Part 57 (1/2)

Benjamin was too much surprised, and too much pleased with me, when he heard what had happened, to be able to resist my entreaties. He gave me the letter.

Mr. Playmore wrote to appeal confidentially to Benjamin as a commercial man. In the long course of his occupation in business, it was just possible that he might have heard of cases in which doc.u.ments have been put together again after having been torn up by design or by accident.

Even if his experience failed in this particular, he might be able to refer to some authority in London who would be capable of giving an opinion on the subject. By way of explaining his strange request, Mr.

Playmore reverted to the notes which Benjamin had taken at Miserrimus Dexter's house, and informed him of the serious importance of ”the gibberish” which he had reported under protest. The letter closed by recommending that any correspondence which ensued should be kept a secret from me--on the ground that it might excite false hopes in my mind if I were informed of it.

I now understood the tone which my worthy adviser had adopted in writing to me. His interest in the recovery of the letter was evidently so overpowering that common prudence compelled him to conceal it from me, in case of ultimate failure. This did not look as if Mr. Playmore was likely to give up the investigation on my withdrawal from it. I glanced again at the fragments of paper on Benjamin's table, with an interest in them which I had not felt yet.

”Has anything been found at Gleninch?” I asked.

”No,” said Benjamin. ”I have only been trying experiments with a letter of my own, before I wrote to Mr. Playmore.”

”Oh, you have torn up the letter yourself, then?”

”Yes. And, to make it all the more difficult to put them together again, I shook up the pieces in a basket. It's a childish thing to do, my dear, at my age--”

He stopped, looking very much ashamed of himself.

”Well,” I went on; ”and have you succeeded in putting your letter together again?”

”It's not very easy, Valeria. But I have made a beginning. It's the same principle as the principle in the 'Puzzles' which we used to put together when I was a boy. Only get one central bit of it right, and the rest of the Puzzle falls into its place in a longer or a shorter time.

Please don't tell anybody, my dear. People might say I was in my dotage.

To think of that gibberish in my note-book having a meaning in it, after all! I only got Mr. Playmore's letter this morning; and--I am really almost ashamed to mention it--I have been trying experiments on torn letters, off and on, ever since. You won't tell upon me, will you?”

I answered the dear old man by a hearty embrace. Now that he had lost his steady moral balance, and had caught the infection of my enthusiasm, I loved him better than ever.

But I was not quite happy, though I tried to appear so. Struggle against it as I might, I felt a little mortified when I remembered that I had resigned all further connection with the search for the letter at such a time as this. My one comfort was to think of Eustace. My one encouragement was to keep my mind fixed as constantly as possible on the bright change for the better that now appeared in the domestic prospect.

Here, at least, there was no disaster to fear; here I could honestly feel that I had triumphed. My husband had come back to me of his own free will; he had not given way, under the hard weight of evidence--he had yielded to the n.o.bler influences of his grat.i.tude and his love. And I had taken him to my heart again--not because I had made discoveries which left him no other alternative than to live with me, but because I believed in the better mind that had come to him, and loved and trusted him without reserve. Was it not worth some sacrifice to have arrived at this result! True--most true! And yet I was a little out of spirits. Ah, well! well! the remedy was within a day's journey. The sooner I was with Eustace the better.

Early the next morning I left London for Paris by the tidal-train.

Benjamin accompanied me to the Terminus.

”I shall write to Edinburgh by to-day's post,” he said, in the interval before the train moved out of the station. ”I think I can find the man Mr. Playmore wants to help him, if he decides to go on. Have you any message to send, Valeria?”

”No. I have done with it, Benjamin; I have nothing more to say.”

”Shall I write and tell you how it ends, if Mr. Playmore does really try the experiment at Gleninch?”

I answered, as I felt, a little bitterly.

”Yes,” I said ”Write and tell me if the experiment fail.”

My old friend smiled. He knew me better than I knew myself.

”All right!” he said, resignedly. ”I have got the address of your banker's correspondent in Paris. You will have to go there for money, my dear; and you _may_ find a letter waiting for you in the office when you least expect it. Let me hear how your husband goes on. Good-by--and G.o.d bless you!”

That evening I was restored to Eustace.

He was too weak, poor fellow, even to raise his head from the pillow.