“If I were treacherous, I would not make this avowal to you. I should be satisfied with the advantage I possessed, and employ it to my benefit. Perhaps with any other woman than yourself I should play this part,—with you I neither can nor will. I will declare to you frankly and at once, you have lost the game and I have won it. That I say this thus briefly, is because in amplifying I should seem to be attempting to explain what there is no explaining. That I say it in no triumph, my own conscious inferiority to you is the best guarantee. I never would have dreamed of a rivalry had I been a girl. It is because I cannot claim the prize I have won it. It is because my victory is my misery I have gained it. I think I know your nature well enough to know that you will bear me no ill-will. I even go so far as to believe I shall have your compassion and your sympathy. I need them more, far more, than you know of. I could tell you that had matters fallen out differently it would not have been to your advantage, for there were obstacles—family obstacles—perfectly insurmountable. This is no pretence: on my honor I pledge to the truth of what I say. So long as I believed they might be overcome, I was in your interest, Lucy. You will not believe me, will you, if I swear it? Will you if I declare it on my knees before you?
“If I have not waited till we met to say these things, it is that we may meet with open hearts, in sorrow, but in sincerity. When I have told you everything, you will see that I have not been to blame. There may be much to grieve over, but there is nothing to reprehend—anywhere. And now, how is our future to be? It is for you to decide. I have not wronged you, and yet I am asking for forgiveness. Can you give me your love, and what I need as much, your pity? Can you forget your smaller affliction for the sake of my heavier one, for it is heavier?
“I plead guilty to one only treachery; and this I stooped to, to avoid the shame and disgrace of an open scandal. I told his mother that, though Lucy was my name, it was yours also; and that you were the Lucy of all his feverish wanderings. Your woman's heart will pardon me this one perfidy.
“She is a very dangerous woman in one sense. She has a certain position in the world, from which she could and would open a fire of slander on any one. She desires to injure me. She has already threatened, and she is capable of more than threatening. She says she will see Sir William. This she may not be able to do; but she can write to him. You know better than I do what might ensue from two such tempers meeting; for myself I cannot think of it.
“I have written you a long letter, dear Lucy, when I only meant to have written five or six lines. I have not courage to read it over; were I to do so, I am sure I would never send it. Perhaps you will not thank me for my candor. Perhaps you will laugh at all my scrupulous honesty. Perhaps you will—no, that you never will—I mean, employ my trustfulness against myself.
“Who knows if I have not given to this incident an importance which you will only smile at? There are people so rich that they never are aware if they be robbed. Are you one of these, Lucy? and, if so, will you forgive the thief who signs herself your ever-loving sister,
“Lucy Skwell.
“I have told Dr. Beattie I would write to you; he looked as if he knew that I might, or that I ought,—which is it? Doctors see a great deal more than they ought to see. The great security against them is, that they acquire an indifference to the sight of suffering, which, in rendering them callous, destroys curiosity, and then all ills that can neither be bled nor blistered they treat as trifles, and end by ignoring altogether. Were it otherwise,—that is, had they any touch of humanity in their nature,—they would be charming confidants, for they know everything and can go everywhere. If Beattie should be one of your pets, I ask pardon for this impertinence; but don't forget it altogether, as, one day or other, you will be certain to acknowledge its truth.
“We arrive by the 4.40 train on Saturday afternoon. If I see you at the door when we drive up, I shall take it as a sign I am forgiven.”
Beattie folded the letter slowly, and handed it to Lucy without a word. “Tell me,” said he, after they had walked on several seconds in silence,—“tell me, do you mean to-be at the door as she arrives?”