Therefore,hearing him thus speak to his wife,I was struck with great alarm.Mrs.Halifax herself seemed uneasy.
"A business letter,I suppose?"
"Partly on business.I will tell you all about it this evening."She looked re-assured."Just as you like;you know I am not curious."But passing on,she turned back."John,if it was anything important to be done--anything that I ought to know at once,you would not keep me in ignorance?""No--my dearest!No!"
Then what had happened must be something in which no help availed;something altogether past and irremediable;something which he rightly wished to keep concealed,for a few hours at least,from his other children,so as not to mar the happiness of this day,of which there could be no second,this crowning day of their lives--this wedding-day of Edwin and Louise.
So,he sat at the marriage-table;he drank the marriage-health;he gave them both a marriage-blessing.Finally,he sent them away,smiling and sorrowful--as is the bounden duty of young married couples to depart--Edwin pausing even on the carriage-step to embrace his mother with especial tenderness,and whisper her to "give his love to Guy.""It reminds one of Guy's leaving,"said the mother,hastily brushing back the tears that would spring and roll down her smiling face.She had never,until this moment,reverted to that miserable day."John,do you think it possible the boy can be at home to-night?"John answered emphatically,but very softly,"No.""Why not?My letter would reach him in full time.Lord Ravenel has been to Paris and back since then.But--"turning full upon the young nobleman--"I think you said you had not seen Guy?""No."
"Did you hear anything of him?"
"I--Mrs.Halifax--"
Exceedingly distressed,almost beyond his power of self-restraint,the young man looked appealingly to John,who replied for him:
"Lord Ravenel brought me a letter from Guy this morning.""A letter from Guy--and you never told me.How very strange!"Still,she seemed only to think it "strange."Some difficulty or folly perhaps--you could see by the sudden flushing of her cheek,and her quick,distrustful glance at Lord Ravenel,what she imagined it was--that the boy had confessed to his father.With an instinct of concealment--the mother's instinct--for the moment she asked no questions.
We were all still standing at the hall-door.Unresisting,she suffered her husband to take her arm in his and bring her into the study.
"Now--the letter,please!Children,go away;I want to speak to your father.The letter,John?"Her hand,which she held out,shook much.She tried to unfold the paper--stopped,and looked up piteously.
"It is not to tell me he is not coming home?I can bear anything,you know--but he MUST come."John only answered,"Read,"--and took firm hold of her hand while she read--as we hold the hand of one undergoing great torture,--which must be undergone,and which no human love can either prepare for,or remove,or alleviate.
The letter,which I saw afterwards,was thus;"DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,"I have disgraced you all.I have been drunk--in a gaming-house.A man insulted me--it was about my father--but you will hear--all the world will hear presently.I struck him--there was something in my hand,and--the man was hurt.
"He may be dead by this time.I don't know.
"I am away to America to-night.I shall never come home any more.God bless you all.
"GUY HALIFAX.
"P.S.I got my mother's letter to-day.Mother--I was not in my right senses,or I should not have done it.Mother,darling!forget me.Don't let me have broken your heart."Alas,he had broken it!
"Never come home any more!--Never come home any more!"She repeated this over and over again,vacantly:nothing but these five words.
Nature refused to bear it;or rather,Nature mercifully helped her to bear it.When John took his wife in his arms she was insensible;and remained so,with intervals,for hours.
This was the end of Edwin's wedding-day.
