The judge gave a great start.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Aren't you well? You look deathly pale. Have another gla.s.s of wine, my dear fellow."

But the judge rose to his feet.

"No; I'm not very well," he said. "I think I must ask you to excuse me."

By this time the attention of all present was drawn to him, and there were general expressions of sympathy. But of these Judge Bolitho seemed unconscious.

"Good-night, gentlemen," he said. "I am sorry to be obliged to leave you, but I don't feel very well."

"There was something in that letter," was the general whisper.

"Something that disturbed him!"

But the fact was almost forgotten as soon as he had left the room.

The judge found his way to his own apartment.

"Where's Mary, I wonder?" he said. But Mary was nowhere visible. He knocked at her bedroom door, but received no answer. He went into all the rooms set apart for their use, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"She did not tell me she was going out, either," he reflected. But it was evident he had very little interest in her whereabouts. He acted more like a man in a dream than one in full possession of his faculties. He threw himself into an arm-chair and again carefully read the letter which had been sent to him. When he had finished, he looked around the room as though he were afraid he were being watched.

"No; no one is here," he said. "No one knows."

For fully five minutes he sat holding the letter in his hand, staring into vacancy.

"What can it mean? What can it mean?"

He put on a heavy ulster and left the hotel. "I don't think anyone noticed who I am," he reflected. And then he made his way down past the Free Trade Hall, towards Deansgate.

"Twenty-five Dixon Street," he kept on repeating to himself--"twenty-five Dixon Street, off Dean Street."

He did not seem to know where he was going. More than once he hustled someone on the sidewalk and then pa.s.sed on as if unconscious of what he had done. Presently he reached Dean Street and walked along it some little distance; then, turning, he found himself in a network of short, dark streets, evidently inhabited by a working-cla.s.s community. He looked at the numbers carefully as he pa.s.sed along. After some little time he stopped. He knocked at one of the doors and was immediately admitted.

A second later the light fell on the form of a woman. Her face was pale and haggard. In her eyes was a look of madness. The gaslight also shone upon Judge Bolitho's face. He had placed his hat upon the table, and his every feature was exposed.

The woman came close to him and looked at him steadily, while he, like one fascinated, fixed his eyes upon her face.

"Douglas Graham," she said, "do you know me?"

For a few seconds he did not speak, but looked steadily at her. Then, as if with difficulty, words escaped him.

"Jean!" he gasped. "Jean! Then you're not dead!"

"You know me, then, Douglas Graham? I have waited a long time for this night. Sometimes I thought it would never come. Year after year I've watched, all in vain, and then suddenly I learnt the truth!"

She did not seem like one in a pa.s.sion. Her voice was low and hard.

Her hands were steady. Her eyes burnt with a mad light. It seemed as though all the pa.s.sion, all the hatred, all the despair of more than twenty years were expressed in them just now.

"What do you want of me, Jean?"

He did not seem to know what he was saying, and the words escaped his lips as if in spite of himself.

"Want of you? Want of you? Can you ask that? Your memory is not dead. You know, and I know---- Why, I am your wife! Do you remember that day up among the Scotch hills, when, before G.o.d, you took me, you swore you would be faithful to me? Do you remember the promise you made on the day you left me? 'I will soon come back to you,' you said, 'and make our marriage public.' And I have never seen you since, until to-day! But now my hour has come!"

Usually Judge Bolitho was a man of resource. He seldom lost possession of his power to act wisely. He was seldom taken at a disadvantage. He was cool and daring. But now he seemed to have lost the _sang froid_ for which he was so noted.

"Jean! Jean!" he said again and again.

"Yes, Jean," replied the woman. "The girl you deceived! The girl you married and then deserted! The woman whose life you have blighted and ruined! I had almost given up believing in G.o.d; but now--now--faith may come back to me; but it's only a faith inspired by hatred!"

"You hate me, then?" he said.

"Is it possible to do anything else?" she replied.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Let me think. I shall be able to speak connectedly presently. For a moment I've lost hold of things. Yes, yes; I don't deny anything; but wait a minute! What have you done with yourself all these years, Jean?"

"Done with myself? What could I do? I was almost without a penny. A few months after you left me my father drove me from home. I was in disgrace, and only h.e.l.l seemed to gape at my feet!"

"But you're here," he said in a dazed kind of way. "You're well clothed. This cottage, though poor, shows a degree of comfort. You're not penniless, then? Have--have you married--again?"

The woman started back from him at these words, and lifted her hand as if to strike him.

"Douglas Graham," she said, "do not drive me too far!"

"But how have you been supported all these years? What have you done?"

"You know! You know!" she almost screamed.

"I know nothing," was his reply. "Where have you lived? Where do you live now? Is this your home, or are you only staying here temporarily?"

He seemed to be trying, in a confused sort of way, to understand how things stood. Evidently the shock of meeting her, after all the long years, had wellnigh unbalanced his mind.

"But don't you know? You must know! No; it may be that you don't,"

and the woman laughed like one in glee. "Then I will tell you," she said. "I am Paul Stepaside's mother, and Paul Stepaside is your son!"

The man gave a gasp as if for breath. His body swayed to and fro as though he found it difficult to stand upright. Then a hoa.r.s.e cry escaped him:

"Paul Stepaside my son!"

"Ay, your son," replied the woman. "Yes, I have read what the man said this morning. It was in the evening paper, so I know that you know all about it. I had no name, so he was given the name of the hamlet where I was lying when they found me, thinking I was dead. They took me to the workhouse, where Paul was born, and because I refused to give them my name they called him Stepaside. But he's your son, don't you see?

Your son! Your son!"

And the woman laughed harshly.

He seemed to be trying to understand the full meaning of her words.