the ordeal of the past few days; he was as a sapped trunk, that must soon fall to the axe.
“Then your wife has come to cheer your solitude?” I enquired. “She has borne you the news of Charles and Edward herself?”
“I heard of the boys' misadventure in a note despatched from the Dolphin,” he replied curtly. “No one but Captain Austen has deigned to enter this cell.”
“Captain Austen,” said Mr. Hill delicately, “and … Mrs. Carruthers, I believe?”
Tom Seagrave did not immediately reply. His dark eyes blazed an instant in his haggard face, and then he turned towards the wall of his cell with an abrupt expression of impatience.
“She means to marry Sir Francis Farnham, Frank,” he burst out. “And yet, she cannot lave him!”
“Why not?” my brother enquired in a hardened tone. “Farnham is rich—he is powerful—and his affections have endured these twenty years at least.”
“Sir Francis is not unhandsome, however incongenial his manners,” I added. “Why should Mrs. Carruthers remain a widow, when she might be a baronet's wife?”
“Any woman might do murder I reckon, to secure herself a similar position,” Mr. Hill observed.
If Seagrave found the surgeon's words disturbing, he did not betray the slightest sensibility. Perhaps he'd become inured to shock. “I cannot believe her capable of a loveless union,” he said. “She is too perfect a creature to act upon interest.”
I glanced at Frank. How likely was Seagrave to credit the truth of our suspicions regarding Mrs. Carruthers? Farnham he might hate as a rival—Farnham he could believe capable of the basest infamy—but it might be as well to say nothing of the role Mrs. Carruthers had played, in luring Chessyre to his death.
“Did you meet with Farnham in Bugle Street on Wednesday night?” asked my brother wearily.
Seagrave's eyebrow rose. “I was denied the pleasure,” he answered. “I will admit, now, that I went to Bugle Street—but I found no one at home. Mrs. Carruthers, I was told, had gone out to the theatre. I could not believe it—I thought it a subterfuge to put me off. But apparently she had indeed gone into Society, despite her mourning.” His eyes moved absently over my face. “I had thought her more wretched at Simon's loss.”
“She professes a good deal of unhappiness,” I said carefully. “Indeed, she exhibits anger. She told us that she could not meet with you, Captain Seagrave, for fear of the reproaches she might rain upon your head. And yet we find her here this morning …”
“It is the first glimpse of her I have had since that dreadful day in January, when I engaged the Manon” he said heavily. “I bade Chessyre break the news of young Simon's loss when he achieved Southampton, as I could not be first myself; and how Phoebe took it I know not—for I was prevented exchanging so much as a word with my lieutenant, on account of his charges. God!” He struck a blow to his forehead, as though to blot out all that had been, and all that might be. “If only man were capable of knowing all, and ordering his days, so that a world of trouble might be prevented!”
“Then he should be as his Maker, and our world be Heaven upon Earth,” I observed quiedy. “Have you loved Mrs. Carruthers long?”
Tom Seagrave stared. “Loved her? Would you fall into the same error as my wife, Miss Austen? Do not be such a fool!”
“But, Tom—” spluttered Frank.
“I esteemed Phoebe Carruthers as the wife of a good friend—a man I regarded almost as a brother; I attempted to improve her situation in what manner I could, when Hugh was killed at Trafalgar. In Simon I cherished the father reborn in the son—and felt as cruel an anguish at the boy's death as I should feel for the loss of my own. But love, for Phoebe?” He shook his head.
I looked at Frank. My brother was gaping.
“Remorse has driven me like a madman,” Seagrave told us. “A thousand times I have consulted my conscience—I have wondered, and blamed myself for failing to place poor Simon in a position of safety. I had not realised the boy was aloft—he should have been with the other Young Gentlemen, carrying powder to the guns. When I saw his body dashed upon the deck, I felt myself a murderer.”
It was as though he had read his wife's thoughts for weeks past, and found no argument to refute them.
“I dreaded the admission of my guilt to Phoebe—she who has borne so