“I wish to believe it.”
“Wish to believe a lie. That is foolish talk, Arthur Lygon.”
“Believing it, I am here,” said Lygon.
“Cut this sort of thing short,” said Robert Urquhart, almost sternly. “We are not to play with words, when there is honour or shame in the matter before us. You are either meaning to tell me nothing, in which case the sooner we two part company the better; or, which is more likely, you are preparing the way to tell me what you ought. You will take your choice, of course, but you call me your friend.”
“You are impatient, Urquhart,” said Lygon, with a forced composure. “You have not heard me to the end.”
“I know that well,” said Urquhart, quickly.
“I have told you why I came over to France. Naturally, the first place I hastened to was your house.”
He expected an assent from his companion, but the latter preserved a dead silence.
“I saw Bertha,” he continued, “and learned that my wife had been with her, but had returned to Paris, and was on her way to England.”
“Which you believe to be as great a lie as the first story, or I could never have kept you in Paris last night. You believe my wife to have told you a deliberate falsehood.”
“I have said nothing of the kind, and I have given you no right to say anything of the kind,” said Arthur, firmly.
“We shall see,” said Urquhart. “I am waiting for the end that you have promised me.”
“Bertha told me what she supposed to be true.”
“And why do you suppose the contrary?”
“For reasons of my own, which in no way concern any one but myself and Laura.”
“The first thing that we will do,” said Urquhart, rising, “is to take the first train to Versailles, and hear from my wife’s own lips all that she has to say upon this business.”
“I have no intention of returning to Versailles. Robert, you profess yourself my friend, and, as I believe, most truly mean to serve me. If so, you will do it in my way, or you will cause irreparable injury.”
“You have mixed up my wife’s name and fame in the affair,” said Urquhart, “and therefore it becomes mine as much as yours. But you are quite right, Arthur, in believing that I would not move one hair’s breadth in a line that could injure you, and if I spoke hastily, you must remember that I am a man of action, and out of the habit of picking my words. And now, Arthur, tell me the rest.”
“The rest is that I do not believe Laura to be returning to England, and that I do believe her to be in—France,” he said, hesitating for a moment at the word.
“I said I never picked a word,” said Robert Urquhart, “but I do not know what word to use now. Yet if we are to understand one another, I must run all chances of hurting you to the soul. You will not say why you think Bertha has been deceived. If you will not, I must ask you a frightful question.”
“I foresee it,” said Lygon, with a terrible calmness. “You would ask me whether I have reason to thinkmy God!” he said, grinding his teeth, “that the thought should have to be put into language!—well,—whether I have reason to think that Laura is not worth a husband’s pursuing.”
“Answer that.”
“Reason? I thank God—I thank God from my very heart, No. But—”
“Nay, hold your tongue there,” said the Scot, more kindly and gravely than he had spoken since their first meeting. “Be silent there. We may do wicked wrong, the wickedest, if we go a step further in that direction, when you are able to say the words you have just uttered. They mean that you know nothing against your wife, and that if she stood before you now, and I would to Heaven she did, you would not dare to make any charge against her. She is innocent, but there is a mystery to be cleared up. For God’s sake let us do no injustice in our rash impatience that we cannot clear it.”
Gravely he laid his hand upon the shoulder of his friend, whose agitation visibly increased, and who did not reply.
“Do not think, Arthur,” continued Urquhart, “that I am saying this to delude you into false hopes, or to beguile you with a temporary comfort. I would not do so, if the speaking my own convictions were to be followed by your falling down dead upon this ground. If I believed that your wife had forgotten her duty, I would be the first to urge you to drive her from your home, and tear her from your heart,—the first to scorn you if you forgot your duty to yourself. But out of your heart came the words that assured me of her innocence, and I now say to you, in all the sincerity which man can shew to his fellow-man, hold your heart up, and keep the devil’s thoughts out of it until you look into her dear eyes and hear her tell you why you have been thus tried. In the name of the God who will judge us all, Arthur Lygon, I call on you to do justice to the woman you chose from the world.”
This appeal was made in a tone that was more than grave, it was solemn, and as is not uncommon with the educated Scotchman, when really and worthily excited, the language of Urquhart took somewhat of the manner of the preacher—a fact easily referable to the earlier life of the natives of a country where religious ordinances are so highly cherished as in Scotland. The effect upon Arthur Lygon was strong, but the habit of self-control, dear to the Englishman, prevented his giving way to any vehement demonstration of what he felt. He wrung Urquhart’s hand hard, and turned away to gain a more perfect victory over his emotions. Urquhart perceived this, and permitted Lygon to remain silent for some minutes. Then passing his arm through that of his friend, Robert Urquhart said, in the old pleasant voice,—
“We’ll just take a turn. It quickens the brain to quicken the circulation.”
And Arthur, yielding to the kindly impulse, walked by the side of Urquhart, and listened to his further counsel.
“That is settled,” said Robert, and there was