“Emily,” he said, in the lowest whisper.
“Darling!” she answered, turning round and touching him with her hand.
“My feet are cold. There are no clothes on them.”
She took a thick shawl and spread it double across the bottom of the bed, and put her hand upon his arm. Though it was clammy with perspiration, it was chill, and she brought the warm clothes up close round his shoulders. “I can’t sleep,” he said. “If I could sleep, I shouldn’t mind.” Then he was silent again, and her thoughts went harping on, still on the same subject. She told herself that if ever that act of justice were to be done for her, it must be done that night. After a while she turned round over him ever so gently, and saw that his large eyes were open and fixed upon the wall.
She was kneeling now on the chair close by the bed head, and her hand was on the rail of the bedstead supporting her. “Louis,” she said, ever so softly.
“Well.”
“Can you say one word for your wife, dear, dear, dearest husband?”
“What word?”
“I have not been a harlot to you;—have I?”
“What name is that?”
“But what a thing, Louis! Kiss my hand, Louis, if you believe me.” And very gently she laid the tips of her fingers on his lips. For a moment or two she waited, and the kiss did not come. Would he spare her in this the last moment left to him either for justice or for mercy? For a moment or two the bitterness of her despair was almost unendurable. She had time to think that were she once to withdraw her hand, she would be condemned forever;—and that it must be withdrawn. But at length the lips moved, and with struggling ear she could hear the sound of the tongue within, and the verdict of the dying man had been given in her favour. He never spoke a word more either to annul it or to enforce it.
Some time after that she crept into Nora’s room. “Nora,” she said, waking the sleeping girl, “it is all over.”
“Is he—dead?”
“It is all over. Mrs. Richards is there. It is better than an hour since now. Let me come in.” She got into her sister’s bed, and there she told the tale of her tardy triumph. “He declared to me at last that he trusted me,” she said—almost believing that real words had come from his lips to that effect. Then she fell into a flood of tears, and after a while she also slept.
XCIX
Conclusion
At last the maniac was dead, and in his last moments he had made such reparation as was in his power for the evil that he had done. With that slight touch of his dry fevered lips he had made the assertion on which was to depend the future peace and comfort of the woman whom he had so cruelly misused. To her mind the acquittal was perfect; but she never explained to human ears—not even to those of her sister—the manner in which it had been given. Her life, as far as we are concerned with it, has been told. For the rest, it cannot be but that it should be better than that which was passed. If there be any retribution for such sufferings in money, liberty, and outward comfort, such retribution she possessed;—for all that had been his, was now hers. He had once suggested what she should do, were she ever to be married again; and she felt that of such a career there could be no possibility. Anything but that! We all know that widows’ practices in this matter do not always tally with wives’ vows; but, as regards Mrs. Trevelyan, we are disposed to think that the promise will be kept. She has her child, and he will give her sufficient interest to make life worth having.
Early in the following spring Hugh Stanbury was married to Nora Rowley in the parish church of Monkhams—at which place by that time Nora found herself to be almost as much at home as she might have been under other circumstances. They had prayed that the marriage might be very private;—but when the day arrived there was no very close privacy. The parish church was quite full, there were half-a-dozen bridesmaids, there was a great breakfast, Mrs. Crutch had a new brown silk gown given to her, there was a long article in the county gazette, and there were short paragraphs in various metropolitan newspapers. It was generally thought among his compeers that Hugh Stanbury had married into the aristocracy, and that the fact was a triumph for the profession to which he belonged. It showed what a Bohemian could do, and that men of the press in England might gradually hope to force their way almost anywhere. So great was the name of Monkhams! He and his wife took for themselves a very small house near the Regent’s Park, at which they intend to remain until Hugh shall have enabled himself to earn an additional two hundred a-year. Mrs. Trevelyan did not come to live with them, but kept the cottage near the river at Twickenham. Hugh Stanbury was very averse to any protracted connection with comforts to be obtained from poor Trevelyan’s income, and told Nora that he must hold her to her promise about the beefsteak in the cupboard. It is our opinion that Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Stanbury will never want for a beefsteak and all comfortable additions until the inhabitants of London shall cease to require newspapers on their breakfast tables.
Brooke and Mrs. Brooke established themselves in the house in the Close on their return from their wedding tour, and Brooke at once put himself into intimate relations with the
