So absorbed was Alston in his rumination, that it was not until he felt Helen's gentle touch upon his shoulder that he was aware of her presence.
'Has my melancholy been infectious?' said she, bending tenderly over him, and bringing her face close to his. 'Is it possible that what I said about your going could have turned your thoughts in the same direction?'
'Not at all,' said he, with a half smile; 'my thoughts were of quite another kind. I was thinking--'
'Hush!' she said, laying her little hand softly on his lips. 'Don't say you were thinking of business; that hated rival displaces me in your mind far too much as it is, but to give up to it such moments as these would be sacrilege. I will be your sole consideration now, until--until--'
'Until the end of my life,' said Alston, passing his arm tenderly round her; 'and your jealousy of my absence and all those connected with it is a mere pretence, a playful pastime, as you very well know.'
'Let us settle it so,' said Helen, 'and quit the subject. Meanwhile,' she said, taking from her pocket a morocco case, 'I have a present for you, Alston, and one,' placing it in his hand, 'which I think you will like.'
He opened it, and saw gleaming on the blue velvet a plain but costly gold hunting-watch.
'Thanks, dearest one,' he said, taking it in his hand and looking tenderly up at her. 'I shall like it, because, by its aid, I shall check off every hour that brings me nearer to my home and to you.'
'Why, Alston,' said Helen, laying her hand tenderly on his, 'do you know that is quite a poetical sentence? I fear your reputation as a practical man would be lost for ever if it were known in Wall-street that you had given utterance to such a remark. But,' she added, taking the watch from him, 'it will have, I trust, a still stronger value in your eyes.'
She touched a spring, and the back flying open revealed an admirably executed coloured photograph, a likeness of herself; underneath was engraved the date, 'February 20th, 1871.'
'O, how glorious!' said Alston Griswold, with surprise. 'It is a wonderful likeness,' said he, after a little pause, during which he had been looking fondly at the picture; 'somewhat too sad and serious, perhaps, for my Helen.'
'It reflects the shadow of parting which hung over your Helen at the time it was taken, as the engraved date underneath will never cease to remind you; you see it, Alston, the one dark day in our married life.'
'You shall regard it in a very different light, dear one,' said her husband; 'you shall learn to look upon it as the day on which your husband entered into an undertaking by which his fortune was perfected, and he was left freed from the cares of business to devote the remainder of his existence to his wife and his home.'
'God grant it!' said Helen fervently. 'Each time that you look upon that picture, Alston, think upon what you have said just now, and come what may, make up your mind not to leave me alone again.'
'You speak of being alone, dear, as though you were on a desolate island, instead of in New York, surrounded by troops of friends.'
'I am always alone when I am without you; and as to friends, I am not sanguine as to their taking much interest in our affairs, or helping me to smooth any difficulties which may arise in my path.'
'There is one, at least, among them of whom you must not speak so lightly,' said Alston in a grave voice; 'one who has already been tried and proved himself in the highest degree trustworthy, and in whom my confidence is such that I am about to ask him for further proof of his friendship.'
Helen's glance shifted instantly from her husband's face and dropped upon the ground. She knew instinctively to whom he was alluding. Should she in that last moment give utterance to her detestation and distrust? Should she implore Alston to authorise her to deny herself to Mr. Warren, and entreat him to select some other friend as his agent in the transaction of any business which might be necessary between them? She paused for an instant in reflection. What reason could she give for such a course of action? What real and tangible ground of complaint had she against this man? None at all. A vague dislike, an undefined suspicion, were all she could bring forward; and these her husband's practical common sense would induce him, with all his love for her, to reject at once.
'I am glad that we possess such a friend, Alston,' said Helen, after a pause. 'I say "we," because, allied as we are, not merely formally but in heart, without the smallest shade of division between us, this mysterious unknown could not be your friend without, as it seems to me, being mine.'
'There is no mystery about me, dear one,' said Alston, 'for I am speaking of Trenton Warren; and as to his being your friend, he would only too gladly prove himself if you would give him greater opportunity of so doing.'
'Greater opportunity, Alston!' she cried. 'Have I then been remiss in--'
'Remiss in nothing which concerns the duties of a wife,' said he tenderly; 'only I thought I had noticed--it may have been imagination--that there was a certain coldness and avoidance in your manner towards Warren. He is himself somewhat of my temperament, Helen, engrossed in business, unaccustomed to make the polite advances common in society, and liable to take flight immediately if he did not find his attentions appreciated.'
The bitter word rose in Helen's mouth as she listened. 'I am sorry that Mr. Warren,' she commenced, and then better reflection came to her aid, and she broke off that sentence. 'I will not have you compare Mr. Warren to yourself,' she resumed, 'for there is no one like you in the world; but I have no doubt that Mr. Warren means very well, and I certainly had no intention of snubbing him, as you seem to fancy I have done.'
'That is spoken like my own true little wife,' said Alston. 'Then depend upon it,' he added, assuming an important air, which, under other circumstances, Helen would have found amusing, 'depend upon it that the knowledge of human nature which I possess would prevent my forming an intimate alliance with one who was not worthy of it, and I want you and Trenton Warren to be the best of friends. It will be the greatest comfort to me during my absence to know that I have left you in the charge of one who is worthy of the thorough confidence which we both equally place in him.'
'You--you are going to leave me in Mr. Warren's charge, Alston?'
'Why, Helen,' replied her husband, with a laugh, 'you speak as though you were a trembling captive and he a terrific gaoler into whose custody I was about to deliver you. When I say take charge, I mean simply this. During my absence it will be necessary that there should be some one to whom you can refer in any ordinary matters of your daily life, whom you can call into your council, and by whose decision you shall abide at any special crisis which that dear, unbusiness-like little brain might find itself unable to grapple with. For this confidential position there is no one so fitted as Trenton Warren. He knows both my private and my business affairs, has a cool clear head, and on more than one occasion has shown his devotion to my service. I have told him what is wanted of him, and he will accept the charge.'
Should she speak then? Should she seize what might be the last opportunity of declaring to him the dread, strong yet undefinable, which lay so heavy on her soul? Should she brave the chances of his raillery, his annoyance, even of his anger, by imploring him not to leave her in this man's power, not to give him any control whatsoever over her actions, avowing at the same time frankly that, while she suspected Trenton Warren of deceit and double dealing, she could give no reason but that internal consciousness which, however powerful in its operations, had no practical value.
No, she would not do this; she would not send him forth on that desolate journey amongst strangers with any doubt or distrust at his heart. Better for her to bear whatever unpleasantness there might be in her relations with this man rather than perplex her husband during his absence with an additional source of anxiety. So she looked at him with a soft smile and said:
'It will doubtless be all right, Alston; and Mr. Warren and I shall get on very well together. I suppose I have formed an exaggerated idea of the horrors of this absence of yours. Mrs. Hotchkins, whose husband is so frequently called over to the other side, says that the time slips away without one's noticing it; and that she is quite surprised when she hears the vessel bringing him is telegraphed at Sandy Hook. I don't think surprise is exactly the phrase which will express my feelings when I get that welcome news.'
'No, my love; but, then, you are not Mrs. Hotchkins. Nor have I, I hope, much in common with the eminent dry-goods man. But she is right, I daresay, as regards the quick passing of the time.'
'I suppose I shall hear from you constantly, Alston?'
'Certainly, dearest; by every mail.
'And I suppose,' she said, glancing up at him with a demure look, 'that you will wish me to write to you occasionally?'
'Occasionally!' he cried. 'You must let me hear from you equally constantly. And, by the way, I have something to say to you about that--'
He checked himself just in time. He was on the point of explaining to her the arrangement he had made that all her letters to him should be sent under cover to Warren, but he thought it better to keep silence. Her simple nature never would understand the business necessity which induced him to adopt another name during his stay in England, in order that the nature and extent of his operations might not become known in Wall-street, and thus influence the position of certain transactions in which he was already known to be deeply engaged. Her trust in him he flattered himself, was beyond question; but as he had never suffered her to have the slightest knowledge of business matters (with which indeed she had shown no inclination to meddle), she could not be supposed to comprehend that what he intended to do was what was constantly done for the purpose of preventing one's rivals from getting a trade advantage, but would look upon it as a deception which no honourable man ought, under any circumstances, to permit himself to practise.
Alston Griswold then made up his mind that he would not intrust his wife with this part of his intentions on the spot, but would send her word of it only by the letter of instructions which he had already written, and which, on the eve of his departure and well on board the ship, he would give to Warren to take to her. Warren was aware of and approved of his project of taking a false name; and Warren's judgment was, in Alston's eyes, indisputable. He would defer letting Helen know about it until he was safely out of reach of objection.
'You said you had something to say to me about that,' said Helen, recalling him to the conversation; 'you seem to have fallen into a reverie.'
'It was but a temporary one, dearest, and is immediately dispelled by the sound of your voice,' said Alston Griswold, rousing himself. 'We were talking about your letters to me, and what I want to say to you is this, that you must write every day.'
'Every day!' cried Helen, in astonishment. 'There is not a mail every day, Alston; you would receive several by the same post, and find quite a jumble of news.'
'Nevertheless, you must write every day,' he said with a smile, 'though what you write need not be posted; and as to letters, I do not intend you to send me letters at all; I intend you to keep a diary.'
'A diary!' she echoed; 'I never did such a thing in my life. I have begun a dozen, kept them up bravely for the first day or two, forgotten them for a week, and then descended into a series of entries "nothing particular."'
Griswold laughed. 'That was because you had other things to engross your mind; now I hope your diary will be your one absorbing topic. It will be the sole record I shall ever see of your daily life, which, though absent, I hope and know I shall in a certain sense fill, and it therefore must be all-interesting and all-important to me.'
'You have thoroughly studied my weak points, Alston,' said Helen, with a smile, 'and know that that is an argument that I cannot withstand--the journal shall be kept.'
'Kept from day to day, copiously and full of detail,' said her husband; 'do not omit anything because you may think it trivial or uninteresting; the trivialities are probably what will interest me most. Let me be able to follow your life from day to day through all the familiar hours of it, and thus endeavour to cheat myself out of the sense of separation.'
As he spoke these last words, he bent down, and encircling her with his arms, pressed her to his heart. 'Now let us go and see the child,' he said--'my little unconscious rival. If she had not existed, you would have accompanied me on this trip to the old country, and I consider myself exceedingly generous in still retaining my affection for her.'
The Cuba was advertised to sail at three P.M., but early the next morning the house in Fifth-avenue was astir, and with all the bustle and confusion occasioned by its master's impending departure. Huge boxes, packages of coats and rugs and piles of clothing, removed from drawers and submitted to inspection before being packed, lumbered up the passage; heterogeneous articles, from paper parcels up to portmanteaus, were continually arriving, their bearers bringing with them little notes, the writers of which expressed their hope that they were not giving their friend too much trouble in asking him 'just to take this across with him;' friends who lived in the neighbourhood, and did not care to take the trouble of going down to the ship, dropped in to say good-bye, and were found wandering all over the house in search of its owner.
And in the midst of all this confusion and all this crowd, Helen drifted purposelessly about, spoken to by everybody, but scarcely comprehending what was said to her, and when replies were desired, answered them vaguely, her eyes filled with tears, her heart sinking more and more within her as she watched the hand creeping round the dial, and bringing nearer and nearer the hour at which her husband was to start.
It had been originally intended that she should accompany Alston to the ship and take leave of him on board, but she had abandoned that idea. It would have been impossible for her, she felt, to have maintained her calmness at such a moment, and for his sake, as well as for her own, she determined on not making the attempt.
And now the time had come! She saw it in his face as he slowly made his way up the stairs to where she stood in the doorway of her boudoir--her own room where they had spent such happy times, and from the wall of which his portrait was even then looking at her with something of a sad expression.
Alston took her by the hand and drew her gently into the room, closing the door behind him.
'The carriage is at the door, darling,' he said in broken tones, 'and I have not given myself much more than time to get across to the Cunard wharf. For both our sakes let us make this scene of parting as short as possible. My darling, my own heart's darling, God bless and protect you! Recollect the diary; let it be begun tomorrow and write it fully and freely. Once more, my own one, farewell!'
He held her yielding form to his heart, pressed one long, long kiss upon her lips, and was gone.
When the carriage drove into the yard of the Cunard wharf in Jersey City, Alston Griswold saw at a glance that half New York had come to see him off. He had caught sight of several friends on board the ferry-boat, but had no idea of their real number until they clustered round him as he alighted. Wall-street, of course, was well represented. There was Uncle Dick, rubicund and genial, smacking his lips as though the flavour of the terrapin which he had eaten for luncheon at the corner of Chambers-street still hung about his palate; and at his elbow, of course, was bright-eyed handsome Billy Barstow, with his hand on every one's shoulder, and his rich voice proclaiming every one to be his 'dear old boy,' ready, not merely by word, but in deed, to do universal kindness. And there was Alf Macgregor, the banker, whom no amount of American citizenship could deprive of his keen honest Scottish look and sharp incisive accent, and Willersheim and Schönbrunn, and all the Hebraic-German clique, and scores of others, to many of whom Alston Griswold had 'done a good turn,' and all of whom wished him well.
There was to be a final drink--a parting bumper of champagne--in the saloon, and, followed by the enthusiastic crowd, Alston made his way on board. But first he took a look at the chief-steward's cabin, which had been retained for his use, and which he found literally overflowing with baskets of flowers and floral offerings in pretty and quaint devices. Some of these were anonymous tributes, others bore the owners' cards; but there was one on which his eye at once rested--a large circular basket of primroses, with, in its centre, made of the freshest and choicest violets, 'Come back.' It did not give Alston Griswold much trouble to know who was the donor of that basket, or how fervent was the prayer expressed in that gift. This thought was put to flight by the arrival of Billy Barstow, who came to inform Alston that the champagne was ready in the saloon and that he alone was waited for.
'Give him two minutes with me first,' said Trenton Warren, suddenly looking over Barstow's shoulder. 'I want to speak to him on business, Billy, and I will then hand him over safely to you convivial boys.'
'I was looking anxiously for you, Trenton,' said Griswold, when Barstow had retired; 'I want, as you know, to make you the recipient of my last words. Here,' taking it from his pocket and handing it to his friend, is the final letter of instructions for Helen, telling her, among other matters, that her letters are to come to me under cover from you. 'I count upon you to place this in her hands yourself.'
'You may rely upon my doing so,' said Warren.
'And at once, if you please,' said Griswold.
'By at once you mean to-day,' said Warren. 'Have you told Mrs. Griswold to expect a visit from me?'
'No, I have not; but that need make no difference, you know.'
'Of course not,' said Warren. 'Anything more?'
'Yes,' said Griswold, taking a slip of paper from his pocket, 'the name under which I propose to pass in England.'
Warren took the paper and glanced at it.
'All right,' he said, with a smile, 'that will do very well; not remarkable and yet not suspiciously common for a man doing big business--we consider it adopted. Now we must hurry to the saloon, the time is just up.'
The saloon was reached, the God-speed toast was drunk with all the honours, Warren and the New Yorkers returned to the shore, and the big ship noiselessly and almost invisibly headed into the stream and stood away upon her ocean voyage cheerily, cheerily.
'He had not warned her that I should come to-day,' said Trenton Warren to himself, as he landed from the ferry at Desbrosses-street, 'so that I shall not attempt to intrude upon her grief. The delivery of the letter will do very well to-morrow, and will give me a night during which to deliberate on my plan of action.'
The next day about noon Trenton Warren called at the house in Fifth-avenue, and was told by the servant that Mrs. Griswold was not well enough to receive visitors.
'Take her this card, if you please,' he said quietly, 'and tell her that I am the bearer of a message from Mr. Griswold.'
In a few minutes the servant returned.
'Walk this way, if you please,' she said; 'Mrs. Griswold will see you.' And muttering to himself, 'I thought so,' Trenton Warren marched onward to the assault.
'I am to write my letters to him, Alston says, in the form of a journal, so that when I send them off each week, he may be able "to follow my life from day to day through all the familiar hours of it, and so to cheat himself out of the sense of separation." These are Alston's words, not mine; I have it not in me to think these thoughts, and so the words would not come.
'And why, I wonder? Am I a heartless woman, or ungrateful, or only commonplace, and unable to understand the way in which things present themselves to Alston? At all events, it will do me no good to think about myself; I shall come to no better liking for myself, to no clearer conclusion about myself, by questions of this kind. If I cannot quite understand him, I can at least perfectly obey him, and, please God, I will do that, as I have always done it; and as he has said I am to keep a journal, I will keep a journal. So I begin it thus, in an irregular and unskilful fashion, no doubt, but with the utmost sincerity of intention to write in it everything which can interest him (according to his scale and meaning of interest, not of my own), on the very day after his departure.
'As I know that nothing can be regularly done which is not done at a set hour, I will begin my journal with a rule for the writing of it. It is to be for Alston; it is to be his share in the day during his absence, and it shall be done during that hour when I was always with him, just before I went up-stairs to see baby fast asleep, and to go to bed myself; after every one was gone, when we had company at home; when we had returned, if we had been out, and when we compared notes of our impressions of the place and the people. In Alston's room, at Alston's desk, my letter-journal shall be written, and it may be I shall get over the shyness and the discomfort with which the notion of writing to him inspires me now, in the custom and familiarity of the time, and be able to persuade myself that I am only talking to him.
'This, of course, is not beginning; this is only a little rehearsal, what the jockeys call "a preliminary canter;" I shall start properly by and by. It is rather odd, when I come to think of it, that I have never written to Alston in my life, beyond one or two mere notes just before we married; and he found fault with them, and said they were stiff and formal, and such as I might have written to my writing-master, to show him how I had profited by his instructions, and how attentively I looked to my downstrokes and my loops. I remember thinking that though Alston said this in jest he was very nearly right, for I had made three or four fair copies of each note before I sent it, which was only my foolish girl's notion of respect for Alston after all, for I am sure I never copied out anything I ever wrote to Thornton in my life, but just sent it as it was, dashed off anyhow. This makes it all the more difficult to write to Alston now, and in journal form too; it is commencing a new correspondence and learning a new art.
'I have never written down any of the things that have happened to me; I have just let them slip by as if they were things in a picture or in a dream, and I am a good way on in my life now--a wife and a mother, to say nothing at all of my girlhood and the story that was in it, only a simple story, but the kind of thing women, I should think, remember always, and I suppose and hope it will be a simple story now until the end, until Alston and I shall bid baby good-bye in this world.
'And I hope that day will come for me before it comes for Alston, for I cannot imagine what I should do with or for baby without him. He says I am not a helpless but a useful woman, and could stand alone as well as the avowedly "strong" ones if I had to do it; but, I don't know, I think Alston is wrong; I fancy the only bit of strength I have about me is the power of hiding my weakness--well, there's some defence in that, after all. But O, the pain of knowing oneself to be a coward! the pain of feeling as I feel this horrid presentiment of evil in Alston's journey to England, of not being able to hide itquite. and to make the going, which he feels so much, a little easier to him!
'But this talking to myself is not beginning my journal. It is really very difficult to write the everyday history of one's life in a disjointed unpremeditated way. Here have I been sitting for the last twenty minutes staring at the paper, and not writing a line. I cannot bring myself before myself, as it were--something to be described and set down in black and white.
'What have I to tell Alston, except that I am writing in my room quite early in the morning--not as I intend to write in future, when all the house is quiet, and baby is still fast asleep? I could not sleep last night for loneliness and trouble, and this haunting something, which is not presentiment, I suppose, but merely nervousness, and which I must put down with resolution if I am to be cheerful and useful. This order of Dr. Benedict, that I am to give up nursing baby, is troubling me. I feel that he is right; I am not equal to it, and I should harm the child and myself; and yet I hate the very idea of putting a strange woman in my own place--a strange woman, just picked up by an advertisement! If this is to be my journal, it will be nothing but a list of grievances. Sometimes, ungrateful woman that I am, I think life is not much more.
'A happy idea has just occurred to me. Suppose I write my journal in a retrospective sense? Suppose I bring myself before myself as I was, and thus make it easier to take up the history of myself as I am? All the earlier portion will be for myself; and when I come abreast of the present time, I will write it for Alston.
'The notion pleases me; I had almost forgotten myself as I was, and now I shall live within my own sight over again. I have bought such a pretty book, in vellum binding, with gilded leaves and lock, and in that I am going to write the story of my childhood and my girlhood, for no eyes but my own--and Thornton's when I am dead, if he lives longer than I do, as Heaven grant he may--he, too, as well as Alston. I will shut myself up; I will see no one. I will work hard, and by this day week I shall have written up to the present and done my letter so as to mail it to Europe.'
Into her pretty book, in vellum binding, with gilded leaves and lock, Mrs. Alston Griswold pasted the foregoing prefatory pages; and then settled herself seriously to her task, and wrote as follows:
'My life commenced with the greatest misfortune which can signalise the beginning of any existence: My mother died shortly after my birth. How much more I should have had to remember, how many more pleasures, how much happiness, if I had ever been to any one what baby is to me! Every one was very kind to me, and I was a happy child; but there was nothing very particular in my childhood except about my going to school, and that is particular, because it brought Thornton and me together and did away with my loneliness. For I certainly was lonely when father was away at the Mills all day, and aunt Catherine busy all day long about the house, evidently finding me very much in the way, and so glad when papa sent me to bed early, and she could have those long talks with him, which, I felt certain, made papa so depressed and melancholy next day.
'If I were writing a novel now, and had to draw a picture of home--Holland Mills was its commonplace name--I wonder could I make it all picturesque and interesting? I don't think I could; and yet the long low green and white house was pretty--and the fields, the orchards, the river, were all beautiful to me. I could describe every part of the road between the Mills and the minister's house, Thornton's home--for Thornton's father was our minister, and his mother was our school-madam; but the minister did the most of the teaching.
'My place was beside Thornton on the very first day when aunt Catherine took me to school, and he became my friend and protector, and I his plague and oppressor, from that instant. What patience he had with me! and how naughty I was! I was a pretty child, and always very trim and neat: aunt Catherine never would have tolerated any untidiness or disorderly ways, and I regarded Thornton's plain features, much too large for his narrow face, and his untidy clothes, worn anyhow and much patched and darned, with great contempt. But Thornton soon made me ashamed of such a feeling. He helped me with my tasks, he even did some of them for me; he taught me to feel a moderate degree of interest in the subjects of our studies, in which he repeatedly shot far beyond me; he got me out of scrapes, and kept me out of mischief; he defended me against my adversaries, fought and punished them; he saved the life of my little dog, when it was drowning in the millstream, at the risk of his own (poor little Taffy! she is stuffed and under a glass case in Alston's study; and that is more of Alston's kindness to me, for I am sure he does not like her, and sheisn'tnaturally done); he stole apples for me, and he lent me his own skates in the ice-season, when aunt Catherine would not hear of my having a pair.
'I put these foolish-sounding trifling things down because I want to bring back to myself the assurance that Thornton was always like a brother to me.
'The first thing that I can remember as troubling the busy tranquillity of my school life was my coming to understand why aunt Catherine and papa always had so much to talk about, and why the talking never did them any good. I was growing up into a staid little person, as Alston says I am now, when the word "difficulties" began to be familiar to me. It never has the sad and hopeless meaning in America that it has in the old countries of Europe, I am told; but "difficulties" are not easy or pleasant anywhere, and papa was not a man to bear them well. He gave way very much, and I used to tell Thornton about it, and he and I used to consult together and discuss what could be done.
'Thornton had only one solution to offer; it was that he should marry me. This, he said, would save a great deal of expense, by taking me completely off my father's hands. But I saw that that plan would not be of much use, because some one must have given us something to live upon, and that some one would certainly not have been Thornton's father; for he was very poor, and Thornton was studying as hard as he could, that he might be able to go into business and assist his father. So that idea did not come to anything; and when we were a year older, and the "difficulties" were a year worse, Thornton got a situation in New York, and he and I parted.
'It was very hard--very hard indeed--to part: I don't mean to deny that or to make any mistake with myself about it; but I do wish to assert most distinctly, though only for my own satisfaction, that there never was any engagement between Thornton and me.
'I know Thornton loved me as a man loves a woman whom he would make the partner of his life--as Alston loves me, but without Alston's curious notion of the essential difference and distance between men and women. Thornton, though a highly-cultivated man, thought me perfectly capable of understanding the best of his studies, if not of following their details, of sharing his interest in every sense; but Alston could not think thus, and though he is most tender and indulgent, he is not confidential. I should be the most ungrateful of women were I to murmur; but I do wish sometimes for a little more confidence, even at the cost of a little less indulgence.
'But I am wandering from my intention to record exactly what was the state of things between Thornton and me when our schooldays came to an end, and he went to take a small post with but poor pay at New York. I know that he loved me--that was frankly acknowledged between us; but there was no thought that we should marry, then or ever. I loved him too; but not with love such as I have heard and read of, but have never known; love which must mean misery, I think, because it causes one to sacrifice duty, and common sense and all one's obligations towards other people, to its own imperious claims. I knew that I could not be Thornton's wife without harming him and all concerned; and that, however much I might believe that it would be the happiest fate to be his wife, happiness of that particular kind, was not destined to be mine. I do not say our parting was not sad, but I am quite safe in saying that it was not bitter.
'A little while after Thornton went away to New York I first saw Alston. He came to Holland Mills on some business connected with papa's affairs, and merely in a business capacity. My father and he had not met previously, and we knew nothing of him except that he was a prosperous merchant of New York, and I think we had a little of the sense of shrinking and depression--I mean aunt Catherine and I had--which comes to unprosperous people in the sight of those whose lot is far different. A very little time, a very brief acquaintance with Mr. Griswold, did away with such a feeling as this, and turned him into a friend.
'My father took to him from the first, and as to aunt Catherine, I never knew her to like any man who was not a minister so much, or to believe in him so implicitly. He brought relief and cheerfulness with him, that was plain, and at first all he did was quite for papa's sake. After a while, he began to care very much about me, and, like a gentleman, as he is in everything, he told me that he loved me, and hoped I might in time come to love him well enough to marry him, but that I must not regard the matter as having anything whatever to do with the efforts he was making on my father's behalf. He would continue them as zealously as ever, whether I decided for or against him.
'I can never forget how Alston appeared that day. I had not thought about loving him, though of course I knew, as every woman knows such things, how he felt towards me; but when he spoke this to me, I felt that it would not be hard to love such a man, and that it would be a blessed fate to become his wife.
'He did not press me for an answer then; he said I must consider it until his next visit, and I promised him that I would do so. But before his next visit, ah, what a change had fallen on us all! My father had met with a terrible accident in the mill; he was hopelessly injured, and when Alston came it was to see him on his deathbed.
'The last hours of my dear father would have been very sad had it not been for Alston. All was confusion in his affairs; there had not been time to disentangle them, as Alston was striving to do, and he could not have died in peace without the assurance which Alston gave him that aunt Catherine and I should be well cared for. He would not tell my father that he had asked me to marry him, because he feared my father might ask me for a promise made tohimself, and so fetter the freedom of my will; but when I understood this reticence and the high honour that dictated it, and how much it would rejoice my father and take the sting from his death to know that I should be safe, withsuchsafety, I told him in Alston's presence that he had asked me to be his wife, and that I had reserved the answer until now. My father placed my hand in Alston's, and from that moment I believe not one care belonging to this world troubled him. He told aunt Catherine that he did not wish any needless delay to be made about the marriage, that it should take place when a decent time should have elapsed after his death.
'When the sad funeral was over, as soon as I could bear to see him, I told Alston all about Thornton. The "all" was not very much, but he still more fully proved to me that he was a high-minded man by the way in which he heard it, and the unasked promise which he gave me that Thornton's interests should also be his care. He could not do anything to help him just then, without sending to New York for him (I have omitted to mention that Thornton had got a better berth than his first, and gone to New Orleans), but there was something which he had in view that he thought would exactly suit him likely to turn up after a while.
'He wished me to write at once to Thornton and tell him of my approaching marriage, but not to mention his intention of serving him; that, he said, would come more graciously afterwards. I did write to Thornton, but he did not answer my letter until he addressed me as Alston's wife, and then I did not hear from him again for a long time--he had gone on a trip to the Dominion for his employers--not until just before baby was born.
'But I am not jotting down my own story, for, after all, there is not much of Thornton in that, though I seem to put a great deal of him in this. Our wedding was a very quiet one, and on my wedding-day I took leave of the Mills.
'Alston wound up all poor papa's affairs, sold the place, paid the debts, and arranged for aunt Catherine's boarding at Mrs. Broom's very near our house in New York. Alston proposed, in his delicate generous way, to make aunt Catherine's allowance appear to come from the sale, that she should still suppose herself to be under obligation to her brother only; but I soon made him understand that would be a hopeless attempt. There is not a better head for business in the States than aunt Catherine's, and she understood papa's affairs as well as he did; she could not have been misled about the origin of a dollar.
'But, as I told Alston, she and I are not of the mean sort who hate to be obliged to a friend because we feel ourselves incapable of gratitude; we both accepted his kindness as loyally as he offered it, and I don't think there is a happier old lady in New York than aunt Catherine--with baby, who has cut me out completely, to come and see, and unlimited sermons to listen to--Mrs. Broom's boarding-house goes in for ministers, and they have several denominations there.
'I was bewildered when Alston brought me home. It took me some little time to get accustomed to the luxurious house and the stir of society, and even to the fact of living in a city. I felt too small, too young, and too ignorant. But Alston helped me, Alston encouraged me, Alston had perfect patience with me; and if he would only have made me more of a confidant, and less of an idol, I should have had not one unfulfilled wish.
'All this shall be for his return, please God. I am growing older so rapidly, so much older than is told by years, and when he sees me a sensible mother, he cannot help thinking I am fit to be regarded as a wise wife.
'But I must stop. It is baby's bed-time, and I can go on when she and I are dressed, until lunch. This really must be put in journal form, "posted up" to yesterday, before to-night, that I may keep my promise to Alston--the promise he asked me with almost his last kiss--"You will be sure to begin to-morrow."'.
Helen Griswold laid down her pen; placed the sheet of paper which she had just covered with her neat writing in a drawer of her davenport; ranged her natty desk implements, and then, resting her chin in the palms of her hands and looking wistfully before her, she fell a-thinking. Was the sense of her husband's absence growing real and painful? Had the effort of this unwonted method of communication with him roused her to a realisation of the great change that had fallen upon her daily life? Perhaps so. But there was more perplexity than pain in Helen's face, and Griswold's departure, though painful, was in no way perplexing. There was something lurking in her mind to-day--there had been something lurking in her mind yesterday--which she dreaded to call out and gaze upon in the open light.
After a little she rose restlessly, and with an impatient sigh, and passed into the adjoining room, where she found her infant just awake, and was soon absorbed in the pleasant duties and interest of her nursery. Then came a walk with the child and its nurse, and Helen reëntered her house, feeling composed and cheerful, and full of good resolutions for the wise disposition of her time during her husband's absence; a disposition by which she almost unconsciously provided for the elimination of the one disturbing depressing element.
She had just reached her room and was laying aside her bonnet when the servant brought a message from Mr. Warren. That gentleman requested that he might be admitted to her presence, and said that he had come upon special business from Mr. Griswold.
'He knows how to make me receive him,' Helen thought bitterly; and her eyes flashed and her brows contracted. 'He knows I cannot let the maid take a refusal to such a plea as that.'
'Tell Mr. Warren I will be with him in a few minutes,' she said; and went on mechanically arranging her dress.
As she was fastening her linen cuffs, she was reminded of the trifling incident of the finding of the sleeve-link, and it occurred to her that the ornament in question belonged to Trenton Warren. Surely it was a carved gem; one of a pair which she had seen him wear, respectively representing the heads of Hebe and Ganymede. She was glad to have recollected this circumstance; it would give her something indifferent, something safe, to talk about. She looked about for the link; she had taken it out of her pocket the night before, and laid it down on her dressing-table. It was not there. She called her maid, and asked her if she had noticed a gentleman's sleeve-link in the ring-tray. Her maid replied that she had seen it, and supposing it to belong to Mr. Griswold, she had slipped it into his dressing-bag just before he closed it. Mrs. Griswold remarked carelessly that it was rather provoking, that the sleeve-link was not Mr. Griswold's, but that it could not be helped, and it did not matter.
She lingered, unwilling to go down, and hoping, when at length she could not defer doing so any longer, that as soon as Mr. Warren should have informed her of the nature of the business, real or pretended, on which he had come, some other visitor might arrive and interrupt thetête-à-tête, which was extremely disagreeable to her in prospect and most ill-timed.
It was impossible longer to loiter, and Mrs. Griswold went down-stairs, her long dress trailing, her small head rather disdainfully held up and back, her countenance wearing an expression which all her customary associates, save one, would have regarded with surprise. In the presence of that one, whose ear had caught her first footfall upon the thickly-carpeted stairs, she stood in a few moments and his glance caught the unfamiliar expression and read it aright--without, indeed, its inmost meaning, its complications of origin, but still clearly enough.
Trenton Warren was standing in the same place from whence he had watched her so closely on the night which had so severely taxed his self-command and her patience.
He was handsomely dressed in his usual accurate unexaggerated style, in a light gray morning suit, and he had an air of perfect leisure about him, simple leisure which was not without its charm.
It was the kind of manner which pleases women who live in a business atmosphere, among men who are generally either occupied or over-tired; it said so intelligibly, 'Here I am entirely devoted to your service, having got everything off my mind but yourself.'
As all the women of his acquaintance knew Trenton Warren to be as busy a man as his fellows, the compliment was real, and so the manner was effective. He was decidedly liked by women; perhaps the solitary exception to that rule was the one woman for whom he wore this manner most elaborately, most watchfully, most invariably. But Helen Griswold did not like even the air of leisure which was so captivating to other women. It had the misfortune to link itself to the one drawback, the one discomfort, the one injury of her life, and so, woman-like, she distorted its meaning, she refused its tribute.
He, too, she bitterly thought, had the presumption to regard her as an ornament, as a being incompetent to fill a serious and sympathetic place in her husband's life; he, too, held that women should be excused from business, and so he came to her a totally unreal creature, a drawing-room lounger, with malice in his quiet smile and insulting depreciation under his deferential address, and the acquiescence in her uselessness which encouraged Alston in his one fault, and made her heart sick with a powerless anger, to which her unerring woman's instinct, as she called it--the least trustworthy guide any woman can follow except within a very limited track--assured her that Trenton Warren was perfectly conscious.
He had never found her in a less conciliatory humour than on the present occasion. The undefined struggle in her own heart, the signs that a great change was passing over her, the introspection which had been so entirely foreign to her mind and habits, the little lingering bitterness which had mingled with the solemn tenderness of a parting with Alston, imparted into it by her feeling that she in reality knew nothing about the purpose and details of the business which was taking him so far away from her for so long; all this had prepared her to receive his visit with anything but welcome. And as he looked at her he knew that, too, and she saw that he knew it.
Helen Griswold was not sufficiently a woman of the world to be mistress of those fine shades of manners which are such powerful weapons on the woman's side of social warfare; but she conveyed to Trenton Warren with quite sufficient accuracy a sense that she expected him to deliver his message and go, before they had exchanged two sentences. She did not take her customary seat, but placed herself on an ordinary chair in an attitude which had a provoking coolness about it; and she looked over, not at Trenton.
He had seen her husband later than she had; her husband's parting words had been for him; would she not display some curiosity as to the final interview--some interest? Not she; not a jot! So he made up his mind at once that he would not use anyménagementswith her, but show her at once and plainly the position in which 'that enviable ass, Griswold'--for thus Mr. Trenton Warren called his confiding absent friend in his thoughts--had placed her.
'You have some business to be communicated to my husband, I believe?' said poor Helen, with her very best imitation of slightly patronising unconcern.
'O dear, no,' replied Warren, putting his hand into his breast-pocket and taking out a letter. 'I have no business to communicatetoMr. Griswold; my commission isfromhim.'
`To me?' The colour flushed over her face.
'To you,' he answered with a bow, and then went on without looking at her, his eyes bent on the letter in his hand. 'You are aware that I met Mr. Griswold at the steamer. He had some last words to say to me--last words which gratified me very much, Mrs. Griswold, because they proved the sincerity and genuineness of his confidence in me; he intrusted me with--'
'That letter, which I can see from here is addressed to me. Please to give it to me sir!'
He glanced at her very slightly, smiled also very slightly, and laid the letter on the table, by her side. She had not made the least gesture like taking it from his hand.
'I thank you,' she said, but did not take up the letter. 'I thought my husband had given me his final instructions; but perhaps he had forgotten something. I am sorry you should have had the trouble of coming during business hours.' Then with a total change of tone, 'I think you lost a sleeve-link here the other evening, which I picked up; but most unfortunately it has--'
'Excuse me, Mrs. Griswold,' said Warren, in a firm tone, 'if in my turn I interrupt you. I have something to say, and I do not wish to turn to irrelevant matter's until it has been said. I did not come here merely to bring you a letter, which I might have sent you by a messenger; I came here for a more serious purpose, which may or may not be corroborated by Mr. Griswold's letter--I know nothing of its contents--to tell you that your husband has intrusted you to my care, and wished you to refer to me in his absence in any case in which you might experience difficulty or require advice.'
So far Helen had heard him with varying colour and a beating heart, half choked with anger and an undefined dread but now she rose, and laying her hand upon the letter, said, in an unsteady voice, 'Your communication is an extraordinary one, Mr. Warren. I think--I think you can hardly expect me to say that it is welcome. I would rather read my husband's letter before I hear more.'
'You wish me to leave you?' asked Warren, who had risen when she rose, but made no sign of an intention to go away.
'I do.'
'I cannot obey you, Mrs. Griswold. Let me beg that you will resume your seat and listen to me. I am an unwelcome visitor, I know, and you take my communication badly for some reason which I do not understand, but which I hope to surmount.'
He controlled himself perfectly; his tone was quite deferential, and not the faintest, most flickering smile passed over his face.
She had slowly reseated herself, and sat holding the letter and looking at him with a fixed frown.
'Griswold felt this parting, in more than its sentimental aspect, very seriously--he thought of your position gravely, and of your inexperience and habitual dependence upon him for guidance. He deputed me, as his most intimate friend--indeed, the only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the business which has taken him to England--to act for him in several affairs here--things with which I need not trouble you--and to take care of you and baby; I use his own words. In the first place, I must apprise you that all your letters to your husband--the charming daily record which you have promised him' (Helen started and winced with pain. That her husband should have talked so familiarly of her with any man--with this man of all men!)--'must reach him through me.'
'Through you? I do not understand what you mean.'
'Then I will make my meaning plainer. Every letter which you write to your husband must be sent to my office, under cover to me, to be forwarded from thence. Such are Griswold's explicit directions. Please to look at this memorandum.'
He laid a leaf, torn from a note-book, before her; it bore these words:
'All letters written to me by my wile, or sent to my private address to be forwarded, are to be sent under cover to Trenton Warren to his office, when he will dispatch them to me.'
'ALSTON GRISWOLD.'
'I see,' said Helen, 'that your statement is correct, that Mr. Griswold has made this extraordinary arrangement, and that, much as I dislike it I am bound to conform to it. But you, Mr. Warren,youare bound to explain it. Have the goodness to do so.'
'Ah, ha!' he replied, with a shrug of the shoulders, full of impertinent depreciation to her angered eyes; 'that, I regret to say, it is not in my power to do!'
'What, do you pretend that after your last words with my husband, after undertaking the charge he laid upon you, after bringing me this letter and this memorandum, you do not know why Mr. Griswold made such an arrangement?'
'Pardon me, I do not pretend, I do not say, anything of the sort. I am perfectly well aware of the motive which led to Mr. Griswold's making the arrangement which is unpleasant to you, but which I am constrained to commend as a wise and proper one. I merely say that I regret that it is not in my power to inform you of his reasons.'
'You refuse to tell me; you acknowledge that you are in my husband's confidence more completely than I am--you tell me so in fact, commending his unexplained directions to me--and you expect me to tolerate all this. For what do you take me, Mr. Warren?'
The struggle in Helen's mind and feelings while she spoke these brave-sounding words was severe. Under the smooth leisurely manner of Warren there was an ill-disguised consciousness of power which frightened her, and there was that nameless something that had already been haunting her. She was not exactly a courageous, but she was a singularly sincere woman, and there is always more or less bravery in truthful actions. She made a sudden resolution even while her blood was cold, as she asked the question of herself: 'Has Alston put himself in this man's power?' She would quarrel with Warrenà l'outrancethen and there. She would put an end to this evil influence in her life; it should haunt her no longer. She would justify herself to Alston if he blamed her by confiding in him, as she had not yet done by telling him, the inmost dread of her heart. If he treated it as a folly, she would say let it be a folly in his eyes,let it be a folly of hers, which she should look to him to respect. A full presentiment and an intimation which she truly and fully believed (there was a dash of superstition about Helen Griswold)--with which women with more mind than any one who has taken the trouble to develop, and an unconsciously unsatisfied heart one occasionally possessed--told her that in an utter breach with this man, a determined stand against him, lay her only safety. She would make the utter breach now on the spot; she would take a determined stand.
With the wonderful quickness of thought, all this passed through her mind, and her resolution was taken before Trenton Warren answered her angry question, which he did with considerable deliberation. He too, had been making a resolution; he, too recognised this interview as a crisis in his relations with this woman--this woman so beautiful in his sight, so captivating, so far removed--unless, indeed, his skill and daring, his 'good play,' as he called it ii his inmost thoughts, chanced to bring her near. The events of that morning had curtailed. the space between them in an unexpected, unlooked-for manner. And he entirely misinterpreted the irrepressible symptoms of emotion in Helen's manner. He saw hat, with all her braving out of the position she was afraid of him; and, as he judged her only from the shallow depths of his own consciousness, as one who did not love her husband with passion, and therefore did not love him at all, it never occurred to him that she feared him for her husband's sake--he sought and found a meaner motive for her fear. Why should she fear him? Why should she shrink from the notion of his influence with the husband she assuredly did not love, if she were unconscious that he had not an influence over herself which she dreaded? Fear comes not of indifference, nor is one with disdain! The hope which he had secretly cherished in his treacherous breast in a smouldering state for months past sprang up into a flame under the influence of Helen's misinterpreted anger. The mental process in his case was as swift as in hers, and it was after only a brief pause between question and answer that he replied to her.
'I refuse to tell you, Mrs. Griswold. It is impossible that I should violate your husband's injunctions on this point, and I hasten to reply to your other question. I do expect you to tolerate my conduct, because youmustrecognise that honour dictates it, though you may not understand what it costs me; and I take you for the best of wives and the most fascinating of women.'
He approached her as he spoke with his hand held out, and a smile upon his face which drove the last faint scruples of prudence far from the exasperated woman whom he had so thoroughly roused; but Helen rolled her chair some feet back upon the castors, and, with a slight wave of her hand, rejected his. Very beautiful she looked--more beautiful than he had ever seen her--her great eyes ablaze, so that they shone like jewels, as she said:
'AndItakeyoufor the falsest of men. You have always been my enemy, and I have always known it--known it so long and so well, felt it so constantly, that it is a relief to me to tell you so. Keep this secret from me! Do you think Alston will keep it, when I ask him to explain it to me? No; you know he will not, though you would have made me despise and distrust him, if you could. Yes, you would, and you tried, tried hard, for some purpose of your own--I do not know and I do not care for what purpose--to divide us utterly. You succeeded in part--thank God, only in part did you succeed! Alston would have made me his friend and confidant only for you. But you made him contemptuous of my intelligence; you persuaded him that women are unsafe in matters of business; you divided me from one-half my husband's life, and made it a mystery to me. But for you I should have been his companion in everything. I tell you, Mr. Warren, I distrusted you from the first. I saw you had an influence which you were using ill, I--'
'You did me the honour and yourself the injury of being jealous of me, Mrs. Griswold. It is a mistake which young wives are apt to make with respect to their husbands' friends, and one which frequently costs them a good deal.'
'I was not jealous of you,' she said indignantly. 'I could not entertain so base a feeling. Why should not Alston have friends, as many and as close as he pleased? But you were his enemy--not his friend; because you were my enemy; because you would have degraded me if you could--yes, degraded me, I repeat--by making my husband treat me as a toy or an indulged pet, not as an equal associate.'
'You are simply doing him a monstrous injustice,' said Warren, with a sudden abatement of sarcasm in his tone and manner, and a not unsuccessful assumption of hurt-feeling, of deferential explanatoriness; 'you are imputing that which is in the nature of the man to an external influence. Griswold is a very good fellow, and my best friend; but his notions of women, all his theories about them, differ from mine widely. He believes in the intellectual inferiority of women as he believes in their physical beauty, and likes it as much. Long before he married you, he told me a clever woman was, to his mind, an anomaly, and a clever wife a nuisance; that he did not believe any woman in the world could understand business or hold her tongue; and he meant to conduct his domestic relations, if he ever found any, on Hotspur's theory, and, while giving his wife all due credit for discretion, making sure that she "would not tell that which she did not know." This root of bitterness was none of my planting, nor have I watered it. You have spoken with harsh frankness to me, Mrs. Griswold; let me speak with frankness that shall not be harsh to you. I have contemplated your domestic life with pain--'
'Indeed, and why? It is an unenviable one.'
'So you believe, because you have little experience and an unawakened heart. If you only knew what home might be, and love, the love of a man to whom you would be more than the fairest of women, the dearest of friends, the most trusted of counsellors, the sharer of every feeling, the companion of every thought! Would not that be the ideal of earthly happiness?'
His voice had become low, tender, and persuasive, and his words had a strange influence on Helen. She seemed to forgethim, to be conscious of them only, to have been sent by them into a dream.
'Happiness more than earthly,' she said, as if to herself, hardly knowing that she spoke.
'Such happiness might have been yours. Be honest, be patient, be true with yourself and with me, and you must acknowledge that it could never have come with your marriage with Griswold. He is the best of fellows, but it is not in him to appreciate you. You are a woman for a man to love with his whole mind and with all the strength of his pride. If fate had made youmywife you would have been so loved.'
He moved a step nearer to her, and stepped before her, looking at her with eyes whose gaze she dared not meet.
'You may as well hear me out,' he went on, with a tremor in his voice; 'since your ill-placed suspicions have forced me to clear myself from the charge which you have brought against me, it is fair that you should listen to me. When you believed that I was estranging Griswold from you, undervaluing you to him, I was tortured with envy of his lot, and silent about you because I dared not speak to my friend of his wife lest he should--slow as his mind is, except when business is concerned--suspect that I loved her.'
'You are a wicked man,' cried Helen, rising from her chair and speaking almost inarticulately in a passion of rage, shame, and fear. The undefined thing which had been haunting her, the shadow with which she had refused to parley, the shapeless dread which had troubled the last hours of her husband's presence in his home, the phantom that had stolen to her side when she was recording the blameless thoughts of her innocent heart, had assumed form, consistency, and spoke to her with a human voice and undissembled speech. This, then, was what it had all meant, and the thing which she had feared had come upon her in a shape worse than her fears. It was this man's prejudice, continued dislike, that she had fancied were in the atmosphere of her home, tainting it, and filtering drops of poison into her cup of life; but now she found it was his love, his deadly, hateful, treacherous, dastardly love. Good God! How she loathed and feared him, for her husband had gone away and left her in this man's power. Without his aid she could not even communicate with him, and he--and he, he was free to write whatsoever he pleased to Alston. It said much for Helen's courage and principle that she never dreamt, in the moment when all this was fresh and clear and terrible before her, of any compromise. She would keep this man at defiance, she would brave him.
'You are a wicked man,' she said, 'a traitor to your friend, and a coward to me; you take a dastardly advantage of my unprotected position, and the blind confidence which my husband places in you, and you insult me in my solitude. Leave my house, sir, and send me at once my husband's address in England. I refuse to transmit my letters through you. I repudiate all acquaintance with you henceforth from this hour; and if you attempt to presume upon the mistake Alston has made, I shall inform him word for word of what has occurred today. Let me pass, sir, or I will ring for my servants!'
Warren bad interrupted her on her way to the door, and was standing before it, his hand behind his back pressed upon the upper panel.
'She did not say she would tell himwhether or no.' was his rapid reflection, and there was a gush of guilty hope in the thought, for this man believed women to be virtuous only in the degree in which also they were fools, and he held Helen to be no fool.
'I entreat you to pause,' he said gently, 'before you make a scandal in the house. I am resolved to speak to you, and nothing short of your making such a scandal can deter me. I have offended you by telling you the truth, only a little more deeply than you were previously offended. I am very unfortunate, but I have justified myself, and I repeat it; I love you--I love you as I have never even persuaded myself that I loved any other woman! I ask nothing--I seek nothing from you but the toleration of a sentiment which does you no dishonour, which is stronger than my will, for your husband's sake and your own.'
'And I tell you,' she cried, wild and reckless with anger, 'that I will not tolerate it, either for my husband's sake or my own, for itdoesme dishonour. It may be, as you say, that mine is an unawakened heart, but my conscience is unused to slumber' (in after days she remembered this fatal admission, and raged blindly and in vain against the impulse which had induced her to make it), 'and now I am not going to make any scandal, I am not going to endeavour to pass that door until you think fit to stand aside and no longer use virtual violence to me in my own house. See, I resume my seat; I shall retain it until you rid me of your presence; and I tell you quite plainly my determination. I demand of you my husband's address in England, and if you refuse to give it, I think it fair to warn you that I shall follow him to London by the next steamer; and once there, I shall have no difficulty in finding him.'
At the words 'I shall follow him,' Trenton Warren had started and left the door. He now turned abruptly to one of the windows, and stood there looking out, his face set and pale, for a full minute after she had concluded her slowly-delivered sentence.
When he turned to speak to her, she marked the whiteness of his face, and believed her threat had frightened him.
'Icannotgive you your husband's address,' he said. 'I can write to him, and telling him that you are dissatisfied--as doubtless your own letters will convey--advise him to intrust you with the truth concerning his business in London in every respect. But no matter what you threaten, or what you do, I cannot, I will not, depart from his wishes in this matter.'
He slowly approached her, but did not pass round the table which stood between them; then suddenly seated himself, and studiously averting his eyes from her--indeed, Helen Griswold never caught his glance again during the remainder of the interview--he went on speaking in a dogged tone.
'I have made a blunder, Mrs. Griswold, and made a fool of myself! I cannot unsay what I have said, for it is true; the explanation of all the past which has offended you is the offence of the present. I have loved you, but I may cease to love you by an effort. A man does not go on loving with any kind of love very long if he is quite without hope;and I am quite without hope.'
The emphasis on these words would have conveyed a warning to the ear of a practised woman of the world; to Helen they conveyed merely an assurance, a relief, a mitigation of insult.
'Suppose,' he continued, 'we discuss the matter reasonably, not so much in your interest or in mine, as in that of Griswold, your husband and my friend?'
'Your friend?'
'Yes, my friend. Women like you insist upon pushing everything to its extreme verge; because I am not the soul of honour, I must be a mere villain; because I love you, I must, in every other sense and way, be false to my friendship with your husband--a weak notion, a shallow judgment! Accept my assurance that you are mistaken, and let me go on. A total breach between us will only make Alston suspicious and unhappy, and, perhaps, morose. He is the sort of man to suspect that a cool man like me does not make love to a married woman without something like encouragement; another case of a weak notion and a shallow judgment. But I will relieve you of my presence. I will abandon the charge laid upon me by Griswold, which you so much resent, and he may never know it, until time shall have changed everything, enabled me to meet you with indifference, which has hitherto been impossible, and you to conquer your repugnance.'
In the evenness of his speech there was something artificial, which might have warned her had the temptation to snatch at the relief in his words been one whit less strong. But she heard no warning, only a blessed promise; only an indication that the cloud which had fallen upon her might be made to pass away, and leave a better and surer brightness than ever behind it.
'I will forgive, I will forget everything,' she said eagerly, and with a bright and beautiful blush, 'if you will go away and leave me; if you will never attempt to see me during Alston's absence. If I may be quite sure of that, and calculate upon it, I will never mention anything to him. It would be an awful pain to me to do so; it is an immense relief that you do not force me to tell it. I will send my letters through you; I will ask you no question, if you will promise me, when you pass that door to-day, I shall see you no more until Alston has returned!'
'And I have come to my senses. The terms are hard, but I accept them. Only you forget, Mrs. Griswold, that you are exacting a very difficult thing from me; the relinquishment of my business, the placing it in the hands of other people, for at least the same term as that of Griswold's absence.'
'Why, would you leave New York?'
'How could I remain in New York and never come here, break through all my former habits, and neglect every recognition of Griswold, without being suspected of a motive; and from the suspicion of a motive to the discovery of its nature the interval is very, very short. No, I must leave New York, where lots of men know how I stand with Griswold, and have been seriously supposed to stand with you. I will do so; but in your turn you must promise me, in addition to your forgiveness, absolute silence towards Griswold.'
'Of course,' said Helen impatiently. 'I only care that he may never have the pain of knowing.'
'You mistake me again. I do not allude to that, but to my absence from New York. Men are too busy, and we signify too little to one another, for any risk to arise, or any one comparing notes with Griswold, when he comes back, about how long I have been away. But he must not be allowed to think that, for the sake of a mere pleasure trip--I should go to the Western States--I abandoned the charge he laid upon me, and broke the promise I made him at the last moment.'
'You are scrupulous enough in small matters,' thought Helen; but she only assented aloud again, impatiently.
'Then I have your promise, Mrs. Griswold, your positive assurance, that your letters to your husband shall contain no intimation whatever of my absence from New York?'
'They shall contain no mention of you whatever.'
'Pardon me, that will not do. Your correspondence with your husband is to be in journal form--you are right, it was not very delicate in him to tell any one anything of the kind--'
'I did not speak, sir.'
'True, there was no need of speech; but that journal, if it contains no mention of me, will be very unlike what Griswold expects.'
'I cannot help that. I can suppress all mention of you, but I cannot write letters about you, if that is the meaning you are aiming at. But you need not hesitate for that consideration. I shall merely have to remind my husband that we never agreed about you, and to say that I avoided on purpose the disagreeable subject.'
A momentary gleam of fury shot across Warren's face; but he suppressed it, and made her a slightly artificial bow.
'This is agreed to, then,' he said; 'and so this interview, which had so stormy a beginning, ends peaceably. I am utterly beaten, Mrs. Griswold, acknowledging my defeat, and accepting the penalty. You will see me no more during Griswold's absence, and when we next meet the old things will have passed away.'
He bowed deeply and slowly, and walked out of the room with a quiet deliberate step; but there was something in his air, in his attitude, in his smile, as little like a beaten man as could be. When he had left the house--she waited, listening for the closing of the street-door--Helen Griswold lay back in her chair, and wept such bitter tears of anger, humiliation, and loneliness as her eyes had never before shed.
This terrible interview had terminated much better than she could have hoped. She had got rid of Warren, who would be powerless for the future to harm her, and she had avoided the necessity for wounding her husband. When he returned, she not only hoped that foreign travel and new acquaintances would have weaned him from his infatuation for Warren, but supplied him with a sounder standard whereby to measure his claim to regard. But where was the triumph which she ought to have felt at such a solution of the difficulty which had beset and harassed her whole married life? No signs of triumph came to the overwrought feelings and tired nerves; on the contrary, a strange kind of terror, depression, and misery settled down upon her, the more irresistible as she endeavoured to disentangle and sort the incidents of the interview which had just taken place. Her woman's instinct really aroused, and not wrong for once, told her the victory had been too easily won.