“Leave me, sir! I consider your very presence an insult!”
“Before you drive me from you for ever, I am determined to set plainly
before you the results which must inevitably follow your decision, and
show you unmistakeably the difference between the future which awaits
you, and the lot which might even yet be yours if you have only
sufficient strength of character to cast aside the meaningless
conventionalities of a false and hollow state of society.”
D’Almayne--for as the reader has no doubt already conjectured, the
foregoing speech proceeded from his lips--paused for a moment to control
the excitement under which, despite his endeavours to conceal it, he was
evidently labouring. Kate Crane appeared again about to interrupt him;
but by a glance and a gesture of the hand he restrained her, while he
continued:--“You talk of marriage as a holy tie, and where such a bond
is indeed one of the heart, I, sceptic and libertine as you consider
me, entirely agree with you; but such a term cannot apply to the
cruel mockery which has bound youth, beauty, and intellect to age,
decrepitude, and imbecility. But putting aside all idea of affection,
the temptation which led you to commit this outrage against every better
feeling of your nature exists no longer. Mr. Crane is a ruined man; if,
therefore, you adhere to the conventional prejudice which you vainly
endeavour to dignify by the name of duty, you have nothing to hope but
to sacrifice to it the best years of your life, years in which you will
still be young, when your queenly beauty and bright clear intellect will
fit you to shine in and lead society of a class in which your elegant
tastes, and refined sympathies, would meet with a gratification
sufficient in itself to render life one scene of pleasurable excitement.
But, more than this, you are ambitious; I can read it in your flashing
eye, in the curl of your haughty lip. I would open to you such a field
for that ambition as in your wildest moments you have never dreamed of.
You do not believe me! you consider me a base, unscrupulous adventurer.
If it were so, what have I ever had to call out the higher, nobler
qualities of my nature? Nothing! But with such a soul as yours to urge
and inspire me, and with your love as my reward, to what height
might not my genius soar! What was the great Napoleon but a Corsican
adventurer? and yet his was a career an Emperor’s daughter was proud to
share. You think I am romancing--talking bombastic nonsense; but it is
not so. In America, at the present time, there is an immense field
for talent. I know the character of the nation well, know how both its
strong and weak points could be turned to account, and form the
ladder by which I might climb even to the President’s seat, and once
there!--Presidents have ere now become Emperors--from democracy to
despotism is the natural transition--history proves it. Since I have
known you, a change has come over my every thought and feeling;
hitherto I have exerted my talents merely to supply my own fastidious
requirements, but now my ideas are enlarged, my aspirations heightened.
Brought up from my earliest childhood among men, clever indeed, but
without one pure thought, one disinterested feeling, I became--what I
am. You have excited in me higher, nobler feelings. I will not deny that
your beauty first attracted me; but since I have known you, and each day
discovered new qualities with which I could sympathise, I have learned
to love you with the only deep, real sentiment I have ever yet felt for
one of your sex. Hitherto I have looked on women as mere toys wherewith
to solace one’s leisure hours; but in you I recognise a loftier nature;
I feel not only in the presence of an intelligence equal to my own, but
I have an instinctive perception that you might become my leading star,
my tutelary deity! Kate, hear me! my destiny is in your hands. Fly with
me to America--everything is prepared; and when we arrive on the soil
of a new world, you shall become the bride of a man already possessed of
riches sufficient to obtain for you luxuries greater than you have yet
enjoyed, and with a gift riches are powerless to procure--talent which
has never yet failed me, however critical the position--talent which,
henceforward, you shall direct into any course that best may win your
approval; knowing that whatever career you may select, the sole reward I
shall seek will be your approbation--my only happiness, your affection.
You have not heard me unmoved--you cannot, will not refuse me!”
As D’Almayne concluded, he fixed his eyes on Kate’s face, as though he
sought to read there his sentence before her lips should pronounce it,
while his cheeks flushed, and his eyes glistened with unfeigned emotion.
For an instant, unable to bear the intensity of his glance, Kate turned
away with a heightened colour, then, recovering her self-possession by a
powerful effort, she replied calmly--
“I have heard you thus far, Mr. D’Almayne, without interruption, partly
because I believe that, for once, you are speaking under the influence
of real feeling; partly because I owe you, as I imagine, a debt of
gratitude for your kindness to my brother; these reasons have induced
me to listen to addresses, every word of which I consider as the deepest
insult which can be offered to a pure-minded woman. You tell me
I married Mr. Crane for money; I neither admit nor repel the
accusation--like most taunts, it contains a half-truth, so disguised
by sarcasm as to appear a whole one. But how doubly sordid should I be,
were I to act on your suggestion, and quit my husband,--who, if your
supposition be correct, I have sufficiently wronged already,--because
he has, as you inform me, been swindled out of his wealth--_how_ I leave
your own conscience to inform you! The fact that he is poor, and that
you profess yourself rich, is enough to carry conviction to my mind.
But I will not enter further into the question: suffice it that your
sophistries have failed to blind me, and that I am still able to discern
the path of duty--let it lead whither it may, I am resolved to follow
it. I have given you, as you requested, a fair hearing and a deliberate
reply. For your kindness to my brother, I again thank you. As I gather
that you are about to leave this country, and can well imagine it may be
necessary for you to do so, farewell for ever! I set your one good deed
against your evil ones, and bear you no ill-will. We part neither as
friends nor foes.”
As Kate spoke, she rose to quit the room, but D’Almayne interposed
between her and the door--
“One moment,” he said in his usual tone of sarcasm; “my modesty cannot
permit me to depart, taking credit for a good deed which I have never
performed. It was not I who rescued your brother from his difficulty;
though, as a stepping-stone to your favour, I would willingly have done
so: for that act of kindness you are indebted to----”
“Whom?” inquired Kate, eagerly.
“One to whom, if he had this morning pleaded as I have done, I fancy
even your rigid virtue might have afforded a kinder answer--your cousin,
Arthur Hazlehurst!”
D’Almayne spoke at random, but the arrow wounded as deeply as even
his disappointed malevolence could have desired. With every vestige of
colour banished from her pale cheek, Kate sank back upon her chair, and
drawing her breath with difficulty, placed her hand upon her side, as
if in pain. Heedless of her suffering--nay, rather rejoicing in it--the
evil expression came across D’Almayne’s face as, in a tone of sarcastic
triumph, he exclaimed--
“You love him! I was certain of it, and am fully avenged. Chained by
your marriage vow to a decrepid imbecile, while you love another with
all the depth and fire of your passionate nature, you will experience
the torments of the damned. To the remorse and despair these reflections
will engender,--a despair so desolating that you will live to regret
even your decision of this morning,--I leave you. When your husband
returns to-night, a ruined man, remember my words--the curse that you
have brought upon yourself will have begun to work!”
Unable to reply, Kate remained leaning back, her eyes fixed upon him
with a kind of horrible fascination. Leisurely drawing on his gloves, he
appeared to be feasting his gaze with the misery he had created; then,
casting on her a look of sardonic malevolence that a fiend might have
emulated, but could scarcely have surpassed, he turned and quitted the
apartment, and immediately afterwards the house.
Kate’s reflections after D’Almayne had left her may easily be imagined;
all feelings of resentment against the man who had insulted her were
merged in the one thought that her cousin, Arthur Hazlehurst, had been
her brother’s unknown benefactor When she had imagined him implacably
offended at the unjustifiable manner in which, during their last
interview, she had treated him, he was still watching over her
interests, and with a chivalrous devotion to the remembrance of their
former attachment (for such could be the only kindly sentiment he could
now cherish towards her), he had come forward and saved her brother from
the ruin which had appeared inevitable. She had received a note that
morning from Frederick, informing her of his return from the Continent,
and stating his intention of paying her a visit immediately, adding that
he had obtained his benefactor’s sanction to tell her to whom he was
indebted for his present good fortune, and all other particulars she
might wish to learn. While thus engaged, a knock at the door announced
a visitor, and in another moment her brother’s arms were thrown around
her. Six months’ foreign travel, and daily association with persons
mixing in good society, had produced a great change in Fred Marsden’s
appearance: the handsome boy had become a fine manly young fellow, whose
frank address and courteous manners were certain to ensure him a kindly
welcome, and greatly increase his chances of success in life. Fred had
much to tell, and found an eager listener in Kate. Arthur was the best,
kindest, wisest, most generous of men; Arthur had sent him abroad more
to finish his education than for any use he could be of in a business
point of view; Arthur was most liberal to him in money-matters; and yet
superior as he was in everything--talent, age, position--Arthur treated
him like an equal, nay, like a brother.
While he thus ran on, a cab drove up to the door, and shortly after
Mr. Crane entered the apartment; he appeared to walk feebly, and once
staggered, and nearly fell in crossing the room. Glancing angrily
towards Fred, he muttered, “Send that boy away, Mrs. Crane--I--I wish to
speak with you on matters of importance.”
Hastily dismissing her brother--promising to write him word when to come
again--Kate returned to her husband. “You look ill and worried,” she
said; “let me fetch you a glass of wine and a biscuit.”
“Ill and worried indeed! I tell you, Mrs. Crane, I have this day
received my death-blow. Don’t reply, madam; don’t mock me with any
pretence of affection--I know its worth. You married me for my money--I
am not so blind as you may imagine--yes! you married me for my money;
and now you are rightly served, for I am a ruined man. You may well
stare and look surprised, for I can scarcely believe it myself. Oh, it
is too cruel--horrible, to think that I, Jedediah Crane, whose name
has been good for five hundred thousand pounds any day, should die a
beggar!” Here he paused, and broke into a fit of childish weeping; after
a time he again resumed angrily, “And for this, madam, I have chiefly to
thank your precious admirer, Horace D’Almayne; my money was safe enough
till he led me on to speculate; and I believe your arts and allurements
were the chief cause that attracted him here. But your wickedness has
brought its own punishment, for you must work for your living now--you,
and all your pauper family, whom you have supported out of my
pocket: and as for D’Almayne, may the bitterest curses light upon
him--may------” Here, suddenly breaking off, he stared round him wildly,
raised his hand to his forehead, murmured, “Oh, my head!” and sank back
in his chair. Greatly alarmed, Kate rang the bell violently, and whilst
the butler and another servant conveyed Mr. Crane to his room, she
dispatched a third in search of medical assistance. That evening Arthur
Hazlehurst received the following note:
“In the unpardonable pride which has been my besetting sin through life,
but to which, if suffering can eradicate faults, I ought never again
to yield, I requested you not to enter my house until I sent for you;
deeming, when I said it, that I was pronouncing a sentence of banishment
which would continue in effect as long as we should both survive. Having
placed this bar between myself and the generous friendship you have
always evinced for me, I dare not now ask your assistance--but if in the
great strait in which I am placed you would advise me to whom I ought
to apply, you will be rendering me a kindness I have little deserved at
your hands. Mr. Crane returned home this evening greatly excited,
and declared that he was a ruined man; while still raving almost
incoherently on the subject, he was attacked with paralysis, and now
lies in a state which the two physicians I have called in inform me is
in the highest degree critical. He has recovered his consciousness, but
his speech is so much affected that I can only collect that his mind is
still troubled by business details. I am not aware of the name of his
legal adviser, nor, indeed, certain whether he was in the habit of
consulting one. I await your reply with much anxiety.
“Kate Crane.”
Within a quarter of an hour after he received this note Arthur
Hazlehurst was in Park Lane.