"God forgive me, I was indeed a villain! For, although not even to save you would I have endangered Alice's safety, yet my first thought was of the new power which this circumstance gave me over her fierce grandmother; and, without giving a sign of emotion, I begged to know her final decision.
"Then began a fearful contest between us; one of those struggles on which more than life is staked. I conquered at last, and that indomitable will was forced to bend before mine. You are safe, as long as Alice remains in ignorance of the dark parts of our histories; as long as I live with her, and by kindness and respect ensure her comfort and peace of mind, so long will her grandmother adhere to the promise, which she has renewed on these conditions. But you must help me to fulfil them, Ellen. You must not leave me to myself, for then my strength would fail me. It must be under your eyes, and in constant association with you, that I must learn to treat Alice as I now feel myself bound to treat her. One of the principal complaints which her, grandmother made, was of the seclusion in which she lived; and on this point I must give way, though, as I once said to you, I tremble for the consequences; but you must be near us—with us. Though scarcely older than her, you know where the dangers of the world lie, and you will watch over one who, in her childish ignorance, stands like a guardian angel between you and your persecutor. There is something sacred in the feelings with which we must both regard and cherish her. Hook at her now with emotion, as the mother of my child. I bless her in my heart for having saved you from misery and exposure. If you will allow no common prejudices, no vulgar scruples to stand in the way of the good you may effect, then, Ellen, there may be better days in store for us all.
"Remember to announce your marriage in form to us, as soon as it is declared; and remember also, that I will be guarded, prudent, and considerate, as long as you show me unlimited confidence. I cannot answer for my self if caprice, or unjust apprehensions, should estrange you from me.
"Once more, farewell,
"And God bless you!
"Your devoted
"Henry Lovell."
This letter dropt from my hands as I read the last words, and a tumultuous rush of feelings made my heart throb with indefinable emotion. In my most sanguine moments I had not perhaps anticipated so favourable an answer, nor hoped that Henry would have exerted himself so earnestly in my behalf; and yet I felt more afraid of him and of his power than ever, as I saw his determination in some manner or other to link his fate with mine, and to make his conduct to me to depend upon mine. There was something fearful in the conditions in the frail tenure under which alone I was to escape the threatened vengeance of Mrs. Tracy. There was something horribly humiliating in the terms (however veiled in plausible language) which Henry was evidently prescribing to me as the price of his protection. I was never a self-deceiver, and I saw clearly through the shallow pretence of better hopes for the future—of kindness to Alice—of help to pursue the better course—his unswerving determination never to give up those habits of intimacy, which would give full scope for the exercise of his secret power. I did not charge him with hypocrisy, nor with malice; no, he was only selfish, selfish to the very heart's core. I read his letter again, and when he bade me think of him, even at the altar, even when pledging my faith to Edward, I murmured to myself, "Ever between him and me, in thought if not in deed; ever with thy smooth tongue, thy determination strong as iron, and thy character pliant as steel; ever claiming thy share in my heart, and thy place in my thoughts; ever toiling for thine own ends, and hinting at revenge, even while boasting of thy love, and of the sacrifices it makes."
As this mental accusation passed through my mind, I felt its harshness, its ingratitude, and as usual, having begun by condemning him, I ended by hating myself. I could not but acknowledge that all he said of Alice was touching and true, and I religiously resolved to undertake the part he pointed out to me in the spirit of expiation, and while in one sense I gave her my weak and unworthy support, on the other to cling to her, as to my refuge and my shield, from a love and from a hatred which made me equally tremble. The self-reproach which had immediately followed my harsh condemnation of Henry, at the very moment when he had made a great sacrifice in my behalf, however incomplete its generosity might have been, brought on as usual a reaction, and something of tenderness stole into my heart at the thought of so deep, so unconquerable an attachment as his. In Henry there always seemed to me to be two different natures, one harsh, selfish, sneering and heartless, the other tender almost as a woman's is tender, and gentle even to a fault. Notwithstanding all that I so often suffered from the first, I could not help being at times strangely subdued and touched by the last. His letter, too, like himself, appeared to have a two-fold character, and as I considered it under each in turn, my heart was alternately softened and hardened towards the writer.
Soon I experienced one of those changes of mood, one of those abrupt transitions of feeling, which seem to transform us for the time into a different sort of being from that with which we are usually conscious of identity. A kind of feverish determination to be happy took possession of me, a careless disregard of the future, a sort of impassioned levity, of reckless childishness. I walked up and down my room with restless excitement; I longed now to return to London, to have my marriage declared, to be congratulated, to be talked to, to enter on a new state of things, and efface as much as possible, from my life and from my mind, the traces of the past.