Part 49 (1/2)

”Everybody believes alike. I never heard of one who thought that he did not do it.”

”Only yourself!”

”Yes, and that was, perhaps, for your sake,” said Clara, affectionately.

”And I suppose that I believe in him for his own sake.”

”That is natural; but will people think that it is logical?”

”No, they won't,” said Lettice, ”at all events, not at first. But, gradually perhaps, they will. I am perfectly convinced that Alan did not stab his wife--because I feel it with a force that amounts to conviction. You see, I know his character, his past history, the character and history of his wife, the circ.u.mstances in which they were placed at the time. I am sure he is innocent, and I am going to act up to it. Alan will live down this horrible accusation and punishment--he will not give way, but will keep his self-respect, and will do infinitely better work for all the torture he has gone through. And our hope must be this--that when the world sees him stronger than ever, stronger in every way, and doing stronger work in his vocation, it will come to believe in him, one by one, beginning with us, until his vindication is brought about, not by legal proof, which is impossible, but by the same feeling and conviction which to-day only draw two weak women to the side of an unhappy and discredited man.”

”Are you calling yourself a weak woman? You have the strength of a martyr, and in days when they used to burn women you would have chosen to be a martyr.”

”I am not so sure. It is one thing to do what one likes, but quite another thing to burn, which no one likes.”

”Well, you are very brave, and you will succeed as you deserve. But not at first.”

”No, not at first. The hardest task will be with Alan, who has been in despair all these months, and at death's door with fever. He will come out weak, helpless, hopeless; there will be constant danger of a relapse; and, even if he can be made to forget his despair, it will be very difficult to restore him to cheerfulness.” Her eyes filled with pitying tears as she spoke.

”Only one thing can do that!” Clara stroked her friend's bright brown hair, and kissed her on the cheek. ”With you for his doctor he will soon be well.”

”Only two things can do it--a joy greater than his sorrow, and a self-respect greater than his self-abas.e.m.e.nt.”

Lettice stood up; and the far reaching look that Clara knew so well came into the true and tender grey eyes, strong with all the rapt purpose of a devoted woman. Her resolutions were forming and strengthening as she went on. She had been guided by instinct and feeling, but they were guiding her aright.

There was one thing more in which Clara was a help to her. She took her to an old woman, the mother of her own parlor-maid, exceptionally clean and respectable, whom Lettice engaged to go at once to Bute Lodge, taking a younger daughter with her, and make everything ready for the morrow.

”I shall come and see you soon,” said Clara, as they wished each other good-bye.

”Do! And if you can convert your husband----”

”If not, it will not be for want of trying.”

It was evening before Lettice was at her lodging again. She had done all that she could think of--made every preparation and taken every precaution--and now there was nothing left but to wait until the appointed hour should strike, and Alan should be a free man again.

One concession she made to Mrs. Graham's sense of propriety. There was an old lady who had once been Clara's governess--a gentle, mild-tongued, un.o.bservant person, who was greatly in want of a home. Mrs. Alison was easily induced to promise the support of her presence to Lettice during the days or weeks which Lettice hoped to spend at Bute Lodge. She was a woman of unimpeachable decorum and respectability, and her presence in the house would, in Clara's opinion, prove a bulwark against all dangers; but, although evil tongues might be silenced by the fact of her presence, the old lady was singularly useless in the capacity of chaperon. She was infirm, a little deaf, and very shy; but her presence in the house was supposed to be a sop to Cerberus, in the person of Mrs.

Grundy, and Clara was less afraid for her friend than she had been before Mrs. Alison was installed at Bute Lodge.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

FROM PRISON TO PARADISE.

Punctually at ten o'clock on the 29th of October a brougham drove up to the gates of the prison in which Alan Walcott had spent his six months of retreat from the world; and almost immediately Alan made his appearance, leaning on the arm of a warder.

Lettice hurried to meet him, displacing the warder with a few words of thanks, and repressing with an effort the painful throbbing of her heart and throat. The sight of his shrunken form and hollow eyes, as he looked at her with pathetic and childlike trust, for a moment took away all her strength; but when his hand was laid upon her arm, and she accommodated her steps to his slow and unsteady movements, he found in her no trace of the weakness she had overcome.

It was clear that he had not yet made a good recovery from his fever.

Lettice's last little qualm of doubt as to the use or need for what she had done disappeared as she saw this wreck of the man whom she loved--whom she believed to be innocent of offense and persecuted by an evil fate. What might have become of him if he had been left to crawl out of his prison into the cold and censorious world, without a friend, a hope, or an interest in life? What lowest depth of despair might he not have touched if in such a plight as this he should be found and tortured anew by his old enemy, whose cruelty was evidently not a.s.suaged by the sufferings she had heaped upon him? Who now would say that he had no need of succor, that her service was unasked, unwarranted, unwomanly, that the duty of a pure and delicate soul was to leave him either to his own wife or to the tender mercies of strangers?