CHAPTER XVII.

THE WITCH WITH THE YELLOW HAIR.

A corner is a very pretty addition to a room, and a cleft-stick has been known to present a more picturesque appearance than a straight one.  But to find oneself, metaphorically speaking, pushed into the corner or wedged into the cleft of the stick is neither picturesque nor pleasant.

This was Mrs. Bertram’s present position.  She had suddenly, and at a moment when she least expected it, been confronted with the ghost of a long ago past.  The ghost of a past, so remote that she had almost forgotten it, had come back and stared her in the face.  This ghost had assumed terrible dimensions, and the poor woman was dreadfully afraid of it.

She had taken a hurried journey to London in the vain hope of laying it.  Alas! it would not be laid.  Most things, however, can be bought at a price, and Mrs. Bertram had bought the silence of this troublesome ghost of the past.  She had bought it at a very heavy cost.

Her money was in the hands of trustees; she dared not go to them to assist her, therefore, the only price she could pay was out of her yearly income.

To quiet this troublesome ghost she agreed to part with four hundred a year.  A third of her means was, therefore, taken away with one fell swoop.  Loftus must still have his allowance, for Loftus of all people must know nothing of his mother’s anxieties.  Mrs. Bertram and her girls would, therefore, have barely five hundred a year to live on.  Out of this sum she would still struggle to save, but she knew she could save but little.  She knew that all chance of introducing Catherine and Mabel into society was at an end.  She had dreamed dreams for her girls, and these dreams must come to nothing.  She had hoped many things for them both, she had thought that all her care and trouble would receive its fruition some day in Catherine’s establishment, and that Mabel would also marry worthily.  In playing with her grandchildren by-and-bye, Mrs. Bertram thought that she might relax her anxieties and feel that her labors had not been in vain.  She must put these hopes aside now, for her girls would probably never marry.  They would live on at this dull old Manor until their youth had left them, and their sweet, fresh bloom departed.

Mrs. Bertram thought of the girls, but no compunctions with regard to them caused her to hesitate even for a moment.  She loved some one else much better than these bright-eyed lasses.  Loftus was the darling of his mother’s heart.  It was bad to sacrifice girls, but it was impossible to sacrifice the beloved and only son.

Mrs. Bertram saw her solicitors, confided to them her difficulties, and accepted the terms proposed to her by the enemy, who, treacherous and awful, had suddenly risen out of the ashes of the past to confront her.

With four hundred a year she bought silence, and silence meant everything for her.  Thus she saved herself, and one at least belonging to her, from open shame.