London (England) -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction
“Suppose I get the answer late at night, sir?”
“I don’t care when you get it, night or day. Dead or living, I will
undertake to identify him. Here’s a duplicate key of the garden gate.
Come this way, and I’ll show you where my bedroom is. If we are all
in bed, tap at the window--and I will be ready for you at a moment’s
notice.”
On that understanding Morcross left the cottage.
The day when the mortal remains of Mrs. Farnaby were laid at rest was a
day of heavy rain. Mr. Melton, and two or three other old friends, were
the attendants at the funeral. When the coffin was borne into the
damp and reeking burial ground, a young man and a woman were the only
persons, beside the sexton and his assistants, who stood by the open
grave. Mr. Melton, recognizing Amelius, was at a loss to understand
who his companion could be. It was impossible to suppose that he would
profane that solemn ceremony by bringing to it the lost woman at the
cottage. The thick black veil of the person with him hid her face from
view. No visible expressions of grief escaped her. When the last sublime
words of the burial service had been read, those two mourners were left,
after the others had all departed, still standing together by the grave.
Mr. Melton decided on mentioning the circumstance confidentially when
he wrote to his friend in Paris. Telegrams from Regina, in reply to his
telegrams from London, had informed him that Mr. Farnaby had felt the
benefit of the remedies employed, and was slowly on the way to recovery.
It seemed likely that he would, in no long time, take the right course
for the protection of his niece. For the enlightenment which might, or
might not, come with that time, Mr. Melton was resigned to wait, with
the disciplined patience to which he had been mainly indebted for his
success in life.
“Always remember your mother tenderly, my child,” said Amelius, as they
left the burial ground. “She was sorely tried, poor thing, in her life
time, and she loved you very dearly.”
“Do you know anything of my father?” Sally asked timidly. “Is he still
living?”
“My dear, you will never see your father. I must be all that the kindest
father and mother could have been to you, now. Oh, my poor little girl!”
She pressed his arm to her as she held it. “Why should you pity me?” she
said. “Haven’t I got You?”
They passed the day together quietly at the cottage. Amelius took down
some of his books, and pleased Sally by giving her his first lessons.
Soon after ten o’clock she withdrew, at the usual early hour, to her
room. In her absence, he sent for Toff, intending to warn him not to be
alarmed if he heard footsteps in the garden, after they had all gone to
bed. The old servant had barely entered the library, when he was called
away by the bell at the outer gate. Amelius, looking into the hall,
discovered Morcross, and signed to him eagerly to come in. The
police-officer closed the door cautiously behind him. He had arrived
with news that Jervy was found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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