<SPAN name="after_theII"></SPAN>
<p class="center">
II.</p>
<p class="center">
WINTERFIELD MAKES EXTRACTS.</p>
<p>First Extract.</p>
<p>April 11th, 1869.—Mrs. Eyrecourt and her daughter have left Beaupark
to-day for London. Have I really made any impression on the heart of the
beautiful Stella? In my miserable position—ignorant whether I am
free or not—I have shrunk from formally acknowledging that I love
her.</p>
<p>12th.—I am becoming superstitious! In the Obituary of to-day's <i>Times</i>
the death is recorded of that unhappy woman whom I was mad enough to
marry. After hearing nothing of her for seven years—I am free!
Surely this is a good omen? Shall I follow the Eyrecourts to London, and
declare myself? I have not confidence enough in my own power of attraction
to run the risk. Better to write first, in strictest confidence, to Mrs.
Eyrecourt.</p>
<p>14th.—An enchanting answer from my angel's mother, written in great
haste. They are on the point of leaving for Paris. Stella is restless and
dissatisfied; she wants change of scene; and Mrs. Eyrecourt adds, in so
many words—"It is you who have upset her; why did you not speak
while we were at Beaupark?" I am to hear again from Paris. Good old Father
Newbliss said all along that she was fond of me, and wondered, like Mrs.
Eyrecourt, why I failed to declare myself. How could I tell them of the
hideous fetters which bound me in those days?</p>
<p>18th, Paris.—She has accepted me! Words are useless to express my
happiness.</p>
<p>19th.—A letter from my lawyer, full of professional subtleties and
delays. I have no patience to enumerate them. We move to Belgium
to-morrow. Not on our way back to England—Stella is so little
desirous of leaving the Continent that we are likely to be married abroad.
But she is weary of the perpetual gayety and glitter of Paris, and wants
to see the old Belgian cities. Her mother leaves Paris with regret. The
liveliest woman of her age that I ever met with.</p>
<p>Brussels, May 7.—My blessing on the old Belgian cities. Mrs.
Eyrecourt is so eager to get away from them that she backs me in hurrying
the marriage, and even consents, sorely against the grain, to let the
wedding be celebrated at Brussels in a private and unpretending way. She
has only stipulated that Lord and Lady Loring (old friends) shall be
present. They are to arrive tomorrow, and two days afterward we are to be
married.</p>
<hr />
<p>(An inclosure is inserted in this place. It consists of the death-bed
confession of Mr. Winterfield's wife, and of the explanatory letter
written by the rector of Belhaven. The circumstances related in these
documents, already known to the reader, are left to speak for themselves,
and the Extracts from the Diary are then continued.)</p>
<hr />
<p>Bingen, on the Rhine, May 19.—Letters from Devonshire at last, which
relieve my wretchedness in some small degree. The frightful misfortune at
Brussels will at least be kept secret, so far as I am concerned. Beaupark
House is shut up, and the servants are dismissed, "in consequence of my
residence abroad." To Father Newbliss I have privately written. Not daring
to tell him the truth, I leave him to infer that my marriage engagement
has been broken off, he writes back a kind and comforting letter. Time
will, I suppose, help me to bear my sad lot. Perhaps a day may come when
Stella and her friends will know how cruelly they have wronged me.</p>
<p>London, November 18, 1860.—The old wound has been opened again. I
met her accidentally in a picture gallery. She turned deadly pale, and
left the place. Oh, Stella! Stella!</p>
<p>London, August 12, 1861.—Another meeting with her. And another shock
to endure, which I might not have suffered if I had been a reader of the
marriage announcements in the newspapers. Like other men, I am in the
habit of leaving the marriage announcements to the women.</p>
<p>I went to visit an agreeable new acquaintance, Mr. Romayne. His wife drove
up to the house while I was looking out of window. I recognized Stella!
After two years, she has made use of the freedom which the law has given
to her. I must not complain of that, or of her treating me like a
stranger, when her husband innocently introduced us. But when are were
afterward left together for a few minutes—no! I cannot write down
the merciless words she said to me. Why am I fool enough to be as fond of
her as ever?</p>
<p>Beaupark, November 16.—Stella's married life is not likely to be a
happy one. To-day's newspaper announces the conversion of her husband to
the Roman Catholic Faith. I can honestly say I am sorry for her, knowing
how she has suffered, among her own relatives, by these conversions. But I
so hate him, that this proof of his weakness is a downright consolation to
me.</p>
<p>Beaupark, January 27, 1862.—A letter from Stella, so startling and
deplorable that I cannot remain away from her after reading it. Her
husband has deliberately deserted her. He has gone to Rome, to serve his
term of probation for the priesthood. I travel to London by to-day's
train.</p>
<p>London, January 27.—Short as it is, I looked at Stella's letter
again and again on the journey. The tone of the closing sentences is still
studiously cold. After informing me that she is staying with her mother in
London, she concludes her letter in these terms:</p>
<p>"Be under no fear that the burden of my troubles will be laid on your
shoulders. Since the fatal day when we met at Ten Acres, you have shown
forbearance and compassion toward me. I don't stop to inquire if you are
sincere—it rests with you to prove that. But I have some questions
to ask, which no person but you can answer. For the rest, my friendless
position will perhaps plead with you not to misunderstand me. May I write
again?"</p>
<p>Inveterate distrust in every sentence! If any other woman had treated me
in this way, I should have put her letter into the fire, and should not
have stirred from my comfortable house.</p>
<p>January 29.—A day missed out of my Diary. The events of yesterday
unnerved me for the time.</p>
<p>Arriving at Derwent's Hotel on the evening of the 27th, I sent a line to
Stella by messenger, to ask when she could receive me.</p>
<p>It is strange how the merest trifles seem to touch women! Her note in
reply contains the first expression of friendly feeling toward me which
has escaped her since we parted at Brussels. And this expression proceeds
from her ungovernable surprise and gratitude at my taking the trouble to
travel from Devonshire to London on her account!</p>
<p>For the rest, she proposed to call on me at the hotel the next morning.
She and her mother, it appeared, differed in opinion on the subject of Mr.
Romayne's behavior to her; and she wished to see me, in the first
instance, unrestrained by Mrs. Eyrecourt's interference.</p>
<p>There was little sleep for me that night. I passed most of the time in
smoking and walking up and down the room. My one relief was afforded by
Traveler—he begged so hard to go to London with me, I could not
resist him. The dog always sleeps in my room. His surprise at my
extraordinary restlessness (ending in downright anxiety and alarm) was
expressed in his eyes, and in his little whinings and cries, quite as
intelligibly as if he had put his meaning into words. Who first called a
dog a dumb creature? It must have been a man, I think—and a
thoroughly unlovable man, too, from a dog's point of view.</p>
<p>Soon after ten, on the morning of the 28th, she entered my sitting-room.</p>
<p>In her personal appearance, I saw a change for the worse: produced, I
suppose, by the troubles that have tried her sorely, poor thing. There was
a sad loss of delicacy in her features, and of purity in her complexion.
Even her dress—I should certainly not have noticed it in any other
woman—seemed to be loose and slovenly. In the agitation of the
moment, I forgot the long estrangement between us; I half lifted my hand
to take hers, and checked myself. Was I mistaken in supposing that she
yielded to the same impulse, and resisted it as I did? She concealed her
embarrassment, if she felt any, by patting the dog.</p>
<p>"I am ashamed that you should have taken the journey to London in this
wintry weather—" she began.</p>
<p>It was impossible, in her situation, to let her assume this commonplace
tone with me. "I sincerely feel for you," I said, "and sincerely wish to
help you, if I can."</p>
<p>She looked at me for the first time. Did she believe me? or did she still
doubt? Before I could decide, she took a letter from her pocket, opened
it, and handed it to me.</p>
<p>"Women often exaggerate their troubles," she said. "It is perhaps an
unfair trial of your patience—but I should like you to satisfy
yourself that I have not made the worst of my situation. That letter will
place it before you in Mr. Romayne's own words. Read it, except where the
page is turned down."</p>
<p>It was her husband's letter of farewell.</p>
<p>The language was scrupulously delicate and considerate. But to my mind it
entirely failed to disguise the fanatical cruelty of the man's resolution,
addressed to his wife. In substance, it came to this:—</p>
<p>"He had discovered the marriage at Brussels, which she had deliberately
concealed from him when he took her for his wife. She had afterward
persisted in that concealment, under circumstances which made it
impossible that he could ever trust her again." (This no doubt referred to
her ill-advised reception of me, as a total stranger, at Ten Acres Lodge.)
"In the miserable break-up of his domestic life, the Church to which he
now belonged offered him not only her divine consolation, but the honor,
above all earthly distinctions, of serving the cause of religion in the
sacred ranks of the priesthood. Before his departure for Rome he bade her
a last farewell in this world, and forgave her the injuries that she had
inflicted on him. For her sake he asked leave to say some few words more.
In the first place, he desired to do her every justice, in a worldly
sense. Ten Acres Lodge was offered to her as a free gift for her lifetime,
with a sufficient income for all her wants. In the second place, he was
anxious that she should not misinterpret his motives. Whatever his opinion
of her conduct might be, he did not rely on it as affording his only
justification for leaving her. Setting personal feeling aside, he felt
religious scruples (connected with his marriage) which left him no other
alternative than the separation on which he had resolved. He would briefly
explain those scruples, and mention his authority for entertaining them,
before he closed his letter."</p>
<p>There the page was turned down, and the explanation was concealed from me.</p>
<p>A faint color stole over her face as I handed the letter back to her.</p>
<p>"It is needless for you to read the end," she said. "You know, under his
own hand, that he has left me; and (if such a thing pleads with you in his
favor) you also know that he is liberal in providing for his deserted
wife."</p>
<p>I attempted to speak. She saw in my face how I despised him, and stopped
me.</p>
<p>"Whatever you may think of his conduct," she continued, "I beg that you
will not speak of it to me. May I ask your opinion (now you have read his
letter) on another matter, in which my own conduct is concerned? In former
days—"</p>
<p>She paused, poor soul, in evident confusion and distress.</p>
<p>"Why speak of those days?" I ventured to say.</p>
<p>"I must speak of them. In former days, I think you were told that my
father's will provided for my mother and for me. You know that we have
enough to live on?"</p>
<p>I had heard of it, at the time of our betrothal—when the marriage
settlement was in preparation. The mother and daughter had each a little
income of a few hundreds a year. The exact amount had escaped my memory.</p>
<p>After answering her to this effect, I waited to hear more.</p>
<p>She suddenly became silent; the most painful embarrassment showed itself
in her face and manner. "Never mind the rest," she said, mastering her
confusion after an interval. "I have had some hard trials to bear; I
forget things—" she made an effort to finish the sentence, and gave
it up, and called to the dog to come to her. The tears were in her eyes,
and that was the way she took to hide them from me.</p>
<p>In general, I am not quick at reading the minds of others—but I
thought I understood Stella. Now that we were face to face, the impulse to
trust me had, for the moment, got the better of her caution and her pride;
she was half ashamed of it, half inclined to follow it. I hesitated no
longer. The time for which I had waited—the time to prove, without
any indelicacy on my side, that I had never been unworthy of her—had
surely come at last.</p>
<p>"Do you remember my reply to your letter about Father Benwell?" I asked.</p>
<p>"Yes—every word of it."</p>
<p>"I promised, if you ever had need of me, to prove that I had never been
unworthy of your confidence. In your present situation, I can honorably
keep my promise. Shall I wait till you are calmer? or shall I go on at
once?"</p>
<p>"At once!"</p>
<p>"When your mother and your friends took you from me," I resumed, "if you
had shown any hesitation—"</p>
<p>She shuddered. The image of my unhappy wife, vindictively confronting us
on the church steps, seemed to be recalled to her memory. "Don't go back
to it!" she cried. "Spare me, I entreat you."</p>
<p>I opened the writing-case in which I keep the papers sent to me by the
Rector of Belhaven, and placed them on the table by which she was sitting.
The more plainly and briefly I spoke now, the better I thought it might be
for both of us.</p>
<p>"Since we parted at Brussels," I said, "my wife has died. Here is a copy
of the medical certificate of her death."</p>
<p>Stella refused to look at it. "I don't understand such things," she
answered faintly. "What is this?"</p>
<p>She took up my wife's death-bed confession.</p>
<p>"Read it," I said.</p>
<p>She looked frightened. "What will it tell me?" she asked.</p>
<p>"It will tell you, Stella, that false appearances once led you into
wronging an innocent man."</p>
<p>Having said this, I walked away to a window behind her, at the further end
of the room, so that she might not see me while she read.</p>
<p>After a time—how much longer it seemed to be than it really was!—I
heard her move. As I turned from the window, she ran to me, and fell on
her knees at my feet. I tried to raise her; I entreated her to believe
that she was forgiven. She seized my hands, and held them over her face—they
were wet with her tears. "I am ashamed to look at you," she said. "Oh,
Bernard, what a wretch I have been!"</p>
<p>I never was so distressed in my life. I don't know what I should have
said, what I should have done, if my dear old dog had not helped me out of
it. He, too, ran up to me, with the loving jealousy of his race, and tried
to lick my hands, still fast in Stella's hold. His paws were on her
shoulder; he attempted to push himself between us. I think I successfully
assumed a tranquillity which I was far from really feeling. "Come, come!"
I said, "you mustn't make Traveler jealous." She let me raise her. Ah, if
she could have kissed <i>me</i>—but that was not to be done; she
kissed the dog's head, and then she spoke to me. I shall not set down what
she said in these pages. While I live, there is no fear of my forgetting
those words.</p>
<p>I led her back to her chair. The letter addressed to me by the Rector of
Belhaven still lay on the table, unread. It was of some importance to
Stella's complete enlightenment, as containing evidence that the
confession was genuine. But I hesitated, for her sake, to speak of it just
yet.</p>
<p>"Now you know that you have a friend to help and advise you—" I
began.</p>
<p>"No," she interposed; "more than a friend; say a brother."</p>
<p>I said it. "You had something to ask of me," I resumed, "and you never put
the question."</p>
<p>She understood me.</p>
<p>"I meant to tell you," she said, "that I had written a letter of refusal
to Mr. Romayne's lawyers. I have left Ten Acres, never to return; and I
refuse to accept a farthing of Mr. Romayne's money. My mother—though
she knows that we have enough to live on—tells me I have acted with
inexcusable pride and folly. I wanted to ask if you blame me, Bernard, as
she does?"</p>
<p>I daresay I was inexcusably proud and foolish too. It was the second time
she had called me by my Christian name since the happy bygone time, never
to come again. Under whatever influence I acted, I respected and admired
her for that refusal, and I owned it in so many words. This little
encouragement seemed to relieve her. She was so much calmer that I
ventured to speak of the Rector's letter.</p>
<p>She wouldn't hear of it. "Oh, Bernard, have I not learned to trust you
yet? Put away those papers. There is only one thing I want to know. Who
gave them to you? The Rector?"</p>
<p>"No."</p>
<p>"How did they reach you, then?"</p>
<p>"Through Father Benwell."</p>
<p>She started at that name like a woman electrified.</p>
<p>"I knew it!" she cried. "It <i>is</i> the priest who has wrecked my
married life—and he got his information from those letters, before
he put them into your hands." She waited a while, and recovered herself.
"That was the first of the questions I wanted to put to you," she said. "I
am answered. I ask no more."</p>
<p>She was surely wrong about Father Benwell? I tried to show her why.</p>
<p>I told her that my reverend friend had put the letters into my hand, with
the seal which protected them unbroken. She laughed disdainfully. Did I
know him so little as to doubt for a moment that he could break a seal and
replace it again? This view was entirely new to me; I was startled, but
not convinced. I never desert my friends—even when they are friends
of no very long standing—and I still tried to defend Father Benwell.
The only result was to make her alter her intention of asking me no more
questions. I innocently roused in her a new curiosity. She was eager to
know how I had first become acquainted with the priest, and how he had
contrived to possess himself of papers which were intended for my reading
only.</p>
<p>There was but one way of answering her.</p>
<p>It was far from easy to a man like myself, unaccustomed to state
circumstances in their proper order—but I had no other choice than
to reply, by telling the long story of the theft and discovery of the
Rector's papers. So far as Father Benwell was concerned, the narrative
only confirmed her suspicions. For the rest, the circumstances which most
interested her were the circumstances associated with the French boy.</p>
<p>"Anything connected with that poor creature," she said, "has a dreadful
interest for me now."</p>
<p>"Did you know him?" I asked, with some surprise.</p>
<p>"I knew him and his mother—you shall hear how, at another time. I
suppose I felt a presentiment that the boy would have some evil influence
over me. At any rate, when I accidentally touched him, I trembled as if I
had touched a serpent. You will think me superstitious—but, after
what you have said, it is certainly true that he has been the indirect
cause of the misfortune that has fallen on me. How came he to steal the
papers? Did you ask the Rector, when you went to Belhaven?"</p>
<p>"I asked the Rector nothing. But he thought it his duty to tell me all
that he knew of the theft."</p>
<p>She drew her chair nearer to me. "Let me hear every word of it!" she
pleaded eagerly.</p>
<p>I felt some reluctance to comply with the request.</p>
<p>"Is it not fit for me to hear?" she asked.</p>
<p>This forced me to be plain with her. "If I repeat what the Rector told
me," I said, "I must speak of my wife."</p>
<p>She took my hand. "You have pitied and forgiven her," she answered. "Speak
of her, Bernard—and don't, for God's sake, think that my heart is
harder than yours."</p>
<p>I kissed the hand that she had given to me—even her "brother" might
do that!</p>
<p>"It began," I said, "in the grateful attachment which the boy felt for my
wife. He refused to leave her bedside on the day when she dictated her
confession to the Rector. As he was entirely ignorant of the English
language, there seemed to be no objection to letting him have his own way.
He became inquisitive as the writing went on. His questions annoyed the
Rector—and as the easiest way of satisfying his curiosity, my wife
told him that she was making her will. He knew just enough, from what he
had heard at various times, to associate making a will with gifts of money—and
the pretended explanation silenced and satisfied him."</p>
<p>"Did the Rector understand it?" Stella asked.</p>
<p>"Yes. Like many other Englishmen in his position, although he was not
ready at speaking French, he could read the language, and could fairly
well understand it, when it was spoken. After my wife's death, he kindly
placed the boy, for a few days, under the care of his housekeeper. Her
early life had been passed in the island of Martinique, and she was able
to communicate with the friendless foreigner in his own language. When he
disappeared, she was the only person who could throw any light on his
motive for stealing the papers. On the day when he entered the house, she
caught him peeping through the keyhole of the study door. He must have
seen where the confession was placed, and the color of the old-fashioned
blue paper, on which it was written, would help him to identify it. The
next morning, during the Rector's absence, he brought the manuscript to
the housekeeper, and asked her to translate it into French, so that he
might know how much money was left to him in 'the will.' She severely
reproved him, made him replace the paper in the desk from which he had
taken it, and threatened to tell the Rector if his misconduct was
repeated. He promised amendment, and the good-natured woman believed him.
On that evening the papers were sealed, and locked up. In the morning the
lock was found broken, and the papers and the boy were both missing
together."</p>
<p>"Do you think he showed the confession to any other person?" Stella asked.
"I happen to know that he concealed it from his mother."</p>
<p>"After the housekeeper's reproof," I replied, "he would be cunning enough,
in my opinion, not to run the risk of showing it to strangers. It is far
more likely that he thought he might learn English enough to read it
himself."</p>
<p>There the subject dropped. We were silent for a while. She was thinking,
and I was looking at her. On a sudden, she raised her head. Her eyes
rested on me gravely.</p>
<p>"It is very strange!" she said</p>
<p>"What is strange?"</p>
<p>"I have been thinking of the Lorings. They encouraged me to doubt you.
They advised me to be silent about what happened at Brussels. And they too
are concerned in my husband's desertion of me. He first met Father Benwell
at their house." Her head drooped again; her next words were murmured to
herself. "I am still a young woman," she said. "Oh, God, what is my future
to be?"</p>
<p>This morbid way of thinking distressed me. I reminded her that she had
dear and devoted friends.</p>
<p>"Not one," she answered, "but you."</p>
<p>"Have you not seen Lady Loring?" I asked.</p>
<p>"She and her husband have written most kindly, inviting me to make their
house my home. I have no right to blame them—they meant well. But
after what has happened, I can't go back to them."</p>
<p>"I am sorry to hear it," I said.</p>
<p>"Are you thinking of the Lorings?" she asked.</p>
<p>"I don't even know the Lorings. I can think of nobody but you."</p>
<p>I was still looking at her—and I am afraid my eyes said more than my
words. If she had doubted it before, she must have now known that I was as
fond of her as ever. She looked distressed rather than confused. I made an
awkward attempt to set myself right.</p>
<p>"Surely your brother may speak plainly," I pleaded.</p>
<p>She agreed to this. But nevertheless she rose to go—with a friendly
word, intended (as I hoped) to show me that I had got my pardon for that
time. "Will you come and see us to-morrow?" she said. "Can you forgive my
mother as generously as you have forgiven me? I will take care, Bernard,
that she does you justice at last."</p>
<p>She held out her hand to take leave. How could I reply? If I had been a
resolute man, I might have remembered that it would be best for me not to
see too much of her. But I am a poor weak creature—I accepted her
invitation for the next day.</p>
<p>January 30.—I have just returned from my visit.</p>
<p>My thoughts are in a state of indescribable conflict and confusion—and
her mother is the cause of it. I wish I had not gone to the house. Am I a
bad man, I wonder? and have I only found it out now?</p>
<p>Mrs. Eyrecourt was alone in the drawing-room when I went in. Judging by
the easy manner in which she got up to receive me, the misfortune that has
befallen her daughter seemed to have produced no sobering change in this
frivolous woman.</p>
<p>"My dear Winterfield," she began, "I have behaved infamously. I won't say
that appearances were against you at Brussels—I will only say I
ought not to have trusted to appearances. You are the injured person;
please forgive me. Shall we go on with the subject? or shall we shake
hands, and say no more about it?"</p>
<p>I shook hands, of course. Mrs. Eyrecourt perceived that I was looking for
Stella.</p>
<p>"Sit down," she said; "and be good enough to put up with no more
attractive society than mine. Unless I set things straight, my good
friend, you and my daughter—oh, with the best intentions!—will
drift into a false position. You won't see Stella to-day. Quite impossible—and
I will tell you why. I am the worldly old mother; I don't mind what I say.
My innocent daughter would die before she would confess what I am going to
tell you. Can I offer you anything? Have you had lunch?"</p>
<p>I begged her to continue. She perplexed—I am not sure that she did
not even alarm me.</p>
<p>"Very well," she proceeded. "You may be surprised to hear it—but I
don't mean to allow things to go on in this way. My contemptible
son-in-law shall return to his wife."</p>
<p>This startled me, and I suppose I showed it.</p>
<p>"Wait a little," said Mrs. Eyrecourt. "There is nothing to be alarmed
about. Romayne is a weak fool; and Father Benwell's greedy hands are (of
course) in both his pockets. But he has, unless I am entirely mistaken,
some small sense of shame, and some little human feeling still left. After
the manner in which he has behaved, these are the merest possibilities,
you will say. Very likely. I have boldly appealed to those possibilities
nevertheless. He has already gone away to Rome; and I need hardly add—Father
Benwell would take good care of that—he has left us no address. It
doesn't in the least matter. One of the advantages of being so much in
society as I am is that I have nice acquaintances everywhere, always ready
to oblige me, provided I don't borrow money of them. I have written to
Romayne, under cover to one of my friends living in Rome. Wherever he may
be, there my letter will find him."</p>
<p>So far, I listened quietly enough, naturally supposing that Mrs. Eyrecourt
trusted to her own arguments and persuasions. I confess it even to myself,
with shame. It was a relief to me to feel that the chances (with such a
fanatic as Romayne) were a hundred to one against her.</p>
<p>This unworthy way of thinking was instantly checked by Mrs. Eyrecourt's
next words.</p>
<p>"Don't suppose that I am foolish enough to attempt to reason with him,"
she went on. "My letter begins and ends on the first page. His wife has a
claim on him, which no newly-married man can resist. Let me do him
justice. He knew nothing of it before he went away. My letter—my
daughter has no suspicion that I have written it—tells him plainly
what the claim is."</p>
<p>She paused. Her eyes softened, her voice sank low—she became quite
unlike the Mrs. Eyrecourt whom I knew.</p>
<p>"In a few months more, Winterfield," she said, "my poor Stella will be a
mother. My letter calls Romayne back to his wife—<i>and his child."</i></p>
<p>Mrs. Eyrecourt paused, evidently expecting me to offer an opinion of some
sort. For the moment I was really unable to speak. Stella's mother never
had a very high opinion of my abilities. She now appeared to consider me
the stupidest person in the circle of her acquaintance.</p>
<p>"Are you a little deaf, Winterfield?" she asked.</p>
<p>"Not that I know of."</p>
<p>"Do you understand me?"</p>
<p>"Oh, yes."</p>
<p>"Then why can't you say something? I want a man's opinion of our
prospects. Good gracious, how you fidget! Put yourself in Romayne's place,
and tell me this. If <i>you</i> had left Stella—"</p>
<p>"I should never have left her, Mrs. Eyrecourt."</p>
<p>"Be quiet. You don't know what you would have done. I insist on your
supposing yourself to be a weak, superstitious, conceited, fanatical fool.
You understand? Now, tell me, then. Could you keep away from your wife,
when you were called back to her in the name of your firstborn child?
Could you resist that?"</p>
<p>"Most assuredly not!"</p>
<p>I contrived to reply with an appearance of tranquillity. It was not very
easy to speak with composure. Envious, selfish, contemptible—no
language is too strong to describe the turn my thoughts now took. I never
hated any human being as I hated Romayne at that moment. "Damn him, he
will come back!" There was my inmost feeling expressed in words.</p>
<p>In the meantime, Mrs. Eyrecourt was satisfied. She dashed at the next
subject as fluent and as confident as ever.</p>
<p>"Now, Winterfield, it is surely plain to your mind that you must not see
Stella again—except when I am present to tie the tongue of scandal.
My daughter's conduct must not allow her husband—if you only knew
how I detest that man!—must not, I say, allow her husband the
slightest excuse for keeping away from her. If we give that odious old
Jesuit the chance, he will make a priest of Romayne before we know where
we are. The audacity of these Papists is really beyond belief. You
remember how they made Bishops and Archbishops here, in flat defiance of
our laws? Father Benwell follows that example, and sets our other laws at
defiance—I mean our marriage laws. I am so indignant I can't express
myself as clearly as usual. Did Stella tell you that he actually shook
Romayne's belief in his own marriage? Ah, I understand—she kept that
to herself, poor dear, and with good reason, too."</p>
<p>I thought of the turned-down page in the letter. Mrs. Eyrecourt readily
revealed what her daughter's delicacy had forbidden me to read—including
the monstrous assumption which connected my marriage before the registrar
with her son-in-law's scruples.</p>
<p>"Yes," she proceeded, "these Catholics are all alike. My daughter—I
don't mean my sweet Stella; I mean the unnatural creature in the nunnery—sets
herself above her own mother. Did I ever tell you she was impudent enough
to say she would pray for me? Father Benwell and the Papal Aggression over
again! Now tell me, Winterfield, don't you think, taking the circumstances
into consideration—that you will act like a thoroughly sensible man
if you go back to Devonshire while we are in our present situation? What
with foot-warmers in the carriage, and newspapers and magazines to amuse
you, it isn't such a very long journey. And then Beaupark—dear
Beaupark—is such a remarkably comfortable house in the winter; and
you, you enviable creature, are such a popular man in the neighborhood.
Oh, go back! go back!"</p>
<p>I got up and took my hat. She patted me on the shoulder. I could have
throttled her at that moment. And yet she was right.</p>
<p>"You will make my excuses to Stella?" I said.</p>
<p>"You dear, good fellow, I will do more than make your excuses; I will sing
your praises—as the poet says." In her ungovernable exultation at
having got rid of me, she burst into extravagant language. "I feel like a
mother to you," she went on, as we shook hands at parting. "I declare I
could almost let you kiss me."</p>
<p>There was not a single kissable place about Mrs. Eyrecourt, unpainted,
undyed, or unpowdered. I resisted temptation and opened the door. There
was still one last request that I could not help making.</p>
<p>"Will you let me know," I said, "when you hear from Rome?"</p>
<p>"With the greatest pleasure," Mrs. Eyrecourt answered, briskly. "Good-by,
you best of friends—good-by."</p>
<p>I write these lines while the servant is packing my portmanteau. Traveler
knows what that means. My dog is glad, at any rate, to get away from
London. I think I shall hire a yacht, and try what a voyage round the
world will do for me. I wish to God I had never seen Stella!</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />