INJURED INNOCENCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3193, 10 December 1892, Page 5 (Supplement)

INJURED INNOCENCE.

" My darling, as if such a thing were likely! With such a wife as my Kilda it's about the last thing in the world I should be tempted to do." The lady looked in the speaker's face. Even his words had not convinced lier. " Somehow, Jim," she said, " I can't help fancyiug it for all that. I daresay, though it's because T know so little about what you men call life." Mr Jim Merritt looked as if he had suddenly found a diamond of a large size. " Why what a girl you are, Kilda i to be sure ! You've hit it to a T. It's a mystery to me how, with your convent training, you can show the wisdom—worldly wisdom, understand, my dear—that you do show. '1 hat's just where it is in fact. You know nothing about life—nothing whatever—and it's just that that makes you fancy your Jim could possibly under any circumstances, love anyone else but you. Why, bless my soul, there's not a face in all Mayfair to come up to yours. And to think, to dream, even of the possibility of my making you jealous! Upon my word, you grieve me quite to the quick, Kilda. It's the last thing, as I have said, I should have expected from you." Master Jim snatched at his pocket-handkerchief. He did not really propose to show those signs of emotion which demand the use of such an article; but his pretty little innocent wife fancied he was actually about to cry. It was a horrid, an awful idea. " Oh, my dear, dear hubby," she sobbed impetuously. " You will never forgive me for distressing you in this hateful way. What shall I do ?" She lifted her hand tenderly to the man's shoulder, and looked as if she longed to throw her arms around his neck, if only he would stoop to give her the needful opportunity. But Mr Merritt seemed to remain obdurate. He stared fixedly before him. " And only six months married," he murmured, with judicial severity. This appeared to put the girl almost beside herself with despair. She went on her knees, and clasped her husband's legs. " Say, Jim, you'll forgot all about it—do, or I shall go mad, or something like it." He looked down on her with an air of reproach and pity blended, but said not a word. " Jim, dear, do you want to see me dead at your feet ?" cried the girl. This made him relent. " No, I reckon I don't desire anything of the kind. But, there! I think you've had enough you won't forget it in a hurry. Remember, Kilda> that the surest way to make a fellow get estranged from his wife is for her to suppose, with or without reason, you mind, that he has lost his affection for her. Even if he hasn't it's about the surest card to play to put him on the track to do it. Now, you may kiss me, and help me into my overcoat—these beastly east winds .'ll never cease." It was a sweet sight to see how lovingly the girl took her husband's shaven chin between her little hands and kissed it, and afterwards the lips above it. There were real tears in her violet eyes, but they were tears of joy. Such a reconciliation seemed to her worth all the agony that had preceded it. " I will never—never —again suspect my dearest hubby of anything !" she exclaimed as she held up the great heavy white overcoat for che gentleman's arms to thrust themselves into. " That, my dear, is about the ticket," was his rejoinder. Then, feeling fully equipped, he put his lips to the girl's forehead, said " Ta-ta ! and departed. Half a minute later, however, he reappeared. " By the way, Kilda," he said " I shall be late to-night —one of those confounded Board meetings." "Another Board meeting! Oh Jim !" "Yes; there never was such a company as ours for Board meetings. So long !" "That's his third Board meeting this week," sighed the girl. " How the poor fellow does work, to be sure ! And to think that it is all

for me, and to make the house luxurious in this way! Thank God, it's all over now, though." Mrs Merritt then began her occupations of the day. She rang for the cook, and soon settled the demands of that somewhat assuming personage. As the master was not to dine at home, it did not matter a pin, she said, what the dinner consisted of. Then she strolled through tho upper rooms of the house, and finally settled down in her delightful boudoir, with some lace work and a novel. Elsie, her maid, was in the adjacent room, within call; and now and then, from sheer contentment, Mrs Merritt made a happy little remark to her. Elsie was dark, and extremely well made. She looked like an Italian, though her features had a delicacy that belonged rather to the north. In statue she was but an inch or two taller than her mistress. In the fervour of her joy this silly little wife could not help tolling the girl how she had almost had a tiff with her husband. Elsie showed the utmost surprise. This seemed to make it all the more necessary for her mistress to be unmerciful in her self condemnation. In truth, she did not spare herself, so that the maid—well-disciplined creature though she was—could not help smiling. " Sure, ma'am," she ventured to say, "Mr Merritt ought to think himself a fortuuate gentleman." " Bather, Elsie," retorted the lady, with emphasis, " it is I who ought to congratulate myself on having such a husband." Shortly afterwards the girl was sent to the library, and Mrs Merritt sat listening to the low melodies of her canary. Then she took up some embroidery, and, lacking a needle, went from the boudoir into her maid's room to seek in it Elsie's basket. While thus engaged she uncovered a little three-cornered note deep buried among silks and worsted. Now, Mrs Merritt though a charming little woman, was not above reading letters of this kind which came in her way. Perhaps it was a defect of her sex, if not exclusively of her training ; and it seems clear that if convent schools do keep their scholars aloof from the graver errors of life, they innoculate them with a taste for a number of petty foibles of no very dignified, if of no very criminal kind. This, then, is what Kilda read : " Manchester-street, out of Oxford-street. To-night at 7.30 sharp. You must manage it sweetheart," There was no signature to the note, and the handwriting was disguised. . " The little wrc-tch !" exclaimed Mrs Merritt, when she understood that she had the proofs of the clandestine assignation between her maid, Elsie, and—no doubt some man. It was the evening of the week when the girl was at liberty For three hours, .and this was how she meant to utilise her liberty. " The horrid little wretch !" the lady repeated. But even while the words were yet on her tongue this second time, a quick, strange thought came to her. It was an awfully wicked thought, but none the less attractive for that reason. Her husband had charged her an hour or two ago with her ignorance of life. At the time she fancied it a serious defect in her. Now the thought occurred to her ; was it not possible that her dear Jim would love her all the more if he perceived that she was not as ignorant as he thought her. Then a mysterious light came into the lady's violet eyes, and she clenched her little fist. " It shall be done," she said. She replaced the note in the rrorkbasket, and dissembled the traces of disturbance. A non Elsie was informed that, as a special favour, she was required at home that evening. " I know you ought to have your freedom, to-night, but do take it tomorrow instead. You may have all the afternoon then." The girl looked disconsolate ; but what could she do 1 The worst of it was that she could not send word to the writer of the billet-doux. The tryst would be kept by him, but not by her. Mrs Merritt ate an early dinner, dressed herself in discreet black, and put on a waterproof overcoat not unlike the one she knew her maid, Elsie, was wont to wear. There was some little astonishment in the house at this unusual proceeding on the part of the mistress of the house; but with a courage and assurance that surprised Kilda herself as much as anyone, she said something vague about a poor woman, a pensioner upon whom she was anxious to call. This done, she went out, warmed with excitement, and called a hansom, which she bade set her down in Oxford-street, as near as possible to Manchester - street. Nothing could be simpler. " So far," said Kilda in her heart, "it is exceedingly plain sailing. But what shall I do with the man 1 Good heavens! Suppose he should desire to carry me off without a word 1 That, however, she continued, l( is manifestly an absurd supposition. Besides, I shall keep close to a gas lamp, and if I have the least occasion to do so I shall scream. But Ido not really think I shall havo anything to do of that kind. It is just a little taste o£ life —nothing more.

Thus musing, the girl tripped along lightly into the Ivy-street in question, A jeweller's shop assistant in Oxford .street had told her that she was nearly live minutes too soon. That struck her as a pity, as she fancied it might be the duty of the lady in such a predicament to be five minutes late rather than live minutes early.

However, there was 110 help for it, unless she chosc to sit on a doorstep until the half-hour struck, or return to the main thoroughfare and eat an ice in a confectioner's.

Instead of doir.g which she walked up and down about twenty yards of pavement, at the Oxford-street end of the road as bravely as possible.

It was not very bravely, though, indeed, as the seconds sped away it became quite a timid sort of promenade. She felt an indescribable weakness in her knee joints; also was conscious of an incipient trembling from head to foot. Never had minutes dragged themselves along so slowly.

The worst of it was th-.it even when half-past seven had struck fno 111 two or three neighbouring clocks no man came in si»hf.. For pastime, and to distract her nervousness she began to count up to a thousand. She determined to return home if by the time she got to five hundred Elsie's lover had not appeared.

Besides, the idea began lo torment her that she was doing a very queer thing indeed to keep the assignation wilh her maid's admirer. It would have mattered the less if the man was an acquaintance of hers—a person of her own social standing. Then she might really and truly profit by a little of that life-experi-ence on which Jiui seemed to set so high a value.

"Three hundred and ten, eleven, twelve, thir "

" Yes, a man at last; and with just the deportment of a conspirator or a lover. Jle was crossing the roaij-towards her ; she could almost see his face. How odd, though that he should be so like .

" Oh, Jim, dearest, I am so glad to see you !" cried Kilda, with a passionate sigh of relief, as she recognised her husband in this supposed conspirer against Elsie's heart.

Mr Merritt seemed much taken aback. He looked hurriedly up and down the street, but there was no one else in sight. Then he turned a stern eye upon his wife.

"Pray," he said, " what does this moan ?"

The unvarnished nature of her crime was now displayed to the poor little wife. She was ready to die of humiliation.

"I must say it's queer of you, Kikla," proceeded Jim, though with the least bit of humour at the corner of his mouth—for he felt that he was master of the situation. " Come, get into this hansom right away." , ,

She obeyed in silence with streaming eyes.

" Good heavens!" cried Mr Merritt, when they were thus homeward bound, "you talk about being jealous of me ; I wonder what the dickens I may say about you ! It's positively awful—nothing less "

Then, urged by the grief at her heart, and knowing that between husband and wife there should be no secrets, the poor little woman confessed her crimo, and the motive that had led her towards it ; and once again she pleaded earnestly for material forgiveness.

" I wish—oh, so much, Jim—that I had let the poor girl keep her appointment, rather than have given you such cause to suspect me."

" Well, so do I, for the matter of that," replied master Jim.

From that time forward Mrs Merritt never found fault with her husband upon any pretext ; and to tell the truth, this realisation of Kilda's innocence had a good effect upon her husband. He no longer made love to his wife's maid, Elsie, nor anyone else, except his wife. : — Scottish Nights.