“Of course. Whatever else do you suppose I want?”
“Even if it seems hard and cruel, as the truth often is?”
“Speak away, girl. My poor old bones have been too long battered about in this world for hard words to break them.”
“How can you ask me for a daughter’s dutiful love?” asked Laura, in low earnest tones. “How can you expect it from me? What of a father’s affection or a father’s care have you ever given to me? What do I know of your life except fraud and mystery? Have you ever approached me except in secret, and as an applicant for money.”
“It’s a true bill,” ejaculated Desrolles, with a laugh that ended in a groan.
“When I was a little motherless child you gave me to the one true friend of your youth. He took me as his adopted daughter, leaving you dying; as he supposed. Years passed, and you let him believe you dead. For ten years you made no sign. Your daughter, your only child, was being reared in a stranger’s house, and you did not trouble yourself to make one inquiry about her welfare.”
“Not directly. How do you know what measures I may have taken to get information indirectly, without compromising your future. It was for your advantage that I kept myself dark, Laura; it was for your sake that I let my old friend believe me dead. As his adopted daughter your prosperity was assured. What would your life have been with me? To save you I lent myself to a lie.”
“I am sorry for it,” said Laura, coldly. “In my mind all lies are hateful. I cannot conceive that good can ever come of them.”
“In this case good has come of my innocent deception. You are mistress of a fine estate, wife of a husband whom, as I hear, you love.”
“With all my heart and soul.”
“Is it too much to ask for a ray of your sunshine—a little benefit from your large wealth?”
“I will do anything in reason,” answered Laura, “but not even for my own father—had you been all that a father should be to his child—would I suffer Jasper Treverton’s wealth to be turned to evil uses. You told me that you stood alone in the world, with no one dependent on you. Surely six hundred a year is an income that should enable you to live in comfort and respectability.
“It will, when I have got myself clear of past liabilities. Remember that until six months ago the help you gave me amounted only to a hundred a year, except when I appealed to you, under the pressure of circumstances, for an extra trifle. A hundred a year in London, to a man in bad health, hardly served to keep the wolf from the door. I had debts to pay. I have been unfortunate in a speculation that promised well.”
“In future you will have no occasion to speculate.”
“True,” said Desrolles, with a sigh, as he filled himself another glass of brandy.
Laura watched him with a face full of pain. Was this a father she could acknowledge to the husband she loved? Only with deepest shame could she confess her close kindred with a creature so sunk in degradation.
Desrolles drank the brandy at a gulp, and then flung himself into the chair by the hearth.
“And pray how long have you been married?” he asked.
Laura’s face crimsoned at the question. It was just the one inquiry calculated to give her acutest pain; for it recalled all that was painful in the circumstances of her marriage.
“We were married on the last day of last year,” she said.
“You have been a year married, and I only learn the fact tonight from the village gossips, at the inn where I stopped to eat a crust of bread and cheese on my way here.”
“You might have seen the announcement in the Times.”
“I might, but did not. Well, I suppose I surrendered a father’s rights when I gave my child to another man’s keeping; but it seems hard.”
“Why pain yourself and me with useless reproaches. I am prepared to do all that duty can dictate. I am deeply anxious that your future life should be comfortable and respected. Tell me where you intend to live, and how I can best assure your happiness.”
“Happiness!” cried Desrolles, with a derisive shrug. “I have never known that since I was five-and-twenty. Where am I going to live, do you ask? Who knows? Not I, you may be sure. I am a wanderer by habit and inclination. Do you think I am going to shut myself in a speculative builder’s brick and mortar box—a semidetached villa in Camden Town, or Islington—and live the monotonous life of a respectable annuitant. That kind of vegetation may suit a retired tradesman, who has spent three-fourths of his life behind the same counter. It would be living death to a man with a mind—a man who has travelled and lived among his fellow-men. No, my dear; you must not attempt to limit my movements by the inch-measure of middle-class respectability. Give me my pittance unfettered by conditions of any kind. Let me receive it quarterly from your London agent, and, since you repudiate my claim to your affection, I pledge myself never again to trouble you with my presence after tonight.”
“I do not ask that,” said Laura, thoughtfully. “It is only right that we should see each other sometimes. By the deception which you practised upon my benefactor, you have made it impossible that I should ever own you as my father before the world. Everybody in Hazlehurst believes that my father died when Jasper Treverton adopted me. But, to my husband, at least, I can own the truth: I have shrunk from doing so hitherto, but tonight, while we have been sitting here, I have been thinking that I have acted weakly and foolishly. John Treverton will respect your secret for my sake, and he ought to know it.”
“Stop,” cried Desrolles, starting
