But she could not see, she could not tell herself, what in such a position a man would do;—at any rate, not what that man would do. Her husband, she thought, would tell his wife, and then the two of them, between them, would—put up with it. There are misfortunes which, if they be published, are simply aggravated by ridicule. But she remembered the features of the stranger as she had seen them at that instant in which she had dropped his beard, and she thought that there was a ferocity in them, a certain tenacity of self-importance, which would not permit their owner to endure such treatment in silence. Would he not storm and rage, and ring the bell, and call all Paris to witness his revenge?
But the storming and the raging had not reached her yet, and now it wanted but a quarter to five. In three-quarters of an hour they would be in that demi-omnibus which they had ordered for themselves, and in half an hour after that they would be flying towards Thompson Hall. Then she allowed herself to think of the coming comforts,—of those comforts so sweet, if only they would come! That very day now present to her was the 24th December, and on that very evening she would be sitting in Christmas joy among all her uncles and cousins, holding her new brother-in-law affectionately by the hand. Oh, what a change from Pandemonium to Paradise;—from that wretched room, from that miserable house in which there was such ample cause for fear, to all the domestic Christmas bliss of the home of the Thompsons! She resolved that she would not, at any rate, be deterred by any light opposition on the part of her husband. “ It wants just a quarter to five,” she said, putting her hand steadily upon his shoulder, “ and I’ll get a cup of chocolate for you, so that you may get up comfortably.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” he said, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands. “ It will be so much better to go over by the mail train tonight. We should be in time for Christmas just the same.”
“That will not do at all,” she answered, energetically. “ Come, Charles, after all the trouble do not disappoint me.”
“It is such a horrid grind.”
“Think what I have gone through,—what I have done for you In twelve hours we shall be there, among them all. You won’t be so little like a man as not to go on now.” He threw himself back upon the bed, and tried to readjust the clothes round his neck. “ No, Charles, no,” she continued; “ not if I know it. Take your chocolate and get up. There is not a moment to be lost.” With that she laid her hand. upon his shoulder, and made him clearly understand that he would not be allowed to take further rest in that bed.
Grumbling, sulky, coughing continually, and declaring that life under such circumstances was not worth having, he did at last get up and dress himself. When once she knew that he was obeying her she became again tender to him, and certainly took much more than her own share of the trouble of the proceedings. Long before the time was up she was ready, and the porter had been summoned to take the luggage downstairs. When the man came she was rejoiced to see that it was not he whom she had met among the passages during her nocturnal rambles. He shouldered the box, and told them that they would find coffee and bread and butter in the small salle-A-manger below.
“I told you that it would be so, when you would boil that stuff,” said the ungrateful man, who had nevertheless swallowed the hot chocolate when it was given to him.
They followed their luggage down into the hall; but as she went, at every step, the lady looked around her. She dreaded the sight of that porter of the night; she feared lest some potential authority of the hotel should come to her and ask her some horrid question; but of all her fears her greatest fear was that there should arise before her an apparition of that face which she had seen recumbent on its pillow.
As they passed the door of the great salon, Mr. Brown looked in. “ Why, there it is still!” said he.
“What?” said she, trembling in every limb.
“The mustard-pot!”
“They have put it in there since,” she exclaimed energetically, in her despair. “ But never mind. The omnibus is here. Come away.” And she absolutely took him by the arm.
But at that moment a door behind them opened, and Mrs. Brown heard herself called by her name. And there was the night-porter,—with a handkerchief in his hand. But the further doings of that morning must be told in a further chapter.
Chapter IV.
Mrs. Brown Does Escape
It had been visible to Mrs. Brown from the first moment -of her arrival on the ground floor that “ something was the matter,” if we may be allowed to use such a phrase; and she felt all but convinced that this something had reference to her. She fancied that the people of the hotel were looking at her as she swallowed, or tried to swallow, her coffee. When her husband was paying the bill there was something disagreeable in the eye of the man who was taking the money. Her sufferings were very great, and no one sympathised with her. Her husband was quite at his ease, except that he was complaining of the cold. When she was anxious to get him out into the carriage, he still stood there leisurely, arranging shawl after shawl around his throat. “You can do that quite as well in an omnibus,” she had just said to him very crossly, when there appeared upon the scene through a side door that very night-porter whom she dreaded, with a soiled pockethandkerchief in his hand.
Even before the sound of her own name met her ears Mrs. Brown knew it all. She understood the full horror of her position from that man’s hostile face, and from the little article which he held in his hand. If during the watches of the night she had had money in her pocket, if she had made a friend of this greedy fellow by well-timed liberality, all might have been so different! But she reflected that she had allowed him to go unfee’d after all his trouble, and she knew that he was her enemy. It was the handkerchief that she feared. She thought that she might have brazened out anything but that. No one had seen her enter or leave that strange man’s room. No one had seen her dip her hands in that jar. She had, no doubt, been found wandering about the house while the slumberer had been made to suffer so strangely, and there might have been suspicion, and perhaps accusation. But she would have been ready with frequent protestations to deny all charges made against her, and, though no one might have believed her, no one could have convicted her. Here, however, was evidence against which she would be unable to stand for a moment. At the first glance she acknowledged the potency of that damning morsel of linen.
During all the horrors of the night she had never given a thought to the handkerchief, and yet she ought to have known that the evidence it would bring against her was palpable and certain. Her name, “ H. Brown,” was plainly written on. the corner. What a fool she had been not to have thought of this! Had she but remembered the plain marking which she, as a careful, well-conducted British matron, had put upon all her clothes, she would at an hazard have recovered the article. Oh that she had waked the man, or bribed the porter, or even told her husband! But now she was, as it were, friendless, without support,