Heriot's Choice: A Tale

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'Betha told me he had given up a large West End practice in consequence of severe domestic trouble. She hinted once that he had a bad wife.'

'She was hardly deserving of the name. I have heard that she was nine years older than he, and a great beauty; a woman, too, of marvellous fascination, and gifted beyond the generality of her sex, and that he was madly in love when he married her.'

'Perhaps the love was only on his side?'

'Alas! yes. He found out, when it was too late, that she had accepted him out of pique, and that his rival was living. The very first days of their union were embittered by the discovery that jealousy had forged these life-long fetters for them, and that already remorse was driving his unhappy bride almost frantic. Can you conceive the torment for poor Heriot? He could not set her free, though he loved her so that he would willingly have laid down his life to give her peace. She had no mother living, or he would have sent her away when he saw how distasteful his presence was to her; but, though she had murdered his happiness as well as her own, he was bound to be her protector.'

'He was right,' returned Mildred, in a low voice.

'Ay, and he acted nobly. Instead of overwhelming her with reproaches that could have done no good, or crushing her still more with his coldness, he forgave her, and set himself to win the heart that proved itself so unworthy of his forbearance. Any other husband would have thought himself injured beyond reparation, but not so Heriot. He hid his wretchedness, and by every means in his power tried to lighten the burden of his domestic misery.'

'But people must have seen it?'

'Not through his complaint, for he ever honoured her. I have been told by those who knew him at the time, that his conduct to her was blameless, and that they marvelled at the gentleness with which he bore her wayward fits. After the birth of their only child there was an interval of comparative comfort; in her weakness there was a glimmering of compassion for the man she had injured, and who was the father of her boy. Heriot was touched by the unusual kindness of her manner; there were even tears in her eyes when he took the little creature in his arms and noticed the long eyelashes, so like his mother's.'

'But the child died?'

'Yes—"the little peacemaker," as Heriot fondly called it. But certainly all peace was buried in its little grave; for it was during the months that followed her child's loss that Margaret Heriot developed that unwholesome craving for stimulants which afterwards grew to absolute disease, and which was to wear out her husband's patience into slow disgust and then into utter weariness of life.'