"Sign such a wicked lie as that!" said she. "That I never will. You _are_ his son, and Huntercombe shall be yours. She is an unnatural mother."

"Gammon!" said Reginald. "You might as well say a fox is the son of a gander. Come now; I am not going to let you cut my throat with your tongue. Sign at once, or else come to her this moment and tell her so."

"That I will," said Mary Meyrick, "and give her my mind."

This doughty resolution was a little shaken when she cast eyes upon Lady Ba.s.sett, and saw how wan and worn she looked.

She moderated her violence, and said, sullenly, "Sorry to gainsay _you,_ my lady, and you so ill, but this is a paper I never can sign.

It would rob him of Huntercombe. I'd sooner cut my hand off at the wrist."

"Nonsense, Mary!" said Lady Ba.s.sett, contemptuously.

She then proceeded to reason with her, but it was no use. Mary would not listen to reason, and defied her at last in a loud voice.

"Very well," said Lady Ba.s.sett. "Then since you will not do it my way, it shall be done another way. I shall put my confession in Sir Charles's hands, and insist on his dismissing him from the house, and you from your farm. It will kill me, and the money I intended for Reginald I shall leave to Compton."

"These are idle words, my lady. You daren't."

"I dare anything when once I make up my mind to die."

She rang the bell.

Mary Meyrick affected contempt.

A servant came to the door.

"Request Sir Charles to come to me immediately."

CHAPTER XLIV.

"DON'T you be a fool," said Reginald to his nurse.

"Sir Charles will send you to prison for it," said Lady Ba.s.sett.

"For what I done along with you?"

"Oh, he will not punish his wife; he will look out for some other victim."

"Sign, you d--d old fool!" cried Reginald, seizing Mary Meyrick roughly by the arm.

Strange to say, Lady Ba.s.sett interfered, with a sort of majestic horror. She held up her hand, and said, "Do not dare to lay a finger on her!"

Then Mary burst into tears, and said she would sign the paper.

While she was signing it, Sir Charles's step was heard in the corridor.

He knocked at the door just as she signed. Reginald had signed already.

Lady Ba.s.sett put the paper into the ma.n.u.script book, and the book into the bureau, and said "Come in," with an appearance of composure belied by her beating heart.

"Here is Mrs. Meyrick, my dear."

In those few seconds so perfect a liar as Mary Meyrick had quite recovered herself.

"If you please, sir," said she, "I be come to ast if you will give us a new lease, for ourn it is run out."

"You had better talk to the steward about that."

"Very well, sir," and she made her courtesy.

Reginald remained, not knowing exactly what to do.

"My dear," said Lady Ba.s.sett, "Reginald has come to bid us good-by. He is going to visit Mr. Rolfe, and take his advice, if you have no objection."

"None whatever; and I hope he will treat it with more respect than he does mine."

Reginald shrugged his shoulders, and was going out, when Lady Ba.s.sett said, "Won't you kiss me, Reginald, as you are going away?"

He came to her: she kissed him, and whispered in his ear, "Be true to me, as I will be to you."

Then he left her, and she felt like a dead thing, with exhaustion. She lay on the sofa, and Sir Charles sat beside her, and made her drink a gla.s.s of wine.

She lay very still that afternoon; but at night she slept: a load was off her mind for the present.

Next day she was so much better she came down to dinner.

What she now hoped was, that entire separation, coupled with the memory of the boy's misdeeds, would cure Sir Charles entirely of his affection for Reginald; and so that, after about twenty years more of conjugal fidelity, she might find courage to reveal to her husband the fault of her youth at a time when all its good results remained to help excuse it, and all its bad results had vanished.

Such was the plan this extraordinary woman conceived, and its success so far had a wonderful effect on her health.

But a couple of days pa.s.sed, and she did not hear either from Reginald or Mr. Rolfe. That made her a little anxious.

On the third day Compton asked her, with an angry flush on his brow, whether she had not sent Reginald up to London.

"Yes, dear," said Lady Ba.s.sett.

"Well, he is not gone, then."

"Oh!"

"He is living at his nurse's. I saw him talking to an old gypsy that lives on the farm."

Lady Ba.s.sett groaned, but said nothing.