“I shall go mad,” he thought, “if I yield to this just now. I must not think of my part of it yet. Time enough for that soon— Time enough, surely, in the desolation of the long years stretching away before me.” And he writhed at the thought. “What can I do?” he asked himself, “what can I do to lighten it to her, or to strengthen her to bear it? Oh, my darling, my darling. I that would have sheltered you from sorrow as never yet woman was sheltered. And to think that of all living beings on this earth, I am the one who must ever to you be less than nothing! But I am maddening myself again.”
A sudden idea struck him.
“Yes,” he thought. “I should like to see him. One glance at his face would give me a better notion of him than anything I could gather by hearsay. And it will be a sort of satisfaction to know in whose hands my poor child’s future lies.”
But on thinking it over he remembered that actually he had heard and asked nothing about this same “him.” In the absorbing personal interest of his interview with Marion he had forgotten all but themselves.
Whom she had married, what his station, where they had met—was utterly unknown to him. Nor, indeed, if she had attempted to tell would he have cared to listen. All, in that first bitter, bewildering agony, was to him comprised in the fact that she did in truth belong to another.
He walked on slowly through the garden, the hot sun beating on his head, trying as he went to recall the name which he half fancied had been once mentioned by Marion. But in vain. When he got to the house he was seized upon by the landlord and obliged to listen to a long string of apologies for the over-done state of the unfortunate chop. Various emissaries had been despatched, it appeared, to inform him that his “something in the way of lunch” was ready, but had all failed in their mission. “Not expectin’, sir, as you would have strolled beyond the garden, which as being so you must please excuse.”
“Certainly,” replied poor Ralph, feeling that indeed his cup had not been full if he were now to be called upon to partake of this wretched chop in the presence of landlord, waiters, and stable boys, as appeared to be their intention. But he succeeded in dismissing them; and, thankful for silence and solitude, sat down to his semblance of a meal in the little parlour opening out of the hall.
While eating, or making a pretence of so doing, he kept his mind directed to the consideration of his present object; a sight for himself of the “him,” the husband who possessed for him so strange an interest. After a time he rang the bell, intending to enter into conversation with the waiter, and to gather from him indirectly the information he sought. In the meantime, however, a new arrival had distracted the attention of the household of the Peacock, and his summons was not at once obeyed. While waiting he turned to the window and stared out vacantly, as we so often do when utterly indifferent to all passing around us. But Ralph’s indifference was not of long duration. A carriage drove into the little court-yard, drew up at the door, and a gentleman alighted—jumped out in a light-hearted, boyish fashion, hardly waiting till the horse had stopped. He was smoking, and had several letters in his hand, one of which he appeared to be in the act of reading. He stood still for a moment, then sauntered leisurely into the porch and remained there while he finished the perusal of his letter. It was Geoffrey.
From where Ralph stood at the parlour window, he had an excellent view of the young man, whom he no sooner caught sight of than he felt an intuitive conviction that here before him was Marion’s husband.
Geoffrey for a wonder was in a thoughtful mood, or looked so at least, as he stood there reading his letter under the shade of the honeysuckle and clematis climbing over the porch, the sunlight between the branches falling softly on his bright brown hair. A pleasant picture truly; and so Ralph owned to himself as he looked at him. The tall, manly figure, the fair, almost boyish face, made an attractive whole. It was a strange position. The two men, as to years nearly of an age, but in all else so marvellously dissimilar. And yet though utter strangers to each other, with the one absorbing interest in common. Ralph, from his concealment, gazed at the young man, standing in perfect unconsciousness full in his view, as if he would read every smallest characteristic, every hidden feeling of his heart. Never did anxious mother scan more narrowly the man to whom she was asked to confide her darling’s happiness, than did Ralph the countenance of his unconscious rival, the being who had robbed him of all that made life worth having.