The Redmains were again at Durnmelling--had been for some weeks; and Sepia had taken care that she and G.o.dfrey should meet--on the footpath to Testbridge, in the field accessible by the breach in the ha-ha--here and there and anywhere suitable for a little detention and talk that should seem accidental, and be out of sight. Nor was G.o.dfrey the man to be insensible to the influence of such a woman, brought to bear at close quarters. A man less vulnerable--I hate the word, but it is the right one with Sepia concerned, for she was, in truth, an enemy--might perhaps have yielded room to the suspicion that these meetings were not all so accidental as they appeared, and as Sepia treated them; but no glimmer of such a thought pa.s.sed through the mind of G.o.dfrey. He knew nothing of all that my readers know to Sepia's disadvantage, and her eyes were enough to subdue most men from the first--for a time at least. Had it not been for the return of Letty, she would by this time have had him her slave: nothing but slavery could it ever be to love a woman like her, who gave no love in return, only exercised power. But although he was always glad to meet her, and his heart had begun to beat a little faster at sight of her approach, the glamour of her presence was nearly destroyed by the arrival of Letty; and Sepia was more than sharp enough to perceive a difference in the expression of his eyes the next time she met him. At the very first glance she suspected some hostile influence at work--intentionally hostile, for persons with a consciousness like Sepia's are always imagining enemies.

And as the two worst enemies she could have were the truth and a woman, she was alternately jealous and terrified: the truth and a woman together, she had not yet begun to fear; that would, indeed, be too much!

She soon found there was a young woman at Thornwick, who had but just arrived; and ere long she learned who she was--one, indeed, who had already a shadowy existence in her life--was it possible the shadow should be now taking solidity, and threatening to foil her? Not once did it occur to her that, were it so, there would be retribution in it.

She had heard of Tom's death through "The Firefly," which had a kind, extravagant article about him, but she had not once thought of his widow--and there she was, a hedge across the path she wanted to go! If the house of Durnmelling had but been one story higher, that she might see all round Thornwick!

For some time now, as I have already more than hinted, Sepia had been fashioning a man to her thrall--Mewks, namely, the body-servant of Mr.

Redmain. It was a very gradual process she had adopted, and it had been the more successful. It had got so far with him that whatever Sepia showed the least wish to understand, Mewks would take endless trouble to learn for her. The rest of the servants, both at Durnmelling and in London, were none of them very friendly with her--least of all Jemima, who was now with her mistress as lady's-maid, the accomplished attendant whom Hesper had procured in place of Mary being away for a holiday.

The more Sepia realized, or thought she realized, the position she was in, the more desirous was she to get out of it, and the only feasible and safe way, in her eyes, was marriage: there was nothing between that and a return to what she counted slavery. Rather than lift again such a hideous load of irksomeness, she would find her way out of a world in which it was not possible, she said, to be both good and comfortable: she had, in truth, tried only the latter. But if she could, she thought, secure for a husband this gentleman-yeoman, she might hold up her head with the best. Even if Galofta should reappear, she would know then how to meet him: with a friend or two, such as she had never had yet, she could do what she pleased! It was hard work to get on quite alone--or with people who cared only for themselves! She must have some love on her side! some one who cared for _her_!

From all she could learn, there was nothing that amounted even to ordinary friendship between Mr. Wardour and the young widow. She was in the family but as a distant poor relation--"Much as I am myself!"

thought Sepia, with a bitter laugh that even in her own eyes she should be comparable to a poor creature like Letty. The fact, however, remained that G.o.dfrey was a little altered toward her: she must have been telling him something against her--something she had heard from that detestable little hypocrite who was turned away on suspicion of theft! Yes--that was how Sepia talked _to herself_ about Mary.

One morning, Letty, finding she had an hour's leisure, for her aunt did not pursue her as of old time, wandered out to the oak on the edge of the ha-ha, so memorable with the shadowy presence of her Tom. She had not been seated under it many minutes before G.o.dfrey caught sight of her from his horse's back: knowing his mother was gone to Testbridge, he yielded to an urgent longing, took his horse to the stable, and crossed the gra.s.s to where she sat.

Letty was thinking of Tom--what else was there of her own to do?--thinking like a child, looking up into the cloud-flecked sky, and thinking Tom was somewhere there, though she could not see him: she must be good and patient, that she might go up to him, as he could not come down to her--if he could, he would have come long ago! All the enchantment of the first days of her love had come back upon the young widow; all the ill that had crept in between had failed from out her memory, as the false notes in music melt in the air that carries the true ones across ravine and river, meadow and grove, to the listening ear. Letty lived in a dream of her husband--in heaven, "yet not from her"--such a dream of bliss and hope as in itself went far to make up for all her sorrows.

She was sitting with her back toward the tree and her face to Thornwick, and yet she did not see G.o.dfrey till he was within a few yards of her. She smiled, expecting his kind greeting, but was startled to hear from behind her instead the voice of a lady greeting him. She turned her head involuntarily: there was the head of Sepia rising above the breach in the ha-ha, and G.o.dfrey had turned aside and run to give her his hand.

Now Letty knew Sepia by sight, from the evening she had spent at the old hall; more of her she knew nothing. From the mind of Tom, in his illness, her baleful influence had vanished like an evil dream, and Mary had not thought it necessary to let him know how falsely, contemptuously, and contemptibly, she had behaved toward him. Letty, therefore, had no feeling toward Sepia but one of admiration for her grace and beauty, which she could appreciate the more that they were so different from her own.

"Thank you," said Sepia, holding fast by G.o.dfrey's hand, and coming up with a little pant. "What a lovely day it is for your haymaking! How can you afford the time to play knight-errant to a distressed damsel?"

"The hay is nearly independent of my presence," replied G.o.dfrey. "Sun and wind have done their parts too well for my being of much use."

"Take me with you to see how they are getting on. I am as fond of hay as Bottom in his translation."

She had learned G.o.dfrey's love of literature, and knew that one quotation may stand for much knowledge.

"I will, with pleasure," said G.o.dfrey, perhaps a little consoled in the midst of his disappointment; and they walked away, neither taking notice of Letty.

"I did not know," she said to herself, "that the two houses had come together at last! What a handsome couple they make!"

What pa.s.sed between them is scarcely worthy of record. It is enough to say that Sepia found her companion distrait, and he felt her a little invasive. In a short while they came back together, and Sepia saw Letty under the great bough of the Durnmelling oak. G.o.dfrey handed her down the rent, careful himself not to invade Durnmelling with a single foot.

She ran home, and up to a certain window with her opera-gla.s.s. But the branches and foliage of the huge oak would have concealed pairs and pairs of lovers.

G.o.dfrey turned toward Letty. She had not stirred.

"What a beautiful creature Miss Yolland is!" she said, looking up with a smile of welcome, and a calmness that prevented the slightest suspicion of a flattering jealousy.

"I was coming to _you_," returned G.o.dfrey. "I never saw her till her head came up over the ha-ha.--Yes, she is beautiful--at least, she has good eyes."

"They are splendid! What a wife she would make for you, Cousin G.o.dfrey!

I should like to see such a two."

Letty was beyond the faintest suggestion of coquetry. Her words drove a sting to the heart of G.o.dfrey. He turned pale. But not a word would he have spoken then, had not Letty in her innocence gone on to torture him. She sprang from the ground.

"Are you ill, Cousin G.o.dfrey?" she cried in alarm, and with that sweet tremor of the voice that shows the heart is near. "You are quite white!--Oh, dear! I've said something I oughtn't to have said! What can it be? Do forgive me, Cousin G.o.dfrey." In her childlike anxiety she would have thrown her arms round his neck, but her hands only reached his shoulders. He drew back: such was the nature of the man that every sting tasted of offense. But he mastered himself, and in his turn, alarmed at the idea of having possibly hurt her, caught her hands in his. As they stood regarding each other with troubled eyes, the embankment of his prudence gave way, and the stored pa.s.sion broke out.

"You don't _mean_ you would like to see me married, Letty?" he groaned.

"Yes, indeed, I do, Cousin G.o.dfrey! You would make such a lovely husband!"

"Ah! I thought as much! I knew you never cared for me, Letty!"

He dropped her hands, and turned half aside, like a figure warped with fire.

"I care for you more than anybody in the world--except, perhaps, Mary,"

said Letty: truthfulness was a part of her.

"And I care for you more than all the world!--more than very being--it is worthless without you. O Letty! your eyes haunt me night and day! I love you with my whole soul."

"How kind of you, Cousin G.o.dfrey!" faltered Letty, trembling, and not knowing what she said. She was very frightened, but hardly knew why, for the idea of G.o.dfrey in love with her was all but inconceivable.

Nevertheless, its approach was terrible. Like a fascinated bird she could not take her eyes off his face. Her knees began to fail her; it was all she could do to stand. But G.o.dfrey was full of himself, and had not the most shadowy suspicion of how she felt. He took her emotion for a favorable sign, and stupidly went on:

"Letty, I can't help it! I know I oughtn't to speak to you like this--so soon, but I can't keep quiet any longer. I love you more than the universe and its Maker. A thousand times rather would I cease to live, than live without you to love me. I have loved you for years and years--longer than I know. I was loving you with heart and soul and brain and eyes when you went away and left me."

"Cousin G.o.dfrey!" shrieked Letty, "don't you know I belong to Tom?"

And she dropped like one lifeless on the gra.s.s at his feet.

G.o.dfrey felt as if suddenly d.a.m.ned; and his h.e.l.l was death. He stood gazing on the white face. The world, heaven, G.o.d, and nature were dead, and that was the soul of it all, dead before him! But such death is never born of love. This agony was but the fog of disappointed self-love; and out of it suddenly rose what seemed a new power to live, but one from a lower world: it was all a wretched dream, out of which he was no more to issue, in which he must go on for ever, dreaming, yet acting as one wide awake! Mechanically he stooped and lifted the death-defying lover in his arms, and carried her to the house. He felt no thrill as he held the treasure to his heart. It was the merest material contact. He bore her to the room where his mother sat, laid her on the sofa, said he had found her under the oak-tree--and went to his study, away in the roof. On a chair in the middle of the floor he sat, like a man bereft of all. Nothing came between him and suicide but an infinite scorn. A slow rage devoured his heart. Here he was, a man who knew his own worth, his faithfulness, his unchangeableness, cast over the wall of the universe, into the waste places, among the broken shards of ruin! If there was a G.o.d--and the rage in his heart declared his being--why did he make him? To make him for such a misery was pure injustice, was willful cruelty! Henceforward he would live above what G.o.d or woman could do to him! He rose and went to the hay-field, whence he did not return till after midnight.

He did not sleep, but he came to a resolution. In the morning he told his mother that he wanted a change; now that the hay was safe, he would have a run, he hardly knew where--possibly on the Continent; she must not be uneasy if she did not hear from him for a week or two; perhaps he would have a look at the pyramids. The old lady was filled with dismay; but scarcely had she begun to expostulate when she saw in his eyes that something was seriously amiss, and held her peace--she had had to learn that with both father and son. G.o.dfrey went, and courted distraction. Ten years before, he would have brooded: that he would not do now: the thing was not worth it! His pride was strong as ever, and both helped him to get over his suffering, and prevented him from gaining the good of it. He intrenched himself in his pride. No one should say he had not had his will! He was a strong man, and was going to prove it to himself afresh!

Thus thought G.o.dfrey; but he is in reality a weak man who must have recourse to pride to carry him through. Only, if a man has not love enough to make a hero of him, what is he to do?

He was away a month, and came back in seeming health and spirits. But it was no small relief to him to find on his arrival that Letty was no longer at Thornwick.

She had gone through a sore time. To have made G.o.dfrey unhappy, made her miserable; but how was she to help it? She belonged to Tom! Not once did she entertain the thought of ceasing to be Tom's. She did not even say to herself, what would Tom do if she forgot and forsook him--and for what he could not help! for having left her because death took him away! But what was she to do? She must not remain where she was. No more must she tell his mother why she went.

She wrote to Mary, and told her she could not stay much longer. They were very kind, she said, but she must be gone before G.o.dfrey came back.

Mary suspected the truth. The fact that Letty did not give her any reason was almost enough. The supposition also rendered intelligible the strange mixture of misery and hardness in G.o.dfrey's behavior at the time of Letty's old mishap. She answered, begging her to keep her mind easy about the future, and her friend informed of whatever concerned her.

This much from Mary was enough to set Letty at comparative ease. She began to recover strength, and was able to write a letter to G.o.dfrey, to leave where he would find it, in his study.

It was a lovely letter--the utterance of a simple, childlike spirit--with much in it, too, I confess, that was but prettily childish. She poured out on G.o.dfrey the affection of a womanchild. She told him what a reverence and love he had been to her always; told him, too, that it would change her love into fear, perhaps something worse, if he tried to make her forget Tom. She told him he was much too grand for her to dare love him in that way, but she could look up to him like an angel--only he must not come between her and Tom. Nothing could be plainer, simpler, honester, or stronger, than the way the little woman wrote her mind to the great man. Had he been worthy of her, he might even yet, with her help, have got above his pa.s.sion in a grand way, and been a great man indeed. But, as so many do, he only sat upon himself, kept himself down, and sank far below his pa.s.sion.

When he went to his study the day after his return, he saw the letter.

His heart leaped like a wild thing in a trap at sight of the ill-shaped, childish writing; but--will my lady reader believe it?--the first thought that shot through it was--"She shall find it too late! I am not one to be left and taken at will!" When he read it, however, it was with a curling lip of scorn at the childishness of the creature to whom he had offered the heart of G.o.dfrey Wardour. Instead of admiring the lovely devotion of the girl-widow to her boy-husband, he scorned himself for having dreamed of a creature who could not only love a fool like Tom Helmer, but go on loving him after he was dead, and that even when G.o.dfrey Wardour had condescended to let her know he loved her. It was thus the devil befooled him. Perhaps the worst devil a man can be posessed withal, is himself. In mere madness, the man is beside himself; but in this case he is inside himself; the presiding, indwelling, inspiring sprit of him is himself, and that is the hardest of all to cast out. G.o.dfrey rose form the reading of that letter _cured,_ as he called it. But it was a cure that left the wound open as a door to the entrance of evil things. He tore the letter into a thousand pieces, and throw them into the empty grate--not even showed it the respect of burning it with fire.

Mary had got her affairs settled, and was again in the old place, the hallowed temple of so many holy memories. I do not forget it was a shop I call a temple. In that shop G.o.d had been worshiped with holiest worship--that is, obedience--and would be again. Neither do I forget that the devil had been worshiped there too--in what temple is he not?

He has fallen like lightning from heaven, but has not yet been cast out of the earth. In that shop, however, he would be worshiped no more for a season.

At once she wrote to Letty, saying the room which had been hers was at her service as soon as she pleased to occupy it: she would take her father's.

Letty breathed a deep breath of redemption, and made haste to accept the offer. But to let Mrs. Wardour know her resolve was a severe strain on her courage.