The Jessamy Bride

by Frank Frankfort Moore

He rose to his feet and picked up the roll of poems. In sign of his resolution he would burn them. He would, with them, reduce to ashes the one consolation of his life.

In the small grate the remains of a fire were still glowing. He knelt down and blew the spark into a blaze. He was about to thrust the manuscript into it between the bars when the light that it made fell upon one of the lines. He had not the heart to burn the leaf until he had read the remaining lines of the couplet; and when at last, with a sigh, he hastily thrust the roll of papers between the bars, the little blaze had fallen again to a mere smouldering spark. Before he could raise it by a breath or two, his servant entered the room. He started to his feet.

“A letter for you, sir,” said John Eyles. “It came by a messenger lad.”

“Fetch a candle, John,” said Goldsmith, taking the letter. It was too dark for him to see the handwriting, but he put the tip of his finger on the seal and became aware that it was Mary Horneck's.

By the light of the candle he broke the seal, and read the few lines that the letter contained—

Come to me, my dear friend, without delay, for heaven's sake. Your ear only can hear what I have to tell. You may be able to help me, but if not, then. . . . Oh, come to me to-night. Your unhappy Jessamy Bride.

He did not delay an instant. He caught up his hat and left his chambers. He did not even think of the resolution to which he had just come, never to see Mary Horneck again. All his thoughts were lost in the one thought that he was about to stand face to face with her.

He stood face to face with her in less than half an hour. She was in the small drawing-room where he had seen her on the day after the production of “She Stoops to Conquer.” Only a few wax candles were lighted in the cut-glass sconces that were placed in the centre of the panels of the walls. Their light was, however, sufficient to make visible the contrast between the laughing face of the girl in Reynolds's picture of her and her sister which hung on the wall, and the sad face of the girl who put her hand into his as he was shown in by the servant.

“I knew you would come,” she said. “I knew that I could trust you.”

“You may trust me, indeed,” he said. He held her hand in his own, looking into her pale face and sunken eyes. “I knew the time would come when you would tell me all that there is to be told,” he continued. “Whether I can help you or not, you will find yourself better for having told me.”