THE PRODIGAL SON.
BY DUTTON COOK, AUTHOR OF “PAUL FOSTER’S DAUGHTER,” &c.
“A lytel misgoyng in the gynning causeth mykel errour in the end.”—Chaucer’s “Testament of Love.”
CHAPTER IX. WILFORD’S WOOING.
“It is a very poor thing I offer you, Violet—the love of a ruined man; but, at least, that love is true, and whole, and earnest. Indeed, I never felt my ruin before; and if I wish for wealth now, it is only that I may lay it at your feet. I know how poor my claim is. I know how little I have done to merit your love. I know that my debt of gratitude to you is already more, far more, than I can ever hope to repay. And yet, Violet, I am here—at your feet—to proffer you my heart, and to ask for yours. Give it to me. Give me a motive for life; give me something to make the future precious to me; not because of any deserving of mine, but out of your great goodness and pity. Do I pain you, Violet, talking like this? But indeed I can no more be silent; for I love you, Violet, and that love will find its way into words. It is my only claim; besides that, I have nothing. A broken, wearied man, just escaped from a wreck in which all fortune has gone down. With a mis-spent past, shattered in health, disinherited, fortuneless, there seems a madness and a wrong-doing about my quest. How can I dare to raise my hopes so high as you are, Violet? I cannot justify myself. I cannot reason on the subject. I can only tell you that my love is honest and true. I swear to you that it is. I can only assure you that all man can do to make you happy, dear Violet, I will do. Bid me not despair wholly of winning you. Let me think that you will forget the past, that you will treat it as dead to both of us, and that in the future there may be yet some hope of happiness; that you will permit my journey through life to commence anew from now, with you, Violet, by my side. How light it will seem! How full of joy! Never to look back, to efface all memory of the past by the new life of the future! May this be so, Violet? Oh, say that it may!”
In some such hurried sentences, broken by emotion, impressive from the feverish earnestness with which they were uttered, Wilford Hadfield told the story of his love.
“Madge has betrayed me,” thought Violet, as he began, and she was hurt at first—then appeased—then, as he went on, and his words and fervid tones stirred up strange echoes amongst the depths of her own heart, and the consciousness of her own love for him grew upon her more and more, what could she do but yield to the entrancement of his confession, and with her heart beating tumultuously, steal a soft white hand into his, and fall at last upon his shoulder, tearful,