"Do you wish me to repeat it? Have you not heard from your father or
your uncle?"
"Yes; but I want to hear it all again from you. Harry sent me some
message."
Leslie was silent.
"Why do you not speak? You are keeping something: back."
"Yes; he gave me a message for you, one I was to deliver."
"Well," said Louise quickly, "why do you not deliver it?"
"Because Harry is, in spite of his trouble, still young and thoughtless.
It is a message that would make you more bitter against me than you are
now."
Louise rose from where she was seated in the dining-room, walked across
to the bay window, looked out upon the sea, and then returned.
"I am not bitter against you, Mr Leslie. How could I be against one
who has served us so well? But tell me my brother's message now."
He looked at her with so deep a sense of passionate longing in his eyes,
that as she met his ardent gaze her eyes sank, and her colour began to
heighten.
"No," he said, "I cannot deliver the message now. Some day, when time
has worked its changes, I will tell you word for word. Be satisfied
when I assure you that your brother's message will not affect his
position in the least, and will be better told later on."
She looked at him half wonderingly, and it seemed to him that there was
doubt in her eyes.
"Can you not have faith in me," he said quietly, "and believe when I
tell you that it is better that I should not speak?"
"Yes," she said softly, "I will have faith in you and wait."
"I thank you," he said gravely.
"Now tell me more about Harry."
"There is very little to tell," replied Leslie. "As I went down-stairs
that day, I found him just about to enter the house. For a moment I was
startled, but I am not a superstitious man, and I grasped at once how we
had all been deceived, and who it was dealt me the blow and tripped me
that night; and in the reaction which came upon me, I seized him, and
dragged him to the first cab I could find.
"I was half mad with delight," continued Leslie, speaking, in spite of
his burning words, in a slow, calm, respectful way. "I saw how I had
been deceived that night, who had been your companion, and why you had
kept silence. For the time I hardly knew what I did or said in my
delirious joy, but I was brought to myself, as I sat holding your
brother's wrist tightly, by his saying slowly,
"`There, I'm sick of it. You can leave go. I shan't try to get away.
It's all over now.'"
"He thought you had made him a prisoner?"
"Yes; and I thought him a messenger of peace, who had come to point out
my folly, weakness, and want of faith."
Louise covered her face with her hands, and he saw that she was sobbing
gently.
"It was some time before I could speak," continued Leslie. "I was still
holding his wrist tightly, and it was not until he spoke again that I
felt as if I could explain.
"`Where are you taking me?' he said. `Is it necessary for Mr Leslie,
my father's friend, to play policeman in the case?'
"`When will you learn to believe and trust in me, Harry, Vine?' I said.
"`Never,' he replied bitterly, and in the gladness of my heart I
laughed, and could have taken him in my arms and embraced him as one
would a lost brother just returned to us from the dead.
"`You will repent that,' I said, and I felt then that my course was
marked out, and I could see my way."
Louise let fall her hands, and sank into a chair, her eyes dilating as
she gazed earnestly at the quiet, enduring man, who now narrated to her
much that was new; and ever as he spoke something in her brain seemed to
keep on repeating in a low and constant repetition,
"He loves me--he loves me--but it can never be."
"`Where am I taking you?' I said," continued Leslie. "`To where you
can make a fresh start in life.'" And as Louise gazed at him she saw
that he was looking fixedly at the spot upon the carpet where her
brother had last stood when he was in that room.
"`Not to--'
"He stopped short there; and I--Yes, and I must stop short too. It is
very absurd, Miss Vine, for me to be asked all this."
"Go on--go on!" said Louise hoarsely.
Leslie glanced at her, and withdrew his eyes.
"`Will you go abroad, Harry, and make a new beginning?' I said.
"Poor lad! he was utterly broken down, and he would have thrown himself
upon his knees to me if I had not forced him to keep his seat."
"My brother!" sighed Louise.
"I asked him then if he would be willing to leave you all, and go right
away; and I told him what I proposed--that I had a brother
superintending some large tin-mines north of Malacca. That I would give
him such letters as would insure a welcome, and telegraph his coming
under an assumed name."
"And he accepted?"
"Yes. There, I have nothing to add to all this. I went across with him
to Paris, and, after securing a berth for him, we went south to
Marseilles, where I saw him on board one of the Messageries Maritimes
vessels bound for the East, and we parted. That is all."
"But money; necessaries, Mr Leslie? He was penniless."
"Oh, no," said Leslie, smiling; and Louise pressed her teeth upon her
quivering lip.
"There," said Leslie, "I would not have said all this, but you forced it
from me; and now you know all, try to be at rest. As I told Mr Vine
last night, I suppose it would mean trouble with the authorities if it
were known, but I think I was justified in what I did. We understand
Harry's nature better than any judge, and our plan for bringing him back
to his life as your brother is better than theirs. So," he went on with
a pleasant smile, "we will keep our secret about him. My brother Dick
is one of the truest fellows that ever stepped, and Harry is sure to
like him. The climate is not bad. It will be a complete change of
existence, and some day when all this trouble is forgotten he can
return."
"My brother exiled: gone for ever."
"My dear Miss Vine," said Leslie quietly, "the world has so changed now
that we can smile at all those old-fashioned ideas. Your brother is in
Malacca. Well, I cannot speak exactly, but I believe I am justified in
saying that you could send a message to him from this place in Cornwall,
and get an answer by to-morrow morning at the farthest, perhaps
to-night. Your father at one time could not have obtained one from
Exeter in the same space.
"There," he continued quietly, "you are agitated now, and I will say
good-bye. Is not that Madelaine Van Heldre coming up the path? Yes,
unmistakably. Now let us bury the past and look forward to the future--
a happier one for you, I hope and pray. Good-bye."
He held out his hand, and she looked at him wonderingly.
"Good-bye?"
"Well, for a time. You are weak and ill. Perhaps you will go away for
a change--perhaps I shall. Next time we meet, time will have softened
all this trouble, and you will have forgiven one whose wish was to serve
you, all his weakness, all his doubts. Good bless you, Louise Vine!
Good-bye!"
He held out his hand again, but she did not take it. She only stood
gazing wildly at him in a way that he dared not interpret, speechless,
pale, and with her lips quivering.
He gave her one long, yearning look, and, turning quickly, he was at the
door.
"Mr Leslie--stop!"
"You wished to say something," he cried as he turned towards her and
caught her outstretched hand to raise it passionately to his lips. "You
do not, you cannot say it? I will say it for you, then. Good-bye!"
"Stop!" she cried as she clung to his hand. "My brother's message?"
"Some day--in the future. I dare not give it now. When you have
forgiven my jealous doubts."
"Forgiven you?" she whispered as she sank upon her knees and held the
hand she clasped to her cheek--"forgive me."
"Louise! my darling!" he cried hoarsely as he caught her up to his
breast, upon which she lay as one lies who feels at peace.
Seconds? minutes? Neither knew; but after a time, as she stood with her
hands upon his shoulders gazing calmly in his eyes, she said softly--
"Tell me now: what did Harry say?" Leslie was silent for a while.
Then, clasping her more tightly to his breast, he said in a low, deep
voice--
"Tell Louie I have found in you the truest brother that ever lived; ask
her some day to make it so indeed."
There was a long silence, during which the door was pressed slowly open;
but they did not heed, and he who entered heard his child's words come
almost in a whisper.
"Some day," she said; "some day when time has softened all these griefs.
Your own words, Duncan."
"Yes," he said, "my own."
"Hah!"
They did not start from their embrace as that long-drawn sigh fell upon
their ears, but both asked the same question with their eyes.
"Yes," said George Vine gravely as he took Leslie's hand and bent down
to kiss his child, "it has been a long dark night, but joy cometh in the
morning."
Volume 3, Chapter XXIII.