"Strong as was my father's desire for our marriage, dear Helen, and his persuasion that it would come to pass, in his abstraction and his want of observation he failed to take Farleigh into account; or perhaps, like all old people, he did not realize the fact that the child, the girl, had grown into a woman. He did not quite forget to provide for the contingency of its non-fulfilment. 'If, for any reason, it may not be. Lance,' he wrote--'if Florence Hillyard's child is not to be the mistress of the home which might have been her mother's, see that she has a dowry befitting my daughter and your sister.' No sentence in his letter touched me more with its simple trust than did that.
"I have seen very clearly into the state of your feelings, as I am sure you allow, and I don't think I have blundered about that of Farleigh's. He has not told you in formal words the fact patent to every one's observation, that he entirely reciprocates your devotion (don't be vexed, Helen; one may pet a curate, you know), because he's poor, and you were likely to be rich. He believes, as every one believes, that you are as poor as himself; a belief, by the way, which does not say much for the general estimate of my character--but that does not matter; and in that faith he will not hesitate any longer. Will you be discreet, and say nothing at all of my intention of carrying out this privately-expressed wish of my father? Will you prove your possession of the qualities I give you credit for, by leaving Cuthbert in the belief that he will have in you a portionless bride, save for your dowry of beauty and worth? I really almost think you will, Helen; especially as, though you do not need any further confirmation of Farleigh's nobility of mind than the silence he has hitherto kept, and the alacrity with which he will now doubtless break it, it will be well for Mrs. Chisholm and for myself, your only friends, to know how amply he fulfils our expectations. I almost think you will; but I intend to make assurance doubly sure by not giving you the slightest satisfaction on the subject of my intentions. When your marriage is near, you shall learn how I mean to fulfil my father's last injunction, but not till then; and if you tell Farleigh anything about it until I give you leave, I vow I won't give you a shilling.
"You see I have written myself into good spirits, dear Helen; the thought of you cheers me almost as your kindly presence would do. What more have I to say? Not much more of myself, or of yourself, save that the dearest and warmest wish I entertain is for your welfare.
"I shall send from my first halting-place on the Continent full instructions to Todd, in case my absence should be much prolonged. I cannot speak with any certainty of its duration; it does not depend on my own inclination.
"And now, in conclusion, I am going to ask you to do something for me, which I shall take as the truest proof that the friendship I prize and rely upon is really mine. I am sure you have not forgotten the friend I mentioned to you--Lady Mitford. I have seen her in town, and found her in much grief and perplexity. The cause of her sorrow is not one on which I can venture to enter to you; but it is deep-seated, incurable. I am much distressed for her, and can in no way defend or comfort her. She was an only child, motherless, and brought up in seclusion by her father,--an exemplary country clergyman, but a man whose knowledge of the world was quite theoretical and elementary, and who could not have trained her so that she would know how to encounter such trials as hers; he probably did not know that such could exist. As I told you at Knockholt, she has no female friend; unfortunately she has female enemies--one in particular. My great wish is to procure her the one, and defend her from the other. I may fail in the latter object; but you, Helen, can aid me, if you will, to fulfil the former. I have spoken to her about you, and have assured her that she might trust in your kindliness, though your inexperience is far greater than her own. I cannot bring you together now--there is no time or opportunity; but I want you to promise me that, if at any time during my absence from England Lady Mitford asks you to come to her, you will go promptly, and will be to her all that is in you to be to one unjustly oppressed, cruelly betrayed, and sorely afflicted. Will you do this for me, Helen? and will you give me an assurance that I may rely upon you to do it (this is the only portion of my letter which you need reply to, if you have any feeling that you would rather not) before next Wednesday, and addressed to me at the Hotel Meurice, Paris?--Always affectionately yours,
"Laurance Alsager."
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
A "TERCEL GENTLE."
Sir Laurence Alsager's angry mood was of short duration. The day after that interview in which he had spoke words that he had never intended to speak, and heard words which he had never thought to hear, he felt that a great change had fallen upon him. This woman who had rejected his love, not because she did not reciprocate it, but because it was unlawful; this woman who had had the strongest and subtlest temptation which can assail the human heart set before her--the temptation at once of consolation and of retaliation, of revenge upon the husband who had deceived and the enemy who had injured her, and who had met it with utterly disarming rectitude; this woman to whom duty was dearer than love,--she had changed the face of the world and the meaning of life for him. He had many times believed a lie, and not seldom had he worshipped a sham; but he has detected the one and exposed the other, and gone on his way not much the worse for the delusion, and a good deal wiser for the experience. Life had, however, never brought him anything like this before, and he knew it never would again. He should never love, he could never love, any other woman than this peerless one who could never be his, from whom her own mandate--he knew its power and unchangeableness--had severed him, whom he must leave in the grasp of sorrow and perplexity. He mused long and painfully over the interview of the preceding day, and he asked himself how it was that, dear as she had been to him, early as he had ceased to struggle against her influence, he had never understood the strength, the dignity, the perfect rectitude of her character before. It never occurred to Sir Laurence that he had not looked for these qualities; that he had never studied her disposition but in the most superficial way; that his love for her was founded upon no fine theory whatsoever; that it had sprung up partly in admiration of her exceeding beauty, partly in chivalrous compassion for her disastrous situation, and found its remaining constituent in a hearty contempt and abhorrence of Sir Charles Mitford. In short, Sir Laurence did not understand that he had done just as other people do,--fallen in love with a woman first, and found out what sort of woman she really was afterwards.
Sir Laurence's reverie had lasted a long time before the consideration of his own immediate movements occupied any place in it. When it did so, he formed his resolution with his accustomed promptitude. He had told them at Knockholt that he might perhaps go abroad; and now abroad he would go. He must leave London; he could not bear to witness the progress of this drama, in which he had so vital an interest, only as an ordinary spectator. He was parted from her; she was right--there could be no pretext of friendship in their case. Even if he could have obscured her clear perception and misguided her judgment; even if he could have persuaded her to receive him once more on the footing of a friend, he would have disdained to avail himself of such a subterfuge. The surest test a man can apply to the worth and sincerity of his love is to ask himself whether he would deceive its object in order to win her; if he can honestly say no, he is a true lover and a gentleman. Sir Laurence asked himself such a question, and was answered, no. He could not stand the Club-talk; he could not meet those men to whom she furnished matter for conversation,--not insolent indeed, so far as she was concerned, but intolerable in its easy, insouciant, flippant slang and indolent speculation in the ears of the man who loved her. He could not stop it; if he remained in town he must endure it, or forsake the society of all his customary associates, which was not to be thought of. Such a course of proceeding as that, in addition to depriving him of resources and leaving him nothing to do, would give rise to no end of talk and all kinds of surmises. If he started off suddenly, nobody knowing why, and went nobody knew where, it would be all right,--it would be only "Alsager's queer way;" but if he stayed in town and saw no one, or changed his set, then, indeed, that would be quite another matter. One's own set has toleration for one's queer ways, to which they are accustomed, but they decidedly object to any but habitual "queerness;" they will not bear with new developments, with running off the rails.