"But I fear you must believe it. I would not if I could help it.

She's been carrying on a clandestine correspondence with Mr.

Preston!--"

"Mr. Preston!" exclaimed he.

"And meeting him at all sorts of unseemly places and hours, out of doors,--in the dark,--fainting away in his--his arms, if I must speak out. All the town is talking of it." Mr. Gibson's hand was over his eyes again, and he made no sign; so Miss Browning went on, adding touch to touch. "Mr. Sheepshanks saw them together. They have exchanged notes in Grinstead's shop; she ran after him there."

"Be quiet, can't you?" said Mr. Gibson, taking his hand away, and showing his grim set face. "I've heard enough. Don't go on. I said I shouldn't believe it, and I don't. I suppose I must thank you for telling me; but I can't yet."

"I don't want your thanks," said Miss Browning, almost crying. "I thought you ought to know; for though you're married again, I can't forget you were dear Mary's husband once upon a time; and Molly's her child."

"I'd rather not speak any more about it just at present," said he, not at all replying to Miss Browning's last speech. "I may not control myself as I ought. I only wish I could meet Preston, and horsewhip him within an inch of his life. I wish I'd the doctoring of these slanderous gossips. I'd make their tongues lie still for a while. My little girl! What harm has she done them all, that they should go and foul her fair name?"

"Indeed, Mr. Gibson, I'm afraid it's all true. I would not have sent for you if I hadn't examined into it. Do ascertain the truth before you do anything violent, such as horsewhipping or poisoning."

With all the _inconsequence_ of a man in a pa.s.sion, Mr. Gibson laughed out, "What have I said about horsewhipping or poisoning?

Do you think I'd have Molly's name dragged about the streets in connection with any act of violence on my part? Let the report die away as it arose. Time will prove its falsehood."

"But I don't think it will, and that's the pity of it," said Miss Browning. "You must do something, but I don't know what."

"I shall go home and ask Molly herself what's the meaning of it all; that's all I shall do. It's too ridiculous--knowing Molly as I do, it's perfectly ridiculous." He got up and walked about the room with hasty steps, laughing short unnatural laughs from time to time.

"Really what will they say next? 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle tongues to do.'"

"Don't talk of Satan, please, in this house. No one knows what may happen, if he's lightly spoken about," pleaded Miss Browning.

He went on, without noticing her, talking to himself,--"I've a great mind to leave the place;--and what food for scandal that piece of folly would give rise to!" Then he was silent for a time; his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground, as he continued his quarter-deck march. Suddenly he stopped close to Miss Browning's chair: "I'm thoroughly ungrateful to you, for as true a mark of friendship as you've ever shown to me. True or false, it was right I should know the wretched scandal that was being circulated; and it couldn't have been pleasant for you to tell it me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart."

"Indeed, Mr. Gibson, if it was false I would never have named it, but let it die away."

"It's not true, though!" said he, doggedly, letting drop the hand he had taken in his effusion of grat.i.tude.

She shook her head. "I shall always love Molly for her mother's sake," she said. And it was a great concession from the correct Miss Browning. But her father did not understand it as such.

"You ought to love her for her own. She has done nothing to disgrace herself. I shall go straight home, and probe into the truth."

"As if the poor girl who has been led away into deceit already would scruple much at going on in falsehood," was Miss Browning's remark on this last speech of Mr. Gibson's; but she had discretion enough not to make it until he was well out of hearing.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

AN INNOCENT CULPRIT.

With his head bent down--as if he were facing some keen-blowing wind--and yet there was not a breath of air stirring--Mr. Gibson went swiftly to his own home. He rang at the door-bell; an unusual proceeding on his part. Maria opened the door. "Go and tell Miss Molly she's wanted in the dining-room. Don't say who it is that wants her." There was something in Mr. Gibson's manner that made Maria obey him to the letter, in spite of Molly's surprised question,--

"Wants me? Who is it, Maria?"

Mr. Gibson went into the dining-room, and shut the door, for an instant's solitude. He went up to the chimney-piece, took hold of it, and laid his head on his hands, and tried to still the beating of his heart.

The door opened. He knew that Molly stood there before he heard her tone of astonishment.

"Papa!"

"Hush!" said he, turning round sharply. "Shut the door. Come here."

She came to him, wondering what was amiss. Her thoughts went to the Hamleys immediately. "Is it Osborne?" she asked, breathless. If Mr.

Gibson had not been too much agitated to judge calmly, he might have deduced comfort from these three words.

But instead of allowing himself to seek for comfort from collateral evidence, he said,--"Molly, what is this I hear? That you have been keeping up a clandestine intercourse with Mr. Preston--meeting him in out-of-the-way places; exchanging letters with him in a stealthy way?"

Though he had professed to disbelieve all this, and did disbelieve it at the bottom of his soul, his voice was hard and stern, his face was white and grim, and his eyes fixed Molly's with the terrible keenness of their research. Molly trembled all over, but she did not attempt to evade his penetration. If she was silent for a moment, it was because she was rapidly reviewing her relation with regard to Cynthia in the matter. It was but a moment's pause of silence; but it seemed long minutes to one who was craving for a burst of indignant denial.

He had taken hold of her two arms just above her wrists, as she had advanced towards him; he was unconscious of this action; but, as his impatience for her words grew upon him, he grasped her more and more tightly in his vice-like hands, till she made a little involuntary sound of pain. And then he let go; and she looked at her soft bruised flesh, with tears gathering fast to her eyes to think that he, her father, should have hurt her so. At the instant it appeared to her stranger that he should inflict bodily pain upon his child, than that he should have heard the truth--even in an exaggerated form. With a childish gesture she held out her arm to him; but if she expected pity, she received none.

"Pooh!" said he, as he just glanced at the mark, "that is nothing--nothing. Answer my question. Have you--have you met that man in private?"

"Yes, papa, I have; but I don't think it was wrong."

He sate down now. "Wrong!" he echoed, bitterly. "Not wrong? Well! I must bear it somehow. Your mother is dead. That's one comfort. It is true, then, is it? Why, I didn't believe it--not I. I laughed in my sleeve at their credulity; and I was the dupe all the time!"

"Papa, I cannot tell you all. It is not my secret, or you should know it directly. Indeed, you will be sorry some time--I have never deceived you yet, have I?" trying to take one of his hands; but he kept them tightly in his pockets, his eyes fixed on the pattern of the carpet before him. "Papa!" said she, pleading again, "have I ever deceived you?"

"How can I tell? I hear of this from the town's talk. I don't know what next may come out!"

"The town's talk!" said Molly in dismay. "What business is it of theirs?"

"Every one makes it their business to cast dirt on a girl's name who has disregarded the commonest rules of modesty and propriety."

"Papa, you are very hard. Modesty disregarded! I will tell you exactly what I have done. I met Mr. Preston once,--that evening when you put me down to walk over Croston Heath,--and there was another person with him. I met him a second time--and that time by appointment--n.o.body but our two selves,--in the Towers' Park. That is all, papa. You must trust me. I cannot explain more. You must trust me indeed."

He could not help relenting at her words; there was such truth in the tone in which they were spoken. But he neither spoke nor stirred for a minute or two. Then he raised his eyes to hers for the first time since she had acknowledged the external truth of what he charged her with. Her face was very white, but it bore the impress of the final sincerity of death, when the true expression prevails without the poor disguises of time.

"The letters?" he said,--but almost as if he were ashamed to question that countenance any further.

"I gave him one letter,--of which I did not write a word,--which, in fact, I believe to have been merely an envelope, without any writing whatever inside. The giving that letter,--the two interviews I have named,--make all the private intercourse I have had with Mr. Preston.

Oh! papa, what have they been saying that has grieved--shocked you so much?"

"Never mind. As the world goes, what you say you have done, Molly, is ground enough. You must tell me all. I must be able to refute these rumours point by point."

"How are they to be refuted, when you say that the truth which I have acknowledged is ground enough for what people are saying?"

"You say you were not acting for yourself, but for another. If you tell me who the other was,--if you tell me everything out fully, I will do my utmost to screen her--for of course I guess it was Cynthia--while I am exonerating you."

"No, papa!" said Molly, after some little consideration; "I have told you all I can tell; all that concerns myself; and I have promised not to say one word more."

"Then your character will be impugned. It must be, unless the fullest explanation of these secret meetings is given. I've a great mind to force the whole truth out of Preston himself!"