Chapter Sixty Four.
Harry’s Message.
“Do you wish me to repeat it? Have you not heard from your father or your uncle?”
“Yes; but I want to hear it all again from you. Harry sent me some message.”
Leslie was silent.
“Why do you not speak? You are keeping something back.”
“Yes; he gave me a message for you, one I was to deliver.”
“Well,” said Louise quickly, “why do you not deliver it?”
“Because Harry is, in spite of his trouble, still young and thoughtless. It is a message that would make you more bitter against me than you are now.”
Louise rose from where she was seated in the dining-room, walked across to the bay window, looked out upon the sea, and then returned.
“I am not bitter against you, Mr Leslie. How could I be against one who has served us so well? But tell me my brother’s message now.”
He looked at her with so deep a sense of passionate longing in his eyes, that as she met his ardent gaze her eyes sank, and her colour began to heighten.
“No,” he said, “I cannot deliver the message now. Some day, when time has worked its changes, I will tell you word for word. Be satisfied when I assure you that your brother’s message will not affect his position in the least, and will be better told later on.”
She looked at him half wonderingly, and it seemed to him that there was doubt in her eyes.
“Can you not have faith in me?” he said quietly, “and believe when I tell you that it is better that I should not speak?”
“Yes,” she said softly, “I will have faith in you and wait.”
“I thank you,” he said gravely.
“Now tell me more about Harry.”
“There is very little to tell,” replied Leslie. “As I went down-stairs that day, I found him just about to enter the house. For a moment I was startled, but I am not a superstitious man, and I grasped at once how we had all been deceived, and who it was dealt me the blow and tripped me that night; and in the reaction which came upon me, I seized him, and dragged him to the first cab I could find.”
“I was half mad with delight,” continued Leslie, speaking, in spite of his burning words, in a slow, calm, respectful way. “I saw how I had been deceived that night, who had been your companion, and why you had kept silence. For the time I hardly knew what I did or said in my delirious joy, but I was brought to myself, as I sat holding your brother’s wrist tightly, by his saying slowly:—
“‘There, I’m sick of it. You can leave go. I shan’t try to get away. It’s all over now.’”
“He thought you had made him a prisoner?”
“Yes; and I thought him a messenger of peace, who had come to point out my folly, weakness, and want of faith.”
Louise covered her face with her hands, and he saw that she was sobbing gently.
“It was some time before I could speak,” continued Leslie. “I was still holding his wrist tightly, and it was not until he spoke again that I felt as if I could explain.”
“‘Where are you taking me?’ he said. ‘Is it necessary for Mr Leslie, my father’s friend, to play policeman in the case?’
“‘When will you learn to believe and trust in me, Harry Vine?’ I said.
“‘Never,’ he replied bitterly, and in the gladness of my heart I laughed, and could have taken him in my arms and embraced him as one would a lost brother just returned to us from the dead.
“‘You will repent that,’ I said; and I felt then that my course was marked out, and I could see my way.”
Louise let fall her hands, and sank into a chair, her eyes dilating as she gazed earnestly at the quiet, enduring man, who now narrated to her much that was new; and ever as he spoke something in her brain seemed to keep on repeating in a low and constant repetition:
“He loves me—he loves me—but it can never be.”
“‘Where am I taking you?’ I said,” continued Leslie. “‘To where you can make a fresh start in life.’” And as Louise gazed at him she saw that he was looking fixedly at the spot upon the carpet where her brother had last stood when he was in that room.
“‘Not to—’
“He stopped short there; and I—Yes, and I must stop short too. It is very absurd, Miss Vine, for me to be asked all this.”
“Go on—go on!” said Louise hoarsely.
Leslie glanced at her, and withdrew his eyes.
“‘Will you go abroad, Harry, and make a new beginning?’ I said.
“Poor lad! he was utterly broken down, and he would have thrown himself upon his knees to me if I had not forced him to keep his seat.”
“My brother!” sighed Louise.
“I asked him then if he would be willing to leave you all, and go right away; and I told him what I proposed—that I had a brother superintending some large tin mines north of Malacca. That I would give him such letters as would ensure a welcome, and telegraph his coming under an assumed name.”
“And he accepted?”
“Yes. There, I have nothing to add to all this. I went across with him to Paris, and, after securing a berth for him, we went south to Marseilles, where I saw him on board one of the Messageries Maritimes vessels bound for the East, and we parted. That is all.”
“But money; necessaries, Mr Leslie? He was penniless.”
“Oh, no,” said Leslie smiling; and Louise pressed her teeth upon her quivering lip.
“There,” said Leslie, “I would not have said all this, but you forced it from me; and now you know all, try to be at rest. As I told Mr Vine last night, I suppose it would mean trouble with the authorities if it were known, but I think I was justified in what I did. We understand Harry’s nature better than any judge, and our plan for bringing him back to his life as your brother is better than theirs. So,” he went on with a pleasant smile, “we will keep our secret about him. My brother Dick is one of the truest fellows that ever stepped, and Harry is sure to like him. The climate is not bad. It will be a complete change of existence, and some day when all this trouble is forgotten he can return.”
“My brother exiled; gone for ever.”
“My dear Miss Vine,” said Leslie quietly, “the world has so changed now that we can smile at all those old-fashioned ideas. Your brother is in Malacca. Well, I cannot speak exactly, but I believe I am justified in saying that you could send a message to him from this place in Cornwall, and get an answer by to-morrow morning at the farthest, perhaps to-night. You father at one time could not have obtained one from Exeter in the same space.”
“There,” he continued quietly, “you are agitated now, and I will say good-bye. Is not that Madelaine Van Heldre coming up the path? Yes, unmistakably. Now, let us bury the past and look forward to the future—a happier one for you, I hope and pray. Good-bye.”
He held out his hand, and she looked at him wonderingly.
“Good-bye?”
“Well, for a time. You are weak and ill. Perhaps you will go away for a change—perhaps I shall. Next time we meet time will have softened all this trouble, and you will have forgiven one whose wish was to serve you, all his weakness, all his doubts. God bless you, Louise Vine! Good-bye!”
He held out his hand again, but she did not take it. She only stood gazing wildly at him in a way that he dared not interpret, speechless, pale, and with her lips quivering.
He gave her one long, yearning look, and, turning quickly, he was at the door.
“Mr Leslie—stop!”
“You wished to say something,” he cried as he turned toward her and caught her outstretched hand to raise it passionately to his lips. “You do not, you cannot, say it? I will say it for you, then. Good-bye!”
“Stop!” she cried as she clung to his hand. “My brother’s message?”
“Some day—in the future. I dare not give it now. When you have forgiven my jealous doubts.”
“Forgiven you?” she whispered as she sank upon her knees and held the hand she clasped to her cheek—“forgive me.”
“Louise! my darling!” he cried hoarsely as he caught her up to his breast upon which she lay as one lies who feels at peace.
Seconds? minutes? Neither knew; but after a time, as she stood with her hands upon his shoulders gazing calmly in his eyes, she said softly—
“Tell me now; what did Harry say?”
Leslie was silent for a while. Then, clasping her more tightly to his breast, he said in a low, deep voice—
“Tell Louy I have found in you the truest brother that ever lived; ask her some day to make it so indeed.”
There was a long silence, during which the door was pressed slowly open; but they did not heed, and he who entered heard his child’s words come almost in a whisper.
“Some day,” she said; “some day when time has softened all these griefs. Your own words, Duncan.”
“Yes,” he said, “my own.”
“Hah!”
They did not start from their embrace as that long-drawn sigh fell upon their ears, but both asked the same question with their eyes.
“Yes,” said George Vine gravely as he took Leslie’s hand and bent down to kiss his child, “it has been a long dark night, but joy cometh in the morning.”