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CHAPTER XLII

IT was a dreadful story, and to speak of the consternation, the amaze, the sorrow of those who listened to it, would be to attempt the impossible. Kate's secret was discovered--Mary was sane, not mad. Mary had suspected the whole thing long ago. Her father and mother looked at her now with cold wonder.

"You were right, and we must both ask you to forgive us," they said; "only we would rather, we would rather--" and then they turned away with tears in their eyes.

Mary did not ask them what they were going to do, nor did they quite know. That evening Mrs. Hume stole softly up to the room where the sick man was lying. He was lying there very weak, sunk in a sort of stupor which prevented the return of strength or of appetite, or in any sense of recovery. Mrs. Hume sat down close to him and took his hand.

"When are you going to get better, Ralph?" she said after a long time.

"Better!" said Ralph, "I don't know, I don't seem to care about anything, I don't mind whether I am better or not. Is there any news of Kate?"

Mrs. Hume hesitated for a moment; she looked at the nurse who was standing near. It seemed to the nurse that in Mrs. Hume's eyes there was a request to her to leave the room. She slowly withdrew and | | 390 went into the ante-room, leaving the door between her and the sick man slightly ajar, but from where she sat she could not hear the low tones of Mrs. Hume's voice.

"If you really get better, Ralph, if you think you can be well enough to travel in a week, a fortnight, in three weeks, I will go with you to--"

"Yes, to do what?" he asked.

"To find your lost Kate."

"Will you?" he said, "will you? Is she alive then? Where has she been all this time? Have you tidings of her? speak, I want to know."

"I have tidings of her, very sad tidings. She is alive, but everything is altered. She is not the Kate you love; everything is changed."

"She is the Kate I love, if she is alive," answered the young man. "I want her, and her only. I will get well, if you are quite certain you can take me to her."

"I am quite certain," answered Mrs. Hume, "and I cannot tell you any more to-night."

Henley gave a long sigh. He looked keenly at Mrs. Hume.

"Is Kitty likely to die? is her life in danger?" he asked.

"She was ill, but she is better now; she is quite out of danger."

"And so am I out of danger," he said, and he gave another sigh, and then said faintly, "I am hungry. A load has been lifted from me, I shall get well now."

Mrs. Hume rose and called the nurse.

"His mind is relieved, and he is better," she said. Mrs. Hume went downstairs. She could not bear that look of joy in Henley's face.

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From that moment the sick man did get better. He got better by leaps and bounds. Each morning as he awoke he said to himself, "Kitty is alive." Each night as he fell asleep her sweet and blooming face seemed once again to be close to his, he seemed to feel her soft kiss on his lips, and to look into the radiant, lovely eyes.

"She loves me, she loves me, she is alive and she loves me," he kept saying to himself, and he never thought of her in any other way whatever, and never reproached her for having left him, but guessing that there was some sad story to tell, he did not ask to have it told, for he wanted to get well very fast in order to go to her again. In the course of a few weeks he was well, well enough, the doctor said, to travel. He said the South of France would be as good a place for him as any other, and accordingly he and Mrs. Hume went there alone. It is true that Mrs. Mildmay accompanied them in the same train, but not in the same carriage, and on the way there Mrs. Hume told Henley the true story.

"She was an impostor from first to last, the girl we loved so much. She committed a great, great sin," said Mrs. Hume. "It is doubtful, Ralph, whether you can ever forgive her."

Henley did not speak at all at the time, he did not even utter an exclamation. After an hour or so he said, bending forward and touching Mrs. Hume on her sleeve, "And the property now belongs to Mary and Ethel."

"That is not the question," said Mrs. Hume. "Ethel and I think Mary also would rather not have the property if they might keep the Kate they used to love."

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"I have money enough for Kate; it does not matter," said Ralph. He leant back again in his seat.

"Then you love her in spite of this?"

"Don't ask me any questions," said the young man; "I want to see her, that's all."

At last they reached Mentone. Mrs. Mildmay now came forward. She was still quite uncertain what the Humes meant to do. She vaguely wondered if the punishment of the law would fall upon Kate and herself when she returned to the place where their great sin had been committed. She knew nothing and she feared much. Her face was white as a sheet as she handed the travellers into a carriage. They asked her to step in with them, but she refused.

"I will go in another fly," she said, "I will go first and prepare Kate for this."

When Mrs. Hume and Henley arrived at the boarding-house, Mrs. Mildmay was standing on the steps to receive them.

"Kate knows you have come," she said. "She is in my private sitting-room. She is much better in health, but it is only right to tell you that she is much changed."

"Take me to her at once," said Henley. There was a hoarse note in his voice, and his face was white as death. He followed Mrs. Hume and Mrs. Mildmay down the corridor. The widow went first and opened the door.

"Here they are, Kate. Kate, they have both come," she cried.

Kate Henley was standing by the window with her back to them all. Her slim, young figure, the abundance of her rich hair, the delicate bloom on | | 393 her cheeks seemed to Henley to betoken no change whatever. He forgot the sin she had committed in the joy of seeing her again. He was rushing forward to clasp her to his heart, when she slowly turned. She looked first at Mrs. Hume and then at him. Her face was beautiful as of old, perhaps even more beautiful, but there was not the slightest gleam of recognition in her glance. She advanced slowly towards Mrs. Hume.

"Are you a boarder?" she said; "have you come to spend the winter here?"

Mrs. Hume started back and her face wore an expression of horror.

"Don't you know me?" she said, "I am--" she was about to add, "I am your aunt," but she stopped, for of course she was not this false Kate's aunt, she was no relation to her at all. The real Kate whom she loved was lying in her grave not far away.

"Oh Kitty," said poor Mrs. Hume, "how could you have deceived us like this?" and she dropped on the nearest chair and burst into bitter weeping.

An annoyed expression passed over Kate's face. She glanced from Mrs. Hume to Henley.

"It hurts me to see people cry," she said; "have you also come to spend the winter here?"

"I have come for you," said Henley. "Don't you know me? I am Ralph Henley, your husband, you must know me, Kate!"

Kate put up her hand to her forehead, a bewildered look dimmed the brightness of her eyes for a moment, then she said gently--

"I wish you would not talk in that silly way, it is unkind of you, for I am a sorrowful woman and my | | 394 husband is dead. I don't mind telling you--I don't mind the whole world knowing-that I have committed a great sin, and that God has punished me by taking my husband from me. He was twenty-eight when he died. Hark!" She raised her hand. "Don't you hear the bells. They are tolling his age. One--two--three--four. Listen! You must hear them! They toll his age, twenty-eight, many times a day, and then they stop. They toll his age day and night, day and night, about every five minutes, always and always. My dear, dear husband, against whom I sinned, is dead. That is God's punishment to me."

"But God has forgiven you, Kate," cried Henley. "See, look, I am alive; look at me; touch my hand. I am your husband, Ralph Henley, the man you love."

She smiled very faintly. It was doubtful even if she heard his words.

"Listen!" she said, "if you listen hard and if you do not speak you will hear the bells tolling his age."

Henley glanced from Kate to Mrs. Hume in despair.

"She is always like that, poor dear," said Mrs. Mildmay, "she has been like you see her now ever since the fever left her. Her mind, the doctor says, is gone; it may come back again, he is not sure. She got a terrible shock and her mind went."

"Mother, I wish you would not talk so much," interrupted Kate, "when you do you disturb me. I can't count the bells as they toll out his age." Then she suddenly went close up to Henley and looked him full in the face.

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"You have the same expression as my Ralph," she said, "are you a relation?"

Henley swallowed something in his throat, then he said abruptly, "His nearest relation."

"Are you, indeed? that is interesting. I never knew he had a brother. Are you his brother?"

"You can call me so if you like," said Henley.

Kate held out her hand. Henley clasped it. The moment he felt the little hand in his it seemed to him that half of his terrible grief fell away.

"Kate," he said, "you must know me. It is impossible for you not to know me. I am not Ralph Henley's brother; I am Ralph Henley himself, himself; your husband, darling, your husband."

A spasm of pain crossed Kate's forehead, she put up her hand as if she would brush something away.

"There are the bells," she said gravely, "Ralph Henley is quite dead, there they go, one--two--three--four. Oh, they hurt, they madden me. I wish I could get away somewhere where they would not ring."

"Then come with me," said Henley eagerly. "I will take you to a place where you will not hear them."

"Do you know a place where they won't sound? But they penetrate everywhere, you know we are at Mentone and these bells are ringing in the little church close to the Grange in old England, and yet I hear them, oh so plainly. Is there a place where, where they will not sound?"

"Yes, yes; a place over the sea, far away. Come with me to that place."

"Are you indeed my Ralph's brother?"

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"You can call me so. Will you come where you won't hear those bells?"

"I will," answered Kate. She put both her hands now into Ralph Henley's; his closed over them.

"I will come with you," she repeated, "and soon, soon, for the bells madden me."

Two days afterwards Henley took his wife away. The Humes hushed up as much of the story as they could, and Mrs. Mildmay was not prosecuted for her part in the great sin, for even Mary no longer wished for vengeance. God himself had stepped in and avenged Kate's sin. Henley gave up his life to her, but she never got back her lost memory. The old Kate was as good as dead. Travel where Henley and Kate would, they never reached a spot where she did not hear the bells tolling out the years of the man she loved, and whom she supposed was dead. But in other ways she was gentle and submissive, and loved Henley as much as she could love Ralph's brother.

But Ralph was dead, she said. God had chosen to punish her in this way for her great sin.

THE END