The newspapers had cried out that Hubert Lepel's two years were a
miserably insufficient punishment for the crime of which he had been
guilty; but to Cynthia it seemed as if those two years were an eternity.
She did not talk about him to any one; she interested herself apparently
in the affairs of her father's house; she made a thousand occupations
for herself in the new land to which she had gone. Occasionally she had
a letter--which she dearly prized--from Enid Vane, and in these letters
she heard a little now and then about Hubert; but, after Enid's
marriage, the letters became less frequent, and at last ceased
altogether. And then she knew that the two years were over, and that
Hubert must be free.
Free--or dead! She sometimes had a keen darting fear that she would
never see his face again. His health had suffered very much in
confinement, she had learnt from Enid's letters; and she knew that he
had seemed very weak and ill during those terrible days of his trial for
manslaughter. She could never think of them without a shiver. How had
the two years ended for him? Was he a wreck, without hope without
energy, without strength, coming out of prison only to die? Cynthia
brooded over these possibilities until sleep fled from her eyes and the
color from her cheeks. Her father looked at her now and then with
anxious, grieving eyes; but he did not say a word. She noticed however
that he greatly advocated the good qualities of a fine young Scotchman
called MacPhail, who had lately settled on an estate in the
neighborhood, and had shown a great inclination for Cynthia's society.
Westwood was never tired of praising his good looks, his manly ways, his
abilities, and his intelligence, and of calculating openly, in his
daughter's hearing, the amount of wealth of which he was sure MacPhail
was possessed. Cynthia grew impatient of these praises before long.
"Dear father," she said, taking his grizzled head between her hands one
day and kissing it, "I like your Mr. MacPhail very well; but I shall get
tired of him very soon if you are always praising him so much."
"But you do like him, Cynthy?" said her father, turning round hastily.
"Oh, yes--I think that he is a very estimable young man! I know all his
good points by heart; but I can't say that I find him interesting."
"Interesting?" echoed Westwood. "What do you mean, Cynthy? Isn't he
clever enough for you?"
"He is clever enough for anybody, no doubt," said Cynthia, with a little
laugh. "But he never reads, he never thinks--except about his stock--and
he isn't even a gentleman."
"Neither am I, Cynthia, my dear," said her father sorrowfully.
"You, you darling old man," said the girl lightly--"as if you were not
one of Nature's gentlemen, and the dearest and noblest of men to boot!
If he were like you, father, I should think twice as much of him;" and
she put her arm round his neck and kissed him.
Westwood's face beamed.
"You're not ashamed of your old father?" he said delightedly. "Bless
you, my girl! What I shall do when the time comes for me to lose you,
I'm sure I don't know!"
"You are not likely to lose me father. I shall probably stay with you
always," said Cynthia rather sadly. But she brightened up when she saw
his questioning face. "You and I shall always keep house together, shall
we not?"
"Don't you think, Cynthia," said he, detaining her as she was about to
move away, "that we might take MacPhail into partnership some of these
days?"
"Partnership?" she repeated, not seeing his drift at first. "What do
you want with a partner, father? Is there too much for you to do? Or
haven't you enough capital? Why should you want a partner?"
"It isn't a partner for myself that I'm talking about, my pretty. I want
a son--and the partner would be for you. In plain words, Donald MacPhail
is head over ears in love with you Cynthia. Couldn't you bring yourself
to look upon him as your husband, don't you think?"
"No, I could not," said Cynthia quickly and decisively. "There is only
one man whom I could think of--and you know who that one is. If I do not
marry him, I will marry nobody at all."
Westwood sighed and looked dispirited, but said no more.
Cynthia exerted herself to be particularly frigid to Mr. MacPhail when
he next visited the house, and succeeded so well that the young
Scotchman was utterly dismayed by her demeanor, and was not seen there
again for many a long day.
Mr. MacPhail was not the only suitor that Cynthia had to send about his
business. She was too handsome, too winning, to escape remark in a place
where attractive women were rather rare. Her father used afterwards to
observe, with a chuckle of delight, that she had had an offer from every
eligible young man--and from some that were not eligible--within a
circuit of sixty miles around his homestead; but Cynthia did not
altogether like the recollection.
They did not often see English newspapers; but at this time Westwood
took to poring over any that he could obtain from neighbors or from the
nearest town. One day Cynthia saw that a copy of the _Standard_ was
lying in a very conspicuous position on her writing-table. She took it
up and read the announcement of the death at her own house of Leonora
Vane, aged sixty-nine. She wondered a little that Enid had not written
to tell her of Miss Vane's death; and then the tears fell slowly from
her eyes, as she considered how completely she was now cut off from the
Vanes and all their concerns--as completely as if she herself had
"passed to where beyond these voices there is peace." The old life was
over; she had come to a new world where all her duties lay; and the
past, with its vigorous life, its passionate emotions, its intense joys,
its bitter pains, existed for her no more.
And yet she could not forget it; absorb herself as she would in
household cares, busy herself as she would with her father's
requirements and the needs of her poorer neighbors--and for these
Cynthia was a centre of all that was beneficent and beautiful--moments
would come when the present seemed to her like a dream and the past the
only reality. When had she lived so fully as when she knew from Hubert's
lips the meaning of his love for her--of her love for him? Life would be
dull and gray indeed if it contained no memory of those exquisite,
passionate moments! For these, the rest of her existence was a mere
setting; and for these she knew well enough that she was glad that she
had lived.
Thus she sat thinking, with her cheek upon her hand and the tears wet
upon her long dark lashes; and she did not hear the footsteps of any one
approaching until her father touched her on the shoulder and said--
"Cynthy, here's visitors!"
Then she looked up. At first she saw only the ruddy, face and reddish
hair of the admirable MacPhail, and she rose to her feet with an
impatient little sigh. After MacPhail came another neighbor--a tall thin
man with a military bearing, generally known as "the Colonel," though it
was not clear that he had ever held any rank in the army. And after
these two a stranger followed--also a tall man, thin, dark, grave, with
eyes that seemed to Cynthia like those of one who had returned from
beyond the grave.
A start like a sort of electric shock ran through Cynthia's frame. It
was impossible for her to speak, to do more than extend her hand in
silence to each of the new-comers. And then she looked once more upon
her lover's face--upon the face of Hubert Lepel. In the presence of her
father and the two comparative strangers, she could not even utter a
word of greeting. Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, and she
dared not even raise her eyes.
Hubert seemed at first as tongue-tied as herself; but presently, she
heard him talking in a quiet unobtrusive way, as if he and "the Colonel"
were old friends; and it transpired that the two had met during Hubert's
previous wanderings in America, and that they had seen a good deal of
the world together.
Before long, all four men were busily engaged on a comparison of
America and England and in a discussion on contemporary politics, and
Cynthia was able to devote herself to household duties and the
entertainment of her guests. Hubert was staying in Colonel Morton's
house, she found, and they had met Mr. Westwood and MacPhail when they
were having a long tramp over the hills; and, strangely enough, Westwood
had immediately asked both men to dinner.
It was not until the meal was over and the men had gone out to smoke in
the pleasant piazza, with its clustering vines which adorned the front
of Westwood's house, that Cynthia had a moment in which to compare her
present impressions with her past. It struck her that Hubert looked
older, as well as graver and sadder, and perhaps more dignified. His
hair was turning gray and thin at the temples; his moustache was also
streaked with white--bleached, as Cynthia knew, by trouble, not by age.
He was thin, but he looked stronger than when she saw him last; and his
gait was firm and elastic. His face was slightly tanned--probably by the
sun and sea-air in his recent expedition from England--and the brown hue
gave him a look of health and vigor which he had not possessed in
England. But the change in his expression was more striking to Cynthia
than any alteration in physical aspect. His eyes had lost their anxious
restlessness, his mouth was set as if in steadfast resolution; his brow
was calm. He looked like a man who had gone "through much tribulation,"
but had come out victor at the last.
And Cynthia--was she changed? He had thought so when he came upon her
that afternoon; but his heart had yearned over her all the more fondly
for the change. He had never seen her so thin, so pale, so worn; the
dark eyes had not been set in such hollows of shadow when he last saw
her; the cheeks had never before been so colorless. He felt that she had
suffered for him--that she had borne his punishment with himself; and
the thought made it difficult for him to restrain himself from falling
at her feet and kissing the very hem of her garment as he looked at her.
But at dinner she looked more like her old beautiful self. She was in
black when he arrived; but she came to dinner in a pretty gown of
cream-colored embroidered muslin, with a bunch of crimson flowers at her
bosom. The color had come back to her cheeks too, and the light to her
eyes--he saw that, though he could not get her to look at him.
Cynthia sat in the window, not daring to join the party on the
piazza--hoping perhaps that one of them would separate himself from the
others and come to her. Hubert was walking with her father now--up and
down, up and down, deep in talk. Was it merely talk of politics and
farming and common things?
She saw them withdraw to a corner of the piazza where they could
converse unheard by their companions. Westwood was smoking; but his
speech was fluent, Cynthia could see; he was laying down the law,
emphasising his sentences by an outstretched finger, blowing great rings
of smoke into the air between some of his remarks. Hubert listened and
seemed to assent. His head was bowed, his arms were folded across his
chest; he looked--Cynthia could not help the thought--like a prisoner
receiving sentence, a penitent before his judge. Westwood turned to him
at last, as if awaiting an answer--the moonlight was on his face, and
showed it to be grave and anxious, but unmistakably kind. Hubert raised
his head and made some answer; and then--Cynthia's heart began to beat
very fast indeed--her father held out his hand. The two men grasped each
other's hands warmly and silently for a moment, then both turned away.
Westwood took out a great red handkerchief and blew his nose vehemently;
Hubert leaned for a moment against the balustrade and put his hand
across his eyes. Cynthia's own eyes swam in sympathetic tears as she
strove to imagine what had been said. In that moment her love for Hubert
was almost less than her love for her father--the man who, in spite of
lawless instincts, faulty training, great misfortunes and mistakes, had
a nature that was large enough and grand enough to know how to forgive.
Her eyes were so blinded with tears that she saw but indistinctly that
her father was coming across the piazza to the long open window by which
she sat. She drew herself back a little, so as to be out of the range of
vision of the Colonel and Mr. MacPhail. She knew that the crisis of her
fate was come.
"Cynthia, my dear," said her father's homely ragged voice--how dear it
had grown, she felt that she had never known till now--"here's a
gentleman wants to have a word with you. And he has my good wishes and
my friendship, dearie; and that's a thing that I thought you'd like to
know. He calls it my forgiveness; but we know--we understand--it's all
the same. I'll leave him with you, my beauty, and you can say to each
other what you please." And then he kissed her very tenderly and turned
away.
She felt that Hubert had followed him, and had stepped into the room;
but she could not raise her eyes.
She was obliged to see him however when he knelt down before her, and
put his clasped hands very gently upon her knee.
"Cynthia," said his voice--the other voice that she loved to hear--"your
father says that he has forgiven me. Can you forgive?"
She put her hand upon his, and a great tear fell down her cheeks.
"I have nothing to urge in my defence," he said. "If you like to punish
me--to send me away from you for ever--I know that I shall have deserved
my fate. I dare not ask for anything from you, Cynthia, except your
forgiveness. May I hope to gain that?"
"If my father has forgiven you," she said a little hurriedly, "I cannot
do less."
There was a little silence. He bowed his head and touched with his lips
the slender fingers that rested lightly upon his own joined hands. He
felt that she trembled at the touch.
"What is to be my fate, Cynthia? I put my life into your hands. I owe it
to your father and to you."
"What do you want it to be?" she asked softly, but with an effort of
which he was profoundly conscious and ashamed.
"Oh, my love, my only love, you know what I desire!" he said, with
sudden passion; and for the first time he raised his head and looked
into her face. "I dare not ask--I am not worthy! If there is anything
that you can bear to say--to give me--you must do it of your own free
will; I cannot ask you for anything."
"But you know," said Cynthia, looking at him at last, and letting, the
gleam of a smile appear through the tears that filled her eyes, "a woman
likes to be asked."
And then, when their eyes had once met, their lips met too, and there
was no need for him to ask her anything.
But, when there was no longer any need, he found it easier to ask
questions.
"Cynthia, my darling, do you love me?"
"With my whole heart, Hubert!"
"And will you--will you really--be--my wife?"
"Yes, Hubert."
"And you forgive me? Oh, that is more wonderful than all! You bow me to
the earth with your goodness--you and your father, Cynthia! What can I
do to be worthy of it? He is going to give me his name as well as
yourself; and Heaven knows that I will do my best to keep it clean!"
His head sank on her bosom.
"Hubert," she said, "you must not talk in that way! Do you think that I
should ever be ashamed of your name, darling? It is just that my father
has no son, and does not want his old name to die out. If you will
sacrifice your name, instead of my sacrificing mine, as women generally
do, you will make him very happy and very proud of you. He wants a son,
and you will be as a son to him, Hubert darling, will you not?"
And so the treaty was ratified.
Hubert and Cynthia were married in three weeks; and the marriage turned
out an uncommonly happy one. Contrary to even Cynthia's expectations,
Westwood and his son-in-law became the very best of friends. Westwood
was proud of Hubert's literary knowledge, of his former social standing,
of his many gifts and accomplishments. It was he who one day proposed
that Hubert should go back to the name of Lepel--the name by which he
had been known in the literary and dramatic world, and by which he would
perhaps be remembered long after "the Beechfield tragedy" was forgotten.
But Hubert refused. He was too proud of the new name that he had won, he
said, ever to give it up. As for literature, he had no inclination for
it now. In this new home, in a new world, with father, wife, and boys
beside him, and a political career which opened out a future such as he
had never dreamed of when he was writing his plays and poems in Russell
Square--a future made easy to him by Westwood's position and character
in the States, and also by the large fortune which Miss Vane had left
him unconditionally on her death--he had no wish to change his lot in
life. Out of evil had come good; but only through repentance and the
valley of humiliation, without which he would indeed have gone wearily
and sadly to an end without honor and without peace. But he had won a
great victory; and he was not without his great reward.
THE END.
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| Transcriber's Notes: |
| Page 11: Changed "at a friend" to "as a friend" |
| Page 18: Changed "closed first" to "closed fist" |
| Page 31: Changed "her sister" to "his sister" |
| Page 122: Changed "infringment" to "infringement" |
| Page 142: Changed "insistance" to "insistence" |
| Page 148: Changed "freinds" to "friends" |
| Page 151: Changed "cutseyed" to "curtseyed" |
| Page 155: Changed "bettter" to "better" |
| Page 176: Changed "delighful" to "delightful" |
| Page 229: Changed "mediated" to "meditated" |
| Page 242: Changed "Kensingston" to "Kensington" |
| Page 243: Changed "remenber" to "remember" |
| Page 274: Changed "profond" to "profound" |
| Page 280: Changed "lovelinesss" to "loveliness" |
| Page 307: Changed "grevious" to "grievous" |
| Page 345: Changed "thoughful" to "thoughtful" |
| Page 379: Changed "word" to "world" |
+---------------------------------------------------+