A Life's Secret

Nobody need envy him the interview with Miss Gwinn. On her part it was not a seemly one. Glad to get out of the house and be away from her reproaches, the stormy interview was concluded almost as soon as it had begun. He returned straight to London, her last words ringing their refrain on his ears—that his wife was dead and he had killed her: Miss Gwinn being still in ignorance that his proper name was anything but Lewis. Following immediately upon this—it was curious that it should be so—Miss Gwinn received news that her sister Elizabeth, Mrs. Gardener, was ill in Jersey. She hastened to her: for Elizabeth was nearly, if not quite, as dear to her as Emma had been. Mrs. Gardener's was a peculiar and unusual illness, and it ended in a confirmed and hopeless affection of the brain.

Once more Miss Gwinn's injustice came into play. Just as she had persisted in attributing Emma's death to Mr. Lewis, so did she now attribute to him Elizabeth's insanity: that is, she regarded him as its remote cause. That the two young sisters had been much attached to each other was undoubted: but to think that Elizabeth's madness came on through sorrow for Emma's death, or at the tidings of what had preceded it, was absurdly foolish. The poor young lady was placed in an asylum in London, of which Dr. Bevary was one of the visiting physicians; he was led to take an unusual interest in the case, and this brought him acquainted with Miss Gwinn. Within a year of her being placed there, the husband, Mr. Gardener, died in Jersey. His affairs turned out to be involved, and from that time the cost of keeping her there devolved on Miss Gwinn.

Private asylums are expensive, and Miss Gwinn could only maintain her sister in one at the cost of giving up her own home. Ill-conditioned though she was, we must confess she had her troubles. She gave it up without a murmur: she would have given up her life to benefit either of those, her young sisters. Retaining but a mere pittance, she devoted all her means to the comfort of Elizabeth, and found a home with her brother, in Ketterford. Where she spent her days bemoaning the lost and cherishing a really insane hatred against Mr. Lewis—a desire for revenge. She had never come across him, until that Easter Monday, at Ketterford. And that, you will say, is scarcely correct, since it was not himself she met then, but his brother. Deceived by the resemblance, she attacked Mr. Henry Hunter in the manner you remember; and Austin Clay saved him from the gravel-pit. But the time soon came when she stood face to face with him. It was the hour she had so longed for: the hour of revenge. What revenge? But for the wicked lie she subsequently forged, there could have been no revenge. The worst she could have proclaimed was, that James Lewis Hunter, when he was a young man, had so far forgotten his duty to himself, and to the world's decencies, as to contract a secret marriage. He might have got over that. He had mourned his young wife sincerely at the time, but later grew to think that all things were for the best—that it was a serious source of embarrassment removed from his path. Nothing more or less had he to acknowledge.

What revenge would Miss Gwinn have reaped from this? None. Certainly none to satisfy one so vindictive as she. It never was clear to herself what revenge she had desired: all her efforts had been directed to the discovering of him. She found him a man of social ties. He had married Louisa Bevary; he had a fair daughter; he was respected by the world: all of which excited the anger of Miss Gwinn.

Remembering her violent nature, it was only to be expected that Mr. Hunter should shrink from meeting Miss Gwinn when he first knew she had tracked him and was in London. He had never told his wife the episode in his early life, and would very much have disliked its tardy disclosure to her through the agency of Miss Gwinn. Fifty pounds would he have willingly given to avoid a meeting with her. But she came to his very home; so to say, into the presence of his wife and child; and he had to see her, and make the best of it. You must remember the interview. Mr. Hunter's agitation previous to it, was caused by the dread of the woman's near presence, of the disturbance she might make in his household, of the discovery his wife was in close danger of making—that he was a widower when she married him, and not a bachelor. Any husband of the present day might show the same agitation I think under similar circumstances. But Mr. Hunter did not allow this agitation to sway him when before Miss Gwinn; once shut up with her, he was cool and calm as a cucumber; rather defied her than not, civilly; and asked what she meant by intruding upon him, and what she had to complain of: which of course was but adding fuel to the woman's flame. It was quite true, all he said, and there was nothing left to hang a peg of revenge upon. And so she invented one. The demon of mischief put it into her mind to impose upon him with the lie that his first wife, Emma, was not dead, but living. She told him that she (she, herself) had imposed upon him with a false story in that long-past day, in saying that Emma was dead and buried. It was another sister who had died, she added—not Emma: Emma had been ill with the fever, but was recovering; and she had said this to separate her from him. Emma, she continued, was alive still, a patient in the lunatic asylum.

It never occurred to Mr. Hunter to doubt the tale. Her passionate manner, her impressive words, but added to her earnestness, and he came out from the interview believing that his first wife had not died. His state of mind cannot be forgotten. Austin Clay saw him pacing the waste ground in the dark night. His agony and remorse were fearful; the sun of his life's peace had set: and there could be no retaliation upon her who had caused it all—Miss Gwinn.

Miss Gwinn, however, did not follow up her revenge. Not because further steps might have brought the truth to light, but because after a night's rest she rather repented of it. Her real nature was honourable, and she despised herself for what she had done. Once it crossed her to undo it; but she hated Mr. Hunter with an undying hatred, and so let it alone and went down to Ketterford. One evening, when she had been at home some days, a spirit of confidence came over her which was very unusual, and she told her brother of the revenge she had taken. That was quite enough for Lawyer Gwinn: a glorious opportunity of enriching himself, not to be missed. He went up to London, and terrified Mr. Hunter out of five thousand pounds. 'Or I go and tell your wife, Miss Bevary, that she is not your wife,' he threatened, in his coarse way. Miss Gwinn suspected that the worthy lawyer had gone to make the most of the opportunity, and she wrote him a sharp letter, telling him that if he did so—if he interfered at all—she would at once confess to Lewis Hunter that Emma was really dead. Not knowing where he would put up in London, she enclosed this note to Austin Clay, asking him to give it to Lawyer Gwinn. She took the opportunity, at the same time, of writing a reproachful letter to Mr. Hunter, in which his past ill-doings and Emma's present existence were fully enlarged upon. As the reader may remember, she misdirected the letters: Austin became acquainted with the (as he could but suppose) dangerous secret; and the note to Lawyer Gwinn was set alight, sealed. If Austin or his master had but borrowed a momentary portion of the principles of Gwinn of Ketterford, and peeped into the letter! What years of misery it would have saved Mr. Hunter! But when Miss Gwinn discovered that her brother had used the lie to obtain money, she did not declare the truth. The sense of justice within her yielded to revenge. She hated Mr. Hunter as she had ever done, and would not relieve him. A fine life, between them, did they lead Mr. Hunter. Miss Gwinn protested against every fresh aggression made by the lawyer; but protested only. In Mr. Hunter's anguish of mind at the disgrace cast on his wife and child; in his terror lest the truth (as he assumed it to be) should reach them—and it seemed to be ever looming—he had lived, as may be said, a perpetual death. And the disgrace was of a nature that never could be removed; and the terror had never left him through all these long years.

Dr. Bevary had believed the worst. When he first became acquainted with Miss Gwinn, she (never a communicative woman) had not disclosed the previous history of the patient in the asylum. She had given hints of a sad tale, she even said she was living in hope of being revenged on one who had done herself and family an injury, but she said no more. Later circumstances connected with Mr. Hunter and his brother, dating from the account he heard of Miss Gwinn's attack upon Mr. Henry, had impressed Dr. Bevary with the belief that James Hunter had really married the poor woman in the asylum. When he questioned Miss Gwinn, that estimable woman had replied in obscure hints: and they had so frightened Dr. Bevary that he dared ask no further. For his sister's sake he tacitly ignored the subject in future, living in daily thankfulness that Mrs. Hunter was without suspicion.

But with the dead body of Elizabeth Gardener lying before her, the enacted lie came to an end. Miss Gwinn freely acknowledged what she had done, and took little, if any, blame to herself. 'Lewis Hunter spoilt the happiness of my life,' she said; 'in return I have spoilt his.'

'And suppose my sister, his lawful wife, had been led to believe this fine tale?' questioned Dr. Bevary, looking keenly at her.

'In that case I should have declared the truth,' said Miss Gwinn. 'I had no animosity to her. She was innocent, she was also your sister, and she should never have suffered.'

'How could you know that she remained ignorant?'

'By my brother being able, whenever he would, to frighten Mr. Hunter,' was the laconic answer.

CHAPTER XI.

RELIEF

We left Mr. Hunter in the easy chair of his dining-room, buried in these reminiscences of the unhappy past, and quite unconscious that relief of any sort could be in store for him. And yet it was very near: relief from two evils, quite opposite in their source. How long he sat there he scarcely knew; it seemed for hours. In the afternoon he aroused himself to his financial difficulties, and went out. He remembered that he had purposed calling that day upon his bankers, though he had no hope—but rather the certainty of the contrary—that they would help him out of his financial embarrassments. There was just time to get there before the bank closed, and Mr. Hunter had a cab called and went down to Lombard Street. He was shown into the room of the principal partner. The banker thought how ill he looked. Mr. Hunter's first question was about the heavy bill that was due that day. He supposed it had been presented and dishonoured.

'No,' said the banker. 'It was presented and paid.'

A ray of hope lighted up the sadness of Mr. Hunter's face. 'Did you indeed pay it? It was very kind. You shall be no eventual losers.'

'We did not pay it from our own funds, Mr. Hunter. It was paid from yours.'

Mr. Hunter did not understand. 'I thought my account had been nearly drawn out,' he said; 'and by the note I received this morning from you, I understood you would decline to help me.'

'Your account was drawn very close indeed; but this afternoon, in time to meet the bill upon its second presentation, there was a large sum paid in to your credit—two thousand six hundred pounds.'

A pause of blank astonishment on the part of Mr. Hunter. 'Who paid it in?' he presently asked.

'Mr. Clay. He came himself. You will weather the storm now, Mr. Hunter.'

There was no answering reply. The banker bent forward in the dusk of the growing evening, and saw that Mr. Hunter was incapable of making one. He was sinking back in his chair in a fainting fit. Whether it was the revulsion of feeling caused by the conviction that he should now weather the storm, or simply the effect of his physical state, Mr. Hunter had fainted, as quietly as any girl might do. One of the partners lived at the bank, and Mr. Hunter was conveyed into the dwelling-house. It was quite evening before he was well enough to leave it. He drove to the yard. It was just closed for the night, and Mr. Clay was gone. Mr. Hunter ordered the cab home. He found Austin waiting for him, and he also found Dr. Bevary. Seeing the latter, he expected next to see Miss Gwinn, and glanced nervously round.

'She is gone back to Ketterford,' spoke out Dr. Bevary, divining the fear. 'The woman will never trouble you again. I thought you must be lost, Hunter. I have been here twice; been home to dinner with Florence; been round at the yard worrying Clay; and could not come upon you anywhere.'

'I went to the bank, and was taken ill there,' said Mr. Hunter, who still seemed anything but himself, and looked round in a bewildered manner. 'The woman, Bevary—are you sure she's gone quite away? She—she wanted to beg, I think,' he added, as if in apology for pressing the question.

'She is gone: gone never to return; and you may be at rest,' repeated the doctor, impressively. 'And so you have been ill at the bankers', James! Things are going wrong, I suppose.'

'No, they are going right. Austin'—laying his hand upon the young man's shoulder—'what am I to say? This money can only have come from you.'

'Sir!' said Austin, half laughing.

Mr. Hunter drew Dr. Bevary's attention, pointing to Austin. 'Look at him, Bevary. He has saved me. But for him, I should have borne a dishonoured name this day. I went down to Lombard Street, a man without hope, believing that the blow had been already struck in bills dishonoured—that my name was on its way to the Gazette. I found that he, Austin Clay, had paid in between two and three thousand pounds to my credit.'

'I could not put my money to a better use, sir. The two thousand pounds were left to me, you know: the rest I saved. I was wishing for something to turn up that I could invest it in.'

'Invest!' exclaimed Mr. Hunter, deep feeling in his tone. 'How do you know you will not lose it?'

'I have no fear, sir. The strike is at an end, and business will go on well now.'

'If I did not believe that it would, I would never consent to use it,' said Mr. Hunter.

It was true. Austin Clay, a provident man, had been advancing his money to save the credit of his master. Suspecting some such a crisis as this was looming, he had contrived to hold his funds in available readiness. It had come, though, sooner than he anticipated.

'How am I to repay you?' asked Mr. Hunter. 'I don't mean the money: but the obligation.'

A red flush mounted to Austin's brow. He answered hastily, as if to cover it.

'I do not require payment, sir. I do not look for any.'

Mr. Hunter stood in deep thought, looking at him, but vacantly. Dr. Bevary was near the mantelpiece, apparently paying no attention to either of them. 'Will you link your name to mine?' said Mr. Hunter, moving towards Austin.

'In what manner, sir?'

'By letting the firm be from henceforth Hunter and Clay. I have long wished this; you are of too great use to me to remain anything less than a partner, and by this last act of yours, you have earned the right to be so. Will you object to join your name to one which was so near being dishonoured?'

He held out his hand as he spoke, and Austin clasped it. 'Oh, Mr. Hunter!' he exclaimed, in the strong impulse of the moment, 'I wish you would give me hopes of a dearer reward.'

'You mean Florence,' said Mr. Hunter.

'Yes,' returned Austin, in agitation. 'I care not how long I wait, or what price you may call upon me to pay for her. As Jacob served Laban seven years for Rachel, so would I serve for Florence, and think it but a day, for the love I bear her. Sir, Mrs. Hunter would have given her to me.'

'My objection is not to you, Austin. Were I to disclose to you certain particulars connected with Florence—as I should be obliged to do before she married—you might yourself decline her.'

'Try me, sir,' said Austin, a bright smile parting his lips.

'Ay, try him,' said Dr. Bevary, in his quaint manner. 'I have an idea that he may know as much of the matter as you do, Hunter. You neither of you know too much,' he significantly added.

Austin's cheek turned red; and there was that in his tone, his look, which told Mr. Hunter that he had known the fact, known it for years. 'Oh, sir,' he pleaded, 'give me Florence.'

'I tell you that you neither of you know too much,' said Dr. Bevary. 'But, look here, Austin. The best thing you can do is, to go to my house and ask Florence whether she will have you. Then—if you don't find it too much trouble—escort her home.' Austin laughed as he caught up his hat. A certain prevision, that he should win Florence, had ever been within him.

Dr. Bevary watched the room-door close, and then drew a chair in front of his brother-in-law. 'Did it ever strike you that Austin Clay knew your secret, James?' he began.

'How should it?' returned Mr. Hunter, feeling himself compelled to answer.

'I do not know how,' said the doctor, 'any more than I know how the impression, that he did, fixed itself upon me. I have felt sure, this many a year past, that he was no stranger to the fact, though he probably knew nothing of the details.'

To the fact! Dr. Bevary spoke with strange coolness.

'When did you become acquainted with it?' asked Mr. Hunter, in a tone of sharp pain.

'I became acquainted with your share in it at the time Miss Gwinn discovered that Mr. Lewis was Mr. Hunter. At least, with as much of the share as I ever was acquainted with until to-day.'

Mr. Hunter compressed his lips. It was no use beating about the bush any longer.

'James,' resumed the doctor, 'why did you not confide the secret to me? It would have been much better.'

'To you! Louisa's brother!'

'It would have been better, I say. It might not have lifted the sword that was always hanging over Louisa's head, or have eased it by one jot; but it might have eased you. A sorrow kept within a man's own bosom, doing its work in silence, will burn his life away: get him to talk of it, and half the pain is removed. It is also possible that I might have made better terms than you, with the rapacity of Gwinn.'

'If you knew it, why did you not speak openly to me?'

Dr. Bevary suppressed a shudder. 'It was one of those terrible secrets that a third party cannot interfere in uninvited. No: silence was my only course, so long as you observed silence to me. Had I interfered, I might have said "Louisa shall leave you!"'

'It is over, so far as she is concerned,' said Mr. Hunter, wiping his damp brow. 'Let her name rest. It is the thought of her that has well nigh killed me.'

'Ay, it's over,' responded Dr. Bevary; 'over, in more senses than one. Do you not wonder that Miss Gwinn should have gone back to Ketterford without molesting you again?'

'How can I wonder at anything she does? She comes and she goes, with as little reason as warning.'

Dr. Bevary lowered his voice. 'Have you ever been to see that poor patient in Kerr's asylum?'

The question excited the anger of Mr. Hunter. 'What do you mean by asking it?' he cried. 'When I was led to believe her dead, I shaped my future course according to that belief. I have never acted, nor would I act, upon any other—save in the giving money to Gwinn, for my wife's sake. If Louisa was not my wife legally, she was nothing less in the sight of God.'

'Louisa was your wife,' said Dr. Bevary, quietly. And Mr. Hunter responded by a sharp gesture of pain. He wished the subject at an end. The doctor continued—

'James, had you gone, though it had been but for an instant, to see that unhappy patient of Kerr's, your trammels would have been broken. It was not Emma, your young wife of years ago.'

'It was not!–What do you say?' gasped Mr. Hunter.

'When Agatha Gwinn found you out, here, in this house, she startled you nearly to death by telling you that Emma was alive—was a patient in Kerr's asylum. She told you that, when you had been informed in those past days of Emma's death, you were imposed upon by a lie—a lie invented by herself. James, the lie was uttered then, when she spoke to you here. Emma, your wife, did die; and the young woman in the asylum was her sister.' Mr. Hunter rose. His hands were raised imploringly, his face was stretched forward in its sad yearning. What!—which was true? which was he to believe?—'In the gratification of her revenge, Miss Gwinn concocted the tale that Emma was alive,' resumed Dr. Bevary, 'knowing, as she spoke it, that Emma had been dead years and years. She contrived to foster the same impression upon me; and the same impression, I cannot tell how, has, I am sure, clung to Austin Clay. Louisa was your lawful wife, James.' Mr. Hunter, in the plenitude of his thankfulness, sank upon his chair, a sobbing burst of emotion breaking from him, and the drops of perspiration gathering again on his brow. 'That other one, the sister, the poor patient, is dead,' pursued the doctor. 'As we stood together over her, an hour ago, Miss Gwinn confessed the imposition. It appeared to slip from her involuntarily, in spite of herself. I inquired her motive, and she answered, "To be revenged on you, Lewis Hunter, for the wrong you had done." As you had marred the comfort of her life, so she in return had marred that of yours. As she stood in her impotence, looking on the dead, I asked her which, in her opinion, had inflicted the most wrong, she or you?'

Mr. Hunter lifted his eager face. 'It was a foolish deceit. What did she hope to gain by it? A word at any time might have exposed it.'

'It seems she did gain pretty well by it,' significantly replied Dr. Bevary. 'There's little doubt that it was first spoken in the angry rage of the moment, as being the most effectual mode of tormenting you: and the terrible dread with which you received it—as I conclude you so did receive it—must have encouraged her to persist in the lie. James, you should have confided in me; I might have brought light to bear on it in some way or other. Your timorous silence has kept me quiet.'

'God be thanked that it is over!' fervently ejaculated Mr. Hunter. 'The loss of my money, the loss of my peace, they seem to be little in comparison with the joy of this welcome revelation.'

He sat down as he spoke and bent his head upon his hand. Presently he looked at his brother-in-law. 'And you think that Clay has suspected this? And that—suspecting it, he has wished for Florence?'

'I am sure of one thing—that Florence has been his object, his dearest hope. What he says has no exaggeration in it—that he would serve for her seven years, and seven to that, for the love he bears her.'

'I have been afraid to glance at such a thing as marriage for Florence, and that is the reason I would not listen to Austin Clay. With this slur hanging over her–'

'There is no slur—as it turns out,' interrupted Dr. Bevary. 'Florence loves him, James; and your wife knew it.'

'What a relief is all this!' murmured Mr. Hunter. 'The woman gone back to Ketterford! I think I shall sleep to-night.'

'She is gone back, never more to trouble you. We must see how her worthy brother can be brought to account for obtaining money under false pretences.'

'I'll make him render back every shilling he has defrauded me of: I'll bring him to answer for it before the laws of his country,' was the wronged man's passionate and somewhat confused answer.

But that is more easy to say than to do, Mr. Hunter!

For, a few days subsequent to this, Lawyer Gwinn, possibly scenting that unpleasant consequences might be in store for him, was quietly steaming to America in a fine ship; taking all his available substance with him; and leaving Ketterford and his sister behind.

CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION

With outward patience and inward wonder, Florence Hunter was remaining at Dr. Bevary's. That something must be wrong at home, she felt sure: else why was she kept away from it so long? And where was her uncle? Invalids were shut up in the waiting-room, like Patience on a monument, hoping minute by minute to see him appear. And now here was another, she supposed! No. He had passed the patients' room and was opening the door of this. Austin Clay!

'What have you come for?' she exclaimed, in the glad confusion of the moment.