"This lady was the young and beautiful widow of an aged peer. She was as pure and noble as she was fair and lovely. She was sought in marriage by many attractive suitors; but in vain, for she would not bestow her hand where she could not bestow her heart. Among the most persevering of these suitors was a profligate fortune-hunter, who, as the near relative of her late husband, had the entre into her house—"
"Ah! I think I have heard this story before," said Mr. Brudenell, with the slightest possible sneer on his handsome lip.
"One side of it, sir, the false side. Hear the other, and the true one. The beautiful widow repulsed this suitor in disgust, and peremptorily forbade him the house. Determined not to be baffled, he resorted to a stratagem that should have sent him to the hulks—that did, in fact, banish him from all decent society. Are you listening, sir?"
"With all my soul," said Mr. Brudenell, whose mocking sneer had disappeared before an earnest interest.
"By tempting the cupidity of a poor kinsman, who was a member of the young widow's family, he managed to get himself secretly admitted to her house and concealed in her dressing room, whose front windows overlooked the street. In the morning this man opened one of these windows, and stood before it half-dressed, in full view of the street, brushing his hair for the entertainment of the passers-by. The glare of light from the open window, shining through the open door into the adjoining bedchamber of the sleeping beauty, awakened her. At sight of the sacrilegious intruder, she was so struck with consternation that she could not speak. He took advantage of his position and her panic, to press his repugnant suit. He plead that his ardent passion and her icy coldness had driven him to desperation and to extremity. He argued that all stratagems were fair in love. He begged her to forgive him and to marry him, and warned her that her reputation was irretrievably compromised if she did not do so."
Ishmael paused, and looked to see what effect this story was having upon Mr. Brudenell. Herman Brudenell was listening with breathless interest.
Ishmael continued, speaking earnestly, for his heart was in his theme:
"But the beautiful and spirited young widow was not one to be terrified into a measure that her soul abhorred. Her first act, on recovering the possession of her senses, was to ring the bell and order the ejectment of the intruder; and despite his attempts at explanation and remonstrance, this order was promptly obeyed, and the lady never saw him afterward. Soon after this she left Edinboro' for the south of England. At Brighton she met with a gentleman who afterward became her husband. But ah! this gentleman, some time subsequent to their marriage, received a one-sided account of that affair in Edinboro'. He was then young, sensitive, and jealous. He believed all that was told him; he asked no explanation of his young wife; he silently abandoned her. And she—faithful to the one love of her life—has lived through all her budding youth and blooming womanhood in loneliness and seclusion, passing her days in acts of charity and devotion. Circumstances have lately placed in my power the means of vindicating this lady's honor, even to the satisfaction of her unbelieving husband."
Ishmael paused, and looked earnestly into the troubled face of
Herman Brudenell.
"Ishmael," he exclaimed, "of course I have known all along that you have been speaking of my wife, Lady Hurstmonceux. If you have not been deceived; if the truth is just what it has been represented to you to be; if she was indeed innocent of all complicity in that nocturnal visit; then, Ishmael, I have done her a great, an unpardonable, an irreparable wrong."