JUST AS SHE HAD SEEN IT IN HER DREAM.
Evils do not always come alone. It sometimes happens that before one
astounding ill is barely glanced at, another has fallen. This was the
case at Stilborough.
The town awoke one morning to find that the bank had stopped payment,
and that the banker was dead. Never before in the memory of man had
the like consternation been known. It can be better imagined than
written. At once the worst was anticipated. No one had ever been so
confided in as was Mr. Peter Castlemaine. His capacity for business,
his honour and integrity, his immense wealth, had passed into a
proverb. People not only trusted him, but forced upon him that trust.
Many and many a man had placed in his hands all they possessed: the
savings perhaps of half a lifetime; and now they saw themselves ruined
and undone.
Never had the like excitement been known in the quiet town; never so
much talking and gesticulating; metaphorically speaking, so much
sighing and sobbing. And indeed it is to be doubted if this last was
all metaphor. Thomas Hill had never been so sought after; so
questioned and worried; so raved at and abused as now. All he could
implore of them was to have a little patience until accounts could be
gone into. Things might not, he represented, turn out as badly as
people supposed. Nobody listened to him; and he felt that if all days
were to be as this day, he should soon follow his master to the grave.
Indeed, it seemed to him now, in the shock of this dreadful blow--his
master's ruin and his master's untimely end--that his own existence
henceforth would be little better than a death in life.
In the very midst of the commotion, there was brought to Stilborough
news of that other calamity--the mysterious disappearance of young
Anthony Castlemaine. He had been seen to enter the Friar's Keep the
previous night, and had never come out again. The name of the Master
of Greylands appeared to be mixed up in the affair; but in what manner
was not yet understood. Verily misfortunes seemed to be falling
heavily just now upon the Castlemaines.
This last event, however, after exciting due comment and wonder, was
lost sight of in the other evil: for the first nearly concerned the
interests of Stilborough, and the latter did not concern them at all.
Their ruin, their ruin! That was the all-absorbing topic in the minds
of the bewildered citizens.
In inquiry into the death of Peter Castlemaine ended in a decision
that he had died from heart disease. This was arrived at chiefly by
the testimony and the urgent representation of Thomas Hill. One of the
medical men was supposed to hold a contrary opinion; and the dreadful
doubt, previously spoken of, would always lie on Miss Castlemaine's
mind; but the other was the accepted view. He was buried in the
neighbouring churchyard, St. Mark's: Parson Marston, who had so often
and so recently sat at his dinner-table, performing the service.
Gradually the first excitement diminished. Brains and tempers calmed
down. For, added to that natural depression that succeeds to undue
emotion, there arose a report that things would be well, after all,
and everybody paid to the full.
In fact, it was so. The money that had been so long waited
for--the speculation that had at last turned up trumps--was pouring in
its returns. And there arose another source of means to be added to
it.
One morning the great Nyndyll Mine Company, that had been looked upon
as being as good as dead, took a turn for the better; received, so to
say, a new lease of life. A fresh vein of surprising richness and
unbounded extent, had been struck: the smallest shareholder might
immediately reckon that his fortune was an accomplished fact: and
those lucky enough to be largely interested might cease speculation
for ever, and pass the time in building themselves castles and
palaces--with more solid foundations than the air will furnish--to
live in. The shares went up in the market like rockets: everyone was
securing them as eagerly as we should pick up diamonds if we got the
chance. In a very short time, the shares held by the house of Mr.
Peter Castlemaine might have been resold for fifteen times the
original amount paid for them.
"Is this true, Hill?" asked Mr. Castlemaine, who had come bounding
over on horseback from Greylands' Rest at the first rumour of the
news, and found the old clerk at his post as usual, before the private
desk that had been his master's. "Can it be true?" repeated Mr.
Castlemaine.
He was changed since his brother's death. That death, or something
else, had told upon him strangely. He and Peter had been fond of each
other. James had been proud of his brother's position in the country;
his influence and good name. The shock had come upon him unexpectedly,
as upon every one else: and, in a manner, affected him far more. Then,
his interests were largely bound up with those of his brother; and
though if he had lost all he had lent him he would still be a rich
man, yet the thought was not to be indulged with indifference or
contemplated pleasantly. But to do him justice, these considerations
sank into insignificance, before the solemn fact of his brother's
death, and the mystery and uncertainty enshrouding it.
"Is it true, Hill?" he reiterated before the clerk had time to speak.
"Or is it all as a miserable delusion of Satan."
"It is true enough, sir," answered Thomas Hill. "The shares have gone
suddenly up like nothing I ever knew. Alas, that it should be so!"
"Alas!" echoed Mr. Castlemaine. "What mean you, Hill? has trouble
turned your brain?"
"I was thinking of my poor dear master," said the old man. "It was
this very mine that helped to kill him. You see now, Mr. Castlemaine,
how good his speculations were, how sound his judgment! Had he lived
to see this turn of affairs, all would have been well."
"Too late to speak of that," said Mr. Castlemaine, with a deep sigh.
"He is dead; and we must now give our attention to the living. This
slice of luck will enable you to pay all demands. The shares must be
realized at once.
"Enable us to pay every one, as I believe," assented Thomas Hill. "And
otherwise we should not."
"What a strange chance it seems to be!" musingly observed Mr.
Castlemaine. "A chance that rarely occurs in life. Well, as I say, it
must be seized upon."
"And without delay, sir. The shares that have gone up so unexpectedly,
may fall as suddenly. I'll write to-day." Mr. Castlemaine rose to
depart. The clerk, who was settling to his papers, again looked off to
ask a question.
"Have any tidings turned up, sir, of poor Mr. Anthony?"
"Not that I have heard of. Good-day, Hill."
The expected money was realized; other expected money was realized;
and in an incredibly short space of time, for poor Thomas Hill worked
with a will, the affairs of the bank were in a way of settlement,
every creditor to be fully satisfied, and the late unfortunate
banker's name to be saved. Anything that had been underhanded in his
dealing, Thomas Hill and Mr. Castlemaine had contrived to keep from
the public.
But one creditor, whose name did not appear on the books, and who had
put in no demand to be satisfied, was passed over in silence. Mary
Ursula's fortune had been hopelessly sacrificed; and it was already
known that little, if anything, would be left for her. She knew how
and why her fortune had gone: Mr. Hill had explained it all to her; it
had helped to save her father's honour and good name; and had it been
ten times the amount, she would freely have given it for such a
purpose, and been thankful that she had it to give.
Seeing what it had done, she did not as far as she herself was
concerned, look upon it with one moment's regret. True she was now
poor; very poor compared with the past: she would have at most but
about a hundred and fifty pounds a year; but she was in too much
trouble to think much of money now. One heavy weight had been
lifted--the sickening dread that the creditors would lose part or all.
On that one point she was now at rest. But there were other things.
There was the underlying current of fear that her father had not died of
heart disease; there was the mysterious perplexity attending the
disappearance of her cousin Anthony; and there was her own engagement
to Mr. Blake-Gordon.
Her position was now so different from what it had been when he
proposed to her, and the severity, the pride, the arrogance of Sir
Richard so indisputable, that she feared the worst. Moreover, she
knew, from the present conduct of both father and son, that she had
cause to fear it.
Twice, and twice only, had William Blake-Gordon come to her since her
father's death, and he might so easily have come to her every day in
her desolation! Each time he had been kind and loving as ever; not a
suspicion, not a hint of separation had appeared in look or tone; but
in his manner there had been something never seen before: a reticence;
a keeping back, as it were, of words that ought to come out: and
instinct told her that all was not as it used to be.
"How does your father take the news?--What does he say to it, and to
my loss of fortune?--Is he still willing to receive me?" she had asked
on each occasion; and as often he had contrived to put aside the
questions without satisfactory answer.
Days went on; her position, as to lack of fortune, was known abroad;
and the suspense she endured was making her ill. One morning at the
breakfast table, as she finished reading some letters that had been
delivered for her, Mrs. Webb, who had scanned the letters outside from
the opposite side of the table, put a question that she often did put.
"Is any one of them from Mr. Blake-Gordon, my dear?"
"No," replied Mary. And no one but herself knew what it cost her to
have to say it; or how trying to her was the usual silence that
followed the answer.
"I will end the suspense," she said to herself, shutting herself in
her own sitting-room when the meal was over. "It is Sir Richard, I
know; not William: but at least they shall not find me willing to
enter the family on bare sufferance. I will give them the opportunity
of retiring from the engagement--if that be what they wish for."
Drawing her desk towards her, she paused with the pen in her hand,
deliberating how to write. Whether in a cold formal strain, or
affectionately and confidently as of yore: and she decided on the
latter.
"My DEAREST WILLIAM,
"My circumstances have so changed since the early days of our
engagement, that I feel I am now, in writing to you, adopting the only
course left open to me, both in fairness to you and for the sake of my
own future happiness and peace of mind.
"When you proposed to me and I accepted you, I was in a very different
position from that of to-day. Then I was supposed to be--nay, I
supposed myself--a very rich woman. I was the daughter of a man
beloved, honoured, and respected; a member of a house which, if not
equal to your own in the past annals of the country, might at least
mix with it on equality and hold its own amongst gentlemen. All this
is now changed. My dear father is no more, my large fortune is gone,
and I am left with next to nothing.
"That you have asked me to become your wife for myself alone, I feel
sure of. I am certain that no thought of riches influenced you in your
choice: that you would take me now as willingly as in the old days.
But instinct--or presentiment tells me that others will step in to
interfere between us, and to enjoin a separation. Should this be the
case--should your father's consent, once given, now be withdrawn--then
all must be at an end between us, and I will restore you your liberty.
Without the fall approval of Sir Richard, you cannot attempt to marry
me; neither should I, without it, consent to become your wife.
"If, on the other hand, that approval is still held out to us both as
freely as of yore, I have only to add what you know so well--that I am
yours, now as ever.
"MARY URSULA CASTLEMAINE."
The letter written, she hesitated no longer about the necessity or
wisdom of the step. Sealing it, she despatched it by a trusty
messenger to Sir Richard's house just beyond the town.
The news of the failure of the bank and death of its master, had
reached Sir Richard Blake-Gordon when he was at a dinner party. It
fell upon him with startling effect. For a moment he felt half
paralyzed: and then the blood once more took its free course through
his veins as he remembered that his son's marriage was yet a thing of
the future.
"Never," he said to himself with energy. "Never, as long as I live. I
may have a battle with William; but I could always twist him round my
fingers. In that respect he is his poor mother all over. No such
weakness about me. Failed for millions! Good heavens, what an escape!
We shall be quite justified in breaking with the daughter; and she and
William have both sense enough to see it."
He was not of those who put off disagreeable things until they will be
put off no longer. That very night, meeting his son when he got home,
he began, after expressing regret for the banker's sudden death.
"A sad affair about the bank! Who would have expected it?"
"Who, indeed!" returned William Blake-Gordon. "Everyone thought the
bank as safe as the Bank of England. Safer, if anything."
"It only shows how subject, more or less, all private concerns are to
fluctuations--changes--failures--and what not," continued Sir Richard.
"Whatever this may be--failure or not--it will at least be open and
straightforward," said William. "Mr. Peter Castlemaine was the soul of
honour. The embarrassments must have arisen from other quarters, and
Thomas Hill says the trouble and anxiety have killed him."
"Poor man! People are expecting it to be an awful failure. Not five
shillings in the pound for the creditors, and all the Castlemaine
family ruined. This must terminate your engagement."
The sudden mandate fell on the young man's ears with a shock. He
thought at the first moment his father must be jesting.
"It must terminate my engagement?" he retorted, catching sight of the
dark stern countenance. "What, give up Mary Castlemaine? Never,
father! Never will I do it so long as I shall live."
"Yes, you will," said Sir Richard, quietly. "I cannot allow you to
sacrifice your prospects in life."
"To give her up would be to sacrifice all the prospects I care for."
"Tush, William!"
"Think what it is you would advise, sir!" spoke the son with
ill-suppressed emotion. "Putting aside my own feelings, think of the
dishonour to my name! I should be shunned by all good and true men; I
should shun myself. Why, I would not live through such dishonour."
Sir Richard took a pinch of snuff.
"These misfortunes only render it the more urgent for me to carry out
the engagement, sir. Is it possible that you do not see it? Mary
Castlemaine's happiness is, I believe, bound up in me; and mine, I
freely avow it, is in hers. Surely, father, you would not part us!"
"Listen, William," spoke Sir Richard, in the calm, stern tones he
could assume at will, more telling, more penetrating than the loudest
passion. "Should Miss Castlemaine become portionless--as I believe it
will turn out she has become--you cannot marry her. Or, if you do, it
would be with my curse. I would not advise you, for your own sake, to
invoke that. You can look elsewhere for a wife: there are numbers of
young women as eligible as ever was Miss Castlemaine."
Long they talked together, far on into the night, the stern tones on
the one hand becoming persuasive ones; the opposition sinking into
silence. When they separated, Sir Richard felt that he had three parts
gained his point.
"It is all right," said he mentally, as he stalked up to bed with his
candle. "William was always ultra dutiful."
Sir Richard interdicted his son's visits to Miss Castlemaine; and the
one or two scant calls the young man made on her, were made in
disobedience. But this state of things could not last. William
Blake-Gordon, with his yielding nature, had ever possessed a rather
exaggerated idea of the duty a son owes his father: moreover, he knew
instinctively that Mary would never consent to marry in opposition to
Sir Richard, even though he brought himself to do it.
It soon became known abroad that Miss Castlemaine's fortune had
certainly been sacrificed. Sir Richard was cold and distant to his
son, the young man miserable.
One day the baronet returned to the charge; intending his mandate to
be final. They were in the library. William's attitude was one of utter
dejection as he leaned against the side of the window, looking forth on
the spring sunshine: sunshine that brought no gladness for him. He saw
too clearly what the end would be: that his own weakness, or his sense
of filial duty, call it which you may, must give way before the
stronger will, the commanding nature.
"Your conduct is now simply cruel to Miss Castlemaine," Sir Richard
was saying. "You are keeping her all this time in suspense. Or,
perhaps--worse still--allowing her to cherish the hope that her
altered circumstances will not cause the engagement to terminate."
"I can't help it," replied William. "The engagement has no business to
terminate. It was sacredly entered into: and, without adequate reason,
it ought to be as sacredly kept."
"You are a living representation of folly," cried Sir Richard.
"Adequate reason! There's reason enough for breaking off fifty
engagements. Can you not see the matter in its proper light?"
"That is what I do see," replied William, sadly. "I see that the
engagement ought to be maintained. For my own part, I never can go to
Mary and tell her that I am to give her up."
"Coward," said Sir Richard, with a great frown. "Then I must."
"I fear you are right," returned William: "a coward I am, little
better. It is a cowardly thing to break off this alliance--the world
will call it by a very different name. Father," he added, appealingly,
"is my happiness nothing to you? Can you sacrifice us both to your
pride and vainglory."
"You will see it very differently some day," returned Sir Richard.
"When you have lived in the world as long as I have, you will laugh at
yourself for these ridiculously romantic ideas. Instead of marring
your happiness, I am making it. Substantially, too."
"I think, sir," said Mr. Blake-Gordon, not liking the tone, "that you
might leave me to be the judge of what is best for my own happiness."
"There you are mistaken, my dear William. You have but a young head on
your shoulders: you see things de tort et de travers, as the French
have it. The engagement with Peter Castlemaine's daughter would never
have received my sanction but for her great wealth. We are poor, and
it is essential that you should marry a large fortune if you marry at
all. That wealth of hers has now melted, and consequently the contract
is at an end. This is the common-sense view of the circumstances which
the world will take. Done, it must be, William. Shall I see the young
lady for you? or will you be a man and see her for yourself?"
But before Mr. Blake-Gordon had time to reply, a note was brought in.
It was the one written by Miss Castlemaine; and it could not have
arrived more seasonably for Sir Richard's views. The young man opened
it; read it to the end: and passed it to his father in silence.
"A very sensible girl, upon my word," exclaimed Sir Richard, when
he had mastered the contents by the aid of a double eye-glass. "She
sees things in their right light. Castlemaine was, after all, an
extremely honourable man, and put proper notions into her. This greatly
facilitates matters, William. Our path is now quite smoothed out for
us. I will myself write to her. You can do the same, if you are so
disposed. Had this only come before, what arguments it might have
saved!"
Upon which the baronet sat down, and indited the following epistle:--
"My dear young Lady,
"Your note--which my son has handed to me--has given me in one sense a
degree of pleasure; for I perceive in it traces of good sense and
judgment, such as women do not always possess.
"You are right in supposing that under the present aspect of affairs a
marriage between yourself and Mr. Blake-Gordon would be unadvisable."
(She had supposed nothing of the sort, but it suited him to assume
it.) "And therefore I concur with you in your opinion that the
engagement should terminate.
"Deeply though I regret this personally, I have yet felt it my duty to
insist upon it to my son: not only for his sake, but for your own. The
very small means I am able to spare to him render it impossible for
him to take a portionless wife, and I could never sanction a step that
would drag him down to poverty and embarrassment. I was about to write
to you, or to see you, to tell you this, for William shrank from the
task, and your note has agreeably simplified what had to be done. We
cordially, though reluctantly, agree to what you have had the good
feeling to propose.
"At all times I shall be delighted to hear of your welfare and
happiness; and, believe me, my dear Miss Castlemaine, you have not a
more sincere well-wisher than your devoted friend and servant,
"RICHARD BLAKE-GORDON."
With much inward satisfaction the baronet folded the letter. He was
wise enough not to show it to his son; who, honourable in thought and
feeling as he was weak in nature, might have been prompted to tear it
into shreds, and declare that come good, come ill, he would stand true
to his plighted word.
"There!" said Sir Richard, with a grunt of relief, as he affixed his
seal, "I have accomplished that task for you, William. As I said
before, write to her yourself if you will, but be quick about it. In
half an hour I shall send back my answer."
"Give me that time to myself," said William, rising to leave the room.
"If I have anything to say I will write it."
At the end of the half-hour he had written the following words; and
the note was despatched with his father's:--
"MY DARLING, I suppose we must separate; but all happiness for me is
over in this world. You will, however, accord me a final interview; a
moment for explanation; I cannot part without that. I will be with you
this afternoon at four o'clock.
"In spite of all,
"I am for ever yours--and yours only,
"WILLIAM."
Unlike his father's letter, there was no hypocrisy in this, no stupid
form of words. When he wrote that all happiness for him was over, he
meant it; and he wrote truly. Perhaps he deserved no less: but, if he
merited blame, judgment might accord him some pity with it.
When Mary received the letters, she felt certain of their contents
before a word was seen. Sir Richard would not himself have written but
to break off the engagement. He had not even called upon her in all
these long weary days of desolation and misery: and there could be but
one motive for this unkind neglect. His note would now explain it.
But when she came to read its contents: its hollow hypocrisy, its
plausible, specious argument, its profession of friendship and
devotion; the pang of the death-blow gave place to the highest anger
and indignation.
At that moment of bitterness the letter sounded to her desperately
hollow and cruel, worse perhaps than it even was. The pain was more
than her wounded spirit--so tried in the past few weeks--could bear;
and with a brief but violent storm of sobs, with which no tears came,
she tore the letter in two and threw it into the fire.
"At least he might have done it differently," she said to herself in
her anguish. "He might have written in a manner that would have made
me feel it less."
It was one of her first lessons in the world's harshness, in the
selfish nature of man. Happy for her if in her altered circumstances
she had not many such to learn!
Presently, when she had grown a little calm, she opened the other
note, almost wondering whether it would be a repetition of the cool
falsity of Sir Richard's. Ah no, no!
"I will see him," she said, when she read the few words. "But the
interview shall be brief. Of what use to prolong the agony?" So when
William Blake-Gordon, true to his appointment, reached the bank at
four o'clock, he was admitted.
How different an aspect the house presented from the bustle and the
sociality of the days gone by! A stillness, as of a dead city,
reigned. Rooms that had re-echoed with merry voices and light
footsteps above, with the ring of gold and the tones of busy men
below, were now silent and deserted. No change of any kind had yet
been made in the household arrangements, but that was soon to come.
The servants would be discharged, the costly furniture was already
marked for the hammer; Mrs. Webb must leave, and--what was to be the
course of Miss Castlemaine? She had not even asked herself the
question, while the engagement with Mr. Blake-Gordon remained
officially unbroken.
The butler opened the door to him and ushered him into the
drawing-room. Mary came forward to greet him with her pale, sad face--a
face that startled her lover. He clasped her to him, and she burst into
sobs and tears. There are moments of anguish when pride gives way.
"Oh, my darling!" he cried, scarcely less agitated than herself, "you
are feeling this cruel decision almost unto death! Why did you write
that letter?--why did you not remain firm?--and thereby tacitly insist
on our engagement being fulfilled?"
Never had his weakness of nature been more betrayed than then. "Why
did not she insist?"--as if conscious that he was powerless to do
it! She felt it keenly: she felt that in this, at least, a gulf lay
between them.
"What I have done is for the best," she said, gently disengaging
herself, and suppressing the signs of her emotion, as she motioned
him to a seat. "In my altered circumstances I felt--at least I
feared--that no happiness could await our marriage. Your father, in
the first place, would never have given his consent."
"There are times when duty to a father should give place to duty to
one's self," he returned, forgetting how singularly this argument was
contradicted by his own conduct. "All my happiness in life is over."
"As you wrote to me," she said. "But by-and-by, when you shall have
forgotten all this, William, and time has brought things round, you
will meet with some one who will be able to make you happy: perhaps as
much so as I should have done: and you will look back on these days as
a dream."
"Mary!"
"And it will be better so."
"And you?" he asked, with a stifled groan of remorse.
"I?" she returned, with a smile half sad, half derisive. "I am nobody
now. You have a place to fill in the world; I shall soon be heard of
no more."
"But where are you going to live, Mary? You have nothing left out of
the wreck."
"I have a little. Enough for my future wants. At present I shall go on
a visit to Greylands' Rest. My uncle urges it, and he is the nearest
representative of my father. Depend upon it, I shall meet with some
occupation in life that will make me contented if not happy."
"Until you marry," he said. "Marry some man more noble than I; more
worthy of you."
For a moment she looked steadily at him, and then her face flushed hot
with pain. But she would not contradict it. She began to think that
she had never quite understood the nature of Mr. Blake-Gordon.
"In the future, you and I will probably not meet often, William; if at
all," she resumed. "But you will carry with you my best wishes, and I
shall always rejoice to hear of your happiness and prosperity. The
past we must, both of us, try to forget."
"I shall never forget it," was the impulsive answer.
"Do you remember my dream?" she sadly asked. "The one I told you of
that ball night. How strangely it is being fulfilled! And, do you
know, I think that beautiful Dresden vase, that papa broke, must have
been an omen of the evil in store for the house."
He stood up now, feeling how miserable it all was, feeling his own
littleness. For a short while longer they talked together: but Mary
wished the interview over.
When it came to the actual parting she nearly broke down. It was very
hard and bitter. Her life had not so long ago promised to be so
bright! Now all was at an end. As to marriage--never for her: of that
kind of happiness the future contained none. Calmness, patience in
suffering, resignation, and in time even contentment, she might find
in some path of duty; but beyond that, nothing.
They stood close together, her hands held in his, their hearts aching
with pain and yearning, each to each, with that sad yearning that is
born of utter hopelessness. A parting like this seems to be more cruel
than the parting of death.
"Come what may, Mary, I shall love you, and you alone, to the end. You
tell me I shall marry: it may be so; I know not: but if so, my wife,
whomsoever she may be, will never have my love; never, never. We do
not love twice in a lifetime. And, if those who have loved on earth
are permitted to meet in Heaven, you and I, my best and dearest, shall
assuredly find together in Eternity the happiness denied us here."
She was but mortal, after all; and the words sent a strange thrill of
pleasure through her heart. Ah, no! he would never love another as he
had loved her; she knew it: and it might be--it might be--that they
should recognise each other in the bliss of a never-ending Hereafter!
And so they parted, each casting upon the other a long, last,
lingering look, just as Mary had already imagined in her foreboding
dream.
That evening, as Miss Castlemaine was sitting alone, musing on the
past, the present, and the future, nursing her misery and her
desolation, the door opened and Thomas Hill was shown in. She had seen
more of him than of any one else, save Mrs. Webb, since the ruin.
"Miss Mary," said he, when they had shaken hands, "I've come to ask
you whether the report can be true?"
"What report?" inquired Mary: but a suspicion of what he must mean
rushed over her, ere the words had well passed her lips.
"Perhaps it is hardly a report," said the clerk, correcting himself;
"for I doubt if any one else knows of it. I met Sir Richard to-day, my
dear young lady," he continued, advancing and taking her hands, his
tone full of indignant commiseration; "and in answer to some remark I
made about your marriage, he said the marriage was not to take place;
it was at an end. I did not believe him."
"It is quite true," replied Mary, with difficulty controlling her
voice. "I am glad that it is at an end."
"Glad?" he repeated, looking into her face with his kindly old eyes.
"Yes. It is much better so. Sir Richard, in the altered state of my
fortunes, would never think me a sufficiently good match for his son."
"But the honour, Miss Mary! Or rather the dishonour of their
breaking it off! And your happiness? Is that not to be thought of?"
"All things that are wrong will right themselves," she replied with a
quiet smile. "At least, Sir Richard thinks so.
"And Mr. Blake-Gordon, is he willing to submit to the separation
quietly? Pardon me, Miss Mary. If your father were alive, I should know
my place too well to say a word on the subject: but--but I seem to have
been drawn very close to you since that time of desolation, and my
heart resents all slight on you as he would have resented it. I could
not rest until I knew the truth."
"Say no more about it," breathed Mary. "Let the topic be between us as
one that had never had existence. It will be for my happiness."
"But can nothing be done?" persisted Thomas Hill. "Should not your
uncle go and expostulate with them and expose their villainy--for I
can call it by no other name?"
"Not for worlds," she said, hastily. "It is I who have broken the
engagement, Mr. Hill; not they. I wrote this morning and restored Mr.
Blake-Gordon his freedom: this afternoon I bade him farewell for ever.
It is all over and done with: never mention it again to me."
"And you--what are your plans for the future?--And, oh, forgive me for
being anxious, my dear young lady! I had you on my knee often as a
little one, and in my heart you have been as dear to me and seemed to
grow up as my own daughter. Where shall you live?"
"I cannot yet tell where. I am poor, you know," she added, with one of
her sweet, sad smiles. "For the present I am going on a visit to my
Uncle James."
"Greylands' Rest would be your most suitable home now," spoke Thomas
Hill slowly and dubiously. "But--I don't know that you would like it.
Mrs. Castlemaine----"
He stopped, hardly liking to say what was in his mind--that Mrs.
Castlemaine was not the most desirable of women to live with. Mary
understood him.
"Only on a visit," she said. "While there, I shall have leisure to
think of the future. My hundred and fifty pounds a year--and that much
you all say will be secured to me----"
"And the whole of what I possess, Miss Mary."
"My hundred and fifty pounds a year will seem as a sufficient income
to me, once I have brought my mind down from its heights," she
continued, with another faint smile, as though unmindful of the
interruption. "Trust me, my dear old friend, the future shall not be
as gloomy as, by the expression of your face, you seem to anticipate.
I am not weak enough to throw away my life in repining, and in wishing
for what Heaven sees fit to deny me."
"Heaven?" he repeated in an accent of reproof.
"Let us say circumstances, then. But in the very worst fate, it may
be, that Heaven's hand may be working--overruling all for our eventual
good. My future life can be a useful one; and I, if not happy, at
least contented."
But that night, in the solitude of her chamber, she opened a small
box, containing nothing but a few faded white rose-leaves. It was the
first trembling offering William Blake-Gordon had given her, long
before he dared to tell of his love. Before they were again put away
out of sight, tears, bitter as any shed in her whole life, had fallen
upon them.