Quite silent now, Chudleigh Wilmot; his hand still covering his brow, his head sunk upon his breast.
"I said I pitied you; and I do," continued Ronald. "And here, understand me, and let me explain one point in our position, Dr. Wilmot. What I have to say, though it may pain you in one way, will, I think, be satisfactory to you in another. You may think that Madeleine may be destined by her family for some--I speak without the least offence--some higher destiny; that her family would wish for her a husband higher in social rank. I give you my honour that, as far as I am concerned, I could not, from all I have heard of you, wish my sister's future confided to a more honourable man. Social rank and dignity weigh very little with me. My life is passed generally with those who have won their spurs, rather than inherited their titles; and I would infinitely sooner see my sister married to a man whose successful position in life was due to himself than to one who merely wore the reflected glory of his ancestors. So far you would have been a suitor entirely acceptable to me, had there not been the other unfortunate element in the matter."
Ronald ceased speaking, and for some minutes there was a dead silence. Then Chudleigh Wilmot raised his head, rose from his chair, and commenced pacing the room with long strides; Ronald, perfectly understanding his emotion, remaining passively seated. At length Wilmot stopped by Ronald's chair, and said:
"When you entered this room, you told me you had come here to speak to me as a friend. I am bound to say that you have perfectly fulfilled that implicit promise. No one could have been more frank, more candid, and, I may say, more tender than you have been with me. My profession," said Wilmot with a dreary smile,--"my profession teaches us to touch wounds tenderly, and you seem to be thoroughly imbued with the precept. You will do me the justice to allow that I have listened to you patiently; that I have heard without flinching almost, certainly without complaint."
Ronald bowed his head in acquiescence.
"Now, then, I must ask you to listen to me. What I have to say to you is as sacred as what you have said to me, and will not, could not be mentioned by me to another living soul. When I received your father's telegram summoning me to your sister's bedside, there was no more heart-whole man in Britain than myself. When I use the word 'heart-whole,' I do not intend it to convey the expression of a perfect content in the affections I possessed, as you, knowing I was married and settled, might understand it. I was heart-whole in the sense that, while I was thoroughly skilled in the physical state of my heart, its mental condition never gave me a thought. I had, as long as I could recollect, been a very hard-working man. I had married, when I first established myself in practice, principally, I believe, because I thought it the most prudent thing for a young physician to do; but certainly not from any feeling that ever caused my heart one extra pulsation. You must not be shocked at this plain speaking. Recollect that you are listening to an anatomical lecture, and go through with it. All the years of my married life passed without any such feeling being called into existence. My--my wife was a woman of quiet domestic temperament, who pursued her way quietly through life; and I, thoroughly engrossed in my professional pursuits, never thought that life had anything better to engage in than ambition, better to offer than success. I went to Kilsyth, and for weeks was engaged in constant, unremitting attendance upon your sister. I saw her under circumstances which must to a certain extent have invested the most uninteresting woman in the world with interest; I saw her deserted and shunned, by everyone else, and left entirely to my care; I saw her in her access of delirium, and afterwards, when prostrate and weak, she was dependent on me for everything she wanted. And while she and I were thus together--I now combating the disease which assailed her, now watching the sweet womanly patience, the more than womanly courage, with which she supported its attacks--I, witnessing how pure and good she was, how soft and gentle, and utterly unlike anything I had ever seen, save perhaps in years long past, began to comprehend that there was, after all, something to live for beyond the attainment of success and the accumulation of fees."
Wilmot stopped here, and looked at his companion; but Ronald's head was turned away, and he made no movement; so Wilmot proceeded.
I--I scarcely know how to go on here; but I determined to tell you all, and I will go through with it. You cannot tell, you cannot have the smallest idea of what I have suffered. You were pleased to call me a man of honour: God alone knows how I struggled to deserve that title from you, from every member of Miss Kilsyth's family. I succeeded so well, that until I noticed the expression of your face yesterday, I believed no one on earth knew of the state of my feelings towards that young lady. At Kilsyth, when I first felt the fascination creeping over me; when I found that there was another, a better and a brighter be-all and end-all for human existence than I had previously imagined; when I found that the whole of my career had hitherto lacked, and under then existent circumstances was likely to lack, all that could make it worth running after, the want had been discovered; I did my best to shut my eyes to what might have been, and to content myself with what was. I knew that though my--my wife and I had never professed any extravagant affection for each other; that though we had never been lovers, in the common acceptation of the word, she had discharged her duty most faithfully to me, and that I should be a scoundrel to be untrue to her in thought--in word, of course, from other considerations, it was impossible. I did my best, and my best availed. I succeeded so far, that I left your father's house with the knowledge that my secret was locked in my own breast, and that I had never made the slightest tentative advance to your sister, to see if she were even aware of its existence. More than this. During my attendance on Miss Kilsyth, I had discovered that she was suffering from a threatening of what the world calls consumption. I felt it my duty to mention this to your father, and he requested me to attend her professionally when the family returned to London. I agreed--to him; but I had long reflection on the subject during my return journey, and had almost decided to decline, on some pretext or another.
"Hear me but a little longer. I need not dwell to you upon the event which has occurred since I left Scotland, and which has left me a free man--free to enjoy legitimately that happiness, a dream of which dawned upon me at Kilsyth, and which I shut out and put aside because it was then wrong, and almost unattainable. Circumstances are now so altered, that it is certainly not the former, and it is yet to be proved whether, so far as the young lady is concerned, it is the latter. In my desire to do right, even with the feeling of relief and release which I had, even with the hope which I do not scruple to confess I have nourished, I kept from Brook-street until a line from Miss Kilsyth summoned me thither. When you met me yesterday, I was there in obedience to her summons. You know that, I suppose, Captain Kilsyth?'"
"I made inquiries yesterday, and heard so. I said at the outset, Dr. Wilmot, that you were a man of honour. Your conduct since your return, and since the return of my family, weighed with me in the utterance of that opinion."