Mattie, it would have been a terrible failure."

"No."

"I say a terrible failure, which would have embittered both lives in lieu of promoting the happiness of either. I should have discovered the motives which had placed you at my side, and felt too keenly the enc.u.mbrance that I was upon you."

"I think not!--I am sure not!"

She was anxious to defend herself, to hold her best in his estimation yet, but she feared the betrayal of her secret. She could have told him how, for a few fleeting days, she had pictured her greatest happiness to be ever near him, striving to brighten every thought, and vary the monotony of every hour--sustaining, comforting, and worshipping. She could have told him of the affection of a whole life that had been spent in thinking of him, praying for him; but she held her peace, and let him think that she had never loved him. In the end, she saw that it was best to turn him from his purpose.

"I would have married you, Sidney, in affliction--out of grat.i.tude, if you choose to word it so, but a grat.i.tude that _you_ would have never known from love," she ventured to say; "but now, when the new life, to which you will shortly turn your steps, is far removed from mine, when you require no help from me, and when there are others, fairer, better, and so much more worthy of you, I cannot hold you to a promise of which you must repent."

"Why?"

The position by some means had become suddenly reversed. It was she who had to speak of his pity and grat.i.tude for her.

"Because you would discover that I was not fit to be your wife, that you had not sought me out of love, but out of kindness towards me for my services. You had pledged your word in one estate, and you would keep it in another, like an honest man valuing a promise he had made, and resolving to go through with it to the end, at whatever cost to his own better chances. Therefore, Sidney, you must understand that I cannot be your wife for pity's sake--that the man who is to become my husband, must love me with all his heart, and soul, and strength, or he may go his way for me!"

"I said that my romance had died out long ago. That I was too old, and had experienced too much sorrow to talk like a lover in a novel."

"It seems to me--I do not know, Sid--that true love must belong partly to romance. It is too pure--too full of fancies, if you will--to mingle readily with business life; it is too deep down in the heart to rise to an every-day surface--it is full of sacrifice as well as love. All this, my idea, not yours, Sidney--I who would at least be romantic in that fashion, and would care for no one but a romantic lover."

"You have altered, Mattie--you are talking like a school-girl now. If that be another reason for refusing me, it is unworthy of you."

"It is another reason, for all that," replied Mattie; "let me dismiss it at once, if you are ashamed of it. You have come hither oppressed--burdened, I may say--with a sense of duty to me; let me raise the load from you by saying, that I will not be your wife. If I would have married you even out of pity myself," she added, a little scornfully, "I will not take a man for a husband who would have had pity upon me!"

"Very well," he answered, moodily.

"As your wife, never--but oh! Sidney, as the old friend and sister, always! Don't think ill of me because I cannot see my way to happiness--don't think that there is any difference in me, or that I value you less than I ever did. You understand me?"

"Scarcely, Mattie--you have altered very much."

"You must not think that--I have not altered in any one respect--I would be ever your friend, ever hold a place in your heart, ever be remembered as the poor girl who would have died to make you happy!"

"But would not have married me for the same purpose," answered Sidney, in a kinder tone; "is that it, Mattie?"

"My marriage with you would have rendered you wretched--don't deny it again, Sid--I am sure of that!"

"Hence your answer. Well, if it must be, I will rest content. I will believe that it is all for the best."

"Let me tell you another reason--the last--why I would not answer Yes to you. May I?"

"I am interested in every reason," he said.

"Because you were bound to another whom you loved once--_whom you love still_."

He sprang to his feet, and then dropped back into his place, as though shot at by a pistol.

"Do you believe that I would come here with a mask on--a robber, and a liar?"

"Not intentionally, Sidney; because you have fought hard to keep the old love back, and to believe that it was gone for ever. You have fostered that idea by thinking uncharitably of _her_, by turning away from that true happiness which only marriage with her will ever bring to you. You are a man who has never changed; and in attempting to live down the past, have but more clearly discovered the secret of your life."

"What--what makes you think this?"

"I cannot explain it, but it is as true as that you and I will never marry one another for love, for grat.i.tude, for anything," she answered.

"Harriet Wesden and you should never have parted, but have understood each other better, and had more faith. You turned from her, and her pride kept her apart from you; but, Sidney, through all, and before all, she holds that love still."

"I cannot believe that."

"Your cousin Maurice has told you so--now let me. You will never be happy without her--do justice to her, if you are the Sidney Hinchford whom I have ever known. Sidney, you _do_ love her--are you not man enough to own it?"

"I love her as one who is dead to me--pa.s.sed away out of my sphere of action, and never likely to cross it again!" he answered. "I have always thought so--I would have told you that these were my thoughts, had you asked me on that night I sought your hand. She was dead to me--gone from me--some one apart from the girl who lives and breathes in her place."

"That was romance--and that _was_ love!" cried Mattie quickly; "for she was not dead, her love was not dead, and you were likely to meet in better faith at any moment unforeseen. Sidney, you _did_ meet--you were affected by her visit, her evidence of the old tie still existent. Why deny this to me, to spare my feelings now! I am living for you and her,--I do not love you, but I am interested in your welfare, and anxious--oh! so anxious, Sid, to advance it."

"Harriet Wesden and I met under peculiar circ.u.mstances, that must have touched both hearts a little--all was over in an instant, like a lightning-flash, and here's the sober life again!"

"You _will_ deceive yourself--until two lives are wholly blighted by your obduracy, you will go on a.s.serting this dreamy theory, and believing in it."

"You are a strange girl--stranger and more incomprehensible to me than you have ever been, Mattie," he said wondering. "What can you think of me, that you coolly ask me to sit here and confess to a pa.s.sion for another, after coming for an answer to a love-suit tendered you. By heaven! it is a mystery, or a dream!"

"When I was a little girl, untutored, and run wild, I used to fancy that you two would marry; when we shared the same house together, I saw how fitting you both were for each other--how, in your strength of mind and purpose, one weak woman would always find support and love. When you were engaged, I felt a portion of your happiness, understood that you had chosen well, and knew--knew how proud and happy she must be in your affection! That was _my_ dream--let it in the end come true, for Harriet Wesden's sake, for yours--even for the sake of the woman here at your side, the sister and friend to tell you what is best."

"You are very kind, Mattie, but--but I cannot own to anything. It is not fear, not shame--G.o.d knows what it is, or what I am, or what I really wish!" he exclaimed irritably.

"Leave it to me."

"No, for myself, my own battles. I will have no woman's interference, no friend's advice. I will go on to the end my own way."

"It is not ordered so. Look there--is this _chance_ which has brought her hither to-day, at this hour?"

"Let me go away!" cried Sidney, starting to his feet.

Mattie, flushed and excited, caught him by the wrist; he could have wrested himself away from her grasp, but he would have hurt her in the effort, and a something in his own will held him spellbound there.

His sight was weak yet, and though he had guessed to whom Mattie alluded, he could but dimly distinguish a female figure advancing towards him, as from the mists of that past sphere of which he had spoken. It came towards him slowly, even falteringly at last; and he remained motionless, awaiting the end of all that might ensue on that strange day.

It was the past coming back to him, to make or mar him. He shivered as he thought of all the folly he had committed, if, after all, Mattie and Maurice were right, and even his own heart had misled him. He was a man whose judgment had been sound through life--why should he have erred so greatly in this instance?

"Mattie--Mattie!" gasped Harriet, on entering, "what does this mean?"

"That Sidney has been waiting for you," said Mattie, quickly, "to thank you for all past interest in him. Shake hands, you two, and let me--let me go away!"

"No, no, don't leave me, Mattie! You must remain. I have been ill. I--I am very weak."

"If you wish it, for a little while. You two are not enemies now--let me see you shake hands, then?"

The old sweethearts shook hands together at Mattie's wish, and then stood shyly looking at each other, each too discomfited, even troubled, to say a word. Mattie had one more part to play before she could escape them.