“And the Manor House estate will be devoted to the creation of an hospital.”
“Those are the conditions of Jasper Treverton’s will.”
“As a professional man I am bound to rejoice; but as a mere human being I can’t help feeling sorry for Mrs. Treverton. She seems devoted to her husband.”
“Yes,” answered Edward, “he has contrived to hoodwink her; but perhaps when she knows that John Treverton is Jack Chicot, the ballet-dancer’s husband, she will be disenchanted.”
Gerard made no reply. He began to understand that personal malignity was the mainspring of Edward’s anxiety to let in the light upon John Treverton’s secret. He was almost sorry that he had lent his aid to the discovery; yet he had ardently desired that justice should be done upon La Chicot’s murderer. It was only since his recent conversation with John Treverton that his opinion as to the husband’s guilt had begun to waver.
He was haunted all the rest of the day by uncomfortable thoughts about the master of Hazlehurst Manor and his fair young wife; thoughts so uncomfortable as to prevent his enjoyment of Celia’s lively company, which had all the charm of novelty to a man whose youth had not been brightened by girlish society, and whose way of life had been dull, and hard, and laborious. He was to go back to London next morning by the first train, and although the Vicar pressed him to remain, and even Celia put in a kindly word, he stuck to his intention.
“My practice is not of a kind that will bear being trifled with,” he said when he had thanked Mr. Clare for his proffered hospitality. “The few remunerative patients I have would be quick to take offence if they fancied I neglected them.”
“But you give yourself a holiday sometimes, I suppose?” said Mrs. Clare, whose large maternal heart had a kindly feeling for all young men, simply because her son belonged to that section of society. “You go to stay with your relations now and then, don’t you?”
“No, my dear Mrs. Clare, I do not; and for the best of all reasons—I have no relations. I am the last twig of a withered tree.”
“How sad!” replied the Vicar’s wife.
Celia echoed the sigh, and looked compassionately at the surgeon, and compassion in Celia’s blue eyes was a sentiment no man could afford to despise.
“If you will let me come again some day, when I have made a little progress in my profession, you will be giving me something pleasant to look forward to,” said Gerard.
“My dear fellow, we shall always be glad to see you,” the Vicar answered, heartily. “It strikes me you are the kind of friend my son wants.”
XXXI
Why Don’t You Trust Me?
That winter sabbath was a dreary day for John Treverton. He walked home almost in silence, Laura wondering at his thoughtfulness, and speculating anxiously upon the possible reasons for this sudden change in his mood. Had this friend of the Clares brought him bad news? Yet how could that be? Must it not rather be that this meeting with an old acquaintance had recalled some painful period in that past life of which she knew so little?
“That is my misfortune,” she thought. “I am only half a wife while I am ignorant of all his old sorrows.”
She did not disturb her husband by questions of any kind, but walked quietly by his side through the wintry shrubberies, where the holly berries were gleaming in the midday sun, and the fearless robins fluttered from hawthorn to laurel.
“I won’t come in to luncheon, dear,” said John when they came to the hall door. “I feel a little dull and headachy, and I think it might do me good to lie down for an hour or two.”
“Shall I come and read you to sleep, Jack?”
“No, dear, I shall be better alone.”
“Oh, Jack, why are you not frank with me?” exclaimed his wife, piteously. “I know there is something on your mind. Why don’t you trust me?”
“Not yet, dear. You will know everything that can be known about me very soon, I dare say. But we need not anticipate the revelation. It will not be too pleasant for either of us.”
“Do you think that anything I can ever learn about you will change me?” she asked, with her hand upon his arm, looking up at him intently. “Have I not trusted you, and loved you, blindly?”
“Yes, dearest, blindly. But how can I tell how you may feel when your eyes are opened?”
She looked at him for some moments in silence, trying to read his face; and then, with most pathetic earnestness, she said—
“John, if there is anything to be told to your discredit, if there is any act of your past life that you are ashamed to remember—ashamed to acknowledge—an act known to others, for pity’s sake let me hear it from you, and not from the lips of an enemy. Am I so severe a judge that you should fear to stand before me? Have I not been weakly fond, blindly trustful? Can you doubt my power to excuse and to pardon, where all the rest of mankind might be inexorable?”
“No,” he answered, quickly, “I will not doubt you. No, dear love, it is not because I feared to trust you that I have tried to keep my secret. I wished to spare you pain; for I knew that it would pain you to know how low I had sunk before your influence, your love, came to lift me out of the slough into which I had fallen. But it seems the pain must come. Good and pure as you are, there are those who will not spare you that bitter knowledge. Yes, dear, it is best that you should learn the truth first from my lips. Whatever garbled version of this story may be told you afterwards,
