As Lewis quitted the room the surgeon met him and informed him that it was not probable Hardy would survive through the night, but promised that every attention should be bestowed upon him. Lewis’s thoughts, as he rode back to Broadhurst, naturally ran upon the history of sin and shame and sorrow to which he had just listened, and he could not but wonder for what purpose a frank, generous nature, such as Hardy had originally possessed, should have been so severely tried. A like question may have occurred to many of us, and we may have felt that the safest course is to look upon such things as mysteries to be regarded by the twilight of a patient faith, which waits trustfully till all that now seems dark shall be made clear in the glorious brightness of the perfect day.
CHAPTER XLIX.—CONTAINS A PARADOX—LEWIS, WHEN LEAST RESIGNED, DISPLAYS THE VIRTUE OF RESIGNATION.
On the morning after his second visit to Hardy, Lewis received a packet from the hospital chaplain enclosing the letter of which the dying man had spoken, together with a note containing the information that Hardy had breathed his last about two hours before, daybreak. The chaplain had seen him, and judged him to be in a fitting state of mind to receive the last consolations of religion. After partaking of the Holy Communion he had fallen into a state of unconsciousness, and died without any return of pain. Lewis opened Hardy’s letter: it merely contained a repetition of the request in regard to his unfortunate daughter, together with a reference to one of his associates, in whose possession was a packet containing his father-in-law’s will and other papers, all of which he begged Lewis to take charge of and examine at his leisure; he also gave a clue by which Miss Grant’s watch and trinkets might be recovered, and expressed his deep penitence for that robbery, as well as for his other crimes. As Lewis perused this letter, he for the first time became more fully aware of the embarrassing situation in which he had placed himself by his promise to Hardy. How was he to discover Lord Bellefield’s victim? how endeavour to reclaim her? After a few minutes’ thought his determination was taken. General Grant had announced that morning the fact that Lord Bellefield, having accepted an invitation to Broadhurst, might be expected in the course of the following day; Lewis therefore resolved to address a letter to his lordship, to be given him on his arrival, detailing such portions of Hardy’s confession as related to his daughter, and the promise which he had been thereby induced to make to the dying poacher; adding that if Lord Bellefield would afford him the information necessary to enable him to carry out her father’s wishes, and would pledge his word of honour to avoid her for the future, he should not attempt to give publicity to the matter, but that in the event of his refusal he should feel it his duty to make General Grant acquainted with the whole affair.
In pursuance of the system he had laid down for himself, Lewis avoided Annie’s society as much as was possible; a line of conduct which she soon appeared to observe, and at first to wonder at.. The arrival of Lord Bellefield, however, and her knowledge of Lewis’s feelings towards him, afforded her an imaginary clue to the young tutor’s altered demeanour; still, the change annoyed and pained her more than she chose to acknowledge even to her own heart. Lord Belle-field was all amiability; he had visited Italy, and brought back innumerable anecdotes of the domestic felicity of his brother Charles, whose wife he reported to be a model to her sex. His accounts of Charles’s prodigious business efforts, varied by occasional lapses into the dolce far niente of dandyism, were amusing in the extreme Annie was forced to own that her cousin appeared greatly improved, and yet her repugnance to a renewal of the engagement seemed daily to increase. General Grant, however, by no means sympathised with this caprice, as he considered it, and was only restrained from some violent manifestation of domestic despotism by his confidence in his own authority, and in the certainty of Annie’s obedience whenever he might see fit to demand it. Lewis wrote the letter to Lord Bellefield, and having ascertained that it had reached him safely, waited patiently for an answer. Several days elapsed without his receiving one, and he was debating what step he should next take, when, as he was pacing up and down a shrubbery walk, wrapped in meditation, he suddenly met Lord Bellefield face to face. Determining not to lose an opportunity, he raised his hat, and bowing slightly, began—
“This meeting is fortunate, as I am anxious to ask your lordship a question. Have you not received a letter from me?”
“I have, sir,” was the haughty and concise reply.
“It is customary between gentlemen to acknowledge the receipt of a letter,” urged Lewis, “more particularly when, as in this instance, the writer has pledged himself to act according to the tenor of the answer.”
“I scarcely see how your observation applies to the present case,” was the insolent rejoinder. “In regard to your letter, I have treated it with the silent contempt it merited.”