"My most kind and thoughtful Pilla,—What matter for such trifles now? Remember that all I care about is to be of service to you. It would have been a weary day but for that consideration. Do exactly as you feel inclined, but how happy I should be if you would come down to dinner. [This I only wrote that I might try to make her eat a bit, because she would not even take her gruel.] For the sake of the many who love you, think a little of yourself, if a heart so unselfish has the power. You must never speak as if I wished to be elsewhere, unless your desire is to grieve me. You shall hear what the lawyer has done for us by-and-by; but his chief wish is to please us. You know quite well what mine is.—Ever yours, George Cranleigh.
"P. S.—The canon most readily promised to officiate."
Now that such a simple letter, written when the cloth was laying, and the room grown shadowy, yet full of thoughts of dinner-time—for Pilla through her tears took care to keep the kitchen-jack alive—that a few kind words like these of mine should start up as wilful enemies, is a proof of that which men like Strogue might take into some dry coil of brain, having filled it more with the study of mankind than with converse of their Maker. To wit, that whenever any human being yields to the goodwill towards his fellows which has been implanted in him, he is making a fool of himself, without doing a bit of good to his brethren. Let Strogue think so, if he likes, and prove it by a thousand instances; he will not get me to believe it, or at any rate to act as if I did.
And here you will find, if you go on, that it was not so even in my own case. At first it looked very bad indeed, and I made a grievance of it, as any but a perfect man must do; and him I have still to meet with. How on earth could that hasty note, written only for comfort in profound distress, and with the warmth one feels for affliction, have fallen into the hands of some vile enemy, who had used it to destroy my Dariel's faith in me? Over and over again I read the words I had scrawled in a hurry; and the more I pored over them the more distinctly I saw what they might mean to Dariel. One most unlucky reference too would quench any doubt she might try to cherish. In my brief account of that sad affair at Sheffield, I mentioned, or should have done so, that Mr. Erricker's old and trusted solicitor was gone from home at the time of the sudden calamity, and his place had been supplied by a junior partner, a peaceful young man, who would never take the lead. His only anxiety was to keep within the possibility of mistake; and this (as the widow was so ill, and entreated me to act for her) compelled me to be content with legal sanction rather than counsel. But Dariel knowing nought of that, or of the affliction in the house, would naturally conclude that the lawyer was come to arrange for my marriage with poor Pilla. "Well, this is a kettle of fish, and a kettle of devil-fish," I thought; "but one great joy there is—my darling has not thrown me over through a toss-up."
All my love (which had never been away, longer than I could live without my heart) came back with a rush of double power, and a wild condition prevailed with me. That cold letter of dismissal bore no date of time or place, and afforded not a trace of the writer's whereabouts or intentions, except that it bore the post-mark of Dresden, and a date now four days old. Sûr Imar had told me more than once of his love for art, and deep regret that his stormy life had allowed him no acquaintance with it. Also he had shown me a very ancient—daub I should have called it, but for the subject—supposed to be a portrait of our Lord on panel, which according to legend had been brought by St. Peter when he came to preach in the Caucasus. Although he was not sure of that tradition, the Lesghian chief attached no small importance to this heirloom, and was anxious to compare the face, or as much of it as could be descried, with some of the first presentments, or conceptions, to be found in Europe. He was gifted very richly, as all great men are, with the power of moving slowly, not only abstaining from all attempt to rob Time of his forelock, but also offering that old robber plenty of leisure to tug his own. Thus the father of Dariel might stray through many a gallery, museum, and cathedral, before he reached the Russian capital; and wherever he was, there beyond a doubt would be his beloved daughter.
With this belief, I lost no time in going to see Strogue again, at least to hear what he had to say, though I expected little comfort. The place to which he now belonged, though it seemed more truly to belong to him, was that ancient tavern "The London Rock," so called perhaps in transcendence of the London Stone, which was not far off. An old-fashioned, overhanging house, with windows like the stern-galleries of a veteran three-decker, and a double door with big brass fittings, and glass panels glancing; the whole withdrawn as with an inner meaning, and prim sense of private rights, even from the organ-grinder, who dictates to the alley, and the babies who tripudiate, with tongues that can keep time, whenever dirty feet are weary. Strogue had seen all the world almost, and was come back to the beginning of it, smiling at the glee of childhood through the majesty of a placid smoke.
You never could take that man aback; perhaps because that sort of thing had been done to him once too often. He sat in a hooded chair of state, with a long pipe casting garlands of the true Nicotine forget-me-not, like a floral crown for his emerit head; but his legs were in front of him as they ought to be, and the day being still in its youth, no car of Bacchus had begun to jingle through the calm realms of baccy. Or at least, there was only one cool tankard, and the crown of froth was gone from that.
"How is the rib?" I asked in my usual stupid way, for all enquiry was out of place in a paradise so tranquil. And then I proceeded still more ineptly by begging him not to be disturbed.
"What rib?" enquired Strogue, with as much surprise as he could reconcile with his dignity.
"Why, the rib that was broken the other day," I answered, with some sense of trespass on his constitution.