"My boy, you have no cause to fear in this matter. In the future I myself will take care of Valentine, but I love you for your thoughtfulness, Gerald."
"You need not, sir. I have something on my mind which I must say now. I have entered into your scheme. I have——"
"Yes, yes—let me shut and lock the door, my boy."
Wyndham, arrested in his speech, drew one or two heavy breaths.
He spoke again in a sort of panting way. His eyes grew bright and almost wild.
"I have promised you," he continued. "I'll go through with it. It's a million times worse fate for me than if I had killed someone, and then was hung up by the neck until I died. That, in comparison to this, would be—well, like the sting of a gnat. I'll go through with it, however, and you need not be afraid that I'll change my mind. I do it solely and entirely because I love your daughter, because I believe that the touch of dishonor would blight her, because unfortunately for herself she loves you better than any other soul in the world. If she did not, if she gave me even half of the great heart which she bestows upon you, then I would risk all, and feel sure that dishonor and poverty with me would be better than honor and riches with you. You're a happy man during these last six weeks. Mr. Paget. You have found your victim, and you see a way of salvation for yourself, and a prosperous future for Valentine. She won't grieve long—oh, no, not long for the husband she never loved—but look here, you have to guard her against the possibility in the future of falling in love with another—of being won by another man, who will ask her to be his wife and the mother of his children. Though she does not love me, she must remain my widow all her days, for if she does not, if I hear that she, thinking herself free, is about to contract marriage with another, I will return—yes, I will return from the dead—from the grave, and say that it shall not be, and I will show all the world that you are—what you have proved yourself to be to me—a devil. That is all. I wanted to say this to you. Carr has given me the opportunity. I won't see Val to-day, for I am upset—to-morrow I shall have regained my composure."
CHAPTER XI.
Wyndham was engaged to Valentine Paget very nearly a year before their wedding. One of the young lady's stipulations was that under no circumstances would she enter into the holy estate of matrimony before she was eighteen. Paget made no objection to this proviso on Val's part. In these days he humored her slightest wish, and no happier pair to all appearance could have been seen driving in the Park, or riding in the Row, than this handsome father and daughter.
"What a beautiful expression he has," remarked many people. And when they said this to the daughter she smiled, and a sweet proud light came into her eyes.