“But still, he never said, ‘I will come and claim you from him’—never once.
“How I strove to keep my engagement you may, perhaps, remember; but when he saw I was determined to be true to my promise, he grew desperate, and would have had me risk everything and go off with him then. He explained that he was placed in a difficult position in consequence of his father, on whom he was dependent, wishing him to marry a rich widow; and, of course, I was not so selfish as to desire that he should beggar himself for my sake; so we parted again. Oh, Heather, I did not sink without many a struggle, many a frantic effort to touch secure ground. Everything he told me was false, even to his name; for he assumed that of a cousin the better to deceive me; but I loved him then as I love him now; and then as now. I found it hard to see a fault in him.
“At last I could bear it no longer, and left with him as you know; we were married next morning at a church in the City—he had been residing in the parish for the requisite period—and, as we drove away from the door, I saw my father walking along the side path. I could have put out my hand and touched his shoulder, but he prevented my speaking to him. He would not let me write to you or any one. He said some day he would avow our marriage, and, till then, I must be patient; and I was patient. I never wearied him. I never even felt fretful; if he had asked me to go to Iceland with him, I would have done it. I would have died for him.
“We were so happy,” she continued, after a pause; “we had the loveliest cottage you can imagine in a distant county; and, though he said he was poor, I never felt any shortness of money; we never seemed to have anxiety about providing for the morrow’s wants. My only trouble was his frequent absences; but still, spite of these, he spent a considerable part of his time with me, and he grew to know you and Arthur, and Lally, and the girls, as though you had all been members of his own household.”
“You have more to tell me,” Heather said, as Bessie paused.
“Yes,” was the reply; “I have, the end of my story. One day, when we were out together, we met a gentleman whom my husband greeted with a certain annoyance and restraint. They seemed very familiar and intimate; but, still, Maurice—I always called him Maurice—did not introduce his friend to me, nor invite him to our house. After he left us, I asked his name.
“‘Oh, that is my rich cousin,’ Maurice said in reply. ‘I hope he did not guess who you are.’
“‘Why, would he tell your father?’ I asked, and he answered ‘No; he did not think so. He believed him to be a better fellow than all that came to; but he is a canting idiot,’ he said, ‘and has got so many strange ideas. If he should happen to call, you must not see him; remember, you must not, Bessie!’
“I promised him that I would not, and I meant to keep my promise; but a fortnight afterwards—when my husband having gone up to London, I was alone—this same man stepped, without any announcement whatever, through one of the front windows opening into the garden, and, after very briefly apologising for his intrusion, and the fright he had caused me, commenced one of the most dreadful sermons you ever heard, Heather, and wound up by inquiring ‘whether I had ever considered I was going down into hell and dragging his cousin there with me.’
“Thinking he was mad, I humoured him at first; but, after a time, finding there was a wonderful coherence in his discourse—that it was, in fact, too stupid to be the speech of a madman—I asked him, plainly, what he meant, entreating of him, in the same sentence, not to tell Maurice’s father of his son’s marriage; for that fear of bringing unhappiness on my husband was the only grief I had.