Part 27 (1/2)

He was stooping as he sat, and slightly swinging his hat by the brim between his knees. He had reddened at first, with a sullen and half-defiant expression, but this soon faded, and, biting his lips, he brought himself with evident effort to say--

”Well, John, I've done for myself, you see; Giles has married her.

Serves me right, quite right. I've nothing to say against it.”

”No, I devoutly hope you have not,” exclaimed John, to whom the unlucky situation became evident in an instant.

”Grand always has done me the justice to take my part as regards my conduct about this hateful second engagement. He always knew that I would have married poor Lucy if they would have let me--married her and made the best of my frightful, shameful mistake. But as you know, Mrs.

Nelson, Lucy's mother, made me return her letters a month ago, and said it must be broken off, unless I would let it go dragging on and on for two years at least, and that was impossible, you know, John, because--because, I so soon found out what I'd done.”

”Wait a minute, my dear fellow,” John interrupted hastily, ”you have said nothing yet but what expresses very natural feelings. I remark, in reply, that your regret at what you have long seen to be unworthy conduct need no longer disturb you on the lady's account, she having now married somebody else.”

”Yes,” said Valentine, sighing restlessly.

”And,” John went on, looking intently at him, ”on your own account I think you need not at all regret that you had no chance of going and humbly offering yourself to her again, for I feel certain that she would have considered it insulting her to suppose she could possibly overlook such a slight. Let me speak plainly, and say that she could have regarded such a thing in no other light.”

Then, giving him time to think over these words, which evidently impressed him, John presently went on, ”It would be ridiculous, however, now, for Dorothea to resent your former conduct, or St. George either.

Of course they will be quite friendly towards you, and you may depend upon it that all this will very soon appear as natural as possible; you'll soon forget your former relation towards your brother's wife; in fact you must.”

Valentine was silent awhile, but when he did speak he said, ”You feel sure, then, that she would have thought such a thing an insult?” He meant, you feel sure, then, that I should have had no chance even if my brother had not come forward.

”Perfectly sure,” answered John with confidence. ”That was a step which, from the hour you made it, you never could have retraced.”

Here there was another silence; then--

”Well, John, if you think so,” said the poor fellow--”this was rather a sudden blow to me, though.”

John pitied him; he had made a great fool of himself, and he was smarting for it keenly. His handsome young face was very pale, but John was helping him to recollect his better self, and he knew it. ”I shall not allude to this any more,” he continued.

”I'm very glad to hear you say so,” said John.

”I came partly to say--to tell you that now I am better, quite well, in fact, I cannot live at home any longer. At home! Well, I meant in St.

George's house, any longer.”

The additional knowledge John had that minute acquired of the state of Valentine's feeling, or what he supposed himself to feel, gave more than usual confidence and cordiality to his answer.

”Of course not. You will be considering now what you mean to do, and my father and I must help you. In the first place there is that two thousand pounds; you have never had a s.h.i.+lling of it yet. My father was speaking of that yesterday.”

”Oh,” answered Valentine, with evident relief, and with rather a bitter smile, ”I thought he proposed to give me that as a wedding present, and if so, goodness knows I never expect to touch a farthing of it.”

”That's as hereafter may be,” said John, leading him away from the dangerous subject. Valentine began every sentence with a restless sigh.

”I never chose to mention it,” he remarked. ”I had no right to consider it as anything else, nor did I.”

”He does not regard it in any such light,” said John. ”He had left it to you in his will, but decided afterwards to give it now. You know he talks of his death, dear old man, as composedly as of to-morrow morning. He was reminding me of this money the other day when he was unwell, and saying that, married or unmarried, you should have it made over to you.”

”I'm very deeply, deeply obliged to him,” said Valentine, with a fervour that was almost emotion. ”It seems, John, as if that would help me,--might get me out of the sc.r.a.pe, for I really did not know where to turn. I've got nothing to do, and had nothing to live on, and I'm two and twenty.”

”Yes.”