Chapter XIV: Mildred and Hugh

Tom was at work that morning on the farm, and as the other clerk was taking a holiday, Hugh was alone when he received his visitor, whose appearance there surprised him, and at whom he looked curiously, her face was so white and her eyes, swollen with weeping, so unnaturally large and bright. But she was very calm, and taking the seat he offered, and throwing back the heavy veil whose length swept the floor as she sat, she began at once by saying:

“You drew my husband’s will?”

“Yes, I drew it,” he answered curtly, and not at all prepared for her next question, which seemed to arraign him as a culprit.

“Why did you do it?” and there was a ring in her voice he could not understand.

“Why did I do it?” he repeated. “Don’t you know that lawyers usually follow their client’s wishes in making their wills?”

“Yes, but you might have dissuaded him from it. You knew it was wrong.”

“You don’t like it then?” he asked, but repented the question when he saw the effect upon her.

Rising to her feet and tugging at her bonnet strings as if they choked her, she looked steadily at him and said:

“Don’t like it? What do you take me for? No, I don’t like it, and if I had found it first, I think,—I am sure I should have torn it to pieces.”

She had her bonnet off, and was tossing it toward the table as if its weight oppressed her. But it fell upon the floor, where it might have lain if Hugh had not picked it up, carefully and gingerly, as if half afraid of this mass of crape. But it was Milly’s bonnet, and he brushed a bit of dust from the veil, and held it in his hand, while she pushed back her hair from her forehead, and wiping away the drops of perspiration standing there went on:

“Do you know why he made such a will?”

“I confess I do not. I expressed my surprise at the time, but he was not a man to be turned from his purpose when once his mind was made up. May _I_ ask why he did it?” Hugh said, and Mildred replied:

“Yes;—he was angry with Gerard and Alice, because of—of—Tom and Bessie Leach. The young people are engaged and he accidentally found it out.”

“Yes, I see;—he thought a Thornton too good to marry a Leach. Do you share his opinion?” Hugh asked, while the blood came surging back to Mildred’s white face in a great red wave, but left it again, except in two round spots which burned on either cheek.

Hugh was torturing her cruelly, and she wrung her hands, but did not answer his question directly. She only said, as she took the will from her pocket and held it towards him, “It is all right? It is legally executed?”

“Yes, it is all right.”

“And it gives everything to me to do with as I please?”

“Yes, it gives everything to you to do with as you please. You are a very rich woman, Mrs. Thornton, and I congratulate you.”

His tone was sarcastic in the extreme, and stung Mildred so deeply that she forgot herself, and going a step nearer to him cried out, “Oh, Hugh, why are you so hard upon me? Why do you hate me so? Don’t you know who I am?”

Hugh had not expected this, for he had no idea that Mildred would ever tell who she was, and the sound of his name, spoken as she used to speak it when excited, moved him strangely. He was still holding her black bonnet, the long veil of which had become twisted around his boot, and without answering her at once he stooped to unwind it and then put the bonnet from him upon the table as if it had been a barrier between him and the woman, whose eyes were upon him.

“Yes,” he said at last, very slowly, for he was afraid his voice might tremble, “You are Mrs. Thornton now; but you were Mildred Leach.”

“Oh, Hugh, I am so glad!” Mildred cried, as she sank into her chair, and covering her face with her hands, sobbed like a child, while Hugh stood looking at her, wondering what he ought to do, or say, and wishing she would speak first. But she did not, and at last he said:

“Mrs. Thornton, you have often puzzled me with a likeness to somebody seen before I met you. But I had no suspicion of the truth until I saw you in the cemetery at your father’s grave. I am no eavesdropper, but was so placed that I had to see and hear, and I knew then that you were Mildred, come back to us, not as we hoped you would come, but——”

His voice was getting shaky, and he stopped a moment to recover himself. Then, taking from his side pocket the handkerchief he had carried with him since the night he found it, he passed it to her, saying:

“I picked it up after you left the yard. Have you missed it?”

“Yes,—no. I don’t remember,” she replied, taking the handkerchief, and drying her eyes with it. Then, looking up at Hugh, while the first smile she had known since her husband died broke over her face, she continued: “I am glad you know me; I have wanted to tell you and mother and everybody. The deception was terrible to me, but I had promised and must keep my word.”

“Then Mr. Thornton knew? You did not deceive him?” Hugh asked, conscious of a great revulsion of feeling towards the woman he had believed so steeped in hypocrisy.

“Deceive him?” Mildred said, in some surprise. “Never,—in any single thing. I am innocent there. Let me explain how it happened, and you will tell the others, for I can never do it but once. I am so tired. You don’t know how tired,” and she put her hands to her face, which was white as marble, as she commenced the story which the reader already knows, telling it rapidly, blaming herself more than she deserved and softening as much as possible her husband’s share in the matter.

“He was very proud, you know,” she said, “and the Leaches were like the ground beneath his feet. But he loved me. I am sure of that, and he was always kind and good, and tried to make up for the burden he had imposed upon me. Yes, my husband loved me, knowing I was a Leach.”

“And you loved him?” Hugh asked, regretting the words the moment they had passed his lips, and regretting them more when he saw their effect upon Mildred.

Drawing herself up, she replied:

“Whether I loved him or not does not matter to you, or any one else. He was my husband, and I did my duty by him, and he was satisfied. If I could have forgotten I should have been happy, and I tell you truly I am sorry he is dead, and if I could I’d bring him back to-day.”

She was now putting on the bonnet which made her a widow again, and made her face so deathly white that Hugh was frightened and said to her:

“Forgive me, Mrs. Thornton. It was rude in me to ask that question. Forget it, I beg of you. You are very pale. Can I do anything for you?”

“No,” she answered, faintly. “I am only tired, that’s all, and I must get this business settled before I can rest. I have come to give the money back to Gerard and Alice, and you must help me do it.”

“I don’t quite understand you,” Hugh said. “Do you mean to give away the fortune your husband left you?”

“Yes, every farthing of it. I can never use it. It would not be right for me to keep it. He was angry when he made that will. He did not mean it, and had he lived he would have changed it. That was what troubled him when he was ill and he tried to tell me about it,” and very briefly she repeated what her husband had said to her of his children.

“I did not understand him then, but I do now. He knew I would do right; he trusted me,” she continued, her tears falling so fast as almost to choke her utterance.

“But,” said Hugh, “why give it all? If Mr. Thornton had made his will under different conditions, he would have remembered you. Why not divide equally? Why leave yourself penniless?”

“I shall not be penniless,” Mildred replied. “When I was married Mr. Thornton gave me fifteen thousand dollars for my own. This I shall keep. It will support mother and me, for I am going back to her as soon as all is known. And you will help me? You will tell mother and Bessie and Tom, and everybody, and you will be my friend, just for a little while, for the sake of the days when we played together?”

Her lips were quivering and her eyes were full of tears as she made this appeal, which no man could have withstood, much less Hugh, who would have faced the cannon’s mouth for her then, so great was his sympathy for her.

“Yes, I will do all you wish, but not to-day. The will must be proved first, and you are too tired. I will see to it at once, and then if you still are of the same mind as now I am at your service. Perhaps it will be better to say nothing for a few days.”

“Yes, better so,—you—know—best—stand—by—me,—Hugh,” Mildred said, very slowly, as she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes in the weary way of a child going to sleep.

Hugh thought she was going to faint, her face was so pinched and gray, and he said, excitedly:

“Mildred, Mildred, rouse yourself. You must not faint here. I don’t know what to do with people who faint. You must go home at once. Your carriage is gone but I see a cab coming. I will call it for you.”

Darting to the door, he signaled the cab, to which he half led, half carried Mildred, who seemed very weak and was shaking with cold. Rallying a little, she said to him:

“Thank you, Hugh. I’d better go home. I am getting worse very fast and everything is black. Is it growing dark?”

This was alarming. He could not let her go alone, and springing in beside her, Hugh bade the cabman drive with all possible speed to the Park and then go for a physician.