“Do not fancy me unkind, dearest Rose, or insensible to the blessing (almost the only one now left me) of your affection, when at this miserable crisis of my fate I deny myself the consolation of your sympathy: I say, deny myself, for wretched as I am, torn as is my soul by the blackest unbelief in the existence of human truth and goodness, I yet know you to be good and true, and love you more entirely than I have ever done. Frere will tell you that I am even now, as you read these words, upon a foreign soil; the length of my self-imposed exile is as yet unfixed, but many months must elapse ere I shall again visit England. Had I come to you, I could not have withheld my confidence; your sympathy would have utterly unmanned me; I should have lost the little strength and self-reliance remaining to me, and have totally succumbed to the blow that has fallen upon me. Rose, love, at times I fancied, when you were staying in Park Crescent, that you divined my secret! The struggle was then going on, and I dreamed in my folly that self-conquest was attainable; thus madly have I accomplished the ruin of my happiness. I have quitted Broad-hurst by my own act—fled to preserve my honour; that and an aching heart are all that remain to me. I trust to you and Frere to communicate this matter to my mother: of course, should you from my broken hints divine the truth, you would never dream of imparting it to her; a thousand reasons forbid it. In regard to Frere, I leave you to judge; he is trustworthy as yourself. If he smile at my folly in loving so poor a thing as he holds woman to be, his kind heart will sympathise with my wretchedness, even if my own weakness has produced it. I have entrusted him to pay my mother the usual yearly allowance, and placed funds at his disposal to enable him to do so. While I live, she and you shall never know greater poverty than you endure at present. I go to regain, in foreign travel, the vigour of mind and body which this blow has well-nigh paralysed. Thank God in your prayers that he has spared my reason, and left me strength to make this effort: may he watch over you both! In all difficulties apply to Richard Frere. Good-bye, dearest; forgive me the sorrow I occasion you; it seems as though I were fated alike to suffer myself and to cause suffering to all I love.—Yours ever affectionately, Lewis.”
Rose perused her brother’s letter eagerly; as she proceeded her bright eyes filled with tears. Frere waited until she had concluded, and then, without speaking, handed her the epistle he himself had received. When she had also finished this, he inquired, “Well, what do you make of it—anything?”
Rose turned away her head, and drying her eyes, replied with a deep sigh, “Poor fellow, it is only too clear!”
“That’s just about the very last remark now that I should have expected any one to utter, after having read that letter. What a thing it is to be clever!” observed Frere.
Without noticing his observation, Rose placed in his hand Lewis’s letter to herself. Frere read it with a gradually elongating countenance merely pausing to mutter, “Much he knows about my opinion of women.”
Having finished it, he refolded it carefully, and handing it back to Rose, began, “This enlightens us in some degree as to the matter; Lewis has, it seems, fallen in love as they call it, disastrously, with some party unknown.”
“Oh, you cannot doubt to whom he refers,” exclaimed Rose earnestly. “It is this to which my fears have pointed ever since I first beheld her; thrown into constant communication with such a creature, one fitted——”
“Why you don’t mean to say he’s fallen in love with Miss Livingstone?” interrupted Frere, looking the very picture of astonishment.
“This is scarcely a subject on which it is kind to jest, Mr. Frere,” rejoined Rose almost sternly; “of course I refer to that gentle, lovely, fascinating Annie Grant.”
“I do assure you I was perfectly serious,” returned Frere hastily. “I wouldn’t joke about anything that makes you unhappy, if my life depended upon it; but I never dreamed of its being Annie Grant; why, she’s engaged to her unpleasant cousin, Lord Bellefield.”