These bitter words never reached poor Grace, but the bare fact of Mrs. Little not coming down-stairs by one o'clock, nor sending a civil message, spoke volumes, and Grace was sighing over it when her father's letter came. She went home directly, and so heartbroken, that Jael Dence pitied her deeply, and went with her, intending to stay a day or two only.
But every day something or other occurred, which combined with Grace's prayers to keep her at Woodbine Villa.
Mr. Coventry remained quiet for some days, by which means he pacified Grace's terrors.
On the fourth day Mr. Beresford called at Woodbine Villa, and Grace received him, he being the curate of the parish.
He spoke to her in a sympathetic tone, which let her know at once he was partly in the secret. He said he had just visited a very guilty, but penitent man; that we all need forgiveness, and that a woman, once married, has no chance of happiness but with her husband.
Grace maintained a dead silence, only her eye began to glitter.
Mr. Beresford, who had learned to watch the countenance of all those he spoke to changed his tone immediately, from a spiritual to a secular adviser.
"If I were you," said he, in rather an offhand way, "I would either forgive this man the sin into which his love has betrayed him, or I would try to get a divorce. This would cost money: but, if you don't mind expense, I think I could suggest a way--"
Grace interrupted him. "From whom did you learn my misery, and his villainy? I let you in, because I thought you came from God; but you come from a villain. Go back, sir, and say that an angel, sent by him, becomes a devil in my eyes." And she rang the bell with a look that spoke volumes.
Mr. Beresford bowed, smiled bitterly, and went back to Coventry, with whom he had a curious interview, that ended in Coventry lending him two hundred pounds on his personal security. To dispose of Mr. Beresford for the present I will add that, soon after this, his zeal for the poor subjected him to an affront. He was a man of soup-kitchens and subscriptions. One of the old fogies, who disliked him, wrote letters to The Liberal, and demanded an account of his receipts and expenditure in these worthy objects, and repeated the demand with a pertinacity that implied suspicion. Then Mr. Beresford called upon Dr. Fynes, and showed him the letters, and confessed to him that he never kept any accounts, either of public or private expenditure. "I can construe Apollonius Rhodius--with your assistance, sir," said he, "but I never could add up pounds, shillings, and pence; far less divide them except amongst the afflicted." "Take no notice of the cads," said Dr. Fynes. But Beresford represented meekly that a clergyman's value and usefulness were gone when once a slur was thrown upon him. Then Dr. Fynes gave him high testimonials, and they parted with mutual regret.
It took Grace a day to get over her interview with Mr. Beresford; and when with Jael's help she was calm again, she received a letter from Coventry, indited in tones of the deepest penitence, but reminding her that he had offered her his life, had made no resistance when she offered to take it, and never would.
There was nothing in the letter that irritated her, but she saw in it an attempt to open a correspondence. She wrote back:
"If you really repent your crimes, and have any true pity for the poor creature whose happiness you have wrecked, show it by leaving this place, and ceasing all communication with her."
This galled Coventry, and he wrote back:
"What! leave the coast clear to Mr. Little? No, Mrs. Coventry; no."
Grace made no reply, but a great terror seized her, and from that hour preyed constantly on her mind--the fear that Coventry and Little would meet, and the man she loved would do some rash act, and perhaps perish on the scaffold for it.
This was the dominant sentiment of her distracted heart, when one day, at eleven A.M., came a telegram from Liverpool:
"Just landed. Will be with you by four.
"HENRY LITTLE."
Jael found her shaking all over, with this telegram in her hand.
"Thank God you are with me!" she gasped. "Let me see him once more, and die."
This was her first thought; but all that day she was never in the same mind for long together. She would burst out into joy that he was really alive, and she should see his face once more. Then she would cower with terror, and say she dared not look him in the face; she was not worthy. Then she would ask wildly, who was to tell him?
What would become of him?
"It would break his heart, or destroy his reason. After all he had done and suffered for her!"
Oh! why could she not die before he came? Seeing her dead body he would forgive her. She should tell him she loved him still, should always love him. She would withhold no comfort. Perhaps he would kill her, if so, Jael must manage so that he should not be taken up or tormented any more, for such a wretch as she was.
But I might as well try to dissect a storm, and write the gusts of a tempest, as to describe all the waves of passion in that fluctuating and agonized heart: the feelings and the agitation of a life were crowded into those few hours, during which she awaited the lover she had lost.
At last, Jael Dence, though she was also much agitated and perplexed, decided on a course of action. Just before four o'clock she took Grace upstairs and told her she might see him arrive, but she must not come down until she was sent for. "I shall see him first, and tell him all; and, when he is fit to see you, I will let you know."
Grace submitted, and even consented to lie down for half an hour.
She was now, in truth, scarcely able to stand, being worn out with the mental struggle. She lay passive, with Jael Dence's hand in hers.
When she had lain so about an hour, she started up suddenly, and the next moment a fly stopped at the door. Henry Little got out at the gate, and walked up the gravel to the house.
Grace looked at him from behind the curtain, gazed at him till he disappeared, and then turned round, with seraphic joy on her countenance. "My darling!" she murmured; "more beautiful than ever!
