which I am about to use them now, but the mode of my doing so and the time, were left to my own discretion. The time has now arrived, and the mode I now adopt is to lay the letters before the truest and best friend of that lady’s husband. If that friend, in perusing them, finds evidence that the husband possesses an unworthy wife, he will take whatever course he pleases. My duty will have been discharged when I have afforded this opportunity.”
Bertha sat to hear this speech, and maintained a dead silence, but some little action of her hand afforded Adair an excuse to add,
“It was not my wish that Mrs. Urquhart should undergo the pain of being present while Mr. Urquhart peruses these documents. I perceive that she was on the point of again appealing to me on the subject, but, I say it with all feeling for her, such an appeal would be in vain, even in the absence of the legitimate demand of her husband to know her justification for being found with me this morning.”
“I think it very—very wicked,” stammered Bertha.
“I have said that I will have these proofs,” Urquhart replied. “It is right, however, that you should be free to retire, Bertha, if you please.”
“It is also right,” said Adair, “that Mrs. Urquhart should be within reach, should it be wished to ask her a question.”
“I—I will go into the next room,” said Bertha, hurrying away, as she might have done from the scene of some painful operation, or to be out of hearing of the cries of a child that was to undergo punishment.
Ernest Adair then produced a book, into which a series of letters had been fastened, the original printed pages having been cut away to make room for the manuscripts. He handed the book to Robert Urquhart, who received it with an instinctive disgust, that was not entirely latent in the eye he cast upon Adair.
Urquhart took the volume, and laying it on a table, applied himself steadily to a perusal of the contents.
Adair watched him intensely, and with feelings in which excitement mingled far more powerfully than the circumstances, as hitherto related, would seem to warrant. Once or twice the pale face of Adair became even paler, and there were convulsive movements of his hands.
And once, when Bertha, childishly impatient of the long delay, rose from her seat in the further room, and ventured to glance in at the two men who had been so long silent, Adair’s look became perfectly fiendish. He ground his teeth, and the fierce expression that came over his face told that he utterly—actively hated Bertha Urquhart for presenting herself—that is, the recollection of herself—at that moment.
But when Urquhart looked up, Adair was engaged with a book.
Once—twice—in the course of the reading, a groan, that as nearly resembled an execration as an inarticulate sound could do, broke from Robert Urquhart.
Suddenly he sprang up, and called loudly—
“Bertha! Bertha!”
Mrs. Urquhart came in, and was beckoned to her husband’s side.
“There can be no earthly doubt,” he said, in a low voice, which sent an intense thrill through her.
She was safe.
“Look at that writing—and that—and that. Whose letters are they, Bertha?”
“There is no need to ask,” said Bertha, as the lines burned into her very brain. Here and there a word of affection—of love—of passion branded itself more deeply than the rest that went past her eyes as he turned over the leaves.
“There is no need to ask,” he repeated, placing his arm kindly around her shuddering and shivering form. “Be calm, dear, be calm. You have nothing to reproach yourself with. Be calm.”
And Ernest Adair gazed upon that husband and wife.
“You have proved your words, sir,” said Robert Urquhart, after a long pause.
“I see that I have done so. I read it in the face of an honest man, of an honourable woman. I have done my duty to him who is gone.”
“Let me hear no more of that,” said Urquhart, sternly. “If it be indeed true that the miscreant to whom these letters are addressed is dead, he is gone where no earthly curse can increase his punishment. If he is alive, I hope that he may live a curse to himself, and die by his own hands, for those of justice are too good for him. Silence on that subject! Take back your volume, and the best thing that I can say at parting is that I hope neither I nor mine will ever meet with you again.”
“I forgive all wild language at such a moment, Mr. Urquhart. It is a terrible thing to find that one’s family is stained.”
“Who are you to talk of stains?” replied Urquhart, fiercely. “A spy who would crawl into the bosom of a household, and win the confidence of all in it, from the mother by the fire to the child playing on the carpet, and would sell the trust they placed in you—would sell the woman’s kindly talk, the child’s prattle, to the ruffians who hire you. A spy talk of stains! Begone, sir, I have done with you.”
“You are violent,” said Ernest Adair, with a sinister smile, “but we will not quarrel over words. I fear that the expression to Mrs. Urquhart of my profoundest regret at having been compelled to inflict such suffering would not be acceptable.”
“I answer for my wife, sir, that she desires to hear no other word from you.”
“I believe it, sir,” said Adair, in a tone which struck upon the heart of Bertha. “At present, at all events, I will end an interview which is so fraught with sorrow.”
He bowed respectfully, and was gone.
“Sad—sad—Bertha,” said Urquhart, sorrowfully. “I clung to the hope that she might have been only foolish, weak, deluded; but the words are there, and the words are guilt.”
Bertha sobbed, but spoke not.
“I gave my promise to return him the letters, and I have done so, and kept my word,” said he.