_ CHAPTER TWENTY. THE MORNING PAPER
No one by any stretch of the imagination could have called the admiral a good reader. In fact, a person might very well have been considered to be strictly within the limits of truth if he had declared the old officer to be the worst reader he ever heard. But so it was, from the crookedness of human nature, that he always made a point of reading every piece of news in the paper which he considered interesting, aloud, for the benefit of those with him at the breakfast table.
Matters happen strangely quite as frequently as they go on in the regular groove of routine, and hence it happened, one morning at breakfast, that is to say, on the morning after the tragedy at the convict prison, that Sir Mark put on his gold spectacles as soon as he had finished his eggs and bacon and one cup of coffee, and, taking the freshly aired paper, opened it with a good deal of rustling noise, and coughed.
Edie looked across at her cousin with a mischievous smile, but Myra was gazing thoughtfully before her, and the glance missed its mark.
"Hum! ha!" growled Sir Mark. "'London, South, and Channel. Same as number three.' Confound number three! Who wants to refer to that? Oh, here we are: 'Light winds, shifting to east. Fine generally.' Climate's improving, girls. More coffee, Myra. Pass my cup, Edie, dear."
He skimmed over the summary, and then turned to the police cases, found nothing particular, and went on to the sessions, stopping to refresh himself from time to time, while Edie wondered what her cousin's thoughts might be.
"Dear me!" exclaimed the admiral suddenly; "how singular! I must read you this, girls. Here's another forgery of foreign banknotes."
The click of Myra's teacup as she suddenly set it down made the admiral drop the paper and read in his child's blank face the terrible slip he had made.
"O Myra, my darling!" he cried apologetically; "I am so sorry;" and he turned to Edie, who looked daggers.
"It is nothing, papa," said Myra coldly, as she tried hard to master her emotion.
"But it is something, my dear. I wouldn't have said a word only I caught sight of Percy Guest's name as junior for the defence."
It was Edie's turn now to look startled, and Sir Mark hurriedly fixed upon her to become the scapegoat for his awkward allusion, and divert Myra's attention.
"Can't congratulate the prisoner upon his counsel," he said. "The man's too young and inexperienced. Only the other day a mere student. It's like putting a midshipman as second in command of an ironclad."
Edie's eyes now seemed to dart flames, and she looked up boldly at her uncle.
"Oh, yes," he said, "I mean it. Very nice fellow, Percy Guest, in a social way, but I should be sorry to trust an important case with him. Here, I'll read it, and see what it's all about. No; never mind, I know you girls don't care about law."
The morning meal had been commenced cheerfully. There was sunshine without and at the table, Edie had thought how bright and well her cousin looked, and augured pleasant times of the future.
"If she could only feel herself free," was her constant thought when Myra gave way to some fit of despondency.
"I'm sure that she loves Malcolm Stratton, and what is the good of a stupid old law if all it does is to make people uncomfortable. I wish I knew the Archbishop of Canterbury or the judge of the Court of Divorce, or whoever it is settles those things. I'd soon make them see matters in a different light. Poor Myra would be obedient then, and there'd be an end of all this moping. I believe she delights in making herself miserable."
It was just when Edie had reached this point, and she was stirring her tea, and thinking how easily she could settle matters if she were at the head of affairs, so as to make everybody happy, herself included, when her uncle made his malapropos remarks.
There was no more sunshine in the dining room after that. Myra looked cold and pale, the admiral was uncomfortable behind the paper, in which he enveloped himself as in a cloud, from which came a hand at intervals to feel about the table in an absurd way for toast or his coffee cup, which was twice over nearly overturned.
Then he became visible for a moment or two as he turned the paper, but it closed him in again, and from behind it there came, now and then, a fidgeting nervous cough, which was as annoying to the utterer as to those who listened.
"Going out to-day, girls?" asked Sir Mark at last, but without removing the paper.
"Yes, uncle," said Edie sharply, for her cousin had given her an imploring look, and the girl could see that Myra was greatly agitated still; "the carriage is coming round at two. Shall we drop you at the club?"
"Great Heavens!" ejaculated the old man in a tone which startled both his hearers, and as if expectant from some premonition, Myra thrust back her chair, and sat gazing at the paper wildly.
"What is it, uncle?" cried Edie.
"Eh? Oh, nothing, my dear," said Sir Mark confusedly, as he rustled the paper and hurriedly turned it. "More horrors. These editors seem to revel in them, or the public do. So shocking; no sooner is one at an end, than another begins."
He had screened his face again as quickly as he could, for he was a miserable dissembler, and Edie and Myra exchanged glances. Then, rising slowly with her hand pressed to her breast, Myra made as if she would go to the other side of the table, but her strength failed her, and as her father cleared his throat with a sonorous cough, she clung to the edge, crumpling up the white cloth in her damp fingers.
Edie rose too, but throwing up her head, Myra motioned her back imperiously, and stood for a few moments with her lips parted and eyes dilated, gazing at the paper, as if devouring its contents, while from behind it came the admiral's voice with forced carelessness.
"For my part," he said, with a clumsy effort to hide his own emotion, "I am beginning to think that the ordinary daily newspapers are unsuitable reading for young ladies, who had better keep to the magazines and journals specially devoted to their wants."
There was no word spoken in return, and after another cough, the old man continued:
"What was that you said about dropping me at the club? By all means, yes. My leg was rather bad in the night. Don't care so much about walking as I used."
Still there was no reply, and, as if struck by the notion that he had been left alone in the room, Sir Mark coughed again nervously, and slowly moved himself in his chair, to turn the paper slightly aside, and, as if by accident, so that he could see beyond one side.
He sat there the next moment petrified, and staring at his daughter's wildly excited face, for, resting one hand on the table, she was leaning toward him, her hand extended to take the paper, and her eyes questioning his, while Edie, looking terribly agitated, was also leaning forward as if to restrain her cousin.
Sir Mark's lips parted and moved, but he made no sound. Then recovering himself, he hastily closed the paper, doubled it over again, and rose from his chair.
"Myra, my darling!" he cried, "are you ill?"
Her lips now moved in turn, but without a sound at first; then she threw back her head, and her eyes grew more dilated as she cried hoarsely:
"That paper--there is news--something about my husband."
"Edie, ring! She is ill," cried Sir Mark.
"No, stop!" cried Myra. "I am not a child now, father. I tell you that there is news in that paper about my husband. Give it to me. I will see."
Sir Mark was as agitated now as his child, and with a hurried gesture, perfectly natural under the circumstances, he thrust the paper behind him. "No, no, my child," he stammered, with his florid face growing mottled and strange.
"I say there is, father, and you are deceiving me."
"Well, yes, a little, my darling," he said hastily. "A little. Not for your ears, dear. Another time when you are cool and calm, you know. Edie, my dear, come to her; talk to her. Myra, my child, leave it to me."
Myra's hand went to her throat as if she were stifling, but once more she forced back her emotion.
"Something about--the prison--my husband?"
"Yes, yes, my dear. Nothing so very particular. Now do--do leave it to me, and try to be calm. You frighten me. There, there, my pet," he continued, trying to take her hand; "go to your room for a bit with Edie, and--yes, yes, lie down."
"Give me the paper," she said hoarsely.
"No, no, I cannot, indeed, my dear."
"Ah!" cried the agitated girl wildly. "I know--they have set him free?"
Sir Mark glanced at his niece, and then passed his hand over his beaded forehead.
"Yes, yes, my dear," he faltered; "he is free."
"Ah! and he will come here and claim me, and then--"
She reeled as if to fall, but her force of will was too great, and she mastered her emotion again, stepped forward, and seized the paper, her senses swimming as she turned it again and again, till the large type of the telegram caught her attention.
Then she closed her eyes for a few moments, drew a long breath, and they saw her compress her lips and read without a tremor:
Daring attempted Escape.
Serious Affray.
Our correspondent at Grey Cliff telegraphs of a desperate attempt made by three of the convicts at The Foreland last night about eight o'clock. By some means they managed to elude the vigilance of the warders after the cells had been visited and lights were out, reached the yard, and scaled the lofty wall. Then, favoured by the darkness of the night, they threaded their way among the sentries, and reached the cliffs of the dangerous rocky coast, where, their evasion having been discovered, they were brought to bay by a party of the armed warders. In the affray which ensued two of the warders were dangerously wounded with stones, and the convicts were making their way down the cliffs to the sea when orders were given to fire. One of the men was shot down, while, in the desperate attempts to escape recapture, the others went headlong down the almost perpendicular precipice which guards the eastern side of The Foreland.
Upon the warders descending with ropes, two of the men were brought up, one with a shot through the leg, the other suffering from a badly fractured skull, while, in spite of vigorous search by the boats of H.M.S. _Merlin_, the body of the third man, which had been heard to plunge into the sea, was not recovered. We regret to add that the man injured by his fall expired in the ambulance on the way back to the prison. He was the notorious convict Barron, or Dale, sentenced to seven years' penal servitude, about a twelvemonth ago, for the daring fraud upon the Russian government by the issue of forged rouble notes. The paper fell from Myra's hands as she stood there motionless, and apparently unmoved by the tidings she had read. Then turning slowly, she held out her hand to Edie, who obeyed the imploring look in her eyes, and led her from the dining room to her own chamber without a word.
"Myra," she whispered then, and she pressed closely toward her cousin, whose lips now parted, and she heard almost like a sigh:
"Free--free!"
"Talk to me, dear, talk to me," whispered Edie. "It frightens me when you look like that."
Myra turned to her, caught her cousin to her breast, and kissed her rapidly twice. Then, thrusting her away, she whispered faintly:
"Go now--go, dear. I can bear no more;" and when, a few moments later, Edie looked back from the door she was about to close, Myra was in the act of sinking upon her knees by the bedside, where she buried her face in her hands.
But hardly had the door closed when she sprang to her feet, and hurried across to shoot the bolt, and then stand with her hands to her head, and starting eyes, picturing in imagination the scene of the past night. The darkness and James Barron--her husband--the man who had haunted her night and day in connection with the hour when he would come back and claim her, not at the end of seven years, but earlier, released before his time--that man--while she sat below in her room at the piano--yes, she recalled vividly every minute of the previous night--she sat playing the melodies of old ballads, favourites of her father, with Percy Guest talking to Edie, and at that time this man was fighting to escape--this man, her horror. And had he succeeded he would have come there.
She shuddered as, from the brief description of the struggle, she saw him trying to descend the rocky face of the cliff, stumble when shots were fired, and fall headlong upon the cruel stones.
It was horrible--too horrible to bear; and yet she felt obliged to dwell upon it all, and go over it again and again, shuddering at the pictures her active brain evoked till the agony was maddening.
Then, to make her horror culminate, doubt stepped in to ask her, as if in an insidious whisper, whether she could believe it to be all true, and not some reporter's error.
She felt as if she were withering beneath some cold mental blast, and in spite of the horror, her hopes and dreams, which would have place, shrank back again. For it might be a mistake. Some other wretched man had striven to escape, and in the hurry and darkness had been mistaken for her husband.
But hope came again directly, and while shuddering at the thoughts, she recalled how explicit it had all been. There could be no mistake. She was wife no longer--tied no more by those hated bonds to a wretched adventurer--a forger--whose sole aim had been to get her father's money--she was free, and Malcolm Stratton had told her--
She shuddered again at the horror of dwelling upon such thoughts at a moment when her ears were stunned by the news of death; but the thoughts were imperious. She had never loved this man, and the ceremony had only been performed under misapprehension. Once more she was free--free to follow the bent of her affections--free to give herself to the man she knew she loved.
What had Malcolm Stratton said--what had he said?
A mist had been gathering about her mental vision, and she staggered toward her bedside, once more to sink down and bury her burning face in her hands, for her emotion was greater than she could bear. _