"Well, I really did not. But, after all, what can they do? They are evidently afraid to go to the Court of Chancery, and ask for a jury in the asylum; and what else can they do?"

"Humph! They might arrange an escape, and hide him for fourteen days; then we could not recapture him without fresh certificates; could we?"

"Certainly not."

"And the doors would be too well guarded; not a crack for two doctors to creep in at."

"You go too fast. _You_ know the law from me, and you are a daring man that would try this sort of thing; but a timid woman, advised by a respectable m.u.f.f like Oldfield! They will never dream of such a thing."

"Oldfield is not her head-man. She has got another adviser, and he is the very man to do something plucky."

"I don't know who you mean."

"Why, her lover, to be sure."

"Her lover? Lady Ba.s.sett's lover!"

"Ay, the young parson."

Wheeler smiled satirically. "You certainly are a good hater. Nothing is too bad for those you don't like. If that Lady Ba.s.sett is not a true wife, where will you find one?"

"She is the most deceitful jade in England."

"Oh! oh!"

"Ah! you may sneer. So you have forgotten how she outwitted us. Did the devil himself ever do a cunninger thing than that? tempting a fellow into a correspondence that seemed a piece of folly on her part, yet it was a deep diabolical trick to get at my handwriting. Did _you_ see her game? No more than I did. You chuckled at her writing letters to the plaintiff _pendente lite._ We were both children, setting our wits against a woman's. I tell you I dread her, especially when I see her so unnaturally quiet, after what we have done. When you hook a large salmon, and he makes a great commotion, but all of a sudden lies like a stone, be on your guard; he means mischief."

"Well," said Wheeler, "this is all very true, but you have strayed from the point. What makes you think she has an improper attachment?"

"Is it so very unnatural? He is the handsomest fellow about, she is the loveliest woman; he is dark, she is fair; and they are thrown together by circ.u.mstances. Another thing: I have always understood that women admire the qualities they don't possess themselves--strength, for instance. Now this parson is a Hercules. He took Sir Charles up like a boy and carried him in his arms all the way from where he had the fit.

Lady Ba.s.sett walked beside them. Rely on it, a woman does not see one man carry another so without making a comparison in favor of the strong, and against the weak. But what am I talking about? They walk like lovers, those two."

"What, hand in hand? he! he!"

"No, side by side; but yet like lovers for all that."

"You must have a good eye."

"I have a good opera-gla.s.s."

Mr. Wheeler smoked in silence.

"Well, but," said he, after a pause, "if this is so, all the better for you. Don't you see that the lover will never really help her to get the husband out of confinement? It is not in the nature of things. He may struggle with his own conscience a bit, being a clergyman, but he won't go too far; he won't break the law to get Sir Charles home, and so end these charming duets with his lady-love."

"By Jove, you are right!" cried Ba.s.sett, convinced in his turn. "I say, old fellow, two heads are better than one. I think we have got the clew, between us. Yes, by Heaven! it is so; for the carriage used to be out twice a week, but now she only goes about once in ten days.

By-and-by it will be once a fortnight, then once a month, and the black-eyed rector will preach patience and resignation. Oh, it was a master-stroke, clapping him in that asylum! All we have got to do now is to let well alone. When she is over head and ears in love with Angelo she will come to easy terms with us, and so I'll move across the way. I shall never be happy till I live at Huntercombe, and administer the estate."

The maid-servant brought him a note, and said it was from her mistress.

Ba.s.sett took it rather contemptuously, and said, "The little woman is always in a fidget now when you come here. She is all for peace." He read the letter. It ran thus:

"DEAREST RICHARD--I implore you to do nothing more to hurt Sir Charles.

It is wicked, and it is useless. G.o.d has had pity on Lady Ba.s.sett, and have you pity on her too. Jane has just heard it from one of the Huntercombe servants."

"What does she mean with her 'its'? Why, surely--Read it, you."

They looked at each other in doubt and amazement for some time. Then Richard Ba.s.sett rushed upstairs, and had a few hasty words with his wife.

She told him her news in plainer English, and renewed her mild entreaties. He turned his back on her in the middle. He went out into the nursery, and looked at his child. The little fellow, a beautiful boy, slept the placid sleep of infancy. He leaned over him and kissed him, and went down to the dining-room.

His feet came tramp, tramp, very slowly, and when he opened the door Mr. Wheeler was startled at the change in his appearance. He was pale, and his countenance fallen.

"Why, what is the matter?" said Wheeler.

"She has done us. Ah, I was wiser than you; I feared her. It is the same thing over again; a woman against two children. This shows how strong she is; you can't realize what she has done--even when you see it. An heir was wanted to those estates. Love cried out for one. Hate cried out for one. Nature denied one. She has cut the Gordian knot; cut it as boldly as the lowest woman in Huntercombe would have cut it under such a terrible temptation."

"Oh, for shame!"

"Think, and use your eyes."

"My eyes have seen the lady; I think I see her now, kneeling like an angel over her husband, and pitying him for having knocked me down. I say her only lover is her husband."

"Oh, that was a long time ago. Time brings changes. You can't take the eyes out of my head."

"Suppose it should be only a false alarm?"

"Is that likely? However, I will learn. Whether it is or not, that child shall never rob mine of Ba.s.sett and Huntercombe. Anything is fair against such a woman."

CHAPTER XXVI.

THAT very night, after Wheeler had gone home, Richard Ba.s.sett wrote a cajoling letter to Mary Wells, asking her to meet him at the old place.

When the girl got this letter she felt a little faint for a moment; but she knew the man, his treachery, and his hard egotism and selfishness so well, that she tossed the letter aside, and resolved to take no notice. Her trust was all in her mistress, for whom, indeed, she had more real affection than for any living creature; as for Richard Ba.s.sett she absolutely detested him.

As the day wore on she took another view of matters: her deceiver was the enemy of her mistress; she might do her a service by going to this rendezvous, might learn something from him, and use it against him.

So she went to the rendezvous with a heart full of bitter hate.

Ba.s.sett, with all his a.s.surance, could not begin his interrogatory all in a moment. He made a sort of apology, said he felt he had been unkind, and he had never been happy since he had deserted her.

She cut that short. "I have found a better than you," said she. "I am going to London very soon--to be married."

"I am glad to hear it."