‘Whatever you may think of my judgment in taking this step, I can assure you that I have not done it without consideration. My reasons are good, and my determination is unalterable. But, my own very best friend, and more than sister, don’t think that I mean to leave my love and friendship for you behind me. No, Paula, you will ALWAYS be with me, and I believe that if an increase in what I already feel for you be possible, it will be furthered by the retirement and meditation I shall enjoy in my secluded home. My heart is very full, dear—too full to write more. God bless you, and your husband. You must come and see me there; I have not so many friends that I can afford to lose you who have been so kind. I write this with the fellow-pen to yours, that you gave me when we went to Budmouth together. Good-bye!—Ever your own sister, CHARLOTTE.’
Paula had first read this through silently, and now in reading it a second time aloud to Somerset her voice faltered, and she wept outright. ‘I had been expecting her to live with us always,’ she said through her tears, ‘and to think she should have decided to do this!’
‘It is a pity certainly,’ said Somerset gently. ‘She was genuine, if anybody ever was; and simple as she was true.’
‘I am the more sorry,’ Paula presently resumed, ‘because of a little plan I had been thinking of with regard to her. You know that the pictures and curiosities of the castle are not included in the things I cannot touch, or impeach, or whatever it is. They are our own to do what we like with. My father felt in devising the estate that, however interesting to the De Stancys those objects might be, they did not concern us—were indeed rather in the way, having been come by so strangely, through Mr. Wilkins, though too valuable to be treated lightly. Now I was going to suggest that we would not sell them—indeed I could not bear to do such a thing with what had belonged to Charlotte’s forefathers—but to hand them over to her as a gift, either to keep for herself, or to pass on to her brother, as she should choose. Now I fear there is no hope of it: and yet I shall never like to see them in the house.’
‘It can be done still, I should think. She can accept them for her brother when he settles, without absolutely taking them into her own possession.’
‘It would be a kind of generosity which hardly amounts to more than justice (although they were purchased) from a recusant usurper to a dear friend—not that I am a usurper exactly; well, from a representative of the new aristocracy of internationality to a representative of the old aristocracy of exclusiveness.’
‘What do you call yourself, Paula, since you are not of your father’s creed?’
‘I suppose I am what poor Mr. Woodwell said—by the way, we must call and see him—something or other that’s in Revelation, neither cold nor hot. But of course that’s a sub-species—I may be a lukewarm anything. What I really am, as far as I know, is one of that body to whom lukewarmth is not an accident but a provisional necessity, till they see a little more clearly.’ She had crossed over to his side, and pulling his head towards her whispered a name in his ear.
‘Why, Mr. Woodwell said you were that too! You carry your beliefs very comfortably. I shall be glad when enthusiasm is come again.’
‘I am going to revise and correct my beliefs one of these days when I have thought a little further.’ She suddenly breathed a sigh and added, ‘How transitory our best emotions are! In talking of myself I am heartlessly forgetting Charlotte, and becoming happy again. I won’t be happy to-night for her sake!’