Cast Adrift | Page 7

ready to share his lot, however humble.
"Still hold me in your heart, my precious father, as I hold you in mine.
"EDITH."
Mr. Dinneford read this letter twice. It took him some time, his eyes
were so full of tears. In view of her approaching marriage with Spencer
Wray, his heart had felt very heavy. It was something lighter now.
Young Granger was not the man he would have chosen for Edith, but
he liked him far better than he did the other, and felt that his child was
safe now.
He went to his wife's room, and found her with Edith's letter crushed in
her hand. She was sitting motionless, her face pale and rigid, her eyes
fixed and stony and her lips tight against her teeth. She did not seem to
notice his presence until he put his hand upon her, which he did without
speaking. At this she started up and looked at him with a kind of fierce
intentness.
"Are you a party to this frightful things?" she demanded.
Mr. Dinneford weakly handed her the letter he had received from Edith.
She read it through in half the time it had taken his tear-dimmed eyes to
make out the touching sentences. After she had done so, she stood for a
few moments as if surprised or baffled. Then she sat down, dropping
her head, and remained for a long time without speaking.
"The bitter fruit, Mr. Dinneford," she said, at last, in a voice so strange
and hard that it seemed to his ears as if another had spoken. All passion
had died out of it.

He waited, but she added nothing more. After a long silence she waved
her hand slightly, and without looking at her husband, said,
"I would rather be alone."
Mr. Dinneford took Edith's letter from the floor, where it had dropped
from his wife's hand, and withdrew from her presence. She arose
quickly as he did so, crossed the room and silently turned the key,
locking herself in. Then her manner changed; she moved about the
room in a half-aimless, half-conscious way, as though some purpose
was beginning to take shape in her mind. Her motions had an easy,
cat-like grace, in contrast with their immobility a little while before.
Gradually her step became quicker, while ripples of feeling began to
pass over her face, which was fast losing its pallor. Gleams of light
began shooting from her eyes, that were so dull and stony when her
husband found her with Edith's letter crushed in her grasp. Her hands
opened and shut upon themselves nervously. This went on, the
excitement of her forming purpose, whatever it was, steadily increasing,
until she swept about the room like a fury, talking to herself and
gesticulating as one half insane from the impelling force of an evil
passion.
"Baffled, but not defeated." The excitement had died out. She spoke
these words aloud, and with a bitter satisfaction in her voice, then sat
down, resting her face in her hands, and remaining for a long time in
deep thought.
When she met her husband, an hour afterward, there was a veil over her
face, and he tried in vain to look beneath it. She was greatly changed;
her countenance had a new expression--something he had never seen
there before. For years she had been growing away from him; now she
seemed like one removed to a great distance--to have become almost
stranger. He felt half afraid of her. She did not speak of Edith, but
remained cold, silent and absorbed.
Mrs. Dinneford gave no sign of what was in her heart for many weeks.
The feeling of distance and strangeness perceived by her husband went
on increasing, until a vague feeling of mystery and fear began to
oppress him. Several times he had spoken of Edith, but his wife made
no response, nor could he read in her veiled face the secret purposes
she was hiding from him.
No wonder that Mr. Dinneford was greatly surprised and overjoyed, on

coming home one day, to meet his daughter, to feel her arms about his
neck, and to hold her tearful face on his bosom.
"And I'm not going away again, father dear," she said as she kissed him
fondly. "Mother has sent for me, and George is to come. Oh, we shall
be so happy, so happy!"
And father and daughter cried together, like two happy children, in very
excess of gladness. They had met alone, but Mrs. Dinneford came in,
her presence falling on them like a cold shadow.
"Two great babies," she said, a covert sneer in her chilling voice.
The joy went slowly out of their faces, though not out of their hearts.
There it nestled, and warmed the renewing blood. But a vague,