will you do then?"
"Then I think that I shall go away at once. Hush! here she comes."
"Well, Arthur, what are you and Agatha plotting together? You both look serious enough."
"Nothing, Mildred—that is, only another sea-voyage."
Mildred glanced at him uneasily. She did not like the tone in his voice.
"I have a bit of bad news for you, Arthur. That fool, that idiot, Jane"—and she stamped her little foot upon the pavement—"has upset the mummy hyacinth-pot and broken the flower off just as it was coming into bloom. I have given her a quarter's wages and her passage back to England, and packed her off."
"Why, Mildred," remonstrated Miss Terry, "what a fuss to make about a flower!"
She turned on her almost fiercely.
"I had rather have broken my arm, or anything short of my neck, than that she should have broken that flower. Arthur planted it, and now the clumsy girl has destroyed it," and Mildred looked as though she were going to cry.
As there was nothing more to be said, Miss Terry went away. As soon as she was gone, Mildred turned to Arthur and said—
"You were right, Arthur; we shall never see it bloom in this world."
"Never mind about the flower, dear; it cannot be helped. I want to speak to you of something more important. Miss Terry saw you kiss me last night, and she not unnaturally is anxious to know what it all means."
"And did you tell her?"
"Yes."
It was Mildred's turn to blush now.
"Mildred, you must listen to me. This cannot go on any more; either you must marry me, or——"
"Or what?"
"Or I must go away. At present our whole life is a lie."
"Do you really wish me to marry you, Arthur?"
"I not only wish it, I think it necessary."
"Have you nothing more to say than that?"
"Yes, I have to say that I will do my best to make you a good and faithful husband, and that I am sure you will make me a good wife."
She dropped her face upon her hands and thought.
Just then Miss Terry came hurrying up.
"Oh, Arthur!" she said, "just think, the Roman is in, after all, but all her boats are gone, and they say that half of her passengers and crew are washed overboard; do go down and see about it."
He hesitated a little.
"Go, dear," whispered Mildred. "I want time to think. I will give you my answer this afternoon."
Mildred sat still on the verandah thinking, but she had not been there many minutes before a servant came with her English letters that had been brought by the unfortunate Roman, and at the same time informed her that the Garth Castle had been sighted, and would anchor in a few hours. Mildred reflected that it was not often they got two English mails in one day. She began idly turning over the packet before her. Of late letters had lost much of their interest for Mildred.
Presently, however, her hand made a movement of almost electric swiftness, and the colour left her face as she seized a stout envelope directed in a hand of peculiar delicacy to "Arthur Heigham, Esq., care of Mrs. Carr, Madeira." Mildred knew the handwriting, she had seen it in Arthur's pocket-book. It was Angela Caresfoot's. Next to it there was another letter addressed to Arthur in a hand that she did not know, but bearing the same postmarks, "Bratham" and "Roxham." She put them both aside, and then took up the thick letter and examined it. It had two peculiarities—first, it was open, having come unsealed in transit, and been somewhat roughly tied up with a piece of twine; and secondly, it contained some article of jewellery. Indeed, by dint of a little pressing on the outside paper, she was able to form a pretty accurate opinion as to what it was. It was a ring. If she had turned pale before when she saw the letter, she was paler still now.
"Heavens," she thought, "why does she send him a ring? Has anything happened to her husband? If she is a free woman, I am lost."
Mildred looked at the letter lying open before her, and a terrible temptation took possession of her. She took it up and put it down again, and then again she took it up, wiping the cold perspiration from her forehead.
"My whole life is at stake," she thought.
Then she hesitated no longer, but, taking the letter, slipped off the piece of twine, and drew its contents from the envelope. The first thing to fall out, wrapped in a little cotton-wool, was the ring. She looked at it, and recognized it as Arthur's engagement ring, the same that Lady Bellamy had taken with her. Then, putting aside the statement, she deliberately unfolded the letter, and read it.
Do not think too hardly of her, my reader. The temptation was very sore. But, when one yields to temptation, retribution is not unfrequently hard upon its track, and it would only have been necessary to watch Mildred's face to see that, if she had sinned, the sin went hand in hand with punishment. In turn, it took an expression of astonishment, grief, awe, and despair. She read the letter to the last word, then she took the statement, and glanced through it, smiling once or twice as she read. Next she replaced everything in the envelope, and, taking it, together with the other letter addressed to Arthur, unbuttoned the top of her loose-bodied white dress, and placed them in her bosom.
"It is over," she said to herself. "I can never marry him now. That woman is as far above me as the stars, and, sooner or later, he would find it all out. He must go, ah, God! he must go to marry her. Why should I not destroy these letters, and marry him to-morrow? bind him to me by a tie that no letters can ever break? What! purchase his presence at the price of his daily scorn? Oh, such water is too bitter for me to drink! I have sinned against you, Arthur, but I will sin no more. Good-bye, my dear, good-bye."
And she laid her throbbing head upon the rail of the verandah, and wept bitterly.
CHAPTER LXXIV
About three o'clock that afternoon Arthur returned to the Quinta, having lunched on board the Roman. He found Mildred sitting in her favourite place on the museum verandah. She was very pale, and, if he had watched her, he would have seen that she was trembling all over, but he did not observe her particularly.
"Well," he said, "it is all nonsense about half the crew being drowned; only one man was killed, by the fall of a spar, poor chap. They ran into Vigo, as I thought. The other mail is just coming in— but what is the matter, Mildred? You look pale."
"Nothing, dear; I have a good deal to think of, that is all."
"Ah, yes! Well, my love, have you made up your mind?"
"Why did I refuse to marry you before; for your sake, or mine,
Arthur?"
"You said—absurdly, I thought—for mine!"
"And what I said I meant, and what I meant, I mean. Look me in the face, dear, and tell me, upon your honour as a gentleman, that you love me, really love me, and I will marry you to-morrow."
"I am very fond of you, Mildred, and I will make you a good and true husband."
"Precisely; that is what I expected, but it is not enough for me. There was a time when I thought that I could be well satisfied if you would only look kindly upon me, but I suppose that l'appetit vient en mangeant, for, now you do that, I am not satisfied. I long to reign alone. But that is not all. I will not consent to tie you, who do not love me, to my apron-strings for life. Believe me, the time is very near when you would curse me, if I did. You say"—and she rose and stretched out her arm—"that you will either marry me or go. I have made my choice. I will not beat out my heart against a stone. I will not marry you. Go, Arthur, go!"