The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor

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      "P.S.--I am sending this to your home."

      As he read the last words the paper slipped from Josiah's nerveless hands, and for many minutes he sat as one stricken blind and dumb. Then his poor, plebeian figure seemed to crumple up, and with an inarticulate cry of rage and despair he fell forward, with his head upon his out-stretched arms across the breakfast-table.

      How long he remained there he never knew. It seemed a whole lifetime later when he began to realize things--to know where he was--to remember.

      "Oh, God!" he said. "Oh, God!"

      He picked up the letter and read it all over again, weighing every word.

      Who was this thief who had stolen his wife? Hector? Hector? Yes, it was Lord Bracondale; he remembered now he had heard him called that at Beechleigh. He would like to kill him. But was he a thief, after all? or was not--he--Josiah the thief? To have stolen her happiness, and her life. Her young life that might have been so fair, though how did he know that at the time! He had never thought of such things. She was what he desired, and he had bought her with gold. No, he was not a thief, he had bought her with gold, and because of that she was going to keep to her bargain, and make him a true and faithful wife.

      "Oh, God!" he said again. "Oh, God!"

      Presently the business method of his life came back to him and helped him. He must think this matter over carefully and see if there was any way out. It all looked black enough--his future, that but an hour ago had seemed so full of promise. He rang for the waiter and gave orders to have the breakfast things taken away. That accomplished, he requested that he should not be disturbed upon any pretext whatsoever. And then, drawn up to his writing-table, he began deliberately to think.

      Yes, from the beginning Theodora had been good and meek and docile. He remembered a thousand gentle, unselfish things she had done for him. Her patience, her kindness, her unfailing sympathy in all his ills, the consideration and respect with which she treated him. When--when could this thing have begun? In Paris? Only these short weeks ago--was love so sudden a passion as that? Then he turned to the letter again and once more read it through. Poor Theodora, poor little girl, he thought. His anger was gone now; nothing remained but an intolerable pain. And this lord--of her own class--her own class! How that thought hurt. What of him? He was handsome and young, and just the mate for Theodora. And she had said good-bye to him, and was going to do her best to make him--Josiah--happy. He gave a wild laugh. Oh, the mockery of it all, the mockery of it all! Well, if she could renounce happiness to keep her word, what could he do for her in return? She must never know of the mistake she had made in putting the letters into the wrong envelopes. That he could save her from. But the man? He would know--for he must have got the note intended for him--Josiah. What must be done about that? He thought and thought. And at last he drew a sheet of paper forward and wrote, in his neat, clerklike hand, just a few lines.

      And these were they:

      "MY LORD,--You will have received, I presume, a communication addressed to you and intended for me. The enclosed speaks for itself. I send it to you because it is my duty to do so. If I were a young man, though I am not of your class, I would kill you. But I am growing old, and my day is over. All I ask of you is never, _under any circumstances_, to let my wife know of her mistake about the letters. I do not wish to grieve her, or cause her more suffering than you have already brought upon her. "Believe me, "Yours faithfully, "JOSIAH BROWN."

      Then he got down the _Peerage_ and found the correct form of superscription he must place upon the envelope.

      He folded the two letters, his own and Theodora's, and, slipping them in, sealed the packet with his great seal which was graven with a deep J.B. And lest he should change his mind, he rang the bell for the waiter, and had it despatched to the post at once--to be sent by express. If possible it must reach Lord Bracondale at the same time as the other letter--Theodora's letter to himself in the wrong envelope.

      And then poor Josiah subsided into his chair again, and suffered and suffered. He was conscious of nothing else--just intense, overwhelming suffering.

      When his secretary, from his office in the City, came in about luncheon-time to transact some important business, he was horrified and distressed to see the change in his patron; for Josiah looked crumpled and shrivelled and old.

      "I caught a chill coming from Bessington last night," he explained, "and I will send for Toplington to give me a draught if you will kindly touch the bell."

      Then he tried to concentrate his mind on his affairs and get through the day. But the gray look kept growing and growing, and the secretary decided towards evening to suggest sending for Theodora. Josiah, however, would not hear of this. He was not ill, he said, it was merely a chill; he would be quite restored by a night's rest, and Mrs. Brown would be with him, anyway, in the morning. Of what use to alarm her unnecessarily. But he had unfortunately mislaid her letter with the exact time of her train, so he had better telegraph to her before six o'clock to make sure. He wrote it out himself. Just:

      "Stupidly mislaid your letter. What time did you say for the carriage to meet your train? "JOSIAH."

      And about eight o'clock her reply came, and then he went to bed, wondering if he had reached the summit of human suffering or if there would be more to come.

      XXIX

      Late that night, in the old panelled library at Bracondale, Hector walked up and down. He, too, was suffering, suffering intensely, his only grain of comfort being that he was alone. His mother was away in the north with Anne, and he had the place to himself. In his hand was Theodora's letter. As Josiah had calculated, knowing cross-country posts, both his and hers had arrived at the same time.

      Hector paced and paced up and down, his thoughts maddening him.

      And so three people were unhappy now--not he and his beloved one alone. This was the greater calamity.

      But how he had misjudged Josiah! The common, impossible husband had behaved with a nobility, a justice, and forbearance which he knew his own passionate nature would not have been capable of. It had touched him to the core, and he had written at once in reply, enclosing Theodora's letter about the arrival of the train.

      "DEAR SIR,--I am overcome with your generosity and your justice. I thank you for your letter and for your magnanimity in forwarding the enclosure it contained. I understand and appreciate the sentiment you express when you say, had you been younger you would have killed me, and I on my side would have been happy to offer you any satisfaction you might have wished, and am ready to do so now if you desire it. At the same time, I would like you to know, in deed, I have never injured you. My deep and everlasting grief will be that I have brought pain and sorrow into the life of a lady who is very dear to us both. My own life is darkened forever as well, and I am going away out of England for a long time as soon as I can make my arrangements. I will respect your desire never to inform your wife of her mistake, and I will not trouble either of you again. Only, by a later post, I intend to answer her letter and say farewell. "Believe me, "Yours truly, "BRACONDALE."

      This he had despatched some hours ago, but his last good-bye to Theodora was not yet written. What could he say to her? How could he tell her of all the misery and anguish, all the pain which was racking his being; he, who knew life and most things it could hold, and so could judge of the fact that nothing, nothing, counted now but herself--and they should meet no more, and it was the end. A blank, absolute end to all joy. Nothing to СКАЧАТЬ