“Of my esteem and affection, Lady Mason,” he said. “We have known each other too well to allow of our parting without a word. I am an old man, and it will probably be forever.”
Then she gave him her hand, and gradually lifted her eyes to his face. “Yes,” she said; “it will be forever. There will be no coming back for me.”
“Nay, nay; we will not say that. That’s as may be hereafter. But it will not be at once. It had better not be quite at once. Edith tells me that you go on Thursday.”
“Yes, sir; we go on Thursday.”
She had still allowed her hand to remain in his, but now she withdrew it, and asked him to sit down. “Lucius is not here,” she said. “He never remains at home after breakfast. He has much to settle as to our journey; and then he has his lawyers to see.”
Sir Peregrine had not at all wished to see Lucius Mason, but he did not say so. “You will give him my regards,” he said, “and tell him that I trust that he may prosper.”
“Thank you. I will do so. It is very kind of you to think of him.”
“I have always thought highly of him as an excellent young man.”
“And he is excellent. Where is there anyone who could suffer without a word as he suffers? No complaint ever comes from him; and yet—I have ruined him.”
“No, no. He has his youth, his intellect, and his education. If such a one as he cannot earn his bread in the world—ay, and more than his bread—who can do so? Nothing ruins a young man but ignorance, idleness, and depravity.”
“Nothing;—unless those of whom he should be proud disgrace him before the eyes of the world. Sir Peregrine, I sometimes wonder at my own calmness. I wonder that I can live. But, believe me, that never for a moment do I forget what I have done. I would have poured out for him my blood like water, if it would have served him; but instead of that I have given him cause to curse me till the day of his death. Though I still live, and eat, and sleep, I think of that always. The remembrance is never away from me. They bid those who repent put on sackcloth, and cover themselves with ashes. That is my sackcloth, and it is very sore. Those thoughts are ashes to me, and they are very bitter between my teeth.”
He did not know with what words to comfort her. It all was as she said, and he could not bid her even try to free herself from that sackcloth and from those ashes. It must be so. Were it not so with her, she would not have been in any degree worthy of that love which he felt for her. “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” he said.
“Yes,” she said, “for the shorn lamb—” And then she was silent again. But could that bitter, biting wind be tempered for the she-wolf who, in the dead of night, had broken into the fold, and with prowling steps and cunning clutch had stolen the fodder from the sheep? That was the question as it presented itself to her; but she sat silent, and refrained from putting it into words. She sat silent, but he read her heart. “For the shorn lamb—” she had said, and he had known her thoughts, as they followed, quick, one upon another, through her mind. “Mary,” he said, seating himself now close beside her on the sofa, “if his heart be as true to you as mine, he will never remember these things against you.”
“It is my memory, not his, that is my punishment,” she said.
Why could he not take her home with him, and comfort her, and heal that festering wound, and stop that ever-running gush of her heart’s blood? But he could not. He had pledged his word and pawned his honour. All the comfort that could be his to bestow must be given in those few minutes that remained to him in that room. And it must be given, too, without falsehood. He could not bring himself to tell her that the sackcloth need not be sore to her poor lacerated body, nor the ashes bitter between her teeth. He could not tell her that the cup of which it was hers to drink might yet be pleasant to the taste, and cool to the lips! What could he tell her? Of the only source of true comfort others, he knew, had spoken—others who had not spoken in vain. He could not now take up that matter, and press it on her with available strength. For him there was but one thing to say. He had forgiven her; he still loved her; he would have cherished her in his bosom had it been possible. He was a weak, old, foolish man; and there was nothing of which he could speak but of his own heart.
“Mary,” he said, again taking her hand, “I wish—I wish that I could comfort you.”
“And yet on you also have I brought trouble, and misery—and—all but disgrace!”
“No, my love, no; neither misery nor disgrace—except this misery, that I shall be no longer near to you. Yes, I will tell you all now. Were I alone in the world, I would still beg you to go back with me.”
“It cannot be; it could not possibly be so.”
“No; for I am not alone. She who loves you so well, has told me so. It must not be. But that is the source of my misery. I have learned to love you too well, and do not know how to part with you. If this had not been so, I
