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"Then, if you have not displeased each other, and really love each other, why are you parted in this strange fashion? It seems to me, Madaline, that you are his wife only in name." "You are right, mother and I shall never be any more; but do not ask me why I can never tell you. The secret must live and die with me." "Then I shall never know it, Madaline?" "Never, mother," she answered.
His first impulse was to fall on his knees by the little couch and kiss his wife's hands, his second to ask why he had been led thither to be tortured so. Madaline rose with a glad cry at his entrance, but Lord Mountdean laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Lord Arleigh," said the earl, "tell me who this is." "My wife, Lady Arleigh," he replied. She bent forward with clasped hands.
Heaven and earth smiled their brightest, the sunshine was golden, the autumn flowers bloomed fair, the autumn foliage had assumed its rich hues of crimson and of burnished gold; there was a bright light over the sea and the hill-tops. Only one little contretemps happened at the wedding. Madaline smiled at it.
There was a world of sorrowful reproach in the blue eyes raised to his. "I understand," she said, quietly; "you do not wish that the daughter of a felon should sleep, even for one night, under your roof." "You pain me and you pain yourself; but it is, if you will bear the truth, my poor Madaline, just as you say. Even for these ancient walls I have such reverence."
Why, Norman, in the long years to come, when some Lord Arleigh brings home his wife, as you have brought me, and they stand together before my picture as I stand before these, the young wife will ask: 'Who was this? and the answer will be: 'Lady Madaline Arleigh. She will ask again: 'Who was she? And what will the answer be?
"Well, what I wanted to say is, I have seen that pretty girl before and I sort of think she was the one who used to be with the dark-eyed girl they say ran away." "Why, she came with Lieutenant Cosgrove, and surely wouldn't be a companion to a runaway mill girl!" protested Madaline.
Letsom knew how the suffering of her daily life had increased even though she was comforted by the love of the little child. Madaline slept in her grave her child was safe and happy with the kindly, tender woman who was to supply its mother's place. Then Lord Charlewood prepared to leave the place where he had suffered so bitterly. The secret of his title had been well kept.
"I shall be better in time, Norman," she said, "and shall not always be sad." "There are some business arrangements which must be made," he continued, hurriedly "but it will be better for us not to meet again just yet, Madaline I could not bear it. I will see that all is arranged for your comfort. You must have every luxury and " "Luxury!" she repeated, mockingly.
"What is it, Madaline?" he asked, gently. "I wish you would let me tell you all about it how my mother, so gentle and good, came to marry my father, and how he fell how he was tempted and fell. May I tell you, Lord Arleigh?" "No," he replied, after a short pause, "I would rather not hear it. The duchess has told me all I care to know. It will be better, believe me, for the whole story to die away.
"He may have more money than I have," thought poor, mistaken Margaret, "but he cannot love her so much; and after all love is better than money." It was easy to manage her husband. She had said but little to him at the time she undertook the charge of little Madaline, and he had been too indifferent to make inquiries.
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