The White Virgin

“Well, you see, my boy, the circumstances,” said the Doctor – “the temptations. You suddenly lifted up to a position of great wealth and influence, she a poor servant.”

“Doctor, she is a gentle woman, and my nature would not let me forsake her like a brute. Damn you, sir!” cried Clive, leaping from his seat, “how dare you believe it of me – that I could come here ready to swear fidelity to Janet, kiss her sweet pure lips, and tender her my love, while I frankly offered you – her father – my hand? It is a shame, a disgrace, a blot upon your own nature, to think it of your old friend’s son.”

“I – I – beg your pardon, Clive, humbly, my boy,” said the Doctor, rising and catching the young man by the shoulders. “I was wrong, I ought to have known you better. I am as hasty and jealous as Janet. Forgive me. I was angry for my child’s sake. Things looked so against you. There, there! curse me again, my dear boy, I deserve it, I do indeed.”

“Then you do not believe it now?” cried Clive, as the Doctor got hold of his hands and shook them warmly.

“Believe it? No, not a word of it, nor shall Janet neither – a silly little jealous baby. Then it was that scoundrel Jessop, and the poor girl was appealing to you for help?”

“I am not going to be my brother’s accuser,” said Clive bitterly.

“And he played the hypocrite, and took Janet away home here out of the scene. Here! say damn again to me, Clive, my boy, for I am about the most idiotic old fool that ever lived. But why – why the deuce didn’t you speak out?”

“I was literally stunned, sir.”

“But the girl – why didn’t you make her?”

“You saw, sir; she ran sobbing out of the room.”

“Then you must make her speak now. No, no: not now; let’s set this aside till after the funeral. We cannot enter into such matters with my poor old friend lying there.”

“No, sir, not there; and there is a hindrance: the poor girl has gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes; she disappeared last night. But I cannot go on living like this, Doctor. Take me up to Janet now; I must clear myself in her eyes.”

“I would, my boy, but she is not here.”

“Not here?” cried Clive excitedly.

“No; she left this letter and went out again within an hour.”

The Doctor took a note from his breast-pocket and handed it to Clive to read.

“Cannot stay at home and hear about that shame and disgrace – gone away to be at peace, and try to forget it – with one of her aunts or a schoolfellow – will write,” stammered Clive, as he hastily read the letter.

“Yes, my dear boy, you know what a creature of impulse she is; and I don’t know that we can wonder under the circumstances.”

“But tell me – where do you think she will be? I must follow her.”

“Heaven only knows,” said the Doctor. “Since my poor wife died she has been mistress here, and naturally very independent and womanly – a strange girl, my dear boy. I have been so wrapped up in my profession, that I have lost the habit of guiding her.”

“But the servants – what do they say?”

“That your brother saw her to the door, and she went straight up to her bedroom and shut herself in. When I came back she had gone out again, leaving this letter. I am afraid, my boy, you will have to wait. But there! it will be all right. Poor child! she will be as humble to you as I am. – Yes!”

This was to the Doctor’s confidential servant, who brought in half-a-dozen cards with pencilled appeals.

“Dear me! dear me!” said the Doctor, taking the cards. “Any one else?”

“Room’s packed, sir.”

“Clive, my dear boy, I must see my poor patients. There, there! go and wait patiently. I’ll come on to-night. You will see to matters, and perhaps I shall have a letter from Janet, and you will be able to write to her or go and see her. There, there! We are all straight again?”

“My dear old friend!” cried Clive.

“That’s right! I did see the lawyer last night. Go and be patient; matters are mending fast. One moment though. Clive, my dear boy, angry passions rise; you will not go and see your brother.”

“No, sir; he is keeping out of my way, or – ”

“Eh? yes – or what?”

“I believe I should kill him.”

Chapter Thirteen.

The Rich Man’s Will

Jessop Reed took good care that his brother should have no opportunity for meeting him to bring him to book, and during the interval before Grantham Reed’s funeral the only news Clive heard of Janet was that she would be back to accompany her father to old Mr Reed’s burial.

“There! my dear boy,” said the Doctor; “I can do no more. You see she does not even give me her address. I believe, though, that she is down at Weymouth with the Hartleys.”

This was on the day before the funeral, and Clive had to exercise a little more patience till after all was over.

He was calmer now. There was that awful presence in the gloomy old house, and he felt that it was no time to think of his own troubles or to attack his brother. These matters, in spite of the suffering they caused him, were put aside, and he sat in the study thinking of all that had passed with the stern, kindly-hearted old man lying above there in his last sleep. Of how he had fought the world to amass wealth, and of this his last speculation, whose success he had been fated not to witness, cut off as he was just after his son’s announcement of the wealth it must of a certainty produce.

It seemed to Clive to be a hard lesson in the vanity of human hopes; but he did not flinch from his task.

“It was his wish,” he said to himself, “that the mine should come out triumphant, and it shall, for all our sakes.”

As he mused, he thought of different business friends who had embarked in the speculation upon the base of his father’s credit, but mainly upon the reports which he had sent home, his father having made these announcements to him during his absence in the replies to letters, the last being that the Doctor had bought heavily just before the shares bounded up and were still rising.

“Poor old father!” he said to himself; “he shall find that I will do my duty by it to the end, for I suppose he will leave me the management – perhaps fully to take his place.”

These business matters would intrude, and he did not cavil at them, for he knew that he was carrying out the old man’s wishes.

Then came the thoughts of Janet again, and they were mingled with a bitter feeling of indignation against her for her readiness to think evil of one whose every thought had been true. But he knew that the reconciliation would be very sweet, and told himself that she was still but a girl, and that her character would ripen by and by.

“And be full of trust,” he muttered.

Then the scene of her leaving that room, angry, jealous, and proud, leaning upon his brother’s arm, came back, and a sensation of fierce anger thrilled him.

“A coward!” he muttered, “a base, miserable coward! Well, we shall meet to-morrow, and afterward the less we see one another in the future the better for both.”

Then he hurriedly devoted himself to his father’s papers, so as to change the current of his thoughts and try to check the throbbing of his brain.

The next day broke gloomy and chill, well in accordance with the solemn occasion. Grantham Reed had instructed that his funeral should be perfectly quiet, and that few people should be asked, but many came unbidden to show their respect for a business friend whose name had been a power in the City, his word as good as any bond.