Part 83 (2/2)

Suddenly Ideala, with kindling eyes, leant over to Mrs. Orton Beg, grasped her arm, and said something eagerly. Mrs. Orton Beg nodded.

The word went round. Beth held the hall, and was still rising from point to point, carrying the audience with her to a pitch of excitement which finally culminated in a great burst of applause.

Beth, taken aback, stopped short, surprised and bewildered by the racket; looked about her, faltered a few more words, and then sat down abruptly.

The applause was renewed and prolonged.

”What does it mean?” Beth asked Ideala in an agony. ”Did I say something absurd?”

”My dear child,” Ideala answered, laughing, ”they are not jeering, but cheering!”

”Is that cheering?” Beth exclaimed in an awe-stricken tone, overcome to find she had produced such an effect. ”I feared they meant to be derisive.”

”I didn't know you were a speaker,” Mrs. Orton Beg whispered.

”I am not,” Beth answered apologetically. ”I never spoke before, nor heard any one else speak till to-night. Only I have thought and thought about these things, and I could not keep it back, what I had to say.”

”That is the stuff an orator is made of,” some strange lady muttered approvingly.

CHAPTER XLV

When Beth returned to Slane, Dan received her so joyously she wondered what particularly successful piece of turpitude he had been busy about. He was always effusive to her when evil things went well with him. At first she had supposed that this effusiveness was the outcome of affection for her; but when she began to know him, she perceived that it was only the expression of some personal gratification. He had been quite demonstrative in his attentions to her during the time that Bertha Petterick stayed in the house.

”By the way, there is a letter for you,” he said, when they were at lunch.

”Is there?” Beth answered. ”Who from?”

”How the devil am I to know?” he rejoined, glancing up at the mantelpiece. ”I can't tell who your correspondents are by instinct.”

Beth's eye followed his to the mantelpiece, where she saw a large square envelope propped up against an ornament in a conspicuous position, and recognised the unmistakable, big, clear, firm hand of Bertha Petterick, and the thick kind of paper she always used.

Beth had been thinking about Bertha on the way home. She knew that, if Bertha had been as wrong in body as in mind and moral nature, she would have had compa.s.sion on her; and she had determined to tolerate her as it was, to do what she could for her maimed soul, just as she would have ministered to her had her malady been physical. But Dan's hypocrisy about the letter ruffled her into opposition. He knew Bertha's handwriting as well as she did, and was doubtless equally well acquainted with the contents of the letter; and this affectation of ignorance must therefore mean something special. Probably he was anxious to propitiate her with regard to whatever Bertha might be writing about. But Beth was not to be managed in that way, and so she let the letter be.

As she was leaving the room after lunch, Dan called after her: ”You have forgotten your letter.”

”It doesn't matter,” Beth answered. ”Any time will do for that.”

The letter was left there for days unopened, and it had the effect of stopping the conversation at meals, for although Dan did not allude to it again, he constantly glanced at it, and it was evident that he had it on his mind.

At last, one day, when he came in, he said, ”I have just seen Mrs.

Petterick, and she tells me Bertha wrote to you days ago, and has had no answer.”

”Indeed,” Beth observed indifferently. ”I shouldn't think she could have anything to say to me that specially required an answer.”

Dan fidgeted about a little, then burst out suddenly, ”Why the devil don't you open the girl's letter?”

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