A Mere Chance: A Novel. Vol. 2

by Ada Cambridge

As no one was aware of their having met, and as he was coming back himself so soon to clear up everything much better than she could, she persuaded herself that it would be not only unnecessary, but in the highest degree inexpedient, to aggravate the inevitable pain and difficulty that was before her and all of them.

Hating his very name as they did, would she not expose her lover to insult, and his motives and actions to misconception, and probably prejudice their chances of happiness irrevocably?

And at the same time do no good whatever, but only add an element of unspeakable bitterness to the disappointment of her aunt, and to the mortification of her already ill-used and much-wronged fiancé, and, as a matter of detail, an incalculable amount of difficulty to her own sufficiently formidable task? She was certain that she would, and she felt that she could not, and need not do it.

It took her all night to mature her course of action, but having finally brought herself to believe that it was not only so much the easiest to herself, but in every way the best for all concerned, to ignore Mr. Dalrymple for the present, she committed herself to it by writing a long letter to Mr. Kingston—a tender, penitent, self-accusing letter, in which she begged him to forgive her for having discovered so much too late that they were unsuited to one another, and prayed that he might some day be happier with a better woman than it was in her power to make him, and that he would ever believe her his attached and grateful friend, without suggesting the existence or possibility of any other lover, present or to be.

The natural results followed. Mr. Kingston, seeing no sufficient reason for these sudden strong measures, refused to treat them seriously.

He was quite aware, and it troubled him deeply, that she was not happy in her engagement, and he was very jealous and suspicious of Mr. Dalrymple, whom he had seen once or twice about town; but he had set his heart upon her, as we say, with the perverse obstinacy of a fickle man who had been spoiled by women's flattery, and the more she seemed to shrink from him the more he wanted to have her, and the more he was determined not to let her go if he could possibly help it.

His love not only lacked reciprocity—without which love is never worthy to be spelt with a capital L—but it was so diluted with all sorts of vanities and egotisms that, though its flavour was there, the potent spirit was absent, and he was incapable of making a sacrifice for her happiness at the expense of his own.

When he solemnly assured himself that he loved her as he had never loved anyone before, and that he could not and would not give her up—when he declared, moreover, that he was ready to spend his future life in her service, and would take his chance of making her care for him—he not only told the truth, as far as he understood it, but perhaps he touched the highest point of heroism of which his selfish nature was capable.

All the same, the strong necessities of the case were the carrying out of the great enterprise which was symbolised by the half-built house, and the realisation of his schemes for his own enjoyment; the possession (and the securing from other men) of the most attractive, the most admired, and to him most loveable woman of his set, who had so to speak given him a legal lien upon her person; the maintenance of his social position and dignity, and the avoidance of ridicule and embarrassment.

So when he had read Rachel's letter, with a great expense of bad language in the first place, and of wise reflection subsequently, he made up his mind that it was merely the result of their Adelonga differences, which had been rankling in her sensitive heart, and not the formal resignation that he would be required to accept.