第8章 FOR CONSCIENCE'SAKE(2)

'For several years,certainly,'replied his friend.'I cannot say if she is living now.It was a little girl.She might be married by this time as far as years go.'

'And the mother--was she a decent,worthy young woman?'

'O yes;a sensible,quiet girl,neither attractive nor unattractive to the ordinary observer;simply commonplace.Her position at the time of our acquaintance was not so good as mine.My father was a solicitor,as I think I have told you.She was a young girl in a music-shop;and it was represented to me that it would be beneath my position to marry her.Hence the result.'

'Well,all I can say is that after twenty years it is probably too late to think of mending such a matter.It has doubtless by this time mended itself.You had better dismiss it from your mind as an evil past your control.Of course,if mother and daughter are alive,or either,you might settle something upon them,if you were inclined,and had it to spare.'

'Well,I haven't much to spare;and I have relations in narrow circumstances--perhaps narrower than theirs.But that is not the point.Were I ever so rich I feel I could not rectify the past by money.I did not promise to enrich her.On the contrary,I told her it would probably be dire poverty for both of us.But I did promise to make her my wife.'

'Then find her and do it,'said the doctor jocularly as he rose to leave.

'Ah,Bindon.That,of course,is the obvious jest.But I haven't the slightest desire for marriage;I am quite content to live as Ihave lived.I am a bachelor by nature,and instinct,and habit,and everything.Besides,though I respect her still (for she was not an atom to blame),I haven't any shadow of love for her.In my mind she exists as one of those women you think well of,but find uninteresting.It would be purely with the idea of putting wrong right that I should hunt her up,and propose to do it off-hand.'

'You don't think of it seriously?'said his surprised friend.

'I sometimes think that I would,if it were practicable;simply,as Isay,to recover my sense of being a man of honour.'

'I wish you luck in the enterprise,'said Doctor Bindon.'You'll soon be out of that chair,and then you can put your impulse to the test.But--after twenty years of silence--I should say,don't!'

CHAPTER II

The doctor's advice remained counterpoised,in Millborne's mind,by the aforesaid mood of seriousness and sense of principle,approximating often to religious sentiment,which had been evolving itself in his breast for months,and even years.

The feeling,however,had no immediate effect upon Mr.Millborne's actions.He soon got over his trifling illness,and was vexed with himself for having,in a moment of impulse,confided such a case of conscience to anybody.

But the force which had prompted it,though latent,remained with him and ultimately grew stronger.The upshot was that about four months after the date of his illness and disclosure,Millborne found himself on a mild spring morning at Paddington Station,in a train that was starting for the west.His many intermittent thoughts on his broken promise from time to time,in those hours when loneliness brought him face to face with his own personality,had at last resulted in this course.

The decisive stimulus had been given when,a day or two earlier,on looking into a Post-Office Directory,he learnt that the woman he had not met for twenty years was still living on at Exonbury under the name she had assumed when,a year or two after her disappearance from her native town and his,she had returned from abroad as a young widow with a child,and taken up her residence at the former city.

Her condition was apparently but little changed,and her daughter seemed to be with her,their names standing in the Directory as 'Mrs.

Leonora Frankland and Miss Frankland,Teachers of Music and Dancing.'

Mr.Millborne reached Exonbury in the afternoon,and his first business,before even taking his luggage into the town,was to find the house occupied by the teachers.Standing in a central and open place it was not difficult to discover,a well-burnished brass doorplate bearing their names prominently.He hesitated to enter without further knowledge,and ultimately took lodgings over a toyshop opposite,securing a sitting-room which faced a similar drawing or sitting-room at the Franklands',where the dancing lessons were given.Installed here he was enabled to make indirectly,and without suspicion,inquiries and observations on the character of the ladies over the way,which he did with much deliberateness.

He learnt that the widow,Mrs.Frankland,with her one daughter,Frances,was of cheerful and excellent repute,energetic and painstaking with her pupils,of whom she had a good many,and in whose tuition her daughter assisted her.She was quite a recognized townswoman,and though the dancing branch of her profession was perhaps a trifle worldly,she was really a serious-minded lady who,being obliged to live by what she knew how to teach,balanced matters by lending a hand at charitable bazaars,assisting at sacred concerts,and giving musical recitations in aid of funds for bewildering happy savages,and other such enthusiasms of this enlightened country.Her daughter was one of the foremost of the bevy of young women who decorated the churches at Easter and Christmas,was organist in one of those edifices,and had subscribed to the testimonial of a silver broth-basin that was presented to the Reverend Mr.Walker as a token of gratitude for his faithful and arduous intonations of six months as sub-precentor in the Cathedral.

Altogether mother and daughter appeared to be a typical and innocent pair among the genteel citizens of Exonbury.