towards the market-cross came Milly Leslie, the wife of a clergyman officiating at the only chapel of ease in Trowchester. She turned down one of the narrow streets that led to the suburbs, and knocked at the door of a small old-fashioned house with a projecting upper storey. An elderly woman who opened the door shook her head sadly as she looked at Milly and led the way up-stairs, where, on her bed, a woman still young, and with the remains of a delicate and refined beauty on her features, lay dying of a painful illness which had so far yielded in the mortal struggle that a short interval of comparative peace had been granted to her last hours. “Something,” said physicians, “had worn Mrs. Lane out.” That something was anxiety. It was expressed in her eager eyes, and in that restlessness of body which, in some degree, seems to us to lessen the sanctity of suffering.
“Dr. Burrows does not think I shall live till morning,” she said, as Milly sat down by the bed-side. “Months ago I entreated him to warn me when he saw my last hours of suffering approaching, in order that I might not put off till too late what I have to say to you. Send Martha to church and come back to me.”
The old servant went unwillingly, and Mrs. Lane waited for the closing of the house-door before she spoke again.
“You know I have nothing to leave you, Milly,” she said at last; “my annuity dies with me. I thank God that you are loved and cared for. Had it been otherwise, my last hours would have been sadder than they now are. Milly!” she asked suddenly, “do you remember your father?”
“Sometimes, mother, I think I do; but it is so long since he died. It must be more than fourteen years ago—before we came to Trowchester.”
“Milly, he is not dead.”
“Not dead! Oh, mother! where is he?”
“He has been in England for more than a year.”
“Why did he leave us? Mother, what mystery have you hid from me?”
“The wretched secret of my life. Your father’s name—it was not Lane—is even now a reproach in men’s mouths. By fraudulent means he obtained possession of property which he held in trust for others: whole families were rendered beggars by his crime—widows and children have starved from its consequences. I came here with you, Milly, fifteen years ago, resolved, if it were possible, to keep you from the knowledge of the evil he had wrought. Deceit grew upon me, I cannot tell how, unless it sprung from the love I bore my child. I called myself a widow. I made up some story of my former life that satisfied the people we have been thrown amongst, and I was thankful that its truth had never been called in question when Mr. Leslie asked you to be his wife. Think what the prejudices of his family would have been if the fact of your father being a convict had been known! Even if his attachment to you had induced him to hold to his engagement in defiance of the world’s opinion, the knowledge of the fact would have destroyed your future happiness. Once, indeed, I tried to tell him, but my heart failed me.”
“But, oh, mother! it is so unfair, so dishonest—forgive me, it is your affection for me, I know, that blinds you to the wrong-doing.”
“I have done it for the best. He could never have a better or truer wife than my Milly. Why should you suffer for your father’s sin? For the sake of my sleepless nights, for the long wearying days of anxiety and care, promise me, as you hope for mercy when you too lie down to die, that you will never tell Robert Leslie what I have kept back from him. I do not ask it on the strength of my own judgment alone. Your father wrote to me a fortnight before your marriage to tell me he had returned a homeless man. My first impulse was to share with him the little I had. Then I thought of the ruin of your prospects from the degradation of his relationship and the hard sentence of the world when it should be discovered. I looked around for a friend to whom I could confide my position. Of all I knew in this place I could only ask advice in this cruel strait of Mr. Wareham.”
“Mr. Wareham!”
“As a lawyer and a friend he was qualified to aid me. I wrote to your father upon his suggestion, sending him what little money I could spare, and entreating him to remain in London till after your marriage.”
“And you have heard from him since, mother?”
“Never—never since. A second letter I sent to the address he gave me was returned from the post-office some time ago.”
“If Mr. Wareham should betray us!”
“Mr. Wareham promised me secresy by everything he held sacred, and I hope, I pray, that he may keep his word.”
Milly’s head was hid in her hands, but nothing shut out the ticking of the clock that seemed noting only her mother’s breathing.
“Promise me, my Milly!” said the faint voice more feebly.
And in the deepening gloom, with her mother’s head pillowed on her arm—hoping that sleep might come to the weary eyelids if she yielded—praying that she might be forgiven if in so doing she erred—Milly promised never to tell her husband her father’s history, never to say or do anything in reference to it which would alter her position as Mr. Leslie’s wife.
Evening prayers had been said and sung. The footsteps of the passers-by vibrated through the room. Martha had let herself in at the house-door, and Milly heard her striking a light in the room beneath. Softly she came up the creaking stairs and opened the door, shading the candle with her hand. Why heed where its rays fell? Mrs. Lane was dead.
CHAPTER II.
