‘I’ll make a clean breast of it. Last year, I came down here with some curiosity to see this girl who had come and planted herself down with Otho. Knowing what he was, I was undecided whether she was very fast, or very silly. So I came prepared for a good deal of amusement. You need not glare at me in that way. I would bet something you had your own private bit of astonishment in the matter, too. Well, the very first time I saw her, I understood one thing—that she was neither fast nor silly, and the more I saw of her the more lost in astonishment I was. Do you remember that knight in “The Faery Queene”—I forget which he was—who came across a woman of her sort, and was struck dumb by her goodness, till
‘“He himself, long gazing thereupon,
At last fell humbly down upon his knee,
And of his wonder made religion.”
It was something like that with me; and in a very short time I had made up my mind that she was the woman I would marry, if I could only get her to take me. And I had the best hopes in the world, for Otho had begun to conduct himself like a maniac, even then, and she speedily found out that I was the only person who had any control over him. Well, then came that night of the concert; a good many things came about that night, it seems to me. And when I saw you and her in the same room together, and you speaking to her, and her to you, I was certain there was something of the kind going on. Michael, I gave her up from that moment.... And yet, when time went on—it is nearly a year ago—and I heard of nothing between you, I began to think that, perhaps, after all, you had decided to have nothing to do with one who belonged to us, and I began to have a little hope again. When I got her telegram this morning, I felt a good deal of hope, and I frankly confess I was not sorry to hear that she was in trouble. I hoped that I could so serve her that I should be able to ask for a reward; and the shape I proposed to give it was, that we should pension off Otho with her money,—some of it, you know,—and that she should come to me, and never be troubled any more—if she only would. But you had forestalled me; and since it is you, I submit; but if it had been anybody else——’
He paused expressively. Michael was looking earnestly at him, a crowd of new emotions in his heart. This, then, was the secret of Gilbert’s conduct which had so puzzled Eleanor.
‘I should have told her long ago that I loved her,’ observed Michael; ‘but there was her money, and her connections. They were too much for me.’
‘As far as money goes, you will be her equal,’ said Gilbert. ‘I don’t suppose she will let Otho starve, and I can assure you there will not be a great superfluity of means when his affairs are wound up; and now that this girl and this child will have to be provided for——’
‘If they live,’ put in Michael.
‘If they live—yes. Well, that will make a hole in her income, I can assure you. While, on your part, there is that money—Michael——’ he hesitated, stammered—‘that money that——’