‘I—I was coming on business, and I thought you would not turn from the good tidings, though I was the bearer,’ he said, in a broken, agitated, apologetic way.
‘Only let me hear it again,’ she said. ‘Did you say he was free?’
‘Yes, free as you are, or I. At home. My father was gone to fetch him.’
She put her hands over her face, and looked up with the sweetest smile he had ever seen, and whispered, ‘Now I can sing my Nunc dimittis.’
He could not at once speak; and before he had done more than make one deprecatory gesture, she asked, ‘You have seen him?’
‘Not since this—not since September.’
‘I know. You have been very good; and he is at home—ah! not home—but Dr. May’s. Was he well? Was he very glad?’
‘I have not seen him; I have not heard; you will hear soon. I came at once with the tidings.’
‘Thank you;’ and she clasped her hands together. ‘Have you seen Henry? does he know?’
‘Could I? Had not you the first right?’
‘Leonard! Oh, dear Leonard!’ She lay back for a few moments, panting under the gust of exceeding joy; while he was silent, and tried not to seem to observe her with his anxious eyes. Then she recovered a little and said, ‘The truth come out! Did you say so? What was the truth?’
‘He paused a moment, afraid of the shock, and remembering that the suspicion had been all unknown to her. She recalled probabilities, and said,
‘Was it from a confession? Is it known who—who was the real unhappy person?’
‘Yes. Had you no suspicion?’
‘No—none,’ said Averil, shuddering, ‘unless it was some robber. Who was it?’
‘You had never thought of the other nephew?’
‘You don’t mean Samuel Axworthy! Oh! no. Why the last thing Leonard bade me, was always to pray for him.’
‘Ah!’ said Tom, with bent head, and colouring cheeks; ‘but who are those for whom such as Leonard would feel bound to pray?’
There was a moment’s silence, and then she said, ‘His enemy! Is that what you mean? But then he would have known it was he.’
‘He was entirely convinced that so it must have been, but there was no proof, and an unsupported accusation would only have made his own case worse.’
‘And has he confessed? has he been touched and cleared Leonard at last?’
‘No; he had no space granted him. It was the receipt in your brother’s writing that was found upon him.’
‘The receipt? Yes, Leonard always said the receipt would clear him! But oh, how dreadful! He must have had it all the time. How could he be so cruel! Oh! I never felt before that such wickedness could be;’ and she lay, looking appalled and overpowered.
‘Think of your brother knowing it all, and bidding—and giving you that injunction—’ said Tom, feeling the necessity of overcoming evil with good.
‘Oh! if I had known it, I could not—I could not have been like Leonard! And where—what has become of him?’ she asked, breathlessly. ‘You speak as if he was dead.’
‘Yes. He was killed in a fray at a gaming-house!’
There was a long silence, first of awe, then of thankfulness plainly beaming in her upraised eyes and transparent countenance, which Tom watched, filled with sensations, mournful but not wholly wretched. Shattered as she was, sinking away from her new-found happiness, it was a precious privilege to be holding to her the longed—for draught of joy.
‘Tell me about it, please,’ she presently said. ‘Where—how did the receipt come to light? Were the police told to watch for it? I want to know whom I have to thank.’
His heart beat high, but there was a spirit within him that could not brook any attempt to recall the promise he had pursued her with, the promise that he would not rest till he had proved her brother’s innocence. He dreaded her even guessing any allusion to it, or fancying he had brought the proffered price in his hand; and when he began with, ‘Can you bear to hear of the most shocking scene I ever witnessed?’ he gave no hint of his true motive in residing at Paris, of the clue that Bilson’s draft had given him in thither pursuing Axworthy, nor of his severe struggle in relinquishing the quest. He threw over all the completest accidental air, and scarcely made it evident that it was he who had recognized the writing, and all that turned on it. Averil listened to the narration, was silent for some space, then having gone over it in her own mind, looked up and said—
‘Then all this came of your being at that hospital;’ and a burning blush spread over the pale cheek, and made Tom shrink, start, and feel guilty of having touched the chord of obligation, connected with that obtrusive pledge of his. Above all, however, to repress emotion was his prime object; and he calmly answered, ‘It was a good Providence that brought any one there who knew the circumstances.’
She was silent; and he was about to rise and relieve her from the sense of his presuming on her gratitude, when a cough, accompanied with a pressure of her hand on her side, betrayed an access of suffering, that drew him on to his other purpose of endeavouring to learn her condition, and to do what he could for her relief. His manner, curiously like his father’s, and all the home associations connected with it, easily drew from her what he wanted to ascertain, and she perfectly understood its purport, and was calm and even bright.
‘I was glad to be better when Henry went away,’ she said; ‘he had so much to do, and we thought I was getting well then. You must not frighten him and hurry him here, if you please,’ she said, earnestly, ‘for he must not be wasting his time here, and you think it will last a month or two, don’t you?’
