This Man's Wife Part 98

THE SHADOW ACROSS THE PATH.

What to do? How to bear it? How far she--woman of purest thought--had sinned in partic.i.p.ating as she had in Hallam's crime?

It was as if the shock had blunted and confused her understanding, so that she could not think clearly or make out any plan for her future proceeding. And all the time she was haunted as by a great horror.

Now light would come, and she would seem to see her course clearly and wonder that she should have hesitated before. It was all so simple.

Sir Gordon was there in Sydney, her oldest friend. He it was who had been the sufferer by her husband's defalcations, and of course it was her duty to go straight to him and tell him all.

No sooner had she arrived at this than she shrank from the idea with horror. What could she have been thinking! To go to Sir Gordon was to denounce her husband as a criminal, and the result would be to send him back to the prison lines and the hideous convict life that had changed him from a man of refinement to a brutal sensualist, from whom in future she felt that she must shrink with horror.

Those last thoughts distracted her. Shrink with horror from him whom she had so dearly loved, from him whom she had believed a martyr to a terribly involved chain of evidence! It was too terrible!

But what was she to do? She could not lead this life of luxury, purchased by the money she had so innocently brought; that was certain.

She and Julia must leave there at once. They could not stay.

She shivered as she thought of the difficulties that would rise up. For where were they? Out here, in this half-civilised place, penniless; and what defence had she to bring forward if Robert Hallam, her husband and master, said no, she should stay, and claimed her and her child as his?

There was light again. She could appeal to the governor, for Hallam had forfeited his social rights, and she would be free.

Down came the darkness and shut out that light, closing her in with a blackness so terrible that she shuddered.

It was impossible--impossible!

"He is my husband," she moaned, "and were he ten times the sinner, I could not take a step that would injure the man I loved--the father of my child!"

Christie Bayle!

Yes; Christie Bayle, truest and most faithful of friends, who in the days of his boyish love had resigned himself to her wishes, and promised to be her brother through life.

How good he had been; and how she had in her agony of spirit reviled him, and called him her husband's enemy! How his conduct seemed to stand out now, bright and shining! How full of patient self-denial!

Brother, indeed, through all, while she had been--she knew it now, and shivered in her agony--so obstinately blind.

Christie Bayle would help her and protect Julia, whom he loved as if she were his child. He would--yes, she reiterated the thought with a strange feeling of joy--he would help her, as he had helped her before, in this time of anguish, and protect Julia from that man.

For now came, in all its solid horror, the reality of that which had only been cast, so far, as a shadow across her path.

This man, Crellock, who had seemed like Hallam's evil genius from the first, but whom she saw now as her husband's willing tool, had conceived a pa.s.sion for her darling child. More--he was her husband's chosen companion in pleasure and in guilt, and Hallam would--if he had not done so already--accept him.

"And I sit here bemoaning my suffering," she cried pa.s.sionately, "when such a blow is impending for my darling. Shame! shame! Am I ever to be so weak a woman, so mere a puppet in others' hands? Heaven give me strength to be forgetful of self, and strong in defence of my child!"

She pressed back her hair from her brow, which became full of lines, and, resting her elbows upon her knees, her chin upon her hands, she sat there gazing as it were into the future, as she told herself that her own sufferings must be as nought, but that she must save Julia from such a fate.

Sir Gordon? Bayle? No! no! Only as a last resource. Not even then; they must be left. They had known the truth from the first--she saw it now--and in pity for her had borne all she had said, and helped her.

No! to ask their aid was to punish her husband. That could not be. She must act alone, weak woman as she was. She must be strong now, and she and Julia must leave this man at once. They must take some cottage or lodging in the town, and work for a living. That must be the first step.

Then came the black cloud again, to shut out the hope. Hallam would not allow them to go; and if they could steal away they were absolutely penniless.

She sat gazing before her, feeling as if old age had come suddenly to freeze her faculties and render her helpless; but, starting from her blank sense of misery, she forced herself to think.

What should she do? Julia should not be a convict's wife; she felt that she would rather see her dead.

Once more a ray of hope--a thin, bright ray of light piercing the cloud of darkness ahead.

Lieutenant Eaton!

He loved her child, and it had seemed as if Julia cared for him, but in her maiden innocency she had always shrunk from anything more than a friendly show of attachment.

"But he is manly, and evidently devoted to her," said Mrs Hallam in a low voice. "She would soon learn to love him."

She ran over in her own mind all that had pa.s.sed since the acquaintance on ship-board began. Eaton's attentions, the pleasant hours Julia had seemed to spend in his company, the young officer's manner--everything pointed to its being on his part more than the gallant attention of one of his stamp. Then there was the life here since they had landed. His occasional calls; his evident hesitancy. It was all so plain. He loved Julia dearly, but he was kept back from proposing for her by her connections.

"But he will ignore them for her sake," she cried at last joyously. "He must be learning day by day how true and good she is. He will forget everything, and she will be saved."

Mrs Hallam started up with the ray of hope cutting its way more and more brightly through the dark cloud ahead; and then her senses seemed to reel, a terrible fit of giddiness came over her as she tottered, caught at a chair, and then fell heavily upon the floor.

VOLUME FOUR, CHAPTER SEVEN.

"TO THE BETTER WAY."

When Mrs Hallam came to herself, she was in bed, where she had lain, talking incoherently at times, during the greater part of a week.

It was evening, and the sun was shining in at the open window, lighting up Julia's dark hair as she sat with her face in the shadow, careworn and evidently suffering deeply.

Mrs Hallam lay for some time feeling restful and calm. The fevered dream was at an end, and she had slept long, to wake now with that pleasurable sensation upon her that is given to the sick when an attack is at an end, and nature is tenderly repairing the damages of the a.s.sault. She was lying there; Julia, her beloved child, was by her side. A veil was between her and the past, and there was nothing but the peaceful sensation of rest.

Then, as her eyes wandered slowly about the room and rested at last upon her child, her mind began to work; the mother's quick instinct awoke, and she read trouble in Julia's face. The memories that were slumbering came back, and she tried to rise in her bed but sank back.

"Mother!"

"My child! Tell me quickly: have I been ill?"

"Yes; very, very ill. But you are better now, dear mother. I am so lonely! Ah! at last, at last!"

Worn out and weak with constant watching, Julia threw herself sobbing by the bedside, but only to hurriedly dry her eyes and try to be calm.

She succeeded, and answered the questions that came fast; and as she replied, Mrs Hallam trembled, for she could see that Julia was keeping something back.

"Have I been delirious?" she said at last.

"Yes, dear; but last night you slept so peacefully, and all through to-day. There, let me call Thisbe."

"No, not yet," said Mrs Hallam, clinging to her child's arm, as a great anxiety was longing to be satisfied. "Tell me, Julia, did I talk--talk of anything while I was like that?"

Julia nodded quickly, and the despairing look deepened in her eyes.

"Not--not of your father, my child?" panted the suffering woman.