* * * * *
"But, my dear fellow, I can't bring myself to believe that you are serious; I can't indeed, just as the ball is at your foot too. I protest I expected you to distance them all in another year. Everybody talks of you; and what is infinitely better, everyone is ready to call you in if they require your services, or fancy they require them. Why, there's Kilsyth of Kilsyth--ah, Wilmot, you threw me over in that direction, but I don't bear malice--he swears by you. The fine old fellow came to the bank yesterday; I met him in the hall, and he got into my brougham, and came home with me, for no other reason on earth than to talk about you. Wilmot's skill and Wilmot's coolness, Wilmot's kindness and Wilmot's care--nothing but Wilmot. I should have been bored to death by so much talking all about one man, if it had been any man but yourself. And now to tell me that you are going away, going to make a gap in your life, going to give up the running, and forfeit such prospects as yours--because you must remember, my dear fellow, you must not calculate on resuming exactly where you have left off, in any sort of game of life; to do such a thing as this because you have met with a loss which thousands of men have to bear, and work on just as usual notwithstanding! Impossible, my dear Wilmot; you are not in earnest--you have not considered the thing!"
Thus emphatically spoke Mr. Foljambe to Chudleigh Wilmot, all the more emphatically because his friend's resolution had astonished as much as it had displeased and disquieted him. Mr. Foljambe had never looked upon Wilmot at all in the light of a particularly devoted husband; and when he alluded to the loss of a wife being one which he had to bear in common with many other sufferers, he had done so with a shrewd conviction that Wilmot must be trusted to find all the fortitude necessary for the occasion.
Mr. Foljambe, of Portland-place, was a very rich and influential banker; gouty enough to bear out the tradition of his wealth, and courteous and wise enough to do credit to his calling. He was not describable as a City man, however, but was, on the contrary, a pleasure and fashion-loving old gentleman, who was perfectly versed in the ways of society, au courant of all the gossip of "town," very popular in the gayest and in the most select circles, an authority upon horses, though he never rode, learned in wines, though he consumed them in great moderation, believed not to possess a relative in the world, and more attached to Chudleigh Wilmot than to any human being alive, at his present and advanced period of existence. The old gentleman and Chudleigh Wilmot's father had been chums in boyhood and friends in manhood; and the friendship he felt for the younger man was somewhat hereditary, though Wilmot's qualities were precisely of a nature to have won Mr. Foljambe's regard on their own merits. He had watched Wilmot's course with the utmost interest, pride, and pleasure. His unflagging industry, his determined energy commanded his sympathy; and he anticipated a triumphant career of professional success and renown for his favourite. The intelligence that he had determined, if not to relinquish, at least to suspend his professional labours, gave the kind old gentleman sincere concern. He did not understand it, he repeated over and over again; he could not make it out; it was not like Wilmot. Of course he could not say distinctly to him that he had never supposed his wife to be so dear to him that her death must needs revolutionise his life. But if he did not say this, Wilmot discerned it in his manner; but still he offered no explanation. He could not remain in England; he must go. His health, his mind would give way, if he did not get away into another scene, into new associations. All remonstrance, all argument proved unavailing; and when Wilmot bade his old friend farewell, he left him half angry and half mistrustful, as well as altogether depressed and sorrowful..
[CHAPTER XIV.]
His Grateful Patient.
She has destroyed herself! That was the keynote to all his thoughts. Destroyed herself, made away with herself! Destroyed herself! He was not much of a reading man--had not time for it in all his occupations; but what were those two lines which would keep surging up into his beating brain, and from time to time finding expression on his trembling tongue--
"Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!"
Gone to her death! He repeated the words a thousand times. Dead now; gone to her last account, as Shakespeare says, "with all her imperfections on her head." Gone, without chance or power of recall; gone without a word of explanation between them, without a word of sympathy, without a word of forgiveness on either side. He had often pictured their parting, he dying, she dying, and had imagined the scene; how, whichever of them found life ebbing away, would say that they had misunderstood the other perhaps, and that perhaps life might have been made more to each, had they been more suitable; but that they had been faithful, and so on; and perhaps hereafter they might, &c. He had thought of this often; but the end had come now, and his ideas had not been realised. There had been no parting, no mutual forgiveness, no last words of tenderness and hope. He had not been there to soothe her dying hour; to tell her how he acknowledged all her goodness, and how, though perhaps he had not made much outward manifestation, he had always thoroughly appreciated the discharge of her wifely duties to him. He had not been present to have one whispered explanation of how each had misunderstood the other, and how both had been in the wrong; to share in one common prayer for forgiveness, and one common hope of future meeting. There had been no explanation, no forgiveness; he had parted from her almost as he might from any everyday acquaintance; he had written to her such a letter as he might have written to Whittaker, who had taken his practice temporarily; and now he returned to find her dead! Worse than dead! Dead probably by her own act, by her own hand!
Stay! He was losing his head now; his pulse was at fever-heat, his skin dry and hot. Why had this terrible supposition taken such fast hold upon him? There was the evidence of the ring and of the leaden seal. Certainly practical evidence; but the motive--where was the motive? Suppose now--and a horrible shudder ran through him as the supposition crossed his mind--suppose now that this had become a matter for legal inquiry? suppose--Heaven knows how--suppose that the servants had suspected, and had talked, and--and the law had interfered--what motive would have been put forward for Mabel's self-destruction? He and she had never had a word of contention since their marriage; no one could prove that there had ever been the smallest disagreement between them; her home had been such as befitted her station; no word could be breathed against her husband's character; and yet--