The Grey Monk. T. W. Speight
me not to expect you back before Tuesday, I mail it on at once.
"Sincerely yours,
"Frank Travis."
Then he tore open his wife's letter.
A single devouring glance at the first half dozen lines was enough. His child was dead!
He could read no further then. The lines danced and quivered before his eyes. The letter fluttered from his fingers. For a moment or two every drop of blood seemed drawn from his heart. He caught at a chair and sank into it. He was as one smitten by a blow from an invisible hand. The love his wife had repudiated and would have none of, had been lavished by him, secretly and undemonstratively, on his child. His affection for it had been of that deep intense kind which neither seeks nor finds for itself an adequate outlet in words. And now he was bereft of the one object that had made life still sweet to him, and henceforward naught was left him save the dust and ashes of existence!
Afternoon had darkened into evening, and night had come before he roused himself sufficiently to pick up his wife's letter and read it through to the end. By that time a lighted lamp had been brought him.
He now noticed for the first time that the letter bore a date a week old, but just then he could no more than vaguely wonder why and how it had been delayed. Giovanna had always been in the habit of beginning her epistles to her husband without troubling herself to employ any of those preliminary terms of affection or politeness which most writers make use of; and her present one was no exception to the rule.
"It has become my most painful task" (she began) "to have to inform you that our child died in the course of Friday night last, after only a few hours' illness. Everything was done for it that could be done, but in vain. The doctor whom I had summoned was present when the end came. The funeral took place to-day, Monday. I enclose you the certificate of burial.
"It seemed to me that it would have been useless, as well as foolish, to bring you upwards of seven hundred miles merely in order that you might be present at the interment. All was over. Your presence could have availed nothing.
"With the death of my babe the strongest link in the chain which bound me to you, is broken. Had it lived I should not have taken the step I have now determined upon: which is, to at once go back to my own home, in my own country--which I ought never to have left.
"Both you and I have long been aware of the terrible mistake we made in taking upon ourselves the obligations of matrimony. It is not too late, however (or so I think and believe), to undo in some measure at least the folly of which we were mutually guilty. There is one way, and one only, by means of which this can be effected. It is for us to separate--it is for you to go your way, and I to go mine--and to be virtually dead to each other henceforward and for ever.
"I shall leave this place three hours hence on my way to New York, whence I shall take the steamer for Europe, but whether I shall proceed direct to Italy, or whether I shall first visit my mother's relatives in England, I have not yet decided. In any case, it would be useless for you to follow me. My mind is fully made up, and nothing would induce me to return to you.
"When you left this place three months ago you put into my hands a number of blank signed cheques which I was to fill up at my own discretion for whatever sums I might find myself in need of while you were away. By means of one of the cheques in question I have drawn out the remaining balance standing to your credit in the bank, amounting to a trifle over five hundred pounds. You are not the man to begrudge me this sum, I am sure, for you were ever generosity itself towards me.
"And now I have nothing more to add, except to bid you farewell, and to ask you to believe that you have, in all sincerity, the best wishes for your future happiness and prosperity of one who regrets that she cannot love you as such a man as you deserves to be loved.
"Giovanna.
"P.S. I have arranged for this letter not to be posted till a week after my departure, so that by the time you read these lines I shall be halfway on my road to Europe."
Alas, poor Alec! Wife and child lost to him at one fell blow! As regarded the latter, he could but bow his head in all humility, as it behoves all of us to do when our turn comes to be smitten, and breathe the words: "Thy will be done." But Vanna? Oh, the callousness, the cruelty that breathed through almost every line of her letter! He had wept for the loss of his child, and it had been an infinite relief to him to do so--but his eyes were dry now; he had no tears left for her. It seemed rather as if her desertion of him served, during those first bitter hours, to kindle in his heart a dull smouldering fire of resentment, which was none the less intense in that it betrayed nothing of itself on the surface. Go after her, indeed!--try, with endearments and protestations, to induce her to return! Not a single step would he stir in pursuit. He and she had done with each other for ever.
The miserable hours trod slowly in the footsteps of each other, and the night wore itself away somehow. He never undressed, or went to bed, but about daybreak he flung himself on a couch, where he sank into a half slumber which lasted till the people of the house were astir and the world had woke up to another day.
He was glad when ten o'clock had come, at which hour he set foot on board The Prairie Belle on his way back to Pineapple City.
CHAPTER VI.
ALEC'S FATE.
Denis Boyd did not forget the promise he had given Alec Clare not to mention his encounter with the latter after his return to England. It did not, however, seem to him that there was any necessity to include his father in the embargo thus laid on his tongue. Accordingly when, a little later, Colonel Boyd went on a visit to his son, the latter, knowing that his father and Sir Gilbert were acquaintances of many years' standing, mentioned, as one of the minor incidents of his recent visit to the States, his meeting with young Clare, without any thought that the Colonel might have occasion to deem it worth his while to mention the circumstance again. As it fell out, however, a few weeks later, Colonel Boyd and Sir Gilbert found themselves together in the reading-room of the London club of which both were members. They had not met for some time, for of late years the baronet's visits to the metropolis had become few and far between. They greeted each other heartily, and agreed to lunch together.
In the course of the meal the Colonel said: "By the way, Clare, my lad and yours stumbled across each other quite by accident a little while ago in the States, where Denny had been sent on a matter of business for his firm."
"Ah, indeed," remarked the baronet as he set down the glass of wine he had been in the act of raising to his lips. "And how was Alec?"
"First-rate, for anything I was told to the contrary. They had only a very short time together, as I understood, and seeing that they were chums at college, they would have plenty of subjects to talk about."
"No doubt--no doubt. By-the-bye, did your boy say whereabouts in the States it was--in New York, or Boston, or Chicago--that he came across Alec?"
"Oh, it was in some quite outlandish place I believe; but I did not trouble to remember the name."
"I am rather anxious to ascertain Alec's address, and for this reason: his godmother, Mrs. Fleming, died lately and left him a legacy of two thousand pounds. The executors, being anxious to wind up the estate, have applied to me for his address, which I am unable to furnish them with. You see, Alec kicked over the traces pretty considerably some time ago, and he and I parted in a huff, since which he has not condescended to keep me au courant of his movements. Now, if your boy can supply me with his address, it will get me out of my difficulty with Mrs. Fleming's executors."
"I have no doubt Denny can furnish you with what you want. I will write to him by to-night's post, and advise you of the result the moment I hear from him."
Denis Boyd, in view of his promise to Alec Clare, could not help feeling annoyed at the turn the affair had taken; and yet, as he put it to himself, what harm could come of his furnishing Sir Gilbert with the information he asked for? Apparently the only purpose for which the baronet