'This is the lady,my dear,'he said to his companion.'This,ma'am,is my wife.We've come to settle in the town for a time,if so be we can find room.''That you won't do,'said she.'Nobody can live here who is not privileged.'
'I am privileged,'said the glazier,'by my trade.'
Baptista went on,but in the afternoon she received a visit from the man's wife.This honest woman began to depict,in forcible colours,the necessity for keeping up the concealment.
'I will intercede with my husband,ma'am,'she said.'He's a true man if rightly managed;and I'll beg him to consider your position.
'Tis a very nice house you've got here,'she added,glancing round,'and well worth a little sacrifice to keep it.'
The unlucky Baptista staved off the danger on this third occasion as she had done on the previous two.But she formed a resolve that,if the attack were once more to be repeated she would face a revelation--worse though that must now be than before she had attempted to purchase silence by bribes.Her tormentors,never believing her capable of acting upon such an intention,came again;but she shut the door in their faces.They retreated,muttering something;but she went to the back of the house,where David Heddegan was.
She looked at him,unconscious of all.The case was serious;she knew that well;and all the more serious in that she liked him better now than she had done at first.Yet,as she herself began to see,the secret was one that was sure to disclose itself.Her name and Charles's stood indelibly written in the registers;and though a month only had passed as yet it was a wonder that his clandestine union with her had not already been discovered by his friends.Thus spurring herself to the inevitable,she spoke to Heddegan.
'David,come indoors.I have something to tell you.'He hardly regarded her at first.She had discerned that during the last week or two he had seemed preoccupied,as if some private business harassed him.She repeated her request.He replied with a sigh,'Yes,certainly,mee deer.'When they had reached the sitting-room and shut the door she repeated,faintly,'David,I have something to tell you--a sort of tragedy I have concealed.You will hate me for having so far deceived you;but perhaps my telling you voluntarily will make you think a little better of me than you would do otherwise.''Tragedy?'he said,awakening to interest.'Much you can know about tragedies,mee deer,that have been in the world so short a time!'She saw that he suspected nothing,and it made her task the harder.
But on she went steadily.'It is about something that happened before we were married,'she said.
'Indeed!'
'Not a very long time before--a short time.And it is about a lover,'she faltered.
'I don't much mind that,'he said mildly.'In truth,I was in hopes 'twas more.''In hopes!'
'Well,yes.'
This screwed her up to the necessary effort.'I met my old sweetheart.He scorned me,chid me,dared me,and I went and married him.We were coming straight here to tell you all what we had done;but he was drowned;and I thought I would say nothing about him:and I married you,David,for the sake of peace and quietness.I've tried to keep it from you,but have found I cannot.There--that's the substance of it,and you can never,never forgive me,I am sure!'She spoke desperately.But the old man,instead of turning black or blue,or slaying her in his indignation,jumped up from his chair,and began to caper around the room in quite an ecstatic emotion.
'O,happy thing!How well it falls out!'he exclaimed,snapping his,fingers over his head.'Ha-ha--the knot is cut--I see a way out of my trouble--ha-ha!'She looked at him without uttering a sound,till,as he still continued smiling joyfully,she said,'O--what do you mean!Is it done to torment me?''No--no!O,mee deer,your story helps me out of the most heart-aching quandary a poor man ever found himself in!You see,it is this--I'VE got a tragedy,too;and unless you had had one to tell,Icould never have seen my way to tell mine!'
'What is yours--what is it?'she asked,with altogether a new view of things.
'Well--it is a bouncer;mine is a bouncer!'said he,looking on the ground and wiping his eyes.
'Not worse than mine?'
'Well--that depends upon how you look at it.Yours had to do with the past alone;and I don't mind it.You see,we've been married a month,and it don't jar upon me as it would if we'd only been married a day or two.Now mine refers to past,present,and future;so that--'
'Past,present,and future!'she murmured.'It never occurred to me that YOU had a tragedy,too.'
'But I have!'he said,shaking his head.'In fact,four.'
'Then tell 'em!'cried the young woman.
'I will--I will.But be considerate,I beg 'ee,mee deer.Well--Iwasn't a bachelor when I married 'ee,any more than you were a spinster.Just as you was a widow-woman,I was a widow-man.
'Ah!'said she,with some surprise.'But is that all?--then we are nicely balanced,'she added,relieved.
'No--it is not all.There's the point.I am not only a widower.'
'O,David!'