The room was growing dusk. That pleasant duskiness which obliterates
corners and seems to concentrate comfort on the flame-lit circle by
the fire.
"What a good nurse you are, Paul," she said, with an effort after her
usual airiness. "The woman you marry will be lucky."
"I'm glad someone thinks so," he remarked briefly, "for there does not
seem to be much competition----"
"Paul!" she interrupted, with a sudden flutter at her heart. "Do you
mean----"
"Yes! you were right, as usual, if that is any comfort to you. I have
got my dismissal. Does that satisfy you?"
She looked at him frankly. "It does. You do not like it, of course,
but I cannot be sorry. She was never good enough for you, even when
she was rich, and when she was poor----"
"Don't let us discuss it, please. The thing is over; and what with
those who are too good and those who are not good enough I seem to
have made a muddle of it. By the way, I suppose Miss Carmichael is
still at Gleneira?"
"Certainly--but--but why? I fail to see the connection." It was not
true; she saw it clearly enough, and her voice showed it.
"Only because I am going down there to-morrow."
"To burn your wings again?--that is foolish!"
"I have no wings to burn; but I am going to ask her to marry me--to
face the villa with me, as you put it."
Mrs. Vane started from her pillow with fear, surprise, dislike in
every feature.
"Are you mad, Paul? The girl does not care for you; I'm certain of
that. Then she is half engaged, I believe, to Alphonse--Dr. Kennedy, I
mean. Her letter is full of him; you can see it if you like."
"I have no doubt of it; he is a far more admirable person than I am. I
fully expect she will refuse me, but I mean to ask her all the same."
"But why? Since you have told me so much you may as well tell me all.
Why?"
"Because I choose, and because I like following your good advice."
"My advice?" she echoed; "my advice? That is too much." Then
recognising the fact that no good would follow on direct opposition,
she tacked skilfully. "If you choose, I suppose you will do it, though
I cannot for the life of me see why you should put yourself to
needless pain, for it must be pain, since you were certainly in love
with her at Gleneira----"
"I believe I was," he interrupted, "but I'll risk the pain."
"No doubt," she answered bitterly; "self-inflicted pain is always
bearable. But for the girl--why not consider her comfort? It is always
a disagreeable thing to refuse, and a man who forces a girl into that
position without due cause is----"
"Is what?"
"A presumptuous cad, my dear Paul."
"Thank you! You are clever, Violet, and your conclusions are generally
right; but in this case you argue without knowledge of the premises."
"I know that Paul Macleod never did and never will come under that
category," she replied readily, "and that is enough for me."
"If it were true, but it is not." He had not meant to tell her the
truth, but a certain contrariety led him on. "I used not to be one,
perhaps; but I was one to her. That last night, after I was engaged to
Alice, I told her that I loved her."
A little fine smile showed on Mrs. Vane's face. "Well, it was not fair
on Alice, but it was very like Paul. Only why repeat the mistake?"
"You do not understand. I was half mad, I think, at leaving her--and
at her unconsciousness. And then--and then, I kissed her."
"Really? That was very naughty, of course; but still more like Paul."
He winced, as if she had struck him. "Don't laugh, Violet, as if it
were the old story; it isn't."
His tone struck a chill of fear to her heart, yet she still kept up
her amused serenity. "Is it not? Yet she is surely not the first girl
you have kissed without a 'by your leave.'"
He was silent, and then to her infinite surprise, as he sate leaning
forward looking into the fire, covered his face with his hands as if
to shut out an unwelcome sight.
"You don't understand," he said, in a low voice. "She hadn't a
reproach--she--I can see the look in her eyes still."
There was another silence, and then Mrs. Vane's voice came with an
indescribable chill in it:
"You mean that she loved you, or you think she did."
"I am sure of it. She did not deny it. Violet! she is the first woman,
I verily believe, who has loved me truly, and I repaid her by insult."
A dangerous rush of sheer anger came to send tact and prudence to the
wind for the time. "You say that! The only woman! Then I say, Paul,
that you insult others by your doubts--others who have loved you
longer. Paul!" She was very close upon the verge, when she pulled
herself up short, and gave a little laugh. "You cannot think her love
very deep if you say she will refuse you. But what reason have you to
think she will? Because you kissed her? That is absurd, and you know
it. I believe you wish her to accept you."
"Do I?" he asked wearily; "for the life of me I scarcely know; but I
mean to ask her. I must. Surely you can see that; you generally
understand me."
"I do understand you, Paul; better perhaps than you understand
yourself. That is why I tell you not to go down to Gleneira. You are
_tête montée_ now. You are not yourself. Look the matter in the face!
Supposing she were to accept you; what then?"
He paused a moment. "I should marry her, I suppose--but she won't. I
am not the sort of fellow she could marry." His voice had the
tenderest ring in it, but his head was turned away. To see it she
leant forward closer to him, almost on her knees, and the firelight
lit up her eager, appealing face.
"Paul, don't deceive yourself with doubts. You love her more than
ever, and if, as you say, she loves you, the result is a foregone
conclusion, if you meet. It is a future of poverty, and, oh, how you
will regret it! Don't go, Paul, I beg of you; I beseech you--I am an
old friend, my dear."
As she laid her flashing jewelled hands on his shoulder, his went up
mechanically and drew them down. So holding them in his, he looked
into her face kindly. "You are, indeed--but I must go--I have no
choice."
His soft, caressing touch made her risk all, and her breath came fast
in swift denial. "No choice! That is not true! You said but now, no
one had loved you truly but this girl. Think, Paul, did not I? You
know I did. Was it for my own sake that I gave you up--that I sent you
away? You know it was not. I am not of the sort on whom the world
turns its back. I would have faced it gladly. It was for you. Because
you loved your profession--because--but you know it all! Even when I
was free, but poor, I would not claim you. Will Marjory do as much for
you? Will she say, 'I love you, but I will not injure you by marrying
you'? I think not. But I should not injure you now--I am rich, I am
rich, and I love you."
Once before she had told him so plainly, but it had then been with an
easy self-control, suggesting the idea but withholding its inception.
Now she was pleading as if for life.
"You are very good," he muttered, feeling the truth of what she said.
"Yes!" she echoed, with a tinge of bitterness at her lack of power to
move him more. "How good you will never know. I have stood between you
and more evil than you dream of; and now I ask you to stay with me,
Paul, not because I love you, but because you are always happy with
me, because you will be safe with me--with me--only with me."
That was true also; he was always happy with her. But safe?
"I do not understand," he said. "Why should I be safer with you? I
know of no danger." Then he clasped her hands tighter, looking into
her face curiously. "What is it, Violet? Is there danger? You
speak---- By Heaven! there is something, Violet! What is it?"
She drew from him quickly, realising her own imprudence, for she was
not prepared for any decisive step. "Nothing, Paul--nothing to speak
of," she said, rising to her feet with a hasty laugh, but her voice
shook, her hands were trembling. "Since you will not listen, go to
Marjory; she can protect you as well as I can."
"I don't care to hide behind any woman," he said sternly. "Not even
behind you. What is it? You are not the kind of woman to say that sort
of thing unless you meant it. What danger do you know that I do not?"
Even to hear his questioning roused her to a sense of what the
knowledge would mean to him, and the instinct of defence overcame even
her pride. "Am I not the sort of woman? All women are alike when they
are jealous. Can't you see it, Paul--can't you understand? or will you
force me to say it all over again? I know nothing, positively nothing,
to prevent your marrying Marjory. Go down to Gleneira if you will."
He shook his head. "Don't prevaricate, Violet. I had rather you lied
to me, but for pity's sake do neither. Be my friend and tell me the
truth."
For an instant his gentleness overcame her fence. "I cannot, Paul--I
cannot," she almost wailed; then remembering herself, she went on,
"How can I, when there is nothing to tell?"
"I will not leave the room till I know," was his reply. "There _is_
something, and you shall tell me. You will not; then I must find out
for myself--there was a letter in your hand. Let me go, Violet! I
don't want to hurt you, but I must and will have that letter,
unless---- No! I cannot trust you for the truth. I must see that
letter for myself."
She knew enough of him to recognise that now his imperious temper was
roused, her only chance lay in an appeal to his affection.
"Listen, Paul! I have done so much for you. Pay me back now--only this
little thing. I don't want you to see that letter--you have no right
to see it."
He shook his head, and she flung the hands she had been detaining from
her with a cry.
"You do not trust me! You do not trust me! That is hard after all
these years."
"No! I cannot trust you, dear; you are too good to me," he said
gently, as he walked over to the table.
The dusk had grown into dark, and he passed on to the window, in hopes
of sufficient light to decipher the letter he held; failing that he
came back to the fire.
"Don't strain your eyes over it," she said bitterly, as she leant--as
if tired out--against the mantelpiece, watching him sombrely. "I
strained mine over it once--needlessly. I will ring for lights, and
you can surely wait for so much, now you have got your own way."
So they waited in silence, standing side by side before the fire, till
the servant had set the shaded lamp on the table, and drawn the window
curtains carefully, methodically. Then he glanced at the
superscription, and pointing to it, said, "Why did you read it?" for
across the first blank page was scrawled legibly, "Not to be read by
anyone till Paul Macleod of Gleneira is dead."
"Because I chose--the reason why _you_ read it, I suppose."
The old admiration for her spirit which, even now, did not hesitate to
meet him boldly on his own ground, rose in him as, instinctively, he
turned to the signature for some further light to guide him in reading
the closely written sheets. Then his eye caught a name at the bottom
of a page where the writing merged from ink to a faint pencil.
"Jeanie Duncan!" he exclaimed, half aloud; "what can she have to do
with me?" The instant after he turned to Mrs. Vane, as those who are
puzzled turn to those who are better informed. "Janet Macleod! did she
marry a Macleod after all?"
"She married your brother Alick, and the boy is their son. Now you
know the worst--and _I_ have told you it--_I_, who would not hurt you
for the world."
"She married---- Then little Paul?" He stood as if unable to grasp the
meaning of his own words.
"Sit down, dear, and read it, since you have chosen to read. There is
no hurry. You know the worst," she said gently.
So with a sort of dazed incredulity he read on in silence:
"Paul Macleod! yes! Paul! you shall read this some day; some day soon.
I am revenged. You were ashamed of me, and now I am the laird of
Gleneira's wife. Yet I did not mean to be revenged till he came, like
a fool, and put it into my head. I was getting tired of the life,
too--of the hard, thankless life. It was by chance I fell in with him
in Paris. I went there with someone and stayed on; so he could not
guess that I was Jeanie Duncan, whom he had never seen. And I hated
him because he was your brother; so he grew mad after me, and promised
marriage. Then the thought came--I, whom the laird's Jock did not
think good enough to love or marry, will take the laird himself, and
flaunt it over them all. So we were married, and then, before I had
time to settle anything, he died--died of drink, Paul!
"Well! I hated him, so I did not care. I hated him for being so like
you, and caring for me when you did not----
"And now, if it is a boy, I will have my revenge--my just revenge--and
turn you out of the old place. But I wait, because, if it is a girl,
you will not care, and I will not have you jeer because my revenge has
failed. I pray day and night that it may be a boy, and lest I should
die, I write all about it, and put my marriage lines with the letter.
Then my son can come, and turn you out. I did not seek revenge,
remember. It came into my hand, and it is just. You know that it is
just!
"Jeanie Duncan.
"P.S.--Look in the photograph shops in Paris for 'La Belle Écossaise,'
if you wish to know what I was like when _he_ married me."
Paul, reading methodically, paused for a second, passed his hand
across his forehead as if to clear his mind, and then went on to a
fainter pencil scrawl:
"Well! I have waited, Paul! It is a boy--so like you, Paul! I lie and
think--for they say I am dying, and so it cannot hurt now--that he
_is_ your son, and that we were married in the old days. But it is all
a lie! He is _his_ son, and I will have my revenge! If only I could
remember anything but the old days, Paul! Ah! surely when people love
as we did---- No! I do not understand. Only, the boy is so like you. I
lie and think, and I feel he must never turn you out. Never! never!
Only, if you die, then the boy must have his rights, for he is your
son.
"Janet Macleod.
"P.S.--Mother will keep this; she has come to see me die, so it will
be quite safe. She does not know I am married, and I have written
outside that no one is to read it till you are dead. Ah, Paul! I wish
you could have seen it. Forgive me, Paul--forgive me that he is not
your son!"
A greyness had come to the handsome face, and, as he folded up the
letter methodically, his hands trembled.
"How long?" he asked; and it seemed almost as if he could not finish
the sentence.
"Since the night of old Peggy's death. I suspected something, so I
stole it."
"You suspected!" he interrupted quickly. "What could you suspect?"
Then he laughed bitterly. "I suppose you suspected I was the boy's
father, and thought the knowledge would be useful. If I had been it
would have been better." His hand holding the letter came down heavily
on the mantelpiece as he rose in sudden passion. "My God! what a
devilish revenge!"
She gave a quick catch in her breath. She had been silent till now,
but now it was time to begin--time to make him think.
"You forget that she repented--that she gave up her revenge. That is
why I said nothing, Paul. I am a woman, too, and I know how she
repented. I did not dare to speak--to disobey her dying wish; who has
a right to do that, Paul?--no one."
"But the boy," he murmured, "the boy."
"The boy will not suffer. If you die he will have his rights, as his
mother wished. If he were really your son he would not have Gleneira
till then, and you can look after him. It is not as if he were in
want, dear."
He sate listening, listening to that soft, persuasive voice, which had
such a knack of following his every thought, and yet of leading them.
"I had no right to steal the letters, of course," it went on a little
louder, "but I am not sorry; for others might not have understood, and
so the poor thing's repentance would have come to naught. Now, no one
knows but you and I. You who loved her, I who pity her; because I love
you, Paul, as she loved you."
She came a step closer with wide-open, serious eyes, and touched him
on the breast with her slender white hand. The faint perfume of
jasmine which always lingered round her stole in on his senses
familiarly, taking him back to many a past pleasure and kindness
associated with it, and, half unconsciously, his empty hand clasped
hers; and so they stood looking, not at each other, but into the fire.
"So it is easy to fulfil her wish--her dying wish. You did her a
wrong, Paul, in the old days, and you owe her reparation. She did not
wish you to read the letter, remember; but that can be as if it had
not been. Give it to me, dear! I would have burnt it before, as she
would have wished it burnt, but I wanted you to know for certain what
she had wished."
Her small, white hand was on his, the paper rustled and seemed to slip
from his hold while he stood, as if mesmerised, looking into the fire.
It was all true--every word of it true.
"Give it to me, Paul. You are thinking of the boy; but we could bring
him up, you and I, if you would have it so. Paul! This is my reward at
last! I can do this for you, now that I am rich."
But still his fingers resisted faintly, and there was a pause, a long
pause. Then the hand which lay in his seemed to slacken, to lie in his
like a dead hand, and her voice came with a sob in its softness:
"Paul! do this for me, and I will ask no more. Paul! let me save
you--save you and Marjory!"
It was her last plea. She had kept it back till now, hoping against
hope, and, as she made it, she touched the highest point of
self-forgetfulness it is possible for a woman to reach. But in
touching it she struck a false note in the syren's song, and Paul
Macleod's hand closed like a vice over his one tie to an honest
life--the letter.
The name had roused him. "Marjory!" he echoed absently. Then he turned
and looked at his companion compassionately, yet decisively. "You mean
to be kind, Violet, but you don't understand," he said quietly; then
raised her little slack hand, stooped to kiss it, and left her so,
standing by the fire alone. She had played for her love boldly,
skilfully, and she had lost. She had tried to save Paul for his own
sake, and she had failed. Yet even so, the innate courage of the woman
faced the facts without a tear, without a complaint.
"It is my own fault," she said, half aloud. "I ought to have burnt the
letter long ago, but I was not meant for that sort of thing. My heart
is too soft." Then she smiled a little bitterly. It was at the
remembrance of Paul Macleod's assertion, "You do not understand!" If
she did not understand him, who could?