This Man's Wife Part 88

Christie Bayle stood looking straight before him for some time, and then shook his head softly.

"No: not yet," he said at last.

"But I can't go back without you, man; and it is of no use to stay. As I said before--Why am I stopping here?"

Bayle looked at him in his quiet, smiling way for some moments before replying.

"In the furtherance of your old scheme of unselfishness, and in the hope of doing good to the friends we love."

"Oh, nonsense! Tush, man! Absurd! I wanted to be friends, and be helpful; but that's all over now. See what is going on. Look at that girl. Next thing we hear will be that she is married to one of those two fellows."

"I think if she accepted Lieutenant Eaton, and he married her, and took her away from this place, it would be the best thing that could happen."

"Humph! I don't!" muttered Sir Gordon. "Then look at Mrs Hallam."

Bayle drew in his breath with a low hiss.

"It is horrible, man--it is horrible!" cried Sir Gordon excitedly.

"Bayle, you know how I loved that woman twenty years ago? Well, it was impossible; it would have been May and December even then, for I'm a very old man, Bayle--older than you think. I was an old fool, perhaps, but it was my nature. I loved her very dearly. It was not to be; but the old love isn't dead. Bayle, old fellow, if I had been a good man I should say that the old love was purified of its grosser parts, but that would not fit with me."

"Why judge yourself so harshly?"

"Because I deserve it, man. Well, well, time went on, and when we met again, I can't describe what I felt over that child. At times, when her pretty dark face had the look of that scoundrel Hallam in it, I hated her; but when her eyes lit up with that sweet, innocent smile, the tears used to come into mine, and I felt as if it was Millicent Luttrell a child again, and that it would have been the culmination of earthly happiness to have said, this is my darling child."

"Yes," said Bayle softly.

"I worshipped that girl, Bayle. It was for her sake I came over here to this horrible pandemonium, to watch over and be her guardian. I could not have stayed away. But I must go now. I can't bear it; I can't stand it any longer."

"You will not go," said Bayle slowly.

"Yes, I tell you, I must. It is horrible. I don't think she is ungrateful, poor child; but she is being brutalised by companionship with that scoundrel's set."

"No, no! For heaven's sake don't say that!"

"I do say it," cried the old man impetuously, "she and her mother too.

How can they help it with such surroundings? The decent people will not go--only that Eaton and Mrs Otway. Bless the woman! I thought her a forward, shameless soldier's wife, but she has the heart of a true lady, and keeps to the Hallams in spite of all."

"It is very horrible," said Bayle; "but we are helpless."

"Helpless? Yes; if he would only kill himself with his wretched drink, or get made an end of somehow."

"Hush!" said Bayle, rather sternly; "don't talk like that."

"Now you are beginning to bully me, Bayle," cried the old man querulously. "Don't you turn against me. I get insults enough at that scoundrel Hallam's--enough to make my blood boil."

"Yes, I know, I know," said Bayle.

"And yet, old idiot that I am, I go there for the sake of these women, and bear it all--I, whom people call a gentleman, I go there and am civil to the scoundrel who robbed me, and put up with his insolence and his scowls. But I'm his master still. He dare not turn upon me. I can make him quail when I like. Bayle, old fellow," he cried, with a satisfied chuckle, "how the scoundrel would like to give me a dose!"

Bayle sat down with his brow full of the lines of care.

"I'm not like you," continued Sir Gordon, whom the relation of his troubles seemed to relieve, "I won't be driven away. I think you were wrong."

"No," said Bayle quietly, "it was causing her pain. It was plain enough that in his sordid mind my presence was a greater injury than yours. He was wearing her life away, and I thought it better that our intimacy should grow less and less."

"But, my boy, that's where you were wrong. Bad as the scoundrel is, he could never have had a jealous thought of that saint--there, don't call me irreverent--I say it again, that saint of a woman."

"Oh, no, I can't think that myself," said Bayle, "but my presence was a standing reproach to him."

"How could it be more than mine?"

"You are different. He always hated me from the first time we met at King's Castor."

"I believe he did," said Sir Gordon warmly; "but see how he detests the sight of me."

"Yes, but you expressed the feeling only a few minutes ago when you said you were still his master and you made him quail. My dear old friend, if I could ever have indulged in a hope that Robert Hallam had been unjustly punished, his behaviour towards you would have swept it away.

It is always that of the conscience-stricken man--his unreasoning dislike of the one whom he has wronged."

"Perhaps you are right, Bayle, perhaps you are right. But there was no doubt about his guilt--a scoundrel, and I am as sure as I am that I live, the rascal made a h.o.a.rd somehow, and is living upon it now."

"You think that? What about the sealing speculation?"

"Ah! he and Crellock have made some money _by_ it, no doubt; but not enough to live as they do. I know that Hallam is spending my money and triumphing over me all the time, and I would not care if those women were free of him, but I'm afraid that will never be."

Bayle remained silent.

"Do you think she believes in his innocence still?"

Bayle remained silent for a time, and then said slowly: "I believe that Millicent Hallam, even if she discovered his guilt, and could at last believe in it, would suffer in secret, and bear with him in the hope that he would repent."

"And never leave him?"

"Never," aid Bayle firmly, "unless under some terrible provocation, one so great that no woman could bear; and from that provocation, and the deathblow it would be to her, I pray heaven she may be spared."

"Amen!" said Sir Gordon softly.

"Bayle," he added, after a pause, "I am getting old and irritable; I feel every change. I called you a fool!"

"The irritable spirit of pain within--not you."

"Ah! well," said Sir Gordon, smiling, "you know me by heart now, my dear boy. I want to say something ivery serious to you. I never said it before, though I have thought about it ever since those happy evenings we spent at Clerkenwell."

Bayle turned to him wonderingly.

"You will bear with me--I may hurt your feelings."

"If you do I know you will heal them the next time we meet," replied Bayle.