Up in Ardmuirland Part 17

What a moment of agony for the poor stricken wife! There could no longer he room for doubt. She had indeed been fooled and deceived! Her innate courage rose and sustained her under the weight of the trial. She would leave that house--now, once and for all--before her betrayer could return! Never, never would she look upon his smiling, treacherous face again!

Animated with fresh strength, she rose and hastily began her preparations. She fetched the baby's warm wraps from the inner room and began to dress the child. The other woman looked on in silence--dazed for the moment by Penny's brisk movements. At last she found a voice.

"What are you doing?" she cried. "Surely you will not take the child out to-night!"

Penny made no answer, but fetched her own outdoor clothes and dressed hastily.

"Where are you going, on such a night?" cried the other excitedly.

"Anywhere," answered Penny, her lips white and her eyes flashing.

"Anywhere out of reach of that man."

"No, no!" the woman expostulated. "Wait till morning! I'll see him then and settle everything."

"What can you settle that can make me stay?" asked Penny, in bitter wrath. "Do you think that I would spend another night under this roof?

Wait here and see him, if you wish--you have the right to be here, not I!

He will never see me again."

She ran back into her bedroom for the little purse. In it were a few pounds she had saved up to buy the man an easy chair for his coming birthday. How often she had pictured his pleasure when he would be able to lean back comfortably in it on the opposite side of the fireplace and smoke his evening pipe, his handsome face beaming love and admiration.

The vision filled her with fresh loathing. She scarcely bade the other woman good-night, but clasping her babe hurried from the room. Swiftly down the stairs she ran, heedless of the cries of the woman she had left behind, and out into the wind and rain of the dreary street--fit emblem, in its forlorn wretchedness, of the future which loomed hopeless before her.

Two things added to the poignancy of Penny's unavailing grief in after years: the innocence of Arthur Spence of any deception (except silence regarding his past), and the fact that she never knew this until he had given his life in his country's service. It was then too late to reap comfort in her supreme sorrow from the knowledge of his uprightness both to herself and to the wretched woman who had caused her unreflecting flight on that fatal night.

For many months she had been hidden from all her former acquaintances in the Convent of Mercy, whose Superior she had long been intimate with.

There she had nursed her baby through an illness which at last proved fatal. Grief at the loss of her little one, added to her already heavy burden of trouble, had told upon her own health, and for weeks she had needed to be nursed herself. After her recovery, as she shrank from returning home, the good Sisters obtained for her the post of nurse with our family.

Two years later Stephen Dale died suddenly. Penny had written to him and to her mother more than once, but got no answer; the intimation of her father's death was the first communication she had received since leaving home. Later on a letter was forwarded to her, which had been found among her father's papers. It was from Spence, and was dated the day following her flight. In an agony of mind the man had searched for her everywhere, and failing to discover any trace of her whereabouts, had written to her under cover to her father. He, poor man, could not send it--even had he been willing--having no idea of her address.

The letter was a pitiful appeal to Penny to return, and contained a full explanation of his conduct. The marriage with the woman Millar--never a happy one--had proved invalid, owing to the survival of her former husband to a later date. This, however, only became known to Spence after the woman's intemperate habits had told upon her brain, and landed her in an asylum. She had really believed that her husband--a worthless fellow--had died on the day stated. It was characteristic of the chivalrous nature of the man that Spence shrank from telling her, after her recovery, of the error; content to send her an annual allowance on condition that they should remain apart--as they had agreed to do long before. Although the woman had no legal claim upon him, he had continued this allowance even after his marriage with Penny, hoping to secure by this means freedom from molestation.

It was natural that Penny, knowing all the circ.u.mstances, should desire to communicate with her husband and become reconciled. My dear old father, to whom she had confided her trouble, at once inquired through the War Office as to where Arthur Spence was then stationed. The answer told of his death in action three months earlier.

Penny--poor soul!--when giving me these details many years later, utterly broke down, as she accused herself of having wronged--however unwittingly--by her suspicions the brave and upright man whose loss she still keenly deplored, and whose soul (I make no doubt) she will never omit to recommend to G.o.d in her daily prayers as long as life is granted to her.