This Man's Wife Part 94

"I don't consider it too horrible to think of," he said smiling. "I'm always looking back on that day and seeing it all, every bit. That poor wretch shrieking out with pain."

"Mr Crellock!" cried Julia.

"Yes! me. Not hardly able to move himself, or bear his pain, and half mad with thirst."

"Oh, pray, hush!"

"Not I, my dear," continued Crellock, "and out of it all I can see coming through the sunshine a bright angel to hold water up to my lips, and wipe the sweat of agony off my brow."

"Mr Crellock! I cannot bear to listen to all this."

"But you could bear to look at it all, and do it, bless you!" said the man warmly. "That day I swore something, and I'm going to keep my oath."

"Don't talk about it any more, please," said Julia imploringly.

"If you don't wish me to, I won't," said Crellock smiling. "I do want to talk to you though about a lot of things, and one is about the drink."

Julia looked at him wonderingly.

"Yes, about the drink," continued Crellock; "the old man drinks too much."

Julia's face contracted.

"And I've been a regular brute lately, my dear. You see it has been such a temptation after being kept from it for years. I haven't been able to stop myself. It isn't nice for a young girl like you to see a man drunk, is it?"

Julia shook her head.

"Then I shan't never get drunk again. I'll only take a little."

"Oh! I am so glad," cried Julia with girlish eagerness.

"Are you?" he said smiling, "then so am I. That's settled then. I want to be as decent as I can. You see you're such a good religious girl, Miss Julia, while I'm such a bad one."

"But you could be better."

"Could I? I don't like being a hypocrite. I'm not ashamed to own that I was a bad one, and got into all that trouble in the old country."

"Oh! hush, please. You did wrong, and were punished for it. Now all that is pa.s.sed and forgiven."

"I always said you were an angel," said Crellock earnestly, "and you are."

"Nonsense! Let us talk of something else."

"No: let's talk about that. I want to stand fair and square with you, and I don't want you to think me a humbug and a hypocrite."

"Mr Crellock, I never thought so well of you before," said Julia warmly. "Your promise of amendment has made me feel so happy."

"Has it?" he cried eagerly, but with a rough kind of respect mingled with his admiration. "So it has me. I mean it--that I do. You shall never see me the worse for drink again."

"And you will attend more to the business, then?"

"What business?" he said.

"The business that you and my father carry on."

"The business that I and your father carry on?"

"Yes, the speculations about the seals and the oil."

Crellock stared at her. "Why, what have you got in your pretty little head?" he said at last.

"I only alluded to the business in which you and my father are partners."

"Pooh!" cried Crellock, with a sort of laugh. "What nonsense it is of him! Why, my dear, you are not a child now. After all the trouble you and your mother went through. You are a clever, thoughtful little woman, and he ought to have taken you into his confidence."

"What do you mean?" cried Julia, for she felt dazed.

"Your father! What's the use of a man like him--an old hand--setting himself up as a saint, and playing innocent? It isn't my way. As you say, when one has done wrong and suffered punishment, and is whitewashed--"

"Mr Crellock," said Julia, flushing, "I cannot misunderstand your allusions; but if you dare to insinuate that my poor father was guilty of any wrong-doing before he suffered, it is disgraceful, and it is not true."

Crellock looked at her admiringly.

"Bless you!" he said warmly. "I didn't think you had so much spirit in you. Now be calm, my dear; there's nothing worse than being a sham--a hypocrite. I never was. I always owned up to what I had done. Your father never did."

"My father never did anything wrong!" cried Julia.

Crellock smiled.

"Come, I should like us to begin by being well in each other's confidence," he said as he leaned over and patted the arching neck of Julia's mare. "You must know it, so what's the use of making a pretence about it to me?"

"I do not understand you," said Julia indignantly.

"Not understand me? Why, my dear girl, you know your father was transported for life?"

"Do I know it?" cried Julia, with an indignant flash of her eyes.

"Yes, of course you do. Well, what was it for?"

"Because appearances were cruelly against him," cried Julia.

"They were," said Crellock dryly.

"Because his friends doubted him, consequent upon the conduct of a man he trusted," said Julia bitterly.

"I never knew your father trust any one, Miss Julia, and I knew him before he went to King's Castor. We were clerks in the same office."

"He trusted you," cried Julia indignantly; "and you deceived him, and he suffered for your wicked sin."