Madonna Mary. Oliphant Margaret

indeed, he always was) as anxiously affectionate as a man could be, and became (as he always did) when he found his wife suffering, so elaborately noiseless and still, that Mary ended by a good fit of laughing, which was of the greatest possible service to her.

      “When you are so quiet, you worry me, Hugh,” she said. “I am used to hear you moving about.”

      “My dear, I hope I am not such a brute as to move about when you are suffering,” her husband replied. And though his mind had again begun to fill with the dark thoughts that had been the occasion of all Mary’s annoyance, he restrained himself with a heroic effort, and did not say a syllable about it all that night.

      But this was a height of virtue which was quite impossible any merely mortal powers could keep up to. He began to make mysterious little broken speeches next day, and to stop short and say, “My darling, I mustn’t worry you,” and to sigh like a furnace, and to worry Mary to such an extremity that her difficulty in keeping her temper and patience grew indescribable. And then, when he had afflicted her in this way till it was impossible to go any further – when he had betrayed it to her in every look, in every step, in every breath he drew – which was half a sigh – and in every restless movement he made; and when Mrs. Ochterlony, who could not sleep for it, nor rest, nor get any relief from the torture, had two red lines round her eyes, and was all but out of her senses – the stream burst forth at last, and the Major spoke:

      “You remember, perhaps, Mary, what we were talking of the other day,” he said, in an insidiously gentle way, one morning, early – when they had still the long, long day before them to be miserable in. “I thought it very important, but perhaps you may have forgot – about old Sommerville who died?”

      “Forgot!” said Mary. She felt it was coming now, and was rather glad to have it over. “I don’t know how I could forget, Hugh. What you said would have made one recollect anything; but you cannot make old Sommerville come alive again, whatever you do.”

      “My dear, I spoke to you about some – about a – paper,” said the Major. “Lines – that is what the Scotch call them – though, I daresay, they’re very far from being poetry. Perhaps you have found them, Mary?” said Major Ochterlony, looking into her face in a pleading way, as if he prayed her to answer yes. And it was with difficulty that she kept as calm as she wished to do, and answered without letting him see the agitation and excitement in her mind.

      “I don’t know where I have put them, Hugh,” she said, with a natural evasion, and in a low voice. She did not acknowledge having looked for them, and having failed to find them; but in spite of herself, she answered with a certain humility, as of a woman culpable. For, after all, it was her fault.

      “You don’t know where you put them?” said the Major, with rising horror. “Have you the least idea how important they are? They may be the saving of you and of your children, and you don’t know where you have put them! Then it is all as I feared,” Major Ochterlony added, with a groan, “and everything is lost.”

      “What is lost?” said Mary. “You speak to me in riddles, Hugh. I know I put them somewhere – I must have put them somewhere safe. They are, most likely, in my old desk at home, or in one of the drawers of the secretary,” said Mary calmly, giving those local specifications with a certainty which she was far from feeling. As for the Major, he was arrested by the circumstance which made her faint hope and supposition look somehow like truth.

      “If I could hope that that was the case,” he said; “but it can’t be the case, Mary. You never were at home after we were married – you forget that. We went to Earlston for a day, and we went to your guardian’s; but never to Aunt Agatha. You are making a mistake, my dear; and God bless me, to think of it, what would become of you if anything were to happen to me?”

      “I hope there is nothing going to happen to you; but I don’t think in that case it would matter what became of me,” said Mary in utter depression; for by this time she was worn out.

      “You think so now, my love; but you would be obliged to think otherwise,” said Major Ochterlony. “I hope I’m all right for many a year; but a man can never tell. And the insurance, and pension, and everything – and Earlston, if my brother should leave it to us – all our future, my darling. I think it will drive me distracted,” said the Major, “not a witness nor a proof left!”

      Mary could make no answer. She was quite overwhelmed by the images thus called before her; for her part, the pension and the insurance money had no meaning to her ears; but it is difficult not to put a certain faith in it when a man speaks in such a circumstantial way of things that can only happen after his death.

      “You have been talking to the doctor, and he has been putting things into your head,” she said faintly. “It is cruel to torture me so. We know very well how we were married, and all about it, and so do our friends, and it is cruel to try to make me think of anything happening. There is nobody in the regiment so strong and well as you are,” she continued, taking courage a little. She thought to herself he looked, as people say, the picture of health, as he sat beside her, and she began to recover out of her prostration. As for spleen or liver, or any of those uncomfortable attributes, Major Ochterlony, up to this moment, had not known whether he possessed them – which was a most re-assuring thought, naturally, for his anxious wife.

      “Thank God,” said the Major, with a little solemnity. It was not that he had any presentiment, or thought himself likely to die early; but simply that he was in a pathetic way, and had a naïf and innocent pleasure in deepening his effects; and then he took to walking about the room in his nervous manner. After a while he came to a dead stop before his wife, and took both her hands into his.

      “Mary,” he said, “I know it’s an idea you don’t like; but, for my peace of mind; suppose – just suppose for the sake of supposing – that I was to die now, and leave you without a word to prove your claims. It would be ten times worse than death, Mary; but I could die at peace if you would only make one little sacrifice to my peace of mind.”

      “Oh, Hugh, don’t kill me – you are not going to die,” was all Mary could say.

      “No, my darling, not if I can help it; but if it were only for my peace of mind. There’s no harm in it that I can see. It’s ridiculous, you know; but that’s all, Mary,” said the Major, looking anxiously into her face. “Why, it is what hosts of people do every day. It is the easiest thing to do – a mere joke, for that matter. They will say, you know, that it is like Ochterlony, and a piece of his nonsense. I know how they talk; but never mind. I know very well there is nothing else you would not do for my peace of mind. It will set your future above all casualties, and it will be all over in half an hour. For instance, Churchill says – ”

      “You have spoken to Mr. Churchill, too?” said Mary, with a thrill of despair.

      “A man can never do any harm speaking to his clergyman, I hope,” the Major said, peevishly. “What do you mean by too? I’ve only mentioned it to Kirkman besides – I wanted his advice – and to Sorbette, to explain that bad headache of yours. And they all think I am perfectly right.”

      Mary put her hands up to her face, and gave a low but bitter cry. She said nothing more – not a syllable. She had already been dragged down without knowing it, and set low among all these people. She who deserved nothing but honour, who had done nothing to be ashamed of, who was the same Madonna Mary whom they had all regarded as the “wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.” By this time they had all begun to discuss her story, and to wonder if all had been quite right at the beginning, and to say, “Poor Mary!” She knew it as well as if she had heard the buzz of talk in those three houses to which her husband had confided his difficulty. It was a horrible torture, if you will but think of it, for an innocent woman to bear.

      “It is not like you to make such a fuss about so simple a thing,” said Major Ochterlony. “You know very well it is not myself but you I am thinking of; that you may have everything in order, and your future provided for, whatever may happen. It may be absurd, you know; but a woman mustn’t mind being absurd to please her husband. We’ll ask our friends to step over with us to church in the morning, and in half an hour it will be all over. Don’t