired the extraordinary delicacy and dexterity with which it was all done. Anything, I thought to myself, and the madness of that miserable time, so long as it helps me win the major's confidence. Anything, so long as I discover what those last words of my husband really mean. The transformation of my face was accomplished. The chambermaid pointed with her wicked full finger in the direction of the glass. Bear in mind, ma'am, what you looked like when you sent for me, she said, and just see for yourself how you look now. You're the prettiest woman of your style in London, and what a thing pearl powder is when one knows how to use it. CHAPTER VIII I find it impossible to describe my sensations while the carriage was taking me to Major Fitz David's house. I doubt, indeed, if I really felt or thought at all in the true sense of those words. From the moment when I had resigned myself into the hands of the chambermaid, I seemed in some strange way to have lost my ordinary identity, to have stepped out of my own character. At other times my temperament was of the nervous and anxious sort, and my tendency was to exaggerate any difficulties that might place themselves in my way. At other times, having before me the prospect of a critical interview with a stranger, I should have considered with myself that it might be wise to pass over and what it might be wise to say. Now I never gave my coming interview with a major thought. I felt an unrelenting confidence in myself and a blind faith in him. Now neither the past nor the future troubled me. I lived unreflectingly in the present. I looked at the shops as we drove by them, and at the other carriages as they passed mine. I noticed, yes, and enjoyed, the glances of admiration which chance foot passengers on the pavement cast on me. I said to myself, This looks well for my prospect of making a friend of the major. When we drew up at the door in Vivian Place, it is no exaggeration to say that I had but won anxiety, anxiety to find the major at home. The door was opened by a servant out of livery, an old man who looked as if he might have been a soldier in his earlier days. He eyed me with grave attention, would relaxed little by little into sly approval. I asked for major Fitz-David. The answer was not altogether encouraging. The man was not sure whether his master were at home or not. I gave him my card. My cards, being part of my wedding outfit, necessarily had the fool's name printed on them. Mythos you stars would will. The servant showed me into a front room in the ground floor and disappeared with my card in his hand. Looking about me, I noticed a door in the wall opposite the window, communicating with some inner room. The door was not of the ordinary kind. It fitted into the thickness of the partition wall and worked in groves. Looking a little nearer, I saw that it had not been pulled out, so as completely to close the doorway. Only the mirror's jink was left, but it was enough to convey to my ears all that passed in the next room. What did you say, Oliver, when she asked for me, inquired a man's voice, pitched cautiously in a low key? I said I was not sure you were at home, sir. Answered the voice of the servant who had led me in. There was a pause. The first speaker was evidently Major Fitz-David himself. I waited to hear more. I think I had better not see her, Oliver. The major's voice resumed. Very good, sir. Say I have gone out, and you don't know when I shall be back again. Beg the lady to write if she has any business with me. Yes, sir. Stop, Oliver. Oliver stopped. There was another and longer pause. Then the master resumed the examination of the man. Is she young, Oliver? Yes, sir. And pretty? Better than pretty, sir, to my thinking. Aye, aye. What do you call a fine woman, eh, Oliver? Certainly, sir. Tall. Nearly as tall as I am, Major. Aye, aye, aye. A good figure. As slim as a sapling, sir, and as upright as a dart. On second thoughts. I'm at home, Oliver. Show her in, show her in. So far one thing at least seemed to be clear. I had done well in sending for the chambermaid. What would Oliver's report of me have been if I had presented myself to him with my colourless cheeks and my ill-dressed hair? The servant reappeared and conducted me to the inner room. Major Fitz-David advanced to Valkomay. What was the major like? Well, he was like a well-preserved, old gentleman of, say, sixty years old, little and lean and chiefly remarkable by the extraordinary length of his nose. After this feature I noticed next his beautiful brown wig, his sparkling little grey eyes, his rosy complexion, his short military whisker, dyed to match his wig, his white teeth and his winning smile, his smart blue frock coat, with a chameleon in the buttonhole, and his splendid ring, a ruby, flatting on his little finger as he cautiously signed to me to take a chair. Dear Mrs Woodville, how very kind of you this is. I have been longing to have the happiness of knowing you. You stans as an old friend of mine. I congratulated him when I heard of his marriage. May I make confession? I envy him. No, I have seen his wife. The future of my life was perhaps in this man's hands. I studied him attentively. I tried to read his character in his face. The major sparkling little grey eyes softened as they looked at me. The major strong and sturdy voice dropped to his lowest and tenderest tones when he spoke to me. The major's manner expressed, from the moment when I entered the room, a happy mixture of admiration and respect. He drew his chair close to mine as if it were a privilege to be near me. He took my hand and lifted my glove to his lips, as if that glove were the most delicious luxury the world could produce. Dear Mrs Woodville, he said as he softly laid my hand back on my lap, bear with an old fellow who worships your enchanting sex. You really brighten this dull house. It is such a pleasure to see you. There was no need for the old gentleman to make his little confession. Women, children, and dogs proverbially know by instinct who the people are who really like them. The women had a warm friend, perhaps at one time a dangerously warm friend, in Major Fitz-David. I knew as much of him as that before I had settled myself in my chair and opened my lips to answer him. Thank you, Major, for your kind reception and your pretty compliment. I said, matching my host's easy tone as closely as the necessary restraints on my side would permit. You have made your confession. May I make mine? Major Fitz-David lifted my hand again from my lap and drew his chair as close as possible to mine. I looked at him gravely and tried to release my hand. Major Fitz-David declined to let go of it and proceeded to tell me why. I have just heard you speak for the first time, he said. I am under the charm of your voice. Dear Mrs Woodwell, bear with an old fellow who is under the charm. Don't grudge me, my innocent little pleasures. Lend me, I wish I could say, give me this pretty hand. I am such an admirer of pretty hands. I can listen so much better with a pretty hand in mine. The ladies indulge my weakness. Please indulge me, too. Yes? And what were you going to say? I was going to say, Major, that I felt particularly sensible of your kind welcome because, as it happens, I have a favour to ask of you. I was conscious, while I spoke, that I was approaching the object of my visit a little too abruptly. But Major Fitz-David's admiration rose from one climax to another with such alarming rapidity that I felt the importance of administering a practical check to it. I trusted, to those ominous words, a favour to ask of you to administer the check. And I did not trust in vain. My agent admirer gently dropped my hand and, with all possible politeness, changed the subject. The favour is granted, of course, he said. And now tell me, how is our dear Eustace? Anxious and out of spirits, I answered. Anxious and out of spirits, repeated the Major. The enviable man who is married to you, anxious and out of spirits. Monstrous! Eustace fairly disgusts me. I shall take him off the list of my friends. In that case, take me off the list with him, Major. I am in wretched spirits, too. You are my husband's old friend. I may acknowledge to you that our married life is just now not quite a happy one. Major Fitz-David lifted his eyebrows, dyed to match his whiskers in polite surprise. Already, he exclaimed, what can your stars be made of? Has he no appreciation of beauty and grace? Is he the most insensible of living beings? He is the best and dearest of men, I answered. But there is some dreadful mystery in his past life. I could get no further. I could get no further. Major Fitz-David deliberately stopped me. He did it with the smoothest politeness on the surface. But I saw a look in his bright little eyes, which said plainly, if you will, vendor on delicate ground, madam, don't ask me to accompany you. My charming friend, he exclaimed, may I call you my charming friend? You have among a thousand other delightful qualities, which I can see already a vivid imagination. Don't let it get the upper hand. Take an old fellow's advice. Don't let it get the upper hand. What can I offer you, dear Mrs Woodwell? A cup of tea. Call me by my right name, sir, I answered boldly. I have made a discovery. I know as well as you do that my name is MacAllan. The Major started and looked at me very attentively. His manner became grave. His tone changed completely when he spoke next. May I ask? He said, if you have communicated to your husband the discovery, which you have just mentioned to me. Certainly, I answered. I consider that my husband owes me an explanation. I have asked him to tell me what his extraordinary conduct means, and he has refused, in language that frightens me. I have appealed to his mother, and she has refused to explain, in language that humiliates me. Dear Major Fitz-David, I have no friends to take my part. I have nobody to come to but you. Do me the greatest of all favours. Tell me why your friend Eustace has married me under a fool's name. Do me the greatest of all favours. Answered the Major. Don't ask me to say a word about it. He looked, and spite of his unsatisfactory reply, as if he really felt for me. I determined to try my utmost powers of persuasion. I resolved not to be beaten at the first repulse. I must ask you, I said. Think of my position. How can I live knowing what I know and knowing no more? I would rather hear the most horrible thing you can tell me than be condemned, as I am now, to perpetual misgiving and perpetual suspense. I love my husband with all my heart, but I cannot live with him on these terms. The misery of it would drive me mad. I am only a woman, Major. I can only throw myself on your kindness. Don't, pray, pray, don't keep me in the dark. I could say no more. In the reckless impulse of the moment, I snatched up his hand and raised it to my lips. The gallant, dull gentleman, started as if I had given him an electric shock. My dear, dear, lady, he exclaimed, I can't tell you how I feel for you. You charm me, you overwhelm me, you touch me to the heart. What can I say? What can I do? I can only imitate your admirable frankness, your fearless candour. You have told me what your position is. Let me tell you in my turn how I am placed. Compose yourself, pray, compose yourself. I have a smelling-bottle here at the service of the ladies, permit me to offer it. He brought me the smelling-bottle, he put a little stool under my feet, he entreated me to take time enough to compose myself. Infernal fool, I heard him say to himself, as he considerably turned away from me for a few moments. If I had been a husband, come what might of it, I would have told her the truth. Was he referring to Eustace, and was he going to do what he would have done in my husband's place? Was he really going to tell me the truth? The idea had barely crossed my mind when I was startled by a loud and peremptory knocking at the street door. The major stopped and listened attentively. In a few moments the door was opened, and the rustling of a woman's dress was plainly audible in the hall. The major hurried to the door of the room with the activity of a young man. He was too late. The door was violently opened from the outer side just as he got to it. The lady of the rustling dress burst into the room. End of chapter 8