A Life's Secret Part 49

Austin's cheek turned red; and there was that in his tone, his look, which told Mr. Hunter that he had known the fact, known it for years.

'Oh, sir,' he pleaded, 'give me Florence.'

'I tell you that you neither of you know too much,' said Dr. Bevary.

'But, look here, Austin. The best thing you can do is, to go to my house and ask Florence whether she will have you. Then--if you don't find it too much trouble--escort her home.' Austin laughed as he caught up his hat. A certain prevision, that he should win Florence, had ever been within him.

Dr. Bevary watched the room-door close, and then drew a chair in front of his brother-in-law. 'Did it ever strike you that Austin Clay knew your secret, James?' he began.

'How should it?' returned Mr. Hunter, feeling himself compelled to answer.

'I do not know how,' said the doctor, 'any more than I know how the impression, that he did, fixed itself upon me. I have felt sure, this many a year past, that he was no stranger to the fact, though he probably knew nothing of the details.'

To the fact! Dr. Bevary spoke with strange coolness.

'When did _you_ become acquainted with it?' asked Mr. Hunter, in a tone of sharp pain.

'I became acquainted with your share in it at the time Miss Gwinn discovered that Mr. Lewis was Mr. Hunter. At least, with as much of the share as I ever was acquainted with until to-day.'

Mr. Hunter compressed his lips. It was no use beating about the bush any longer.

'James,' resumed the doctor, 'why did you not confide the secret to me?

It would have been much better.'

'To you! Louisa's brother!'

'It would have been better, I say. It might not have lifted the sword that was always hanging over Louisa's head, or have eased it by one jot; but it might have eased _you_. A sorrow kept within a man's own bosom, doing its work in silence, will burn his life away: get him to talk of it, and half the pain is removed. It is also possible that I might have made better terms than you, with the rapacity of Gwinn.'

'If you knew it, why did you not speak openly to me?'

Dr. Bevary suppressed a shudder. 'It was one of those terrible secrets that a third party cannot interfere in uninvited. No: silence was my only course, so long as you observed silence to me. Had I interfered, I might have said "Louisa shall leave you!"'

'It is over, so far as she is concerned,' said Mr. Hunter, wiping his damp brow. 'Let her name rest. It is the thought of her that has well nigh killed me.'

'Ay, it's over,' responded Dr. Bevary; 'over, in more senses than one.

Do you not wonder that Miss Gwinn should have gone back to Ketterford without molesting you again?'

'How can I wonder at anything she does? She comes and she goes, with as little reason as warning.'

Dr. Bevary lowered his voice. 'Have you ever been to see that poor patient in Kerr's asylum?'

The question excited the anger of Mr. Hunter. 'What do you mean by asking it?' he cried. 'When I was led to believe her dead, I shaped my future course according to that belief. I have never acted, nor would I act, upon any other--save in the giving money to Gwinn, for my wife's sake. If Louisa was not my wife legally, she was nothing less in the sight of G.o.d.'

'Louisa was your wife,' said Dr. Bevary, quietly. And Mr. Hunter responded by a sharp gesture of pain. He wished the subject at an end.

The doctor continued--

'James, had you gone, though it had been but for an instant, to see that unhappy patient of Kerr's, your trammels would have been broken. It was not Emma, your young wife of years ago.'

'It was not!----What do you say?' gasped Mr. Hunter.

'When Agatha Gwinn found you out, here, in this house, she startled you nearly to death by telling you that Emma was alive--was a patient in Kerr's asylum. She told you that, when you had been informed in those past days of Emma's death, you were imposed upon by a lie--a lie invented by herself. James, the lie was uttered _then_, when she spoke to you here. Emma, your wife, did die; and the young woman in the asylum was her sister.' Mr. Hunter rose. His hands were raised imploringly, his face was stretched forward in its sad yearning. What!--which was true?

which was he to believe?--'In the gratification of her revenge, Miss Gwinn concocted the tale that Emma was alive,' resumed Dr. Bevary, 'knowing, as she spoke it, that Emma had been dead years and years. She contrived to foster the same impression upon me; and the same impression, I cannot tell how, has, I am sure, clung to Austin Clay.

Louisa was your lawful wife, James.' Mr. Hunter, in the plenitude of his thankfulness, sank upon his chair, a sobbing burst of emotion breaking from him, and the drops of perspiration gathering again on his brow.

'That other one, the sister, the poor patient, is dead,' pursued the doctor. 'As we stood together over her, an hour ago, Miss Gwinn confessed the imposition. It appeared to slip from her involuntarily, in spite of herself. I inquired her motive, and she answered, "To be revenged on you, Lewis Hunter, for the wrong you had done." As you had marred the comfort of her life, so she in return had marred that of yours. As she stood in her impotence, looking on the dead, I asked her which, in her opinion, had inflicted the most wrong, she or you?'

Mr. Hunter lifted his eager face. 'It was a foolish deceit. What did she hope to gain by it? A word at any time might have exposed it.'

'It seems she did gain pretty well by it,' significantly replied Dr.

Bevary. 'There's little doubt that it was first spoken in the angry rage of the moment, as being the most effectual mode of tormenting you: and the terrible dread with which you received it--as I conclude you so did receive it--must have encouraged her to persist in the lie. James, you should have confided in me; I might have brought light to bear on it in some way or other. Your timorous silence has kept me quiet.'

'G.o.d be thanked that it is over!' fervently e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Hunter. 'The loss of my money, the loss of my peace, they seem to be little in comparison with the joy of this welcome revelation.'

He sat down as he spoke and bent his head upon his hand. Presently he looked at his brother-in-law. 'And you think that Clay has suspected this? And that--suspecting it, he has wished for Florence?'

'I am sure of one thing--that Florence has been his object, his dearest hope. What he says has no exaggeration in it--that he would serve for her seven years, and seven to that, for the love he bears her.'

'I have been afraid to glance at such a thing as marriage for Florence, and that is the reason I would not listen to Austin Clay. With this slur hanging over her----'

'There is no slur--as it turns out,' interrupted Dr. Bevary. 'Florence loves him, James; and your wife knew it.'

'What a relief is all this!' murmured Mr. Hunter. 'The woman gone back to Ketterford! I think I shall sleep to-night.'

'She is gone back, never more to trouble you. We must see how her worthy brother can be brought to account for obtaining money under false pretences.'

'I'll make him render back every shilling he has defrauded me of: I'll bring him to answer for it before the laws of his country,' was the wronged man's pa.s.sionate and somewhat confused answer.

But that is more easy to say than to do, Mr. Hunter!

For, a few days subsequent to this, Lawyer Gwinn, possibly scenting that unpleasant consequences might be in store for him, was quietly steaming to America in a fine ship; taking all his available substance with him; and leaving Ketterford and his sister behind.

CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION.

With outward patience and inward wonder, Florence Hunter was remaining at Dr. Bevary's. That something must be wrong at home, she felt sure: else why was she kept away from it so long? And where was her uncle?

Invalids were shut up in the waiting-room, like Patience on a monument, hoping minute by minute to see him appear. And now here was another, she supposed! No. He had pa.s.sed the patients' room and was opening the door of this. Austin Clay!

'What have you come for?' she exclaimed, in the glad confusion of the moment.

'To take you home, for one thing,' he answered, as he approached her.

'Do you dislike the escort, Florence?' He bent forward as he asked the question. A strange light of happiness shone in his eyes; a sweet smile parted his lips. Florence Hunter's heart stood still, and then began to beat as if it would have burst its bounds.

'What has happened?' she faltered.

'This,' he said, taking both her hands and drawing her gently before him. 'The right to hold your hands in mine; the right--soon--to take you to my heart and keep you there for ever. Your father and uncle have sent me to tell you this.'