The Sorceress (complete). Oliphant Margaret

opening speech was a wonder to hear. She sat and looked at them all for a moment, trying to steady herself, but there was nothing to steady her in what she saw before her – Aubrey and Bee, the pair who had been so sweet to see, such a diversion in all circumstances, so amusing in their mutual absorption, so delightful in their romance. It all flashed back to her mind; the excitement of Bee’s first proposal, the pleasure of seeing “her bairn respected like the lave,” though Mrs. Kingsward might not have understood what these words meant, the little triumph it was to see her child engaged at nineteen, when everybody said there was nobody for the girls to marry – and now to have that triumph turned into humiliation and dismay! And to think of Bee’s bright face overcast, and her happiness over, and poor Aubrey thrown out into the uttermost darkness. Had she seen Charlie it might have given her some support, for Charlie was the impersonation of immovable severity; but Betty’s wistful little face behind the other pair, coming out from Aubrey’s shadow by moments to fix an appealing look upon her mother, was not calculated to make her any stronger. She cleared her throat – she tried hard to steady her voice. She said, “Oh, my dear children,” faltering, and then the poor lady ended in a burst of sobbing and tears. It gave her a little sting and stimulant to see through her weeping that though little Betty ran towards her with kisses and soothing, Bee took no notice, but stood hard and unaffected in her opposition, holding close to Aubrey’s arm. Mrs. Kingsward indeed got no sympathy except from little Betty. Charlie put his hand imperatively upon her shoulder, recalling her to herself, and Bee never moved, standing by the side of Aubrey Leigh. The mother, thus deserted, plucked up a little spirit in the midst of her weakness.

      “Bee,” she said, “I do not think it is quite nice of you to stand there as if your own people were against you. We are not against you. There has been, I fear, a great mistake made, which Colonel Kingsward” – here she turned her eyes to Aubrey – “has found out in – in time; though it is a pity, a sad pity, that it was not found out before. If Mr. Aubrey had only been frank and said at once – but I don’t see what difference that would have made. Papa says that from what he has heard and discovered things must not go any further. He is sorry, and so am I, that they have gone so far, and the engagement must be broken off at once. You hear what I say, Bee?”

      “I heard you say so last night, mamma, but I say it is my engagement, and I have a right to know why. I do not mean to break it off – ”

      “Oh, how can I make explanations – how can I enter into such a question? I appeal to you, Mr. Aubrey – tell her.”

      “She ought not to ask any explanations. She is a minor, under age. My father has a right to do whatever he pleases – and she has none to ask why.”

      This was how Charlie reasoned on the height of his one-and-twenty years. Charlie was the intolerable element in all this question. Aubrey cast a look at him, and forcibly closed his own lips to keep in something that was bursting forth. Bee defied him, as was natural, on the spot. “I will not have Charlie put in his opinion,” she cried. “He has nothing to do with me. Even if I obeyed papa, I certainly should not obey him.”

      “Let Aubrey say, himself,” said Mrs. Kingsward, “whether you ought to be told everything, Bee.”

      “It is cruel to ask me,” said Aubrey, speaking for the first time. “If Bee could know all – if you could know all, Mrs. Kingsward! But how could I tell you all? Part of this is true, and part is not true. I could speak to Colonel Kingsward more freely. I am going off to-night to London to see him. It will free you from embarrassment, and it will give me perhaps a chance. I did not want to put you to this trial. I am ready to put myself unreservedly in Colonel Kingsward’s hands.”

      “Then,” said Bee, hastily, “it seems I am of no sort of importance at all to anyone. I am told my engagement is broken off, and then I am told I am not to know why, and then – . Go, then, Aubrey, as that is your choice, and fight it out with papa, if you please.” She loosed her arm from his, with a slight impulse, pushing him away. “But just mind this – everybody,” she cried; “you may think little of Bee – but my engagement shall not be broken by anybody but me, and it shall not be kept on by anybody but me; and I will neither give it up nor will I hold to it, neither one nor the other, until I know why.”

      Then the judge and the defendant looked each other in the face. They were, as may be supposed, on opposite sides, but they were the only two to consult each other in this emergency. Aubrey responded by a movement of his head, by a slight throwing up of his hand, to the question in Mrs. Kingsward’s eyes.

      “Then you shall know as much as I can tell you, Bee. Your father had a letter last week, from a lady, telling him that she had a revelation to make. The letter alarmed your father. He felt that he must know what it meant. He could not go himself, but he sent Mr. Passavant, the lawyer. The lady said that she had lived in Mr. Leigh’s house for years, in the time of his late wife. She said Mr. Leigh had – had behaved very badly to her.”

      “That I do not believe,” said Bee.

      The words flashed out like a knife. They made a stir in the air, as if a sudden gleam had come into it. And then all was still again, a strange dead quiet coming after, in which Bee perceived Aubrey silent, covering his face with his hand. It came across her with a sudden pang that she had heard somebody say this morning or last night – “He did not deny it.”

      “And that he had promised her – marriage – that he was engaged to her, as good as – as good as married to her – when he had the cruelty – oh, my dear child, my dear child! – to come to you.”

      Aubrey took his hand away from his white face. “That,” he said, in a strange, dead, tuneless voice, “is not true.”

      “Oh, more shame to you, Aubrey, more shame to you,” cried Mrs. Kingsward, forgetting her judicial character in her indignation as a woman, “if it is not true! – ” She paused a moment to draw her breath, then added, “But indeed you were not so wicked as you say, for it is true. And here is the evidence. Oh!” she cried, with tears in her eyes, “it makes your conduct to my child worse; but it shows that you were not then, not then, as bad as you say.”

      Bee had dropped into the chair that was next to her, and there sat, for her limbs had so trembled that she could not stand, watching him, never taking her eyes from him, as if he were a book in which the interpretation of this mystery was —

      “Never mind about me,” he said, hoarsely. “I say nothing for myself. Allow me to be as bad as a man can be, but that is not true. And what is the evidence? You never told me there was any evidence.”

      “Sir,” said Mrs. Kingsward, fully roused, “I told you all that was in my husband’s letter last night.”

      “Yes – that she,” a sort of shudder seemed to run over him, to the keen sight of the watchers – “that she – said so. You don’t know, as I do, that that is no evidence. But you speak now as if there was something more.”

      She took a piece of folded paper from her lap. “There is this,” she said, “a letter you wrote to her the morning you went away.”

      “I did write her a letter,” he said.

      Mrs. Kingsward held it out to him, but was stopped by Charlie, who put his hand on her arm. “Keep this document, mother. Don’t put the evidence against him into a man’s power. I’ll read it if Mr. Leigh thinks proper.”

      Once more Aubrey and Bee together, with a simultaneous impulse, looked at this intruder into their story.

      “Mamma! send him away. I should like to kill him!” said Bee within her clenched teeth.

      “Be quiet, Charlie. Mr. Leigh, I am ready to put this or any other evidence against you into your hands.”

      He bowed very gravely, and then stood once more as if he were made of stone. Mrs. Kingsward faltered very much, her agitated face flushed. “It begins,” she said, in a low fluttering voice, “My dear little wife – ”

      Then there came a very strange sound into the agitated silence, for Aubrey Leigh, on trial for more than his life, here laughed. “What more, what more?” he said.

      “No,