"Well!a man,then,and he asks for you,and he rung at the front door bell,and has walked into the dining-room.""You should never have let him,"exclaimed Norah,"master and missus out--""I did not want him to come in;but when he heard you lived here,he walked past me,and sat down on the first chair,and said,'Tell her to come and speak to me.'There is no gas lighted in the room,and supper is all set out.""He'll be off with the spoons!"exclaimed Norah,putting the housemaid's fear into words,and preparing to leave the room,first,however,giving a look to Ailsie,sleeping soundly and calmly.
Down-stairs she went,uneasy fears stirring in her bosom.Before she entered the dining-room she provided herself with a candle,and,with it in her hand,she went in,looking round her in the darkness for her visitor.
He was standing up,holding by the table.Norah and he looked at each other;gradual recognition coming into their eyes.
"Norah?"at length he asked.
"Who are you?"asked Norah,with the sharp tones of alarm and incredulity."I don't know you:"trying,by futile words of disbelief,to do away with the terrible fact before her.
"Am I so changed?"he said,pathetically."I daresay I am.But,Norah,tell me!"he breathed hard,"where is my wife?Is she--is she alive?"He came nearer to Norah,and would have taken her hand;but she backed away from him;looking at him all the time with staring eyes,as if he were some horrible object.Yet he was a handsome,bronzed,good-looking fellow,with beard and moustache,giving him a foreign-looking aspect;but his eyes!there was no mistaking those eager,beautiful eyes--the very same that Norah had watched not half-an-hour ago,till sleep stole softly over them.
"Tell me,Norah--I can bear it--I have feared it so often.Is she dead ?"Norah still kept silence."She is dead!"He hung on Norah's words and looks,as if for confirmation or contradiction.
"What shall I do?"groaned Norah."O,sir!why did you come?how did you find me out?where have you been?We thought you dead,we did,indeed!"She poured out words and questions to gain time,as if time would help her.
"Norah!answer me this question,straight,by yes or no--Is my wife dead?""No,she is not!"said Norah,slowly and heavily.
"O what a relief!Did she receive my letters?But perhaps you don't know.Why did you leave her?Where is she?O Norah,tell me all quickly!""Mr.Frank!"said Norah at last,almost driven to bay by her terror lest her mistress should return at any moment,and find him there--unable to consider what was best to be done or said-rushing at something decisive,because she could not endure her present state:
"Mr.Frank!we never heard a line from you,and the shipowners said you had gone down,you and every one else.We thought you were dead,if ever man was,and poor Miss Alice and her little sick,helpless child!O,sir,you must guess it,"cried the poor creature at last,bursting out into a passionate fit of crying,"for indeed Icannot tell it.But it was no one's fault.God help us all this night!"Norah had sate down.She trembled too much to stand.He took her hands in his.He squeezed them hard,as if by physical pressure,the truth could be wrung out.
"Norah!"This time his tone was calm,stagnant as despair."She has married again!"Norah shook her head sadly.The grasp slowly relaxed.The man had fainted.
There was brandy in the room.Norah forced some drops into Mr.
Frank's mouth,chafed his hands,and--when mere animal life returned,before the mind poured in its flood of memories and thoughts--she lifted him up,and rested his head against her knees.
Then she put a few crumbs of bread taken from the supper-table,soaked in brandy into his mouth.Suddenly he sprang to his feet.
"Where is she?Tell me this instant."He looked so wild,so mad,so desperate,that Norah felt herself to be in bodily danger;but her time of dread had gone by.She had been afraid to tell him the truth,and then she had been a coward.Now,her wits were sharpened by the sense of his desperate state.He must leave the house.She would pity him afterwards;but now she must rather command and upbraid;for he must leave the house before her mistress came home.
That one necessity stood clear before her.
"She is not here;that is enough for you to know.Nor can I say exactly where she is"(which was true to the letter if not to the spirit)."Go away,and tell me where to find you to-morrow,and Iwill tell you all.My master and mistress may come back at any minute,and then what would become of me with a strange man in the house?"Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.
"I don't care for your master and mistress.If your master is a man,he must feel for me poor shipwrecked sailor that I am--kept for years a prisoner amongst savages,always,always,always thinking of my wife and my home--dreaming of her by night,talking to her,though she could not hear,by day.I loved her more than all heaven and earth put together.Tell me where she is,this instant,you wretched woman,who salved over her wickedness to her,as you do to me."The clock struck ten.Desperate positions require desperate measures.
