There was not a dry eye among the servants when my sister was carried from the home where she had been so happy. Of course, they all knew the story--it had spread like wild fire all over the neighborhood--yet every one understood how vitally important it was that it should be kept from her.
Can I ever tell in words how kindly Lady Thesiger received her? True friends, they took no note of altered fortunes. My sister was comfortably installed in the charming rooms they had prepared for her.
Her favorite maid was to stay with her.
Then came the agony I had long known must come. I must give up Agatha.
How could I, who had not one shilling in my pocket, marry the daughter of Sir John Thesiger, a girl, delicate and refined, who had been brought up in all imaginable luxury? Let me work hard as I might, I could hardly hope to make two hundred a year. In all honor and in all conscience I was bound to give her up.
I had no prospect before me save that of returning to my former position as clerk. Agatha Thesiger must never be a clerk"s wife, she who could marry any peer in the land!
Talk of waiting and hoping! I had nothing to hope for. The savings of my whole life would not keep her, as she had been kept, for even one year.
I must give her up. Ah, my G.o.d! It was hard--so bitterly hard! I told Sir John, and he looked wretched as myself.
"I see, I see. It is the only thing to be done. If I could give her a fortune you should not lose her; but I cannot, and she must not come to poverty."
Lady Thesiger wept bitterly over me.
"I foresaw it from the first," she said. "I knew it was not the loss of Crown Anstey, but the loss of Agatha, that would be your sorest trial."
Then I said "good-by" to her whom I had hoped so soon to call my wife. I kissed her white face and trembling hands for the last time.
But the dear soul clung to me, weeping.
"You may say you must leave me a thousand times, Edgar, but I shall never be left. I shall wait for you; and if it be never in your power to claim me, I shall marry no other man. I will be yours in death as in life."
And though I tried to shake her resolution, I knew that it would be so.
I knew that no other man would ever call her wife.
The day before I left, Mrs. Trevelyan, with her little Sir Rupert, took possession of the Hall. She must have found many thorns in her path, for, although she had attained her heart"s desire, and was now mistress of Crown Anstey, she was shunned and disliked by all the neighborhood.
"An adventuress," they called her, and as such refused to receive her into their society. Perhaps she had foreseen this when she wished to marry me.
By Sir John"s influence, the post of secretary was found for me with an English n.o.bleman residing in Paris. I was to live in the house; my duties were sufficiently onerous, and I was to receive a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum; so that, after all, I was better off than I had once expected to be.
I bade farewell to Agatha, to Clare, to my kind friends Sir John and Lady Thesiger. G.o.d knew the grief that filled my heart; I cannot describe it.
On my road to the station I met the Crown Anstey carriage. Mrs Trevelyan bowed to me from it. She was taking a drive with the little Sir Rupert.
"G.o.d bless the child!" I said, as his little face smiled from the carriage window. "G.o.d bless him and send him a happy life!"
It took me some little time to settle down to my new life. My employer, Lord Winter, lived in the Champs Elysees. He preferred Paris to England, because it was brighter and gayer. I often wondered how that mattered to him, for he lived only in his books.
I was required to a.s.sist him in making extracts, answering letters, searching for all kinds of odd information, and I do believe I learned more in that time than I should have done in a lifetime differently spent.
I became reconciled to it after a hard struggle. From Harden Manor I constantly received the kindest letters. Agatha wrote to me, and although the word "love" seldom occurred in her letters, I knew her heart was, and always would be mine. She would never forget me, nor would that crown of all sorrows be mine--I should never have to give her up to a wealthier rival. Although she said nothing of the kind in her letters, I felt that it was true.
A year pa.s.sed, and at last came good tidings of my sister; she was able to sit up, even to walk across the room, and the doctor said that in another month she would in all probability be able to take her place in the world again.
How that gladdened my heart! Lady Thesiger said she had not the least idea yet of the change in my fortunes, although she wondered incessantly why I was absent.
"Have no fear for your sister"s future," wrote kind Lady Thesiger.
"While Agatha lives at home she is a most charming companion for her.
Should she ever leave home, she would be the same to me. We shall only be too happy if she will spend the rest of her life at Harden Manor."
I was grateful for that. Now, then, fate seemed kinder. I could fight through for myself, providing that my fragile, delicate Clare was safely taken care of.
Another six months pa.s.sed. Clare knew all then and was resigned. G.o.d had been very good to her. She could walk; distance did not fatigue her, and the doctors thought it was very unlikely that the same disease would attack her again.
She wrote and told me about it.
"I was out yesterday," she said, "with Agatha, and we met the Crown Anstey carriage. Coralie was most gracious--overwhelmed me with congratulations, invited me to the Hall. And I saw little Sir Rupert. He is so bright and beautiful--the most princely boy I ever beheld. "I am going to have a white pony," he said to me, and I kissed him, Edgar, with all my heart. Coralie inquired very minutely after you, and asked me if I owed her any ill-will for what she had done. I said no, not in the least, and that I hoped little Sir Rupert would live to make her very happy. I am not quite sure, but I think there were tears glistening in her eyes when she drove away."
Some weeks afterward I received the following letter from Mrs.
Trevelyan:
"My Dear Edgar--Once again, I address you--once again, setting pride and all things aside, I offer you Crown Anstey. You have been away some time now, and know how different is your present hard life from the happy, luxurious one you led here. Your engagement with Miss Thesiger is, of course, broken off. I hear she has a wealthy suitor--Lord Abberley. It will be a good match for her.
Edgar, you will find no one in the world so true to you as myself.
See, I forgot all the past. Once more I offer you my love, my hand, and with it, until my son is of age, Crown Anstey. I never intended you to give it up as you have done. I always wished to offer yourself and your sister an income sufficient for your maintenance.
I have not done so before because I hoped that poverty would seem so hateful to you you would gradually come to think better of my offer. Is it so, Edgar? Will you recognize my love, my fidelity, my devotion at last? One word and all your troubles cease, you are back again in the beautiful old home, and I am happy. Only one word. From your ever loving, devoted
CORALIE."
I need not repeat my answer. It was, No! I was no more free, no more inclined to return to Crown Anstey than I had been to remain there.
After that there was a long silence. Agatha told me herself all about Lord Abberley; that he had been very kind to her, was very fond of her, but she had told him our story, and he had most generously forborne to press his suit.
Time was doing much for me; every hour was golden in its acquisition of blanks in my life were filled by books. G.o.d sent every one the same comfort I had.
[Transcriber"s note: One or more lines appear to be missing from the previous paragraph.]
CHAPTER XIV.
It was just three years since I had left Crown Anstey. Lord Winter told me I should have some weeks to myself, but he was so incessantly occupied I never liked to ask for them.
I had never seen or heard anything of Crown Anstey since I left it. At Harden Manor all was the same, unchanged and unaltered.
One morning, when I went into the library, a letter lay waiting for me.
I saw that it was Coralie"s handwriting, and my first impulse was to burn it unread. Why should she write to me again? Her letters only pained me. I threw it aside and began to work--in the busy occupation of the morning I forgot all about it.
I did not open it until evening. It was from Coralie, but it only held these few words:
"Edgar--My boy--my beautiful boy--is dying. Come to me; for if I lose him I shall die, too. In my distress I would rather have you near me than any one else.
CORALIE TREVELYAN."