“He thought not, but chance sent him one at the last hour, and when he called on death, Helwyze came. It always seemed to me as if, unwittingly, I conjured from the fire kindled to destroy myself a genie who had power to change me from the miserable wretch I was, into the happy man I am. For more than a year I have been with him,—first as secretary, then protégé, now friend, almost son; for he asks nothing of me except such services as I love to render, and gives me every aid towards winning my way. Is not that magnificent generosity? Can I help regarding him with superstitious gratitude? Am I not rightly named Felix?”
“Yes, oh yes! Tell me more, please. I have led such a lonely life, that human beings are like wonder-books to me, and I am never tired of reading them.” Gladys looked with a rapt expression into the face upturned to hers, little dreaming how dangerous such lore might be to her.
“Then you should read Helwyze; he is a romance that will both charm and make your heart ache, if you dare to try him.”
“I dare, if I may, because I would so gladly lose my fear of him in the gentler feeling that grows in me as I listen.”
Canaris was irresistibly led on to confidences he had no right to make, it was so pleasant to feel that he had the power to move the girl by his words, as the wind sways a leaf upon its delicate stem. A half-fledged purpose lurked in a dark corner of his mind, and even while denying its existence to himself, he yielded to its influence, careless of consequences.
“Then I will go on and let compassion finish what I have begun. Till thirty, Helwyze led a wonderfully free, rich life, I infer from hints dropped in unguarded moments,—for confidential moods are rare. Every good gift was his, and nothing to alloy his happiness, unless it was the restless nature which kept him wandering like an Arab long after most men have found some ambition to absorb, or some tie to restrain, them. From what I have gathered, I know that a great passion was beginning to tame his unquiet spirit, when a great misfortune came to afflict it, and in an hour changed a life of entire freedom to one of the bitterest bondage such a man can know.”
“Oh, what?” cried Gladys, as he artfully paused just there to see her bend nearer, and her lips part with the tremor of suspense.
“A terrible fall; and for ten years he has never known a day’s rest from pain of some sort, and never will, till death releases him ten years hence, perhaps, if his indomitable will keeps him alive so long.”
“Alas, alas! is there no cure?” sighed Gladys, as the violet eyes grew dim for very pity of so hard a fate.
“None.”