It was too late to hesitate or retract. I had started an unfortunate subject; but I knew Russell too well to endeavour now to mislead him. “I have no right perhaps to say I know anything; but I have gathered from Ormiston’s manner, that he has very strong reasons for the anxiety he has shown on your account. I will not say more.”
“And how do you know this? Has Mr Ormiston dared”——
“No, no, Russell,” said I, earnestly; “see how unjust you are, in this instance.” I wished to say something to calm him, and it would have been worse than useless to say anything but the truth. I saw he guessed to what I alluded; and I gave him briefly my reasons for what I thought, not concealing the interview with his sister, at which I had unintentionally been present.
It was a very painful scene. When he first understood that Ormiston had sought the meeting, his temper, usually calm, but perhaps now tried by such long hours of pain and heaviness, broke out with bitter expressions against both. I told him, shortly and warmly, that such remarks towards his sister were unmanly and unkind; and then he cried, like a chidden and penitent child, till his remorse was as painful to look upon as his passion. “Mary! my own Mary! even you, Hawthorne, know and feel her value better than I do! I for whom she has borne so much.”
“I am much mistaken,” said I, “if Ormiston has not learned to appreciate her even yet more truly. And why not?”
“Leave me now,” he said; “I am not strong enough to talk; but if you wish to know what cause I have to speak as I have done of your friend Ormiston, you shall hear again.”
So exhausted did he seem by the excess of feeling which I had so unfortunately called forth, that I would not see him again for some days, contenting myself with learning that no relapse had taken place, and that he was still progressing rapidly towards recovery.
I had an invitation to visit my aunt again during the Easter vacation, which had already commenced, and had only been prevented from leaving Oxford by Russell’s alarming state. As soon, therefore, as all danger was pronounced over, I prepared to go up to town at once, and my next visit to Russell was in fact to wish him good-by for two or three weeks. He was already sitting up, and fast regaining strength. He complained of having seen so little of me lately, and asked me if I had seen his sister. “I had not noticed it until the last few days,” he said—“illness makes one selfish, I suppose; but I think Mary looks thin and ill—very different from what she did a month back.”
But watching and anxiety, as I told him, were not unlikely to produce that effect; and I advised him strongly to take her somewhere for a few weeks for change of air and scene. “It will do you both good,” I said; “and you can draw another £50 from your unknown friend for that purpose; it cannot be better applied, and I should not hesitate for a moment.”
“I would not,” he replied, “if I wanted money; but I do not. Do you know that Dr Wilson would take no fee whatever from Mary during the whole of his attendance; and when I asked him to name some sufficient remuneration, assuring him I could afford it, he said he would never forgive me if I ever mentioned the subject again. So what remains of the fifty you drew for me, will amply suffice for a little trip somewhere for us. And I quite agree with you in thinking it desirable, on every account, that Mary should move from Oxford—perhaps altogether—for one reason, to be out of the way of a friend of yours.”