Part 24 (1/2)

--I think that perhaps I may have expressed myself badly so as to warrant you in understanding more than I have meant. If so, I am sure the fault has been mine, and I am very sorry for it. Things have turned up with which I need not perhaps trouble you, and compel me to go for a while to a very distant country. I shall be off almost before I can receive a reply to this letter. Indeed, I may be gone before an answer can reach me. But I have thought it right not to let a post go by without informing you of my decision.

I have seen that article in the Exeter newspaper respecting your family in Italy, and think that it must be very gratifying to you. I did understand, however, that not a word was to have been spoken as to the matter.

Nothing had escaped from me, at any rate. I fear that some of your intimate friends at Exeter must have been indiscreet.

Believe me yours, With the most sincere admiration,

FRANCIS GERALDINE.

He was not able to start for America immediately after writing this, but he quitted his Lodge in Scotland, leaving no immediate address, and hid himself for a while among his London clubs, where he trusted that the lady might not find him. In a week's time he would be off to the United States.

Who shall picture the rage of Miss Altifiorla when she received this letter? This was the very danger which she had feared, but had hardly thought it worth her while to fear. It was the one possible break-down in her triumph; but had been, she thought, so unlikely as to be hardly possible. But now on reading the letter she felt that no redress was within her reach. To whom should she go for succour?

Though her ancestors had been so n.o.ble, she had no one near her to take up the cudgels on her behalf. With her friends in Exeter she had become a little proud of late, so that she had turned from her those who might have a.s.sisted her. ”The coward!” she said to herself, ”the base coward! He dares to treat me in this way because he knows that I am alone.” Then she became angry in her heart against Cecilia, who she felt had set a dangerous example in this practice of jilting. Had Cecilia not treated Sir Francis so unceremoniously he certainly would not have dared so to treat her. There was truth in this, as in that case Sir Francis would at this moment have been the husband of Mrs.

Western.

But what should she do? She took out every sc.r.a.p of letter that she had received from the man, and read each sc.r.a.p with the greatest care. In the one letter there certainly was an offer very plainly made, as he had intended it; but she doubted whether she could depend upon it in a court of law. ”Don't you think that you and I know each other well enough to make a match of it?” It was certainly written as an offer, and her two answers to him would make it plain that it was so. But she had an idea that she would not be allowed to use her own letters against him. And then to have her gus.h.i.+ng words read as a reply to so cold a proposition would be death to her. There was not another syllable in the whole correspondence written by him to signify that he had in truth intended to become her husband. She felt sure that he had been wickedly crafty in the whole matter, and had lured her on to expose herself in her innocence.

But what should she do? Should she write to him an epistle full of tenderness? She felt sure that it would be altogether ineffectual.

Should she fill sheets with indignation? It would be of no use unless she could follow up her indignation by strong measures. Should she let the thing pa.s.s by in silence, as though she and Sir Francis had never known each other? She would certainly do so, but that she had allowed her matrimonial prospects to become common through all Exeter. She must also let Exeter know how badly Sir Francis intended to treat her. To her, too, the idea of a prolonged sojourn in the United States presented itself. In former days there had come upon her a great longing to lecture at Chicago, at Saint Paul's, and Omaha, on the distinctive duties of the female s.e.x. Now again the idea returned to her. She thought that in one of those large Western halls, full of gas and intelligence, she could rise to the height of her subject with a tremendous eloquence. But then would not the name of Sir Francis travel with her and crush her?

She did resolve upon informing Mrs. Green. She took three days to think of it, and then she sent for Mrs. Green. ”Of all human beings,”

she said, ”you, I think, are the truest to me.” Mrs. Green of course expressed herself as much flattered. ”And therefore I will tell you.

No false pride shall operate with me to make me hold my tongue. Of all the false deceivers that have ever broken a woman's heart, that man is the basest and the falsest.”

In this way she let all Exeter know that she was not to be married to Sir Francis Geraldine; and another paragraph appeared in the ”Western Telegraph,” declaring that after all Sir Francis Geraldine was not to be allied to the Fiascos and Disgrazias of Rome.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCLUSION.

Though the news of Miss Altifiorla's broken engagement did reach Mrs.

Western at St. David's, she was in a state of mind which prevented her almost from recognising the fact. It was the very day on which her husband was to come to her. And her joy was so extreme as almost to have become painful. ”Mamma,” she said, ”I shall not know what to say to him.”

”Just let him come and receive him quietly.”

”Receive him quietly! How can I be quiet when he will have come back to me? I think you do not realise the condition I have been in during the last three months.”

”Yes, my dear, I do. You have been deserted, and it has been very bad.”

But Mrs. Western did not approve of the word used, as it carried a strong reproach against her husband. She was anxious now to take upon herself the whole weight of the fault which had produced their separation, and to hold him to have been altogether sinless. And as yet she was not quite sure that he would again take her to his home. All she knew was that he would be that day in Exeter, and that then so much might depend on her own conduct. Of this she was quite sure,--that were he to reject her she must die. In her present condition, and with the memory present to her of the dreams she had dreamed, she could not live alone at Exeter, divided from him, and there give birth to her child. But he must surely intend to take her into his arms when he should arrive. It could not be possible that he should again reject her when he had once seen her.

Then she became fidgety about her personal appearance,--a female frailty which had never much prevailed with her,--and was anxious even about her ribbons and her dress. ”He does think so much about a woman being neat,” she said to her mother.

”I never perceived it in him, my dear.”

”Because you have not known him as I have done. He does not say much, but no one's eye is so accurate and so severe.” All this arose from a certain pa.s.sage which dwelt in her remembrance, when he had praised the fit of her gown, and had told her with a kiss that no woman ever dressed so well as she did.

”I think, my dear,” continued Mrs. Holt, ”that if you wear your black silk just simply, it will do very well.”