The following morning Mr. de Burgh rode off immediately after breakfast for the town of ——, and on his return late that afternoon desired to see Mary, and though Mrs. de Burgh objected that she was not fit for any exciting conversation—that she was very weak and ill, so much so, that she was going to write to Arthur Seaham to come to Silverton as soon as it was possible—Mr. de Burgh persisted on its being a matter of importance, the more so when he heard, that, on that very morning Mary had received a foreign letter, which Mrs. de Burgh supposed was from her friend the clergyman, the companion of Eustace Trevor, though she had not as yet alluded to its contents, which seemed nevertheless to have considerably affected Mary.
Mr. de Burgh was, therefore, in the course of the evening, taken to Mary's room, where she was lying on the sofa ready to receive her cousin, for whose visit she had been previously prepared.
The interview lasted some time—when Mr. de Burgh left the room, he immediately sat down and wrote a note, which he dispatched without delay. It was, he afterwards told Mrs. de Burgh, when she could induce him to satisfy her curiosity, to the lawyer concerned in the management of the Trevor affairs, whom he had seen that day. He had just written to inform him where Eustace Trevor was to be found, it being proposed to send a special messenger abroad to summon him to England, in order to take possession of his inheritance.
"No will of any kind having been found in existence, Eustace Trevor comes of course into undisputed possession of the property and estates, both entailed and unentailed, that is to say," added Mr. de Burgh, with something of sarcastic triumph in his tone, "if he is found in a fit state of mind to enter upon his rights."
"And poor Eugene," demanded Mrs. de Burgh, bitterly.
"Eugene, I did not see," answered her husband; "a hurt he received the night of the fire, it seems, was inclining to inflammation, and he was ordered to keep quiet; at least, he would not see me when I called at the inn. The lawyer tells me he seems suffering much anxiety and distress of mind; no wonder, for from what I hear, it will go hard with him, if he finds not a generous and forgiving brother in Eustace Trevor; his ten thousand pounds, the portion secured by the marriage settlement to the younger children, will be but a poor set off against the immense expectations on which he had speculated so securely."
"You are very ungenerous and unkind to speak in that way of a fallen man; I hope Mary does not enter into your sentiments, I am sure I shall always stand up for Eugene."
"Oh, no doubt, through thick and thin," was the rather sneering reply, "unkind indeed, I should say, it was cruel kindness 'that the wrong from right defends;' as for Mary, I am glad to find that she has for some time not been quite the blindly obstinate and deluded person I had began regretfully to esteem her, that her infatuation has long since been giving way before the evidences of truth and reason—yes, her charity in the point in question is rather more honourable to her character than that which you profess; there being an old proverb I have somewhere read, which says: 'Charity is an angel when it rejoices in the truth; but (something with a very different name) when it embraces that, which it should only pity and weep over.'"
Tears, indeed; the tears of many mingled and conflicting feelings were trickling through the pale fingers clasped over Mary's aching eyes when left alone by her cousin. The letter that morning received from Mr. Wynne, the superscription of which had been noted down by Mr. de Burgh, held tight in her other hand; that letter, which indeed contained such fearful testimony to the truth of Jane Marryott's story, and all she had heard assigned against him, whom she had once so blindly and ignorantly worshipped. Mr. Wynne related succinctly the whole story of Eustace Trevor's wrongs, as confided by his own lips on his first arrival in Wales. This Mr. Wynne had taken on himself to do unauthorized by his friend; it was all, indeed, which Mary's letter seemed purposed to effect—her own communication of having entirely broken off her engagement with Eugene Trevor, only rendering more wholly out of the question the execution of the step she had so urged upon Eugene's brother.
For her own sake, for her preservation from a fate he so deprecated on her account—he had promised to sacrifice his own interest—to take no step likely to lead to the well-merited discomfiture and disturbance of his brother, or an exposure of the past. The point on which the agreement turned had now been established. He would not too closely inquire by what means, and in what manner; but the promise he must still consider binding on his part, a promise but too much in unison with the solemn determination of his aggrieved and wounded spirit when last he quitted his father's house, never again to seek a son or brother's place within those dishonoured walls. This had been the substance of Mr. Wynne's letter. How changed the aspect of affairs since the period when it had been penned. How mighty the hand, and by what terrible means had been effected, that which her weak influence had attempted to achieve!