This letter, indeed, though the composition of a lawyer, had not been written at the instance of his long-suffering tailor, but was from the solicitor who conducted the business of his family. It advised him, in very concise language, of his great-uncle's sudden "demise," as it was worded, "intestate"; informing him that he thus became heir, as next of kin, to the whole personal and real property of the deceased, and concluded with sincere congratulations on his accession to a fine fortune, not without a hope that their firm might continue to manage his affairs, and afford him the same satisfaction that had always been expressed by his late lamented relative, etc. The surprise staggered him like a blow. From such blows, however, we soon "come to time," willing to take any amount of similar punishment. He gave himself credit for self-denial in not waking Nina on the instant to tell her of their good fortune. Still more, he plumed himself on his forethought in resolving to ask her doctor's leave before he entered on so exciting a topic with the invalid. He longed to tell somebody. He was so happy, so elated, so thankful! and yet, amidst all his joy, there rankled an uncomfortable sensation of remorse and self-reproach when he thought of the little blighted life, the little injured helpless creature nestling to its young mother's side in the next room.
CHAPTER II
"NIGHTFALL"
It is more than twenty years ago, and yet how vividly it all comes back to him to-night!
The sun has gone down in streaks of orange and crimson over the old oaks that crown the deer-park sloping upward to the rear of Ecclesfield Manor. Mr. Bruce walks across a darkened room to throw the window open for a gasp of fresh evening air, laden with the perfume of pinks, carnations, and moss-roses in the garden below. Her garden! Is it possible? Something in the action reminds him of that bright, hopeful morning at Calais. Something in the scent of the flowers steals to his brain, half torpid and benumbed; his heart contracts with an agony of physical suffering. "My darling! my darling!" he murmurs, "shall I never see you tying those flowers again?" and turning from the window, he falls on his knees by the bedside with a passionate burst of weeping that, like blood-letting to the body, restores the unwelcome faculty of consciousness to his mind. When he raises his head again he knows well enough that the one great misfortune has arrived at last--that henceforth for him there may come, in the lapse of long years, resignation, even repose, but hope and happiness no more.
Even now, though he wonders at his own callousness, he can bear to look on the bed through a mist of tears; and, so looking, feels his intellect failing in its effort to grasp the calamity that has befallen him.
There she lies, like a dead lily, his own, his treasure, his beloved; the sweet face, calm and placid, with its chiselled ivory features, its smooth and gentle brow, has already borrowed a higher, a more perfect beauty from the immortality on which it has entered. Not fairer, not lovelier did she look that well-remembered evening when he first knew her pure and priceless heart was his own, though she has borne him a daughter--nay, two daughters (and he winces with a fresh and different pain)--the younger as old as she was then. Her raven hair is parted soft and silky off those pale, delicate temples; her long black lashes rest upon the waxen cheek. No; she never looked as beautiful, not in the calm sleep he used to watch so lovingly; and now the deep, fond eyes must open on his own no more. She was so gentle, too, so patient, so sweet-tempered, and O, so true. He had been a man of the world, neither better nor worse than others: he knew women well; knew how rare are the good ones; knew the prize he had won, and valued it--yes, he was sure he always valued it as it deserved. What was the use? Had she not far better have been like the others--petulant, wilful, capricious, covetous of admiration, careless of affection, weak-headed, shallow-hearted, and desirous only of that which could not possibly be her own? Such were most of the women amongst whom he had been thrown in his youth; but O, how unlike her who was lying dead there before his eyes.
"For men at most differ as heaven and earth, But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell."
He felt so keenly now that she had been his better angel for more than twenty years; that but for her he might long ago have deteriorated to selfishness and cynicism, or sunk into that careless philosophy which believes only in the tangible, the material, and the present.