From that point their conversation dealt with generalities. Soon the girl perceived his intent. His sole desire was to place her at her ease, to make her realize that no matter what troubles life held they could be vanquished if faced with a smile. She responded to his mood, and enlivened the drive with comments on the people they met and the houses and villages they pa.s.sed. For two hours the world went well because it was forgotten.

Enid, the conspirator, waited until the pair in the dog-cart were out of sight. Then she went to the little room at the back of the cottage where Brand pretended to be busily engaged in compiling a scientific account of his auriscope.

"I am going out, dad," she said, trying to appear unconcerned.

"All right," he answered, laying down his pipe.

"I only came to tell you because Mrs. Sheppard is out, too."

Obviously Enid was determined that if Pyne's calculations were worth anything they should have fair play.

"Oh," he commented sharply, "but the maid is in?"

"Yes. She is such a stupid girl in some things. If--if our guest rings you will hear her. Would you mind asking Mary what it is in case she gets muddled?"

He glanced at her. She was pulling on her gloves, and vastly bothered by a refractory b.u.t.ton.

"If I hear the bell, I will inquire," he said, and she escaped, feeling quite wicked.

When he was alone, he did not resume his task. In the next room, separated from him only by a brick wall, was his wife. A wall! Why should there always be a wall between them? It was not of his building.

Had she made it impa.s.sable during the long years? And what would be the outcome, now that Constance was in daily communion with her mother? The doctor, in kindly ignorance, had told him that Mrs. Vansittart was convalescent and would be able to travel in a few days. In response to a question, the doctor added that the lady herself asked when she might be moved.

What was her plan? Mr. Traill, that day, had written him a sympathetic letter, mentioning the fact that Mrs. Vansittart had voluntarily rescinded her promise to marry him, and, indeed, judged by the light of present knowledge, had determined on that course since she first knew that her former husband was living.

Suddenly Brand pushed back his chair from the desk at which he sat.

"The young dog!" he growled. He had in fact followed the exact mental process which Pyne mapped out for him. The letter, the drive, Mrs.

Sheppard's absence, Enid's uneasy wriggling at the door, were all parts of an ordered plan. He was to be given an opportunity of seeing his wife and disentangling the twisted strands of twenty years. He rose impatiently, and paced the room, quietly withal, lest the woman in the next room should hear him. A decision had been forced on him. He could shirk it no longer.

"Pyne has contrived this," he muttered. "He thinks he can see more clearly into the future than a man twice his age. Enid is in the plot, too. And Connie! No, not Connie. Dear heart! She is worn with anxiety, yet she has never once mentioned her mother to me since she carried her into the house like an ailing child."

Back and forth he walked, wrestling with the problem. See his wife he must, and before she quitted Cornwall. Was it advisable, in her present state of health, to take her by surprise? Pyne evidently thought so. And the doctor! Good Heavens! was the doctor in the thing, too?

At last, he tugged at the bell.

"Mary," he said, "ask Mrs. Vansittart if she feels able to see Mr.

Brand."

There; it was done.

Mary, rosy-cheeked and soft of speech, dreading only Mrs. Sheppard's matronly eye, knocked at the door of the sitting-room. He heard her deliver his message. There was no audible answer. He was lamenting his folly, hoping against hope that no ill results might be forthcoming to the invalid thus taken by surprise, when he caught Mary's formal "Yes'm," and the girl came to him.

"Please, sir," she said, "the lady says she is anxious to see you."

He walked firmly to the door, opened it and entered. He had made up his mind what to say and how to say it. It would be best to ask his wife to discuss matters in a friendly spirit, and, for their daughter's sake, agree to some arrangement whereby Constance should see her occasionally.

There need be no tears, no recriminations, no painful raking through the dust-heaps of the vanished years. The pa.s.sion, the agony, of the old days was dead. Their secret had been well kept. It was known only to those whom they could trust, and they might part without heart-burnings, whilst Constance would be spared the suffering of knowing that her mother and she were separated forever.

These things were well ordered in his brain when he looked at his wife.

She was seated near the window, and her beautiful eyes, brilliant as ever, were fixed on his with harrowing intensity. They shone with the dumb pain of a wounded animal.

He walked towards her and held out his hand. Her illness had brought out certain resemblances to Constance. She looked younger, as some women do look after illness. Surely he could not, even had he harbored the thought, use cruel words to this wan, stricken woman, the wife whom he had loved and for whom he had suffered.

"Nanette," he said, with utmost gentleness, "do not be distressed.

Indeed, there is no reason why our meeting should be painful. It is better that we should have a quiet talk than that we should part again in anger and bitterness."

She caught his hand in both of hers. Still she said nothing. Her large eyes gazed up at him as if she sought to read in his face the thoughts he might not utter, the memories he might not recall. Her lips distended. He saw her mouth twitching at the corners.

"Nanette," he said again, though his voice was not well under control, and something rose in his throat and stifled him. "I appeal to you not to give way to--to emotion. You may--become ill again--and I would never forgive myself."

Still clinging to his hand, she sank on her knees by his side. But there was no wild burst of tears; her sorrow was too deep for such kindly aid.

"Stephen," she whispered faintly, "I cannot ask you to forget, but you have spoken of forgiveness. Can you forgive?"

He bent over her and would have raised her; she clung to him with such energy that he desisted.

"My poor wife!" he murmured, "who am I that I should deny that which I hope to obtain from my Creator."

"But--" she panted, in that unnerving whisper--"I treated you so vilely.

I left you to join the man you had fought to save me. I deserted my husband and my child for the sake of the money he bequeathed to me. In the l.u.s.t of wealth I strove to crush you out of my heart. And now that G.o.d has humbled me I must humble myself. Stephen, I am not your wife. I obtained a divorce--"

"Nanette," he cried, "I cannot bear to see you kneeling at my feet. I ask no revelations. I forgive you any wrong you may have done me, fully and freely, as I hope to be forgiven."

She yielded to his pleading and allowed him to raise her. For an instant she was clasped to his breast.

"It would be happiness to die in your arms, Stephen," she said wildly.

"I do not deserve it, I know, but Heaven is merciful."

The dreadful idea possessed him that in her weak state this pa.s.sionate wish might be granted.

"Nanette!" he cried, "you must control yourself. If you will not promise to sit down and talk quietly I will leave you."

She obeyed him instantly.

"I don't care how much you scold me," she said, "but you must not go away. I meant to see you before I left Penzance. I came here that night.

I looked through the window. I saw my daughter and her adopted sister listening to you and weeping because of a mother's shame. Then I must have lost my senses. I ran away. I remember nothing else until I woke up to find Constance caring for me--in your house."

He tried to break in upon the trend of her thought. This was by no means the line he had intended to pursue. His hope was to soothe and calm her, to part from her in amity and without giving her cause to deplore a loss of dignity.

"I am only too pleased that when illness overtook you you were committed to my care and to Constance. Poor girl! She thought you were dead."

"Did you tell her that?"

"No, but I allowed it to be a.s.sumed, which is the same thing."

"When did she know the truth?"

"In the hotel--after you left the room. I had to say something. It was--better--for you--that I should say you were my wife."