"You have done that lovely lady great wrong indeed, sir; but not an unpardonable, not an irreparable one. She will be as ready to pardon as you to offer reparation. And in her lovely humility she will never know that there has been anything to pardon. Angels are not implacable, sir. If you doubt my judgment in this matter, look on her portrait now," said Ishmael, taking her miniature once more from his coat-pocket, opening it, and laying it before Herman Brudenell.
Mr. Brudenell slowly raised it, and wistfully gazed upon it.
"Is it a faithful portrait, Ishmael?" he asked.
"So faithful that it is like herself seen through a diminishing glass."
"She is very, very beautiful—more beautiful even than she was in her early youth," said Mr. Brudenell, thoughtfully gazing upon the miniature.
"Yes, I can imagine that she is more beautiful now than she was in her early youth; more beautiful with the heavenly beauty of the spirit added to the earthly beauty of the flesh. Look at that picture, dear sir; fancy those charming features, living, smiling, speaking, and you will be better able to judge how beautiful is your wife. Oh, sir! I think that in the times past you never loved that sweet lady as she deserved to be loved; but if you were to meet her now, you would love her as you never loved her before."
"If I were to meet her? Why, supposing that I have wronged her as much as you say, how could I ever venture to present myself before her?"
"How could you ever venture? Oh, sir! because she loves you. There are women, sir, who love but once in all their lives, and then love forever. The Countess of Hurstmonceux is one of these. Sir, since I have lived in daily companionship with her, I have been led to study her with affectionate interest. I have read her life as a wondrous poem. Her soul has been filled with one love. Her heart is the shrine of one idol. And oh, sir! believe me the future holds no hope of happiness so sweet to that lovely lady as a reunion with the husband of her youth."
"Ah, Ishmael! if I could believe this, my own youth would be restored; I should have a motive to live. You said, just now, that in the old sad times I had not loved this lady as she deserved to be loved. No—I married her hastily, impulsively—flattered by her evident preference for me; and just as I was beginning to know all her worth and beauty, lo! this fact of the nocturnal sojourn of the profligate Captain Dugald came to my knowledge—came to my knowledge with a convincing power, beyond all possibility of questioning. Oh, you see, I discovered the bare fact, without the explanation of it! I believed myself the dupe of a clever adventuress, and my love was nipped in the bud. If I could believe otherwise now,—if I could believe that she was innocent in that affair, and that she has loved me all these years, and been true to that love, and is ready and willing to forgive and forget the long, sorrowful past,—Ishmael, instead of being the most desolate, I should be the most contented man alive. I should feel like a shipwrecked sailor, long tossed about on the stormy sea, arriving safe at home at last!" said Mr. Brudenell, gazing most longingly upon the picture he held in his hand.
Ishmael was too wise to interrupt that contemplation by a single word at this moment.