WARDLAW was at home before this with his hands full of business; and it is time the reader should be let into one secret at least, which this merchant had contrived to conceal from the City of London, and from his own father, and from every human creature, except one poor, simple, devoted soul, called Michael Penfold.
There are men, who seem stupid, yet generally go right; there are also clever men, who appear to have the art of blundering wisely—"sapienter descendunt in infernum," as the ancients have it; and some of these latter will even lie on their backs, after a fall, and lift up their voices, and prove to you that in the nature of things they ought to have gone up, and their being down is monstrous; illusory.
Arthur Wardlaw was not quite so clever as all that. Still he misconducted the business of the firm with perfect ability from the first month he entered on it. Like those ambitious railways which ruin a goodly trunk with excess of branches, not to say twigs, he set to work extending, and extending, and sent the sap of the healthy old concern flying to the ends of the earth.
He was not only too ambitious, and not cool enough; he was also unlucky, or under a curse, or something; for things well conceived broke down, in his hands, under petty accidents. And, besides, his new correspondents and agents hit him cruelly hard. Then what did he? Why, shot good money after bad, and lost both. He could not retrench, for his game was concealment; his father was kept in the dark, and drew his four thousand a year, as usual, and, upon any hesitation in that respect, would have called in an accountant and wound up the concern. But this tax upon the receipts, though inconvenient, was a trifle compared with the series of heavy engagements that were impending. The future was so black that Wardlaw junior was sore tempted to realize twenty thousand pounds, which a man in his position could easily do, and fly the country. But this would have been to give up Helen Rolleston; and he loved her too well. His brain was naturally subtle and fertile in expedients; so he brought all its powers to bear on a double problem—how to marry Helen and restore the concern he had mismanaged to its former state. For this a large sum of money was needed, not less than ninety thousand pounds.
The difficulties were great; but he entered on this project with two advantages. In the first place, he enjoyed excellent credit; in the second, he was not disposed to be scrupulous. He had been cheated several times; and nothing undermines feeble rectitude more than that. Such a man as Wardlaw is apt to establish a sort of account current with humanity.
"Several fellow-creatures have cheated me. Well, I must get as much back, by hook or by crook, from several fellow-creatures."
After much hard thought he conceived his double master-stroke. And it was to execute this he went out to Australia.
We have seen that he persuaded Helen Rolleston to come to England and be married; but, as to the other part of his project, that is a matter for the reader to watch, as it develops itself.
His first act of business, on reaching England, was to insure the freights of the Proserpine and the Shannon.
He sent Michael Penfold to Lloyds', with the requisite vouchers, including the receipts of the gold merchants. Penfold easily insured the Shannon, whose freight was valued at only six thousand pounds. The Proserpine, with her cargo, and a hundred and thirty thousand pounds of specie to boot, was another matter. Some underwriters had an objection to specie, being subject to theft as well as shipwreck; other underwriters, applied to by Penfold, acquiesced; others called on Wardlaw himself, to ask a few questions, and he replied to them courteously, but with a certain nonchalance, treating it as an affair which might be big to them, but was not of particular importance to a merchant doing business on his scale.
To one underwriter, Condell, with whom he was on somewhat intimate terms, he said, "I wish I could insure the Shannon at her value; but that is impossible. The City of London could not do it. The Proserpine brings me some cases of specie, but my true treasure is on board the Shannon. She carries my bride, sir."
"Oh, indeed! Miss Rolleston."
"Ah, I remember; you have seen her. Then you will not be surprised at a proposal I shall make you. Underwrite the Shannon a million pounds, to be paid by you if harm befalls my Helen. You need not look so astonished; I was only joking; you gentlemen deal with none but substantial values; and, as for me, a million would no more compensate me for losing her, than for losing my own life."
The tears were in his pale eyes as he said these words; and Mr. Condell eyed him with sympathy. But he soon recovered himself, and was the man of business again. "Oh, the specie on board the Proserpine? Well, I was in Australia, you know, and bought that specie myself of the merchants whose names are attached to the receipts. I deposited the cases with White & Co., at Sydney. Penfold will show you the receipt. I instructed Joseph Wylie, mate of the Proserpine, and a trustworthy person, to see them stowed away in the Proserpine, by White & Co. Hudson is a good seaman; and the Proserpine a new ship, built by Mare. We have nothing to fear but the ordinary perils of the sea."
"So one would think," said Mr. Condell, and took his leave; but, at the door he hesitated, and then, looking down a little sheepishly, said, "Mr. Wardlaw, may I offer you a piece of advice?"
"Certainly."
Then, double the insurance on the Shannon, if you can.
With these words he slipped out, evidently to avoid questions he did not intend to answer.
Wardlaw stared after him, stupidly at first, and then stood up and put his hand to his head in a sort of amazement. Then he sat down again, ashy pale, and with the dew on his forehead, and muttered faintly, "Double—the insurance—of the—Shannon!"
Men who walk in crooked paths are very subject to such surprises; doomed, like Ahab, to be pierced, through the joints of their armor, by random shafts; by words uttered in one sense, but conscience interprets them in another.
It took a good many underwriters to insure the Proserpine's freight; but the business was done at last.
Then Wardlaw, who had feigned insouciance so admirably in that part of his interview with Condell, went, without losing an hour, and raised a large sum of money on the insured freight, to meet the bills that were coming due for the gold (for he had paid for most of it in paper at short dates), and also other bills that were approaching maturity. This done, he breathed again, safe for a month or two from everything short of a general panic, and full of hope from his coming master-stroke. But two months soon pass when a man has a flock of kites in the air. Pass? They fly. So now he looked out anxiously for his Australian ships; and went to Lloyds' every day to hear if either had been seen or heard of by steamers, or by faster vessels than themselves.
And, though Condell had underwritten the Proserpine to the tune of eight thousand pounds, yet still his mysterious words rang strangely in the merchant's ears, and made him so uneasy that he employed a discreet person to sound Condell as to what he meant by "double the insurance of the Shannon."
It turned out to be the simplest affair in the world; Condell had secret information that the Shannon was in bad repairs, so he had advised his friend to insure her heavily. For the same reason, he declined to underwrite her freight himself.
With respect to those ships, our readers already know two things, of which Wardlaw himself, nota bene, had no idea; namely, that the Shannon had sailed last, instead of first, and that Miss Rolleston was not on board of her, but in the Proserpine, two thousand miles ahead.
To that, your superior knowledge, we, posters of the sea and land, are about to make a large addition, and relate things strange, but true. While that anxious and plotting merchant strains his eyes seaward, trying hard to read the future, we carry you, in a moment of time, across the Pacific, and board the leading vessel, the good ship Proserpine, homeward bound.
The ship left Sydney with a fair wind, but soon encountered adverse weather, and made slow progress, being close hauled, which was her worst point of sailing. She pitched a good deal, and that had a very ill effect on Miss Rolleston. She was not seasick, but thoroughly out of sorts. And, in one week, became perceptibly paler and thinner than when she started.
The young clergyman, Mr. Hazel, watched her with respectful anxiety, and this did not escape her feminine observation. She noted quietly that those dark eyes of his followed her with a mournful tenderness, but withdrew their gaze when she looked at him. Clearly, he was interested in her, but had no desire to intrude upon her attention. He would bring up the squabs for her, and some of his own wraps, when she stayed on deck, and was prompt with his arm when the vessel lurched; and showed her those other little attentions which are called for on board ship, but without a word. Yet, when she thanked him in the simplest and shortest way, his great eyes flashed with pleasure, and the color mounted to his very temples.
Engaged young ladies are, for various reasons, more sociable with the other sex than those who are still on the universal mock-defensive. A ship, like a distant country, thaws even English reserve, and women in general are disposed to admit ecclesiastics to certain privileges. No wonder then that Miss Rolleston, after a few days, met Mr. Hazel half-way; and they made acquaintance on board the Proserpine, in monosyllables at first; but, the ice once fairly broken, the intercourse of mind became rather rapid.
At first it was a mere intellectual exchange, but one very agreeable to Miss Rolleston; for a fine memory, and omnivorous reading from his very boyhood, with the habit of taking notes, and reviewing them, had made Mr. Hazel a walking dictionary, and a walking essayist if required.
But when it came to something which, most of all, the young lady had hoped from this temporary acquaintance, viz., religious instruction, she found him indeed as learned on that as on other topics, but cold and devoid of unction. So much so, that one day she said to him, "I can hardly believe you have ever been a missionary." But at that he seemed so distressed that she was sorry for him, and said, sweetly, "Excuse me, Mr. Hazel, my remark was in rather bad taste, I fear."
"Not at all," said he. "Of course I am unfit for missionary work, or I should not be here."
Miss Rolleston took a good look at him, but said nothing. However, his reply and her perusal of his countenance satisfied her that he was a man with very little petty vanity and petty irritability.
One day they were discoursing of gratitude; and Mr. Hazel said he had a poor opinion of those persons who speak of the burden of gratitude, and make a fuss about being "laid under an obligation."
"As for me," said he, "I have owed such a debt, and found the sense of it very sweet."
"But perhaps you were always hoping to make a return," said Helen.
"That I was. Hoping against hope."
"Do you think people are grateful, in general?"
"No, Miss Rolleston, I do not."
"Well, I think they are. To me at least. Why, I have experienced gratitude even in a convict. It was a poor man, who had been transported, for something or other, and he begged papa to take him for his gardener. Papa did, and he was so grateful that, do you know, he suspected our house was to be robbed, and he actually watched in the garden night after night. And, what do you think? the house was attacked by a whole gang; but poor Mr. Seaton confronted them and shot one, and was wounded cruelly; but he beat them off for us; and was not that gratitude?"
While she was speaking so earnestly, Mr. Hazel's blood seemed to run through his veins like heavenly fire, but he said nothing, and the lady resumed with gentle fervor, "Well, we got him a clerk's place in a shipping-office, and heard no more of him; but he did not forget us; my cabin here was fitted up with every comfort and every delicacy. I thanked papa for it; but he looked so blank I saw directly he knew nothing about it, and, now I think of it, it was Mr. Seaton. I am positive it was. Poor fellow! And I should not even know him if I saw him."
Mr. Hazel observed, in a low voice, that Mr. Seaton's conduct did not seem wonderful to him. "Still," said he, "one is glad to find there is some good left even in a criminal."
"A criminal!" cried Helen Rolleston, firing up. "Pray, who says he was a criminal? Mr. Hazel, once for all, no friend of mine ever deserves such a name as that. A friend of mine may commit some great error or imprudence; but that is all. The poor grateful soul was never guilty of any downright wickedness. That stands to reason."
Mr. Hazel did not encounter this feminine logic with his usual ability; he muttered something or other, with a trembling lip, and left her so abruptly that she asked herself whether she had inadvertently said anything that could have offended him; and awaited an explanation. But none came. The topic was never revived by Mr. Hazel; and his manner, at their next meeting, showed he liked her none the worse that she stood up for her friends.
The wind steady from the west for two whole days, and the Proserpine showed her best sailing qualities, and ran four hundred and fifty miles in that time.
Then came a dead calm, and the sails flapped lazily and the masts described an arc; and the sun broiled; and the sailors whistled; and the captain drank; and the mate encouraged him.
During this calm Miss Rolleston fell downright ill, and quitted the deck. Then Mr. Hazel was very sad; borrowed all the books in the ship and read them, and took notes; and when he had done this he was at leisure to read men, and so began to study Hiram Hudson, Joseph Wylie, and others, and take a few notes about them.
From these we select some that are better worth the reader's attention than anything we could relate in our own persons at this stagnant part of the story.
"There are two sailors, messmates, who have formed an antique friendship; their names are John Welch and Samuel Cooper. Welch is a very able seaman and a chatterbox. Cooper is a good sailor, but very silent; only what he does say is much to the purpose.
"The gabble of Welch is agreeable to the silent Cooper; and Welch admires Cooper's taciturnity.
"I asked Welch what made him like Cooper so much. And he said, 'Why, you see, sir, he is my messmate, for one thing, and a seaman that knows his work; and then he has been well eddycated, and he knows when to hold his tongue, does Sam.'
"I asked Cooper why he was so fond of Welch. He only grunted in an uneasy way at first; but, when I pressed for a reply, he let out two words—'Capital company'; and got away from me.
"Their friendship, though often roughly expressed, is really a tender and touching sentiment. I think either of these sailors would bare his back and take a dozen lashes in place of his messmate. I too once thought I had made such a friend. Eheu!
"Both Cooper and Welch seem, by their talk, to consider the ship a living creature. Cooper chews. Welch only smokes, and often lets his pipe out; he is so voluble.
"Captain Hudson is quite a character, or, I might say, two characters; for he is one man when he is sober, and another when he is the worse for liquor; and that, I am sorry to see, is very often. Captain Hudson, sober, is a rough, bearish seaman, with a quick, experienced eye, that takes in every rope in the ship, as he walks up and down his quarter-deck. He either evades or bluntly declines conversation, and gives his whole mind to sailing his ship.
"Captain Hudson, drunk, is a garrulous man, who seems to have drifted back into the past. He comes up to you and talks of his own accord, and always about himself, and what he did fifteen or twenty years since. He forgets whatever has occurred half an hour ago; and his eye, which was an eagle's, is now a mole's. He no longer sees what his sailors are doing alow or aloft; to be sure he no longer cares; his present ship may take care of herself while he is talking of his past ones. But the surest indicia of inebriety in Hudson are these two. First, his nose is red. Secondly, he discourses upon a seaman's duty to his employers. Ebrius rings the changes on his 'duty to his employers' till drowsiness attacks his hearers. Cicero de officiis was all very well at a certain period of one's life, but bibulus nauta de officiis is rather too much.
"N. B.—Except when his nose is red not a word about his 'duty to his employers.' That phrase, like a fine lady, never ventures into the morning air. It is purely post-prandial, and sacred to occasions when he is utterly neglecting his duty to his employers, and to everybody else.
"All this is ridiculous enough, but somewhat alarming. To think that her precious life should be intrusted to the care and skill of so unreliable a captain!
"Joseph Wylie, the mate, is less eccentric but even more remarkable. He is one of those powerfully built fellows whom Nature, one would think, constructed to gain all their ends by force and directness. But no such thing; he goes about as softly as a cat; is always popping out of holes and corners; and I can see he watches me and tries to hear what I say to her. He is civil to me when I speak to him; yet I notice he avoids me quietly. Altogether, there is something about him that puzzles me. Why was he so reluctant to let me on board as a passenger? Why did he tell a downright falsehood? For he said there was no room for me; yet, even now, there are two cabins vacant, and he has taken possession of them.
"The mate of this ship has several barrels of spirits in his cabin, or rather cabins, and it is he who makes the captain drunk. I learned this from one of the boys. This looks ugly. I fear Wylie is a bad, designing man, who wishes to ruin the captain, and so get his place. But, meantime, the ship might be endangered by this drunkard's misconduct. I shall watch Wylie closely, and perhaps put the captain on his guard against this false friend.
"Last night, a breeze got up about sunset, and H. R. came on deck for half an hour. I welcomed her as calmly as I could: but I felt my voice tremble and my heart throb. She told me the voyage tired her much; but it was the last she should have to make. How strange, how hellish (God forgive me for saying so!) it seems that she should love him. But, does she love him? Can she love him? Could she love him if she knew all? Know him she shall before she marries him. For the present, be still, my heart.
"She soon went below and left me desolate. I wandered all about the ship, and, at last, I came upon the inseparables, Welch and Cooper. They were squatted on the deck, and Welch's tongue was going as usual. He was talking about this Wylie, and saying that, in all his ships, he had never known such a mate as this; why, the captain was under his thumb, he then gave a string of captains, each of whom would have given his mate a round dozen at the gangway, if he had taken so much on him as this one does.
"'Grog!' suggested Cooper, in extenuation.
"Welch admitted Wylie was liberal with that, and friendly enough with the men; but, still, he preferred to see a ship commanded by the captain, and not by a lubber like Wylie.
"I expressed some surprise at this term, and said I had envied Wylie's nerves in a gale of wind we encountered early in the voyage.
"The talking sailor explained, 'In course, he has been to sea afore this, and weathered many a gale. But so has the cook. That don't make a man a sailor. You ask him how to send down a to'-gallant yard or gammon a bowsprit, or even mark a lead line, and he'll stare at ye like Old Nick, when the angel caught him with the red-hot tongs, and questioned him out of the Church Catechism. Ask Sam there if ye don't believe me. Sam, what do you think of this Wylie for a seaman?'
"Cooper could not afford anything so precious, in his estimate of things, as a word; but he lifted a great brawny hand, and gave a snap with his finger and thumb that disposed of the mate's pretensions to seamanship more expressively than words could have done it.
"The breeze has freshened, and the ship glides rapidly through the water, bearing us all homeward. H. R. has resumed her place upon the deck; and all seems bright again. I ask myself how we existed without the sight of her.
"This morning the wind shifted to the southwest; the captain surprised us by taking in sail. But his sober eye had seen something more than ours; for at noon it blew a gale, and by sunset it was deemed prudent to bring the ship's head to the wind, and we are now lying to. The ship lurches, and the wind howls through the bare rigging; but she rides buoyantly, and no danger is apprehended.
"Last night, as I lay in my cabin, unable to sleep, I heard some heavy blows strike the ship's side repeatedly, causing quite a vibration. I felt alarmed, and went out to tell the captain. But I was obliged to go on my hands and knees, such was the force of the wind. Passing the mate's cabin, I heard sounds that made me listen acutely; and I then found the blows were being struck inside the ship. I got to the captain and told him. 'Oh,' said he, 'ten to one it's the mate nailing down his chests, or the like.' But I assured him the blows struck the side of the ship, and, at my earnest request, he came out and listened. He swore a great oath, and said the lubber would be through the ship's side. He then tried the cabin door, but it was locked.
"The sounds ceased directly.
"We called to the mate, but received no reply for a long time. At last Wylie came out of the gun-room, looking rather pale, and asked what was the matter.
"I told him he ought to know best, for the blows were heard where he had just come from.
"'Blows!' said he; 'I believe you. Why, a tierce of butter had got adrift, and was bumping up and down the hold like thunder.' He then asked us whether that was what we had disturbed him for, entered his cabin, and almost slammed the door in our faces.
"I remarked to the captain on his disrespectful conduct. The captain was civil, and said I was right; he was a cross-grained, unmanageable brute, and he wished he was out of the ship. 'But you see, sir, he has got the ear of the merchant ashore; and so I am obliged to hold a candle to the Devil, as the saying is.' He then fired a volley of oaths and abuse at the offender; and, not to encourage foul language, I retired to my cabin.
"The wind declined toward daybreak, and the ship recommenced her voyage at 8 A. M.; but under treble reefed topsails and reefed courses.
"I caught the captain and mate talking together in the friendliest way possible. That Hudson is a humbug; there is some mystery between him and the mate.
"To-day H. R. was on deck for several hours, conversing sweetly and looking like the angel she is. But happiness soon flies from me; a steamer came in sight, bound for Sydney. She signaled us to heave to, and send a boat. This was done, and the boat brought back a letter for her. It seems they took us for the Shannon, in which ship she was expected.
"The letter was from him. How her cheek flushed and her eye beamed as she took it! And, oh, the sadness, the agony, that stood beside her unheeded.
"I left the deck; I could not have contained myself. What a thing is wealth! By wealth, that wretch can stretch out his hand across the ocean, and put a letter into her hand under my very eye. Away goes all that I have gained by being near her while he is far away. He is not in England now—he is here. His odious presence has driven me from her. Oh, that I could be a child again, or in my grave, to get away from this Hell of Love and Hate."
At this point, we beg leave to take the narrative into our own hands again.
Mr. Hazel actually left the deck to avoid the sight of Helen Rolleston's flushed cheek and beaming eyes, reading Arthur Wardlaw's letter.
And here we may as well observe that he retired not merely because the torture was hard to bear. He had some disclosures to make, on reaching England; but his good sense told him this was not the time or the place to make them, nor Helen Rolleston the person to whom, in the first instance, they ought to be made.
While he tries to relieve his swelling heart by putting its throbs on paper (and, in truth, this is some faint relief, for want of which many a less unhappy man than Hazel has gone mad), let us stay by the lady's side, and read her letter with her.
"RUSSELL SQUARE, Dec. 15, 1865.
"MY DEAR LOVE—Hearing that the Antelope steam-packet was going to Sydney, by way of Cape Horn, I have begged the captain, who is under some obligations to me, to keep a good lookout for the Shannon, homeward bound, and board her with these lines, weather permitting.
"Of course the chances are you will not receive them at sea; but still you possibly may; and my heart is so full of you, I seize any excuse for overflowing; and then I picture to myself that bright face reading an unexpected letter in mid-ocean, and so I taste beforehand the greatest pleasure my mind can conceive—the delight of giving you pleasure, my own sweet Helen.
"News, I have little. You know how deeply and devotedly you are beloved—know it so well that I feel words are almost wasted in repeating it Indeed, the time, I hope, is at hand when the word 'love' will hardly be mentioned between us. For my part, I think it will be too visible in every act, and look, and word of mine, to need repetition. We do not speak much about the air we live in. We breathe it, and speak with it, not of it.
"I suppose all lovers are jealous. I think I should go mad if you were to give me a rival; but then I do not understand that ill-natured jealousy which would rob the beloved object of all affections but the one. I know my Helen loves her father—loves him, perhaps, as well, or better, than she does me. Well, in spite of that, I love him too. Do you know, I never see that erect form, that model of courage and probity, come into a room, but I say to myself, 'Here comes my benefactor; but for this man there would be no Helen in the world.' Well, dearest, an unexpected circumstance has given me a little military influence (these things do happen in the City); and I really believe that, what with his acknowledged merits (I am secretly informed a very high personage said, the other day, he had not received justice), and the influence I speak of, a post will shortly be offered to your father that will enable him to live, henceforth, in England, with comfort, I might say, affluence. Perhaps he might live with us. That depends upon himself.
"Looking forward to this, and my own still greater happiness, diverts my mind awhile from the one ever-pressing anxiety. But, alas! it will return. By this time my Helen is on the seas—the terrible, the treacherous, the cruel seas, that spare neither beauty nor virtue, nor the longing hearts at home. I have conducted this office for some years, and thought I knew care and anxiety. But I find I knew neither till now.
"I have two ships at sea, the Shannon and the Proserpine. The Proserpine carries eighteen chests of specie, worth a hundred and thirty thousand pounds. I don't care one straw whether she sinks or swims. But the Shannon carries my darling; and every gust at night awakens me, and every day I go into the great room at Lloyd's and watch the anemometer. O, God! be merciful, and bring my angel safe to me! O, God! be just, and strike her not for my offenses!
"Besides the direct perils of the sea are some others you might escape by prudence. Pray avoid the night air, for my sake, who could not live if any evil befell you; and be careful in your diet. You were not looking so well as usual when I left. Would I had words to make you know your own value. Then you would feel it a duty to be prudent.
"But I must not sadden you with my fears; let me turn to my hopes. How bright they are! what joy, what happiness, is sailing toward me, nearer and nearer every day! I ask myself what am I that such paradise should be mine.
"My love, when we are one, shall we share every thought, or shall I keep commerce, speculation, and its temptations away from your pure spirit? Sometimes I think I should like to have neither thought nor occupation unshared by you; and that you would purify trade itself by your contact; at other times I say to myself, 'Oh, never soil that angel with your miserable business; but go home to her as if you were going from earth to heaven, for a few blissful hours.' But you shall decide this question, and every other.
"Must I close this letter? Must I say no more, though I have scarcely begun?
"Yes, I will end, since, perhaps, you will never see it.
"When I have sealed it, I mean to hold it in my clasped hands, and so pray the Almighty to take it safe to you, and to bring you safe to him who can never know peace nor joy till he sees you once more.
"Your devoted and anxious lover,
"ARTHUR WARDLAW."
Helen Rolleston read this letter more than once. She liked it none the less for being disconnected and unbusiness-like. She had seen her Arthur's business letters; models of courteous conciseness. She did not value such compositions. This one she did. She smiled over it, all beaming and blushing; she kissed it, and read it again, and sat with it in her lap.
But by and by her mood changed, and, when Mr. Hazel ventured upon deck again, he found her with her forehead sinking on her extended arm, and the lax hand of that same arm holding the letter. She was crying.
The whole drooping attitude was so lovely, so feminine, yet so sad, that Hazel stood irresolute, looking wistfully at her.
She caught sight of him, and, by a natural impulse, turned gently away, as if to hide her tears. But the next moment she altered her mind, and said, with a quiet dignity that came naturally to her at times, "Why should I hide my care from you, sir? Mr. Hazel, may I speak to you as a clergyman?"
"Certainly," said Mr. Hazel, in a somewhat faint voice.
She pointed to a seat, and he sat down near her.
She was silent for some time; her lip quivered a little; she was struggling inwardly for that decent composure which on certain occasions distinguishes the lady from the mere woman; and it was with a pretty firm voice she said what follows:
"I am going to tell you a little secret; one I have kept from my own father. It is—that I have not very long to live."
Her hazel eye rested calmly on his face while she said these words quietly.
He received them with amazement at first; amazement that soon deepened into horror. "What do you mean?" he gasped. "What words are these?"
"Thank you for minding so much," said she sweetly. "I will tell you. I have fits of coughing, not frequent, but violent; and then blood very often comes from my lungs. That is a bad sign, you know. I have been so for four months now, and I am a good deal wasted; my hand used to be very plump; look at it now. Poor Arthur!"
She turned away her head to drop a gentle, unselfish tear or two; and Hazel stared with increasing alarm at the lovely but wasted hand she still held out to him, and glanced, too, at Arthur Wardlaw's letter, held slightly by the beloved fingers.
He said nothing, and, when she looked round, again, he was pale and trembling. The revelation was so sudden.
"Pray be calm, sir," said she. "We need speak of this no more. But now, I think, you will not be surprised that I come to you for religious advice and consolation, short as our acquaintance is."
"I am in no condition to give them," said Hazel, in great agitation. "I can think of nothing but how to save you. May Heaven help me, and give me wisdom for that."
"This is idle," said Helen Rolleston, gently but firmly. "I have had the best advice for months, and I get worse; and, Mr. Hazel, I shall never be better. So aid me to bow to the will of Heaven. Sir, I do not repine at leaving the world; but it does grieve me to think how my departure will affect those whose happiness is very, very dear to me."
She then looked at the letter, blushed, and hesitated a moment; but ended by giving it to him whom she had applied to as her religious adviser.
"Oblige me by reading that. And, when you have, I think you will grant me a favor I wish to ask you. Poor fellow! so full of hopes that I am doomed to disappoint."
She rose to hide her emotion, and left Arthur Wardlaw's letter in the hands of him who loved her, if possible, more devotedly than Arthur Wardlaw did; and she walked the deck pensively, little dreaming how strange a thing she had done.
As for Hazel, he was in a situation poignant with agony; only the heavy blow that had just fallen had stunned and benumbed him. He felt a natural repugnance to read this letter. But she had given him no choice. He read it. In reading it he felt a mortal sickness come over him, but he persevered; he read it carefully to the end, and he was examining the signature keenly, when Miss Rolleston rejoined him, and, taking the letter from him, placed it in her bosom before his eyes.
"He loves me; does he not?" said she wistfully.
Hazel looked half stupidly in her face for a moment; then, with a candor which was part of his character, replied, doggedly, "Yes, the man who wrote that letter loves you."
"Then you can pity him, and I may venture to ask you the favor to— It will be a bitter grief and disappointment to him. Will you break it to him as gently as you can; will you say that his Helen— Will you tell him what I have told you?"
"I decline."
This point-blank refusal surprised Helen Rolleston; all the more that it was uttered with a certain sullenness, and even asperity, she had never seen till then in this gentle clergyman.
It made her fear she had done wrong in asking it; and she looked ashamed and distressed.
However, the explanation soon followed.
"My business," said he, "is to prolong your precious life; and making up your mind to die is not the way. You shall have no encouragement in such weakness from me. Pray let me be your physician."
"Thank you," said Helen, coldly; "I have my own physician."
"No doubt; but he shows me his incapacity by allowing you to live on pastry and sweets, things that are utter poison to you. Disease of the lungs is curable, but not by drugs and unwholesome food."
"Mr. Hazel," said the lady, "we will drop the subject, if you please. It has taken an uninteresting turn."
"To you, perhaps; but not to me."
"Excuse me, sir; if you took that real friendly interest in me and my condition I was vain enough to think you might, you would hardly have refused me the first favor I ever asked you; and," drawing herself up proudly, "need I say the last?"
"You are unjust," said Hazel, sadly; "unjust beyond endurance. I refuse you anything that is for your good? I, who would lay down my life with unmixed joy for you?"
"Mr. Hazel!" And she drew back from him with a haughty stare.
"Learn the truth why I cannot, and will not, talk to Arthur Wardlaw about you. For one thing, he is my enemy, and I am his."
"His enemy? my Arthur's!"
"His mortal enemy. And I am going to England to clear an innocent man, and expose Arthur Wardlaw's guilt."
"Indeed," said Helen, with lofty contempt. "And pray what has he done to you?"
"He had a benefactor, a friend; he entrapped him into cashing a note of hand, which he must have known or suspected to be forged; then basely deserted him at the trial, and blasted his friend's life forever."
"Arthur Wardlaw did that?"
"He did; and that very James Seaton was his victim."
Her delicate nostrils were expanded with wrath, and her eyes flashed fire. "Mr. Hazel, you are a liar and a slanderer."
The man gave a kind of shudder, as if cold steel had passed through his heart. But his fortitude was great; he said doggedly, "Time will show. Time, and a jury of our countrymen."
"I will be his witness. I will say, this is the malice of a rival. Yes, sir, you forget that you have let out the motive of this wicked slander. You love me yourself; Heaven forgive me for profaning the name of love!"
"Heaven forgive you for blaspheming the purest, fondest love that ever one creature laid at the feet of another. Yes, Helen Rolleston, I love you; and will save you from the grave and from the villain Wardlaw; both from one and the other."
"Oh," said Helen, clinching her teeth, "I hope this is true; I hope you do love me, you wretch; then I may find a way to punish you for belying the absent, and stabbing me to the heart, through him."
Her throat swelled with a violent convulsion, and she could utter no more for a moment; and she put her white handkerchief to her lips, and drew it away discolored slightly with blood.
"Ah! you love me," she cried; "then know, for your comfort, that you have shortened my short life a day or two, by slandering him to my face, you monster. Look there at your love, and see what it has done for me."
She put the handkerchief under his eyes, with hate gleaming in her own.
Mr. Hazel turned ashy pale, and glared at it with horror; he could have seen his own shed with stoical firmness; but a mortal sickness struck his heart at the sight of her blood. His hands rose and quivered in a peculiar way, his sight left him, and the strong man, but tender lover, staggered, and fell heavily on the deck, in a dead swoon, and lay at her feet pale and motionless.
She uttered a scream, and sailors came running.
They lifted him, with rough sympathy; and Helen Rolleston retired to her cabin, panting with agitation. But she had little or no pity for the slanderer. She read Arthur Wardlaw's letter again, kissed it, wept over it, reproached herself for not having loved the writer enough; and vowed to repair that fault. "Poor slandered Arthur," said she; "from this hour I will love you as devotedly as you love me."
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