Chapter XLIII: A Noble Manhood Restored

A long silence ensued in that sickroom after the departure of the surgeon, a silence of painful heart-throbs on Arley’s part, of grave wondering on Philip’s.

His mind was beginning to recover its wonted balance and activity, and he was striving to recall the past.

He remembered events up to the time of his fall, but since then everything was, of course, an utter blank to him.

“Where am I? You have not told me yet,” he said at length, in a low, constrained tone, and without looking at Arley.

“In St. George’s Hospital--you were brought here directly after your accident.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Ten days.”

“How long have you been here?” and now he turned an anxious look of inquiry upon her.

“I came the next morning after you were injured.”

“Why did you come, Arley?”

She flushed; it was a hard question to answer.

“Because--the paper stated that your injuries were probably fatal, and----”

“And?” he repeated, in a breathless whisper.

“And I could not bear that you should die, and I not see you once more,” she returned, with drooping eyes, in which there were tears.

“Have you been here ever since?”

“Yes.”

There was an oppressive silence for a few moments, then:

“Arley, I have not deserved this from you,” Philip said, in a tremulous tone, “it would have been but just if you had left me to die without a thought.”

“No, I could not do that,” she replied, in an earnest tone, and bending a little nearer to him. “I thought that--if you must go into eternity--and it were possible--I wanted to be at peace with you.”

“You wanted to be at peace with me?” he repeated, with an astonished look. “I do not see how that could be possible, after----”

“Never mind how,” she said, gently, “the fact remains the same--I do wish it.”

“But--I am going to get well now,” Philip said, after another short silence, and lifting a sorrowful yet half-appealing look to her.

“Yes.”

“Would you have come to me all the same, if you had known it?”

“I--I prayed that you might be allowed to live,” she murmured. She could not tell him that she would have come, for she did not know her own heart well enough to tell whether she would or not.

A flush mounted to his brow, and his eye kindled for a moment; then he continued in a hopeless tone, and with a weary sigh:

“Yes, I might have known you would never wish ill to any one--you were always kind and noble, Arley, but no one could have blamed you if you had been relieved at the prospect of being permanently released from all ties that bound you to me, who has treated you as I have done.”

Arley flushed now. His words jarred upon her. It was very evident that he did not expect that her desire to be at peace with him would continue to be extended to him now that he had a new lease of life.

“It was very good of you,” he went on, in the same tone, after a moment of evidently painful thought, “to remain here and care for me. Maybe you felt it a sort of duty, since you bear my name, but, no matter what the motive was, it was very kind, and I shall always remember it with gratitude; it will be very pleasant to think of in the future, that you were by my side to do for me even though I was unconscious of the fact and could not appreciate it. I suppose I shall not need so much attention now that I am getting better, and a nurse can relieve you from this confinement; but while we are talking of this, I do want to tell you, face to face, that I can never forgive myself for the wrong that I have done you, and it will never cease to haunt me while I live. But nothing that I can say of myself--nothing that any one could say of me would be too severe. I feel that no sentence, however austere, would be unjust, and I would most gladly perform the harshest penance if I could but wipe out the remembrance of the past two years from your heart and my own. If I could put you back, Arley, where you were when I first met you at Hazelmere, I would gladly forfeit every future earthly prospect, were it required of me to do so. Words are weak to make you understand what I feel, but if you could look into my heart you would see that I am sincere. I cannot ask you to forgive me, for I know that I do not deserve it; but--I wish you would allow me to work for you, Arley--pray do not refuse me this boon, and you shall henceforth know no earthly care; I will devote all my energies to making your path through life as smooth as it may be after the ruin which I have wrought; and, if I am spared, all my future shall prove how I repent of the unhappiness which I have caused you.”

He glanced up at her with an appealing look, but she sat like a statue, only her cheeks were a burning crimson, and her eyes were cast down so that he could not see their expression.

“Why,” he asked, hesitatingly, “would you not use the income which I authorized Mr. Holley to pay you?”

“Did you expect that I would use it?” Arley asked, a touch of her old spirit in her tone.

“I hoped that you would, for, of course, I knew your circumstances, and how hard it would be for you to take care of yourself; still I knew, too, that you were very proud, and I had a fear that you might reject it--but it would have comforted me greatly to feel that I could do ever so little toward atonement for the past.”

“I could not understand how you were able to settle such a sum upon me,” Arley replied, lifting her eyes and looking at him searchingly.

“Ah!” he cried, in a startled tone, and instantly comprehending her thought, “did you think that I had come by it dishonestly? that I had gambled for it? I see,” he continued, with a sigh, “you have no reason to think anything good of me, and if you thought that, it is no wonder that you would not use the money; but such an idea never occurred to me before, and I tell you the truth, Arley, all the gambling I ever did in my life was done in Madrid, and I look back upon the frenzy of that time with deepest shame.”

“But you could never have earned twenty thousand pounds since your return,” Arley returned, wondering more and more where the money had come from.

“No,” he said, flushing violently; “I have made a great mistake--I should have explained to you how I came by it--though after your refusal to appropriate it, I should hesitate to do so, except to clear myself from your suspicion that I had gambled for it. It was a legacy, Arley, left me recently by an aunt.”

“And you settled it all upon me,” she cried, astonished at this evidence of the radical change in him.

Only two years previous he had forfeited his honor and truth, and had sacrificed her upon the altar of his ambition for the sake of winning her twenty thousand pounds; money had been his whole aim and object, and now he had deprived himself of a recent legacy, to place her in a position of independence and comfort; besides this, he had burdened himself with the care and support of Eddie Winthrope, the maimed and friendless orphan.

A feeling of respect, almost of reverence, was beginning to take possession of her heart, for there were surely noble deeds and evidence of a goodness which she had believed was wholly foreign to him.

Tears sprang into her eyes, and a song of thanksgiving arose within her for a noble manhood restored.

“I was very glad to settle it upon you,” he answered, evasively; he wondered what she would say if she knew that it was but a very small portion of his legacy. “But,” he continued, humbly, “now that you know I came by it honestly, if you would accept it, it would take such a load from my mind--it has driven me nearly mad, since I came to my senses, to think of you, who, until that fatal day two years ago, never knew a care, toiling for your own living. I know I have no right to sue to you for favors, but there are two that I beg you in mercy to grant me, if I must indeed take up the burden of life again; one is to keep this money--let me have the comfort of knowing that I have thrown that much of care and protection about you; the other--oh! Arley, be pitiful--enough of forgiveness to cause you to regard me with something of compassion instead of hatred.”

His voice broke in the appeal. It was like the cry of a drowning man--agonizing, beseeching, yet almost hopeless.

Arley’s heart melted within her. She could never doubt his sincerity after that.

She got up from her chair, and, going to the door, locked it. She wished no intruders to encroach upon that interview. Then she went back and sat down beside him again.

“Philip,” she began in a trembling voice, as she bent toward him--and, with a great heart-throb he saw that the tears were rolling swiftly over her cheeks--“when I read in the paper that you were injured and would probably die, the fountains of my heart seemed to be instantly unsealed, and my first act was to cry to Heaven to save you, and--I would forgive all. Philip, I--I have forgiven.

“Don’t do that, please,” she continued, as a great sob burst from him at those blessed words. “I cannot bear to see you weep; and I must tell you that I returned to England with very hard and bitter feelings against you. I said that I would never forgive you--that I would never even look upon your face again if I could help it. But, at the very first, your letter staggered me. I felt, even though I did not like to acknowledge it, that the ring of true repentance was in it, even though it revealed depths of evil and wrong of which I had never dreamed. Then I was even more amazed at receiving the quarterly allowance from Mr. Holley, and to learn that you had settled a fortune upon me. But this hardened me somewhat again, for I believed, as you surmise, that you had not come by it honestly. I felt sure that you could not have earned it, with business ever so flourishing, and I reasoned that only a successful handling of cards or dice could have put you in possession of it, and a freak of some kind had prompted you to settle it upon me. But, one day, I met Eddie Winthrope in the art gallery. He was looking at my pictures----”

Philip uttered a low exclamation of surprise at this.

“Were you that lady? He came home full of enthusiasm over a lady whom he had met--an _artiste_, he said she was--and who had told him so much about painting, and was very kind to him.”

“Yes, it was I,” Arley returned; “and from him I learned of all that you had done and were still doing for him--how sad you were, how hard you were working, and how ill you seemed to be. From that hour my feelings toward you began to change, though I fought against it. I had been unhappy enough before--I was doubly wretched then; for I knew that if you were aiming at a better life--if you were truly repentant and striving to become again the noble man I once believed you to be, I was wrong to cherish such a bitter and unforgiving spirit toward you. I tried, at all events, to think so; for, in my pride and anger, I said that no woman could love a man who had used her so--no one could overlook and forgive what I had suffered. But when I read that item in the paper, there came a sudden revulsion--hush! you must not do so,” she interposed, for the strong man had broken down utterly, and was sobbing like a child, while the tears rained over his cheeks.

It was no shame for him to weep thus--it was an honor, rather, to his manhood; and very tenderly Arley wiped those tears away, feeling that every one was a precious pledge of future happiness, and of the love, and care, and tenderness with which he would surround her henceforth.

“Oh, say it again--that you have forgiven?” he pleaded, when he could command himself sufficiently to speak.

“Yes, all--everything; and”--she bent closer over him, her cheeks a rich crimson, a look in her beautiful dark eyes which set all his pulses bounding and his heart throbbing with a wild, sweet hope--“and it is not merely from a sense of duty, either, Philip; it is because I--still love you as in those first beautiful days at Hazelmere.”

“Oh, my darling!”

It was a cry of wonder, almost of awe, at this evidence of a full, free, and absolute pardon.

His voice was weak and thick; he trembled with excitement, and he reached forth, grasping her hands in a clasp that was almost painful.

She smiled as she tried to soothe him.

“I shall have to stop if you excite yourself thus,” she said; “but I find that my heart has been a traitor all along; my love has never died, it has only been benumbed, and the change in you has aroused it to new life, in spite of every effort to the contrary.”

“I do not see how there can be an atom of love in it for me, Arley,” Philip said, in a wondering tone.

“Had I been a maiden, I never could have confessed this to you, Philip; but, being your wife, I suppose I have a right to do so,” Arley said, softly; but her face was averted and covered with blushes as she spoke.

“It is the most blessed confession ever granted to an erring man; say it again, Arley,” he pleaded, as if even now he doubted the evidence of his own senses.

Lower and lower bent the beautiful flushed face, until her lips almost touched his ear.

“I love you, Philip,” she whispered.

There was a moment of utter silence; then he broke it.

“Oh, my wife! I never, never dared to hope for this; I never dared to believe that you could do more than say, ‘I forgive; go and sin no more;’ and I should have tried to live out my life apart from you, content even to have gained so much.”

He wound his arms about her and held her in his trembling clasp.

“My darling,” he went on, “can it be true? Is it possible that after all my vileness and cruelty I am to be so blessed as this? How I have treated you! and yet I have always loved you, Arley, strange as it may seem. It was a selfish love at first, I own, but genuine, as far as I was able to love any one besides myself and my ambition. Do you remember that evening at Hazelmere, when you fastened that flower upon my coat, and I called you the Wentworth Rose? No one had ever quickened my pulse as you did then, with your pretty, piquant ways, and even afterward, when I had won you--chiefly for your money--I own it with shame, dear--there was a feeling of tenderness for you which I had never experienced for any other during all my life. But I began to awake to a deeper, nobler love that day in the court-room at Madrid. My whole soul was thrilled as I looked into your pure face, and listened to your noble, appealing words. But the demons of avarice and self-will were in full possession of me then, and I seemed to have no power to tear myself from their influence, though for a moment I was almost upon the point of yielding to you. It was only when I had brought my evil game to an abrupt end, by making audacious proposals to Lady Elaine, and she had hurled her scorn and contempt with crushing force at me, and then, pitying the weak dolt who had been so imbecile, had appealed to me, something as you had done, to turn my course and become a man, that I came to my senses and realized the depth to which I had sunk. Then I realized all I had lost; looking back over the past, and remembering your patience, your forbearance, your unvarying kindness, a wild and hopeless love took possession of me, and I vowed that I would make myself the man you believed me to be when you met me at Hazelmere. It was the only hope of comfort I had for the future, that I might eventually come up to your ideal of a noble man. At times I have nearly gone mad with thinking what happiness might have been mine but for my own folly; and when I learned of your return I prayed that I might die, for I felt that it would be continual torture to live here in London with you, and never be permitted to see you. When you sent back that money to me, it was like a dagger plunged into my heart, for it told me that even the comfort of providing for your needs was to be denied me. But, oh! you have told me that you love me still; you have acknowledged yourself as my wife; my cup of happiness is almost too full.”

Arley thought that it was time for this exciting talk to end.

It was very sweet to be thus infolded in his arms and to feel that at last her burdens were all removed, and she could henceforth trust in his love and feel it to be the most precious thing in life.

But he was spent with the excitement of the past half hour and needed rest.

Gently releasing herself from his clinging arms, she said:

“You must be quiet for a while now; it will not do for you to talk any more at present. I fear you are too weary already. Will you try to sleep?”

“Yes, my darling, if you will promise not to leave me; for if I wake and find you gone I shall fear that all this blessededness has been but a dream.”

“I will not leave you,” Arley said; “drink this, and then I will sit by you until you wake.”

She held a nourishing drink to his lips, and he took it with relish.

“Now sleep, dear,” she said, and bending, with a shy smile on her lips, she touched them to his with the first, the only kiss she had ever given him since their marriage morn.