A Search For A Secret: A Novel. Vol. 3

by G. A. Henty

"I know, Sophy, I am not worthy of you," James Fielding began slowly, and then—as with an imploring gesture, she tried to silence him—"Let me speak, Sophy, I will never allude to it again."

"No, no, no," Sophy cried, passionately; "I will not hear you! If you once tell me you love me, you can never be to me what you have been before. I cannot be your wife; pray, pray, do not ask me."

"And can it never be, Sophy? Not in a long, long time?"

"Never, James, never! Think of me as a dear friend, as a sister. Shake hands, James. You will be my friend as you have been before, will you not? And the friend of my child?"

"I will, Sophy," he said, sorrowfully but earnestly. "I will, so help me God!"

It was a great blow to him; for he had come to love his late partner's pale young widow very truly, with her grave, sedate face when at business, and her pretty winning ways when he had come in sometimes and found her romping with her baby.

However, he saw at once that it was not to be, and very sorrowfully determined that at all events she should not find any change in his manner or way, and that she should be able to look on him as a brother. Had he thought that time could have made any change in his favour he would have been content to wait and hope; but he saw that there was none, and as he said to himself on his way home, "a man may back a horse when the odds are a hundred to one against it, and land his money in the end, but no one but a fool would put money on a scratched horse."

From that time Sophy never saw by his manner that she was anything more than a dear friend to him; and although for a little while she was timid and reserved with him, yet this in time wore off, and they fell back into their old relations, and things went on as before.

Next to James Fielding, Sophy's greatest friends were Mr. Harley and his wife who lived opposite. They had known her before Robert's death, and had about that time been very kind to her, and were really much attached to her and her boy. He played first violin at the Victoria, and his wife took the singing chambermaid at the same theatre. She was considered very clever in her line, and could have obtained an engagement at one of the houses across the water, but she preferred remaining at the same theatre with her husband. He was a man about thirty; she was twenty-six. They had been married five years, and it was their great grief that they had no children. They took very much to Sophy and her boy, who was christened James, after Mr. Fielding, his godfather; for Sophy could not at that time have borne that her child should be named after his father.

And so three years more went on. Little James was now four years old, and was growing up a very fine little fellow, and Sophy, who almost adored him, began to tell herself that it was time that she should leave him and devote herself for a while to that purpose which, if successful, would make him a rich man.