Chapter XXXI: Magnanimity

“Though with my high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my anger
Do I take part. The better action is
In patience than in vengeance.”—_Shakspeare._

Mark Sutherland had been home eight days before he broke to Rosalie the sad news of his uncle’s betrayal of his trust, and her own loss of fortune.

Rosalie heard it with sorrow and amazement. She replied by not one word, but dropped her head upon her hands, and remained silent so long that her husband became anxious and alarmed. In truth, it was a most bitter disappointment to the young wife—she had looked forward to coming of age, and coming into possession of her fortune, with so much impatience, with such bright anticipations, not for herself, but for her husband’s sake. It would have placed them in so much more favourable circumstances. It would have relaxed the tight strain of office work from the overtasked, weary lawyer, and left him more leisure for the study of the higher and more attractive and more honourable branches of his dry profession. It would have afforded him means and leisure for engaging actively in political life, and never was the country more in need of honest men “to the fore.” It would have enabled him to assist largely in the public improvements of the growing city. Nay, what good might they not have done with the large fortune that was lost? Indeed, it was a sudden, stunning blow to Rosalie; and oh! worse than all, was the thought of him whose guilty hand had dealt that blow. She sat so long overwhelmed by the shock, that her husband—Heaven forgive him!—misunderstood her silence and stillness, and misconstrued her noble heart. He said—

“Rosalie, my love, look up! This loss of fortune, which you take so much to heart, is not inevitable, irrecoverable. Disclaim the signature, expose the forgery”—

She raised her head, and looked up at him, with wonder in her mild, mournful eyes.

“And what then?”

“Your estate cannot then be touched by the forged mortgage.”

“And the man who confidingly loaned the money on the mortgage?”

“Will lose forty thousand dollars.”

“And Clement Sutherland?”

“May go to the State’s prison for ten years.”

She suddenly dropped her head upon her hands, and shuddered through all her frame, and remained silent for another while. And then she rose up and threw herself in his arms, and clasped him around the neck, saying—

“We must lose it, dear Mark; we must lose it! Oh! I am so sorry for you!”

“My poor Rose, I knew what your decision would be; I told the wretched man so. But, my dearest, it is proper that I should set the matter before you in its true light. Should you fail to expose the forged mortgage, you will not only lose the sum of forty thousand dollars, which was raised on your plantation, but, by the foreclosure of the mortgage, and the peremptory sale of the plantation, the property will be sacrificed at about a fourth of its real value, and you will lose all, my poor Rosalie.”

“I do suppose so. Well, well; let all go—all, but peace of mind; for, my dearest Mark, could you or I enjoy peace of mind—could we take pleasure in our morning ramble, or our evening fireside—could we take comfort in anything, dearest Mark, if a deliberate deed of ours had consigned a fellow-creature—an old, gray-headed man—to a prison? Oh, never let it be dreamed of, Mark.”

“That is a woman’s thought! Men would deem it a stern duty to prosecute the criminal.”

“And do you?”

“I should so deem it, but for the thought that this is the old man’s first offence, under great temptation; that it surely will be his last; that punishment, in his case, would not be reformatory, but ruinous; that no one can be tempted by the impunity of his crime, since no one but ourselves know it.”

This was all that was said then. Mr. Bolling’s entrance interrupted the conversation; and Billy soon appeared and summoned the party to tea. And though Rosalie presided at her supper-table that evening with a graver face than usual, yet by the next morning she had recovered her self-possession and cheerfulness, and met them all at breakfast with a smile.