While we were engaged in this conversation, Charlotte again entered; and told me there was a gentleman of the name of Wakefield, who desired to see me. 'Is it possible?' exclaimed Miss Wilmot.
The door opened, and he appeared. 'Belmont!' cried I, with surprise.
'Why did you announce yourself by the name of Wakefield?'
He stretched out his hand to me, and turned his face aside: then recovering himself replied 'The farce is over.'
'What do you mean?'
'That I suppose you will despise me. But do, if you please: for, though I love you, I too despise to fear you. I have done you various wrongs. My name is Wakefield. I have been one of the infernal instruments to bring you here: but I am come to make you all the atonement in my power, and take you out. Forgive me only so far as not to insult me, by repeating your contempt of that villain Wakefield. It is a damned undigestible term: but I deserved it; and you applied it to me without intending an affront. I know you are as brave as you are generous. Till I met with you, I thought myself the first man in the world: but, notwithstanding my evasive raillery, I felt your hand upon me. I sunk under you. There was something in you that excited my envy, at first; and afterward, perhaps, a better passion. What damned accidents they were that made me what I have been I cannot tell. I know not what I shall be: but I know what I am. I disdain penitential promises. If you will be my friend, here is my hand. Good fortune or bad, we will share it together.'
Thus invited, could I refrain? Oh no. I cannot describe the scene that passed. We did not embrace, for we were no actors; and, as our passions for a time were too big for utterance, we were silent.
Miss Wilmot at length looked up; and, while the tears were streaming down her cheeks, her countenance assumed an expression infinitely beyond smiling, though something like it, while she exclaimed—'This is a happy day!'
Her eye first met mine, and then Wakefield's. He instantly hung his head, and said—'Lydia! When we were alone, I could just endure to look at you: but now I cannot. Yet I am an ass. What is done is done. The affections that I have are yours: but I must not, no nor I will not be afraid, even of my own thoughts. I know I have nothing to fear from you. Man is a strange animal; and may be many things in the course of a short life.'
Wakefield then rang the bell, and desired the bailiff would send immediately to Lord Bray's attorney; that my debts might be settled, and I released; and to call, as he knew they must for form's sake, and see that there were no more detainers.
Hearing him give these directions, I could not but ask his meaning? 'What,' replied he, with generous indignation, 'do you suppose that I am come to cant about virtue? That, at least, is a vice of which you have never yet found me guilty. I am here to pay your debts, with money in my possession. Whether, in a court of law, it would be proved to be yours or mine I neither know nor care. But there is something better that I do know: which is that, if I were in your place and you in mine, you would not long let me remain in a house like this. With respect to the future, I am partly persuaded we shall neither of us act the miser.'