After Amelius had left him, Rufus remembered his promise to communicate
with Regina by telegraph.
With his strict regard for truth, it was no easy matter to decide on
what message he should send. To inspire Regina, if possible, with
his own unshaken belief in the good faith of Amelius, appeared,
on reflection, to be all that he could honestly do, under present
circumstances. With an anxious and foreboding mind, he despatched his
telegram to Paris in these terms:--“Be patient for a while, and do
justice to A. He deserves it.”
Having completed his business at the telegraph-office, Rufus went next
to pay his visit to Mrs. Payson.
The good lady received him with a grave face and a distant manner, in
startling contrast to the customary warmth of her welcome. “I used to
think you were a man in a thousand,” she began abruptly; “and I find
you are no better than the rest of them. If you have come to speak to me
about that blackguard young Socialist, understand, if you please, that
I am not so easily imposed upon as Miss Regina. I have done my duty;
I have opened her eyes to the truth, poor thing. Ah, you ought to be
ashamed of yourself.”
Rufus kept his temper, with his habitual self-command. “It’s possible
you may be right,” he said quietly; “but the biggest rascal living has
a claim to an explanation, when a lady puzzles him. Have you any
particular objection, old friend, to tell me what you mean?”
The explanation was not of a nature to set his mind at ease.
Regina had written, by the mail which took Rufus to England, repeating
to Mrs. Payson what had passed at the interview in the Champs Elysees,
and appealing to her sympathy for information and advice. Receiving
the letter that morning, Mrs. Payson, acting on her own generous and
compassionate impulses, had already answered it, and sent it to the
post. Her experience of the unfortunate persons received at the Home was
far from inclining her to believe in the innocence of a runaway girl,
placed under circumstances of temptation. As an act of justice towards
Regina, she enclosed to her the letter in which Amelius had acknowledged
that Sally had passed the night under his roof.
“I believe I am only telling you the shameful truth,” Mrs. Payson
had written, “when I add that the girl has been an inmate of Mr.
Goldenheart’s cottage ever since. If you can reconcile this disgraceful
state of things, with Mr. Rufus Dingwell’s assertion of his friend’s
fidelity to his marriage-engagement, I have no right, and no wish,
to make any attempt to alter your opinion. But you have asked for my
advice, and I must not shrink from giving it. I am bound as an honest
woman, to tell you that your uncle’s resolution to break off the
engagement represents the course that I should have taken myself, if
a daughter of my own had been placed in your painful and humiliating
position.”
There was still ample time to modify this strong expression of opinion
by the day’s post. Rufus appealed vainly to Mrs. Payson to reconsider
the conclusion at which she had arrived. A more charitable and
considerate woman, within the limits of her own daily routine, it would
not be possible to find. But the largeness of mind which, having long
and trustworthy experience of a rule, can nevertheless understand that
other minds may have equal experience of the exception to the rule,
was one of the qualities which had not been included in the moral
composition of Mrs. Payson. She held firmly to her own narrowly
conscientious sense of her duty; stimulated by a natural indignation
against Amelius, who had bitterly disappointed her--against Rufus, who
had not scrupled to take up his defence. The two old friends parted in
coldness, for the first time in their lives.
Rufus returned to his hotel, to wait there for news from Amelius.
The day passed--and the one visitor who enlivened his solitude was
an American friend and correspondent, connected with the agency which
managed his affairs in England. The errand of this gentleman was to give
his client the soundest and speediest advice, relating to the investment
of money. Having indicated the safe and solid speculation, the
visitor added a warning word, relating to the plausible and dangerous
investments of the day. “For instance,” he said, “there’s that bank
started by Farnaby--”
“No need to warn me against Farnaby,” Rufus interposed; “I wouldn’t take
shares in his bank if he made me a present of them.”
The American friend looked surprised. “Surely,” he exclaimed, “you can’t
have heard the news already! They don’t even know it yet on the Stock
Exchange.”
Rufus explained that he had only spoken under the influence of personal
prejudice against Mr. Farnaby.
“What’s in the wind now?” he asked.
He was confidentially informed that a coming storm was in the wind: in
other words, that a serious discovery had been made at the bank. Some
time since, the directors had advanced a large sum of money to a man
in trade, under Mr. Farnaby’s own guarantee. The man had just died;
and examination of his affairs showed that he had only received a few
hundred pounds, on condition of holding his tongue. The bulk of the
money had been traced to Mr. Farnaby himself, and had all been
swallowed up by his newspaper, his patent medicine, and his other rotten
speculations, apart from his own proper business. “You may not know it,”
the American friend concluded, “but the fact is, Farnaby rose from the
dregs. His bankruptcy is only a question of time--he will drop back to
the dregs; and, quite possibly, make his appearance to answer a criminal
charge in a court of law. I hear that Melton, whose credit has held up
the bank lately, is off to see his friend in Paris. They say Farnaby’s
niece is a handsome girl, and Melton is sweet on her. Awkward for
Melton.”
Rufus listened attentively. In signing the order for his investments, he
privately decided to stir no further, for the present, in the matter of
his young friend’s marriage-engagement.
For the rest of the day and evening, he still waited for Amelius, and
waited in vain. It was drawing near to midnight, when Toff made his
appearance with a message from his master. Amelius had discovered Sally,
and had returned in such a state of fatigue that he was only fit to
take some refreshment, and to go to his bed. He would be away from home
again, on the next morning; but he hoped to call at the hotel in the
course of the day. Observing Toff’s face with grave and steady scrutiny,
Rufus tried to extract some further information from him. But the old
Frenchman stood on his dignity, in a state of immovable reserve.
“You took me by the shoulder this morning, sir, and spun me round,” he
said; “I do not desire to be treated a second time like a teetotum.
For the rest, it is not my habit to intrude myself into my master’s
secrets.”
“It’s not _my_ habit,” Rufus coolly rejoined, “to bear malice. I beg to
apologise sincerely, sir, for treating you like a teetotum; and I offer
you my hand.”
Toff had got as far as the door. He instantly returned, with the dignity
which a Frenchman can always command in the serious emergencies of his
life. “You appeal to my heart and my honour, sir,” he said. “I bury the
events of the morning in oblivion; and I do myself the honour of taking
your hand.”
As the door closed on him, Rufus smiled grimly. “You’re not in the habit
of intruding yourself into your master’s secrets,” he repeated. “If
Amelius reads your face as I read it, he’ll look over his shoulder when
he goes out tomorrow--and, ten to one, he’ll see you behind him in the
distance!”
Late on the next day, Amelius presented himself at the hotel. In
speaking of Sally, he was unusually reserved, merely saying that she was
ill, and under medical care, and then changing the subject. Struck by
the depressed and anxious expression of his face, Rufus asked if he had
heard from Regina. No: a longer time than usual had passed since Regina
had written to him. “I don’t understand it,” he said sadly. “I suppose
you didn’t see anything of her in Paris?”
Rufus had kept his promise not to mention Regina’s name in Sally’s
presence. But it was impossible for him to look at Amelius, without
plainly answering the question put to him, for the sake of the friend
whom he loved. “I’m afraid there’s trouble coming to you, my son, from
that quarter.” With those warning words, he described all that had
passed between Regina and himself. “Some unknown enemy of yours has
spoken against you to her uncle,” he concluded. “I suppose you have made
enemies, my poor old boy, since you have been in London?”
“I know the man,” Amelius answered. “He wanted to marry Regina before I
met with her. His name is Melton.”
Rufus started. “I heard only yesterday, he was in Paris with Farnaby.
And that’s not the worst of it, Amelius. There’s another of them making
mischief--a good friend of mine who has shown a twist in her temper,
that has taken me by surprise after twenty years’ experience of her.
I reckon there’s a drop of malice in the composition of the best woman
that ever lived--and the men only discover it when another woman steps
in, and stirs it up. Wait a bit!” he went on, when he had related the
result of his visit to Mrs. Payson. “I have telegraphed to Miss Regina
to be patient, and to trust you. Don’t you write to defend yourself,
till you hear how you stand in her estimation, after my message.
Tomorrow’s post may tell.”
Tomorrow’s post did tell.
Two letters reached Amelius from Paris. One from Mr. Farnaby, curt and
insolent, breaking off the marriage-engagement. The other, from Regina,
expressed with great severity of language. Her weak nature, like all
weak natures, ran easily into extremes, and, once roused into asserting
itself, took refuge in violence as a shy person takes refuge in
audacity. Only a woman of larger and firmer mind would have written of
her wrongs in a more just and more moderate tone.
Regina began without any preliminary form of address. She had no heart
to upbraid Amelius, and no wish to speak of what she was suffering, to
a man who had but too plainly shown that he had no respect for himself,
and neither love, nor pity even, for her. In justice to herself,
she released him from his promise, and returned his letters and his
presents. Her own letters might be sent in a sealed packet, addressed to
her at her uncle’s place of business in London. She would pray that he
might be brought to a sense of the sin that he had committed, and that
he might yet live to be a worthy and a happy man. For the rest, her
decision was irrevocable. His own letter to Mrs. Payson condemned
him--and the testimony of an old and honoured friend of her uncle proved
that his wickedness was no mere act of impulse, but a deliberate course
of infamy and falsehood, continued over many weeks. From the moment when
she made that discovery, he was a stranger to her--and she now bade him
farewell.
“Have you written to her?” Rufus asked, when he had seen the letters.
Amelius reddened with indignation. He was not aware of it himself--but
his look and manner plainly revealed that Regina had lost her last hold
on him. Her letter had inflicted an insult--not a wound: he was outraged
and revolted; the deeper and gentler feelings, the emotions of a grieved
and humiliated lover, had been killed in him by her stern words of
dismissal and farewell.
“Do you think I would allow myself to be treated in that way, without
a word of protest?” he said to Rufus. “I have written, refusing to take
back my promise. ‘I declare, on my word of honour, that I have been
faithful to you and to my engagement’--that was how I put it--‘and I
scorn the vile construction which your uncle and his friend have placed
upon an act of Christian mercy on my part.’ I wrote more tenderly,
before I finished my letter; feeling for her distress, and being anxious
above all things not to add to it. We shall see if she has love enough
left for me to trust my faith and honour, instead of trusting false
appearances. I will give her time.”
Rufus considerately abstained from expressing any opinion. He waited
until the morning when a reply might be expected from Paris; and then he
called at the cottage.
Without a word of comment, Amelius put a letter into his friend’s hand.
It was his own letter to Regina returned to him. On the back of it,
there was a line in Mr. Farnaby’s handwriting:--“If you send any more
letters they will be burnt unopened.” In those insolent terms the wretch
wrote with bankruptcy and exposure hanging over his head.
Rufus spoke plainly upon this. “There’s an end of it now,” he said.
“That girl would never have made the right wife for you, Amelius: you’re
well out of it. Forget that you ever knew these people; and let us talk
of something else. How is Sally?”
At that ill-timed inquiry, Amelius showed his temper again. He was in a
state of nervous irritability which made him apt to take offence, where
no offence was intended. “Oh, you needn’t be alarmed!” he answered
petulantly; “there’s no fear of the poor child coming back to live with
me. She is still under the doctor’s care.”
Rufus passed over the angry reply without notice, and patted him on the
shoulder. “I spoke of the girl,” he said, “because I wanted to help her;
and I can help her, if you will let me. Before long, my son, I shall be
going back to the United States. I wish you would go with me!”
“And desert Sally!” cried Amelius.
“Nothing of the sort! Before we go, I’ll see that Sally is provided for
to your satisfaction. Will you think of it, to please me?”
Amelius relented. “Anything, to please you,” he said.
Rufus noticed his hat and gloves on the table, and left him without
saying more. “The trouble with Amelius,” he thought, as he closed the
cottage gate, “is not over yet.”