THE END.
In the afternoon of the day after Osborne left Stratford, Marie got
the following letter from him:--
'My Own Darling Marie,--Here I am once more in London, but not in the
old place. When you answer this, you are to address your letter to
Kaiser's Hotel, E.C.
'I have thought over the whole thing most carefully. I have tried,
with how much success I do not know, to look at the matter
dispassionately, and I have come to a final conclusion. My mind is now
made up to insist upon your marrying me within a month. I have not
waited for a personal interview with you, for two reasons: I did not
care, after my mother's positive refusal to release you from your
promise, to use the house, or your visit to the house, as a means of
urging my right; and I did not think that in an interview I could say
in as forcible and simple a way as I could on paper.
'My reasons now for being so firm are very simple. You told me some
time ago you would marry me, in spite of my religious beliefs or
disbeliefs. After that you, imagining my faith had returned, promise
my mother not to fix the day while I suffer from any form of unbelief.
After that, while you are still under the belief I have come back to
my old faith, you promise to marry me within a month, within three
weeks. Thus you made the promise to my mother and the promise to me
under the same mistake. Both these promises are cancelled, by the fact
that they were made under a false impression. Therefore, neither your
refusing to marry me, nor your marrying me within a month or three
weeks, is obligatory according to your promises, _but_ the promise you
made me in Lincoln's Inn Fields was not qualified, nor has it been
cancelled in any way. It is the only promise I now look upon as
existing between you and me, and I know you are too simple and
honourable a nature to allow yourself in any way to cloud your mind as
to the line of your duty.
'What I have written is, I know, my darling, more like a letter of
business than of love; but then our present business is love, and I
want to put the rational aspect, the just aspect of the position
before you. You will not need to know what my feelings are. In that
most delicious hour in the conservatory you said you were mine, body
and soul. I now claim your obedience to my will in this case.
'My own darling Marie, I can hardly bring myself to think I am so near
as a month to the moment when you will be mine, and no power on earth
can ever part us again. A month, a little month of thirty days! Only a
month. I know many men think the month before they receive the hand
they court a century. To me it seems but an hour, a moment. I am not a
child, impatient to possess a new toy. I am a man who has set his
heart on obtaining a noble object, and I am so profoundly grateful for
my success I can think of nothing but that some day soon you will be
mine. The fact that you will be mine is everything. I could have
waited for you years. But as you said, the sooner the better.--I am,
my darling love, your own sweetheart, George.
When she had read this letter she put it down in her lap. A soft,
pensive smile stole over her face, and she murmured, 'My George, my
George, my own George. My great-hearted, my noble love!'
She read the letter again.
Yes, it was quite right. Everything he said was perfectly true and
just. He never could have made it so clear to her if he had been
present, for she would only have heard the music of his voice; and
although she would have taken for granted all he said, her mind would
not have got so clear an idea of her duty as from this letter.
Duty? yes, duty. She owed him duty now. What a soothing, what a
peaceful thought it was that she owed George duty. She would pay him
duty a thousand fold. She had told him she had given herself to him
body and soul, and surely her duty was little to give when she had
given these.
He was her lord and master, and he should command her. The promise she
had made to his mother was made under a mistake. If she had, at the
time of making that promise, known the real state of George's mind,
she never would have given such a pledge.
She would now go straight to Mrs Osborne and tell her she had heard
from George.
Marie found Mrs Osborne in her own room.
'I have got a letter from George, Mrs Osborne.'
'Have you, my child? Where from?'
'London.'
'And what does he say?'
'I think you are aware, Mrs Osborne, that I know about Alice's visit
to you yesterday. She told me you did not think it would be advisable
matters should go any farther between us, while George remained
unconvinced of his errors.'
'Yes, my child, that was my view. That is my view. What does George
say?'
'Mrs Osborne, I find myself in a cruelly awkward position.'
'No doubt, child, I can appreciate your feelings.'
'And--and--and although I am very sorry for it, I think the best thing
I can do is to leave this.'
'Did George ask you to leave this?'
'No; but I feel very awkward. I cannot explain to you, and I am not
content that you do not know everything.'
'Has George asked you to disregard that promise you made me?'
'Yes. Unfortunately I made that promise to you under a false
impression, and under the same false impression I made another promise
to him, and he says I am not bound by either, they having been given
under a mistake; but he says I am bound by a promise given to him
before we came to Stratford.'
'And what is the promise given to him before you came to Stratford?'
'That nothing which might arise could make any difference between him
and me.'
'Bournemouth, 7_th March_ 1880.
'My Dear Mother,--This is to let you know in Cork, that I am now here,
where you may send the yellow handkerchief I told you of last month. I
am not any longer, as you know, in the employ of Miss Gordon, for
there is no such person. She was married in London to Mr Osborne the
day before yesterday, and she and her husband are now staying here. On
the same day, Mr Osborne's sister was married to a gentleman named
Nevill. The other wedding took place in Stratford, that dead-and-alive
hole I told you we were a couple of days in. Mr and Mrs Nevill are
coming on a visit here next month; but I believe the old lady, Mr
Osborne's mother, is not pleased with the marriage of her son, owing
to his having given up going to church, or something of that kind. You
can send the handkerchief in a glove-box, they will give you one for
nothing at any shop where they sell gloves. I enclose a Post-office
order, my dear mother, for a pound. Buy with it any little comfort you
may want.--I am, with duty, your loving daughter,
'Judith O'Connor.'
The End.
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