I have known you as a high-minded and truthful woman. I hold your husband responsible for the truth of what you say to me.”
“He will accept the responsibility.”
“And if I ask you, in the name of all that you hold sacred—”
“In the most sacred name of all, if you will.”
“If I ask you whether this appeal is made to me at Laura’s prayer—whether she desires, without one more word of the past, to return to my house and resume her place there—you hear me, without one word of the past,—if I ask you that, Beatrice?”
“I answer you, Yes.”
“Remember what I have said—remember it now and for ever, Beatrice.”
“Until you bid me forget it.”
“I hear,” said Arthur, in an agitated voice, “what, an hour ago, no earthly persuasion could have made me believe would have been uttered by living lips.”
“And there has been a time, this very day, Arthur, when I believed it as impossible. But you have heard me, and you grant the prayer that I have made?”
The voice of Beatrice seemed forced and unmusical, and he looked earnestly at her.
“If I judge rightly, Beatrice, it was not counsel of yours that has impelled my wife to take this course.”
“Of mine? No,” she answered, slowly. “It was no counsel of mine. I love my husband, dearly, deeply, with all my heart and soul. Perhaps I am wicked to speak of the possibility of an hour that could part us—there is but one, I bless God when I say it, that ever can. But if such an hour had come, I dare not say that, deep and true as is my love for him—well, I might have strength given me for such a trial—but I will not now say that what I have been bidden to ask for Laura I would ask for myself.”
“You would not?”
“I dare not say that I would.”
“Beatrice, in my turn, let me say that I dare not ask what this abjectness of submission means.”
“Means?” repeated Beatrice, piteously.
“Yes, the question comes to me with fearful promptness”
Beatrice Hawkesley uttered a cry—almost a wild cry—and her hand was upon his lips.
“In the name of God! for the love of your children, wicked, foolish man, be silent! Down with all thoughts but one! Oh, Arthur! down with all devilish thoughts, and pray, pray for the power to understand something of a woman’s love. She flings herself before you, she prays you to take her home—she, Laura, the proudest of us all—she begs you to forgive her, and with that head bending before you, and that proud heart stooping for pardon, are you so miserable—Oh, Arthur, it is not, it cannot be so!—are you so unhappy as to be unconvinced of her love? Does the God that gave such a woman to your heart deny you the power of knowing how you are blessed?”
Beatrice’s tears came to her relief; but, as she leant upon the arm of Arthur, he felt that her agitation was fearful.
“What am I to say?” he uttered, mechanically.
“Say?” answered Beatrice, in a voice choking with sobs. “Call her!”
“Either I am mad,” said Arthur, wildly, “or God has kept such a blessing for me as I have never deserved. Which is it, Beatrice?” he exclaimed, passionately, imperatively, as if the decision were with the agitated woman who looked up to him with a glowing face, stained with tears.
“Go to her,” sobbed Beatrice.
“I will!” he answered.
He turned to the door.
“No, let her come to you.”
At least he thought he heard some such words; but there was a woman’s voice, and a figure hastily crossing the room, and something of a struggle, as of a wife who sought to kneel, but was indignantly caught up to a husband’s bosom, and held strongly there, and all that could be borne in the way of pardon given in a kiss, and that kiss forgotten in a long embrace of love.
He would never have remembered that any such words had come to him, but she murmured a word or two—how long afterwards he knew not, but they were alone in that drawing-room.
“I want to speak—darling—one word—I will speak.”
“Not now.”
“Yes, now, and never again. Will you ever think me proud any more?”
“Yes.”
“Not when I tell you that I was listening at the door. Oh! if you had—”
But the sentence was never finished.
As for Beatrice, she again behaved that night in a way so unworthy of a dignified British matron that I do not altogether like to set down the particulars. The only sort of excuse that can be offered for her is, that all the rest of the party seemed to be almost equally unmindful of the proprieties of life. I pass over the excitement of the children, which was shared, to a certain extent, by their cousins, and the merciful removal of all those household blessings, after various ineffectual attempts, and the restoration of quiet in the apartment in which the Hawkesleys and the Lygons were assembled. That Arthur Lygon should say little was natural, and that Laura, having seated herself upon a footstool beside his knee, should content herself with holding his hand, and studying her wedding-ring (which seemed to have some strange attraction for her eyes, and yet it was but a common guinea affair too), and taking very little notice of anybody, was perhaps also pardonable enough. Charles Hawkesley seemed impressed with the idea that a great deal was expected from him, and that it fell upon him to maintain the conversation of the evening, and with the best possible intentions he started topic upon topic, delivered a speech upon each, and when he had fairly worn it out, took another, and acquitted himself upon that with equal fluency and equal failure to produce the slightest response. He also acted on the same principle in regard to his hospitalities, and brought out bottle after bottle of wine, of all kinds, poured