Half Brothers

by Hesba Stretton

Sidney Martin was suffering greatly under his fresh burden of anxiety. It seemed to him that all his future happiness or misery depended absolutely upon the result of Trevor's mission. He kept away from the house on Wimbledon Common, for he dared not trust himself in conversation with Margaret. That he loved her, and loved her with the profound, mature passion of manhood—how different from his boyish fancy!—made it impossible for him to approach her with calm friendliness, as he had done before her father's private talk with him, and his avowal that Margaret herself was far from being indifferent to him.

But now he had placed his secret in the hands of another, and must be prepared to acknowledge his boyish error. He must lose Margaret, if Sophy was alive. His imagination was busy in painting to him two lives, either of which might be his in the immediate future.

If Sophy was found he must own her as his wife, and make her the mistress of his house. He pictured her to himself as his wife, with her silly, affected, low-bred manners. His inward disgust at his own conduct exaggerated her faults, and painted her in the most repulsive colors. Her relations and friends would certainly flock about her; and, though he did not know them, he could not think of them as anything but ignorant and vulgar; for they were nothing but poor shopkeepers in a little market-town. He knew himself too well to resolve upon carrying on a continual conflict with the woman he had made his wife. He would leave her to follow her own way, while he took his; but her way could not fail to intersect his at some points; and he must be brought into contact with a vulgarity and folly which he loathed. His lot must be that bitter one of being linked indissolubly to a companion always at variance with him.

But possibly Sophy's long, persistent silence meant the silence of death. If so, his future promised to be bright and happy far beyond his deserts; for he frankly acknowledged to his own heart that he was unworthy of the prosperous happiness Sophy's death would insure for him. With Margaret as his wife, he might push his ambition to its farthest goal, and meet with no check or shock from her. If she had a fault, it was the transparent simplicity which made her almost too good for this work-a-day world. She had a charm which no other woman he knew possessed—a charm altogether apart from her personal loveliness. He could fancy her an old woman with white hair, and dim eyes, and faded-face, and yet retaining an indescribable attraction. She would be as beautiful in his eyes when she was seventy as she was now. He felt he could be a good man indeed if she was always at his side.

Day after day he went up to the City and transacted his business, keeping the threads of his world-wide enterprises in his own hand, and directing them with a clear, shrewd head. But he was waiting through all the long hours for the letter which would contain his doom. Trevor was to write to him the first certain information he gathered, and to keep him acquainted with his progress from day to day. At last the letter with the Austrian postmark came, and he fastened the door of his office, giving orders that he was to be interrupted for no one.

It was but a few lines, but it told him that Trevor had seen the grave where Sophy had lain for more than seven years. Sidney had prepared himself, as he believed, for any news that might reach him, and yet it came upon him like a thunderbolt. Poor Sophy! Still, what a relief it was to know she would never trouble him again! And she had been dead all these years, during which he had lived in deadly suspense and terror, as of one over whom a sword was hanging. How foolish he had been! If he had only had the courage to make this simple investigation before how free and joyous the years he had lost would have been. But he had lost these seven years of his youth as a penalty for his early error, and now the punishment was over.

He had intended at first to spend this evening alone, in memory of Sophy and her sad fate. But, before an hour had passed he grew accustomed to the knowledge that she was dead, and felt as if he had known it all these years. It had the dimness of an old sorrow. Seven years in the grave! He did not feel that it would be any shock to himself, or slight to Sophy's memory, if he yielded to his passionate longing to hurry away to Margaret.

It was already evening when he rode swiftly across Wimbledon Common, but it was an hour or two before his usual time, and Margaret was not waiting for him at the open door. He was shown into the library, where he had awaited her first appearance to him, now nearly a year ago. He had loved her from the first moment he saw her, he said to himself; and every day had increased his love. Would to God he was more worthy of her! From the height of his love to her he looked down on the low and foolish infatuation he had felt for Sophy. How could it be possible that, even as a boy, he could have wasted his affections in such a way? When Margaret opened the door, and came in softly, with a pale face, and eyelids a little red with weeping, looking as she did when he first saw her, he felt that she was even dearer to him than he had been fancying.

"Sidney!" she said, meeting him with both hands outstretched, "we have missed you more than I can tell. Why have you stayed away so long? My father is so ill!"

"Margaret!" he cried stammering. He could not utter a word of all that was in his heart, for he had resolved that, if possible, she should never know of Sophy's existence. There would be no need for the world to know, and he could make it worth while to Trevor to keep the secret. For, after all, it was not a secret involving any important issues; and if the worst came to the worst, he could tell Margaret when she was his wife, and it did not signify to any other person, excepting Margaret's father. He held her hands fast in a strong grasp as he looked at her; and the color came and went on her face, and her eyes fell before his gaze.