But when he entered the room where he had seen her the night before, a great dread seized him. He felt as he would have done if she had been dead. There was the chair she sat in only last night; that was the book she had laid down; those flowers she had gathered and arranged for herself; and now she was gone! There was something of the desolation of death about the vacant place.
A letter lay upon the table, and he seized it eagerly. Margaret was not one who used many words of endearment, or many caresses. She thought that love, like religion, should show itself in deeds, not speeches. Hitherto she had never begun her letters to him in any other way than the almost formal one of "My dear Sidney." This was different.
"My beloved husband," it ran, "it is because you are dearer to me than any other human being, dearer than my own life a hundredfold, dearer even than my own soul, that I cannot just now bear your presence. How I love you I cannot find words to tell; my love for you is myself, my life. There is no bitterness in my heart toward you; only an immense grief—an abyss of gloom and heaviness, which nothing but God's love can fill. All my life, since I first saw you, you have seemed to me one of Christ's true followers; in the world but not of it; a real disciple, a faithful soldier of the cross. I never saw in you the shadow of a lie. You were to me truth and faithfulness personified.
"And now it would be difficult, almost impossible, to see clearly what you have been, as long as I am near to you. My brain is confused; and it is necessary for me to get away, lest my feebleness should enfeeble you in doing what is right. There can be only one right way; and I hope to stand beside you in the sorrowful years that are coming. I promise to do this—to come back and hold your hand, and walk by your side, sharing the burden with you. But do not think to avoid this burden, and these sad years. The harvest of a seed sown long ago is come, and we must reap it, whether we do it humbly or defiantly. But I must go away now from you, my dearest one—from whom I never thought to separate till death should part us.—MARGARET."
Sidney read these lines through again and again; at first in such a paroxysm of anger as he had never felt since he had deserted Sophy, when he was in his early manhood. Was there not a kind of fanaticism in his wife's religion—that blindness which is said to prevent devotees from seeing a thing in its own light? She demanded of him to encounter the gossip and wonder of the vast circle of his acquaintances in the City and in society, to bring a slur on his fair fame, and, worse than all, to place his low born son in the position which her own boy had hitherto occupied as his heir. She asked him to doom Philip to the life of a comparatively poor and obscure man. And for what? That an old man and woman, who for thirty years had lived in suspense about their child's fate, should at last hear that all this time she had been lying in her grave. If he could bring Sophy back to life, it would be different. It must make Andrew and Rachel Goldsmith more miserable to learn the truth since the truth was what it was.
Margaret did not think of the dishonor this discovery would bring upon religion. For he was distinguished in the City, and in Parliament, both as a philanthropist and a religious man. He had been both since he had known her, and this sin, committed in his boyish indifference to all religious matters, must fling the shadow of a total eclipse upon his career. Why should he make his fellow-Christians ashamed? No scandal has so much charm as a scandal against a prominent Christian. And how easy it was to avoid it if Margaret would but consent! No one would be any the worse, for he would keep his promise of making his eldest son a rich man in the station now belonging to him. Nothing but misery could come of any other course.
Yet as he read again Margaret's letter, with its strong and mournful expressions of her love, his anger subsided, and the idea of denying the legality of his first marriage grew slowly more and more repugnant to him. He saw, too, quite clearly, that he must lose Margaret if he pursued this plan. What measures she would adopt, if he carried out such a purpose, he could not tell. But in any case he would lose her; she would never live with him again if he denied his marriage with Sophy Goldsmith. Still he would not decide definitely what he would do till he had seen Sophy's son.
There was still time to reach Cortina that day, and after a hasty meal he set out, taking Dorothy and Phyllis with him. He should see this eldest son of his in time to telegraph to Margaret, before Rachel Goldsmith could join her at Berne; and she would not refuse his entreaty to keep silence, at least for a few days. He was pondering over this new step, as they drove through the wonderful valley, where the clouds resting upon the crests of the mountains caught, in many-colored hues, the rays of the evening sun. It was twilight when they reached the hotel; but the twilight is long there, for the sun sets early behind the rocky walls which hem in the valley. The village lay tranquilly in a soft, gray light. How well he remembered it! He shrank from entering the hotel, for it seemed almost certain that Sophy herself was awaiting his arrival there.
Yonder lay the broad pathway through the fields, leading to the half ruined fortress where he had last parted with her. He turned down the familiar track as if urged by some irresistible impulse. It was about the same season of the year; the same flowers and weeds were in bloom, and the crops were at nearly the same stage of growth. It might have been the same evening. Was the past blotted out, then? Would that he could take up his life again as it was thirty years ago, and sow the seed of the future—oh, how differently!
But even now he turned with aversion from the idea of a life spent with Sophy Goldsmith. He fancied he could see her sitting on the flight of steps which led up to the church door, and that he could hear her shrill voice bidding him go away, and never return. Yet if he had been a true man, as Philip was, he could not have forsaken her. If Philip had found himself caught in such a mistake, a mistake so fatal to all happiness, he would have accepted the consequences, and done what he could to make the best of the future. But he had built all his life on a blunder and a lie. "I have pierced myself through with many sorrows," he said to himself.