“Is it possible that you could have imagined that I would?” her husband asked. “Then I can only say that you don’t know me very well yet. Even if I had believed what he implied, do you think I would have let him know it? But how did such an idea enter his mind?” he inquired after a moment, as he sat down. “Is he not aware that Mr. Kyrle was Aimée’s lover long ago?”
Fanny stood silent, motionless, incapable, it seemed to her, of movement or speech. Never had that old falsehood, told so lightly and heedlessly in the past, appeared to her so odious, so black, so dishonorable as now! Oh, what a vile return for her husband’s trust and goodness to let him still be deceived, still believe a thing which was not so, still be less wise (so she fancied) than Percy Joscelyn, still think her better than she was! No, if it lost her his love forever, if he never, never forgave her the long deceit, she would tell him the truth now, while she had the saving grace and courage to speak. Perhaps Mr. Meredith had never in his life been more surprised than when she suddenly rushed forward, sank on her knees by his chair, and burst into tears.
“O Tom,” she said, “I don’t know that you will ever forgive me for having deceived you so long, but I must tell the truth! Lennox Kyrle was never Aimée’s lover at all. He was mine.”
X.
“And he took it like an angel, my dear,” Mrs. Meredith said to Aimée a few hours later. “I never have credited Tom with any angelic qualities before, but I see now that it was because I did not do him justice. No one could have been kinder. He seemed really touched that I confided in him at last, only, he said, it was a mistake not to have told the truth at the time; and he was very severe about the false position in which you were placed. But I cried—Heavens, how I cried!—so he could not scold very much; and then he said he appreciated my telling the truth because it was entirely a voluntary act, since he was sure I did him the justice to believe he would never have listened to Percy Joscelyn. I did believe it, and that was the reason I was forced to speak. When he trusted me so, I was ashamed to feel how I had deceived him!”
“I have often wondered,” said Aimée, “that you did not feel it before.”
“No doubt I ought to have done so,” replied Fanny, penitently, “and perhaps I suffered more than you would believe; for I feel now as light—oh, as light as a feather, to think that there is no more need for concealment. Lennox will be glad. He was always so desperately indignant about you. I really believe that he fell in love with you at that time.”
Aimée smiled a little. Probably Lennox had already told her so.