“I’ll tell you, then, at least so far as I am concerned, I have never injured, never wronged you. I have therefore nothing to recall, nothing to redress, upon any part of my conduct. In what you conceive you are personally interested, I am ready to give a full explanation, and this done, all is done between us.”
“I thought so, I suspected as much,” said Calvert, contemptuously. “I was a fool to suppose you’d have taken the matter differently, and now nothing remains for me but to treat my aunt’s nursery governess with greater deference, and be more respectful in the presence—the august presence—of a lawyer’s clerk.”
“Good-bye, Sir,” said Loyd, as he left the room.
Calvert sat down and took up a book, but though he read three full pages, he knew nothing of what they contained. He opened his desk, and began a letter to Loyd, a farewell letter, a justification of himself, but done more temperately than he had spoken; but he tore it up, and so with a second and a third. As his passion mounted, he bethought him of his cousin and her approaching marriage. “I can spoil some fun there,” cried he, and wrote as follows:
“Lago d’Orta, August 12.
“Dear Sir,—In the prospect of the nearer relations which a
few days more will establish between us, I venture to
address you thus familiarly. My cousin, Miss Sophia Calvert,
has informed me by a letter I have just received that she
deemed it her duty to place before you a number of letters
written by me to her, at a time when there subsisted between
us a very close attachment. With my knowledge of my cousin’s
frankness, her candour, and her courage—for it would also
require some courage—I am fully persuaded that she has
informed you thoroughly on all that has passed. We were both
very young, very thoughtless, and, worse than either, left
totally to our own guidance, none to watch, none to look
after us. There is no indiscretion in my saying that we were
both very much in love, and with that sort of confidence in
each other that renders distrust a crime to one’s own
conscience. Although, therefore, she may have told you much,
her womanly dignity would not let her dwell on these
circumstances, explanatory of much, and palliative of all
that passed between us. To you, a man of the world, I owe
this part declaration, less, however, for your sake or for
mine, than for her, for whom either of us ought to make any
sacrifice in our power.
“The letters she wrote me are still in my possession. I own
they are very dear to me; they are all that remain of a
past, to which nothing in my future life can recall the
equal. I feel, however, that your right to them is greater
than my own, but I do not know how to part with them. I pray
you advise me in this. Say how you would act in a like
circumstance, knowing all that has occurred, and be assured
that your voice will be a command to your very devoted
servant,
“H.C.
“P.S.—When I began this letter, I was minded to say my
cousin should see it: on second thoughts, I incline to say
not, decidedly not.”
When this base writer had finished writing he flung down the pen, and said to himself, half aloud, “I’d give something to see him read this!”
With a restless impatience to do something—anything, he left the house, walking with hurried steps to the little jetty where the boats lay. “Where’s my boat, Onofrio?” said he, asking for the skiff he generally selected.
“The other signor has taken her across the lake.”
“This is too much,” muttered he. “The fellow fancies that because he skulks a satisfaction, he is free to practise an impertinence. He knew I preferred this boat, and therefore he took her.”
“Jump in, and row me across to La Rocca,” said he to the boatman. As they skimmed across the lake, his mind dwelt only on vengeance, and fifty different ways of exacting it passed and repassed before him. All, however, concentrating on the one idea—that to pass some insult upon Loyd in presence of the ladies would be the most fatal injury he could inflict, but how to do this without a compromise of himself was the difficulty.