Part 67 (1/2)

'I looked down the columns of the paper with a very lively interest, and my eye was soon caught by a paragraph encircled by a thick blue pencil mark. It gave from a paper called the _London Satirist_ what professed to be a long account of you, in which it was said that you were living in a bungalow in Wales with a Gypsy girl.'

When Winifred said this I forgot my promise not to interrupt her narrative, and exclaimed,

'And you believed this infamous libel, Winnie?'

'To say that I believed it as a simple statement of fact would of course be wrong. I never doubted you loved me as a child.'

'As a child! Do you then think that I did not love you that night on Raxton sands?'

'I did not doubt that you loved me then. But wealth, I had been told, is so demoralising, and I thought your never coming forward to find me and protect me in my illness might have something to do with inconstancy. Anyhow, these thoughts combined with my dread of your mother to prevent me from writing to you.'

'Winnie, Winnie!' I said, 'these theories of the so-called advanced thinkers, whom your aunt taught you to believe in--these ideas that love and wealth cannot exist together, are prejudices as narrow and as blind as those of an opposite kind which have sapped the natures of certain members of my own family.'

'The sight of your dear sad face when I first saw it here was proof enough of that,' she said. 'As your life was said to be that of a wanderer, I did not care to write to Raxton, and I did not know where to address you. What I had read in the newspaper, I need not tell you, troubled me greatly. I cried bitterly, and made but a poor breakfast. After it was over Mr. D'Arcy entered the room, and shook me warmly by the hand. He saw that I had been crying, and he stood silent and seemed to be asking himself the cause. Drawing a chair towards me, and taking a seat, he said,

'”I fear you have not slept well, Miss Wynne.”

'”Not very well,” I answered. Then, looking at him, I said, ”Mr.

D'Arcy, I have something to say to you, and this is the moment for saying it.”

'He gave a startled look, as though he guessed what I was going to say.

'”And I have something to say to _you_, Miss Wynne,” he said, smiling, ”and this seems the proper time for saying it. Up to the last few weeks a young gentleman from Oxford has been acting as my secretary. He has now left me, and I am seeking another. His duties, I must say, have not been what would generally be called severe. I write most of my own letters, though not all, and my correspondence is far from being large. His chief duty has been that of reading to me in the evening. For many years my eyes have not been so strong as a painter's ought to be, and the oculist whom I consulted told me that the strain of the painter's work was quite as much as my eyes ought to bear, and that I could not afford much eyesight for reading purposes. I am pa.s.sionately fond of reading. To be without the pleasure that books can afford me would be to make me miserable, and I have looked upon my secretary's duty of reading aloud to me as an important one. If you would take his place you would be conferring the greatest service upon me.”

'”Mr. D'Arcy,” I said, ”I suspect you.”

'”Suspect me, Miss Wynne?”

'”I suspect that generous heart of yours. I suspect you are merely inventing a post for me to fill, because you pity me.”

'”No, Miss Wynne; upon my honour this is not so. I will not deny that if it were not in your power to do me the service that I ask of you, I should still feel the greatest disappointment if you pa.s.sed from under this roof. Your scruples about living here as you lived during your illness--simply as my guest--I understand, but do not approve.

They show that you are not quite so free from the bondage of custom as I should like every friend of mine to be. The tie of friends.h.i.+p is, in my judgment, the strongest of all ties, stronger than that of blood, because it springs from the natural kins.h.i.+p of soul to soul, and there is no reason in the world why I should not offer you a home as a friend, or why, if the circ.u.mstances of our lives were reversed, you should not offer me one. But in this case it is the fact that the service I am asking you to render me is greater than any service I can render you.”

'I was so deeply touched by his words and by his way of speaking them, that my lips trembled, and I could make no reply.

'”It is a shame,” he said, ”for me to talk about business so soon after your recovery. Let us leave the matter for the moment, and come to me in the studio during the morning, and let me show you the pictures I am painting, and some of my choice things.”

'The morning wore on, and still I sat pondering over the situation in which I found myself. The servant came and removed the breakfast things, and her furtive glances at me showed that I was an object at once familiar and strange to her. But very little attention did I pay to her, in such a whirl of thoughts as I then was. The moment that one course of action seemed to me the best, the very opposite would occur to me as being the best. However, I was determined to know from Mr. D'Arcy, and at once, what was the state in which I was when I was brought to this place, and what had been the course of my life during my stay here. Mr. D'Arcy had told me that, for reasons which he so touchingly alluded to, he had not used me as a model. How, then, had my time been pa.s.sed? To question poor Mrs. t.i.twing would only be to frighten her. I would ask Mr. D'Arcy for a full confession.

'Mrs. t.i.twing came into the room. She began pulling at the ribbon of her black silk ap.r.o.n as though she wanted to speak and could not find the proper words. At last she said,

'”I hope, miss, there have been no words between you and Mr. D'Arcy?”

''”Words between me and Mr. D'Arcy? What do you mean?” I asked.

'”He seems very much upset, miss, about something. He is not at his easel, but keeps walking about the studio, and every now and then he asks where you are. I'm sure he used to dote on you when you were a child, miss.”

'”When I was a child?” I said, laughing. ”But I see what it is. I have been very neglectful. I promised to go into the studio to see the pictures, and he is, of course, impatient at my keeping him waiting. I will go to him at once,” and I went.