_ PART VI. MAN AND GOD
CHAPTER XVII
There was a letter waiting for Philip at home. It was from the Clerk of the Rolls. Only a few lines scribbled on the back of a draft deposition, telling him the petition for divorce had been heard that day within closed doors. The application had been granted, and all was settled and comfortable.
"I don't want to hurt your already much wounded feelings, Christian," wrote the Clerk of the Rolls, "or to add anything to your responsibility when you come to make provision for the woman, but I must say she has given up for your sake a deuced good honest fellow."
"I know it," said Philip aloud.
"When I told him that all was over, and that his erring wife would trouble him no more, I thought he was going to burst out crying."
But Philip had no time yet to think of Pete. All his heart was with Kate. She would receive the official intimation of the divorce, and it would fall on her in her prison like a blow. She would think of herself, with all the world against her, and of him with all the world at his feet. He wanted to run to her, to pluck her up in his arms, to kiss her on the lips, and say, "Mine, mine at last!" His wife--her husband--all forgiven--all forgotten!
Philip spent the rest of the night in writing a letter to Kate. He told her he could not live without her; that now for the first time she was his, and he was hers, and they were one; that their love was re-born, and that he would spend the future in atoning for the wrongs he had inflicted upon her in the past. Then he dropped to the sheer babble of affection and poured out his heart to her--all the babydom of love, the foolish prattle, the tender nonsense. What matter that he was Governor now, and the first man in the island? He forgot all about it. What matter that he was writing to a fallen woman in prison? He only remembered it to forget himself the more.
"Just a little longer, my love, just a little longer. I am coming to you, I am coming. Older, perhaps, perhaps sadder, and a boy no more, but hopeful still, and ready to face whatever fate befall, with her I love beside me."
Next day Jem-y-Lord took this letter to Castle Rushen and brought back an answer. It was one line only--"My darling! At last! At last! Oh, Philip! Philip! _But what about our child?_" _