The reader may remember that Hugh Stanbury when he last left St. Diddulph's had not been oppressed by any of the gloomy reveries of a despairing lover. He had spoken his mind freely to Nora, and had felt himself justified in believing that he had not spoken in vain. He had had her in his arms, and she had found it impossible to say that she did not love him. But then she had been quite firm in her purpose to give him no encouragement that she could avoid. She had said no word that would justify him in considering that there was any engagement between them; and, moreover, he had been warned not to come to the house by its mistress. From day to day he thought of it all, now telling himself that there was nothing to be done but to trust in her fidelity till he should be in a position to offer her a fitting home, and then reflecting that he could not expect such a girl as Nora Rowley to wait for him, unless he could succeed in making her understand that he at any rate intended to wait for her. On one day he would think that good faith and proper consideration for Nora herself required him to keep silent; on the next he would tell himself that such maudlin chivalry as he was proposing to himself was sure to go to the wall and be neither rewarded nor recognised. So at last he sat down and wrote the following letter:—
Lincoln's Inn Fields, January, 186—.
Dearest Nora,
Ever since I last saw you at St. Diddulph's, I have been trying to teach myself what I ought to do in reference to you. Sometimes I think that because I am poor I ought to hold my tongue. At others I feel sure that I ought to speak out loud, because I love you so dearly. You may presume that just at this moment the latter opinion is in the ascendant.
As I do write I mean to be very bold; so bold that if I am wrong you will be thoroughly disgusted with me and will never willingly see me again. But I think it best to be true, and to say what I think. I do believe that you love me. According to all precedent I ought not to say so;—but I do believe it. Ever since I was at St. Diddulph's that belief has made me happy,—though there have been moments of doubt. If I thought that you did not love me, I would trouble you no further. A man may win his way to love when social circumstances are such as to throw him and the girl together; but such is not the case with us; and unless you love me now, you never will love me.
"I do—I do!" said Nora, pressing the letter to her bosom.
If you do, I think that you owe it me to say so, and to let me have all the joy and all the feeling of responsibility which such an assurance will give me.
"I will tell him so," said Nora; "I don't care what may come afterwards, but I will tell him the truth."
I know [continued Hugh] that an engagement with me now would be hazardous, because what I earn is both scanty and precarious; but it seems to me that nothing could ever be done without some risk. There are risks of different kinds,—
She wondered whether he was thinking when he wrote this of the rock on which her sister's barque had been split to pieces;—
and we may hardly hope to avoid them all. For myself, I own that life would be tame to me, if there were no dangers to be overcome.
If you do love me, and will say so, I will not ask you to be my wife till I can give you a proper home; but the knowledge that I am the master of the treasure which I desire will give me a double energy, and will make me feel that when I have gained so much I cannot fail of adding to it all other smaller things that may be necessary.
Pray,—pray, send me an answer. I cannot reach you except by writing, as I was told by your aunt not to come to the house again.
Dearest Nora, pray believe
That I shall always be truly yours only,Hugh Stanbury.
Write to him! Of course she would write to him. Of course she would confess to him the truth. "He tells me that I owe it to him to say so, and I acknowledge the debt," she said aloud to herself. "And as for a proper home, he shall be the judge of that." She resolved that she would not be a fine lady, not fastidious, not coy, not afraid to take her full share of the risk of which he spoke in such manly terms. "It is quite true. As he has been able to make me love him, I have no right to stand aloof,—even if I wished it." As she was walking up and down the room so resolving her sister came to her.
"Well, dear!" said Emily. "May I ask what it is he says?"