that the outcast should have one view of his wife, as Falkland had already explained, before she started with Maxwell for her new home.
And could not he do anything to help the stricken pair? Yorke asked, and explained to his friend how he was staying in the neighbourhood, urging his strong desire to be of service. At least he could come forward to aid with his purse; so much of the distress as money could alleviate he might help to fend off from the unfortunate Olivia.
But Maxwell said that there was no need for that now. No doubt she had been left in terrible straits at one time, before she made herself known to Maxwell; for having been brought up abroad, and the aunt with whom she lived as a girl being dead, she had found herself a stranger in England, friendless and almost without money. But Falkland had enough to keep her from want, and if not, Maxwell himself had more than sufficient for his own simple needs, and was not likely to let the daughter of his old friend suffer, now that her condition was known. No, there was no need of money; "and you, my dear fellow," continued the doctor, "must have plenty of use for all you have got, for you are just at the time of life when a man is likely to have not more than he wants. I suppose you will be having a wife of your own soon. But no doubt the poor girl will be glad to see you now and again, to talk over old times. And perhaps her hus— perhaps Kirke will be coming home, or at any rate sending her some money. He has assigned his half-pay to her already, and it was that she was living upon when she wrote to me — a bare starvation allowance, of course, for one never accustomed to think about money. I don't suppose there is intentional neglect; he seemed always to be very fond of her; it is simply, I suspect, the behaviour of a selfish man, in dreadful embarrassment and at a distance. But we must take care he does not discover the secret; there is no saying how he might take it, or how it might affect his treatment of her. Her best chance of happiness, poor thing, is in being united to him again, horrible though the idea seems. And this is what Falkland, nobly unselfish as ever, himself wishes."
But Maxwell showed great alarm when Yorke told him of his interview with Mrs. Polwheedle. He concurred with the latter in thinking it was hardly to be expected that the secret could now be kept. This new aspect of affairs made them look black indeed. Fresh and greater unhappiness awaited these unfortunate persons if the secrets were divulged. He, too, must see Mrs. Polwheedle, and endeavour to hold her to secrecy.
Thus the two friends discussed the sad history of Falkland and Olivia, not talking quickly, for their hearts were too full, but in undertones, and with frequent gaps between reply and question, looking down as they spoke at the embers of the fire before which they sat in the dark room, as Yorke learned from the good doctor further particulars about Olivia's adventures since she left India. Truly a time of trouble and suffering from first to last, with which she was ill fitted in every sense to struggle.
At last Yorke rose to go. Engrossing though the subject of their conversation was, there must be an end of it. Maxwell had business to do, and he himself must be leaving town. But they were to meet again next morning at the riverside inn.
One question Maxwell put as he was leaving the room. Had Falkland mentioned to Yorke the circumstances of his meeting with himself, and did he describe at all how he had passed the last seven years?
Yorke replied that Falkland mentioned the recognition as having been accidental, and that he had frequently referred to his loss of memory, and the difficulty he found in recalling the past.
Maxwell shook his head sadly. "I may as well tell you the whole truth," he said. "These injuries to the head have affected the brain in more ways than one. When I first met our poor friend he was under restraint abroad. He has been perfectly lucid ever since; but I have reason to believe that the greater part of his time since his return to Europe has been passed in this way in different places. Happily for him he has no recollection of these times. But you have seen for yourself what a mere wreck he is in every way of the noble Falkland whom we once knew. Would to God he had really been taken from us when we thought we had lost him!"
Yorke on leaving Maxwell's lodgings hurried to the station. He would just be in time to catch a train for Hamwell, and the best thing he could do would be to go to "The Beeches." There he would be near to both Olivia and Falkland, and ready to keep his appointment on the morrow; and he remembered, too, what all this time he had almost forgotten, that some explanation was due to his hosts for his sudden
