“It’s the voice of nature,” cried Miss Bethune quickly, an eager flush covering her face. “Don’t you know, don’t you feel, that there is nobody but me you could come to?—that you are sure of me whoever fails you—that there’s a sympathy, and more than a sympathy? Oh, my boy, I will be to you all, and more than all!”
She was so overcome with her own emotion that she could not get out another word.
A flush came also upon Harry Gordon’s pale face, a look abashed and full of wonder. He felt that this lady, whom he liked and respected, went so much too far, so much farther than there was any justification for doing. He was troubled instinctively for her, that she should be so impulsive, so strangely affected. He shook his head. “Don’t think me ungrateful,” he cried. “Indeed, I don’t know if you mean all that your words seem to mean—as how should you indeed, and I only a stranger to you? But, dear Miss Bethune, that can never be again. It is bad enough, as I find out, to have had no real tie to her, my dear lady that’s gone—and to feel that everybody must think my grief for my poor aunt is partly disappointment because she has not provided for me. But no such link could be forged again. I was a child when that was made. It was natural; they settled things for me as they pleased, and I knew nothing but that I was very happy there, and loved them, and they me. But now I am a man, and must stand for myself. Don’t think me ungracious. It’s impossible but that a man with full use of his limbs must be able to earn his bread. It’s only going back to South America, if the worst comes to the worst, where everybody knows me,” he said.
Miss Bethune’s countenance had been like a drama while young Gordon made this long speech, most of which was uttered with little breaks and pauses, without looking at her, in the same attitude, with his eyes on the ground. Yet he looked up once or twice with that flitting sad smile, and an air of begging pardon for anything he said which might wound her. Trouble, and almost shame, and swift contradiction, and anger, and sympathy, and tender pity, and a kind of admiration, all went over her face in waves. She was wounded by what he said, and disappointed, and yet approved. Could there be all these things in the hard lines of a middle-aged face? And yet there were all, and more. She recovered herself quickly as he came to an end, and with her usual voice replied:—
“We must not be so hasty to begin with. It is more than likely that the poor lady has made the position clear in her will. We must not jump to the conclusion that things are not explained in that and set right; it would be a slur upon her memory even to think that it would not be so.”
“There must be no slur on her memory,” said young Gordon quickly; “but I am almost sure that it will not be so. She told me repeatedly that I was not to blame her—as if it were likely I should blame her!”
“She would deserve blame,” cried Miss Bethune quickly, “if after all that has passed she should leave you with no provision, no acknowledgment——”
He put up his hand to stop her.
“Not a word of that! What I wanted was to keep my place until after—until all was done for her. I am a mere baby,” he cried, dashing away the tears from his eyes. “It was that solicitor coming in to take charge of everything, to lock up everything, to give all the orders, that was more than I could bear.”
She did not trust herself to say anything, but laid her hand upon his arm. And the poor young fellow was at the end of his forces, worn out bodily with anxiety and want of sleep, and mentally by grief and the conflict of emotions. He bent down his face upon her hand, kissing it with a kind of passion, and burst out, leaning his head upon her arm, into a storm of tears, that broke from him against his will. Miss Bethune put her other hand upon his bowed head; her face quivered with the yearning of her whole life. “Oh, God, is he my bairn?—Oh, God, that he were my bairn!” she cried.