“No, I hardly go so far as that,” said Edith, with a faint smile. “I think that the man who committed the crime should know that Lionel still lives, and that he holds in his hands the proof at once of his own innocence and of the other’s guilt. Beyond that I say this: The world believes my husband to be dead: rather than re-open so terrible a wound, let the world continue so to believe. My husband and I can do without the world, as well as it can do without us. We have our mutual love, which nothing can deprive us of: against that the shafts of Fortune beat as vainly as hailstones against a castle wall. On this earth of ours are places sweet and fair without number. In one of them—not altogether dissevered from those ties of friendship which have already made our married life so beautiful—my husband and I could build up a new home, with no sad memories of the past to cling around it; and when this haunting shadow that now broods over his life shall have been brushed away for ever, then I think—I know—I feel sure that I can make him happy!” Her voice, her eyes, her whole manner were imbued with a sweet fervour that it was impossible to resist.
Lionel crossed over and kissed her. “My darling!” he said. “But for your love and care I should long ago have been a madman.”
“You, my dear, have put into words,” said the General, “the very ideas that for a long time have been floating about, half formed, in my own mind. Lionel, what have you to say to your wife’s suggestions?”
“Only this: that I have made up my mind to follow them. He shall know that I am alive, and that I hold the proofs of his guilt, ready to produce them at a moment’s notice, should I ever be compelled to do so. Beyond that, I will leave him in peace—to such peace as his own conscience will give him. The world believes Lionel Dering to be dead and buried. Dead and buried he shall still remain, and ‘requiescat in pace’ be written under his name.”
The General got up with tears in his eyes and shook Lionel warmly by the hand. “Good boy! good boy! You will not go without your reward,” was all that he could say.
“The eighth of May will soon be here,” said Lionel—“the anniversary of poor Osmond’s murder. On that day he shall be told. But I shall tell him in my own fashion. On that day, uncle, you must promise to give me your company; and you yours, Tom. After that I shall trouble you no more.”
If Tom Bristow dissented from the conclusion thus come to, he said no word to that effect. There was one point, however, that struck his practical mind as having been altogether overlooked; and as soon as Edith and Mrs. Garside had left the room he did not fail to mention it.
“What about the income of eleven thousand a year?” he said. “You are surely not going to let the whole of that slip through your fingers?”
“Ah, by-the-by, that point never struck me,” said the General. “No, it would be decidedly unjust both to yourself and your wife, Lionel, to give up the income as well as the position.”
“Now you are importing a mercenary tone into the affair that is utterly distasteful to me. It looks as if I were being bribed to keep silence.”