Part 52 (2/2)

”Quite enough,” said I. I was beginning to lose grip of my patience.

”Quite enough. That they were not settled long ago an accident alone prevented.”

”I am not, sir, in a way fitly to answer you. Neither is this a place nor a presence for this discussion.”

”At least we can agree as to that,” said I; ”but I did not seek it. At my own leisure I shall have to ask you certain questions which, as a gentleman and a man of honour, you will find it hard to answer.”

”I fail to comprehend,” he returned, with his grand air, looking all the better for his paleness.

I said it was not now needful that he should, and that in future he would understand that he was no longer a welcome guest.

”As you please,” he said.

I thought he showed little anxiety to hear at length what was in my mind.

Meanwhile, as we spoke, my father looked vacantly from me to him and from him to me, and at last, his old hospitable instincts coming uppermost, he said, ”Thou hast not asked thy cousin to take spirits, Hugh.”

Arthur, smiling sadly, as I thought, said: ”Thank you, none for me.

Good-day, Cousin Wynne,” and merely bowing to me, he went out, I ceremoniously opening the door.

I had said no more than I intended to say; I was resolutely bent upon telling this man what he seemed to me to be and what I knew of his baseness. To do this it was needful, above all, to find Delaney. After that, whether Darthea married my cousin or not, I meant that she should at last know what I knew. It was fair to her that some one should open her eyes to this man's character. When away from her, hope, the friend of the absent, was ever with me; but once face to face with Darthea, to think of her as by any possibility mine became impossible. Yet from first to last I was firm in my purpose, for this was the way I was made, and so I am to this day. But whether I had loved her or not, I should have done my best out of mere friends.h.i.+p to set her free from the bonds in which she was held.

I had heard of Delaney as being in the South, but whether he had come out alive from the tussles between Morgan, Marion, and Tarleton, I knew not. On asking Colonel Harrison, the general's secretary, he told me he thought he could discover his whereabouts. Next day he called to tell me that there was an officer of the name of Delaney at the London Inn, now called ”The Flag,” on Front street, and that he had been asking for me.

I had missed him by five minutes. He had called with despatches from Major-General Greene.

To my joy this proved to be the man I wanted, nor was it surprising that he should thus luckily appear, since the war was over in the South, and a stream of officers was pa.s.sing through Philadelphia daily to join the Northern army.

For a moment he did not know me, but was delighted when I named myself.

I said I had no time to lose, and asked him to meet me at my aunt's in the afternoon. I much feared that Arthur would get away before I was ready to talk to him.

Delaney had received my last letter and had answered it, but whither his reply went I cannot say. At all events, he had lingered here to find me. When we met at my Aunt Gainor's that afternoon, it took but a few minutes to make clear to her the sad tale of Arthur's visit to the jail.

My friend had no sooner done than the old lady rose, and began as usual to walk about, saying: ”You will excuse me; I must think of this. Talk to Hugh.” What there was to think of I could not see.

Delaney looked on amused, and he and I chatted. She was evidently much disturbed, and while the captain and I talked, I saw her move a chair, and pick up and set down some china beast. At last she said: ”Come in at nine to-night, Mr. Delaney. I want to think this over. I have still much I desire to ask you. It deeply concerns my nephew in a way I cannot now explain to you. May I have the privilege of another half-hour?”

Delaney bowed.

”Of course I do not want you, Hugh,” she added.

When you have known a woman as long as I had known my aunt, there are sometimes hints or warnings in her most casual expressions. When my aunt said I was not wanted that evening I knew at once that she was meditating something out of the common, but just what, I did not think to ask myself. My Aunt Gainor was all her life fond of what she called inventing chances, a fine phrase, of which she was proud. In fact, this st.u.r.dy old spinster liked to interfere authoritatively in the affairs of men and women, and believed that for this she had a special talent, which in fact she discovered no inclination to bury; but what now she had in hand to do I knew not.

She was deeply grieved for a season to find that her plans went awry, or that men were disappointed, or that women would not go her way. ”When she hurts you,” said Mrs. Ferguson, ”she is like a child, and has a dozen silly devices for doctoring your wounds. We have fought many times, and made up as often. There is no real malice in her,” which was true.

Jack Warder once remarked in his lively way that Mistress Wynne had a richly coloured character. I fear it may have looked at times very black to some and very rose-tinted to others, but a.s.suredly never gray in its tones, nor other than positive.

With me she took all manner of liberties, and with Darthea too, and if ever she were in doubt if it were well to meddle in our affairs I know not. A vast richness of human love and an urgent desire of rule lay underneath the life she showed the outer world of quadrille and dinners and gossip.

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