Good heavens! when I think what anxiety you may have suffered on my account! You know I am a pupil of the good doctor, and so I put myself in your place, and I say to myself, 'If my Grace had promised to write in a month, and eleven weeks had passed without a word, what would my feelings be?' Why, I think I should go mad; I should make sure you were ill; I should fear you were dead; I should fancy every terrible thing on earth, except that you were false to your poor Henry. That I should never fear: I judge you by myself. Fly, steamboat, with this letter to my love, and set her mind at ease.
Fly back with a precious word from her dear hand, and with that in my bosom, nothing will ever daunt me.
"God bless you! angel of my life, darling of my heart, star on which all my hopes are fixed! Oh, what miserable bad tools words are!
When I look at them, and compare them with how I love you, I seem to be writing that I love you no more than other people love. What I feel is so much greater than words.
"Must I say farewell? Even on paper, it is like tearing myself away from heaven again. But that was to be: and now this is to be.
Good-by, my own beloved.
"Yours till death, HENRY."
Coventry read this sentence by sentence, still looking up, nearly every sentence, at her to whom it was addressed.
The letter pleaded on his knee, the pale face pleaded a few yards off; he sat between the two bleeding lovers, their sole barrier and bane.
His heart began to fail him. The mountain of crime looked high.
Now remorse stung him deeper than ever; jealousy spurred him harder than ever; a storm arose within his breast, a tempest of conflicting passion, as grand and wild as ever distracted the heart; as grand and wild as any poet has ever tried to describe, and, half succeeding, won immortal fame.
"See what I can do?" whispered conscience. "With one bound I can give her the letter, and bring the color back to that cheek and joy to that heart. She will adore me for it, she will be my true and tender friend till death. She will weep upon my neck and bless me."
"Ay," whispered jealousy, "and then she will marry Henry Little."
"And am I sure to succeed if I persist in crime? Deserve her hatred and contempt, and is it certain they will not both fall on me?"
"The fault began with them. He supplanted me--she jilted me. I hate him--I love her. I can't give her up now; I have gone too far.
What is intercepting a letter? I have been too near murder to stop at that."
"But her pale face! her pale face!"
"Once married, supplant him as he has supplanted you. Away to Italy with her. Fresh scenes--constant love--the joys of wedlock! What will this Henry Little be to her then?--a dream."
"Eternal punishment; if it is not a fable, who has ever earned it better than I am earning it if I go on?"
"It IS a fable; it must be. Philosophers always said so, and now even divines have given it up."
"Her pale face! her pale face! Never mind HIM, look at her. What sort of love is this that shows no pity? Oh, my poor girl, don't look so sad--so pale! What shall I do? Would to God I had never been born, to torture myself and her!"
His good angel fought hard for him that day; fought and struggled and hoped, until the miserable man, torn this way and that, ended the struggle with a blasphemous yell by tearing the letter to atoms.
That fatal act turned the scale.
The next moment he wished he had not done it.
But it was too late. He could not go to her with the fragments.
She would see he had intercepted it purposely.
Well, all the better. It was decided. He would not look at her face any more. He could not bear it.
He rushed away from the bower and made for the seaside; but he soon returned another way, gained his own room, and there burnt the fragments of the letter to ashes.
But, though he was impenitent, remorse was not subdued. He could not look Grace Carden in the face now. So he sent word he must go back to Hillsborough directly.
He packed his bag and went down-stairs with it.
On the last landing he met Grace Carden. She started a little.
"What! going away?"
"Yes, Miss Carden."
"No bad news, I hope?" said she, kindly.
The kindly tone coming from her, to whom he had shown no mercy, went through that obdurate heart.
"No--no," he faltered; "but the sight of your unhappiness-- Let me go. I am a miserable man!"
And with this he actually burst out crying and ran past her.
Grace told her father, and asked him to find out what was the matter with Mr. Coventry.
Mr. Carden followed Coventry to the station, and Coventry, who had now recovered his self-possession and his cunning, told him that for some time Miss Carden had worn a cheerful air, which had given him hopes; but this morning, watching her from a bower in the garden, he had seen such misery in her face that it had quite upset him; and he was going away to try and recover that composure, without which he felt he would be no use to her in any way.
This tale Carden brought back to his daughter, and she was touched by it. "Poor Mr. Coventry!" said she. "Why does he waste so much love on me?"
Her father, finding her thus softened, pleaded hard for his friend, and reminded Grace that she had not used him well. She admitted that at once, and went so far as to say that she felt bound never to marry any one but Mr. Coventry, unless time should cure him, as she hoped it would, of his unfortunate attachment.
From this concession Mr. Carden urged her daily to another, viz., that Mr. Coventry might be permitted to try and win her affection.
Her answer was, "He had much better content himself with what I can and do give him--my esteem and gratitude and sincere pity."
Mr. Carden, however, persisted, and the deep affection he had shown his daughter gave him great power. It was two against one; and the two prevailed.
Mr. Coventry began to spend his whole time at Eastbank Cottage.