CHAPTER XII.
THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.
Once inside the house, Heather, all in a flutter, ran up to her own room, and asked herself why she had returned. Even now—even with the consciousness on her that she had done a very foolish thing, at which Arthur would be naturally vexed—she felt she could not have gone on; that the journey, with, that awful dread weighing her down, would have been one of pain instead of pleasure; that it would be far more a holiday to her—far and away more, to stay behind with her husband—her poor, careworn, miserable husband—than to travel through the loveliest scenery on earth.
She had told Alick it was a feeling, a foolish though uncontrollable feeling, which made her turn back; but she would have spoken more correctly had she said it was the love of her heart—that love which is stronger than death, more constant than sorrow.
Yet she knew she never could make Arthur understand this; knew she never could hope to impress upon him how miserable she had felt after the farewell at the station; how utterly impossible it was for her to go on and be happy, while he remained behind alone.
How should she tell him? With a vague desire to break the fact of her return to others before facing her husband, she went downstairs again, and into the kitchen, meaning to tell Prissy, she feared Mr. Dudley would be lonely, and so returned, sending the rest of the family on. She meant to have a comfortable chat with Prissy, for her heart was very full, and she longed to have a good talk with some one; but, when she entered the kitchen, no Prissy was there; no Prissy was in the back-kitchen either, nor in the washhouse, nor in the larder, nor in the coal-cellar, for even into that last hiding-place Heather peeped.
Then it suddenly occurred to Mrs. Dudley that there was a terrible look of order about the kitchen; about the pots and pans, the plates and dishes; everything was in its proper position; the chairs were ranged against the wall, the table had no crockery heaped upon it, there was not even a glass-cloth flung carelessly aside.
What could it mean? Heather stood considering this question, and all at once her heart gave a great leap; not of joy, but fear. There was no fire; the fact had not struck her at first—perhaps because she was then intent on looking for Prissy—now, however, it came home to her, not merely that there was no fire, but that the wood, paper, and coals, were laid ready for lighting; ready for lighting in both kitchens. A woman must, like Heather, be a practical housekeeper to understand the full significance of such a spectacle.
Both fires out; both laid ready for lighting; that bespoke premeditation.
Now, premeditation meant, not that Prissy had gone upstairs to dress, and forgotten her fires; not that Prissy had gone out shopping, and remained to gossip; not that Prissy had met her lover, who made time pass so pleasantly, that minutes and fuel were alike forgotten; but that Prissy had gone out with leave to do so granted, and that she had conscientiously waited to put the house into apple-pie order before her departure.
One of Heather’s greatest comforts, in leaving home, had been the idea that Prissy would see that her husband wanted for nothing; that she would be always on guard, always at hand to get him whatever he wanted.
Mrs. Dudley had arranged that Prissy’s mother was to come up by the late train that night, and keep her company while the family were away; and the very last words she spoke, before leaving home, were, “Don’t forget, Prissy, to write to me often; and if Mr. Dudley should be ill, I depend upon your sending for me;” in answer to which Prissy said, “I will see to everything, mum, as if you was at home; and I’ll write every two days, and never be out of the house till you come back.”
After that, to return and find the bird flown, was rather disheartening. Mrs. Dudley could not unravel the enigma, and she thereupon slowly ascended the stairs, wondering as she went what it all could mean.
She passed her own room, and wending her way up another flight of stairs, entered that belonging to Prissy. There, on the foot of the bed, hung the girl’s cotton gown, her apron, and various other articles of apparel which Heather recognized at a glance as her every-day habiliments.
With an awful creeping dread upon her, Heather opened the door of the closet where Prissy hung up her gown, and found, not the girl’s best dress, bonnet, and shawl, but empty pegs—a fearful vacancy.
What could it all mean? She looked again around the apartment, and perceived Prissy’s box was gone. Clearly, her trusty domestic had departed, not merely for the afternoon but for a longer period.
With a sense of suffocation on her, Heather walked to the small window which was partially open, and stood there wondering what she should do next.
The state of the house increased her difficulty as to the best means of explaining her return to Arthur. Supposing he had made any arrangement with which her presence would interfere; supposing it should seem as though she had come back to play the part of a spy, to be a torment instead of a blessing; what could he say, what was there he might not imagine?
That Prissy ever left the house of her own good-will, Heather’s understanding refused to credit; and why Arthur should have sent her away, Heather likewise could not comprehend.
If she had done anything wrong, and been discharged, she would have taken all her clothes; if she had not done anything wrong, why did Arthur let her go? Over this question, Heather, still with her bonnet on, stood puzzling; and, as she stood, she saw the men leave off work and don their coats, and pass out of the yard; at first, in gangs, afterwards in twos and threes—finally, one by one.
There they went—foremen, overlookers, clerks, sub-manager; finally, Arthur went down to the gate, talking to Morrison as they walked.
At the gate Morrison paused and seemed impressing something earnestly on Mr. Dudley, to which the latter listened with an appearance of interest. Then Arthur replied; and, at length satisfied, as it seemed, Morrison touched his hat, and passed through the gate, while Arthur looked after him. As he came up the yard, Heather, from her post of observation, could see his face distinctly; that face which had struck her girlish fancy, but which was now so changed—so changed! oh, God!
As she looked at him, and remembered the first day they had ever set eyes on one another, the tears came welling up, and for a moment she could not see him because of the mist which blinded her.
Poor Arthur! Poor Arthur! In the after days it was a comfort to her to recollect that at that moment there came no thought of selfish pity into her mind for poor Heather. Poor Heather! changed and broken too.
If he had suffered, had not she? if he had borne, had not she? if he had found his cross almost heavier than he could endure, had not hers also bowed her to the very ground? had not she wept her tears, and fought with her anguish? Yea, truly; and yet Heather, looking at that pale, worn, haggard man, who came slowly lounging up the yard, thought of none of these things, but only of the blasted hopes, of the proud, disappointed, broken heart of the husband of her youth.
The sunlight, flaring down into the court-yard, shone full upon his face as he walked back from the entrance gates, swinging the great key on his forefinger; and Heather, sheltered from observation by the window-curtain, looked down on the man she had returned to comfort, not knowing exactly what to do—in what terms to announce her change of purpose.
The expression on his countenance, which had so struck her while the train moved out of the station, was on his countenance still. He was all alone, as he thought, now; with no need to put on a mask, with no necessity to smile, or speak, or deceive; and as Heather, watching him, beheld that look of misery deepen and deepen, while he walked so slowly back, an awful dread took possession of her—a dread of something being about to happen which made her tremble as though in an ague-fit.
He was now beside the well—an old-fashioned one, with rope and windlass, up which the men had in former days drawn buckets of water, but now neglected and disused. It had long been covered over for fear of accidents, and though the boards had shrunk one from another with the heat of many summers, still the planking was secure enough to render all fear of accident unnecessary.
Beside this well, Arthur now paused for a moment, apparently irresolute; then he stooped, and through the stillness the sound of a splash, of something falling down, and then touching water, ascended to where Heather stood.
At that moment she could not have moved had it been to save her life; but she could watch, and she did, to see Arthur rise with a face from which even despair was blotted out; for despair implies a certain ability left to wrestle against, or, at all events, to feel utter hopelessness; but now, the sun looked down upon a man who had passed even that stage, who had gone through his last struggle, cast his last die.
It was with the expression of a person already dead, Arthur turned from the well and walked across the court-yard, with the key no longer swinging on his forefinger.
What could he be intending to do? Heather dropped on her knees beside the window, and watched him enter the carpenter’s shop. She dared not have met him then. There came upon her such an access of terror when she heard that key splash into the water, as swept everything else out of her heart for the time being, save the most unconquerable, abject fear—a fear which prevented her even thinking, which took away the power of putting two and two together, and conceiving what project it might be Arthur had in hand.
She was like one in a dream—with a great horror on her, she fell on her knees and watched. Through it all, there was a vague, night-mare kind of consciousness that she and Arthur were locked up alone together—that escape for either of them was not possible—that if help were needed, help was now unattainable.
In her despair she prayed—holding on by the window-sill as if she were going to be torn from it, she framed some sort of petition to God to help her. Wearied and exhausted, frightened, and with that awful, vague, nameless dread at length taking a tangible form, it seemed to her as though, for a moment, everything faded from her eyes—as though, even while her lips were moving and her heart uttering some terrified words of supplication, her senses left her for a moment—the yard swam round, the buildings went up and down before her sight, the sunlight turned to darkness, and then——
Then, as if, after having been swung out into space for an immeasurable distance, she came back to the same point again—and the mist melted away, and the light was clear once more; and with a keen vision, though still with a giddy and confused feeling in her head, Heather beheld Arthur coming out of the carpenter’s shop, dragging a bag of shavings after him, which he shot out into one of the lower floors of the silk factory.
Still she watched him. He piled shavings, sackful after sackful, among the bales of raw silk—he carried the old wrapperings and more shavings into the counting-house—she saw him bring jars of oil and turpentine and empty them on the heap he had already collected.
“He has gone mad,” she decided, rising up; “he has gone mad, and he is going to set the place on fire; and we cannot get out, and there is no help to be had.”
None, for they were locked in. She dared not go downstairs and beat at the gates, for she felt more afraid now of encountering Arthur than even of remaining where she was.
Oh! those cruel walls, those dead, eyeless, earless walls, to which she might scream herself hoarse in vain—this solitude in the midst of numbers—this helplessness, with help within a few feet of her—this prison without a gaoler—this cage in which they were both about to be burned to death.
Well enough she knew that if once the factory caught fire, no living creature could long breathe within that confined space. It would be like trying to exist in a brick oven with a furnace alight at the one end. Already she seemed to feel the hot tongues of flame licking her cheek—already the struggle for life, dear life, appeared to have begun—already the scorching heat was drying up her blood—already she was beating against the closed gates, beating with her clenched hands till they were bruised and bleeding, while the fire raged behind, and the air became hotter and hotter, the flames fiercer and fiercer.
Already the horror she had often felt of fire in that enclosed place seemed to have become a tangible reality; and, with a low cry, Heather rushed from the room, and down the staircase.
A moment before Arthur had come back across the yard, instinctively she felt for matches. Another second and it would be too late; all fear of meeting him was gone; all fear, save the dread of an awful death for both; and so she flew down the stairs and met him as he came out of his own apartment, with a box of vestas in his hand.
She need not have feared meeting him; all the dread she had felt was as nothing compared to the terror which came into his face at sight of his wife. They had changed places now, and it was she, not he, who was strong and mad; in her frenzy, she struck the box out of his hand, and it fell over the banisters, the matches scattering on the floor-cloth below. Then she threw herself upon him, and asked if he knew what it was he had been about to do. With passionate sobs she prayed him to stay his hand, and to spare them both. Scarcely knowing what she said, she asked what could have tempted him to such a deed; if he were insane to think of committing so great a sin. With her arms twined around him, and her words flowing fast and unpremeditated, she poured out all her dread, her trouble, her horror, in a few hurried sentences.
She might as well have spared her remonstrances and her entreaties. From the moment he beheld his wife, all hope of escape, honourable escape, even by death, from the position in which he had placed himself, vanished. He had laid his plans so well, as he thought; and behold, in a moment, her love overthrew them all! While she, clinging to him, went on praying and pleading, weeping and sobbing, all this passed through the man’s mind. For the time, he had been stunned, cowed, as though he had met a phantom; but now, pushing her from him, with a sudden force which made her stagger and reel, he disengaged himself from her, and backing into the room he had just left, locked and bolted the door behind him.
“Arthur!” she cried; but there came no answer. “Arthur!” she only heard him walking across the floor.
“Arthur!” she shook the handle, and put her knee against the panel.
“Arthur! for God’s sake open the door, and let me speak to you!” still no reply.
Would he drop out by the window, and so escape and finish the work he had begun? She ran downstairs and out of the house; but the sash was not lifted. Would he try to fire the place from within? She returned to the door, and beat against it, crying, “only a word, dear; only one word.”
And in reply there came something which sounded like a gurgle and a sob, followed by a heavy fall, which seemed to shake the house to its very foundation.
“Arthur!”—there was dead silence. “Arthur!” there was not even a breath in answer; nothing but silence—a silence which might be felt.
She knelt down and tried to look through the keyhole, but could distinguish nothing. As she rose, she chanced to look down at her light muslin dress, and saw that there was blood upon it—blood oozing under the door, trickling in a narrow stream out upon the landing.
She ran back the whole width of the lobby, and flung herself against the door; but of what avail was her poor strength? Then she rushed out upon the roof of the house, with a vague intention of pulling up the ladder after her, and fleeing over other roofs for help and succour; but the inexorable walls rose high above;—there were no means of escape, no chance of assistance.
Then she sped down the stairs once more—down the stairs and past the landing where there was already a dark pool of blood forming outside the door. She crossed the yard to the carpenter’s shop, and, seizing a hammer, ran to the outer gates, and struck blow after blow, striving to break the lock; she called and cried, but the people sweeping by never heard her, for the noise of passing conveyances deadened a voice already hoarse with excitement, exhausted with fear. She beat against the solid wood, and her blows were but woman’s blows, faint, and feeble, and weak; she screamed for help, but there was no one to hear.
In her anguish, in that awful extremity of her life, she looked once again round the yard; and, as she did so, her eye fell on the factory bell, which hung suspended on the highest point of the building.
That was her last hope; desperately, almost, she flung aside the useless hammer, and sprung to the bell; she seized the rope with her soft, fair hands, and clang, clang, clang, went the clapper—clang, clang, clang.
Through the summer evening’s air, through the gathering twilight, the bell rang out—clang, clang; cling, clang, clang; the arms never grew tired, the hands never felt the blistering of the rope. Clang, clang; Heather never ceased till she heard a knocking at the gate, and the police inquiring what was the matter?—“who’s inside?”
Thrice Heather tried to answer them, but her lips refused to utter any articulate sound.
Then, “Break open the gate!” she at length managed to reply. “Make haste!—make haste!”
They sent for picks and crowbars, and beat in the wood-work; then a couple of policemen stepped inside, whilst a couple more kept the crowd back.
“Come upstairs!” Heather said; and when they reached the landing, she pointed to the floor, and then to the room, where some tragedy, she knew, had taken place.
“It is locked!” she replied. “My husband!”
One of the men put his shoulder to the door and forced it open. He could not fling it wide, on account of something which barred the entrance; but, squeezing himself through the aperture, he entered the room, and found Arthur lying on the floor with his throat cut, and a razor beside him!
“Bear a hand here,” the man whispered to his fellow, “and don’t let her come in;” but Heather was not to be kept back. She crept through the opening likewise, and stood face to face with that, the visible presence of the dread which had brought her back miles and miles to preserve him from one crime only—so it seemed to her—in order that he might commit another!
Between them, the men lifted the body and placed it on the bed; then one went for a doctor, and the other stood waiting for Mrs. Dudley, who had gone groping after a light.
She knew where there were matches, and she soon found a candle; and when she had lighted it, she returned, and, bravely enough, looked on the face of the only man she ever loved.
“I don’t think he’s dead, ma’am,” said the policeman, with a rough sympathy. “I have been trying to stop the bleeding; and, if you will give me some more handkerchiefs, I’ll see what we can do till the doctor comes.”
Mechanically, almost, Heather gave him what he asked for. Even in the midst of this tremendous sorrow, she could not shut out the memory of all those upheaped shavings, soaked in oil—of all, perhaps, those terrible men, now they were free of the premises, might discover.
If he were dead, he had left it all—the shame, the discovery, the punishment behind; but if he were not dead, and that detection then took place?
Had it not been for the fact of the door being secured inside, the man would have begun to suspect strange things of Heather; her manner was so singular, so wandering, so incomprehensible.
“Do you know how this happened?” he asked.
“He went mad, I think,” she answered. “I am sure he was mad; he has been odd, and unlike himself for some time;” and then she began to sob convulsively.
“Come, come, ma’am, you must not give way like this, you know,” said the doctor, who just then entered the apartment. “Take charge of her, will you?” he added, to a person who followed him in, “and don’t allow her to come back here at present. There, ma’am, pray go with this gentleman; we’ll see to whatever is necessary; you will only be in our way.”
“That is quite true, Mrs. Dudley,” said a familiar voice, tenderly and pityingly, and, at the sound of it, Heather looked up.
“Oh! Mr. Croft,” she cried, at sight of his dark face, bent down towards her with an ineffable compassion; “thank God—thank God for this!” and, clinging to his arm, she rather took him, than he her; out of the apartment, and into one of the lower rooms, where her first prayer was that “he would keep the people out—keep them away—till she had told him everything—ev-e-ry thing!”
In a few minutes, Douglas Croft was in possession of the facts of the case, so far as Heather herself was cognisant of them, but his clear head saw farther than she had been able to do. He understood there must be some cause for this sudden freak of madness—some reason why Arthur wished the place destroyed.
“And we shall have to find out the reason before morning,” he said. “Now, Mrs. Dudley, may I depend upon your calmness—may I be certain of your assistance? There has evidently been more than life involved in this matter, and we must sift it thoroughly to the bottom. I suppose I may examine any papers I find upstairs? Pray remain here for the present; I shall be back again directly.”
It was no very difficult undertaking for a man like Douglas Croft to satisfy the police that anything which had happened in Lukin’s factory during the course of the last few hours was perfectly correct, and in the ordinary course of every-day events, and that the only plan now to be adopted was to send for a locksmith, have a new fastening put upon the gates, and the needful repairs in the wood-work effected without delay.
Neither did he experience any greater trouble in making the doctor understand that there was something which had preceded the attempt at suicide, and which it was desirable on all accounts to attribute to temporary insanity.
“Whether he live or die,” finished Mr. Croft, “and, in my opinion, it matters very little which he does, this freak must be regarded as that of a lunatic. Meantime, if you have no objection to meeting my friend Mr. Rymner Henry, I think it might be a satisfaction to Mrs. Dudley to know you have had a consultation.”
In reply to which speech, Doctor Milworth, bowing low, expressed himself to the effect, that he had no objection whatever to meeting Mr. Henry—that he should like to meet him, in fact, which may seem the less astonishing, perhaps, when it is explained, that during the entire time Doctor Milworth took charge of the case, he was in the habit of going about among his other patients, watch in hand, and casually remarking he was rather in a hurry to-day, because he had to meet Mr. Rymner Henry at a quarter past two, or a quarter to five, or four precisely, according to the hour mentioned by that celebrated surgeon, “in consultation on a most important case.”
Why Mr. Croft considered it necessary to send for further advice, he himself perhaps could not very clearly have told, for he knew that if Arthur Dudley were to live, Dr. Milworth had done everything which could be done towards compassing that object. Possibly he might have some idea of thereby winning the doctor’s greater confidence, ensuring his greater secrecy, for already Douglas Croft held in his hand a letter which he believed would prove a clue to all this mystery.
It was from Mr. Lukin, stating that on the 23rd he should be in London to inspect the books.
“That is the secret, then,” thought Douglas Croft; “before you inspect the books, though, Mr. Lukin, I will take a look at them myself. I do not think there will be much difficulty in unravelling the skein; I am greatly mistaken if he possessed brains sufficient to cook his accounts, and perhaps for that very reason he may have got them into a confounded mess.”
When Mr. Croft, however, tried to pass into the office he failed to do so, by reason of the piles of shavings and other combustible materials which stopped the entrance.
“I want a reliable man, Mrs. Dudley,” he said, returning to her; “a man who can be trusted to hold his tongue, if he be paid for doing so. Is there amongst the workpeople such a treasure to be found?”
“Yes,” she answered; “Morrison. I am certain we may trust him.”
“Where is he to be found?” asked her friend.
“I do not know his address, though I could find my way to his house. I will go and fetch him this moment.”
“I will accompany you,” he said; but next moment, remembering some one in the Dudley interest ought to remain on the premises, he stood perplexed and silent, while Heather said,—
“I am not afraid of going. Do you think, after to-night, any small thing will ever frighten me again?”
“Poor child, poor child,” he murmured, “what a life yours has been!”
“Don’t pity me,” she said; “do not, or my heart will break; it feels almost breaking as it is, and a kind word chokes me. I will go for Morrison; I will go at once.”
There was no help for it; so he went with her as far as the gate and watched her while she flitted away along the street—watched her till she turned a corner and was lost to view.
Then he went upstairs again to hear how the patient was doing, and after a chat with the doctor and nurse, for whom the doctor had sent, walked down to the gates again, and waited till Heather entered, bringing Morrison with her.
“A nice business this!” remarked Mr. Croft, when Mrs. Dudley had left the two men standing together in the yard; “a nice business it might have turned out. Where could your eyes have been not to see Mr. Dudley was as mad as a March hare when you left off work? If it had not been for Mrs. Dudley, there would have been a fine bonfire here to-night.”
“Well, sir, my mind did misgive me,” was the reply; “and more especially along of these here shavings. I told Mr. Dudley they were not safe stowed away in that there carpenter’s shop, with the gas escaping like anything. I wanted to have them cleared out, and offered to wait and see it properly done, but he said he wanted to go out and could not have them moved till Monday. He looked real down wild when he said it, and my mind misgave me; but I never thought of him trying such a start as this.”
“Mr. Lukin will be here on Monday, and you can tell him all about it, just as it happened,” said Mr. Croft; “but don’t let the men get hold of his having tried to fire the place. It would not be pleasant for poor Mrs. Dudley.”
“Which a real lady is,” finished Morrison; “many a time I was sorry to see her here, so unsuitable it seemed. Never fear, sir, nobody shall hear the story from me, not even Mr. Lukin. I need not tell him Mrs. Dudley came for me; and when we get these things out of the way, and the place to rights a bit, no one need be any the wiser.”
“And, as I cannot find any of the keys, I will take the books in for security, if you will hand them to me,” said Mr. Croft. And so he had the books carried across the yard and placed on the dining-room table, where in five minutes he discovered the deficiency.
“If I can only now open the safe, we may snap our fingers at Mr. Lukin,” thought Heather’s friend, as he closed the books and shut in the record of the borrowed money which had almost overturned Arthur’s reason.
Then he sought Mrs. Dudley, who was seated in an arm-chair, resting her head on both hands. And before her on the table lay a little locket, which Mr. Croft recognised as having been taken from the poor broken creature who, still hanging between life and death, was quiet enough upstairs—quiet enough and low enough to have contented his enemy, if he had one.
“You are very ill, I fear,” Mr. Croft said, in that almost caressing tone which had won its way to Bessie’s heart in the sunshiny days that seemed now so far—so far away. He had two natures, this man, who had loved the girl so passionately and deceived her so grossly: one tender and compassionate, the other reckless and cynical. “You are very ill, I fear; in the press of other matters you have been neglected. Let me see to you now a little—what is there you can have, likely to do you any good?”
“I do not know,” she answered. “I have been upstairs and seen him. Oh! Mr. Croft, what are the chances of his recovery? tell me the truth. It is not likely the doctor would be frank with me.”
“I think it greatly depends on his being kept quiet; there is nothing now that ought to distress or worry him. I have discovered the cause of all this misery; it is a very trifling cause indeed which has produced such results.”
“Is it?” she lifted her head for a moment as she said this, and looked into Mr. Croft’s face, then her glance wandered towards the locket. He could not quite comprehend her.
“A mere trifle,” he repeated; and then he told her all. He thought it best to do this—better that she should understand the whole of the circumstances clearly, so as to be able to comprehend exactly how he intended setting the affair straight.
“And I had that money of yours in the house all the time,” Heather said, with that weary, weary look in her face which seemed to Mr. Croft worse than the most violent sorrow—“what you gave me, you know, to keep—for—Bessie!”
The last word was spoken more like an exclamation than as though it had belonged in any way to the previous part of the sentence; and Mr. Croft, following the direction of her eyes, beheld the door closed hurriedly, and heard the rustle of a dress in the passage.
In a moment he was out in the hall, and had caught the retreating figure.
“Bessie!” he cried; “Bessie—Bessie! don’t go! I will leave, if you object to my staying here, but we can both help Mrs. Dudley. See, I will not follow you in!”
She covered her face with the corner of her shawl, covered it that he might not even look upon her, and passed back into the parlour without a word. “Heather, my darling, what is this?” she asked. “Morrison came round for me, but could only give the most confused account of what had happened. Tell me, love—tell me all; don’t sit looking at me like that, but speak, dear; what is it?” And she crouched down on the ground, and, winding her arms round Heather’s neck, drew the dear face close to her own. “What is this trouble, sweet?” she persisted; but the only answer Heather could make was—“Oh! Bessie—oh! Bessie,” as she held the locket towards her, moaning, moaning all the while.
“Do you wish me to open it?” Bessie inquired; and Heather made a gesture of assent. She had always been a little jealous, and now she was afraid to reveal, with her own hands, the secret it contained. And yet she longed to know—was it portrait or hair—was it an old love token, or a more recent souvenir which her husband had worn next his heart, next where she ought to have been alone? God keep us all from hard and hasty and suspicious judgments. With the man upstairs hovering between life and death, Heather still could not help misjudging him. Worse than the whole of the long ordeal she had passed through was the sight of that golden trifle, which she dared not examine, which Bessie first turned over and then opened, holding it up to the light as she did so.
There was a scrap of hair in it—a tiny curl of golden red, and “Lally” engraved in black letters round the edge.
“Where did you get this, Heather?” she inquired.
“He wore it,” Heather answered.
“He! Oh! poor—poor Arthur!” and the tears poured from Bessie’s eyes as she looked upon the trinket. She had never thought to like Arthur greatly, or to be sorry for him over much; but now it seemed to her, thinking of the tragedy which had just been enacted, that no one had ever quite understood him, ever imagined it possible Arthur should find out his error, and try to repair it too late—too late!
“Why do you say ‘Poor Arthur?’” Heather broke forth, passionately; “why do you not pity me, finding out, after all, he was wearing next his heart a love token from that woman—that bad, cruel——”
“Hush, Heather!—hush—hush!” and Bessie put the open locket into her friend’s hand. “See what it really is—not what you imagine at all.”
Incredulously almost, Heather did as she was requested; then “Lally—Lally!” said the bereaved mother; “Lally, Lally!” and she covered the locket with hungry kisses.
“I have passed through the bitterness of death to-night, Bessie!” she exclaimed, at length. “I think it must be near morning now.”