Chapter Sixty Two.

Miss Carr has Another Offer.

“Antony,” said Miss Carr to me one day, “you are very young yet to think of marriage.”

“But it is not to be yet for quite a year.”

“I am glad of it,” she said, laying her hand on mine; and as I took it and held it, looking up with a feeling akin to awe in her dark, far-off-looking eyes, I could not help thinking how thin it was, and how different to the soft, white hand that used to take mine years ago.

“We both think it will be wiser,” I said, talking to her as if she were an elder sister, though of late there had grown up in me a feeling that she looked upon me as if I were her son.

“Marriage must be a happy state, Antony, when both love, and have trust the one in the other.”

I looked at her, feeling in pain, for I dared not speak, knowing that she must be thinking of poor Hallett; and as I looked I could not help noticing how the silver hairs were beginning to make their presence known, and how much she had changed.

“You think it strange that I should talk like this, do you not?”

I could not answer.

“Yes, I see you do,” she said, smiling. “Antony, I have had another offer of marriage.”

“You have!” I exclaimed. “From whom? Who has asked you?”

I felt almost indignant at the idea; and my indignation became hot rage as she went on.

“John Lister has asked me again to be his wife.”

“The scoundrel! the villain!” I exclaimed.

“Hush, Antony,” she said quietly, as she laid her thin white fingers upon my lips. “He says that he has bitterly repented the past; that he is a changed man, and he begs me not to blight the whole of his life.”

“You? Blight his life!” I exclaimed hotly. “He has blighted yours.”

She did not speak for a few moments, and then she startled me by her words.

“He is coming here to-day to ask for my answer from my lips. He begged that I would not write, but that I would see him, and let him learn his fate from me.”

“But you surely will not see him?” I exclaimed.

“I have told him that I will. He will be here, Antony, almost directly.”

I was for the moment stunned, and could do nothing but gaze helplessly in Miss Carr’s face, for the question kept asking itself, “Will she accept him?” and it seemed to me like an insult to the dead.

She returned my gaze with a quiet look, full of mournfulness, and as the minutes flew on, I felt a kind of irritation growing upon me, and that I should be bitterly hurt if she should be weak enough to accept John Lister.

“She will consider it a duty, perhaps,” I thought; “and that she does it to save him, now that he has repented and become a better man.”

My ponderings were brought to an end by the servant bringing in a card, and I rose to go, but she laid her hand upon my arm.

“Going, Antony?” she said.

“Yes,” I replied angrily, and I pointed to the card.

“Sit down, Antony,” she said, smiling; “I wish you to be present.”

“No, no, I would rather not,” I exclaimed.

“I beg that you will stay, Antony,” she said, in a tone of appeal that I could not have disobeyed, and I petulantly threw myself back in a chair, as the door opened, and John Lister was announced.

He came forward eagerly, with extended hands, as Miss Carr rose, but changed colour and bowed stiffly as he saw me.

Recovering himself, however, he took Miss Carr’s extended hand, raised it to his lips, and then drew back as if waiting for me to go.

“I felt,” he said, to put an end to our awkward silence, “that you would grant me this private interview, Miriam.”

He emphasised the word “private,” and I once more half rose, for my position was most painful, and the hot anger and indignation in my breast more than I could bear.

“Sit still, Antony,” said Miss Carr quietly; “Mr Lister has nothing to say to me that you do not already know.”

“But you will grant me a private interview, Miriam,” said Lister appealingly.

“Mr Lister,” said Miss Carr, after pointing to a chair, which her visitor refused to take, remaining standing, as if resenting my presence, “you wrote and begged me to see you, to let you speak instead of writing. I have granted that which you wished.”

“Yes,” he said bitterly, “but I did not ask for an interview in presence of a third party, and that third person Mr Antony Grace.”

There was something so petty in his emphasis of the title of courtesy Mr, that I once more rose.

“Miss Carr,” I said, “I am sure it will be more pleasant for all. Let me beg of you to excuse me now,” and as I spoke I moved towards the door.

“I wish you to stay,” she said quietly; and as I resumed my seat and angrily took up a book, “Mr Lister, Antony Grace is my very dear friend and adviser. Will you kindly say what you wish in his presence?”

“In his presence?” exclaimed Lister, with the colour coming into his cheeks.

“In his presence,” replied Miss Carr.

“Am I to understand, Miriam,” he said imploringly, “that you intend to go by Mr Grace’s advice?”

“No, Mr Lister; I shall answer you from the promptings of my own heart.”

“Then for heaven’s sake, Miriam,” he cried passionately, “be reasonable with me. Think of the years of torture, misery, probation, and atonement through which I have passed. Come into the next room, I implore you, if Mr Grace has not the good feeling and gentlemanly tact to go.”

He began his speech well, but it seemed as if, for the life of him, he could not refrain from being petty, and he finished by being contemptible in his spite against one whom he evidently looked upon as being the cause of his disappointment.

“I wish for Antony Grace to stay,” said Miss Carr quietly; “Mr Lister, you have resumed your addresses to me, and have asked me by letter to forgive you, and let you plead your cause; and more, you tell me that you bitterly repent the past.”

“Miriam,” he cried, “why do you humiliate me before this man?”

“John Lister,” she continued, “I am but repeating your words, and it is no humiliation for one who repents of the wrong and cruelty of his ways to make open confession, either by his own lips or by the lips of others. You do repent the ill you did to me, and to him who is—dead?”

“Oh yes, yes!” he cried passionately; “believe me, dear Miriam, that I do. But I cannot plead my cause now before a third party.”

“The third party, as you term him, John Lister, has been and is to me as a dear brother; but I grant that it would be cruel to expect you to speak as we are. I will, then, be your counsellor.”

“No,” he exclaimed, holding out his hands imploringly, “you are my judge.”

“Heaven is your judge,” she said solemnly; and as she spoke I saw a change come over John Lister’s face. It was a mingling of awe, disappointment, and anger, for he read his sentence in her tones—“Heaven is your judge,” she repeated, “but I will not keep you in suspense.”

He joined his hands as he turned his back to me, but I could not help seeing his imploring act in the glass.

“John Lister, I have pleaded your cause ever since I received your first letter three months ago. You have asked my forgiveness for the past.”

“Yes, yes,” he whispered, gazing at her as if hanging on her lips for his life.

“And I forgive you—sincerely forgive you—as I pray Heaven to forgive the trespasses I have committed.”

“God bless you!” he whispered; “Miriam, you are an angel of goodness.”

“You ask me now to resume our old relations; to receive you as of old—in other words, John Lister, to become your wife.”

“Yes, yes,” he whispered hoarsely, as he bent before her, and in his eagerness now, he seemed to forget my presence, for he bent down upon one knee and took and kissed the hem of her dress. “Miriam, I have been a coward and a villain to you, but I repent—indeed I repent. For years I have been seeking to make atonement. Have mercy on me and save me, for it is in your power to make me a better man.”

She stood there, gazing sadly down upon him; and if ever woman wore a saint-like expression on this earth, it was Miriam Carr as she stood before me then. She, too, seemed to ignore my presence, and her voice was very sweet and low as she replied:

“Take my forgiveness, John Lister, and with it my prayers shall be joined to yours that yours may be a better and a happier life.”

“And you will grant my prayer, Miriam? You will be my wife?” he whispered, as I sat back there with an intense feeling of misery, almost jealousy, coming over me. I felt a terrible sense of dread, too, for I could not believe in the sincerity of John Lister’s repentance, and in imagination I saw the woman whom I loved and reverenced torn down from the pedestal whereon she stood in my heart, to become ordinary, weak, and poor.

“You ask me to forget the past and to be your wife, John Lister,” she said, and the tones of her sweet low voice thrilled me as she spoke, “I have heard you patiently, and I tell you now that had you been true to me, I would have been your patient, loving, faithful wife unto the end. I would have crushed down the strange yearnings that sought to grow within my heart, for I told myself that you loved me dearly, and that I would love you in return.”

“Yes, yes,” he whispered, cowering lower before her; “you were all that is good and true, and I was base; but, Miriam, I have repented so bitterly of my sin.”

“When I found that you did not love me, John Lister, but that it was only a passing fancy fed by the thought of my wealth—”

“Oh, no, no, no! I was not mercenary,” he cried.

“Is your repentance no more sincere than that?” she said sadly; “I know but too well, John Lister, that you loved my fortune better than you loved me.”

“Oh, Miriam!” he exclaimed appealingly.

“Hear my answer!” she said, speaking as if she had not caught his last words.

“Yes,” he cried, striving to catch her hand, but without success. “It is life or death to me. I cannot live without your love.”

“John Lister,” she said, and every tone of her sweet pure voice seemed to ring through the stillness of that room as I realised more and more the treasure he had cast away. “You are a young man yet, and you may live to learn what the love of a woman really is. Once given, it is beyond recall. The tender plant I would have given, you crushed beneath your heel. That love, as it sprang up again, I gave to Stephen Hallett, who holds it still.”

He started from her with a look of awe upon his face, as she crossed her hands upon her breast and stood looking upward: “For he is not dead, but sleeping; and I—I am waiting for the time when I may join him, where the weary are at rest.”

She ceased speaking, and John Lister slowly rose from his knee, white with disappointment and rage, for he had anticipated an easy conquest.

He looked at her, as she was standing with her eyes closed, and a rapt expression of patient sorrow upon her beautiful face. Then, turning to me with a furiously vindictive look upon his face, he clenched his fists.

“This is your doing,” he hissed; “but my day will come, Antony Grace, and then we’ll see.”

He rushed from the room, choking with impotent fury, and nearly running against Hetty, who was coming in.

I was frightened, for there was a strange look in Miriam Carr’s face, and I caught her hands in mine.

“Send for help, Hetty,” I cried excitedly; “she is ill.”

“No, no,” Miss Carr answered, unclosing her eyes; “I often feel like that. Hetty, dear, help me to my room; I shall be better there.”

I hastened to hold the door open as Miriam Carr went towards it, leaning on Hetty’s arm, and as they reached me Miss Carr turned, placed her arms round my neck, and kissed me tenderly as a mother might her son. Then, as I stood there gazing through a veil of tears at which I felt no shame, the words that I had heard her utter seemed to weigh me down with a burden of sorrow that seemed greater than I could bear. I felt as if a dark cloud was coming down upon my life, and that dark cloud came, for before a year had passed away, Hetty and I—by her father’s dying wish, young wife and young husband—stood together looking down upon the newly planted flowers close beside poor Hallett’s grave.

It was soft and green, but the flowers and turf looked fresh, as the simple white cross looked new with its deeply cut letters, clear, but dim to our eyes as we read the two words—

“Miriam Carr.”

The End.