“Yes!” said Philip, pouring it out, and taking the glass in his hand. “I drink to your new occupation, Perdita. May it bring you satisfaction: and may you long enjoy it!”
“Stay!” exclaimed she: “let me drink too. But my toast shall be different. May the day on which I forgive you be the last day I live!”
They drank, and set down their glasses; and exchanged a final look. Was it hate that he saw in her eyes, or love? Often afterwards that question recurred to Philip’s mind, and never found a certain answer. But he always remembered Perdita as she stood there, erect and bright, with a smile on her beautiful face, and her red lips wet with the red wine.
SIRFRANCISBENDIBOW, the last of his race, and once held to be the greatest and most successful banker in England, was meanwhile lying on a bed in a small room, in a house not his own, and with no traces of luxury about him. The bed, indeed, was an easy bed enough, though it was not made of mahogany, nor draped with damask curtains: and the room was by no means a dungeon, though the furniture and fittings were of the plainest and most economical description, and Sir Francis would not have been at liberty to open the door and go out, had he wished to do so. It is not probable, however, that he wished to do anything of the kind: nor, had he been as free as the sparrow that was twittering on the eaves outside the narrow window, could he have found strength to rise from his bed and walk across the room. His physical resources were at an end: and the physician who had felt his pulse that morning had admitted (in response to the urgent demand of the baronet) that the chances were against his surviving many hours longer. Sentence of death, come it how it may, generally produces a notable impression on the recipient. Sir Francis said nothing: he fixed his eyes curiously upon the doctor’s face for a few moments; then let his gaze wander slowly round the room, taking note of every object in it. Finally, he settled himself comfortably in the bed, and appeared to give himself up to his meditations, in the midst of which the doctor left him, feeling some surprise at the baronet’s sang-froid and equanimity. “Must have atolerable clean conscience, after all,” he remarked to Fillmore, outside the door. “Dare say others were more to blame for the smash than he. Seems always to have been unlucky in his friends.”
Sir Francis, in fact, appeared rather cheerful than otherwise. The symptoms of harassment, suspense, and irritation which had beset him for several months past, were no longer visible. He lay there as one who composedly awaits some agreeable event, and, meanwhile, occupies himself with passing in review before his mind the incidents of a pleasant and successful career. After an hour or so of this, however, he signed to Fillmore to approach the bedside, and spoke to him earnestly, though in a low tone, for several moments. After a little discussion, the lawyer left the room. He did not return for five or six hours, during which time Sir Francis lay quite alone, save for an occasional momentary visit from the attendant on duty. At last there was another step in the passage: the door opened and Fillmore came in.
“She has come,” he said, walking up to the bed, and looking keenly down at the other. “Are you still of the same mind?”
The baronet nodded, and said: “Lose no time.”
Fillmore went back to the door, and immediately returned with Marion Lancaster on his arm. He led her to the bedside, and the baronet greeted her with a movement of the hand and arm, and a slight bend of the head, which, feeble though they were, somehow recalled the grand obeisances that Sir Francis Bendibow was wont to make in the days of his prosperity and renown.
“Sit down, my dear,” he said, indicating the chair at his side. “Very kind of you to come. You look fatigued.”
So indeed she did, with a fatigue that was more thanbodily. “I am well enough,” she said looking at him gravely; and she sat down.
“Fillmore,” said the baronet, “will you remain outside a bit? Mrs. Lancaster and I are going to have a little private chat together.”
When the lawyer had withdrawn, Sir Francis altered his position so as to face Marion more fully, and said, “I had an odd impression the other day. I was at a place—Vauxhall, in fact—on business; and something happened there that upset me. I was senseless for a while, or nearly so: but I had an impression that I saw your face, and heard your voice. And afterwards, for a time, I fancied I heard and saw you again at intervals. It was in a room at an inn, somewhere, at last. That must have been all a fancy of mine—eh?”
“No, I was with you,” Marion replied. “I saw you when you fell: and I got a carriage and took you to an inn. I should have taken you to your own house: but a gentleman whom I happened to meet, and who assisted me, seemed to think it best not to do that.”
“Quite right of him, whoever he was,” said the baronet; “though, as things are to-day, it doesn’t make much difference, either. So ’twas really you? The gentleman was your husband, of course?”
“No: my husband knew nothing of my going there. I went there to meet you, Sir Francis.”
The baronet looked surprised.
“I never thought to have the opportunity to tell you this,” Marion continued. “I wanted to ask you something, which nobody but you could tell me. I heard you were living in Twickenham, but, when I went there, they told me you would see no one. But, as I was going away, one of your servants said that you would be, at a certain hour, at Vauxhall.”
“Catnip, for a thousand pounds!” interjected the dying man, with some animation.
“I think that was his name,” said Marion. “My husband happened to be away from home that night, so I made up my mind to go. But for a long time I could not find you anywhere. At last, just as I was going away, there was a disturbance in the crowd, and I saw you. But you were not able to speak then.”
“Upon my soul!” said the baronet, with a feeble grimace, “I should have felt honored, madame, had I been aware.... Well, I’m rather far gone for gallantry, now. But what could I have told you, eh?”
“I wanted to know about Mr. Grant. Whether he were really your friend Grantley.”
“Aye? What did you want to know that for?”
“Because he had bequeathed some money to his nearest of kin. If he were Mr. Grantley, the money would have come to my husband: but not so, if he were some one else. And no one could tell me but you.”
“Ha! Well, twenty thousand pounds is worth running some risk for,” said the baronet; “and ’twas some risk to run, begad, going alone to Vauxhall at midnight, my dear! But who withholds the bequest from you? And why didn’t you send your husband or your lawyer to make the inquiry?”
“Because there were reasons why I did not wish my husband to receive the legacy; and there was no way to prevent it, except to know that Mr. Grant was not the person he was supposed to be.”
Sir Francis seemed not to understand this explanation: it was hardly to be expected he should do so; but, with the indifference to minor inconsistencies natural to his condition, he passed it over; and, after a short pause, he said, reverting to his former idea, “The legacy is safe enough, my dear. Grant was Grantley—that is all the matter with him. If he’d been any one else, I’d not be lying here to-day. Your husband may keep his twenty thousand pounds, and much good may it dohim! There’s not much worth having in this world, but money’s the best worth having of what there is.” He stopped for a few moments. “It just happens,” he continued, “that ’twas about this same Grantley I wanted to speak to you. ’Tis not worth while, perhaps; but when a man’s going to die, a secret is of no good to him—all the more if it’s a secret that has been bothering him all his life. I’ve been the slave of more secrets than one, and they’ve never shown me any mercy: but ’tis my turn now; for I can reveal ’em, and they can do me no harm! I can laugh at ’em, begad! and not be a penny the worse for it. But for all that, my dear, I wouldn’t have told ’em to any one but you. There’s something about you—always was—different from any other creature I ever met. Your husband’s a lucky fellow; and if he’s not the happiest fellow, and the best, that ever breathed, then stifle me if he isn’t a fool and a villain!”
“You misjudge me and him,” said Marion, speaking between her set teeth. “I am ready to hear about Mr. Grant, Sir Francis.” But at this point her self-command gave way, and she burst into a passion of tears—the first she had shed since her quarrel with Philip the morning before. The baronet, who could not suppose that anything he had said had given occasion for this outbreak, allowed himself the flattery of believing that it was compassion for his own state that moved her—a delusion that did neither of them any harm; and possibly it was not so entirely a delusion that some such sentiment may not have added itself to Marion’s deeper causes of unhappiness. At all events, by the time she had regained control of herself, the feeling between the two had become gentler and more sympathetic.
“ ’Tis somewhat late in the day to find a friend who can be sorry for me,” remarked the baronet ruefully: “and there have been times when I might have lookedfor it more than I do now. Grantley and I were friends; but affairs turned out so, that one or other of us had to give up everything: and he was the one to do it. It looks pretty bad, in one way; but the amount of it was that I cared more for myself than I did for him; and there’s not many men who might not confess to as much as that. Besides, I had more to lose than he had: I was the head of the house, and the name and the existence of the business would go with me. But ’twas a damned gentlemanly thing of him to do what he did, and I’m free to confess I wouldn’t have done it in his place. ’Tis bad enough to suffer for your own fault, but it must be a hard business to go down for the fault of another man—though that’s what often happens in this world, whether we want it or not. You see, my dear, there was always a bit of the gambler in me, and I used to have wonderful luck. When I was quite a young fellow, I used to sit up night after night at the clubs, and it struck me that since where one fortune was made and kept, ten to a score were lost, it would be a good plan to arrange matters so that what so many lost, one should win—and I that one. One thing led to another, and the end of it was that I set up a place called Raffett’s—though only two or three men knew that I had anything to do with it; and all I need say about it now is, that more money came to us by that quiet little place, than by the bank itself: aye, a good deal more, begad!
“A hundred times I might have sold out for enough to buy half Old Jewry with: but I liked the fun of the thing, and there seemed no chance of losing. We did lose, at last, though, and by wholesale, too. There was no accounting for it: ’twas more like a special miracle than anything I ever knew of. I knew the luck must change some time, so I kept putting in to fill up the hole, until I put in all of my own that I had in the world. Then I took from the bank: hadn’t any business to do it, ofcourse; but it was sure to come all right in the end, if nobody found it out. That was the weak point: somebody did find it out; and Grantley was the man. He came straight to me, and asked me what I was about. I tried to stop him off; but it wouldn’t do. He forced me to own up: and then the question came, What was to happen next? I was a ruined man, and the bank was as good as gone, if the truth came out. Grantley was a careful fellow, and he had saved a vast deal of money; and I asked him to help me out of the scrape. We looked into the thing—he cared a great deal for me in those days, and as much, maybe, for the credit of the bank—and found that it would take all he’d got to make good only what was gone from the bank, not to speak of the rest of it; and to make it worse, there was no way of putting the money back without betraying that it had been taken out irregularly.
“But at last he got an idea, and I give him credit for it. ‘It must become known, Frank,’ he said to me, ‘that the bank has been robbed by somebody. You are the bank, and it stands or falls with you. It won’t make so much difference about me. You may have what I’ve got, and I’ll leave the country. Let ’em think I took it, and that you replaced it. I can make my own way, somewhere else, under another name; and the concern will be saved. Take care of my wife and child: it won’t do to take them with me, but maybe I can send for them after a bit. And do you let gambling alone for the future.’
“It was a good offer, and I took it, as most men would have done in my place. I’m not sure, now, but I might as well have let it alone. At any rate, off he went, and that was the last I heard from him for twenty years, except when I sent him word, a little while after, that his wife had died. He wrote back asking me to educate the child, and do the best I could for her: where hewas, was no place for her. Meanwhile, I was contriving to keep along, but no more: we never had any luck after he left. That confounded Raffett’s kept draining me: I had ceased to be the owner of the place, as I had promised him; but the other men had a hold on me, by threatening to expose me if I didn’t let ’em have what they wanted; and they wanted more than I could find of my own to give ’em. So, what with one thing and another, when he came back under his assumed name last year, he found things pretty nearly in as bad a way as when he went off.
“I may have been mistaken,” continued the baronet, speaking in a more uncertain tone; “but I had been worried so much, and had so much underhand fighting to do, that I thought Grantley meant me no good. He had in his possession some papers—letters that had passed between us, and other things—that enabled him, if he chose, to turn me out of house and home and into jail at a day’s notice. I might have stood it for myself; but there was my boy Tom: and I felt that I could sooner kill Grantley than let Tom know I hadn’t been what they call an honest man. There was Perdita, too: he would be sure to make himself known to his own daughter if to nobody else; and he wouldn’t be likely to do that without letting her know that he was not the man who robbed the bank. And if Perdita knew it, all London would know it, for she never was a friend of mine, and would jump at a chance to ruin me.”
“You are wrong,” said Marion, who was sitting with her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and her eyes fixed with a sad sternness upon the narrator: “Madame Desmoines has had the papers within her reach for six months, and has never opened them until, perhaps, yesterday.”
“Well, right or wrong makes no difference now. I tried to make Grantley give me back the papers, by fairmeans: and when he refused, I was more than ever persuaded he meant mischief; so I resolved to get them in spite of him. I found he always carried them about with him: and then I thought there was no way for it but to hire a footpad to rob him. But it was too risky a job to trust to any one....”
Marion rose, and stood, with one trembling hand grasping the back of her chair. She could bear it no longer.
“Don’t tell me any more!” she exclaimed, in a low, almost threatening voice. “I know the rest. You did it yourself, Sir Francis. You killed him—you murdered him in the dark: and he was the noblest, sweetest, most generous of men, and never harmed a human being! Can nothing make you feel that you have been wicked? And you tried to kill him once before—yes! that night of the thunderstorm. A man like you has no right to die! You ought to live forever, and have no rest!”
“Well, my dear,” said the baronet, not seeming to feel much emotion, “Providence is more merciful than you are, though not so just, I dare say: it doesn’t give a man earthly immortality on account of his sins. You see, I can’t feel as shocked at myself as you do; I’ve known myself so long, I’ve got used to it. And if you would think over my crimes, quietly, for the next twenty years or so, maybe you’d not be so anxious to have me damned. We are what we are, and some of us have bad luck into the bargain. That’s all! I’m glad you found me out, however you did it; for I don’t believe I should have had the pluck to confess I killed him, when it came to the point. It was a dirty piece of business; and if it hadn’t been for ... one thing, I was just as likely to put the bullet into my own heart as his. But,” continued the dying man, by a great effort raising himself in his bed, and lifting his arms, while the blood rushed to his face, making it dark and lurid, “but whenI knew that in taking his life I had been led on to take the life of my own darling boy—that I loved a thousand times more than I hated anybody else—by the living God, I could have murdered Grantley over again, out of revenge!”
These are the last words known to have been uttered by Sir Francis Bendibow. He became unconscious soon after, and died the same afternoon. They were terrible words; and yet, when Marion recalled them long afterwards, it seemed to her that there might be, perhaps, something in them indicative of a moral state less abjectly depraved than was suggested by his previous half-complacent apathy.
THEmorning after Bendibow’s death, Merton Fillmore sent word to the Marquise Desmoines that he would call upon her that evening, if she found it convenient to receive him. She returned answer that she would expect him.
Ever since her parting with Philip Lancaster, the Marquise had kept herself secluded. After such an experience, even she needed time to draw her breath and look about her. It was more like defeat than anything else that had ever happened to her. It was defeat in fact, if not altogether in form. She had, whether consciously or unconsciously, shaped all her course and purpose to the end of being loved by Philip; and he did not love her. Nothing could disguise that truth: and it was additionally embittered by the discovery, almost unexpected to herself, that she not only preferred him to other men, but that she loved him, and that he was the only man she ever had loved. She had allowed him to perceive this, and the perception had failed to kindle in him a response. No doubt, she had assumed on the instant the semblance of cool indifference; she had divined her failure almost before she had made it; she had listened to his reply with a smile, and had dismissed him with defiance; but, after all, she knew in her inmost heart that she had been worsted; and whether Philip were as intimately conscious of it, or were conscious of it at all, made little difference. She had offered him more than any woman can offer with impunity, and he had professed himself unable to accept it.
After he left her, she was for a time supported by the ardor of defiant anger, which made her feel as if she had never been conquered,—had scarcely begun to fight, indeed: and had illimitable reserves of strength still to draw upon. But when this mood had flamed itself out, she began to realize how little her strength and resources could avail her. She had no longer any object to contend for. She had lost the day, and, no matter what her vigor and courage might be, the day in which she might redeem herself would never dawn. Philip was, to all intents and purposes, exanimate; and she might as hopefully strive, by dint of her beauty and brilliance, to restore life to a corpse from the hospital, as to stimulate Philip to feel even so much emotion toward her as would make him care whether she loved him or hated him. The shock of Marion’s loss, and the self-revelation it had wrought in him, had put him above or below the reach of other feelings. He had collapsed; and it was this collapse which had rendered him indomitable even by the Marquise Desmoines.
What was left to her? The injury was too deep not to demand requital. But how could she avenge herself on Philip? What could she make him suffer that he was not already suffering? His life was broken up: he had lost his wife and his place in the world,—for she knew Philip well enough to be aware that it would be a long while (if ever) before a man of his organization would be able to renew his relations with society. Surely hatred itself could not pursue him further. There was nothing to be done.
And yet to do nothing was intolerable to Perdita: she could have borne anything else better. Inaction gnawed her heart and made her existence bitter. But what could she do? Should she kill him? No: life could hardly be so dear to him as to make that worth while. Should she kill herself? That, indeed, was as likely asanything else to put an end to her unrest: but should she allow Philip to imagine that she had died for love of him? She laughed, and shook her head. It was while she was in this mood that Fillmore’s letter came, mentioning Bendibow’s death. The news interested her, for she fancied it might in some way bear upon the subject that possessed her thoughts. She awaited his arrival with impatience.
He came punctually, as usual; but his face and demeanor, as he entered the room, were singularly reserve and sombre. The Marquise, if she noticed this at all (and it would be hard to say what a woman like her does not notice), laid it to the account of the death-scene at which he had been present. As for herself, she felt no regret, and was not in the vein to express what she did not feel. She greeted the lawyer coolly and briefly, and went at once to the subject.
“Sir Francis has died in good time, and with good taste. I had not given him credit for so much consideration.”
“Yes, madame,” replied Fillmore, bowing. “He has solved many difficulties. Possibly it was only the struggle against misfortune that kept him in life so long. The death of his son was his death-blow. His ruin was a relief to him.”
“Fortune and misfortune are in our feeling, not in our circumstances: that is an old story,” observed Perdita. “Well, did he die repentant?”
“He was unconscious for several hours before his death, and I was not present when his last words were spoken.”
“ ’Tis a pity he should have been alone. He might have said something worth hearing. A good many secrets have died with him.”
“He was not alone, madame.”
“Who was with him?”
“Mrs. Lancaster.”
Perdita was dumb for a moment. “Did you say Mrs. Philip Lancaster?” she then asked, bending forward curiously.
Fillmore bowed in assent.
“I did not know she was in London,” said the Marquise, after another short pause. “Her husband certainly was not aware.... How did this happen?”
“It was the baronet’s wish,” replied Fillmore. “Her name had been often mentioned by him since his catastrophe: her kind behavior to him at Vauxhall—”
“What had she to do with him at Vauxhall?” interrupted Perdita, making herself erect in her chair.
“I am not acquainted with the details of the matter,” said Fillmore, “but it seems that she wished to consult him on a subject of importance, and, owing to the mysterious habits he had adopted of late, she was obliged to seek him at Vauxhall. He was taken with a fit—indeed, I believe it was the disturbance which this occasioned that first discovered him to her—”
“This is a strange story!” Perdita broke out. “I had heard that Mrs. Lancaster was at Vauxhall, but the name of the gentleman with her was not Francis Bendibow.”
“You yourself saw her there, did you not?” inquired Fillmore, with a steady look.
“Are you a detective as well as a solicitor, Mr. Fillmore?” demanded the Marquise, smiling ironically; “I did see her there, on the arm of Mr. Tom Moore.”
“I do but repeat what is known and spoken of by others,” said Fillmore: “but it seems to be generally conceded that her meeting with Moore was accidental,—he assisted her in getting a carriage to take the baronet away. She was guilty of great imprudence, but, it seems, in a cause which she thought urgent enough to justify it. As I was saying, Sir Francis never lost therecollection of her kindness, and toward the last he expressed a strong desire to speak with her. I went to her house in search of her; but was informed that she had been absent since the preceding day, and it was not known where she was.”
“We must admit her conduct to be singular,” remarked Perdita with a slight laugh. “No doubt, as you say, it was justifiable! Where did you find her?”
“Quite accidentally, I met Lady Flanders, and, in the course of conversation, was informed by her ladyship that Mrs. Lancaster was at her house.”
“Ah! Lady Flanders.... But—well, go on!”
“Lady Flanders said,” continued Fillmore, fixing his eyes in a marked way on Perdita, “that Mrs. Lancaster had felt herself grossly injured by ... a person from whom she had every right to expect different treatment, and that, in her distress and defenselessness, she had accepted Lady Flanders’ proposal to make her ladyship’s house her home for a few days.”
“Really, Mr. Fillmore, a less charitable man than you might say that Lady Flanders had assisted Mrs. Lancaster to run away from her husband.”
“Supposing Mrs. Lancaster to have had that intention,” replied Fillmore coldly, “the general opinion seems to be that her husband had spared her the necessity.”
“How do you wish me to understand that?”
“That Philip Lancaster had planned an elopement on his own account.”
“Positively, you amuse me!” exclaimed Perdita, gazing at him intently. “Are you going to add the inspiration of a prophet to your two other professions? Tell me, with whom has Mr. Philip Lancaster planned to elope?”
“If you need to be told that,” replied Fillmore, after a considerable pause, “there is nothing to tell.”
The Marquise smiled. “Ah, Mr. Fillmore,” said she, “you are not so clever a man as I thought! Mr. Lancaster came to me two nights ago; he was very tired and hungry, poor fellow; he had been hunting his wife over London, and seemed to think she might have taken refuge with me. I consoled him as well as I could, and sent him away. I have not seen or heard of him since then. Unfortunately, I was not in a position to give him the comforting information I have just heard from you. I am surprised that Lady Flanders, who seems to be such a friend of homeless wanderers, had not given him his wife’s new address. He told me that he had spoken with her ladyship that very afternoon.”
“I know nothing about that,” said Fillmore, whose sombre aspect had lightened somewhat during this speech; “but I found Mrs. Lancaster at Lady Flanders’ house: she went with me to see Bendibow, and afterwards I accompanied her back to Lady Flanders’. She seemed to be in a very low and anxious frame of mind; and there can be no doubt that she has been with Lady Flanders ever since she left her own house. As to the suggestion about Mr. Moore, I have the honor of that gentleman’s acquaintance, and I could easily convince Mr. Philip Lancaster that he has no cause for misgiving on that score.”
“The fact still remains that Mr. Lancaster did not know where his wife was. However, we can let that pass. Has it occurred to you, sir, that you owe me an apology?”
“I cannot find words in which to apologize for so great a wrong,” said Fillmore, in a husky voice. “I cannot express, either, the joy I feel that it was a wrong. Oh, madame.... Perdita! how can I think about you or judge you dispassionately! You cannot punish me so much as the anguish I have endured has already punished me! I thought I could not bear not to haveyou love me: but now, that seems a delight in comparison with the misery of thinking that you had given yourself to him.”
“Well, there seems to have been a contagion of error,” said Perdita, with a queer smile. “Now that so much has been corrected, perhaps you may even come to your senses with regard to me! You are certainly a persistent man: ’tis a pity I am not a yielding woman.”
“I can never give you up!” Fillmore said again.
“What! Had you not given me up an hour ago?”
“No: less than ever. I would have followed you—anywhere!”
“It would have been in vain,” said Perdita, shaking her head. “I have too much regard for you to let you pick me out of the mud, Mr. Fillmore: and too little regard for myself to submit to be saved on those terms. When I am driven to extremity, there is another bridegroom who is waiting for me even more patiently than you are, and who, unlike you, is certain to have me at last.”
“Do not smile so, and talk of death!” exclaimed Fillmore passionately. “There is more life in the thought of you than in the flesh and blood of any other woman!”
“You are welcome to the thought of me, if you will forego the rest!” returned Perdita with a sigh. “But really, sir, that is a finer compliment than I should have expected to hear from a man so reserved as you. No—let us speak of something else. If all that you tell me be true, we may expect a reconciliation between Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster. It will only be a question of time.”
Fillmore moved his head, but said nothing.
“You have no sentiment,” pursued the Marquise laughingly. “It will be an affecting scene, if you think of it! Lovers’ reconciliations are worth the quarrel itcosts to have them. Our friend Philip will be happier than ever, and he will give us a beautiful poem, inspired by his new experience; something that will make ‘Iduna’ seem crude and cold! There will be no drawback to his contentment!”
Something ironical in Perdita’s tone struck Fillmore’s ear, but he did not understand it, and remained silent.
“Too much happiness is dangerous,” she went on: “it would be the part of friendship to abate a little of it. What do you think?”
“I am no friend of Mr. Lancaster’s,” said Fillmore, shortly.
“You are very dull, sir!” exclaimed the Marquise, giving him a sparkling glance. “If you are no friend of his, think how much reason I have to be his friend! When he was a youth, whom no one knew, he formed the acquaintance of the Marquis, and came to our house, and read me his first little poems, which I praised, and encouraged him to write more, so that his first book, the ‘Sunshine of Revolt,’ was my godchild, and at that time I was its only reader. I saw that he had intellect; but his nature was timid, suspicious, self-conscious, and cold; he dissected himself and mistrusted others. He had the poetic gift, but wanted the courage and vigor of the heart to use it: his fear of ridicule made him prefer criticism to creation: he could imagine himself to be so much that he was content to become nothing. His ambition made him vain, and his vanity made him indolent. He needed a stronger and more active spirit,—something to make him plunge into difficulties and struggles, and not to care if fools shrugged their shoulders. I thought I could supply what he lacked,—that I could give him the blood and the warmth to render his great faculties practical. He ought to have understood the value of such companionship as I offered him!” said Perdita, speaking with more intensity. “But what he says is not like what heis; he is a man who has fears and hesitations,—the kind of man that I despise! What right had he to marry? Was not I better than marriage? But really, Mr. Fillmore, these poets are great fools: they promise a great deal, and some of them write very charmingly; but a lawyer is more of a man!”
Fillmore’s face indicated that he was beginning to recover from his dullness. Still, he dared not hope too soon; it might be that Perdita’s words, as well as Philip’s, could imply more than she meant. He waited to hear more. But she recommenced at an unexpected point.
“I have read those papers,” she said, rising and going to a secretary, from a drawer of which she took Grantley’s packet. “Sir Francis knew when to die: here is what would have made it impossible for him to live. He was false, cowardly and selfish beyond belief! And my father—Charles Grantley—was as noble as the other was base: too noble! I have no sympathy with such generosity. Let a man be as true as steel, but as hard and deadly, too, when there is need! But he was my father: I know that now, and I’m going to act upon it!”
“In what way?” asked Fillmore.
“To have my rights,” answered Perdita, lifting her head.
“Who has deprived you of them?”
She laughed. “That is no more than I expected. I have been yielding and complaisant so long that people—even you—have forgotten I have any rights to claim. But I am tired ... that does not amuse me any longer. I am going to take what my father gave me.”
“What did he give you?”
“Twenty thousand pounds.”
“Of course you are not in earnest,” said Fillmore with a smile.
“Mr. Lancaster will not agree with you.”
The lawyer looked at her, and became grave. “It is too late. You passed it on to him.”
“No!” said Perdita, planting her white hand on the papers upon the table. “Philip Lancaster appropriated a legacy which I did not know belonged to me. There was at that time no proof that the author of the will was my father. There was only a presumption, which, for reasons that I gave you, I refused to adopt. The death of Sir Francis, and the opening of this packet, have changed the whole matter. The proof is here, and the reasons that might influence me to disregard it no longer exist. I shall claim my right: I shall take what is mine: let him prevent me who can!”
“The possession by the other party makes against you,” said Fillmore. “Your surrender of the property would be an obstacle to your claiming it now. It is not easy to play fast and loose with twenty thousand pounds. You should have stated your objections earlier.”
“Tell me, sir, what proof was there, until now, that Mr. Grant was my father?”
“There was probability; and an understanding that proof could be produced if necessary.”
“But it was not produced! And in the absence of it, how could Philip Lancaster, any more than I, lay claim to the legacy? His belief goes for nothing; a man would believe anything for the sake of twenty thousand pounds. The will directs that he is to possess the legacy only in case that I reject it. It is only within these two days that I have known it was mine to reject. But I shall not reject it; I shall keep it:—do you mean to tell me that he has had the audacity to lay hands upon it?”
“I scarcely know even now whether you are in earnest,” said Fillmore, who was certainly perplexed. “There may have been technical delays in the way of his actually touching the money, but there can be nodoubt that he has been regarded as the owner of it, and has acted accordingly. He has incurred expenses, in the furnishing of his house, and other matters, which he never could have afforded otherwise. For you to insist upon your claim now, would inevitably be his ruin.”
“I have nothing to do with that,” said the Marquise, smiling, “though I may be sorry that he has been so precipitate.”
“This can only be caprice in you,” said Fillmore, gravely. “The legacy is nothing to you. You have property to ten times that amount.”
“I must be allowed to understand my own requirements, sir.”
“You must have other reasons than those you state. It is not to benefit yourself but to injure him that you do this.”
The Marquise shrugged her shoulders. “Say, if you like, that to injure him benefits me.”
“How should it benefit you?”
“How should it not? Does it not benefit me to injure my enemy?—the man I hate! Has he not injured me? Is it no injury to have such things said of me as you repeated a while ago? Could they have been said if he had not authorized them? Do you pretend you love me, and do you let me be insulted by a man who gives it to be believed that I agreed to elope with him? Oh, if I were a man ... no! A woman is better!—except when she is fool enough to love!”
Fillmore stood up, his face reddening. “No man shall insult you without giving an account to me,” he said, speaking with a certain stiffness of utterance. “My love for you gives me that right, whether you admit it or not. I should be slow to believe that Mr. Lancaster can be capable of doing what you suspect; but if he did, he shall answer for it.”
“In what way?”
“In the way customary between gentlemen,” replied Fillmore haughtily.
“That will not suit me,” said the Marquise, shaking her head. “I am neither old enough nor young enough to care to be the subject of a duel, especially on such grounds. I must fight my battles in my own way; but you shall be my weapon, if you will.”
“Your weapon?”
“Yes: my legal thunderbolt! You shall conduct my case against him.”
“I cannot do that!” said Fillmore after a pause.
“Can you not? Then there can be nothing more between you and me. I will never see you again.”
“It would not be honorable,” exclaimed Fillmore, bending forward and grasping the edges of the table with his hands. “I was employed to draw up the will, and I have acted in Mrs. Lancaster’s interests, and in those of her husband. I could not retain my standing and integrity as a lawyer, and do what you ask. I could not justify it to myself as a man. My profession has brought me to a knowledge of all the crime and weakness and rascality in human nature; and I have always tried to do right and justice, and I have never, for any cause, been a rascal myself. If I were to do this, it would be the last act of my professional life.” Fillmore was extraordinarily moved; his voice faltered, and he stopped.
“In other words,” said Perdita, with the quiet mercilessness that sometimes showed itself in her character, “you think our acquaintance has gone far enough. I agree with you, sir. I will not detain you any longer.”
“No: I cannot give you up,” returned Fillmore, after a short silence. He sighed heavily. In the struggle of opposing wills, he felt that the woman had the advantage. “If I refuse,” he said, “you threaten me with apunishment greater than I can bear. But if I consent ...” he stepped forward and put his hands strongly upon her shoulders, and looked with power into her eyes. It was the first time he had ever touched her, save to take her hand in greeting or farewell. She could feel the emotion that made his arms vibrate. It gave her a new impression of him.
“What do you wish?” she asked in a gentle tone.
“What will you give me in return for what I give you?”
Perdita looked down, and hesitated.
“What will satisfy you?” she asked at length.
“You will satisfy me! Nothing else. Will you give me yourself?”
“For that, you will do all I ask?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, let it be so!” she said, looking up with a momentary smile.
Fillmore stooped and kissed her. A strange, reckless sort of happiness filled his heart. He was no longer the man he had been; but Perdita was his reward.
ONEmorning Lady Flanders, enveloped in a dressing-gown bought at a bazaar in Damascus, which made her look like the Grand Vizier in the Arabian Nights, knocked at the room which her guest, Mrs. Lancaster, was occupying. Marion, who had not yet finished her toilet, opened the door, and Lady Flanders stalked in. She merely nodded a good morning, and did not at once explain the reason of this early visitation. With her hands behind her, she began to pace slowly up and down the room, her head bent and her shaggy brows drawn together: altogether rather an appalling spectacle. At length she halted, felt in the pocket of her caftan for her snuff-box, and not finding it there, sniffed, rubbed her nose, and went up to Marion, who had resumed the combing of her hair which the entrance of her ladyship had interrupted.
“How is your health this morning, my dear?” she demanded, scowling down upon her.
“I thank you; much as usual,” replied Marion apathetically.
“Nonsense! You are not well at all: you’re as pale and peaked as a charity-school girl!” returned the old lady testily. “You haven’t improved at all since you came to my house, Mrs. Lancaster: and yet I’ve paid you every attention. I’m displeased at it!”
“You have been most kind to me, and I—” began Marion; but the other interrupted her with a peremptory gesture.
“You are altogether in the wrong, Mrs. Lancaster,” she exclaimed, “and you should have discernmentenough to be aware of it. I have shown you no kindness whatever: ’tis a thing I never do any one; I have simply pleased myself, as I always do: and ’tis as likely as not I have got you and your husband into a precious scrape, only for the gratification of my own antipathies. I have always abominated that little devil of a Marquise Desmoines, and I was determined to let her know it! That is the whole secret of the matter!”
“I shall not alter my opinion, madam,” returned Marion with a smile, “and I can never forget the sympathy and protection you have given me. But I am unhappy: and I feel, now, that I did wrong to come here. I should have stayed at home with my mother.”
“This is assurance, upon my honor! Where are your manners, ma’am? Pray, is my house not good enough for you?” But, having made these inquiries in a haughty and fierce way, the great lady suddenly took Marion in her arms and kissed her on both cheeks.
“I am an old fool, my dear,” said she, sitting down with a disconsolate air, and crossing one leg over the other. “I’m not fit to be trusted alone any more. My likings and my dislikings both get me into trouble. I fell in love with you the minute I set eyes on you. For fifty years, at least, I have been ashamed of being a woman, and tried all I could to act as if I were a man—doing as men do, and thinking men’s thoughts—or, at any rate, talking as if I thought them. And now, since I met you, I only wish I were more a woman than I am! My dear, you are the finest creature that ever stood in petticoats, and nobody is good enough for you. And when I fancied that that Philip of yours didn’t appreciate the prize he had won—which, if he were the best man alive, he couldn’t deserve—it made me so angry that I could have cut that handsome white throat of his from one ear to the other. And as if that wasn’t enough, he must accuse you of improper behavior—”
“It was my own fault, Lady Flanders,” said Marion, interrupting. “I’m sure I behaved very badly, and when I wouldn’t tell him what I had been doing, I think he did quite right to be angry. I would ask him to forgive me, if he were here.”
“Don’t cry, my dear, it doesn’t suit your character, and you only do it because you’re weak and worn out, and God knows I don’t wonder at it! As to asking him to forgive you, you would do no such thing—don’t tell me!—until you were convinced he had done nothing to be forgiven for. And now,” continued her ladyship, again diving into her pocket after the absent snuff-box, “I’ve come to tell you that I’ve begun to think he may not have been quite so bad as I thought. Mind—I know nothing more yet: I only make an inference. You know I pounced down upon that clever little wretch, the Marquise; and from her manner, and some things she said, my suspicions about her and that husband of yours were rather confirmed than disconcerted. So, rather than have you left alone in your house for people to snigger at, I persuaded you to come to me for a few days, until we could know exactly how matters stood. Poor child! You were in a state of mind not to care what became of you; and when I met your husband, that same afternoon, I had half a—”
“You met him, Lady Flanders? You never told me that!” exclaimed Marion, looking up and flushing.
“I know I didn’t: why should I? I had no doubt he was on the way to that Marquise; and it was the next day, as I tell you, that I pounced down on her. Well, then ... you shouldn’t interrupt me, my dear; and—I wish you’d touch that bell: I think I must have left my snuff-box on my dressing-table.”
The box was brought, and her ladyship took a copious pinch and proceeded. “Last night I heard something that disturbed and surprised me a good deal, andthe source it came from was unimpeachable. I saw Mr. Merton Fillmore, and he told me that Madame Desmoines is going to bring an action against Mr. Lancaster to recover the money Mr. Grantley left him. At first I didn’t believe it, but he was quite serious, and said that he was her solicitor in the matter. I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself:—but ’tis no use scolding men like him, they only bow and grin, and that’s an end of it! I asked him why she hadn’t claimed it before, and he tried to make up some nonsense about her having only just received proof that she was entitled to it. I told him it was a scandalous piece of business, and that he ought to have known better than to let himself be mixed up in it; and that I didn’t believe the case had a leg to stand on. But between you and me, my dear, I shouldn’t wonder if that particular kind of thieving that they call legal justice was on her side; and I fear there may be danger. But what I was going to say is, that if she is actually setting to work to ruin your husband, it doesn’t look much as if they were in love with each other, does it?”
Marion clasped her hands together softly in her lap, and her eyes shone. A long sigh breathed from her lips, which smiled tremulously.
“Aye, aye,” said Lady Flanders, sighing also, and scowling, “I know how it is! You are feeling happier than if I’d just told you you’d been made heiress of all the money in the Bank of England: and by-and-by, as soon as you’re able to think of anything else but Philip, you’ll turn round and fly into a terrible passion with me, because I misled you about him. But upon my honor, my dear, it was only your dignity and welfare I was thinking of. And mind you, this may be nothing but a blind, after all.”
“No,” said Marion, in a tender, preoccupied tone:“it is true; I am sure of it. I have been the wicked one. If he will only forgive me!”
“Never tell a person of my age and character that you are wicked,” said Lady Flanders dryly; “it is not in good taste, for it makes ’em wonder what the Recording Angel will call them. As to forgiving you, if he were here, and didn’t—”
“Do you know where he is?” exclaimed Marion, springing up. “Is he in the house? Oh, Lady Flanders, is he—”
“My dear, I don’t know where he is, any more than you do: but there’s no doubt he will be found soon enough, and I hope the lesson he’s had will have done him good. Meantime, there’s another matter to attend to. Your good mother, Mrs. Lockhart, you know—we arranged that she should be told nothing of all this trouble; and I gave her to understand, when I took you away, that you and your husband were going into the country to visit the Earl, and ’twas uncertain when you’d be back. Now, I got a letter from her this morning, saying that this was the anniversary of her wedding-day, and she wanted to spend it in the old house at Hammersmith. She was going to set out this forenoon; and it occurred to me it might be a good thing if you went with her. As your husband will probably turn up during the next few days, you would probably prefer to meet him in her company rather than in mine.”
“Yes, yes,” murmured Marion, who had already begun hurriedly to complete her toilet: “I will be ready in a few minutes. Yes, that will be best.... Oh, I thank God! I could not have gone on living: but now, even if he doesn’t forgive me, I am happy.”
“I shall contrive so as to see him before you do,” said her ladyship; “and after I’ve done with him, the only person he won’t be ready to forgive will be me!Oh, ’tis just as well you both should have somebody to abuse, and I shall answer the purpose as well as anybody else. ’Tis about all an old hag like me is good for. Well, if you are going, I shall go with you, and deliver you safe into your mother’s hands: and probably there’ll have to be some lying done, when she asks where Philip is; and I’m a better hand at that than you are. You’ve no idea what experience I have had!”
Here the old lady chuckled rather cynically, and wrapping her caftan around her, stalked out of the room. Marion, left to herself, quickly went about her preparations, singing to herself at intervals, and moving with a lighter step and heart than she had known for many days. The old house at Hammersmith! It seemed like going home for the first time since the honeymoon. It was there that her first happiness had come to her; and if Heaven ever permitted her to be happy again, it ought to happen there. All this fever of wealth and fashionable society was as a dream that is past: freshness and sanity had returned with the morning.
Lady Flanders, with the promptness of an old campaigner, who knows how to concentrate hours into minutes when there is need for it, was ready almost as soon as Marion, and the two immediately set forth for the Lancasters’ house in her ladyship’s big carriage, with the coachman in front and the footman behind in pigtails and silk stockings. They arrived just as Mrs. Lockhart was about to depart. She greeted them with her usual gentle serenity.
“My dear daughter,” she said, embracing Marion, “your trip to the country has done you good. She has a fine color, has she not, Lady Flanders? though I think she is a little thin. This city life is very trying: I used to find it so before I married your dear father. But no doubt ’tis different when you have your husbandto go into society with you. A happy marriage is the best health preserver in the world. Has Philip come back too? Will he come out with us?”
“Your son-in-law, madam,” said Lady Flanders, before Marion could command her voice or open her mouth, “is detained, I believe, but very probably he may join you before you return. Madam, that gown suits you admirably; and I can scarce believe, when I look at you, that so many years have passed since you were the toast of Bath.”
Hereupon the lovely Fanny Pell of the last century flushed with innocent pleasure, and the color showed through the cheeks of the gentle widow of Major Lockhart: and the difficulty about Philip was evaded for the present. After a little more conversation, Mrs. Lockhart proposed that, as the day was fine, Lady Flanders should accompany them as far as Hammersmith, and perhaps lunch with them there; and in the afternoon she might drive back in time to keep her engagement to dine at Lord Croftus’. Marion added her entreaty to those of her mother: and her ladyship, doubtless perceiving that her presence would be a protection for Marion against the guileless inquisition of Mrs. Lockhart, who was as likely to prattle about Philip and the delights of a happy marriage as about anything else, consented; and the whole party got into the carriage, and rolled away on gently-swaying springs. The brief winter sunshine shone along the streets, throwing the shadow of the tall vehicle behind them; and the pedestrians on the sidewalks stepped out briskly, for the air was crisp and bright. Christmas was not far off, and its jovial influence was already felt. The long year, with all its happiness and its misery, its failure and its success, was drawing to a close; and for the bulk of mankind, the cheerfuller side of life seemed, on the whole, to have come uppermost. Marion, as she gazedout of the window of the carriage (while her mother and Lady Flanders chatted about the London of forty years ago), meditated over all which this year had brought her of good and evil: and tried to determine with herself whether, taking the good and the evil together, she would have wished this year omitted from her life. At first, with the remembrance of recent pain and suffering still fresh within her, and the future still so uncertain and clouded, she thought that it would have been better for her if she had died that day that she saw Philip and Mr. Grant enter the gate of the old house in Hammersmith, and knock at the door. But when she began to recall more in detail all the events that had happened, she thought that, for so much happiness, all the pain was not too dear a price to pay. There was the picture in her memory of Philip telling them how he had cared for Major Lockhart, on the field of Waterloo: his voice had been tremulous as he told it, and his eyes had met hers with a sympathy so manly and so honest that her heart went out to meet it. Then had ensued that period when she withdrew herself from him, as it were, and was harsh and cold, from the untamed maidenhood that had divined its danger, and blindly sought to preserve itself at any cost. But oh! how sweet it had been to feel, day by day, that the struggle was in vain! What fear, what joy, what self-distrust, what hope, what secret tears! And then, that summer ride to Richmond, with Philip at her side; the banter, the laughter, the betraying tones and looks, the swelling tenderness that drowned resistance; and at last, the touch of hands, and the few words that meant so much! Surely, to have lived through such a day might compensate for many a day of pain.
Besides, the season of outward coldness and suspended confidence that had followed this, had been founded on nothing real, and had vanished at the firsttouch of reality. On that black night when she and Philip groped their way through midnight ways to avert, if it might be, the peril so mysteriously foreshadowed. Their spirits touched and recognized each other, and the terror of the crisis had only made the recognition more deep and firm. On that tragic night, love had avouched himself greater than all tragedy and sorrow; more true than they, and, unlike them, eternal. The flower of this love had she and Philip plucked, and had breathed its immortal fragrance. So much the year had brought her.
But then Marion fell to thinking about the months that had since elapsed, and the significance of their story. And the more she meditated, the more clearly did it appear to her that she, and not Philip, had been to blame. For why had she refused the legacy? From jealousy of Philip. But was her jealousy just? It had been a fancy merely, a vague suspicion, founded upon hints half understood and whimsically exaggerated. A woman who is loved has no right to say, “Because another woman is more beautiful or brilliant than I, therefore my husband will care more for her than he does for me.” For love is the divine Philosopher’s Stone, which transfigures that which it touches; and, for the lover, there is a beauty in his mistress before which the splendor of Helen of Troy or the Egyptian Cleopatra seem but as dust. And let her beware lest she so far vulgarize the dignity of love as to make it one with her own estimate of herself. As justly might the Song that Solomon sang rate its worth at that of the material forms and substances whereby it was conveyed from his mind to ours. As regarded Philip, moreover, how could he, being innocent of that which she suspected, have done otherwise than he did? For him to have yielded, would have been to acknowledge himself vulnerable. And again, what justification could she plead for the dissipatedand reckless life she had led since the difference of opinion between Philip and herself? None, none! It had been the ungenerous revenge which, to requite open defeat, goes about to rob the victor of the comfort of his victory. Still less defensible was this last act of hers, to which the present disastrous state of things was immediately due. To gain an end which she had ostensibly given up, she had put herself in a predicament fairly open to the worst interpretation; and then, when her husband had demanded the explanation which was his right, she had defiantly refused to give it. When a woman like Marion begins to be repentant and forgiving, she allows herself no limits; and by the time the carriage had reached Hammersmith, Marion was disposed to consider herself the most reckless and culpable of wives, and Philip the most injured and long-suffering of husbands. But where, alas! was Philip, that she might tell him so?
They turned down the well-remembered little side street, and in another minute the carriage had drawn up before the iron gate, to which, so long ago and yet so recently, Marion had fastened the card with “To Let” written on it, which had been the means of bringing her and Philip together. The footman jumped down, opened the carriage door, and let down the steps; he assisted Mrs. Lockhart to alight, and gave her his arm up the walk. Marion followed with Lady Flanders. The old house looked forlorn, though a care-taker had been left in charge of it; the windows were dull and bare; the cedar of Lebanon had scattered its dry needles over the path and grass-plot: the knocker was tarnished, the foot-scraper red with dust. The footman lifted the knocker to rap; but before the stroke sounded, the door was opened from within.
Marion heard her mother give a little exclamation of surprise and pleasure, and then say something, in wordsshe did not distinguish. She raised her eyes languidly: but the broad back of the liveried footman intercepted her view. Lady Flanders, however, whose vision was not thus obstructed, gave a start, and cried out, “Why, d—— him, there he is!”
The footman’s back disappeared, and in its place Marion’s gaze absorbed the vision of a tall dark figure, a white face, black, exploring eyes, disheveled hair,—all suddenly kindled up and vivified by a flash of poignant delight. She remained standing erect on the lower step, and, without removing her wide, breathless gaze, she slowly raised her hands, and clasped them together against her heart.
“Mr. Lancaster,” said Lady Flanders, in a high, sharp tone, “help your wife into the house, can’t you! she’s feeling faint. You ought to be more careful how you play off your surprises on a woman in her condition. Why didn’t you let us know you were going to be here? Come, Mrs. Lockhart,” she added, seizing the latter by the arm and drawing her in-doors, “let us get up stairs and take off our bonnets. That’s the way with these young married people! They can’t meet after a separation of twelve hours without going into such heroics and ecstasies as would make one think they had been dead and returned to life again, at least! Leave ’em to themselves, and perhaps in half an hour they’ll be able to recognize our existence.”
In this way the wise old woman of the world, who had comprehended the situation at a glance, at once parried whatever inconvenient inquiries Mrs. Lockhart might have made, and afforded an opportunity to Philip and Marion to enjoy their explanation and reconciliation in private, away from the inspection of footmen and other ignorant and inquisitive persons. When she got up stairs, and before she removed her bonnet, she took out a large silk pocket-handkerchief, and blew her nose;and for some time made no articulate rejoinder to the serene little observations which Mrs. Lockhart kept offering.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
“How did you happen to be here, my dearest?” said Marion, in the course of the interview. “Did you know we were coming?”
“I have been here for several days, I believe,” answered Philip: “I hardly know how long, or when the days begun or ended. I did not know where to look for you, darling, and it seemed most natural to come here, where we loved each other first.”
“Oh, my Philip! and were you thinking I was wicked all that time?”
“No, thank God! I don’t think I ever seriously believed that. But one day, before I came here, I saw Tom Moore; he came up to me, and said he wanted to say something to me in private. So we walked across the park, and pretty soon I found that he was talking about you. From that moment I remember every word he uttered. ‘Mr. Lancaster,’ he said, ‘you’ll do me the credit to believe that I’m a man of honor and a gentleman, and the good name of a lady is sacred to me. I have admired and reverenced Mrs. Lancaster since first I had the honor to be in her presence; and though, to be sure, ’twas mighty small notice she ever took of me, my nature is not so petty that a slight to my vanity can obscure my judgment or dim my perception.’ Then he went on to tell me all about meeting you at Vauxhall, and what a state of excitement you were in, and how he hurried you out of sight, and put you into a carriage, and then went and got Sir Francis; and how you all drove to the inn in Pimlico, and afterwards how he saw you safe home with your maid. Then he said that tortures would never have unsealed his lips on the subject; but he had learned that, in some way, a rumorhad got abroad that you were seen there. Whereupon he had deemed it due to his honor as a gentleman, as well as to his consciousness of integrity and innocence, to come to me at once, in a frank and manly way, and give me to know at first hand all there was to be known of the matter. It was very eloquent and chivalrous,” added Philip, “and at any other time I might have laughed: as it was, I just thanked him, and we bowed to each other and parted; and I came here.”
“It seems like coming up out of the grave,” said Marion, musingly. “And now, my poor Philip, after all our quarreling and trouble, what do you think has happened? The Marquise is going to sue for your money; and Lady Flanders says she’s afraid the law may give it to her.”
“Will the Marquise do that?” said Philip, arching his eyebrows.
“So Merton Fillmore says: and he is to conduct her case.”
“Well,” said Philip, beginning to smile, “she could not have done anything that pleases me better; for I have gained much wisdom since I saw you last, and am as anxious to be rid of that burden as ever you were. So, if you agree, my darling, we’ll give her the twenty thousand pounds, without putting her to the trouble to sue for it: for there’s only one kind of wealth worth having, and that is what I have been enjoying ever since I caught sight of you on the doorsteps.”
“But, Philip, you know we have spent ever so much money on that miserable house in town. What are we to do about that? for the money from ‘Iduna’ will not be enough to pay it.”
“Why, that is all right, too,” said Philip, laughing: “for, though I had forgotten it till this moment, Lord Seabridge, who is not expected to live more than a week, said when I saw him the other day that he put fivethousand pounds in his will for me, ‘just to buy my wife a present.’ We can pay our debts with that, and still have a few hundreds left to begin life again in this old house.” He put his arm round her waist, and added, looking down at her, “You won’t object to my receiving that legacy, will you?”
“Oh, Philip!” said Marion, with a long sigh, hiding her face on his shoulder; “I wish.... I think.... I hear my mother and Lady Flanders coming down stairs!”