at Mrs. Smith’s, and after the explanation had taken place, Jane showed her the letter, in the hope that it might lead to some elucidation of who the husband was, to whom it was evidently written. Even then Jane had no suspicion of Mr. Carlton, or if she had, it was only in a secondary sort of degree. She believed that Clarice had married Mr. Crane, and that however Mr. Carlton might have been mixed up in the affair, it had been only as a friend and associate of Mr. Crane’s. Jane would have shown the letter to Frederick Grey, but it was not just now in her possession. She described it and he caught the clue at once.
“Ah, yes, it was to her husband she wrote it; Mr. Carlton. But the playful style in which, as you describe, it is written would mislead any one who has not the key. They would never suppose that the husband spoken of, and the medical man she says she must ask to come to see her, were one and the same. I should like my father to see that letter, Lady Jane.”
“Oh yes, he shall see it. You—you are sure Sir Stephen would not use it against him?” she added quickly.
“Against Mr. Carlton? Oh no. I don’t think he would do it in any case, certainly not in this. My father is the kindest man breathing. Lucy will be his daughter-in-law; and Mr. Carlton is her sister’s husband. Sir Stephen must lie under suspicion still, for Lucy’s sake— perhaps I ought rather to say for Lady Laura’s sake. It has not hurt him, Lady Jane, he had out-lived the odium; witness how he was received the other day at South Wennock.”
But if Frederick Grey and Lady Jane agreed that the affair altogether, including the letter, must be suppressed, there was another individual who took, unfortunately, just the opposite view of it. That was Mrs. Smith. And at this very moment, while they were so speaking, she was making the first step to publish it.
Chance links, fitting one into the other! chance events, words, trifles in the chain of discovery! From the hour in which Mrs. Smith had found Mr. Carlton searching in her drawers, she had had a sort of suspicion of him, not that he was the husband of Mrs. Crane, but that he held some secret connected with that past time. The little boy, Lewis, had told her he heard Mr. Carlton looking into drawers up-stairs as well as down, and the woman wondered excessively. Like most secretive persons she dwelt much upon it in her own mind; and when the time came—as it did come—that a little fresh evidence bearing on the past met her ears, a half suspicion crept into her mind of the worst, as connected with Mr. Carlton.
You may remember Mrs. Smith’s afternoon of levee. You may remember that Judith as she left the cottage met Mr. Carlton driving up to it; and you may also remember a casual remark to the effect that Mr. Carlton returned home from that visit a little put out with some trifles that had occurred there. Very greatly to his annoyance, the Widow Gould—whom he had not the honour of meeting frequently in private society—brought up the subject of Mrs. Crane. Her tongue was long enough for two, and she had not the least tact. She alluded openly to the fact of Mrs. Smith being the person who took away the child, and persisted in alluding to the past in a manner not at all agreeable to the surgeon. Mrs. Pepperfly (also a visitor) thought no harm in chiming in, now that it was spoken of openly, and the two kept up a duet as long as they had the chance, which was as long as Mr. Carlton was attending to the child, then on Mrs. Smith’s lap in the kitchen. The final remark of Mrs. Gould capped it all.
“I could have declared that you was known to her, Mr. Carlton, sir, the very day she first come to South Wennock. It were in this way: Mrs. Crane———”
The surgeon turned round, a sort of glare in his eyes. If looks could enforce silence, the Widow Gould had been silenced then. But she did not understand; she had no tact.
“Mrs. Crane asks who were the doctors here, and I told her the Mr. Greys and Mr. Carlton. Then she writes a note to Mr. Carlton, telling me to send it—as have been known to South Wennock many a day, for I told it out at the inquest. But when I had took the note down-stairs, I saw it had got your Chrissen name outside it, sir, Lewis. Many a time have I wondered how she got at the name. Judy said Mrs. Fitch might have told it, but Mrs. Fitch said she didn’t, and———”
“Is it well to have this gossip in the room when your child’s so ill?” sternly asked the surgeon of Mrs. Smith. “It is bad for him; it must not be. You might choose a better time, I think, to receive visitors.”
The words, the tone, took Mrs. Gould by surprise. She sat a moment with her mouth open, and then seemed to shrink into nothing, too completely checked to offer even a whisper of apology. Mr. Carlton gave a short direction in regard to the child, strode out to his carriage, and was driven away.
“How did I offend him?” breathed the Widow Gould then, questioning the other two with her eyes.
“I wish you’d go on with what you were saying about the Christian name,” returned Mrs. Smith. “I never heard this before.”
“It’s not much to go on with. When I saw the name, Lewis Carlton, Esq., on the let-