and rest, and all that sort of thing, and my soul would be fretted to death by it. One can’t stand a reproachful face always by one; besides, she must be turned thirty.”
Oh, Tom Morland, be thankful for the self-command that long training has given you, and that you answer this man’s speech with outward composure.
“Miss Nevil’s is a very beautiful face; it is not in her nature to speak or look reproaches. She is loved and looked up to in Beauchamp above every other creature. If, as I believe, she still considers her promise to you as binding, surely you will not draw back, if there exists no impediment to your marriage.”
“There is this impediment,” replied Nugent, “that I don’t wish to marry; and if I did, I should not marry her. I don’t believe in broken hearts. Men, and women too, live through more trouble than is ever heaped up in novels, and are not worse company afterwards.”
“For thirteen years,” said Tom, “you do not deny that Miss Nevil has waited for your return, in the expectation that you would marry her. For thirteen years she has devoted herself to acts of mercy and charity, chiefly that the errors of your youth might be in some measure atoned for. I look back, at this moment, and I see that all she has done has had more or less reference to you and your family. I ask you if this is the reward due to her fidelity.”
“Women find their own reward in patience and suffering,” said Nugent, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite. “The truest-hearted woman I ever knew died with a smile on her face, though she had greater cause for tears. I had had sickness all the winter at my station. She kept about as long as her strength would last. It was a low aguish kind of fever, and the quinine was all gone. There was but one chance for her life. The next station was 170 miles off. I left her and went to seek for assistance. When I came back she was dead, with her face turned towards the door, as if she was watching for me still.”
“If George Nugent is alive I will bring him back to you.” Tom was haunted by his own words, as he felt the chances of fulfilling his promise growing less and less. Nugent was to a certain extent brutalised; but what of that? The faithful affection that had held out for so many years would overlook his faults. He was surely guilty of disloyalty; but women pardon such sins every day. All Tom could do was to ask him to see her.
“I don’t see the use of it,” he replied; “I am in no mood for sentiment. I don’t fancy the sight of her face would waken up any of the old feeling, and there is no occasion for me to brave a meeting.”
“You are no judge of your own feelings,” persisted Tom, “till you have met her face to face, and have satisfied yourself that old associations are past and gone for ever. She will be here to-morrow amongst many other people. It is a village holiday. Supposing you have altered in appearance since you went away, no one here would discover your identity. You would be able to see her without recognition, if it does not suit you to announce your return at present.”
“I will come,” said Nugent, “provided you give me your word that you will not let any human being know I am here.”
“I give you my honour I will not,” replied Tom.
“It will be mistaken kindness to take any notice of me to-morrow,” said Nugent. “Leave me to myself. If I should change my mind and settle down in England, I’ll write a line and send it up from Chanleigh in the evening. I shall not leave till the last train. If you don’t hear from me you may conclude that you are not likely to be troubled with my presence again.”
He rose to go. He could not eat in the house, he said, when Tom pressed him to stay; food would choke him; neither could he sleep there; all night long he should see his poor old father’s face by his bedside. He would walk back to Chanleigh, and get a bed at the Rose and Crown. He put his stick with his bag slung on it over his shoulder, and went away.
Walpurgis Nacht: the words came into Tom’s head as he let Nugent out, and remained leaning on the gate; the moon rising in a flood of mellow light; the first song of the nightingale coming softly from a little wood in the rear of the house, and a dreamy breeze rustling in the young leaves. Walpurgis Nacht: the old German heathens offered sacrifices to the deities on such a night as this, and Tom had stood on the Hartz mountains and pictured to himself their rites. What made him think of them now? O, false idol! O, unhappy worship! Such were the words that had sounded in his ears throughout his interview with Nugent. He had asked himself, had he fulfilled the trust he had undertaken, little foreseeing the part he was to play in it—the urgent recommendation of the woman he loved and reverenced to the good opinion of a man who did not care for her. It never crossed Tom’s mind that perhaps no one had ever been in such a position before; it never once occurred to him that, if Nugent gave her up, he who had been her truest friend had a better chance of her love. If Nugent decided on marrying her, he believed that her devotion to him would bring her happiness, no matter how unworthy he might be of it: if he went away altogether after seeing her, why then he would pray that the trial might come upon her softly and tenderly. And so, throughout the night in the dewy garden, for indoors he felt almost stifled, Tom tried to look his cares calmly in the face. In the first dawn of morning it occurred to him that his household would be astir early, and he crept guiltily to bed.
CHAPTER IV.
