One Of Them

“Yes. That my own hand might vindicate my own wrong, I ‘d consent freely to lose it the hour after.”

“That must needs have been no slight injury that suggests such a reparation.”

She only nodded in reply.

“It is nothing that the Heathcotes – ”

“The Heathcotes!” broke she in, with a scornful smile; “it is not from such come heavy wrongs. No, no; they are in no wise mixed up in what I allude to, and if they had been, I would need no help to deal with them. The injury I speak of occurred long ago, – years before I knew you. I have told you,” – here she paused, as if for strength to go on, – “I have told you that I accept your aid, and on your own conditions. Very few words will suffice to show for what I need it. Before I go further, however, I would ask you once more, are you ready to meet any and every peril for my sake? Are you prepared to encounter what may risk even your life, if called upon? I ask this now, and with the firm assurance that if you pledge your word you will keep it.”

“I give you my solemn oath that I’ll stand by you, if it lead me to the drop before the jail.”

She gave a slight shudder. Some old memories had, perhaps, crossed her at the moment; but she was soon self-possessed again.

“The case is briefly this. And mind,” said she, hurriedly, “where I do not seem to give you full details, or enter into clear explanations, it is not from inadvertence that I do so, but that I will tell no more than I wish, nor will I be questioned. The case is this: I was married unhappily. I lived with a man who outraged and insulted me, and I met with one who assumed to pity me and take my part. I confided to him my miseries, the more freely that he had been the witness of the cruelties I endured. He took advantage of the confidence to make advances to me. My heart – if I had a heart – would not have been difficult to win. It was a theft not worth guarding against. Somehow, I cannot say wherefore, this man was odious to me, more odious than the very tyrant who trampled on me; but I had sold myself for a vengeance, – yes, as completely as if the devil had drawn up the bond and I had signed it. My pact with myself was to be revenged on him, come what might afterwards. I have told you that I hated this man; but I had no choice. The whole wide world was there, and not another in it had ever offered to be my defender; nor, indeed, did he. No, the creature was a coward; he only promised that if he found me as a waif he would shelter me; he was too cautious to risk a finger in my cause, and would only claim what none disputed with him. And I was abject enough to be content with that, to be grateful for it, to write letters full of more than gratitude, protesting – Oh, spare me! if even yet I have shame to make me unable to repeat what, in my madness, I may have said to him. I thought I could go on throughout it all, but I cannot. The end was, my husband died; yes! he was dead! and this man – who I know, for I have the proofs, had shown my letters to my husband – claimed me in marriage; he insisted that I should be his wife, or meet all the shame and exposure of seeing my letters printed and circulated through the world, with the story of my life annexed. I refused, fled from England, concealed myself, changed my name, and did everything I could to escape discovery; but in vain. He found me out; he is now upon my track; he will be here – here, at Rome – within the week, and, with these letters in his hand, repeat his threat, he says, for the last time, and I believe him.” The strength which had sustained her up to this now gave way, and she sank heavily to the ground, like one stricken by a fit. It was some time before she rallied; for O’Shea, fearful of any exposure, had not called others to his aid, but, opening the window, suffered the rude wind to blow over her face and temples. “There, there,” said she, smiling sadly, “it is but seldom I show so poor a spirit, but I am somewhat broken of late. Leave me to rest my head on this chair, and do not lift me from the ground yet. I ‘ll be better presently. Have I cut my forehead?”

“It is but a slight scratch. You struck the foot of the table in your fall.”

“There,” said she, making a mark with the blood on his wrist, “it is thus the Arabs register the fidelity of him who is to avenge them. You will not fail me, will you?”

“Never, by this hand!” cried he, holding it up firmly clenched over his head.

“It’s the Arab’s faith, that if he wash away the stain before the depth of vengeance is acquitted, he is dishonored; there’s a rude chivalry in the notion that I like well.” She said this in his ear as he raised her from the ground and placed her on a chair. “It is time you should know his name,” said she, after a few minutes’ pause. “He is called Ludlow Paten. I believe he is Captain Paten about town.”

“I know him by repute. He’s a sort of swell at the West-End play clubs. He is amongst all the fast men.”

“Oh, he’s fashionable, – he’s very fashionable.”

“I have heard him talked of scores of times as one of the pleasantest fellows to be met with.”

“I ‘m certain of it. I feel assured that he must be a cheerful companion, and reasonably honest and loyal in his dealings with man. He is of a class that reserve all their treachery and all their baseness for where they can be safely practised; and, strange enough, men of honor know these things, – men of unquestionable honor associate freely with fellows of this stamp, as if the wrong done to a woman was a venial offence, if offence at all.”

“The way of the world,” said OShea, with a half sigh.

“Pleasant philosophy that so easily accounts for every baseness and even villany by showing that they are popular. But come, let us be practical. What’s to be done here? – what do you suggest?”

“Give me the right to deal with him, and leave the settlement to me.”

“The right – that is – ” She hesitated, flushed up for an instant, and then grew lividly pale again.

“Yes,” said he, taking his place at her side, and leaning an arm on the back of her chair, “I thought I never saw your equal when you were gay and light-hearted, and full of spirits; but I like you better, far better now, and I ‘d rather face the world with you than – ”

“I don’t want to deceive you,” said she, hurriedly, and her lips quivered as she spoke; “but there are things which I cannot tell you, – things of which I could not speak to any one, least of all to him who says he is willing to share his fate with me. It is a hard condition to make, and yet I must make it.”

“Put your hand in mine, then, and I ‘ll take you on any conditions you like.”

“One word more before we close our bargain. It might so happen – it is far from unlikely – that the circumstances of which I dare not trust myself to utter a syllable may come to your ears when I am your wife, when it will be impossible for you to treat them as calumnies, and just as idle to say that you never heard of them before. How will you act if such a moment comes?”

“Answer me one plain question first. Is there any man living who has power over you – except as regards these letters, I mean?”

“None.”

“There is, then, no charge of this, that, or t’ other?”

“I will answer no more. I have told you fairly that if you take me for your wife you most be prepared to stand in the breach between me and the world, and meet whatever assails me as one prepared. Are you ready for this?”

“I’m not afraid of the danger – ”

“So, then, your fears are only for the cause?”

It was with the very faintest touch of scorn these words were spoken; but he marked it, and reddened over face and forehead.

“When that cause will have become my own, you ‘ll see that I ‘ll hesitate little about defending it.”

“That’s all that I ask for, all that I wish. This is strange courtship,” said she, trying to laugh; “but let us carry it through consistently. I conclude you are not rich; neither am I, – at least, for the present; a very few weeks, however, will put me in possession of a large property. It is in land in America. The legal formalities which are necessary will be completed almost immediately, and my co-heir is now coming over from the States to meet me, and establish his claim also. These are all confidences, remember, for I now speak to you freely; and, in the same spirit that I make them, I ask you to trust me, – to trust me fully and wholly, with a faith that says, ‘I will wait to the end – to the very end! ‘”

“Let this be my pledge,” said he, taking her hand and kissing it. “Faith!” said he, after a second or two, “I can scarcely believe in my good luck. It seems to be every moment so like a dream to think that you consent to take me; just, too, when I was beginning to feel that fortune had clean forgotten me. You are not listening to me, not minding a word I say. What is it, then, you are thinking of?”

“I was plotting,” said she, gravely.

“Plotting, – more plotting! Why can’t we go along now on the high-road, without looking for by-paths?”

“Not yet, – not yet awhile. Attend to me, now. It is not likely that we can meet again very soon. My coming out here to-day was at great risk, for I am believed to be ill and in bed with a feverish cold. I cannot venture to repeat this peril, but you shall hear from me. My maid is to be trusted, and will bring you tidings of me. With to-morrow’s post I hope to learn where Paten is, and when he will be here. You shall learn both immediately, and be prepared to act on the information. Above all things, bear in mind that though I hate this man, all my abhorrence of him is nothing – actually nothing – to my desire to regain my letters. For them I would forego everything. Had I but these in my possession, I could wait for vengeance, and wait patiently.”

“So that from himself personally you fear nothing?”

“Nothing. He cannot say more of me than is open to all the world to say – ” She stopped, and grew red, for she felt that her impetuosity had carried her further than she was aware. “Remember once more, then, if you could buy them, steal them, get them in any way, – I care not how, that my object is fulfilled, – the day you place them in this hand it is your own!”

He burst out into some rhapsody of his delight, but checked himself as suddenly, when he saw that her face had assumed its former look of preoccupation.

“Plotting again?” asked he, half peevishly.

“I have need to plot,” said she, mournfully, as she leaned her head upon her hand; and now there came over her countenance a look of deepest sorrow. “I grow very weary of all this at times,” said she, in a faint and broken voice; “so weary that I half suspect it were better to throw the cards down, and say, ‘There! I ‘ve lost! What’s the stake?’ I believe I could do this. I am convinced I could, if I were certain that there was one man or one woman on the earth who would give me one word of pity, or bestow one syllable of compassion for my fall.”

“But surely your daughter Clara – ”

“Clara is not my daughter; she is nothing to me, – never was, never can be. We are separated, besides, never to meet again, and I charge you not to speak of her.”

“May I never! if I can see my way at all. It ‘s out of one mystery into another. Will you just tell me – ”

“Ask me nothing. You have heard from me this day what I have never told another. But I have confidence in your good faith, and can say, ‘If you rue your bargain, there is yet time to say so,’ and you may leave this as free as when you entered it.”

“You never mistook a man more. It’s not going back I was thinking of; but surely I might ask – ”

“Once for all, I will not be questioned. There never lived that man or woman who could thread their way safely through difficulties, if they waited to have every obstacle canvassed and every possible mystery explained. You must leave me to my own guidance here; and one of its first conditions is, not to shake my confidence in myself.”

“Won’t you even tell me when we ‘re to be one?”

“What an ardent lover it is!” said she, laughing. “There, fetch me my shawl, and let me see that you know how to put it properly on my shoulders. No liberties, sir! and least of all when they crush a Parisian bonnet. The evening is falling already, and I must set off homewards.”