Tried in the Fire.
After, as it were, a race for life, the breathless competitors seemed to welcome the restful change, and the sleep that came almost unalloyed by the mental pangs which had left their marks upon the brows of young and old. And swift tides came and went with the calms and storms of the western coast, but somehow all seemed to tell of rest and peace.
It was a year after Victor Pradelle had been placed in what Sergeant Parkins facetiously termed one of her Majesty’s boarding schools, under a good master, that John Van Heldre wrote the following brief letter in answer to one that was very long, dated a month previous to the response, and bearing the post-mark of the Straits Settlements:—
“Harry Vine,—I quite appreciate what you say regarding your long silence. I am too old a man to believe in a hasty repentance forced on by circumstances. Hence, I say, you have done wisely in waiting a year before writing as fully as you have. George and Luke Vine have always been to me as brothers. You know how I felt toward their son. I say to him now you are acting wisely, and I am glad that you have met such a friend as Richard Leslie.
“Certainly; stay where you are, though there is nothing to fear now from the law, I guarantee that. The years soon roll by. I say this for all our sakes.
“As to the final words of your letter—one of my earliest recollections is that of my little hands being held together by one whom you lost too soon in life. Had your mother lived, your career might have been different. What I was taught as my little hands were held together, I still repeat: ‘As we forgive them that trespass against us.’ Yes. Some day I hope to give you in the flesh that which I give you in the spirit now—my hand.”
Six more years had passed before a broad-shouldered, bronzed, and bearded man—partner in the firm of Leslie and Vine, Singapore and Penang—grasped John Van Heldre’s hand, and asked him a question to which the old merchant replied: “Yes, all is forgiven and forgotten now. If you can win her; yes.”
But the days glided on and the question was not asked. Uncle Harry was constantly on the beach or down on the rocks with the two little prattling children of Duncan Leslie and his wife, and Uncle Luke, who seemed much the same, was rather disposed to be jealous of the favour in which the returned wanderer stood; but he indulged in a pleasant smile now and then, when he was not seen, and had taken to a habit of stopping his nephew on the beach at unexpected times, and apparently for no reason whatever.
The question was not asked, for Aunt Marguerite, who had taken to her bed for the past year, was evidently fading fast. As Dr Knatchbull said, she had been dying for months, and it was the state of her health which brought her nephew back to England, to find his old sins forgotten or forgiven, a year sooner than he had intended.
By slow degrees the vitality had passed from the old woman step by step, till the brain alone remained bright and clear. She was as exacting as ever, and insisted upon her bed being draped with flowers and lace and silk, and her one gratification was to be propped up, with a fan in one nerveless hand and a scent-bottle in the other, listening to the reading of some old page of French history, over which she smiled and softly nodded her head.
One day Harry was down near the harbour talking to Poll Perrow, whose society he often affected, to the old woman’s great delight, when Madelaine Van Heldre came to him hastily.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked excitedly.