"I have found my reformatory in the world."
"Lucky for you."
"And the fact is, that as I have always loved your daughter--as only my own wicked impulse turned your daughter"s heart away from me, I have come from abroad with the hope of making all the rest.i.tution in my power, by offering her my hand and fortune!"
"Have you, though?"
Mr. Wesden stared harder than ever at this piece of information. Maurice took another glance over his shoulder, and then commenced a second series of explanations, speaking of his position and means, two things to which Mr. Wesden had been never indifferent.
"I don"t know that it would be a bad thing for her," said Mr. Wesden; "she never talked to me about her love affairs--girls never do to their fathers--and very likely I haven"t understood her all this time."
"Very likely not."
"Perhaps it is about you, and not the other one that has altered her so much. Any nonsense alters a woman, if she dwells upon it."
"Ahem!--exactly so."
"You may as well wait till she comes in now," said Mr. Wesden; "that"s business."
"Sir, I am obliged to you."
"If you don"t mind a pipe, I"ll think it over myself, and you need not talk any more just at present. We don"t have much talk in this house, and you"ve rather _gallied_ me, Mr. Hinchford."
"Any commands I will attend to with pleasure."
Maurice Hinchford crossed his arms and sat back in his chair to reflect upon all this; for a lover he was sad and gloomy--scarcely satisfied with the step which he had taken, and yet brought to it by his own conscience, that had been roused from its inaction by his cousin Sidney.
Here a life had been shadowed by his means, and he thought that it was in his power to brighten it; here was good to be done, and he felt that it was his duty at least to attempt the performance of it. Mr. Wesden sat and smoked his pipe at a little distance from him, and revolved in his own mind the strange incident which had flashed athwart the monotony of daily life, and scared him with its suddenness. In Harriet he had probably been deceived, and it was this young man whom she had loved, and whose eccentric courses had rendered her so difficult to comprehend.
All the past morbidity, the past variable moods, the fluctuations in her health, were to be laid to this man"s charge, and it was well that he had come at last, perhaps. Harriet was a good daughter, an estimable girl, who loved her Bible, and did good to others, but she was not a happy girl. Sorrowful as well as serious, the holiness of her life had not brightened her thoughts or lightened her heart, and was not therefore true holiness, this old man felt a.s.sured. Behind the veil there had been something hidden, and it was rather Maurice Hinchford than his blind cousin who stood between her and the light.
"I think you have done right to come," said Mr. Wesden, after half an hour"s deliberation.
"I think so, too," was the response.
At the same moment, a summons at the door announced Harriet Wesden"s return.
"I"ll open the door myself, and leave you to explain," he said; "don"t move."
Maurice felt tight about the waistcoat now; the romance was coming back again to the latter days; the heroine of it was at the threshold waiting for him. This was a sensation romance, or the roots of his hair would not have tingled so!
Mr. Wesden opened the door for his daughter, and allowed her to proceed half-way down the narrow pa.s.sage before he gave utterance to the news.
"There has been a visitor waiting for you these last two hours, Harriet."
"For me!" said Harriet, listlessly; and, dreaming not of so strange an intrusion on her home, she turned the handle of the door and entered the parlour. Then she stopped transfixed, scarcely believing her sight, scarcely realizing the idea that it was Maurice Darcy standing there before her in her father"s house.
Maurice had risen.
"I fear that I have surprised you very much, Miss Wesden," said he, hoa.r.s.ely; "that possibly this was not the best method of once again seeking a meeting with you. This time with your father"s consent, at least."
"Sir, I do not comprehend; I cannot see that any valid reason has brought you to this house."
"I think it has--I hope it has."
"Impossible!"
"Miss Wesden, I have been relating a long story to your father--may I beg you to listen to me in your turn?"
"If it relate to the past, I must ask you to excuse me," was the cold reply.
"My guilty past it certainly relates to--I pray you for an honest hearing. Ah! Miss Wesden, you are afraid of me, still."
"Afraid!--no, sir."
Harriet Wesden looked at him scornfully, with a quick, almost an impatient hand removed her bonnet and shawl, and then pa.s.sed to her father"s seat by the table, standing thereat still, by way of hint as to the length of the interview. She was more beautiful than ever; more grave and statuesque, perhaps, but very beautiful. It was the face that he had loved in the days of his wild youth, and it shone before him once again, a guiding star for the future stretching away beyond that little room.
He would have spoken, but she interrupted him.
"Understand me, Mr. Darcy--Mr. Hinchford, I may say now, I presume--I wish to hear no excuses for the past, no explanations of your wilful conduct therein--I have done with that and you. If you be here to apologize, I accept that apology, and request you to withdraw. If matters foreign to the past have brought you hither, pray be speedy, and spare me the pain of any longer interview than necessary."
"Miss Wesden, I must, in the first place, speak of the past."
"I will not have it!" cried Harriet, imperiously; "have I not said so?"
The minister round the corner would have rubbed his eyes with amazement at the fire in those of his neophyte. He would have thought the change savoured too strongly of the earth from which he and her, and other high-pressure members of his flock, had soared just a little above--say a foot and a half, or thereabouts.
"It is the past that brings me back to you, Harriet--the past which I would atone for by giving you my name and calling you my wife. I have been a miserable and guilty wretch--I ask you to raise me from my self-abas.e.m.e.nt by your mercy and your love?"
He moved towards her with all the fire of the old love in his eyes--those eyes which had bewildered her like a serpent"s, in the old days. But the spell was at an end, and there was no power to bring her once more to his arms. She recoiled from him with a suppressed scream; her colour went and came upon her cheeks; she fought twice with her utterance before she could reply to him.
"Mr. Hinchford, you insult me!"
"No, not that."
"You insult me by your shameless presence here. I told you half a minute ago that I forgave you all the evil in the past. _I don"t forgive it_--no true woman ever forgave it yet in her heart. I hate you!"
The minister round the corner would have collapsed at this, as well he might have done. Only that evening had he begged his congregation to love their enemies, and return good for evil, and Harriet Wesden had thought how irresistible his words were, and how apposite his ill.u.s.trations. And fresh from good counsel, this young woman who had been unmoved for twelve long months, and during that time been about as animate as the Medicean Venus, now told her listener there that she hated him with all her heart!
"Enough, Miss Wesden. I have but to express my sorrow for the past, and take my leave. Forgive at least the motive which has led me to seek you out again."
"One moment--one moment!" said Harriet.
She fought with her excitement for an instant, and then with a hand pressed heavily upon her bosom, to still the pa.s.sionate throbbing there, she said:
"You must not go till I have explained also; you have sought out a girl whose young life you cruelly embittered by your perfidy--let her explain something in defence. Mr. Hinchford, I never loved you--as I stand here, and as this may be my last moment upon earth, I swear that I never loved you in my life! There was a girl"s vanity, in the first place--almost a child"s vanity, fostered by pernicious teaching of frivolous companions--afterwards there was a foolish romantic incert.i.tude--vanity still perhaps--that led me to trust in you, and to give up one who loved me, and for whom I ought to have died rather than have deserted--but there was no love! I knew it directly that I guessed your cowardice, for I despised you utterly then, and understood the value of the prize, my own misconduct had nearly forfeited. I was a weak woman, and you saw my weakness, and hastened to mislead me; but the wrong you would have done me taught me what was right, and, thank G.o.d! I was strong enough to save myself! There, sir, if only to have told you this, I am glad that you have sought an interview. Now, if you are a gentleman--go!"
He hesitated for an instant, as though he could have wished, even in the face of her defiance, to tell his story for the third time; then he turned away, and went slowly out of the room, defeated at all points, his colours lowered and trailing in the dust. Outside he found Mr.
Wesden, standing with his back to the street door, smoking his pipe, and regarding the hall mat abstractedly. He looked up eagerly as Maurice Hinchford advanced.