PHILIP PAXTON’S LETTER.
The next morning, Lady Elaine, pleading some excuse, went to
Southampton.
She was in search of the captain of that vessel--the _Black Swan_, Jane
Collins told her was the name of it--which had picked up that unhappy
father and mother so many years ago, after being wrecked on their
return from India, and who might prove--it was barely possible--to be
Arley’s parents.
That her visit was successful may be gleaned from her exclamation as
she sank back in the cushions of her carriage on her way home:
“Arley, Arley, my darling, if everything proves to be as I have reason
to hope, and if I can only find you,” she murmured in such a tender,
yearning voice, “you need be nameless no longer; and, oh! how glad I am
that I can be the one to bring these blessed tidings to you.”
A day or two later the London _Times_ contained a notice calling
attention to the fact that “Philip Paxton, attorney-at-law, had
returned from abroad, and was prepared to resume his business.”
That he had been a good lawyer was proved by his former patrons at once
pouring in upon him, until, within a week, he was flooded with work,
and the idle, dissolute man of six months previous was bending every
energy to the task which he had imposed upon himself.
A month after this good beginning he might have been seen writing far
into the night, while his pale face, compressed lips and troubled brow
told that he was engaged upon no pleasant work; and when at last it was
finished, he threw down his pen and laid back in his chair, with a
sigh that was almost a groan.
What he had written was a full confession of his wrong-doing. Among
other things he wrote:
“Arley, I entered your room one day during your absence and stole the
contents of your jewel-casket. Yes, I am a thief with all the rest. I
meant to take your diamonds only and sell them; but, doubtless, you
were wearing them, for they were not in the box.
“I found, however, to my intense surprise, a hundred-pound note, and
no miser, coming suddenly upon unexpected treasure, ever gloated more
than I over the sight of that English money. A portion of it I used
to gamble with and doubled my stake. Thrice I did this in different
places, and then came home.
“Your jewels are all safe; my gaming operations had been so successful
that I decided to reserve them for a future emergency, and as that
is not likely to occur, since I hope, like one of old, I ‘am come to
myself,’ I am spared the additional shame of having pawned my wife’s
jewels--the treasured mementoes of happier days.
“I shall inclose them in a package with this, also the hundred pounds,
with interest, and leave them in my safe, directed to you, so that, in
case anything happens to me before I can ascertain where you are to
send them to you, you will be sure to get them upon your return.
“This is all the restitution that I am able to make you at present; but
I have resumed my old business, and as I am prospered I will deposit a
sum, from month to month, in the Bank of England to your account, so
that in the future you need lack no comfort that money can buy.”
Then followed mention of his return to England with the hope of winning
Elaine.
Finally he wrote:
“Only one thing more and I will weary you no longer. As soon as I came
to myself I stopped all proceedings for a divorce--I had no right to
obtain it; you had always been all that was patient, kind and true,
and the perjury of the thing appalled me. It remains for you to take
that step, and you have every right and reason to do so, and I assure
you that whatever you may see fit to do in the future I will remain
perfectly passive in the matter--I will never willfully cause you
another pang, nor trouble of any kind, while I live. You shall be free
if you desire; I will strive never to meet you nor offend you with my
presence, and whatever sentence may be passed upon me, I will bear it
patiently and in silence. But, oh! Arley! Arley!----”
A line had been drawn through those last few words, as if they had been
unwittingly wrung from him in a moment of passionate pain and remorse,
when, as if suddenly recollecting himself, he had stopped and tried to
obliterate them; then he had closed with this almost despairing appeal:
“I have told you all now--my heart is laid bare before you, even as
it is before the eye that searches every soul; you know all my folly,
weakness and wickedness.
“I do not ask your forgiveness--I have no right to ask it; but some
time--when, perhaps, long years have softened your sense of wrong
and pain--if you should chance to learn that I am honestly striving
to attain to better things--to regain my lost manhood--will you not
let a little divine compassion into your heart and breathe one single
prayer--I should know it and feel its influence, though the world
divided us--for ‘Philip Paxton?’”
After sitting a while in sad musing, Philip Paxton aroused himself to
fold the thickly-written sheets before him, though his hands shook
visibly while doing it; then, taking a bank note from his pocketbook,
he inclosed it with the letter in an envelope, and, drawing toward him
a small box which lay upon the desk, he made the whole up into a neat
package and addressed it to Mrs. Philip Paxton.
Opening a small drawer at his left hand, he laid it carefully within,
shut and locked the drawer again, and the next moment his head dropped
forward upon his hands, while great, deep sobs shook him from head to
foot.
It was as if he had just buried forever from his sight the dearest
object of his life--and he had. For, henceforth, he felt that Arley
would be naught but a sweet memory to him; one whose beauty, gentleness
and value he had, all too late, learned to appreciate, and who was as
completely lost to him as if she were really dead and had been laid to
rest in the bosom of the earth.