Collins_No_Name.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
and he no doubt saw it still burning in his
dream. was 's explanation of the strange position of
the letter when discovered it. question of what was to be
done with the letter itself came next, and was no easy question
for a woman to understand. determined to master it, and
did master it, because it related to you."
" me try to master it, in my turn," said . " have a
particular reason for wishing to know as much about this letter
as you know yourself. has it done for others, and what is it
to do for me?"
" dear , how strangely you look at it! how strangely
you talk of it! as it may appear, that morsel of paper
gives you a fortune."
" my only claim to the fortune the claim which this letter
gives me?"
"; the letter is your only claim. try if can explain
it in two words? by itself, the letter might, in the
lawyer's opinion, have been made a matter for dispute, though
am sure would have sanctioned no proceeding of that sort.
, however, with the postscript which
attached to it (you will see the lines if you look under the
signature on the third page), it becomes legally binding, as well
as morally binding, on the admiral's representatives. have
exhausted my small stock of legal words, and must go on in my own
language instead of in the lawyer's. end of the thing was
simply this. the money went back to . 's
estate (another legal word! my vocabulary is richer than
thought), for one plain reason -- that it had not been employed
as . directed. . had lived, or
if had married me a few months earlier, results would have
been just the other way. it is, half the money has been
already divided between . 's next of kin; which
means, translated into plain , my husband, and his poor
bedridden sister -- who took the money formally, one day, to
satisfy the lawyer, and who gave it back again generously, the
next, to satisfy herself. much for one half of this legacy.
other half, my dear, is all yours. strangely events
happen, ! is only two years since you and were left
disinherited orphans -- and we are sharing our poor father's
fortune between us, after all!"
" a little, . shares come to us in very different
ways."
" they? comes to me by my husband. comes to you -- "
stopped confusedly, and changed color. " me, my own
love!" she said, putting 's hand to her lips. " have
forgotten what ought to have remembered. have thoughtlessly
distressed you!"
"!" said ; "you have encouraged me."
" you?"
" shall see."
those words, she rose quietly from the sofa, and walked to
the open window. could follow her, she had torn the
to pieces, and had cast the fragments into the street.
came back to the sofa and laid her head, with a deep sigh of
relief, on 's bosom. " will owe nothing to my past life,"
she said. " have parted with it as have parted with those torn
morsels of paper. the thoughts and all the hopes belonging to
it are put away from me forever!"
", my husband will never allow you! will never allow
you myself -- "
"! hush! your husband thinks right, , you and
will think right too. will take from _you_ what would never
have taken if that letter had given it to me. end dreamed
of has come. is changed but the position once thought
we might hold toward each other. as it is, my love -- far,
far better as it is!"
she made the last sacrifice of the old perversity and the old
pride. she entered on the new and nobler life.
* * * * * *
month had passed. autumn sunshine was bright even in the
murky streets, and the clocks in the neighborhood were just
striking two, as returned alone to the house in 's
.
" he waiting for me?" she asked, anxiously, when the landlady
let her in.
was waiting in the front room. stole up the stairs
and knocked at the door. called to her carelessly and absently
to come in, plainly thinking that it was only the servant who
applied for permission to enter the room.
" hardly expected me so soon?" she said speaking on the
threshold, and pausing there to enjoy his surprise as he started
to his feet and looked at her.
only traces of illness still visible in her face left a
delicacy in its outline which added refinement to her beauty.
was simply dressed in muslin. plain straw bonnet had no other
ornament than the white ribbon with which it was sparingly
trimmed. had never looked lovelier in her best days than she
looked now, as she advanced to the table at which he had been
sitting, with a little basket of flowers that she had brought
with her from the country, and offered him her hand.
looked anxious and careworn when she saw him closer.
interrupted his first inquiries and congratulations to ask if he
had remained in since they had parted -- if he had not
even gone away, for a few days only, to see his friends in
? ; he had been in ever since. never told her
that the pretty parsonage house in wanted all those
associations with herself in which the poor four walls at 's
were so rich. only said he had been in ever
since.
" wonder," she asked, looking him attentively in the face, "if
you are as happy to see me again as am to see you?"
" am even happier, in my different way," he answered,
with a smile.
took off her bonnet and scarf, and seated herself once more
in her own arm-chair. " suppose this street is very ugly," she
said; "and am sure nobody can deny that the house is very
small. yet -- and yet it feels like coming home again.
there where you used to sit; tell me about yourself. want to
know all that you have done, all that you have thought even,
while have been away." tried to resume the endless
succession of questions by means of which she was accustomed to
lure him into speaking of himself. she put them far less
spontaneously, far less adroitly, than usual. one
all-absorbing anxiety in entering that room was not an anxiety to
be trifled with. a quarter of an hour wasted in constrained
inquiries on one side, in reluctant replies on the other, she
ventured near the dangerous subject
at last.
" you received the letters wrote to you from the seaside?"
she asked, suddenly looking away from him for the first time.
"," he said; "all."
" you read them?"
" one of them -- many times over."
heart beat as if it would suffocate her. had kept her
promise bravely. whole story of her life, from the time of
the home-wreck at - to the time when she had destroyed
the in her sister's presence, had been all laid
before him. that she had done, nothing even that she had
thought, had been concealed from his knowledge. he would have
kept a pledged engagement with her, so she had kept her pledged
engagement with him. had not faltered in the resolution to do
this; and now she faltered over the one decisive question which
she had come there to ask. as the desire in her was to
know if she had lost or won him, the fear of knowing was at that
moment stronger still. waited and trembled; she waited, and
said no more.
" speak to you about your letters?" he asked. " tell
you -- ?"
she had looked at him as he said those few words, she would
have seen what he thought of her in his face. would have
seen, innocent as he was in this world's knowledge, that he knew
the priceless value, the all-ennobling virtue, of a woman who
speaks the truth. she had no courage to look at him -- no
courage to raise her eyes from her lap.
" just yet," she said, faintly. " quite so soon after we
have met again."
rose hurriedly from her chair, and walked to the window,
turned back again into the room, and approached the table, close
to where he was sitting. writing materials scattered near him
offered her a pretext for changing the subject, and she seized on
it directly. " you writing a letter," she asked, "when came
in?"
" was thinking about it," he replied. " was not a letter to be
written without thinking first." rose as he answered her to
gather the writing materials together and put them away.
" should interrupt you?" she said. " not let me try
whether can't help you instead? it a secret?"
", not a secret."
hesitated as he answered her. instantly guessed the truth.
" it about your ship?"
little knew how she had been thinking in her absence from him
of the business which he believed that he had concealed from her.
little knew that she had learned already to be jealous of his
ship. " they want you to return to your old life?" she went on.
" they want you to go back to the sea? you say or
at once?"
" once."
" had not come in when did would you have said ?"
unconsciously laid her hand on his arm, forgetting all
inferior considerations in her breathless anxiety to hear his
next words. confession of his love was within a hair-breadth
of escaping him; but he checked the utterance of it even yet. "
don't care for myself," he thought; "but how can be certain of
not distressing _her?_"
" you have said ?" she repeated.
" was doubting," he answered -- " was doubting between and
."
hand tightened on his arm; a sudden trembling seized her in
every limb, she could bear it no longer. her heart went out
to him in her next words:
" you doubting _for my sake?"_
"," he said. " my confession in return for yours -- was
doubting for your sake."
said no more; she only looked at him. that look the truth
reached him at last. next instant she was folded in his arms,
and was shedding delicious tears of joy, with her face hidden on
his bosom.
" deserve my happiness?" she murmured, asking the one
question at last. ", know how the poor narrow people who have
never felt and never suffered would answer me if asked them
what ask you. _they_ knew my story, they would forget all
the provocation, and only remember the offense; they would fasten
on my sin, and pass all my suffering by. you are not one of
them! me if you have any shadow of a misgiving! me if
you doubt that the one dear object of all my life to come is to
live worthy of you! asked you to wait and see me; asked you,
if there was any hard truth to be told, to tell it me here with
your own lips. it, my love, my husband! -- tell it me now!"
looked up, still clinging to him as she clung to the hope of
her better life to come.
" me the truth!" she repeated.
" my own lips?"
"!" she answered, eagerly. " what you think of me with your
own lips."
stooped and kissed her.