There was much more of it; the whole composition of the ‘Vortigern’ was described, with Talbot’s connection with it, just as it had been narrated by Mrs. Jordan. But what chiefly engaged Margaret’s thoughts, and caused her to refer to it again and again, was that allusion of William Henry’s to that one person who, not belonging to the Malone faction, had all along discredited his statements, though, ‘for some reason or another of his own, he had not shown himself antagonistic.’ This was certainly not Talbot, who had shown himself antagonistic enough, nor was it evidently any confidant of the unhappy boy’s. It could, therefore, only have been Frank Dennis; he had, she well remembered, always kept silence when the question of the manuscripts was mentioned, and had even incurred Mr. Erin’s indignation by doing so. But his nature was so frank and open that she could not understand how he could have tacitly countenanced such a fraud had he been really convinced that it was being enacted. It was curious, considering the great distress and perturbation of her mind, that a matter so comparatively small should have thus intruded itself; but it did so.
Otherwise, as may well be imagined, her thoughts had bitter food enough provided for them. That whole night long Margaret never sought her couch. The revelation of the worthlessness of her lover, made by his own hand, and, what was worse, made in no spirit of penitence or remorse, put sleep far from her eyes, and filled her soul with wretchedness. If the thought that things might have been worse can afford consolation, that indeed she had, for William Henry might have married her. If the play had been successful, and if Reginald Talbot had held his tongue, and indeed if he had not held it—for she would never have disbelieved in her Willie had he not torn the mask from his face with his own hand—she might have become William Henry’s wife! The very idea of it chilled her blood. Bound to a liar, a cheat, a forger, by an indissoluble bond for life! Vowed to love, revere, and honour a man the baseness of whose nature she would have been certain to have discovered sooner or later, but in any case too late! She had been saved from that at least; and yet how terrible was the blow that had been inflicted upon her!
Sad it is to be left alone with our dead, how much sadder to be left alone, after they have died, with the revelation of their baseness, to find our love has been wasted on an unworthy object, our reverence paid to a false god. In Margaret’s case matters were still worse, for she could not even keep the revelation to herself; she had not the miserable satisfaction that some bereaved ones have when they chance upon the proof of a once loved one’s shame, of concealing it. It was necessary that she should tell Mr. Erin, and in revealing the fraud of which he had been the victim, what misery was she about to inflict upon him! How the whole fabric of the old man’s pride would be shattered to the dust, and how triumphantly would his enemies trample upon it.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
BREAKING IT.
As Margaret and her uncle sat at breakfast the next morning—later than usual, as was their wont on Sundays—scarce a word was interchanged between them. Her pale face and haggard eyes evoked no remark from him, who, indeed, himself looked pale and worn enough. If he had spoken upon the subject of the play it might have been made easier to her to tell him her dreadful tidings. But as it was, she felt herself unequal to the task; she could not break in upon his gloomy thoughts with such black news. She almost hoped, from his set lips and knitted brow, that he suspected something of the truth; otherwise surely, surely, she thought, he would express some anxiety concerning the continued absence of William Henry.
She was, however, mistaken. Where affection is not concerned, even the catastrophes that happen to others (and much less the apprehensions of them) do not concern us so much as our own material interests.