“I believed you last night, though I did not understand. But I understand, now—everything—and, bitter to me as the truth is, I must show you plainly that I know all of it, nor can I rest until I do show you. I want you to answer this letter—though I must not see you again for a long time—and in your answer you must set me right if I am anywhere mistaken in what I have learned.
“At first, and until after the second time we met, I did not believe in your heart, though I did in your mind and humor. Even since then, there have come strange, small, inexplicable mistrustings of you, but now I throw them all away and trust you wholly, Monsieur Citizen Georges Meilbac!—I shall always think of you in those impossible garnishments of my poor great-uncle, and I persuade myself that he must have been a little like you.
“I trust you because I have heard the story of your profound goodness. The first reason for my father's dislike was your belief in freedom as the right of all men. Ah, it is not your pretty exaggerations and flatteries (I laugh at them!) that speak for you, but your career, itself, and the brave things you have done. My father's dislike flared into hatred because you worsted him when he discovered that he could not successfully defend the wrong against you and fell back upon sheer insult.
“He is a man whom I do not know—strange as that seems as I write it. It is only to you, who have taught me so much, that I could write it. I have tried to know him and to realize that I am his daughter, but we are the coldest acquaintances, that is all; and I cannot see how a change could come. I do not understand him; least of all do I understand why he is a gambler. It has been explained to me that it is his great passion, but all I comprehend in these words is that they are full of shame for his daughter.
“This is what was told me: he has always played heavily and skillfully—adding much to his estate in that way—and in Rouen always with a certain coterie, which was joined, several years ago, by the man you came to save last night.
“Your devotion to Mr. Gray has been the most beautiful thing in your life. I know all that the town knows of that, except the thousand hidden sacrifices you have made for him, those things which no one will ever know. (And yet, you see, I know them after all!) For your sake, because you love him, I will not even call him unworthy.
“I have heard—from one who told unwillingly—the story of the night two years ago, when the play ran so terribly high; and how, in the morning when they went away, all were poorer except one, their host!—how Mr. Gray had nothing left in the world, and owed my father a great sum which was to be paid in twenty-four hours; how you took everything you had saved in the years of hard work at your profession, and borrowed the rest on your word, and brought it to my father that afternoon; how, when you had paid your friend's debt, you asked my father not to play with Mr. Gray again; and my father made that his excuse to send you a challenge. You laughed at the challenge—and you could afford to laugh at it.
“But this is all shame, shame for Robert Carewe's daughter. It seems to me that I should hide and not lift my head; that I, being of my father's blood, could never look you in the face again. It is so unspeakably painful and ugly. I think of my father's stiff pride and his look of the eagle,—and he still plays with your friend, almost always 'successfully!' And your friend still comes to play!—but I will not speak of that side of it.
“Mr. Gray has made you poor, but I know it was not that which made you come seeking him last night, when I found you there in the hail. It was for his sake you came—and you went away for mine. Now that I know, at last—now that I have heard what your life has been (and oh I heard so much more than I have written!)—now that my eyes have been opened to see you as you are, I am proud, and glad and humble that I can believe that you felt a friendship for me strong enough to have made you go 'for my sake.' You will write to me just once, won't you? and tell me if there was any error in what I listened to; but you must not come to the garden. Now that I know you, I cannot meet you clandestinely again. It would hurt the dignity which I feel in you now, and my own poor dignity—such as it is! I have been earnestly warned of the danger to you. Besides, you must let me test myself. I am all fluttering and frightened and excited. You will obey me, won't you?—do not come until I send for you. Elizabeth Carewe.”
Mr. Gray, occupied with his toilet about noon, heard his partner descending to the office with a heavy step, and issued from his room to call a hearty greeting. Tom looked back over his shoulder and replied cheerily, though with a certain embarrassment; but Crailey, catching sight of his face, uttered a sharp ejaculation and came down to him.