“You think so?” she said dryly. “Let me tell you that your wronged and deserted young wife was nearer to you than that, and yet you did not know it. Do you remember a certain September evening when you sat beside the heiress of Hawkhurst upon a way-side bank, in the shadow of Hawkhurst park? Do you remember your passionate vows of love to Miss Wynde? Do you remember telling Miss Wynde that your very life here and beyond depended upon her answer to your suit? Well, there was one listening to those passionate vows whom you thought dead. In the thicket, almost within an arm’s length of you, a poor worn-out, ragged tramp was lying for a brief rest—a hungry, houseless, tattered tramp, Mr. Black—and that tramp was your disowned young wife!”
“O my God! Impossible!”
“You passed on with your beautiful new love in all her pride and her beauty, and the old love rose up from her thorny bed and crept after you like a shadow, and when you stood in the light upon the Hawkhurst terrace, with the hand of your new love pressed to your lips, the old love stood outside the great gates a long way off, and with her face against the bars looked in upon you both, as a lost soul might look in upon Paradise.”
“Oh, Lally, Lally!” cried Rufus, in a wild anguish, utterly losing his self-control. “Lally! Was she there? My poor, poor darling!”
“When you turned to come back down the avenue, she fled moaning. She had seen you, and it seemed as if she must die. But she was young and strong, and life clung to her, although her heart was breaking. She wandered on for hours, and finally lay down under a wayside hedge. The next day she worked in hop-gardens, and the next night she slept in a barn with the hop-pickers, many of whom are tramps and thieves out of London for a holiday. She earned a little money, and went to Canterbury and advertised for a situation, which she obtained—”
“As your companion, madam? May God in heaven bless you for your goodness to my poor forsaken girl! And she lived and suffered while I mourned her as dead. Oh, madam, I can explain all that seems so strange to you and her. I never loved Miss Wynde as I loved Lally. I believed Lally dead, and that I was her murderer. I was consumed with remorse and anguish. I was desperate, and going to the bad, and I prayed Miss Wynde to save me. But I loved only Lally. I pray you to let me see her. She will believe me—”
“That is the very reason I shall not permit you to see her. She is getting to take an interest in life, and I will not have her growing peace disturbed. You are engaged to this heiress—”
“O no, I am not. And if I were I would not marry her now that I know that Lally lives. My father threatened me with arrest and imprisonment if I did not give Lally up. He assured me that the marriage was null and void, and that he would provide for my poor girl. I’m a coward, Miss Wroat, a poor, pitiful coward, and I have had all my life long a deadly fear of my father. You cannot understand that fear; perhaps no one can; but I shall fling off that awe and terror of him, and be henceforth my own master. I was one-and-twenty yesterday, madam, and I am now accountable alone to God and to the laws of my country. I love Lally, and Lally alone, in all the world. I am going to try to be worthy of her. She is poor, and I am poor; but if she will take me back again,” said Rufus, humbly, “we will begin life anew, and I will try to be a better man. I will work for her, and I’ll try to be a great painter, so that she may be proud of me. And if I can’t be that, I’ll be anything that is honest and manly to earn our support. I know you have a poor opinion of me, madam, and I know I deserve it. I don’t amount to much from any point of view, but if you would intercede for me with Lally, and beg her to try me again and marry me, I will bless you always as my benefactress and savior.”
The young man’s humility and anguished pleading touched the heart of Mrs. Peters, but she steeled herself against him, and said:
“Mr. Black, I am sorry for you. I believe that you mean what you say now, but if you were once to get under your father’s influence again, Miss Lally would be as unhappy as ever. I advise you to go back to Miss Wynde, and leave Lally here. In time she may marry an honorable and upright gentleman, with whom she will be far happier than she could be with you.”