She could not find it in her heart to blame him—though her nobler nature was full of scorn for falsehood—for it had been his love for her that made him weak, his desire to secure to her the possession of the house she loved that had made him false.
Halfway between the house and the road they met a stranger—a middle-aged man, of respectable appearance—a man who might be a clerk, or a builder’s foreman, a railway official in plain clothes, anything practical and businesslike. He looked scrutinisingly at Laura as he approached, and then stopped short and addressed her, touching his hat:
“I beg your pardon, madam, but may I ask if Mr. Treverton is at home?”
“No; he is away from home.”
“I’m sorry for that, as I’ve particular business with him. Will he be long away, do you think, madam?
“I expect him home daily,” answered Laura. “Are you one of his tenants? I don’t remember to have seen you before.”
“No, madam. But I am a tenant for all that. Mr. Treverton is ground landlord of a block of houses I own in Beechampton, and there is a question about drainage, and I can’t move a step without reference to him. I shall be very glad to have a few words with him as soon as possible. Drainage is a business that won’t wait, you see, sir,” the man added, turning to the Vicar.
He was a man of peculiarly polite address, with something of old-fashioned ceremoniousness which rather pleased Mr. Clare.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait till the end of the week,” said the Vicar. “Mr. Treverton has left home upon important business, and I don’t think he can be back sooner than that.”
The stranger was too polite to press the matter further.
“I thank you very much, sir,” he said; “I must make it convenient to call again.”
“You had better leave your name,” said Laura, “and I will tell my husband of your visit directly he comes home.”
“I thank you, madam, there is no occasion to trouble you with any message. I am staying with a friend in the village, and shall call directly I hear Mr. Treverton has returned.”
“A very superior man,” remarked the Vicar, when the stranger had raised his hat and walked on briskly enough to be speedily out of earshot. “The owner of some of those smart new shops in Beechampton High Street, no doubt. Odd that I should never have seen him before. I thought I knew everyone in the town.”
It was a small thing, proving the nervous state into which Laura had been thrown by the troubles of the last few days. Even the appearance of this courteous stranger discomposed her and seemed a presage of evil.
XXXVIII
Celia’s Lovers
The day after Mr. Clare’s visit brought Laura the expected letter from her husband, a long letter, telling her his adventures at Auray.
“So you see, dearest,” he wrote, after he had related all that Father le Mescam had told him, “come what may, our position as regards my cousin Jasper’s estate is secure. Malice cannot touch us there. From the hour I knelt beside you before the altar in Hazlehurst Church, I have been your husband. That unhappy Frenchwoman was never legally my wife. Whether she wilfully deceived me, or whether she had reasons of her own for supposing Jean Kergariou to be dead, I know not. It is quite possible that she honestly believed herself to be a widow. She might have heard that Kergariou had been lost at sea. Shipwreck and death are too common among those Breton sailors who go to the North Seas. The little seaports in Brittany are populated with widows and orphans. I am quite willing to believe that poor Zaïre thought herself free to marry. This would account for her terrible agitation when she recognised her husband’s body in the Morgue. And now, dear love, I shall but stay in Paris long enough to procure all documents necessary to prove Jean Kergariou’s death; and then I shall hasten home to comfort my sweet wife, and to face any new trouble that may arise from Edward Clare’s enmity. I feel that it is he only whom we have to fear in the future; and it will go hard if I am not equal to the struggle with so despicable a foe. The omnibus is waiting to take us to the station. God bless you, love, and reward you for your generous devotion to your unworthy husband.—John Treverton.”
This letter brought unspeakable comfort to Laura’s mind. The knowledge that her first marriage was valid was much. It was still more to know that her husband was exempted from the charge of having possessed himself of his cousin’s estate by treachery and fraud. The moral in his conduct was not lessened; but he had no longer to fear the disgrace which must have attached to his resignation of the estate.
“Dear old house, dear old home, thank God we shall never be driven from you!” said Laura, looking round the study in which so many eventful scenes of her life had been passed, the room where she and John Treverton had first met.
While Laura was sitting by the fire with her husband’s letter in her hand, musing upon its contents, the door was suddenly flung open, and Celia rushed into the room and dropped on her knees by her friend’s chair.
“Laura, what has come between us?” she exclaimed. “Why do you shut me out of your heart? I know there is something wrong. I can see it in papa’s manner. Have I been so false a friend that you are afraid to trust me?”
The brightly earnest face was so full of warm and truthful feeling that Laura had not the heart to resent this impetuous intrusion. She had
