Miles Tremenhere: A Novel. Vol. 2 of 2

by Annette Marie Maillard

A cold shudder passed through Miles's heart, which had been awakening from its stupor of sorrow and suspicion, to take his proved faithful wife to it. This then, was the cause of her candour. Burton's most unexpected arrival at Mary's had induced her, from fear of discovery, to choose the wiser part, and tell him herself, lest another should! Oh, what a demon jealousy is! how unsleeping, how grasping in intellect; though all is perverted to harm!

"Tell me all that passed," he uttered, without replying to her question; and, while she related, his mind formed all into the well-connected reality of a diseased brain. The same person who had so often warned him, none other than Marmaduke, had discovered this intrigue, and followed it up. The letter was probably written by Mary Burns, as an arm in Minnie's favour, should any thing be discovered by him; her absence, etc. Mary, who had once fallen, had doubly done so again, by pandering to the meetings of Lord Randolph and Minnie; he was a target for the scorn and contempt of all, and all these maddening thoughts passed through his soul, leaving him in outward seeming calm. There is nothing more fearful than this concentrated, chained passion—'tis this which leads the best man to cold, deliberate murder. Silently he thought all this, and then, when the mind had compassed all his misery, it paused to deliberate on revenge. Then it was that mercy crept in, like the last ray of sunshine to the eyes dimmed by death, and he said to himself, "If she should be innocent still?"

And, lifting his eyes, they rested upon hers, troubled, but pure and holy in their dove-like innocence of expression.

"Minnie," he said, placing his arms around her, "I have many bitter thoughts in my heart. I am a very wretched man now—so happy once! But I feel my greatest sorrow would be your loss; as I before said to you, I wish to think you innocent. I would rather know we were compassed by fiends, and be ever waging war with them in darkness, than know, or believe you false to me; that would be my moral death, and make me the most reckless man on earth! I will believe you innocent."

"I am, Miles; believe me. I have not even a thought which has ever wronged you."

"I will believe you, Minnie, against all evidence but proof," and he took the trembling woman to his heart, so shaken, but so true.

It cannot be imagined, that with that pardon, or reconciliation, Tremenhere became calm and happy; true it was, that Minnie never quitted home without him, scarcely ever quitted his side, but the mad dream which had been, left its trace on his every action; he was a broken-spirited man. His profession was a toil of every instant—a necessity, not a pleasure. He saw Minnie growing daily paler and sadder, and, though his heart ached to see it, still he could not overcome his sensations of doubt.

"She is perhaps fretting about Lord Randolph," he thought to himself, "and after all I said, in condemnation of her, poor child! she perhaps deserves more pity; for I took her almost one, from her home. She had seen no one to fancy herself in love with, till I came. Unjust coercion drove her into my arms; it was probably more from indignation than from love, yet, too, I think she loved me once," and here he pondered on many an unmistakeable proof of affection; her watchings for his return, the lighting up of the whole countenance, which no art could imitate. "Yes," he continued, "she certainly loved me once, but then she is of a gentle, loving nature; she knew not the vast difference between affection and love, until he, perhaps, taught her. Poor child—poor Minnie! what a life of misery we have created for one another; but we must bear it, and linger on!"

And so completely did the thought take possession of his soul that these ideas were well founded, that for a while his feelings towards her assumed a tone of almost fatherly pity, so worn and old his heart felt. He had vainly endeavoured to trace who sent the brougham, the letters—in short, to prove it Marmaduke; but all failed.

The hire of the brougham, and order to send it to Chiswick, had been brought to the stables by a boy, who was not known or detained; there was nothing in the act to excite suspicion of wrong. He wrote to Lord Randolph a calm, deliberate letter, requesting, but in all politeness, that his visits might be discontinued. He was certain, he said, that Lord Randolph would see the absolute necessity of such a thing, after the many unaccountable circumstances which had taken place. And the "Aurora" was taken, unfinished, from her easel, and placed aside, and not a word on the subject passed between Minnie and her husband; it was a state of coldness which could not last. The affair had been so painful a one, that by mutual consent neither ever spoke of it, nor even named it to Lady Dora, whose visits were not of very frequent occurrence. One day, however, she called, having been absent a month at Brighton; she was more excited than usually happened to her. After sitting some time in evident uneasiness, she at last begged Minnie to let her speak with her alone. Minnie rose to quit the drawing-room; she grew trembling; every thing new, startled her.