Part 42 (2/2)

Chervil had returned to her husband, and held it out before her. It was a very curious doc.u.ment, an experiment in the way of making poor people rich. The names were of people of whom Lucy knew very little personally; and yet it had not been done without thought. There was n.o.body there to whom such a gift might not mean deliverance from many cares. In the abstract it was not throwing anything away. Perhaps, had there been some public commission to reward with good incomes the struggling and honourable, these might not have been the chosen names; but yet it was all legitimate, honest, in the light of Lucy's exceptional position.

The husband and wife stood and looked at it together in this moment of their reunion, when both had escaped from the deadliest perils that could threaten life--the loss of their child, the loss of their union.

It was hard to tell which would have been the most mortal blow.

”He says I must prevent you; that you cannot have thought what you were doing; that it is madness, Lucy.”

”I think I was nearly mad,” said Lucy simply. ”I thought to get rid of it whatever might happen to me--that was best.”

”Let us look at it now in our full senses,” said Sir Tom.

Lucy grasped his arm with both her hands. ”Tom,” she said in a hurried tone, ”this is the only thing in which I ever set myself against you. It was the beginning of all our trouble; and I might have to do that again.

What does it matter if perhaps we might do it more wisely now? All these people are poor, and there is the money to make them well off; that is what my father meant. He meant it to be scattered again, like seed given back to the reaper. He used to say so. Shall not we let it go as it is, and be done with it and avoid trouble any more?”

He stood holding her in his arms, looking over the paper. It was a great deal of money. To sacrifice a great deal of money does not affect a young woman who has never known any need of it in her life, but a man in middle age who knows all about it, that makes a great difference. Many thoughts pa.s.sed through the mind of Sir Tom. It was a moment in which Lucy's heart was very soft. She was ready to do anything for the husband to whom, she thought, she had been unjust. And it was hard upon him to diminish his own importance and cut off at a stroke by such a sacrifice half the power and importance of the wealth which was his, though Lucy might be the source of it. Was he to consent to this loss, not even wisely, carefully arranged, but which might do little good to any one, and to him harm unquestionable? He stood silent for some time thinking, almost disposed to tear up the paper and throw it away. But then he began to reflect of other things more important than money; of unbroken peace and happiness; of Lucy's faithful, loyal spirit that would never be satisfied with less than the entire discharge of her trust, of the full accord, never so entirely comprehensive and understanding as now, that had been restored between them; and of the boy given back from the gates of h.e.l.l, from the jaws of death. It was no small struggle. He had to conquer a hundred hesitations, the disapproval, the resistance of his own mind. It was with a hand that shook a little that he put it back.

”That little beggar,” he said, with his old laugh--though not his old laugh, for in this one there was a sound of tears--”will be a hundred thousand or so the poorer. Do you think he'd mind, if we were to ask him? Come, here is a kiss upon the bargain. The money shall go, and a good riddance, Lucy. There is now nothing between you and me.”

Bice was married at the end of the season, in the most fas.h.i.+onable church, in the most correct way. Montjoie's plain cousins had asked--asked! without a sign of enmity!--to be bridesmaids, ”as she had no sisters of her own, poor thing!” Montjoie declared that he was ”ready to split” at their cheek in asking, and in calling Bice ”poor thing,”

she who was the most fortunate girl in the world. The Contessa took the good the G.o.ds provided her, without grumbling at the fate which transferred to her the little fortune which had been given to Bice to keep her from a mercenary marriage. It was not a mercenary marriage, in the ordinary sense of the word. To Bice's mind it was simply fulfilling her natural career; and she had no dislike to Montjoie. She liked him well enough. He had answered well to her test. He was not clever, to be sure; but what then? She was well enough content, if not rapturous, when she walked out of the church Marchioness of Montjoie on her husband's arm. There was a large and fas.h.i.+onable a.s.sembly, it need not be said.

Lucy, in a first place, looking very wistful, wondering if the girl was happy, and Sir Tom saying to himself it was very well that he had no more to do with it than as a friend. There were two other spectators who looked upon the ceremony with still more serious countenances, a man and a boy, restored to each other as dearest friends. They watched all the details of the service with unfailing interest, but when the beautiful bride came down the aisle on her husband's arm, they turned with one accord and looked at each other. They had been quite still until that point, making no remark. She pa.s.sed them by, walking as if on air, as she always walked, though ballasted now for ever by that duller being at her side. She was not subdued under her falling veil, like so many brides, but saw everything, them among the rest, as she pa.s.sed, and showed by a half smile her recognition of their presence. There was no mystic veil of sentiment about her; no consciousness of any mystery. She walked forth bravely, smiling, to meet life and the world. What was there in that beautiful, beaming creature to suggest a thought of future necessity, trouble, or the most distant occasion for help or succour? Perhaps it is a kind of revenge we take upon too great prosperity to say to ourselves: ”There may come a time!”

These two spectators made their way out slowly among the crowd. They walked a long way towards their after destination without a word. Then Mr. Derwent.w.a.ter spoke:

”If there should ever come a time when we can help her, or be of use to her, you and I--for the time must come when she will find out she has chosen evil instead of good----”

”Oh, humbug!” cried Jock roughly, with a sharpness in his tone which was its apology. ”She has done what she always meant to do--and that is what she likes best.”

”Nevertheless----” said MTutor with a sigh.

THE END.

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.

MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

_POPULAR NOVELS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._

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NEIGHBOURS ON THE GREEN.

KIRSTEEN.

_SCOTSMAN_--”One of the most powerful stories Mrs. Oliphant has ever written.”

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