A Life's Secret

'There is no slur—as it turns out,' interrupted Dr. Bevary. 'Florence loves him, James; and your wife knew it.'

'What a relief is all this!' murmured Mr. Hunter. 'The woman gone back to Ketterford! I think I shall sleep to-night.'

'She is gone back, never more to trouble you. We must see how her worthy brother can be brought to account for obtaining money under false pretences.'

'I'll make him render back every shilling he has defrauded me of: I'll bring him to answer for it before the laws of his country,' was the wronged man's passionate and somewhat confused answer.

But that is more easy to say than to do, Mr. Hunter!

For, a few days subsequent to this, Lawyer Gwinn, possibly scenting that unpleasant consequences might be in store for him, was quietly steaming to America in a fine ship; taking all his available substance with him; and leaving Ketterford and his sister behind.

CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION

With outward patience and inward wonder, Florence Hunter was remaining at Dr. Bevary's. That something must be wrong at home, she felt sure: else why was she kept away from it so long? And where was her uncle? Invalids were shut up in the waiting-room, like Patience on a monument, hoping minute by minute to see him appear. And now here was another, she supposed! No. He had passed the patients' room and was opening the door of this. Austin Clay!

'What have you come for?' she exclaimed, in the glad confusion of the moment.

'To take you home, for one thing,' he answered, as he approached her. 'Do you dislike the escort, Florence?' He bent forward as he asked the question. A strange light of happiness shone in his eyes; a sweet smile parted his lips. Florence Hunter's heart stood still, and then began to beat as if it would have burst its bounds.

'What has happened?' she faltered.

'This,' he said, taking both her hands and drawing her gently before him. 'The right to hold your hands in mine; the right—soon—to take you to my heart and keep you there for ever. Your father and uncle have sent me to tell you this.'

The words, in their fervent earnestness carried instant truth to her heart, lighting it as with the brightness of sunshine. 'Oh, what a recompense!' she impulsively murmured from the depths of her great love. 'And everything lately has seemed so dark with doubt, so full of trouble!'

'No more doubt, no more trouble,' he fondly whispered. 'It shall be my life's care to guard my wife from all such, Florence—heaven permitting me.' Anything more that was said may as well be left to the reader's lively imagination. They arrived at home after awhile; and found Dr. Bevary there, talking still.

'How you must have hurried yourselves!' quoth he, turning to them. 'Clay, you ought to be ill from walking fast. What has kept him, Florence?'

'Not your patients, Doctor,' retorted Austin, laughing; 'though you are keeping them. One of them says you made an appointment with him. By the way he spoke, I think he was inwardly vowing vengeance against you for not keeping it.'

'Ah,' said the Doctor, 'we medical men do get detained sometimes. One patient has had the most of my time this day, poor lady!'

'Is she better?' quickly asked Florence, who always had ready sympathy for sickness and suffering: perhaps from having seen so much of it in her mother.

'No, my dear, she is dead,' was the answer, gravely spoken. 'And, therefore,' added the doctor in a different tone, 'I have no further excuse for absenting myself from those other patients who are alive and grumbling at me. Will you walk a few steps with me, Mr. Clay?'

Dr. Bevary linked his arm within Austin's as they crossed the hall, and they went out together. 'How did you become acquainted with that dark secret' he breathed.

'Through a misdirected letter of Miss Gwinn's,' replied Austin. 'After I had read it, I discovered that it must have been meant for Mr. Hunter, though addressed to me. It told me all. Dr. Bevary, I have had to carry the secret all these years, bearing myself as one innocent of the knowledge; before Mrs. Hunter, before Florence, before him. I would have given half my savings not to have known it.'

'You believed that—that—one was living who might have replaced Mrs. Hunter?'

'Yes; and that she was in confinement. The letter, a reproachful one, was too explanatory.'

'She died this morning. It is with her—at least with her and her affairs—that my day has been taken up.'

'What a mercy!' ejaculated Austin.

'Ay; mercies are showered down every day: a vast many more than we, self-complaisant mortals, acknowledge or return thanks for,' responded Dr. Bevary, in the quaint tone he was fond of using. And then, in a few brief words, he enlightened Austin as to the actual truth.

'What a fiend she must be!' cried Austin, alluding to Miss Gwinn of Ketterford. 'Oh, but this is a mercy indeed! And I have been planning how to guard the secret always from Florence.' Dr. Bevary made no reply. Austin turned to him, the ingenuous look upon his face that it often wore. 'You approve of me for Florence? Do you not, sir?'

'Be you very sure, young gentleman, that you should never have got her, had I not approved,' oracularly nodded Dr. Bevary. 'I look upon Florence as part of my belongings; and, if you mind what you are about, perhaps I may look upon you as the same.'

Austin laughed. 'How am I to avoid offence?' he asked.—'By loving your wife with an earnest, lasting love; by making her a better husband than James Hunter has been enabled to make her poor mother.'

The tears rose to Austin's eyes with the intensity of his emotion. 'Do you think there is cause to ask me to do this, Dr. Bevary?'

'No, my boy, I do not. God bless you both! There! leave me to get home to those patients of mine. You can be off back to her.'

But Austin Clay had work on his hands, as well as pleasure, and he turned towards Daffodil's Delight. It was the evening for taking Baxendale his week's money, and Austin was not one to neglect it. He picked his way down amidst the poor people, standing about hungry and half-naked. All the works were open again, but numbers and numbers of men could not obtain employment, however good their will was: the masters had taken on strangers, and there was no room for the old workmen. John Baxendale was sitting by his bedside dressed. His injuries were yielding to skill and time: and in a short while he looked to be at work again.

'Well, Baxendale?' cried Austin, in his cheery voice. 'Still getting better?'

'Oh yes, sir, I'm thankful to say it. The surgeon was here to-day, and told me there would be no further relapse. I am a bit tired this evening; I stood a good while at the window, watching the row opposite. She was giving him such a basting.'

'What! do you mean the Cheeks? I thought the street seemed in a commotion.'

Baxendale laughed. 'It is but just over, sir. She set on and shook him soundly, and then she scratched him, and then she cuffed him—all outside the door. I do wonder that Cheek took it from her; but he's just like a puppy in her hands, and nothing better. Two good hours they were disputing there.'

'What was the warfare about?' inquired Austin.

'About his not getting work, sir. Cheek's wife was just like many of the other wives in Daffodil's Delight—urging their husbands not to go to work, and vowing they'd strike if they didn't stand out. I don't know but Mother Cheek was about the most obstinate of all. The very day that I was struck down I heard her blowing him up for not "standing firm upon his rights;" and telling him she'd rather go to his hanging than see him go back to work. And now she beats him because he can't get any to do.'

'Is Cheek one that cannot get any?'

'Cheek's one, sir. Mr. Henry took on more strangers than did you and Mr. Hunter; so, of course, there's less room for his old men. Cheek has walked about London these two days, till he's foot-sore, trying different shops, but he can't get taken on: there are too many men out, for him to have a chance.'

'I think some of the wives in Daffodil's Delight are the most unreasonable women that ever were created,' ejaculated Austin.

'She is—that wife of Cheek's,' rejoined Baxendale. 'I don't know how they'll end it. She has shut the door in his face, vowing he shall not put a foot inside it until he can bring some wages with him. Forbidding him to take work when it was to be had, and now that it can't be had turning upon him for not getting it! If Cheek wasn't a donkey, he'd turn upon her again. There's other women just as contradictory. I think the bad living has soured their tempers.'

'Where's Mary this evening?' inquired Austin, quitting the unsatisfactory topic. Since her father's illness, Mary's place had been by his side: it was something unusual to find her absent. Baxendale lowered his voice to reply.

'She is getting ill again, sir. All her old symptoms have come back, and I am sure now that she is going fast. She is on her bed, lying down.'

As he spoke the last word, he stopped, for Mary entered. She seemed scarcely able to walk; a hectic flush shone on her cheeks, and her breath was painfully short. 'Mary,' Austin said, with much concern, 'I am sorry to see you thus.'

'It is only the old illness come back again, sir,' she answered, as she sunk back in the pillowed chair. 'I knew it had not gone for good—that the improvement was but temporary. But now, sir, look how good and merciful is the hand that guides us—and yet we sometimes doubt it! What should I have been spared for, and had this returning glimpse of strength, but that I might nurse my father in his illness, and be a comfort to him? He is nearly well—will soon be at work again and wants me no more. Thanks ever be to God!'

Austin went out, marvelling at the girl's simple and beautiful trust. It appeared that she would be happy in her removal whenever it should come. As he was passing up the street he met Dr. Bevary. Austin wondered what had become of his patients.

'All had gone away but two; tired of waiting,' said the Doctor, divining his thoughts. 'I am going to take a look at Mary Baxendale. I hear she is worse.'

'Very much worse,' replied Austin. 'I have just left her father.' At that moment there was a sound of contention and scolding, a woman's sharp tongue being uppermost. It proceeded from Mrs. Cheek, who was renewing the contest with her husband. Austin gave Dr. Bevary an outline of what Baxendale had said.