“It is quite just that I should bring you misery. Remember, now, that if you do a wrong you will have to pay the price of it.”
Trembling with anger and emotion, she clasped her purse tightly and called a cab to take her to her lodging. The money was money, at any rate. A poor exchange for love, certainly, but still Roland’s last gift to her. It proved that in his dying hours he loved her best of all. He had put his family pride beneath her feet. He had put his sister’s interest second to her interest. She felt that every pound represented to her so much of Roland’s consideration and affection. It was, too, a large sum of money. It made her in her own station a very rich woman. If she put it in the St. Penfer bank it would insure her a great deal of respect. That was one side of the question. The other was less satisfactory. People would speculate 293 as to how she had become possessed of such a sum. Many would not scruple to say, “It was sinful money, won in the devil’s service.” All who wished to be unkind to her could find in it an occasion for hard sayings. In small communities everything but prosperity is forgiven; that is never really forgiven to anyone; and though Denasia did not find words for this feeling, she was aware of it, because she was desirous to avoid unnecessary ill-will.
She sat with the cheque in her hand a long time, considering what to do with it. Her natural vanity and pride, her sense of superior intelligence, education, travel, and experience urged her to take whatever good it might bring her. And she went to sleep resolving to do so. But she awoke in the midnight with a strange sense of humiliation. In that time of questions she was troubled by soul-inquiries that came one upon another close as the blows of a lash. She was then shocked at the intentions with which she had fallen asleep. The little vanities, and condescensions, and generosities which she had planned for her own glory––how contemptible they appeared! And in the darkness she could see their certain end––envy and hatred for herself and dissatisfaction and loss of friends for her father and mother. Had she not already given them sorrow enough?
Her right course was then clear as a band of light. She would deposit the money at interest in a London bank. She would say nothing at all about its possession. Before leaving for St. Penfer 294 she would buy a couple of printed gowns, such as would not be incongruous with her surroundings. She would go back to her home and village as empty-handed as she left them––a beggar, even, for a little love and sympathy, for toleration for her wanderings, for forgiveness for those deeds by which she had wounded the consciences and self-respect of her own people and her own caste.
This determination awoke with her in the morning, and she followed it out literally. The presents she had resolved to buy in order to get herself a little favour were put out of consideration. She purchased only a few plain garments for her own every-day wearing. She left her money with strangers who attached no importance to it; and, with one small American trunk holding easily all her possessions, she turned her face once more to the little fishing village of St. Penfer by the Sea.
CHAPTER XV.
ONLY FRIENDS.
| “Stay at home, my heart, and rest, Home-keeping hearts are happiest; For those that wander they know not where Are full of trouble and full of care–– To stay at home is best.” ––Song. |