he had brought the child home with him from the prison! To point out the absurdity of the reasons that he gave for fearing what female curiosity might yet attempt, if circumstances happened to encourage it, would have been a mere waste of words. Dismissing the subject, I next ascertained that the Minister's doubts extended even to the two female warders, who had been appointed to watch the murderess in turn, during her last days in prison. I easily relieved his mind in this case. One of the warders was dead. The other had married a farmer in Australia. Had we exhausted the list of suspected persons yet? No: there was one more left; and the Minister declared that he had first met with her in my official residence, at the time when I was Governor of the prison.
'She presented herself to me by name,' he said; 'and she spoke rudely. A Miss—' He paused to consult his memory, and this time (thanks perhaps to his night's rest) his memory answered the appeal. 'I have got it!' he cried—'Miss Chance.'
My friend had interested me in his imaginary perils at last. It was just possible that he might have a formidable person to deal with now.
During my residence at Florence, the Chaplain and I had taken many a retrospective look (as old men will) at past events in our lives. My former colleague spoke of the time when he had performed clerical duty for his friend, the rector of a parish church in London. Neither he nor I had heard again of the 'Miss Chance' of our disagreeable prison experience, whom he had married to the dashing Dutch gentleman, Mr. Tenbruggen. We could only wonder what had become of that mysterious married pair.
Mr. Gracedieu being undoubtedly ignorant of the woman's marriage, it was not easy to say what the consequence might be, in his excitable state, if I informed him of it. He would, in all probability, conclude that I knew more of the woman than he did. I decided on keeping my own counsel, for the present at least.
Passing at once, therefore, to the one consideration of any importance, I endeavored to find out whether Mr. Gracedieu and Mrs. Tenbruggen had met, or had communicated with each other in any way, during the long period of separation that had taken place between the Minister and myself. If he had been so unlucky as to offend her, she was beyond all doubt an enemy to be dreaded. Apart, however, from a misfortune of this kind, she would rank, in my opinion, with the other harmless objects of Mr. Gracedieu's distrust.
In making my inquiries, I found that I had an obstacle to contend with.
While he felt the renovating influence of the repose that he enjoyed, the Minister had been able to think and to express himself with less difficulty than usual. But the reserves of strength, on which the useful exercise of his memory depended, began to fail him as the interview proceeded. He distinctly recollected that 'something unpleasant had passed between that audacious woman and himself.' But at what date—and whether by word of mouth or by correspondence—was more than his memory could now recall. He believed he was not mistaken in telling me that he 'had been in two minds about her.' At one time, he was satisfied that he had taken wise measures for his own security, if she attempted to annoy him. But there was another and a later time, when doubts and fears had laid hold of him again. If I wanted to know how this had happened, he fancied it was through a dream; and if I asked what the dream was, he could only beg and pray that I would spare his poor head.
Unwilling even yet to submit unconditionally to defeat, it occurred to me to try a last experiment on my friend, without calling for any mental effort on his own part. The 'Miss Chance' of former days might, by a bare possibility, have written to him. I asked accordingly if he was in the habit of keeping his letters, and if he would allow me (when he had rested a little) to lay them open before him, so that he could look at the signatures. 'You might find the lost recollection in that way,' I suggested, 'at the bottom of one of your letters.'
He was in that state of weariness, poor fellow, in which a man will do anything for the sake of peace. Pointing to a cabinet in his room, he gave me a key taken from a little basket on his bed. 'Look for yourself,' he said. After some hesitation—for I naturally recoiled from examining another man's correspondence—I decided on opening the cabinet, at any rate.
The letters—a large collection—were, to my relief, all neatly folded, and indorsed with the names of the writers. I could run harmlessly through bundle after bundle in search of the one name that I wanted, and still respect the privacy of the letters. My perseverance deserved a reward—and failed to get it. The name I wanted steadily eluded my search. Arriving at the upper shelf of the cabinet, I found it so high that I could barely reach it with my hand. Instead of getting more letters to look over, I pulled down two newspapers.
One of them was an old copy of the
'On the 10th inst., the wife of the Rev. Abel Gracedieu, of a daughter.'
The second newspaper bore a later date, and contained nothing that interested me. I naturally assumed that the advertisement in the
I turned toward the bed and looked at him. His eyes were closed. Was he sleeping? Or was he trying to remember what he had desired to say to me, when the demands which I made on his memory had obliged him to wait for a later opportunity?
Either way, there was something that quickened my sympathies, in the spectacle of his helpless repose. It suggested to me personal reasons for his anxieties, which he had not mentioned, and which I had not thought of, up to this time. If the discovery that he dreaded took place, his household would be broken up, and his position as pastor would suffer in the estimation of the flock. His own daughter would refuse to live under the same roof with the daughter of an infamous woman. Popular opinion, among his congregation, judging a man who had passed off the child of other parents as his own, would find that man guilty of an act of deliberate deceit.
Still oppressed by reflections which pointed to the future in this discouraging way, I was startled by a voice outside the door—a sweet, sad voice—saying, 'May I come in?'
The Minister's eyes opened instantly: he raised himself in his bed.
'Eunice, at last!' he cried. 'Let her in.'
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE ADOPTED CHILD
I opened the door.
Eunice passed me with the suddenness almost of a flash of light. When I turned toward the bed, her arms were
