A Life Sentence. Sergeant Adeline
startling both his hearers by the ponderous solemnity of his tones, "send her to Winstead."
Hubert turned towards him respectfully.
"You think so, sir?"
"The Sisters are good women," said Mr. Rumbold. "They love the children and train them well. I have twice sent orphans from this village to their care, and in each case I believe that there could not have been a happier result."
"You'll be charmed if you go over the house at Winstead, Mr. Lepel," said Mrs. Rumbold coaxingly. "Do go over and see yourself what it is like. Such a lovely house, half covered with purple clematis and Virginia creeper, and a dear little chapel, and beautiful grounds! And the expense is quite trifling—twelve or sixteen pounds a year, I believe, for each of the dear little orphans!"
"If you speak so highly of it, I am sure I may take it on trust," answered Hubert, with a smile. He was growing weary of the discussion. "Take the child and do the best for her, will you, Mrs. Rumbold? My cousin and I will supply all funds that may be needed."
"I am sure that's very good of you, Mr. Lepel. The child couldn't be happier anywhere than she will be at Winstead. Alfred will write at once about it—will you not, Alfred?"
Alfred bowed assent.
"I suppose it will take a few days to settle," said Hubert, looking from one to the other. "In the meantime——"
"Oh, in the meantime she can stay here!" said Mrs. Rumbold expansively. "She will be no trouble, poor thing! I can put up a little bed for her in one of the attics."
"She's not very clean, I'm afraid, Mrs. Rumbold. She looks exceedingly black."
"I expect that the black's all on the surface," said the Rector's wife. "You needn't laugh, Alfred; Mr. Lepel knows what I mean, I'm sure. The child's been in the workhouse for more than a fortnight, and has left it only for the last day or two; she is just dusty and grimy with the heat and exercise, and will be glad of a bath, poor thing! I'll make her look beautiful before she goes to Winstead, you'll see."
"Then I may leave her in your charge? It is exceedingly good of you," said Hubert, rising to take his leave. "I don't know what I should have done with her but for you."
"My dear Mr. Lepel, I am sure the goodness is all on your side!" cried Mrs. Rumbold. "I should not have thought of a gentleman like you, one of your family, troubling himself about a ragged miserable child like this little Westwood girl. I'm sure she ought to be eternally grateful to you all!"
"Oh, by-the-bye," said Hubert, turning round as he was nearing the door, "you have reminded me of something that I may as well mention now, Mrs. Rumbold! Oblige me by not telling any one that I—we have anything to do with providing for the child. Do not speak of it to the girl herself or to any one in the village. And pray do not allude to it in conversation with my cousins at the Hall!"
"If you wish it, of course I will not mention it to any one," said Mrs. Rumbold, bridling a little at what she conceived to be an imputation on her discretion. "You may trust me, I am sure, Mr. Lepel. We will not breathe a word."
"And particularly not a word to the child herself," Hubert said, turning his eyes upon the Rector's wife with such earnestness in their troubled depths that she was quite impressed. "I do not wish her to be burdened with the feeling that she owes anything to us."
"Oh, Mr. Lepel, how generous, how delicate-minded!" cried the effusive little woman, throwing up her hands in admiration. "Now I wouldn't have believed that there was a young man that could be so thoughtful of others' feelings—I wouldn't indeed, Mr. Hubert! Must you go? Won't you stay and have dinner with us to-night?"
"Thank you—no; I am engaged—a dinner in town," said Hubert hastily. "I will leave you my address"—he produced a card from his pocket-book, and with it a ten-pound note—"and this will perhaps be useful in getting clothes and things of that kind for her. If you want more, you will let me know."
He escaped with difficulty from Mrs. Rumbold's rapturous expression of surprise at his liberality, and at last got out into the hall. Andrew Westwood's little girl was still sitting on the chair where she had been placed, her hands crossed before her on her lap, her bare feet swinging idly to and fro, her dark eyes fixed vaguely on the trees and shrubs of the Rectory garden, which she could see from the hall window. Hubert paused beside her and spoke.
"I am going to leave you with this lady—Mrs. Rumbold," he said. "You know her already, and know that she will be kind to you. You are to go to a good school, where I hope that you will be happy."
The child's eyes dilated as she listened to him.
"Are you going away?" she said.
"Yes; I am going back to London," the young man answered kindly. "You will stay here, like a good little girl, won't you?"
"Do you want me to?" she said, pushing her hair back from her forehead and gazing at him anxiously.
"Yes, I do."
She nodded. "I'll stay," she said curtly.
And then she lapsed once more into her former state of silence and sullenness; and Hubert left her with a smile of farewell and a secret aspiration that he might not see her again; for it seemed to him that he could never look upon the face of Andrew Westwood's daughter without a pang.
He decided to catch the seven o'clock train to London.
"You'll be late for your engagement, I am afraid," Mrs. Rumbold said to him; thinking of his excuse for running away.
He only smiled and nodded as he walked off, by way of reply. His dinner in town, he knew well enough, would be eaten in solitude at his club. He had no other engagement; but he would have invented half a hundred excuses sooner than stay an hour longer than was necessary under General Vane's hospitable roof.
He dined silently and expeditiously at his club, and then made his way through the lighted streets to his lodgings in Bloomsbury. A barrister by profession, he had found his real vocation in literature, and he liked to live within easy reach of libraries and newspaper offices. He had been making a fair income lately, and his earnings were very acceptable to him, for he was not a man of particularly economical habits. He had about a hundred a year of his own, and Miss Vane allowed him another hundred—all else had to be won by the work of his own hands. And yet, as he passed up the staircase to his own rooms, he was wondering whether he could not manage to dispense with Miss Vane's hundred a year.
He had let himself in with his latch-key, and the room which he entered was lighted only by the lamps in the street. He had not been expected so early, and his landlady had forgotten to bring the lamp which he was in the habit of using. He struck a match and lit the gas, pulled down the blinds, and threw himself with a heavy sigh into the great leathern arm-chair that stood before his writing-table.
He felt mortally tired. The events of the day had been such as would have tried a strong man's nerve, and Hubert Lepel was at this time out of sorts, physically as well as mentally. He had seldom gone through such hours of keen torture as he had borne that day; and his face—pale, worn, miserable—seemed to have lost all its youth as he lay back in the great arm-chair and thought of the past.
He rose at last with an impatient word.
"It is madness to brood over what cannot be undone," he said to himself. "I must 'dree my own weird' without a word to any living soul. Florence has my secret, and I have hers; to her I am bound by a tie that nothing on earth can break. And I can have no other ties. I am bad enough, Heaven knows, but I am not so bad as to render myself responsible for the happiness of a wife, for the welfare of children, for a home! With this hanging over me, how can I hope for any happiness in life? I am as much under punishment as poor Westwood in his prison-cell. I have no rights, no hopes, no love. A life sentence did I say that he had received? And have I not a life sentence too?"
He was standing beside his writing-table, and his eyes fell upon a photograph which had adorned it for the last six months. It represented a girl's face—a bright, pretty, careless face, with large eyes and parted smiling