The day which had united the mother and daughter, only to part them again in this world for ever, had advanced to evening.
Amelius and Sally were together again in the cottage, sitting by the library fire. The silence in the room was uninterrupted. On the open desk, near Amelius, lay the letter which Mrs. Farnaby had written to him on the morning of her death.
He had found the letter — with the envelope unfastened — on the floor of the bedchamber, and had fortunately secured it before the landlady and the servant had ventured back to the room. The doctor, returning a few minutes afterwards, had warned the two women that a coroner’s inquest would be held in the house, and had vainly cautioned them to be careful of what they said or did in the interval. Not only the subject of the death, but a discovery which had followed, revealing the name of the ill-fated woman marked on her linen, and showing that she had used an assumed name in taking the lodgings as Mrs. Ronald, became the gossip of the neighbourhood in a few hours. Under these circumstances, the catastrophe was made the subject of a paragraph in the evening journals; the name being added for the information of any surviving relatives who might be ignorant of the sad event. If the landlady had found the letter, that circumstance also would in all probability, have formed part of the statement in the newspapers, and the secret of Mrs. Farnaby’s life and death would have been revealed to the public view.
“I can trust you, and you only,” she wrote to Amelius, “to fulfil the last wishes of a dying woman. You know me, and you know how I looked forward to the prospect of a happy life in retirement with my child. The one hope that I lived for has proved to be a cruel delusion. I have only this morning discovered, beyond the possibility of doubt, that I have been made the victim of wretches who have deliberately lied to me from first to last. If I had been a happier woman, I might have had other interests to sustain me under this frightful disaster. Such as I am, Death is my one refuge left.
“My suicide will be known to no creature but yourself. Some years since, the idea of self destruction — concealed under the disguise of a common mistake — presented itself to my mind. I kept the means, very simple means, by me, thinking I might end in that way after all. When you read this I shall be at rest for ever. You will do what I have yet to ask of you, in merciful remembrance of me — I am sure of that.
“You have a long life before you, Amelius. My foolish fancy about you and my lost girl still lingers in my mind; I still think it may be just possible that you may meet with her, in the course of years.
“If this does happen, I implore you, by the tenderness and pity that you once felt for me, to tell no human creature that she is my daughter; and, if John Farnaby is living at the time, I forbid you, with the authority of a dying friend, to let her see him, or to let her know even that such a person exists. Are you at a loss to account for my motives? I may make the shameful confession which will enlighten you, now I know that we shall never meet again. My child was born before my marriage; and the man who afterwards became my husband — a man of low origin, I should tell you — was the father. He had calculated on this disgraceful circumstance to force my parents to make his fortune, by making me his wife. I now know, what I only vaguely suspected before, that he deliberately abandoned his child, as a likely cause of hindrance and scandal in the way of his prosperous career in life. Do you now think I am asking too much, when I entreat you never even to speak to my lost darling of this unnatural wretch? As for my own fair fame, I am not thinking of myself. With Death close at my side, I think of my poor mother, and of all that she suffered and sacrificed to save me from the disgrace that I had deserved. For her sake, not for mine, keep silence to friends and enemies alike if they ask you who my girl is — with the one exception of my lawyer. Years since, I left in his care the means of making a small provision for my child, on the chance that she might live to claim it. You can show him this letter as your authority, in case of need.
“Try not to forget me, Amelius — but don’t grieve about me. I go to my death as you go to your sleep when you are tired. I leave you my grateful love — you have always been good to me. There is no more to write; I hear the servant returning from the chemist’s, bringing with her only release from the hard burden of life without hope. May you be happier than I have been! Goodbye!”
So she parted from him for ever. But the fatal association of the unhappy woman’s sorrows with the life and fortune of Amelius was not at an end yet.
He had neither hesitation nor misgiving in resolving to show a natural respect to the wishes of the dead. Now that the miserable story of the past had been unreservedly disclosed to him, he would have felt himself bound in honour, even without instructions to guide him, to keep the discovery of the daughter a secret, for the mother’s sake. With that conviction, he had read the distressing letter. With that conviction, he now rose to provide for the safe keeping of it under lock and key.
Just as he had secured the letter in a private drawer of his desk, Toff came in with a card, and announced that a gentleman wished to see him. Amelius, looking at the card, was surprised to find on it the name of “Mr. Melton.” Some lines were written on it in pencil: “I have called to speak with you on a matter of serious importance.” Wondering what his middle-aged rival could want with him, Amelius instructed Toff to admit the visitor.
Sally started to her feet, with her customary distrust of strangers. “May I run away before he comes in?” she asked. “If you like,” Amelius answered quietly. She ran to the door of her room, at the moment when Toff appeared again, announcing the visitor. Mr. Melton entered just before she disappeared: he saw the flutter of her dress as the door closed behind her.
“I fear I am disturbing you?” he said, looking hard at the door.
He was perfectly dressed: his hat and gloves were models of what such things ought to be; he was melancholy and courteous; blandly distrustful of the flying skirts which he had seen at the door. When Amelius offered him a chair, he took it with a mysterious sigh; mournfully resigned to the sad necessity of sitting down. “I won’t prolong my intrusion on you,” he resumed. “You have no doubt seen the melancholy news in the evening papers?”
“I haven’t seen the evening papers,” Amelius answered; “what news do you mean?”
Mr. Melton leaned back in his chair, and expressed emotions of sorrow and surprise, in a perfect state of training, by gently raising his smooth white hands.
“Oh dear, dear! this is very sad. I had hoped to find you in full possession of the particulars — reconciled, as we must all be, to the inscrutable ways of Providence. Permit me to break it to you as gently as possible. I came here to inquire if you had heard yet from Miss Regina. Understand my motive! there must be no misapprehension between us on that subject. There is a very serious necessity — pray follow me carefully — I say, a very serious necessity for my communicating immediately with Miss Regina’s uncle; and I know of nobody who is so likely to hear from the travellers, so soon after their departure, as yourself. You are, in a certain sense, a member of the family —”
“Stop a minute,” said Amelius.
“I beg your pardon?” said Mr. Melton politely, at a loss to understand the interruption.
“I didn’t at first know what you meant,” Amelius explained. “You put it, if you will forgive me for saying so, in rather a roundabout way. If you are alluding, all this time, to Mrs. Farnaby’s death, I must honestly tell you that I know of it already.”
The bland self-possession of Mr. Melton’s face began to show signs of being ruffled. He had been in a manner deluded into exhibiting his conventionally fluent eloquence, in the choicest modulations of his sonorous voice — and it wounded his self esteem to be placed in his present position. “I understood you to say,” he remarked stiffly, “that you had not seen the evening newspapers.”
“You are quite right,” Amelius rejoined; “I have not seen them.”
“Then may I inquire,” Mr. Melton proceeded, “how you became informed of Mrs. Farnaby’s death?”
Amelius replied with his customary frankness. “I went to call on the poor lady this morning,” he said, “knowing nothing of what had happened. I met the doctor at the door; and I was present at her death.”
Even Mr. Melton’s carefully-trained composure was not proof against the revelation that now opened before him. He burst out with an exclamation of astonishment, like an ordinary man.
“Good heavens, what does this mean!”
Amelius took it as a question addressed to himself. “I’m sure I don’t know,” he said quietly.
Mr. Melton, misunderstanding Amelius on his side, interpreted those innocent words as an outbreak of vulgar interruption. “Pardon me,” he said coldly. “I was about to explain myself. You will presently understand my surprise. After seeing the evening paper, I went at once to make inquiries at the address mentioned. In Mr. Farnaby’s absence, I felt bound to do this as his old friend. I saw the landlady, and, with her assistance, the doctor also. Both these persons spoke of a gentleman who had called that morning, accompanied by a young lady; and who had insisted on taking the young lady upstairs with him. Until you mentioned just now that you were present at the death, I had no suspicion that you were ‘the gentleman’. Surprise on my part was, I think, only natural. I could hardly be expected to know that you were in Mrs. Farnaby’s confidence about the place of her retreat. And with regard to the young lady, I am still quite at a loss to understand —”
“If you understand that the people at the house told you the truth, so far as I am concerned,” Amelius interposed, “I hope that will be enough. With regard to the young lady, I must beg you to excuse me for speaking plainly. I have nothing to say about her, to you or to anybody.”
Mr. Melton rose with the utmost dignity and the full............