Page 489 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

promise she had made at the altar— to follow her husband
to his place of doom, and had hired herself as lady’s-maid
to Mrs. Vickers. Alas! fever prostrated that husband on a
bed of sickness, and Maurice Frere, the profligate and the
villain, had taken advantage of the wife’s unprotected state
to ruin her! Rex darkly hinted how the seducer made his
power over the sick and helpless husband a weapon against
the virtue of the wife and so terrified poor Meekin that,
had it not ‘happened so long ago’, he would have thought it
necessary to look with some disfavour upon the boisterous
son-in-law of Major Vickers.
‘I bear him no ill-will, sir,’ said Rex. ‘I did at first. There
was a time when I could have killed him, but when I had
him in my power, I—as you know— forbore to strike. No,
sir, I could not commit murder!’
‘Very proper,’ says Meekin, ‘very proper indeed.’ ‘God
will punish him in His own way, and His own time,’ con-
tinued Rex.
‘My great sorrow is for the poor woman. She is in Sydney,
I have heard, living respectably, sir; and my heart bleeds for
her.’ Here Rex heaved a sigh that would have made his for-
tune on the boards.
‘My poor fellow,’ said Meekin. ‘Do you know where she
is?’
‘I do, sir.’
‘You might write to her.’
John Rex appeared to hesitate, to struggle with himself,
and finally to take a deep resolve. ‘No, Mr. Meekin, I will
not write.’

For the Term of His Natural Life