“It matters little,” he said. “I can be sufficiently happy under the ban of those whose opinions I despise.”
“But it affects the lady,” I said, “more deeply than it affects you.”
“Ignorance is bliss,” he replied. “She is not likely to hear the calumny. If any man or woman insults her, I shall know how to act.”
“You have thought of the future, Sydney,” I said.
“Scarcely,” he said; “sufficient for the day is the good thereof. I love her—she loves me—that is happiness enough for the present. One day we shall marry—that is certain. But there are obstacles in the way.”
“On whose side?” I asked.
“On both. My obstacle is this: I could not marry, without a certainty of being able to maintain her as a lady. I am dependent upon my father, and he has his crotchets. I shall overcome them, but it will take time. I do not believe in love in a cottage for a man with tastes and habits such as mine; and if my father were to turn his back upon me, I should be in a perplexing position. However, I have little doubt as to my being able to guide our boat into safe waters. But there is an obstacle on Grace’s side. I am about to impart a secret to you. Her life has been most unfortunate; she has been most cruelly served, and most cruelly betrayed. Would you believe that when she was sixteen years of age, she was entrapped into a marriage with a scoundrel—entrapped by her own father, who is now dead? This husband, whom she hated, deserted her, and having fled to India, in consequence of serious involvements in this country, died there. News of his death, placing it almost beyond a doubt, reached her, but she did not take the trouble to verify it, having resolved never again to marry and to entrust her life and future into another man’s keeping. No wonder, poor child! But now that I have won her love, and that in all honour only one course is open to us, it has resolved itself into a necessity that an official certificate of his death should be in our hands before we can link our lives together. I have but one more remark to make, and then, having confided in you as I have confided in no other man, we need never touch upon these topics again. It is that, having given this girl my love, and having won hers, no slander that human being can utter can touch her to her hurt in my mind or in my heart. You know me too well to suppose that I can be made to swerve where I have placed my faith, and love, and trust—and these are in her keeping.”
He was right. I knew him, as he said, too well to believe, or to be made to believe, that human agency outside himself could shake his faith in her. Only the evidence of his own senses (and even of that he would make himself sure in all its collateral bearings) could ever turn him against the woman to whom he gave all that was noblest and brightest in a bright and noble nature. But soon after I became acquainted with her I distrusted her. That which was hidden from him was plain to me. I saw clearly she was playing upon him, and loved him no more than we love a tool that is useful to us. The knowledge made my position as his friend, almost as his brother (for I loved him with a brother’s love) very difficult to sustain. A painful and delicate duty was before me, and I resolved to perform it with as much wisdom as I could bring to my aid. I had a cunning and clever mind to work against in the mind of this woman, and I played a cunning part. It was in the cause of friendship, as sacred to me as love. When the troubles which surround your life and mine, my dear, are at an end—when light is thrown upon the terrible mystery which surrounds my father’s death—when I can present myself once more to the world in the name which is rightly mine—when my father’s murderer is brought to justice, and I am clear from suspicion—I shall prove to you that I am not only your lover, and, as I hope to be, your husband, but that I am your friend. Friendship and love combined are as much as we can hope for in this world or in the next.
When Grace first occupied the cottage—I call it so, although really it was a roomy house, surrounded by a beautiful garden—which Sydney took for her, she professed to be contented with the occasional visits of her benefactor and lover. In speaking of her now I speak of her as I know her, not as I suspected her to be during our early acquaintanceship. She was ignorant of the character of the man who had stepped forward to help her in her distress, and time was required to gauge him and to develop what plans she desired to work out. Therefore, for the first two months all went along smoothly. Then came the ball, and the excitement attending it. After a storm comes a calm, but Grace was not the kind of woman to be contented to pass her days without adventure. She had, as she believed, probed her lover’s nature to its uttermost depth, and with winning cards in her hands she commenced to play her game. She said she was dull and wanted company.
“What kind of company?” said Sydney.