A Life's Secret Part 46

'You have had more than justice--you have had revenge. Not content with rendering my days a life's misery, you must also drain me of the money I had worked hard to save. Do you know how much?'

'It was not I,' she pa.s.sionately uttered, in a tone as if she would deprecate his anger. '_He_ did that.'

'It comes to the same. I had to find the money. So long as my dear wife lived, I was forced to temporize: neither he nor you can so force me again. Go home, go home, Miss Gwinn, and pray for forgiveness for the injury you have done both her and me. The time for coming to my house with your intimidations is past.'

'What did you say?' cried Miss Gwinn. 'Injury upon _you_?'

'Injury, ay! such as rarely has been inflicted upon mortal man. Not content with that great injury, you must also deprive me of my substance. This week the name of James Lewis Hunter will be in the Gazette, on the list of bankrupts. It is you who have brought me to it.'

'You know that I have had no hand in that; that it was he: my brother--and _hers_,' she said. 'He never should have done it had I been able to prevent him. In an unguarded moment I told him I had discovered you, and who you were, and--and he came up to you here and sold his silence. It is that which has kept me quiet.'

'This interview had better end,' said Mr. Hunter. 'It excites me, and my health is scarcely in a state to bear it. Your work has told upon me, Miss Gwinn, as you cannot help seeing, when you look at me. Am I like the hearty, open man whom you came up to town and discovered a few years ago?'

'Am I like the healthy unsuspicious woman whom you saw some years before that?' she retorted. 'My days have been rendered more bitter than yours.'

'It is your own evil pa.s.sions which have rendered them so. But I say this interview must end. You----'

'It shall end when you undertake to render justice. I only ask that you should acknowledge her in words; I ask no more.'

'When your brother was here last--it was on the day of my wife's death--I was forced to warn him of the consequences of remaining in my house against my will. I must now warn you.'

'Lewis Hunter,' she pa.s.sionately resumed, 'for years I have been told that she--who was here--was fading; and I was content to wait until she should be gone. Besides, was not he drawing money from you to keep silence? But it is all over, and my time is come.'

The door of the room opened and some one entered. Mr. Hunter turned with marked displeasure, wondering who was daring to intrude upon him. He saw--not any servant, as he expected, but his brother-in-law, Dr.

Bevary. And the doctor walked into the room and closed the door, just as if he had as much right there as its master.

When Florence Hunter reached her uncle's house, she found him absent: the servants said he had gone out early in the morning. Scarcely had she entered the drawing-room when his carriage drove up: he saw Florence at the window and hastened in. 'Uncle Bevary, I have come to stay the day with you,' was her greeting. 'Will you have me?'

'I don't know that I will,' returned the doctor, who loved Florence above every earthly thing. 'How comes it about?' In the explanation, as she gave it, the doctor detected some embarra.s.sment, quite different from her usual open manner. He questioned closely, and drew from her what had occurred. 'Miss Gwinn of Ketterford in town!' he exclaimed, staring at Florence as if he could not believe her. 'Are you joking?'

'She is at our house with papa, as I tell you, uncle.'

'What an extraordinary chance!' muttered the doctor.

Leaving Florence, he ran out of the house and down the street, calling after his coachman, who was driving to the stables. Had it been anybody but Dr. Bevary, the pa.s.sers-by might have deemed the caller mad. The coachman heard, and turned his horses again. Dr. Bevary spoke a word in haste to Florence.

'Miss Gwinn is the very person I was wanting to see; wis.h.i.+ng some marvellous telegraph wires could convey her to London at a moment's notice. Make yourself at home, my dear; don't wait dinner for me, I cannot tell when I shall be back.' He stepped into the carriage and was driven away very quickly, leaving Florence in some doubt as to whether he had not gone to Ketterford--for she had but imperfectly understood him. Not so. The carriage set him down at Mr. Hunter's. Where he broke in upon the interview, as has been described.

'I was about to telegraph to Ketterford for you,' he began to Miss Gwinn, without any other sort of greeting. And the words, coupled with his abrupt manner, sent her at once into an agitation. Rising, she put her hand upon the doctor's arm.

'What has happened? Any ill?'

'You must come with me now and see her,' was the brief answer.

Shaking from head to foot, gaunt, strong woman though she was, she turned docilely to follow the doctor from the room. But suddenly an idea seemed to strike her, and she stood still. 'It is a _ruse_ to get me out of the house. Dr. Bevary, I will not quit it until justice shall be rendered to Emma. I will have her acknowledged by him.'

'Your going with me now will make no difference to that, one way or the other,' drily observed Dr. Bevary.

Mr. Hunter stepped forward in agitation. 'Are you out of your mind, Bevary? You could not have caught her words correctly.'

'Psha!' responded the doctor, in a careless tone. 'What I said was, that Miss Gwinn's going out with me could make no difference to any acknowledgment.'

'Only in words,' she stayed to say. 'Just let him say it in words.' But n.o.body took any notice of the suggestion.

His bearing calm and self-possessed, his manner authoritative, Dr.

Bevary pa.s.sed out to his carriage, motioning the lady before him.

Self-willed as she was by nature and by habit, she appeared to have no thought of resistance now. 'Step in,' said Dr. Bevary. She obeyed, and he seated himself by her, after giving an order to the coachman. The carriage turned towards the west for a short distance, and then branched off to the north. In a comparatively short time they were clear of the bustle of London. Miss Gwinn sat in silence; the doctor sat in silence.

It seemed that the former wished, yet dreaded to ask the purport of their present journey, for her white face was working with emotion, and she glanced repeatedly at the doctor, with a sharp, yearning look. When they were clear of the bustle of the streets; and the hedges, bleak and bare, bounded the road on either side, broken by a house here and there, then she could bear the silence and suspense no longer.

'Why do you not speak?' broke from her in a tone of pain.

'First of all, tell me what brought you to town now,' was his reply. 'It is not your time for being here.'

'The recent death of your sister. I came up by the early train this morning. Dr. Bevary, you are the only living being to whom I lie under an obligation, or from whom I have experienced kindness. People may think me ungrateful; some think me mad; but I am grateful to you. But for the fact of that lady's being your sister I should have insisted upon another's rights being acknowledged long ago.'

'You told me you waived them in consequence of your brother's conduct.'

'Partially so. But that did not weigh with me in comparison with my feeling of grat.i.tude to you. How impotent we are!' she exclaimed, throwing up her hands. 'My efforts by day, my dreams by night, were directed to one single point through long, long years--the finding James Lewis. I had cherished the thought of revenge until it became part and parcel of my very existence; I was hoping to expose him to the world.

But when the time came, and I did find him, I found that he had married your sister, and that I could not touch him without giving pain to you.

I hesitated what to do. I went home to Ketterford, deliberating----'

'Well?' said the doctor. For she had stopped abruptly.

'Some spirit of evil prompted me to disclose to my good-for-nothing brother that the man, Lewis, was found. I told him more than that, unhappily.'

'What else did you tell him?'

'Never mind. I was a fool: and I have had my reward. My brother came up to town and drew large sums of money out of Mr. Hunter. I could have stopped it--but I did not.'

'If I understand you aright, you have come to town now to insist upon what you call your rights?' remarked the doctor.

'Upon what _I_ call!' returned Miss Gwinn, and then she paused in marked hesitation. 'But you must have news to tell me, Dr. Bevary. What is it?'

'I received a message early this morning from Dr. Kerr, stating that something was amiss. I lost no time in going over.'

'And what was amiss?' she hastily cried. 'Surely there was no repet.i.tion of the violence? Did you see her?'

'Yes, I saw her.'

'But of course you would see her,' resumed Miss Gwinn, speaking rather to herself. 'And what do you think? Is there danger?'

'The danger is past,' replied Dr. Bevary. 'But here we are.'

The carriage had driven in through an inclosed avenue, and was stopping before a large mansion: not a cheerful mansion, for its grounds were surrounded by dark trees, and some of its windows were barred. It was a lunatic asylum. It is necessary, even in these modern days of gentle treatment, to take some precaution of bars and bolts; but the inmates of this one were thoroughly well cared for, in the best sense of the term.

Dr. Bevary was one of its visiting inspectors.

Dr. Kerr, the resident manager, came forward, and Dr. Bevary turned to Miss Gwinn. 'Will you see her, or not?' he asked.