MAGNANIMITY.
“Though with my high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my anger
Do I take part. The better action is
In patience than in vengeance.”—_Shakspeare._
Mark Sutherland had been home eight days before he broke to Rosalie the
sad news of his uncle’s betrayal of his trust, and her own loss of
fortune.
Rosalie heard it with sorrow and amazement. She replied by not one word,
but dropped her head upon her hands, and remained silent so long that
her husband became anxious and alarmed. In truth, it was a most bitter
disappointment to the young wife—she had looked forward to coming of
age, and coming into possession of her fortune, with so much impatience,
with such bright anticipations, not for herself, but for her husband’s
sake. It would have placed them in so much more favourable
circumstances. It would have relaxed the tight strain of office work
from the overtasked, weary lawyer, and left him more leisure for the
study of the higher and more attractive and more honourable branches of
his dry profession. It would have afforded him means and leisure for
engaging actively in political life, and never was the country more in
need of honest men “to the fore.” It would have enabled him to assist
largely in the public improvements of the growing city. Nay, what good
might they not have done with the large fortune that was lost? Indeed,
it was a sudden, stunning blow to Rosalie; and oh! worse than all, was
the thought of him whose guilty hand had dealt that blow. She sat so
long overwhelmed by the shock, that her husband—Heaven forgive
him!—misunderstood her silence and stillness, and misconstrued her noble
heart. He said—
“Rosalie, my love, look up! This loss of fortune, which you take so much
to heart, is not inevitable, irrecoverable. Disclaim the signature,
expose the forgery”—
She raised her head, and looked up at him, with wonder in her mild,
mournful eyes.
“And what then?”
“Your estate cannot then be touched by the forged mortgage.”
“And the man who confidingly loaned the money on the mortgage?”
“Will lose forty thousand dollars.”
“And Clement Sutherland?”
“May go to the State’s prison for ten years.”
She suddenly dropped her head upon her hands, and shuddered through all
her frame, and remained silent for another while. And then she rose up
and threw herself in his arms, and clasped him around the neck, saying—
“We must lose it, dear Mark; we must lose it! Oh! I am so sorry for
you!”
“My poor Rose, I knew what your decision would be; I told the wretched
man so. But, my dearest, it is proper that I should set the matter
before you in its true light. Should you fail to expose the forged
mortgage, you will not only lose the sum of forty thousand dollars,
which was raised on your plantation, but, by the foreclosure of the
mortgage, and the peremptory sale of the plantation, the property will
be sacrificed at about a fourth of its real value, and you will lose
all, my poor Rosalie.”
“I do suppose so. Well, well; let all go—all, but peace of mind; for, my
dearest Mark, could you or I enjoy peace of mind—could we take pleasure
in our morning ramble, or our evening fireside—could we take comfort in
anything, dearest Mark, if a deliberate deed of ours had consigned a
fellow-creature—an old, gray-headed man—to a prison? Oh, never let it be
dreamed of, Mark.”
“That is a woman’s thought! Men would deem it a stern duty to prosecute
the criminal.”
“And do you?”
“I should so deem it, but for the thought that this is the old man’s
first offence, under great temptation; that it surely will be his last;
that punishment, in his case, would not be reformatory, but ruinous;
that no one can be tempted by the impunity of his crime, since no one
but ourselves know it.”
This was all that was said then. Mr. Bolling’s entrance interrupted the
conversation; and Billy soon appeared and summoned the party to tea. And
though Rosalie presided at her supper-table that evening with a graver
face than usual, yet by the next morning she had recovered her
self-possession and cheerfulness, and met them all at breakfast with a
smile.