Elster's Folly

"Is she not dead now? Was she living when you married me? Am I your wife?"

He could hardly help smiling. His calm touch reassured her.

"Do you think you need ask, Anne? The next year Dr. Mair called upon me again—it was the evening before the boy was christened; he had come to London on business of his own. To my dismay, he told me that a change for the better was appearing in Miss Waterlow's mental condition; and he thought it likely she might be restored to health. Of course, it increased the perplexities and my horror, had that been needed; but the hope or fear, or what you like to call it, was not borne out. Three years later, the doctor came to me for the third and final time, to bring me the news that Agnes was dead."

As the relief had been to him then, so did it almost seem now to Anne. A sigh of infinite pain broke from her. She had not seen where all this was tending.

"Imagine, if you can, what it was for me all those years with the knowledge daily and nightly upon me that the disgraceful truth might at any moment come out to Maude—to her children, to the world! Living in the dread of arrest myself, should the man Gordon show himself on the scene! And now you see what it is that has marred my peace, and broken the happiness of our married life. How could I bear to cross those two deeply-injured children, who were ever rising up in judgment against me? How take our children's part against them, little unconscious things? It seemed that I had always, daily, hourly, some wrong to make up to them. The poor boy was heir to Hartledon in the eyes of the world; but, Anne, your boy was the true heir."

"Why did you not tell me?—all this time!"

"I could not. I dared not. You might not have liked to put Reginald out of his rights."

"Oh, Percival; how can you so misjudge me?" she asked, in tones of pain. "I would have guarded the secret as jealously as you. I must still do it for Maude."

"Poor Maude!" he sighed. "Her mother forgave me before she died—"

"She knew it, then?"

"Yes. She learned—"

Sounds of drumming on the door, and the countess-dowager's voice, stopped Lord Hartledon.

"I had better face her," he said, as he unlocked it. "She will arouse the household."

Wild, intemperate, she met him with a volley of abuse that startled Lady Hartledon. He got her to a sofa, and gently held her down there.

"It's what I've been obliged to do all along," said Thomas Carr; "I don't believe she has heard ten words of my explanation."

"Pray be calm, Lady Kirton," said Hartledon, soothingly; "be calm, as you value your daughter's memory. We shall have the servants at the doors."

"I won't be calm; I will know the worst."

"I wish you to know it; but not others."

"Was Maude your wife?"

"No," he answered, in low tones. "Not—"

"And you are not ashamed to confess it?" she interrupted, not allowing him to continue. But she was a little calmer in manner; and Val stood upright before her with folded arms.

"I am ashamed and grieved to confess it; but I did not knowingly inflict the injury. In Scotland—"

"Don't repeat the shameful tale," she cried; "I have heard from your confederate, Carr, as much as I want to hear. What do you deserve for your treachery to Maude?"

"All I have reaped—and more. But it was not intentional treachery; and Maude forgave me before she died."

"She knew it! You told her? Oh, you cruel monster!"

"I did not tell her. She did as you have just done—interfered in what did not concern her, in direct disobedience to my desire; and she found it out for herself, as you, ma'am, have found it out."

"When?"

"The winter before her death."

"Then the knowledge killed her!"

"No. Something else killed her, as you know. It preyed upon her spirits."

"Lord Hartledon, I can have you up for fraud and forgery, and I'll do it. It will be the consideration of Maude's fame against your punishment, and I'll make a sacrifice to revenge, and prosecute you."

"There is no fraud where an offence is committed unwittingly," returned Lord Hartledon; "and forgery is certainly not amongst my catalogue of sins."

"You are liable for both," suddenly retorted the dowager; "you have stuck up 'Maude, Countess of Hartledon,' on her monument in the church; and what's that but fraud and forgery?"

"It is neither. If Maude did not live Countess of Hartledon, she at least so went to her grave. We were remarried, privately, before she died. Mr. Carr can tell you so."

"It's false!" raved the dowager.

"I arranged it, ma'am," interposed Mr. Carr. "Lord Hartledon and your daughter confided the management to me, and the ceremony was performed in secrecy in London"

The dowager looked from one to the other, as if she were bewildered.

"Married her again! why, that was making bad worse. Two false marriages! Did you do it to impose upon her?"

"I see you do not understand," said Lord Hartledon. "The—my—the person in Scotland was dead then. She was dead, I am thankful to say, before Maude knew anything of the affair."

Up started the dowager. "Then is the woman dead now? was she dead when you married her?" laying her hand upon Lady Hartledon's arm. "Are her children different from Maude's?"

"They are. It could not be otherwise."

"Her boy is really Lord Elster?"

She flung Lady Hartledon's arm from her. Her voice rose to a shriek.

"Maude is not Lady Maude?"

Val shook his head sadly.

"And your children are lords and ladies and honourables," darting a look of consternation at Anne, "whilst my daughter's—"

"Peace, Lady Kirton!" sternly interrupted Val. "Let the child, Maude, be Lady Maude still to the world; let your daughter's memory be held sacred. The facts need never come out: I do not fear now that they ever will. I and my wife and Thomas Carr, will guard the secret safely: take you care to do so."

"I wish you had been hung before you married Maude!" responded the aggrieved dowager.

"I wish I had," said he.

"Ugh!" she grunted wrathfully, the ready assent not pleasing her.