The sun had set, but there was a radiant sunset sky, as well as a view of great extent to be seen from the Campanile as two ladies stood there, and, leaning over the parapet of the great tower, looked down on Venice, with the Grand Canal winding through its midst like a silver serpent; at the coast of Istria and the blue summits of the Alps afar; and at the Adriatic spreading to meet the sky. One fastened her dark eyes on that distant line of blending sea and sky, but the other bestowed her regard chiefly on the Piazza at her feet, where people seemed to be crawling about like ants. Presently one of these ants crossed the square more quickly than the restand entered the loggia at the foot of the Campanile. Mrs. Meredith looked round at her companion.
“I think I see Mr. Kyrle coming up,” she remarked.
Aimée turned with a slight start from the contemplation of the Adriatic. “How do you know that it is Mr. Kyrle?” she asked. “It may be any one.”
“I know because I told him that we were to be here,” returned the other, carelessly. “I thought the poor fellow needed a little relief from the society of Lydia. He really begins to look worn and pale under the ordeal.”
“I can not see why you should draw such a conclusion,” said Aimée. “If he did not like Lydia’s society, he need not endure it. A man can do what he likes in such matters.”
“Simpleton! is that all you know about it?” said Fanny. “Why, unless he absolutely runs away, a man is helpless in the hands of a woman who knows how to play such a game as Lydia is playing. And this man does not want to run away, because he adoresyou.”
“Fanny!”
“It is quite true. He adores you, and yet he is so afraid of your fortune that he dare not approach you. He does not believe that a poor man has any right to try to marry a rich woman.”
A flush that seemed borrowed from the sunset was now on Aimée’s face. She cast a glance of reproach at her cousin.
“If it is true,” she said, hurriedly, “why have you chosen such a time to speak of it?”
“Because I thought it only a matter of justice to let you know that he does not endure Lydia’s attentions because he likes them,” replied Fanny, coolly.
They were silent then, for steps were now heard inside the tower, ascending that inclined plane up which tradition tells that Napoleon rode his horse; and a little later Kyrle stepped on the platform.
The moment he appeared, Fanny Meredith saw that there was a change in him—a glow in his sunburned cheek, a light in his eye, and the air of a man who had burst some bond. She looked at him with surprise, and as he walked up to her—not seeing Aimée, whohad retreated to the other side of the tower—she said, involuntarily:
“What is the matter? You look—unlike yourself.”
“Do I?” he said, with a thrill of excitement in his voice. “Well, that is not strange. I amnotmyself—that is, I am not the man you parted with this morning, but quite another. Allow me to introduce myself to you as a millionaire.”
She gave a cry, and clasped her hands. “Your uncle is dead, and has left you his money, after all!” she exclaimed. “O Lennox, I am so glad!” Then she turned swiftly and ran across the platform. “O Aimée!” she cried, “you must congratulate Mr. Kyrle. He has just come into a large fortune.”
When Aimée turned, she and Lennox were both pale—he, because he had not entertained the least expectation of finding her there; and she, on account of this unexpected sequel to those last words of Fanny’s, which were still ringing in her ears.
“I hope Mr. Kyrle will accept my congratulations,” she said, “although”—and shesmiled a faint, tremulous smile—“I am not sure that to inherit a great deal of money is always such good fortune as the world believes.”
“Ah,” said Fanny, “such skepticism may do for people who have inherited it. But I do not think Mr. Kyrle will quarrel with his good fortune.”
“No,” said Lennox, quietly, “I would be very far from quarreling with it—if it were really mine.”
“If it were really yours!” repeated Mrs. Meredith, recoiling a step in her amazement and disappointment. “What do you mean?”
Lennox looked at Aimée. “I will tell you,” he replied, “what I mean. When I said, a moment ago, that I am a millionaire, I said what is exactly true; and ever since I read the letter announcing the news to me I have been playing with the sensation, with the idea, of being rich and free, and altogether living in a fool’s paradise. For”—his voice changed—“it is true that the fortune is mine, but it is also true that I can not retain it.”
“Good Heaven! why not?” cried Mrs.Meredith; while Aimée said nothing, but looked at him with all her soul in her eyes; and he, gazing into those eyes, answered:
“Because it is by an accident, not by the intention of my uncle, that I inherit this fortune. It has long been his intention, of which I was well aware, to found with his wealth some great charity to perpetuate his name, and his will to that effect was drawn up many years ago. Lately he wished to alter it in some particulars, and directed his lawyer to draw up a new will according to his directions. Before this will could be signed he died suddenly of apoplexy, and the older will having been destroyed, I inherit the property as nearest of kin.”
“Now, I call that providential!” said Fanny, in a tone of devout thanksgiving. “I do not know when I have heard anything that gives me so much pleasure! To think of that old—ahem—gentleman being so outwitted at last, and so thwarted in his desire to cheat you! For I call it absolute cheating, when a man leaves his property away from his nearest relative and natural heir.”
“Opinions differ on that point,” said Lennox. “I hold that a man’s property is his own, to do with what he will; provided, of course, that he does not neglect his duty to hischildren. But that duty does not extend to a nephew, especially one who declined all that he offered, and chose another path in life. No, it seems to me that my plain duty is to regard that unsigned will as a valid instrument, and to execute it.”
There was a minute’s silence after he finished, for both of his hearers were completely taken by surprise. Fanny Meredith fairly gasped with amazement before she cried:
“Why, it is worse than quixotism—it is absolute madness! I have never heard of such a thing in my life! What you threw away before, when you went against your uncle’s wishes, was bad enough; but this—!” Words failed her: tears absolutely came into her eyes. “O Lennox,” she said, imploringly, “you surely will not do it!—Aimée, for Heaven’s sake, speak to him! He will listen to you!”
Aimée flushed, but Lennox turned to herquickly. His face was set in resolute lines, but there was something in his eyes—a wistful, pathetic expression, as of one asking help—which touched her deeply.
“Tell me,” he said, simply, “am I not right?”
It was a subject on which few people would have cared to offer advice, unless, like Fanny Meredith, they offered it on the side of worldly common-sense; but Aimée did not hesitate. She answered as simply and directly as he had asked:
“Yes—as far as I can judge, I think that you are right.”
Fanny Meredith threw up her hands, as if appealing to earth and heaven against such folly.
“I think you are both mad,” she said, “and I really feel constrained to seek some saner society.”
With this, before either could utter a word or make the least effort to detain her, she had turned and fled. For an instant they stood confounded, listening to the sound of her flying feet down that incline which is averitable “facilis descensus.” Then murmuring something quickly, Aimée made a motion to follow; but the consciousness of being a millionaire, were it only for an hour, gave Lennox courage and resolution.
“Pray do not go,” he said, earnestly; “she will be back presently, or—we can follow her. But first I must speak to you; I wish to ask your advice.”
“I scarcely think that I am fitted to advise you,” she said, pausing at his request, but looking away from him.
“You are eminently fitted,” he replied, “because your opinion is of infinite value to me, and your approval worth more to me than that of any one else in the world. Indeed, ifyouapprove, I care not who else disapproves.” He stopped for an instant, then quickly went on: “I thank God that the temptation to keep this money has not overpowered me, for it has been great. Do you know why? Because it seemed to put within my reach a prize which before had seemed as far from me as heaven; at least, it made effort possible, it gave me leaveto try. Before, howcould I, how dared I, think of saying to one dowered like a princess, ‘I love you’? But if, with this fortune in my hand, I said it, no one could doubt my sincerity, no one could think that I sought her for anything save herself—herself, so far above all that a man could offer or give, that if he brought the wealth of the world he would still be unworthy of her!”
He paused, overpowered by his own emotion, and hardly expecting an answer from Aimée. He could not see her face, for she had turned away from him, but he saw that she was trembling, and he was amazed by the clear steadiness of the voice in which she spoke after a moment.
“What a man could say with a fortune in his hand, he might surely—unless he thought more of money than of his own manhood—say without it.”
“May I?” he cried, almost incredulously. “You will let me say it—I, who had nothing yesterday, and will have nothing to-morrow!—you will let me tell you that I love you with all my heart?”
Another pause, and then—“If that be true,” said the sweet voice, “why should it matter that you had nothing yesterday or that you will have nothing to-morrow?”
“It matters,” he answered, “in the opinion of the world, which is quick to say of such a man—”
“But, a moment ago, I thought that it was my opinion alone which mattered,” she interposed.
“Itisyours—yours alone,” he replied. “And if you tell me that I may hope, the scorn of the whole world can not hold me back from striving to win you.”
She turned a beautiful, smiling face toward him. “It seems to me,” she said, “that a man who possesses or who has refused a fortune of a million or two can hardly fear that his disinterestedness could be questioned. But I”—her voice sank a little—“I do not think I should have needed the test.”
Mrs. Meredith, sitting quietly below in the loggia of Sansovino, grew rather tired of waiting before the two from above came down toseek her. She rose, and looked at them with a smile.
“Well,” she said, innocently, “have you settled the matter? Is the fortune to be given up, or retained?”
“The fortune!” said Kyrle. “I had forgotten it; but, of course, it is to be given up.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Meredith. She looked at him curiously, this man who was capable of such wild quixotism, and said to herself that certainly things were better as they were. There was no danger that Mr. Meredith would ever be troubled by any scruples which would cause him to resignhisfortune. Then she shrugged her shoulders gently. “I suppose it is quite useless to argue with you,” she said, “but, at least, the fortune has done you a good turn, and I advise you to say nothing to any one else of your intention of resigning it.Dothe thing, if you like, when you return to America, but don’t talk of it now. It is yours until you choose to give it away, so pray take the great advantage it will give you.”
She did not say in what way, but Kyrle knew to what she alluded; he knew that thiswealth would render it difficult for the Joscelyns to object to him. He looked doubtfully at Aimée.
“That,” he said, “would seem like sailing under false colors; or, at least, like winning what I most desire by a false representation.”
“Now, Heaven grant me patience!” said Mrs. Meredith, impatiently. “But is not the fortune yours?”
“For the present, yes,” he answered.
“Then, why on earth should you take people who are not your friends into your confidence with regard to what you mean to do with it?”
“Simply,” he replied, “because those people have a right to know what is my true position in life, and an accident like my uncle’s unsigned will does not affect that position. Am I not right?” said he, turning to Aimée.
“I think that you are,” she answered, quietly.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Meredith, “go your own way. I wash my hands of you both; but I am very sure that before you are donewith this affair you will wish that you had followed my advice.”