It was after midnight when he rode away over the now dark and deserted Common. He was conscious that during the last few hours a crisis had come into his life; a difficulty which he had long foreseen and carefully avoided. He already loved this girl. But had he any right to love her? Was he free to win her heart? It was more than six years since he had last seen Sophy, and not a syllable of news from her had reached him. He shrank from letting down a sounding-line into the depths of these past years; it had been better to let them lie undisturbed. But why had he been such a fool as to marry Sophy Goldsmith?
The night was dark, but the sky was full of stars. Along the high roads crossing the Common lamps glimmered here and there, just tracing out the route, but leaving the open stretch of moorland as dark as if it had been hundreds of miles from any artificial light. The bushes and brushwood were black; and here and there lay small sinister-looking pools, lurking in treacherous hollows, and catching some gleam of light on their surface, which alone revealed them to the passers-by. A red gloom hung over London, throbbing as if it beat with the pulsations of the life underneath it. There were but few country sounds breaking the stillness, as there would have been on distant moorlands: but now and then the shriek of an engine and the rattling of a train jarred upon the silence; and to Sidney, when he reined in his horse and listened to it, a low roar, unlike any other sound, came from the busy and crowded streets stretching for many miles eastward. It was past midnight; and yet London was not asleep.
CHAPTER VII.
MARGARET.
Margaret Cleveland watched Sidney ride away until the darkness hid him from sight. He was to be her friend. But what perils were there in a country like England which could so fill her father's heart with dismay, and induce him to commit her welfare so solemnly to a man who was an absolute stranger to her? She was glad to have Sidney Martin as a friend; there was an attraction to her in his frank, steadfast face, which gave her great pleasure, and inspired a perfect confidence in him, the confidence of a child. But what was her father afraid of for her? To-day had been the most eventful day of her life; a crowd of emotions, mostly painful ones, had invaded the calm of her girlhood. This morning she had still been a child; to-night she was a woman.
Now that trouble had come she felt how utterly imperfect her training had been to prepare her to meet it. She knew nothing of the world. Her father had stood between her and it so completely, that when he had been brought home apparently dying, she had been unable to do anything, or to summon anyone to his aid. She did not know the name of any of his friends whom he was in the habit of meeting at his club; and if he had not recovered sufficiently to give her Sidney Martin's name and address, she would have known no one to whom she could have looked for help in any contingency.
True, they had been living abroad for some years since her mother's death, and she had felt no wish to oppose her father's plan of keeping her aloof from his somewhat distant relations, and of excluding her from all companionship except his own. She had been quite satisfied with his companionship; and her faithful and loyal nature had accorded a willing obedience to his slightest wish. He chose to treat her as a child, and she was glad to remain a child.
But to-night she did not feel sure that this mode of life had been a wise one, either for herself or him. Suddenly there had come upon her a demand for prompt decision and action, which she was unable to meet. She had been obliged to stand by and let the servants act for her. It was painful to her to feel how helpless she must have been if her father had not gained consciousness enough to whisper to her, "Write at once to Sidney Martin and ask him to come."
The doctors assured her there was no immediate danger for her father's life. Her mind, therefore, was at rest upon that point; and these other thoughts crowded irresistibly upon her serious consideration. It did not occur to her that her father purposely guarded her from making any outer use of her life; reserving all her sweetness, freshness, and girlish charm for his own pleasure merely. She had never felt herself a prisoner. Yet she knew well she did not live as other girls did; and the balls, concerts, and pleasure parties, of which her father spoke with so much scorn, probably would have had no attraction for her. But there were duties undertaken by other girls in which she had longed to share. There were children to teach, the poor to visit. "Doing good," Margaret called it, simply and vaguely. "He went about doing good," she murmured, turning away from the window, where she had lingered long after Sidney was out of sight, and looking up at a picture of our Lord, surrounded by the sick and poor. "He went about doing good," she repeated.
Her own loneliness and the immense claims of human brotherhood suddenly presented themselves to her aroused mind. Her face lit up with a strange enthusiasm. She could not be alone while there were so many millions of fellow-creatures close by, with natures like her own, whom she could help, and who could help her. She remembered how her mother had spent her life in manifold ministrations to those who were in sorrow or trouble of any kind; and now she was herself twenty years of age, and knew nobody to help or comfort—except her father.
She stole softly downstairs to his room, and crept across the floor to his bedside. He was sleeping, fitfully, the slumber due to a narcotic. The trained nurse sent in by the doctor sat by watching him, and lifted up her hand to enjoin silence. Margaret was not one to break down in a useless display of grief, though her heart sank heavily as she looked on his beloved face, already pallid with pain, and drawn into lines that spoke of intense suffering. How old he looked compared with this morning, when they had started off for their morning's ride across the Common! He was not really old, she thought, not yet fifty; many, many years younger than his friend, Sir John Martin, who had died only a few months ago. Her father had neither the gray hair nor failing strength of an old man. Only a few hours ago he had been as full of health and vigor as herself. And now he looked utterly prostrate and shattered. He moaned in his sleep, and the moan went to her very soul. A great rush of tenderness to him, almost as if he were a child, overflowed her heart. She did not dare to touch him lest she should arouse him, but she bent down and kissed the pillow on which his head lay. Margaret did not sleep that night, literally; though girls of her age rarely pass a whole night sleeplessly. Her soul was too wide awake. It had been slumbering hitherto, in the calm uneventfulness of monotonous days, and in her isolation from companions. She lay in motionless tranquillity on her little white bed, not tossing to and fro as if seeking sleep, but more vividly awake than she had ever felt before. She found herself suddenly called upon to live her own life, to take upon herself the burden of her own duties. The careless unconcern of childhood was over for her, she must learn the duties of a woman.
CHAPTER VIII.
FRIENDS, NOT LOVERS.
Colonel Cleveland had the best surgical aid and counsel that could be had in London. A consultation was held over his case by the most eminent surgeons; his recovery pronounced absolutely hopeless. The injury to the spine was fatal; and life could be sustained by the utmost care and for only a few years.
The house on Wimbledon Common, which he had rented for a few months, was taken for a term of years, as it was thought impossible to remove Colonel Cleveland to his house in the country, even if he had wished it. But he did not wish to banish himself from the near neighborhood of London, and of his friends who were able to visit him when only a few miles distant. Sidney Martin, who transacted all his business, was obliged to see him almost daily. Never before had Sidney come so near the feeling of having a home. When he saw the lights shining through the uncurtained windows of Colonel Cleveland's suite of rooms on the first floor, his pace always quickened, and his heart beat faster. Margaret would be sure to start up at the first sound of his horse's hoofs on the gravel, and run downstairs to open the hall-door to him. The pleasant picture of her face looking out through the half-open door often flashed vividly across his brain as he sat in his dark office, with the myriad threads of business passing swiftly through his skillful hands. Margaret's little hand stretched out to be enfolded in his own; Margaret's voice bidding him welcome; he would think of these as his eye mechanically read his business letters, till they brought a glow and a brightness into his heart which he had never known before.
They were friendly only; so he said. He ought not to wish for more than her friendship, as matters stood. "That woman," as he called Sophy in his hours of unwelcome reminiscence, had never shown any sign of existence. He could only hope, with all the strength of a great desire, that she was dead; though to attempt to prove it might bring an avalanche of troubles on his head. But there was no need to take any step, so long as he had no thought of marrying. He would ask for nothing from Margaret but friendship.
His manner to her was that of an elder brother toward a favorite sister. He never sought to see her alone, or to have any private intercourse with her. The frank cordiality of his behavior at once won her confidence and made her altogether at home with him. She knew no other young man; and had no idea that it was the fashion of the world to sneer at any simple friendship existing between a young man and a young woman. Her intercourse with him was as simple and as open as with her father.
Margaret soon confided to Sidney her wish to know more of her fellow-men, especially those who were unfortunate and unhappy. She knew she could not herself neglect her father, now wholly dependent upon her, for any of the work she might once have undertaken. But to please her Sidney placed his name on the committees of sundry charities, and brought reports of them that were both interesting and entertaining to her in her seclusion. He was astonished himself to find how full of interest these philanthropic missions were; and he threw himself into them with a great deal of energy. This new phase of his life brought him into closer contact with his cousin, George Martin, who was an East End curate, and was working diligently among the lowest classes of the London poor. Sidney brought George to visit Margaret and her father, and a warm friendship sprang up among them. When Sidney was out of the way, George could not extol him too highly.
"He is better to me than most brothers are to each other," he said one evening, his eyes growing bright and his voice more animated than usual. "The best fellow in the world, is Sidney. He does not make any profession of religion, and I'm sorry for it, for his life is a Christian life. You know his immense business might well make him a little careless of the poor; but it does not. He is one of our best workers and helpers. Do you know, Colonel Cleveland, he spends one night a week with me, seeking outcasts sleeping in the streets? And he has such wonderful tact with them; he speaks to them really like a brother. He has the soul of a missionary; and yet he is as shrewd a man of business as anyone in the City. So I hear."
When Margaret was alone with him, George added still further praises.
"I am engaged to one of the dearest girls," he said, "but there was no chance of our marrying for years; not till I got a living. But as soon as our uncle died, Sidney settled £10,000 upon me; settled it, you know, for fear of my dropping it into the gulf at the East End; and Laura's parents have consented to our being married as soon as I get my holiday. There never was anyone like Sidney."
Margaret listened with shining eyes and a smiling face. It seemed wonderful to her that such a man as Sidney should have been brought to her to be her friend. He looked to her like one who went about being good and doing good, lifting into a higher region every pursuit in which he was engaged; even the details of his business assumed an aspect of romance and dignity when he spoke of them. It was a full life, this one of Sidney's; fuller than that of George, who was only a curate, and could never be more than the rector of a parish. And as far as a girl could share the fullness of his life, he was making her share his. She could hardly realize now how her days had passed away before she knew him.
Now and then Colonel Cleveland spared Margaret to accompany Sidney to some gathering of the poor in George Martin's parish in the East End. She could sing well; and she sang for them simple English songs, which the most ignorant could understand, and which went home to the saddest hearts. There was an inexpressible charm to Sidney in the unaffected, single-hearted, almost childish grace of the girl, as she stood facing these poor brothers and sisters of hers, and singing with her clear, pure voice words that she would have found it difficult to speak. She was accustomed to dress plainly, and after a fashion of her own; and there was nothing incongruous about her, nothing to excite the envy of the poorest. She might have been one of themselves, but for the simple refinement and unconscious dignity of her bearing.
Sidney was a good speaker, and could hit upon the exact words with which to address any kind of audience, without offending the most critical taste. His speeches were naturally less religious, and more secular, than George Martin's; but there was a kindly, almost brotherly, tone running through them which never failed to tell. He loved to hear the plaudits that interrupted and followed his short addresses; and to watch the color mounting in Margaret's face, and the light kindling in her eyes. There were moments of supreme pleasure to him in those dingy and crowded lecture-halls and school-rooms.
"How fond they are of you!" she exclaimed one evening, "and how good you are to them!"
He had been offering a number of small prizes for competition, the sum total of which was less than what he would have spent in one evening's entertainment in society; and a tumult of applause had followed. He felt himself that he was walking in a good path. He enjoyed seeing the strange sights that were to be found in unexplored London as much as he had enjoyed the strange scenes in foreign lands. How the poor lived presented to him an interesting problem, to which the usual gatherings of ordinary society were flat and dull. George and he went to and fro in the slums, doing their utmost to lift here and there one victim out of the miry depths. It was a pleasure to him to give aid liberally; a pleasure to feel that these poor people were fond of him; but a far greater pleasure yet to stand in Margaret's eyes as the champion of the sorrowful and neglected.
CHAPTER IX.
IS SOPHY ALIVE?
"Leave Sidney alone with me to-night, Margaret; I have business to talk about," said Colonel Cleveland one evening, about a year after his accident. He had never been able to set his foot upon the ground since his fatal fall; and when Martin entered his room, and looked at the wasted frame and pallid face of the man who had once been so strong and full of life, tears of sympathy and pity stood in his eyes; and he grasped his thin and meager hand in silence.
"I want a long talk with you alone," said Colonel Cleveland in a mournful voice. "Sit down, Sidney. Good Heavens! to think what a wreck I am! And not yet fifty! I was just your age when my Margaret was born; and I never guessed what she would grow to be for me. Margaret will be one-and-twenty next month. She is all the world to me."
"And to me!" said Sidney to himself.
"There must be some kind of settlement of affairs when she comes of age," continued her father, "and I'm afraid to let her know them. I've been a bad manager for her. What we are living on now is the interest of her mother's money, and the rent of Apley Hall, which I let six years ago for seven years. I could not afford to live in it any longer. My speculations always turned out badly, and Apley is heavily mortgaged. Margaret is not the great heiress the world thinks her. Do you think she will care, Sidney?"
"Not a straw," he answered; "you need not be afraid of Margaret."
"God bless her!" said Colonel Cleveland sadly. "I fancied I could double her fortune; but Margaret doesn't care about money, or what money brings; and she'll never think she has anything to forgive me. Ought I to tell her all, Sidney?"
"Why?" he asked. "Women do not understand about money; and you could make a general statement that would satisfy her."
"I might," said Colonel Cleveland, sighing and falling into a silence which lasted some minutes. "Sidney!" he exclaimed at last, sharply and hotly, "is it possible you don't see what a treasure my Margaret is? I know you have the reputation of not being a marrying man; and that was why I first ventured to ask you to come to see us. But I did not want to lose my girl then. Now I want to find somebody to take care of my darling when I'm gone. For I'm going, going; every day brings the end nearer. In another year I shall be lying in the vault at Apley beside her mother, and Margaret will be very lonely. Sidney, I thought you were in love with my girl."
Sidney shaded his eyes with his hands, and little of his face could be seen. In love with her! The phrase seemed poor and commonplace. Why! she was dearer to him than all the world besides; he counted all he had as nothing in comparison with her love, if he could win it. But the memory of his great mistake stood between her and him. The mention of Apley, where he had first seen Sophy, brought vividly to his mind the narrow street, and the little shop, and Sophy's pretty face as it was when he first looked upon it. Oh, what a fool he had been!
"I fancied you loved her," said Colonel Cleveland in an accent of bitter disappointment as Sidney remained silent; "and she is fit to be the wife of a prince. It is not the money you care about, Sidney? And such a marriage would have pleased your uncle; he spoke of it more than once, for he was very fond of Margaret; only I could not bear to think of such a thing then. Surely I can see what she is, though I am her father."
"She is more than all you think her," answered Sidney vehemently. "You cannot value her more than I do. It is I who am unworthy. God knows I could not put my life beside her life—so pure and good and noble."
"Is that all?" asked her father. "Of course a man's life cannot be as unsullied as a girl's. One must sow one's wild oats. Margaret will not think you unworthy; not she. She knows nothing of the world, absolutely nothing. It is a pure heart and a true one; and it is yours, if I'm not an old blunderhead. She loves you, and she has never given a thought to any other man. Think of that, Sidney! If you marry her I shall die happy."
But once more a silence fell between them like a cloud. For a minute or two Sidney felt an unutterable joy in the thought that Margaret loved him. All at once the utter loneliness of all his future years, if he must give her up, flashed across him. For when Colonel Cleveland died this friendly and intimate intercourse between them must cease; and Margaret would in time become the wife of some other man. The mingled sweetness and bitterness of this moment were almost more than he could bear. Margaret loved him, and it was an exquisite happiness to know it; but behind her beloved image stood another forbidding his happiness. It was more than seven years since he had deserted Sophy; and he had been content to let the time slip away, uncertain of her fate, and dreading to learn that she was still alive. Why had he been such a coward? What could he now say to Margaret's father? To have that which he most longed for pressed upon him, and yet be unable to accept it, was torture to him. No path seemed open to him; it seemed impossible to confess the truth. For in the clear light shining upon his conduct at this moment he saw how dastardly and selfish it had been. He had forsaken a young and friendless girl in a moment of passion, and had left her in a strange land, far from her own people, when the hour of woman's sharpest peril was at hand. It was a horrible thing to have done; one which no true woman could forgive. And how would Margaret look upon him if she ever knew the truth?
"I love Margaret," he said at last in a faltering voice, "but I cannot speak of it yet; and I cannot think of marriage for a while. Trust me, Colonel Cleveland. Margaret shall always find a friend in me; and if ever I can ask her to be my wife, it will be the happiest day in my life to me."
"I regret I mentioned it to you," answered Colonel Cleveland stiffly.
Sidney left him sooner than usual, and rode slowly back over the Common, as he had done last autumn, on the night when he first saw Margaret. But it was a month earlier in the year; and the leaves still hung thick upon the trees, which looked black and dense against the sky. The birds had not yet forsaken the Common in search after winter quarters, and a drowsy twitter from the low bushes answered the sound of his horse's hoofs as he rode along. A soft, westerly wind was blowing, and bringing with it the fresh air from all the open lands lying west of London. As he looked round at the house he saw Margaret standing on the balcony belonging to her window, a tall, slim, graceful figure, dressed in white, with the pale moonlight falling on her. His heart ached with a deep and heavy pain.
"God bless her and keep her from sorrow," he said to himself.
If it was true that Margaret loved him, a bitter sorrow lay before her, one of his making. He had done wrong in going so frequently to see her, and in making so much of her friendship. It had been an unconfessed pleasure to them both; but he ought to have foreseen for her, as well as for himself, what danger lay in its indulgence. Margaret was not brought into contact with any other men, excepting George, who was just married; and Sidney was obliged to own to himself that he had done all he could to win her affection. But he repented it now. Margaret's love could only bring her sorrow.
He could have gone back and confessed to her his boyish folly, if it had been mere folly. Had Sophy died, he could have told Margaret all about it. But what he could not own was that for seven years he had left himself in absolute ignorance of her fate. No true woman could forgive a crime like that. It was a dastardly crime, he said to himself. He repented of it bitterly; but for some sins there seems no place of repentance, though it is sought carefully, with tears.
Sidney passed the night in close and troubled thought. At last the time had come when he must turn back to the moment when he abandoned his young wife to her fate; and he must trace out what that fate had been. He must at least ascertain whether she was living or dead. What he would do if she was living he need not yet decide. It was impossible for him to undertake this search himself; a search which ought to have been made years before, and without which it was hopeless to think of Margaret as his wife. But he had an agent at hand to whom he could intrust this difficult and delicate mission. There was a clerk in his office who had been in his uncle's employ for over thirty-five years, to whom had been intrusted several important investigations, and who had given many proofs of his ability and probity. He would send Trevor to the Ampezzo Valley, where he had left Sophy seven years ago; giving to him such directions and indications as were in his power for tracing her movements after his desertion of her.
He arranged and wrote some notes for Trevor's guidance, with shrewd and clear-sighted skill, careful not to incriminate himself more than was absolutely necessary; and yet finding himself compelled to admit more than it was wise for any man save himself to know. He was conscious that he was placing too close a confidence in his clerk's hands, and might have to pay heavily for it in years to come. But he must run the risk; there was no alternative. He could not carry through these investigations in person; and the time had come when he must learn the fate of his young wife.
"Take the next train to Paris, Trevor," he said, the following morning, giving to him a sealed letter; "those are your instructions, and you can study them on your way."
CHAPTER X.
CHIARA.
Trevor was thirteen years of age when he entered the office of Martin, Swansea & Co., and occupied one of the lowest places in the house. But luckily for him Sir John Martin had taken a fancy to the sharp-looking lad, and had given him a good commercial education. He had a special faculty for learning languages; and from time to time had been sent to most of the foreign branches of the shipping agency, thus acquiring a practical knowledge of many of the European dialects; an acquirement exceedingly useful to him. He had risen to the position almost of a confidential clerk, and received a good salary, but he had not been promoted to any post of authority in the house. His ambition had always been to be at the head of one of the branches of the business; but the attainment of this end seemed farther away from him now Sir John Martin was dead, and Sidney had succeeded him. Trevor was not attached to Sidney as he had been to his early patron. He had a son about the same age as Sidney; and from their earliest years he had compared his boy's lot with that of his master's nephew, always grudging the brilliant and successful career of the latter, and secretly hoping that his uncle might marry and have an heir of his own. There was something painfully dazzling to him in Sidney's present position; while his son was nothing more than the underpaid usher of a boys' school. Almost unconsciously to himself a deep jealousy and hatred of his young master filled his heart; though he never contemplated the idea of quitting his employment, the salary he drew being higher than he could have obtained elsewhere.
Trevor studied his instructions with profound interest and a growing suspicion. He remembered with perfect distinctness the time that Sidney was away for a year's sojourn on the Continent before settling down to business. It was the year that his boy had entered upon his very different walk in life. He recollected, too, that Sidney had come back unexpectedly a month or two before his time had expired. It was seven years ago; and these instructions bade him take up an event that had occurred seven years ago in this remote region, and to follow any clew he could find whereby to trace the movements of an English girl left alone there. Who was it that had left her alone?
Trevor was in no wise inclined to be unfaithful to the trust reposed in him; he would not betray his master. But he was quite ready to take advantage of any circumstance that would tend to promote his own interest. Commercial life in the City does not usually foster the highest principles of honor. Here was plainly a secret, which had been lying dormant for some years, and which he was commissioned to take up from its long slumber. Where there is a secret there is generally a profit to be made by the discoverer of it. He pushed on toward the Ampezzo Valley, and drove through the wondrous beauty and grandeur of it with no thought beyond that of getting as quickly as possible to Cortina, and setting to work on Sidney's instructions. He was, if possible, to ascertain what had become of Sophy without referring to any of the authorities of the village, such as the parish priest or mayor, who might be inclined to ask some inconvenient questions. All that he had to discover was to what place Sophy had gone after leaving Cortina, and then to trace her steps from town to town as far as possible, without bringing too much notice to bear upon his search.
The little one-horse carriage that he had hired at Toblach set him down at the hotel to which Sidney's note had directed him; and he turned at once into the rough and comfortless kitchen on the ground floor, glad to seat himself on one of the high chairs, with his feet on the raised hearth. For the cold was keen at this time of the year after the sun was down, and it had been lost to sight for some hours behind the high rocks which hem in the valley on each side. The great logs lying on the hearth burnt brightly, and the copper pans resting in front of them emitted an appetizing fragrance to those who had been long in the sharp and frosty air. Trevor would not hear of going upstairs to the solitary dining room, where there was neither fire nor company. A few peasants were sitting patiently at a huge oak table; and a brisk, elderly woman, in a short petticoat, and with white sleeves rolled up above the elbows, was bustling to and fro, looking into the copper cooking-pans, and from time to time exchanging a word or two with the foreigner who made himself so much at home.
At length the landlord came in, and unlocking an old fashioned desk elaborately carved, produced a large volume, strongly bound in leather. It was the Register, in which all travelers were required to enter their names and nationalities, the places from whence they came and those to which they were going, with sundry other particulars possibly interesting to the Austrian police. Trevor in a leisurely manner entered the necessary records, and then turned over the past leaves of the great book. At that time there were not many foreigners passing through the Ampezzo Valley; and he had no difficulty in finding the entries of seven years ago. There lay before him, in Sidney's own handwriting, the words in Italian, "Sidney Martin, with his wife."
"With his wife!" muttered Trevor, half aloud.
Chiara was an unlearned woman, and could not read; but she watched every movement of the stranger with sharp and suspicious eyes. She knew the page on which the young English signore had inscribed his name seven years ago; and now she saw the flash of mingled surprise and triumph which crossed the face of Trevor as he uttered the words, "With his wife." It was necessary to do something; but it behooved her to act cautiously. She drew near to him as he bent over the Register, and laid her hand on his shoulders, with a touch of homely familiarity in no way displeasing.
"You are English?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered.
"We have not many English here," she said. "Germans, yes, and Italians, yes; but few, few English; two or three in the summer, but not every summer."
"English ladies?" he inquired.
"Sometimes," she answered cautiously.
"Do you remember a young English gentleman staying here with his wife seven years ago last June?" he asked.
Chiara paused. Very swiftly she calculated the chances of this Englishman, who could speak Italian easily enough to enter into conversation with anyone he came across, making more inquiries than from herself alone; and she came to the rapid conclusion that it was necessary to tell him everything that her neighbors knew. Other English foreigners had passed through Cortina, but no question had ever been asked about these young people before. She must tell her tale cautiously, and with reserve.
"Ah," she said, with a sigh of recollection, "the young English gentleman, Signore Martino! He was a fine, handsome gentleman; and the young lady was as pretty as a butterfly. Did they belong to you, Signore? Perhaps she was your daughter?"
"No," he answered, "the young lady was no daughter of mine."
"Is it not possible that the young signore was your son?" she said, looking doubtfully at Trevor, who did not seem to her grand enough to be the father of the rich young Englishman.
"No," he replied curtly.
It was a perplexing moment for Chiara. Upstairs, in her box secured with two locks, lay the ducats and gulden, stamped with the Austrian eagle, which she had found in Sophy's jewel-case. She had not parted with one of them, and she was adding more gulden to them every month from her wages. There was scarcely a richer woman than herself in all the Ampezzo Valley, and the thought of it was an ever springing fountain of satisfaction. But if this foreigner had come to claim her treasure! Her heart sank at the mere suspicion of such a calamity; she could not believe that the Englishman had traveled all the way from England for anything less than to demand the inheritance of the dead woman. It would not be possible to pretend that she had spent much of the money upon the child; for every person in the village could reckon up how much his maintenance had cost her, ever since his birth. There was no reason why she should not be made to restore every one of those beloved coins, which from time to time she counted over with such fervent affection and delight. It was a very bitter moment to Chiara.
"Come," said Trevor, with a smile, showing to her a Napoleon lying in the palm of his hand, "I see you know all about them. Sit down, and tell me simply what you know, and this is yours. I am not come here to give you trouble."
She sat down with her feet on the raised hearth, and in a low tone told him the story exactly as he would have heard it from any other person in the village. It was short and simple. Signore Martino had traveled hither with a girl whom he called his wife; but had deserted her about three weeks before the birth of their child, leaving no trace behind him, and never returning to inquire after those whom he had forsaken. The unhappy girl had died in giving birth to her infant, and was buried in the village cemetery. He might see the grave in the morning, and the priest or the mayor would answer any questions he might choose to ask.
"And what became of the child?" Trevor inquired.
Then Chiara put her apron to her eyes, and replied that she herself had taken charge of the poor child, and put him out to nurse with her sister, who lived on the mountain, and had children of her own. He was growing a big boy now; but she did not complain of the expense, for after the costs of the funeral were paid, the mayor had permitted her to keep the clothing of the young lady, which she had sold to advantage. There was still a small sum left; but only a few florins. But now an inquiry was being made, would the boy be taken off her hands?
"I can make no promises," answered Trevor, "for neither the father nor the mother is related to me. But were there no papers left by the young lady? They are of the utmost importance to me; and if you give them up you shall be no loser."
"There were no papers," replied Chiara promptly. "The night before the Signora died she made a great fire in the stove and burned bundles of papers. That made me think that she was no married wife, poor thing! There was only just money enough to pay the bill of the house here and the doctor's fees and the grave in the cemetery. I don't know what would have become of her if she had not died."
"Have you nothing that belonged to her?" he asked.
"Just a few little things left," she answered; "I will bring them to you—not down here, where everybody can see, but in your bedroom—presently."
She went away, up to her own attic, as soon as supper was laid on the table. There she opened her strong box, and, kneeling beside it, held for some time in her hand the thick packet which Sophy had sealed up and directed the night before she died. Which would profit her most? To give up these concealed papers, which most likely contained an account of all the money and goods the Signora had had in her possession, or to keep them secret still, and retain this wealth in her own hands? Unless the stranger gave her very much more than she was already sure of, it was not worth while to expose herself to the indignation and contumely of her neighbors, if ever they should come to know that she had laid hands upon wealth that ought by rights to have been placed in the custody of the mayor. No, it was safer to keep quiet; it would be safer to destroy these papers, as she had often thought of doing. But there was no fire in her room, and it was difficult to make away with them unobserved. She put it off again, as she had done many times, and dropped the packet back into the box, fastening it securely. Then she went down to the great back bedchamber of the inn, where Sophy had died, and laid her handful of ornaments on the table before Trevor. He picked them up one by one, and looked at them with careful curiosity. They were not valuable trinkets—a cameo or two from Rome, and some small mosaics from Florence and glass beads from Venice. Chiara had known their value years ago, and had considered it worth-while to keep them for her own adornment when she went to a festa. The back of one of the cameo brooches opened, and Trevor found an inscription written on a slip of paper: "For my dear little wife, from Sidney." Chiara looked at it almost in a panic; but Trevor translated it to her.
"Is it possible that he was married?" said Trevor to himself, when Chiara carried away all the other trinkets, leaving this brooch in his hands, after having received double its value in money. He sat long beside the heated stove, weighing the probabilities. It was not an unheard-of thing for a youth of one-and-twenty, with plenty of money and no one to look after him, to travel about these remote and unfrequented regions with a girl who was not by law his wife. He did not know enough of Sidney's college career to decide whether or not he would be likely to fall into such a crime. But the fact that he had deserted this girl, a base and cowardly action, implied that she had no legal claim upon his protection. On the other hand, there crossed his mind Sidney's constant avoidance of ordinary social intercourse and avowed disinclination to marriage, which might be accounted for by this girl being already his wedded wife. Moreover, his anxiety now to learn her fate was greater than it would have been if no binding tie was involved in it. He was no longer dependent upon his uncle, and ran no risk of disinheritance by the discovery of any illicit attachment. If Sidney wished to marry now, the necessity of ascertaining what had become of the woman he had forsaken and lost sight of had become of primary importance, supposing her to be legally his wife, and the mother of his heir. But who could this girl have been?
CHAPTER XI.
AT CORTINA.
Early in the morning Trevor found his way to the cemetery, and the gravedigger, who was digging a grave in the dreary and neglected quadrangle, pointed out to him a desolate corner, where the young Englishwoman lay alone. It was strewn over with broken pots and sherds among which a few nettles were growing, and only a little mound, hardly visible, marked the spot where she had been laid in the earth. Even Trevor felt his heart stirred a little at the thought of this unnamed and uncared-for grave. The sexton told him precisely the same story as Chiara had done, and was more than satisfied with the few kreutzers the foreigner gave to him.
Following the gravedigger's directions, Trevor took a narrow, winding path, plentifully bestrewn with stones, which led up the mountain. His brain was too busy with his absorbing discovery to allow him to see the magnificent views opening up to him at almost every turn. He might as well have been threading his way through the crooked streets of the city, so blind and intent was he. The great peaks hanging over the valley were still burning with the bright colors painted on them by the summer sun, before the rains and snows of winter washed them away, and the pine woods through which he passed were full of the pungent scent of the resinous cones hanging in rich clusters on every branch. The channels of the mountain torrents were almost dry, and the huge bowlders in them were bleached nearly as white as ivory. Higher up the air grew very keen; but the sun was hot, until he passed under the shadow of a precipitous wall of rock, into a long, lateral valley, or hollow, in the slope of the mountains, which the sun had ceased to visit, and would shine upon no more that year. Then he shivered, and looked about him curiously for any human habitation.
He walked for about half a mile in the depressing chill of this unbroken shadow before he came suddenly upon a group of hovels, with neither windows nor chimneys, which were hardly to be discerned as not forming part of the barren scene about them. The low wooden roofs were loaded with heavy stones, telling of the tempestuous winds which swept the mountain slopes up here. But amid the rocks were little patches of sward, where a few sheep were browsing, and some goats were climbing the higher points to nibble any tuft of grass found growing there. A dozen children or so were loitering about listlessly until they caught sight of the extraordinary apparition of a visitor, and then they ran toward him with a savage howl that brought some half-clad, red-eyed women to the doors of the huts. He made haste to fight his way through the clamorous crew of children, and to address the nearest of them.
"I come from Cortina," he cried in a loud voice, "from Chiara Lello, who says her sister lives up here."
"That's Chiara's sister," answered the woman, pointing to another who stood in a doorway amid a cloud of wood smoke.
Trevor approached her, catching a glimpse of the dark and filthy interior of the hut, in which a goat and a kid were lying beside the wood fire. But he shrank from putting his foot inside it, and beckoned to the woman to come forward to him.
"Send these howling children away," he said.
She caught up a thong of leather and lashed it about them as if there was no other mode of dispersing them, and they scattered out of the way, yelping like dogs. Trevor looked on, wondering if any one of these almost naked and wholly filthy brood could be Sidney Martin's son.
"Tell me," he said, "which is the English boy."
Without a word the woman turned into the hut, and dragged out a child, with no clothing on but a ragged shirt scarcely reaching to his knees. The child's eyes were dazzled with the light, but they were red and weak; his skin was grimy with thick dirt, and his uncombed hair hung in matted tufts about his face and neck. No sooner did the other children see him than they began to howl and yell again; and the boy, tearing himself away from the woman's grasp, sprang like a monkey up the rocks, and having reached a safe height, looked down with a savage, uncouth grin upon those below him. The other children tried in vain to dislodge him by throwing stones at him; he had them at an advantage, and hit so many of them with the larger stones he hurled from above that they gave up the attack and went back to their sheep and goats.
"Good Heavens!" cried Trevor, with a sudden emotion of pity flooding his cold nature, "is it possible that this can be Sidney Martin's son?"
He sat down on a rock and looked around him. Here almost all traces of civilization were absent. These hovels were not fit for human habitation—hardly fit for pigs, he said to himself. Certainly there was a hideous crucifix erected in a conspicuous spot; but it was only a brutal and distorted representation of the central fact of Christianity, and appeared to partake of the savagery of its surroundings. There was nothing to be seen from this point but a gloomy circle of rocks, barren and hard and cold, upon which neither tree nor flower grew, and as his eye glanced round them it fell upon the nearly naked but vigorous form of Sidney's child, standing erect on a peak, and jabbering in some unknown and barbarous dialect. Chiara's sister shook her clenched fist at him, and screamed out some rough menace.
"What do you call the boy?" he asked.
"Martino," she said; "that was his father's name."
"Does he know anything? Does he learn anything?" Trevor inquired.
"He knows as much as the rest," she answered sullenly; "there's no schoolmaster up here. Besides, he is the child of heathen parents, though our good padre did baptize him. His mother was buried like a dog in the cemetery; only Chiara and the gravedigger went to her funeral, and no masses were said for her. Martino isn't like the child of Christian people. His mother is in hell, and his father will go there when he dies. It was very good of our padre to have him baptized."
"What does he do all day?" he asked.
"He lies by the fire or sits up there out of the way on the rock," she replied; "the other children will not play with him, and they are right. He's not a little true Christian like them."
"Poor little fellow!" cried Trevor passionately. He had had children of his own, whom he loved, and to whom he was a beloved father. It appeared monstrous to him that Sidney Martin's son should be here, among these barbarians, the object of their tyranny and persecution. If he had been any other boy Trevor would have borne him away at once, resolved not to leave an English-born child to such a fate. But if Sidney had actually been married this was his son and heir; heir to the large estates entailed by Sir John Martin on Sidney's eldest son. It was a secret of incalculable value to him. What was he to do?
This was a question not to be decided in a hurry. He must first see clearly how to turn it most fully to his own advantage. He was not altogether a bad man; but he had had a city training. Such an avenue to prosperity and power had never been open to him before, and he must be careful how he took his first step along it.
"Be kind to the little lad," he said, giving a gulden to the woman, "and when I come back you shall have ten of them before I take him away."
Ten gulden! The thought of so magnificent a sum had never entered into the head of Chiara's sister. She thought a good deal of the hundred and fifty kreutzers paid every month by Chiara; but ten gulden all at once! These English, heathen as they were, must be made of money.
She watched the foreigner as he retraced his way along the rocky path until he was quite lost to sight. She would indeed be kind to the child of people so rich and generous.
So for a few weeks Martino had the richest draught of goat's milk and the sweetest morsels of black bread, and the warmest corner by the fire. But she grew weary of indulgence as the months passed by, and the Englishman failed to return and redeem his promise.
CHAPTER XII.
A HALF CONFESSION.
Sidney Martin was suffering greatly under his fresh burden of anxiety. It seemed to him that all his future happiness or misery depended absolutely upon the result of Trevor's mission. He kept away from the house on Wimbledon Common, for he dared not trust himself in conversation with Margaret. That he loved her, and loved her with the profound, mature passion of manhood—how different from his boyish fancy!—made it impossible for him to approach her with calm friendliness, as he had done before her father's private talk with him, and his avowal that Margaret herself was far from being indifferent to him.
But now he had placed his secret in the hands of another, and must be prepared to acknowledge his boyish error. He must lose Margaret, if Sophy was alive. His imagination was busy in painting to him two lives, either of which might be his in the immediate future.
If Sophy was found he must own her as his wife, and make her the mistress of his house. He pictured her to himself as his wife, with her silly, affected, low-bred manners. His inward disgust at his own conduct exaggerated her faults, and painted her in the most repulsive colors. Her relations and friends would certainly flock about her; and, though he did not know them, he could not think of them as anything but ignorant and vulgar; for they were nothing but poor shopkeepers in a little market-town. He knew himself too well to resolve upon carrying on a continual conflict with the woman he had made his wife. He would leave her to follow her own way, while he took his; but her way could not fail to intersect his at some points; and he must be brought into contact with a vulgarity and folly which he loathed. His lot must be that bitter one of being linked indissolubly to a companion always at variance with him.
But possibly Sophy's long, persistent silence meant the silence of death. If so, his future promised to be bright and happy far beyond his deserts; for he frankly acknowledged to his own heart that he was unworthy of the prosperous happiness Sophy's death would insure for him. With Margaret as his wife, he might push his ambition to its farthest goal, and meet with no check or shock from her. If she had a fault, it was the transparent simplicity which made her almost too good for this work-a-day world. She had a charm which no other woman he knew possessed—a charm altogether apart from her personal loveliness. He could fancy her an old woman with white hair, and dim eyes, and faded-face, and yet retaining an indescribable attraction. She would be as beautiful in his eyes when she was seventy as she was now. He felt he could be a good man indeed if she was always at his side.
Day after day he went up to the City and transacted his business, keeping the threads of his world-wide enterprises in his own hand, and directing them with a clear, shrewd head. But he was waiting through all the long hours for the letter which would contain his doom. Trevor was to write to him the first certain information he gathered, and to keep him acquainted with his progress from day to day. At last the letter with the Austrian postmark came, and he fastened the door of his office, giving orders that he was to be interrupted for no one.
It was but a few lines, but it told him that Trevor had seen the grave where Sophy had lain for more than seven years. Sidney had prepared himself, as he believed, for any news that might reach him, and yet it came upon him like a thunderbolt. Poor Sophy! Still, what a relief it was to know she would never trouble him again! And she had been dead all these years, during which he had lived in deadly suspense and terror, as of one over whom a sword was hanging. How foolish he had been! If he had only had the courage to make this simple investigation before how free and joyous the years he had lost would have been. But he had lost these seven years of his youth as a penalty for his early error, and now the punishment was over.
He had intended at first to spend this evening alone, in memory of Sophy and her sad fate. But, before an hour had passed he grew accustomed to the knowledge that she was dead, and felt as if he had known it all these years. It had the dimness of an old sorrow. Seven years in the grave! He did not feel that it would be any shock to himself, or slight to Sophy's memory, if he yielded to his passionate longing to hurry away to Margaret.
It was already evening when he rode swiftly across Wimbledon Common, but it was an hour or two before his usual time, and Margaret was not waiting for him at the open door. He was shown into the library, where he had awaited her first appearance to him, now nearly a year ago. He had loved her from the first moment he saw her, he said to himself; and every day had increased his love. Would to God he was more worthy of her! From the height of his love to her he looked down on the low and foolish infatuation he had felt for Sophy. How could it be possible that, even as a boy, he could have wasted his affections in such a way? When Margaret opened the door, and came in softly, with a pale face, and eyelids a little red with weeping, looking as she did when he first saw her, he felt that she was even dearer to him than he had been fancying.
"Sidney!" she said, meeting him with both hands outstretched, "we have missed you more than I can tell. Why have you stayed away so long? My father is so ill!"
"Margaret!" he cried stammering. He could not utter a word of all that was in his heart, for he had resolved that, if possible, she should never know of Sophy's existence. There would be no need for the world to know, and he could make it worth while to Trevor to keep the secret. For, after all, it was not a secret involving any important issues; and if the worst came to the worst, he could tell Margaret when she was his wife, and it did not signify to any other person, excepting Margaret's father. He held her hands fast in a strong grasp as he looked at her; and the color came and went on her face, and her eyes fell before his gaze.
"I love you," he said, at length, with parched lips. He had always thought it would be a moment of too great happiness when he could say these words to Margaret, but it was one of heaviness and confusion of soul. He wished now that he had waited a little longer, until he could get rid of the haunting memory of Sophy.
"Yes," answered Margaret, in a very low, sweet tone, "and I love you, Sidney!"
She spoke with the open simplicity of a child, but her lips quivered, and the tears stood in her eyes. He folded her in his arms, and for a minute or two they were both silent. The heaviness and bewilderment of his soul passed away in the sense of present gladness. All the trouble of his old folly was over; there was no harvest of bitterness to reap. He was as free as if he had never fallen into any unworthy entanglement. And the pure, sweet, true heart of this girl was as much his own as if he had never known any other love. He declared to himself he never had.
"I have never loved any woman but you," he exclaimed aloud, as if he challenged his dead wife to contradict him.
"And I," she said, looking up into his face with a smile, "never thought of loving any man but you."
He stooped down and kissed her. It was impossible to echo her words.
"Let us go and tell my father," she said, after a few minutes had passed by; "he is ill, and we must not leave him too long alone. He is very fond of you, Sidney."
He followed Margaret to the door of her father's room, but she passed on, beckoning to him to go in alone. Colonel Cleveland lay on his invalid couch, looking more worn than he had done the week before.
"Welcome back again, Sidney," he cried out, with a faint smile. "I was afraid I had scared you away by my imprudence. And I cannot get along without you, my friend."
"No, no," he answered; "I stayed away because I could not trust myself with Margaret, after what you said."
"Not trust yourself with Margaret!" repeated Colonel Cleveland.
"You told me she loved me," he replied joyously, "and I love her as my own soul. But I could not feel worthy of her. I will confess all to you, but I do not wish her to know. While I was yet a mere lad, I contracted a secret and most unsuitable marriage; but the girl died seven years ago. I could not all at once ask Margaret to become my wife after that."
"Are there any children?" inquired Colonel Cleveland.
"No; oh, no!" he answered. "How could such a matter be kept secret if there had been any child?"
But, as he spoke, a dread flashed across his mind. Was it not possible that Sophy had died in giving birth to her child, and the child be still alive? But, if so, Trevor must have heard of it when he heard of her death, and he would have added this most important item of information in his letter. No, Sophy and her child lay together in the lonely grave of the Ampezzo cemetery. He felt a strange, confused sense of sadness in the thought, mingling with the gladness of being sure that Margaret loved him.
"And you have lived with this secret all these years," said Colonel Cleveland with a grave face. "It would have made a difference with my old friend if he had known it."
"Yes," said Sidney frankly; "he would probably have disinherited me."
Colonel Cleveland looked keenly into the grave, but ingenuous face of the young man, and Sidney bore his gaze with an air of honest regret. He felt penitent, and his penitence sat well upon him. If a past wrong could be blotted out forever, Sidney was ready to perform any penance that would free himself from its consequences. He looked imploringly at Colonel Cleveland.
"Don't let Margaret know," he entreated. "I want her to be happier with me than any woman ever was with any husband. Only one man knows it, and he will keep the secret faithfully. What good would it do for her to be told of my boyish infatuation? If it was an important matter, I would not keep it from her. But, just now, she looked into my face and said: 'I never thought of loving any man but you.' I would have given half my worldly goods to be able to say the same."
"Then you have spoken to Margaret?" said her father.
"The moment before I came to you," he answered.
"And she loves you?" he continued.
"Yes," said Sidney.
"God bless my Margaret!" cried Colonel Cleveland, in tremulous tones.
"Amen!" said Sidney. "God make me worthy of her love!"
There was a slight pause before Colonel Cleveland spoke again.
"I think it may be as you wish," he said. "Most young men have some folly to confess; and this, though it seems more serious, was only a folly, not a crime. The worst part of it is keeping it a secret all these years. Seven years, did you say? But it is all over now, and Margaret, dear child, need never know."
CHAPTER XIII.
RACHEL GOLDSMITH.
It was still with some anxiety and a lurking dread that Trevor might bring ill news to mar his happiness, that Sidney awaited his return, and could not account for the delay, as one day passed after another, and he did not come with further details of Sophy's unhappy end. There was a morbid curiosity in his mind to hear all the particulars Trevor had gained about the fate of his young wife and first-born child; and, until this curiosity was satisfied, Margaret's love was not enough to content him. But, by and by there came news of an accident to a diligence crossing the Arlberg Pass, which, meeting with an early fall of snow, had missed the road and been upset over a low precipice. Only one passenger was killed: his luggage and the papers found upon him were forwarded, according to an address inside his portmanteau, to the offices of Sidney Martin, Swansea, & Co. They came direct into Sidney's own hands.
The papers conveyed no further information to Sidney than Trevor's letter had done. There were only a few lines in a cipher which he did not understand, and which he considered it prudent to burn before passing on the papers, which had nothing to do with his business, to Trevor's family. There was a disappointment to his curiosity in not learning more particulars; but there was a curious sense of deliverance in the fact of poor Trevor's death, which more than counterbalanced this disappointment. The whole affair was ended now; completely ended. He had no one to fear. The only man who could have made use of his secret was gone, and out of the way. There could be neither an imprudent speech, nor a threat of disclosure, uttered by Trevor. Sidney acted with his usual liberality to the widow and children of his unfortunate clerk, but he could not grieve over an unforeseen death so convenient for his own peace of mind.
There was nothing now to hinder his marriage with Margaret. There were settlements to make, of course—Apley being settled on Margaret and her second son. The eldest son would inherit the estates and the large fortune entailed by Sir John Martin's will. On Colonel Cleveland's death Margaret herself would become possessor of her mother's dowry.
The feeling of freedom with which Sidney could now live was too new and too unfamiliar to be altogether a happy one. He had scarcely realized how oppressive had been the burden of Sophy's possible claim upon him. It had weighed down his spirit with a constant, yet almost unconscious, repression. He was like a man who had worn fetters until he drags his foot along the ground, unable to believe that he can walk like other men.
But he was free now; and he resolved to live such a life as would atone for all his early delinquencies. There should be nothing underhand or contemptible in all his future. His ambition could have free course, and he would prove himself worthy of high fortune. With a wife and companion like Margaret there would be nothing to hinder him from making his way into the foremost ranks of the men of his time.
On the eve of his marriage he brought Margaret a splendid set of diamonds, expecting to see her delight in ornaments so magnificent. She took the case from him with a pleased and happy smile, and looked at them closely for a few minutes, but she shut the case and laid it aside, almost indifferently, he thought.
"You do not care for them?" he said, in some disappointment.
"I care for anything you give to me," she answered softly, "but I do not much value ornaments for themselves. I never can care for them."
"That is because you do not see other girls who wear them," he replied. "When you go out into society as my wife you will see women sparkling with jewelry, and then you will learn to care for it."
"Shall I?" she asked doubtfully; "but it seems to me childish. You men do not adorn yourselves with jewels, and we should despise you if you did. It seems like a relic of barbarism, akin to the love of savages for glass beads. What man could strut about in diamonds and not look ridiculous?"
"But you are a woman," he said, laughing.
"Though surely not more childish than a man," she answered, rising from her low seat, and standing beside him with her serious eyes shining into his. "O Sidney, I wish we were poorer people. I should like to work for you, as Laura does for George, because they are not rich. I shall never have any real work to do for you; that would be my idea of happiness. I will wear your diamonds. Oh, yes! But you must not make a child of me."
"You are not a child, but an angel," he said.
"Ah! if you think me an angel," she replied gayly, "it will be very bitter to find out your mistake. But still angels are ministering spirits. Don't you think I would rather use my hands in sewing for you than have you load them with rings? And my feet would be less weary moving up and down on errands for you, than dancing through tedious dances with some other man. I am sure poor people have ways of happiness that we know nothing of."
"Margaret," he said, "you have grown up too much alone. You have missed the wholesome companionship of girls of your own rank."
"Ah!" she cried, "I'm no longer an angel."
She turned away from him rather shyly and sadly, he thought, and touched the bell.
"If you had been a poorer man," she said, "you would have bought me a beautiful flower, and I should have worn it now, at once; and perhaps, I might have kissed it when it was faded, and put it away as something sacred. But now my maid must take charge of these costly things, and I cannot keep them for no one else to see."
"Margaret," he cried, "I would have brought you the loveliest flower in England, if I had known!"
As she stood a little way apart from him, with downcast eyes, he noticed for the first time that she was wearing no flowers. Was it for this reason? Had she waited for him to bring one that she might carry in her bosom this memorable evening, and put it away as something sacred, which no one should see but herself? And it would have been so if he had been a poor man. For a moment he caught a glimpse, through Margaret's eyes, of a happiness simpler, more natural, and nobler in the married life than that which lay before him and her. He could almost have wished himself as poor a man as his cousin George, for the sake of it.
But the door opened in answer to Margaret's ring, and a middle-aged woman entered, whom he fancied he knew by sight. Her face was pleasant, with traces of prettiness, which had become refined by thought and by some sadness. Margaret put her hand affectionately on her arm.
"I can never tell you how much I owe to this dear friend of mine," she said, looking up into Sidney's face, "and I want you to be a friend to Rachel Goldsmith."
Rachel Goldsmith! The shock was utterly unexpected; but his nature possessed an instinctive kindly consideration for his inferiors which impelled him to stretch out his hand and shake hands with Margaret's favorite maid.
"Since my mother died she has been almost a mother to me," said Margaret.
"I love my young lady as much as I could love a child of my own, sir," said Rachel, looking at him with eyes so much like Sophy's he felt that she must read the secret so jealously guarded in his heart. There was a keen reproach to him in her gaze, and in the air of sadness which rested on her face. She took up the case of diamonds and left them again alone.
"I must tell you something about Rachel," said Margaret, as soon as she was gone. "Her people live at Apley; and her brother is my father's saddler. He had one daughter, about six years older than me; a very pretty girl; quite a lovely face she had. But you may some time have seen her when you were a boy, and came to Apley."
"No," he answered, hardly knowing what he said.
"Everybody admired her," Margaret went on, "and her two aunts doted on her. They sent her to a boarding-school; and then she went out as a nursery governess. But just after she was twenty she disappeared."
Margaret paused, but Sidney said nothing.
"They never found her; they have not found her yet," she continued. "O Sidney! think how dreadful it is to lose anyone you love in such a way! A thousand times worse than dying, for then we lay the body in the quiet grave, and the soul is in the hands of God; but what misery and degradation she may be suffering."
"It is a sad history for you to know, my darling," said Sidney.
"Sad for me to know!" she repeated. "I suppose so; it has often made me sad. But what must it be to those who love her as much as my father loves me? Since we came to London, Rachel has spent many hours in the streets, with a faint, very faint hope of coming across her. And Rachel is such a good woman; so wise and upright. She could not be a better woman if she was a queen."
"Do you take her with us to-morrow?" he asked; for he felt as if her presence would cloud all his happiness, and become an insupportable burden to him. Yet it was too late to make any change in the arrangements for their journey.
"No," she answered, "I could not leave my father without Rachel. Since his accident she has been his nurse; and I do not want a maid. Rachel has taught me to be independent of her in almost every way. Didn't I say she was a wise woman?"
"Very wise!" he agreed absently.
CHAPTER XIV.
APLEY HALL.
At first it seemed almost impossible to Sidney that he could bear the constant presence of Rachel Goldsmith, and the intimate relationship that existed between her and his wife. There were tones in her voice which startled him by recalling Sophy's; and now and then she used local terms and provincialisms which he had never heard anyone utter but Sophy. There was a strong resemblance, too, between them; for Rachel's face was what Sophy's might have grown to be in middle life. It shocked him afresh when he caught sight of it unexpectedly. But it had been agreed before their marriage that Margaret must not be separated from her father; and for the present they were all living together in the house Colonel Cleveland rented on Wimbledon Common. Rachel Goldsmith was even more essential to the comfort and tranquillity of Colonel Cleveland as his nurse, than she was to Margaret's happiness as her maid. It would be impossible to displace her; it might be easier to remove Margaret to a dwelling place of their own.
But as time passed by he grew more accustomed to her presence, and it ceased to chafe him.
Rachel opened her heart to her young lady's husband, and her manner toward him was one of admiration and deference. Her somewhat sad face brightened when he spoke to her; and her smile was a sweet one, more in the eyes than on the lips. Now and then the thought occurred to him—that if Sophy had lived this woman would have come under his roof as a near relation. But Sidney possessed an affectionate nature, capable of taking a very real interest in many persons; even if insignificant persons. This woman, Margaret's maid and Sophy's aunt, had a claim upon him which he could not ignore. Besides, he had resolved before his second marriage that his future life should be a noble one; worthy of Margaret's love and faith in him. It would be a most unworthy act to add to the unknown injury he had inflicted on Rachel Goldsmith—the further sorrow of separating her from Margaret, whom she loved as her own child.
It was part of the penance he had to pay for his boyish fault; that fault of which he had repented, he told himself, so bitterly. It was not a heavy penance. There was nothing else to mar his happiness.
And Margaret's happiness would have been perfect if her father had not been slowly but surely treading the path which led only to the grave. Her marriage had opened the world to her, and she saw the brightest side of it; for Sidney was careful that she should know only the best people. His uncle had made but few friends, and he himself had lived in a narrow circle. But now, for Margaret's sake, and the gladdening sense of deliverance from a damaging secret, he enlarged the number of his acquaintances, and used his wealth to gain a position in the world which Margaret could enjoy.
Sir John Martin, though he had made but few personal friends, had occupied a prominent place in London as a religious and philanthropic man. It was not difficult to Sidney to regain this position. As long as he had lain under the chance of a discovery that would bring him pain, if it did not bring him disgrace, he had avoided filling the position his uncle had held. But now his past life was buried. Margaret's wishes all lay in the direction of active, personal service of her fellow-men; and Sidney's own nature responded to their claims. It made him feel satisfied that the past was both past and forgotten, when he found himself recognized as a leader among Christian men. And was he not a Christian? Had any man more bitterly repented of his sin?
As for Margaret, no question existed in her mind about her husband's right to call himself a Christian. It had never been her habit to sit in judgment upon others. Religion did not consist in the observance of forms, and the keeping of times and seasons; and she had no ready test to apply for detection. She knew her father made no formal profession of religion; but she could not know how deep and true his love of God might be. Sidney went with her regularly to church; but the secret intercourse of his soul with God was hidden, could not but be hidden from all other souls. No spirit can be so near another spirit as God is to each. God had given to her that which was his greatest earthly gift—the love of a good man.
On the Michaelmas-day after their marriage the tenancy of the present occupier of Apley Hall expired; and a few weeks afterward the rector of Apley was promoted to a more lucrative benefice, and the living, which was in Colonel Cleveland's gift, was vacant. Margaret had this last piece of news to tell Sidney when he returned from the city.
"My father wishes to offer the living to your cousin George," she added, "and, Sidney, he wishes more than words can tell—to go home to Apley before he dies." Margaret's voice faltered, and the tears glistened in her eyes.