"Prove that," was her quick answer.
Mattie was attempting the difficult task of deciphering the real thoughts of Harriet Wesden;--what she regretted, and what she rejoiced at, now the picture was finished, and all its deep shadowing elaborated.
"For the best that the engagement was ended, Harriet. Think of the affliction that has befallen him, and which would have parted him and you at last."
"Why parted us?--do you think, had it befallen me, that he would have turned away with horror--that he would not have loved me all the better, and striven all the harder to render my trouble less heavy to be borne?
Mattie, I knew that this would come upon him years ago, and I did not shrink from my engagement."
"You could never have married him--he is a poor man, and may be poorer yet; it is impossible to say."
"It is all over now, and this is idle talk, Mattie. I have given up all thought of him, as he has given up all thought of me--and perhaps it is for the best," she added.
"We will hope so, Harriet."
"I was always a foolish and vain girl, p.r.o.ne to change my mind, and scarcely knowing what that mind was," she said bitterly. "It is easy enough to forget."
Mattie scarcely understood her. She shook her head in dissent, and would have turned the conversation by asking after her father"s health--Harriet"s own health, which was not very evident on her pale cheeks just then. Harriet darted away from the subject.
"Well--all well," she said; "and how is Sidney in health, you have not told me that?"
"Better in health. I have said that his mind is more at ease."
"Mattie, though I have given him up for ever, though I know that I am nothing to him now, and deserve to be nothing, let me see him again! I am going into the country with father for a week or two, and should like to see him once more before I go."
"Harriet, you love him still! You are not glad that it is all ended between you!"
"I should have been here in your place--I have a right to be here!" she said, evasively.
"Tell him so."
Mattie had turned pale, but she pointed to the parlour with an imperious hand. Harriet shrank from the boldness of the step, and turned pale also.
"I--I--"
"This is no time for false delicacy between you and him," said Mattie; "he loves you in his heart--he is only saddened by the past belief that you loved Maurice Darcy--if you do not shrink to unite your fate with his, and make his life new and bright again, ask him to be your husband.
In his night of life he dare not ask you now."
"I cannot do that," murmured Harriet; "that is beyond my strength."
"You and your father with him in his affliction, taking care of him and rendering him happy! All in your hands, and you shrink back from him!"
"Not from him, but from the bitterness of his reply to me," said Harriet. "Would you dare so much in my place?"
"I--I think so. But then," she added, "I do not understand what true love is--you said so once, if you remember."
Harriet detected something strange and new in Mattie"s reply; she looked at Mattie, who was flushed and agitated. For the first time in her life, a vague far-off suspicion seemed to be approaching her.
"I will go in and see him--I will be ruled by what he says to me. Leave me with him, Mattie."
With her own impulsiveness, which had led her right and wrong, she turned the handle of the parlour door, and entered the room, where the old lover, blind and helpless, sat.
CHAPTER III.
THE OLD LOVERS.
Yes, there he was, the old lover! The man whom she had once believed she should marry and make happy--whom she had valued at his just worth when he cast her off as unworthy of the love he had borne her. She had not seen him since that time; he had held himself aloof from her, although he had talked of remaining still her friend, and the change in him was pitiable to witness.
It was the same handsome face, for all its pallor, and deep intensity of thought; the same intellectuality expressed therein, for all the blindness which had come there, and given that strange unearthly look to eyes still clear and bright, and which turned towards her, and startled her with their expression yet. But he was thin and wasted, and his hand, which rested on the table by his side, was an old man"s hand, seared by age, and trembling as with palsy.
"What a time you have been, Mattie! Ah! you are growing tired of me at last," he said, with the querulousness characteristic of illness, but before then ever so uncharacteristic of him.
"Miss--Miss Wesden called to ask how you were," said Harriet, in a low voice.
"Indeed!" he said, after a moment"s deliberation of that piece of information; "and you answered her, and let her go away, sparing me the pain of replying for myself. That"s well and kind of you, Mattie. We are better by ourselves now."
"Yes."
Harriet dropped into a chair by the door, and clasped her hands together; he spoke firmly; he spoke the truth as he thought, and she accepted it for truth, and said no more.
Sidney Hinchford, oblivious of the visitor facing him, and composed in his blindness, detected no difference in the voice. Mattie"s voice, we have remarked at an earlier stage of this narrative, closely resembled Harriet"s, and acuteness of ear had not been acquired yet by the old lover.
"Mattie, I have been thinking of a new business for us, since you have been gone."
"For us?" gasped Harriet.
"Ah! for us, if I can persuade you to remain my housekeeper, and induce your father to extend his consent. I have no other friend--I look to you, girl--you must not desert me yet!"
"No."
"I fancy the stationery business, with you to help me, Mattie, would be best, after all. You are used to it, and I could sit in the parlour and take stock, and help you with the figures in the accounts. I was always clever at mental arithmetic, and it don"t strike me that I shall be quite a dummy. And then when I am used to the place--when I can find the drawers, and know what is in them, I shall be an able custodian of the new home, capable of minding shop while you go to your friends for awhile. Upon my honour, Mattie, I"m quite high-spirited about this--say it"s a bargain, girl?"
Harriet answered in the affirmative for Mattie. She had a.s.sumed her character and could not escape. She had resolved to go away, and make no sign to him of her propinquity; he cared not for her now; he dismissed her with a pa.s.sing nod; it was all Mattie--Mattie in whom he believed and trusted, and on whose support in the future he built upon from that day! She knew how the story would end for him and Mattie--a peaceful and happy ending, and what both had already thought of, perhaps--let it be so, she was powerless to act, and it was not her place to interfere.
Mattie had deceived her; it was natural--but she saw no longer darkly through the gla.s.s; beyond there was the successful rival, whom Sidney Hinchford would marry out of grat.i.tude!
Sidney continued to dilate upon the prospects in life before him.
Harriet had risen, and was standing with her hand upon the door, watching her opportunity to escape.
"Who would have dreamed of a man becoming resigned to an utter darkness, Mattie? Who would have thought of me in particular, cut out for a man of action, with no great love for books, or for anything that fastened me down to the domesticities?"
"You are resigned, then?"
"Well--almost."
"I am very glad."