Part 64 (1/2)
She took her candle, and, as she pa.s.sed young Wardlaw, she told him, in a low voice, she would be glad to speak to him alone to-morrow.
”At what hour?” said he eagerly.
”When you like. At one.”
And so she retired, leaving him in ecstasies. This was the first downright a.s.signation she had ever made with him.
They met at one o'clock; he radiant as the sun, and a rose in his b.u.t.ton-hole; she sad and somber, and with her very skin twitching at the thought of the explanation she had to go through.
He began with amorous commonplaces; she stopped him, gravely.
”Arthur,” said she, ”you and I are alone now, and I have a confession to make. Unfortunately, I must cause you pain--terrible pain. Oh, my heart flinches at the wound I am going to give you; but it is my fate either to wound you or to deceive you.”
During this preamble, Arthur sat amazed rather than alarmed. He did not interrupt her, though she paused, and would gladly have been interrupted, since an interruption is an a.s.sistance in perplexities.
”Arthur, we suffered great hards.h.i.+ps on the boat, and you would have lost me but for one person. He saved my life again and again; I saved his upon the island. My constancy was subject to trials--oh such trials! So great an example of every manly virtue forever before my eyes! My grat.i.tude and my pity eternally pleading! England and you seemed gone forever. Make excuses for me if you can. Arthur--I--I have formed an attachment.”
In making this strange avowal she hung her head and blushed, and the tears ran down her cheeks. But we suspect they ran for _him,_ and not for Arthur.
Arthur turned deadly sick at this tremendous blow, dealt with so soft a hand. At last he gasped out, ”If you marry him, you will bury me.”
”No, Arthur,” said Helen, gently; ”I could not marry him, even if you were to permit me. When you know more, you will see that, of us three unhappy ones, you are the least unhappy. But, since this is so, am I wrong to tell you the truth, and leave you to decide whether our engagement ought to continue? Of course, what I have owned to you releases you.”
”Releases me! but it does not unbind my heart from yours,” cried Arthur, in despair.
Then his hysterical nature came out, and he was so near fainting away that Helen sprinkled water on his temples, and applied eau-de-cologne to his nostrils, and murmured, ”Poor, poor Arthur! Oh, was I born only to afflict those I esteem?”
He saw her with the tears of pity in her eyes, and he caught her hand, and said, ”You were always the soul of honor; keep faith with me, and I will cure you of that unhappy attachment.”
”What! Do you hold me to my engagement after what I have told you?”
”Cruel Helen! you know I have not the power to hold you.”
”I am not cruel; and you have the power. But oh, think! For your own sake, not mine.”
”I have thought; and this attachment to a man you cannot marry is a mere misfortune--yours as well as mine. Give me your esteem until your love comes back, and let our engagement continue.”
”It was for you to decide,” said Helen, coldly, ”and you have decided.
There is one condition I must ask you to submit to.”
”I submit to it.”
”What, before you hear it?”
”Helen, you don't know what a year of misery I have endured, ever since the report came of your death. My happiness is cruelly dashed now, but still it is great happiness by comparison. Make your conditions. You are my queen, as well as my love and my life.”
Helen hesitated. It shocked her delicacy to lower the man she had consented to marry.