Harry listened with all the patience he could muster while Alice was thus comfortably arranging her own decease and his second marriage, then speaking gravely, though still in the most affectionate manner, he replied—
“I cannot even feel annoyed with you now you are so ill and weak, my poor child, but the matter to which you allude is most repugnant and distasteful to me; it is a subject, in fact, on which I would not allow any human being but yourself to address me. I will not pretend to misunderstand your allusion; but I do most solemnly assure you that you are mistaken, and that were it, indeed, God’s will that you should be taken from me, no new ties should come between my soul and the memory of the only woman, except my poor mother, whom I have ever really loved. I see that you do not believe me! it is unjust, almost unkind of you!”
Harry spoke with deep feeling; and Alice, with tears in her eyes, placed her poor, thin hand within that of her husband as she replied—
“I do most fully believe that you love me as you say, and that at this moment you do not imagine you could be happy with anybody else, but it is a comfort to me to think that when I am parted from you there will still be some one to care for you. I assure you I feel quite differently towards Miss Crofton now; I was jealous of her, dreadfully jealous—I confess it! but I now am grateful to her for loving you, and sorry I ever entertained such uncharitable feelings towards her. I mean to leave her all my jewels, except one or two little things I should like to give poor Emily.”
Alice paused, partly through weakness, partly because she wanted her husband to signify his approval of her sentiments, which she considered was the least he could do, in return for what was, in fact, to her, an act of almost superhuman charity and self-denial. But Coverdale was in no humour to comply with her desire; on the contrary, so distasteful was the whole matter, and poor Alice’s idea of the situation so far from the truth, that he was driven to his wits’ end with perplexity and annoyance, which nothing but a sense of his wife’s unfitness to sustain so energetic a mode of address prevented from breaking forth in a burst of his “quiet manner.” As he continued silent, Alice resumed:—
“You must not be angry with me for knowing about it, Harry dear, for the knowledge was forced upon me, nor was I aware what Lord Alfred Courtland was about to tell until I had heard so much that my womanly dignity would not allow me to stop him; I did not choose to let him think I could believe it possible you had done anything I should be afraid to hear, and so he told me all.”
“And pray what might all be?” inquired Harry, as calmly as he was able.
“Oh! about her being in love with you, and your running away together, and old Mr. Somebody (I can’t remember names) taking her away again, and preventing you from marrying her; yes, he told me all about it.”
“He told you a pack of lies, so mixed up with a little truth, that unless I were able to give you a detailed account of the affair I could not separate them, and I am under a solemn promise not to say anything about it; but I know what I will do. In the meantime believe this—I love you with my whole heart and soul, and you only, and if you have any regard for me you will strive to banish all these silly fancies, which only delay your recovery, and get well as fast as you can for my sake. And now you have talked more than is good for you, so I shall send Emily to you to read you to sleep.”
As soon as he had put this resolution into practice he betook himself to the library, and wrote as follows:—