It May Be True, Vol. 3 (of 3)

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Mrs. Elrington drew up her head proudly. "But not Amy Neville," she replied, "no amount of wealth would have tempted her to marry a man she did not care for."

"Care for," he repeated bitterly, "caring is not loving."

Mrs. Elrington had arrived at the bottom of the mystery now; he fancied Amy did not love him! Amy who was devoting herself to him day after day, never weary of, but only happy when she was in his sick room, nursing and tending him as few wives would, treated so coldly, giving him all the loving worship of her young heart; while he refused to believe in it, but gloomily hugged the morbid fancy to his heart that she loved him not.

Mrs. Elrington could have smiled at the delusion, if Amy's happiness had not been at stake; as it was she replied gravely, "You are mistaken, Mr. Vavasour, wilfully blind to what is openly apparent to all others who ever see you and your wife together. Why I verily believe Amy worships the very ground you stand on; but I fear no words of mine will convince you of the fact, while the indifference with which you are treating her is well-nigh breaking her heart."

No, Robert Vavasour was not convinced.

"She did not love me when she married me; her oath was false, she—" but no, his pride refused to allow him to tell of her love for another.

"I cannot listen to this," replied Mrs. Elrington, rising, "whatever her love may have been in the days you speak of, I am convinced Amy has never acted falsely towards you since you called her wife; neither do I believe there lives a man who now claims or holds one thought of hers from you. I am an old woman, Mr. Vavasour, and have seen a great deal of sorrow, and one heart broken through the cruelty of another; let not your wife's be so taken from you, but believe in her, trust in her, watch over her as the apple of your eye, for indeed she needs and demands all your love and tenderness; crush not the love that is even now struggling in her heart, at your hardness and neglect, or take care lest you build up a wall that you will find it impossible hereafter to knock down, or when falling, will bury her you love beneath its ruins."

Robert's heart was strangely ill at ease and stirred by these words of Mrs. Elrington's. Perhaps he began to fear that even if his wife loved him not, he had been unnecessarily hard and severe, and pitiless, very pitiless and unloving. Might he not yet succeed in winning her love—the only thing in the wide world that he coveted? But then again, the thought that she had loved another, had cruelly deceived him, when he had loved and trusted her so entirely, was gall and wormwood to him, and turned his heart, when he thought of it, to stone. No; even allowing that she might love him, he could never love her so passionately again. So Vavasour thought, and so men and women have thought, and will think again, as long as the world lasts, and yet, do what they will, the old love will come again, with all its old intensity, overthrowing all their wise and determined resolutions.

Deep in thought, Vavasour sat, until the minutes crept into hours, and then Mrs. Archer came, looking very different from the Mrs. Grey of old. The frown had not, it is true, disappeared, but it had faded and given way to a mild, happy expression pervading every feature of her face. There was still a mournful look—how could it be otherwise?—the mournful remembrance of the past; but even that was growing dim beside the ever-living presence of her son, and of her love for him. She had gained her wish, too, for Robert loved his mother, and, I think, was somewhat proud of her. There was nothing to be ashamed of, nothing he need blush for; she was his mother, he her son, acknowledged to be so by all the world.

She was dressed in black silk, and grey-coloured ribbons in her cap; her glossy, almost snow-white hair, still beautiful in its abundance, rolled round her head. She had grown quiet and gentle, and had none of the wild passions or fits of half-madness now. As Robert sat gazing at her, he thought she must have been very beautiful in her youth, when that mass of hair was golden.