"What does this mean?" he cried, turning pale with anger.
"It means that he has spoken the truth, and that I shall imitate him. He is my martyr, and my love. When others cast shame on you, then it is time for me to show my heart. James Seaton, I love you for your madness and your devotion to her whom you had only seen at a distance. Ah! that was love! John Hazel, I love you for all that has pa.s.sed between us. What can any other man be to me?--or woman to you? But, most of all, I love you, Robert Penfold--my hero and my martyr. When I am told to your face that you are a felon, then to your face I say you are my idol, my hero, and my martyr. Love! the word is too tame, too common. I worship you, I adore you! How beautiful you are when you are angry! How n.o.ble you are now you forgive me! for you do forgive me, Robert; you must, you shall. No; you will not send your Helen away from you for her one fault so soon repented! Show me you forgive me; show me you love me still, almost as much as I love you. He is crying. Oh, my darling, my darling, my darling!" And she was round his neck in a moment, with tears and tender kisses, the first she had ever given him.
Ask yourself whether they were returned.
A groan, or rather, we might say, a snort of fury, interrupted the most blissful moment either of these young creatures had ever known. It came from General Rolleston, now white with wrath and horror.
"You villain!" he cried.
Helen threw herself upon him, and put her hand before his mouth.
"Not a word more, or I shall forget I am your daughter. No one is to blame but I. I love him. I made him love me. He has been trying hard not to love me so much. But I am a woman; and could not deny myself the glory and the joy of being loved better than woman was ever loved before. And so I am; I am. Kill me, if you like; insult me, if you will. But not a word against him, or I give him my hand, and we live and die together on this island. Oh, papa! he has often saved that life you value so; and I have saved his. He is all the world to me. Have pity on your child. Have pity on him who carries my heart in his bosom!"
She flung herself on her knees, and strained him tight, and implored him, with head thrown back, and little clutching hands, and eloquent eyes.
Ah! it is hard to resist the voice and look and clinging of a man"s own flesh and blood. Children are so strong--upon their knees. Their dear faces, bright copies of our own, are just the height of our hearts then.
The old man was staggered, was almost melted. "Give me a moment to think," said he, in a broken voice. "This blow takes my breath away."
Helen rose, and laid her head upon her father"s shoulder, and still pleaded for her love by her soft touch and her tears that now flowed freely.
He turned to Penfold with all the dignity of age and station. "Mr.
Penfold," said he, with grave politeness, "after what my daughter has said, I must treat you as a man of honor, or I must insult her. Well, then, I expect you to show me you are what she thinks you, and are not what a court of justice has proclaimed you. Sir, this young lady is engaged with her own free will to a gentleman who is universally esteemed, and has never been accused _to his face_ of any unworthy act.
Relying on her plighted word, the Wardlaws have fitted out a steamer and searched the Pacific, and found her. Can you, as a man of honor, advise her to stay here and compromise her own honor in every way? Ought she to break faith with her betrothed on account of vague accusations made behind his back?"
"It was only in self-defense I accused Mr. Arthur Wardlaw," said Robert Penfold.
General Rolleston resumed:
"You said just now there are accusations which soil a man. If you were in my place, would you let your daughter marry a man of honor, who had unfortunately been found guilty of a felony?"
Robert groaned and hesitated, but he said, "No."
"Then what is to be done? She must either keep her plighted word, or else break it. For whom? For a gentleman she esteems and loves, but cannot marry. A leper may be a saint; but I would rather bury my child than marry her to a leper. A convict may be a saint; but I"ll kill her with my own hand sooner than she shall marry a convict. And in your heart and conscience you cannot blame me. Were you a father, you would do the same.
What then remains for her and me but to keep faith? and what can you do better than leave her, and carry away her everlasting esteem and her father"s grat.i.tude? It is no use being good by halves, or bad by halves.
You must either be a selfish villain, and urge her to abandon all shame, and live here on this island with you forever, or you must be a brave and honest man, and bow to a parting that is inevitable. Consider, sir; your eloquence and her pity have betrayed this young lady into a confession that separates you. Her enforced residence here with you has been innocent. It would be innocent no longer, now she has been so mad as to own she loves you. And I tell you frankly, if, after that confession, you insist on going on board the steamer with her, I must take you; humanity requires it; but, if I do, I shall hand you over to the law as a convict escaped before his time. Perhaps I ought to do so as it is; but that is not certain; I don"t know to what country this island belongs. I may have no right to capture you in strange dominions; but an English ship is England--and if you set foot on the _Springbok_ you are lost. Now, then, you are a man of honor; you love my child truly, and not selfishly--you have behaved n.o.bly until to-day; go one step farther on the right road; call worldly honor and the G.o.d whose vows you have taken, sir, to your aid, and do your duty."
"Oh, man, man!" cried Robert Penfold, "you ask more of me than flesh and blood can bear. What shall I say? What shall I do?"
Helen replied, calmly: "Take my hand, and let us die together, since we cannot live together with honor."
General Rolleston groaned. "For this, then, I have traversed one ocean, and searched another, and found my child. I am nothing to her--nothing.
Oh, who would be a father!"
He sat down oppressed with shame and grief, and bowed his stately head in manly but pathetic silence.
"Oh, papa, papa!" cried Helen, "forgive your ungrateful child!" And she kneeled and sobbed, with her forehead on his knees.
Then Robert Penfold, in the midst of his own agony, found room in that great suffering heart of his for pity. He knelt down himself, and prayed for help in this bitter trial. He rose haggard with the struggle, but languid and resigned, like one whose death-warrant has been read.
"Sir," said he, "there is but one way. You must take her home; and I shall stay here."
"Leave you all alone on this island!" said Helen. "Never! If you stay here, I shall stay to comfort you."
"I decline that offer. I am beyond the reach of comfort."
"Think what you do, Robert," said Helen, with unnatural calmness. "If you have no pity on yourself, have pity on us. Would you rob me of the very life you have taken such pains to save? My poor father will carry nothing to England but my dead body. Long before we reach that country I loved so well, and now hate it for its stupidity and cruelty to you, my soul will have flown back to this island to watch over you, Robert. You bid me to abandon you to solitude and despair. Neither of you two love me half as much as I love you both."
General Rolleston sighed deeply. "If I thought that--" said he. Then, in a faint voice, "My own courage fails me now. I look into my heart, and I see that my child"s life is dearer to me than all the world. She was dying, they say. Suppose I send Moreland to the Continent for a clergyman, and marry you. Then you can live on this island forever. Only you must let me live here, too; for I could never show my face again in England after acting so dishonorably. It will be a miserable end of a life pa.s.sed in honor; but I suppose it will not be for long. Shame can kill as quickly as disappointed love."
"Robert, Robert!" cried Helen, in agony.
The martyr saw that he was master of the situation, and must be either base or very n.o.ble--there was no middle way. He leaned his head on his hands, and thought with all his might.
"Hush!" said Helen. "He is wiser than we are. Let him speak."
"If I thought you would pine and die upon the voyage, no power should part us. But you are not such a coward. If my life depended on yours, would you not live?"
"You know I would."
"When I was wrecked on White Water Island, you played the man. Not one woman in a thousand could have launched a boat, and sailed it with a boat-hook for a mast, and--"
Helen interrupted him. "It was nothing; I loved you. I love you better now."
"I believe it, and therefore I ask you to rise above your s.e.x once more, and play the man for me. This time it is not my life you are to rescue, but that which is more precious still--my good name."
"Ah! that would be worth living for!" cried Helen.
"You will find it very hard to do; but not harder for a woman than to launch a boat, and sail her without a mast. See my father, Michael Penfold. See Undercliff, the expert. See the solicitor, the counsel. Sift the whole story; and, above all, find out why Arthur Wardlaw dared not enter the witness-box. Be obstinate as a man; be supple as a woman; and don"t talk of dying when there is a friend to be rescued from dishonor by living and working."
"Die! while I can rescue you from death or dishonor! I will not be so base. Ah, Robert, Robert, how well you know me!"
"Yes, I do know you, Helen. I believe that great soul of yours will keep your body strong to do this brave work for him you love, and who loves you. And as for me, I am man enough to live for years upon this island, if you will only promise me two things."
"I promise, then."
"Never to die, and never to marry Arthur Wardlaw, until you have reversed that lying sentence which has blasted me. Lay your hand on your father"s head, and promise me that."
Helen laid her hand upon her father"s head, and said: "I pledge my honor not to die, if life is possible, and never to marry any man, until I have reversed that lying sentence which has blasted the angel I love."
"And I pledge myself to help her," said General Rolleston, warmly, "for now I _know_ you are a man of honor. I have too often been deceived by eloquence to listen much to that. But now you have proved by your actions what you are. You pa.s.s a forged check, knowing it to be forged! I"d stake my salvation it"s a lie. There"s my hand. G.o.d comfort you! G.o.d reward you, my n.o.ble fellow!"
"I hope He will, sir," sobbed Robert Penfold. "You are her father; and you take my hand; perhaps that will be sweet to think of by and by; but no joy can enter my heart now; it is broken. Take her away at once, sir.
Flesh is weak. My powers of endurance are exhausted."
General Rolleston acted promptly on this advice. He rolled up her rugs, and the things she had made, and Robert had the courage to take them down to the boat. Then he came back, and the general took her bag to the boat.
All this time the girl herself sat wringing her hands in anguish, and not a tear. It was beyond that now.