“Good night, Nixon,” said Mrs. Headley, quickly and much affected; “you are a noble fellow!” and she took and warmly pressed his hand.
“Oh! Mrs. Headley, that is the way Mrs. Ronayne pressed my hand after she had placed the packet in it, and obtained my assurance that her directions should be punctually obeyed. I shall ever feel that pressure—see the look of kindness that accompanied it. I prayed inwardly to God, as I stood gazing on her while she rode gracefully away, to shower all His choicest blessings on her.”
“Good Nixon, no more;” and Mrs. Headley was in the next minute at the side of her husband, who, with deep care on his brow, sat at a table buried in papers, and with the despatch of General Hull in his hand.
“Well, my dear, have you seen him—and how does he bear his affliction?”
“Oh! Headley, I pity him from my inmost soul—pity him for what he now suffers; and, oh! how much more for the greater agony he has yet to endure!”
“You have not yet, then, told him?”
“No! Mrs. Elmsley and Von Voltenberg were there; and even the former must not know the secret. Let all mourn her as one lost to us for, ever, but not through her own fault. Let them continue to believe that she has been violently torn from us, not that she has proved unfaithful to her husband, ungrateful to her friends.”
“Think you not, Ellen, that it would be better to continue Ronayne in the same belief? As you have not opened the subject to him, it is not too late to alter your first intention.”
“Dear Headley, Ronayne must know all. In no other way can the wound at his heart be healed. I comprehend his noble, generous character well. Such is his love for Maria, that he will never recover the shock of her loss while he believes her to have been unwillingly torn from him. He will pine until he sickens and dies, and, indeed, unless the whole truth be told to him, he will find some means of leaving the fort in search of her; indeed he has said he will—that nothing shall prevent him; and, alas, if he does, it will be with but little disposition to return without her. Now, I know that if his love be great, his pride and proper self-esteem are not less so, and feel assured that however acute his first agony, he, will dry up the fountain of his grief, from the moment that he learns that her love for himself has been transferred to another; that, carried away by a strange and seductive fascination, she has abandoned him for an uneducated boy. His pride, even if it do not make him forget her, will so balance with his now unrequited affection, as to enable him to bear himself up, until time shall have robbed the wound of all its bitterness, and nothing remain but the scar. You will, moreover, have an efficient officer preserved to you, and one whose services may be much required in the present crisis—whose voice in the council will not be without its weight, and whose arm and example will help to instil confidence in the men, with all of whom he is a marked favorite.”
“You are right, Ellen, if all that you suppose be true; better that the wound should be enlarged to insure its speedier cure, than that the laceration, though less acute, should be continued. But is it not necessary to be well assured of this? Should you not have stronger ground than what you witnessed yesterday to justify the belief that this excursion was planned to insure the result that has followed?”