“Oh, Florence!”
“The truth, then, is very bad?” said Florence, gently. “Tell me first of all whether you have seen him. Is he ill?”
“He was with us on Friday. He is not ill.”
“Thank God for that. Has anything happened to him? Has he lost money?”
“No; I have heard nothing about money.”
“Then he is tired of me. Tell me at once, my own one. You know me so well. You know I can bear it. Don’t treat me as though I were a coward.”
“No; it is not that. It is not that he is tired of you. If you had heard him speak of you on Friday—that you were the noblest, purest, dearest, best of women—” This was imprudent on her part; but what loving woman could at such a moment have endured to be prudent?
“Then what is it?” asked Florence, almost sternly. “Look here, Cecilia; if it be anything touching himself or his own character, I will put up with it, in spite of anything my brother may say. Though he had been a murderer, if that were possible, I would not leave him. I will never leave him unless he leaves me. Where is he now, at this moment?”
“He is in town.” Mrs. Burton had not received Harry’s note, telling her of his journey to Clavering, before she had left home. Now at this moment it was waiting for her in Onslow Crescent.
“And am I to see him? Cecilia, why cannot you tell me how it is? In such a case I should tell you—should tell you everything at once; because I know that you are not a coward. Why cannot you do so to me?”
“You have heard of Lady Ongar?”
“Heard of her;—yes. She treated Harry very badly before her marriage.”
“She has come back to London, a widow.”
“I know she has. And Harry has gone back to her! Is that it? Do you mean to tell me that Harry and Lady Ongar are to be married?”
“No; I cannot say that. I hope it is not so. Indeed, I do not think it.”
“Then what have I to fear? Does she object to his marrying me? What has she to do between us?”
“She wishes that Harry should come back to her, and Harry has been unsteady. He has been with her often; and he has been very weak. It may be all right yet, Flo; it may indeed—if you can forgive his weakness.”
Something of the truth had now come home to Florence, and she sat thinking of it long before she spoke again. This widow, she knew, was very wealthy, and Harry had loved her before he had come to Stratton. Harry’s first love had come back free—free to wed again, and able to make the fortune of the man she might love and marry. What had Florence to give to any man that could be weighed with this? Lady Ongar was very rich. Florence had already heard all this from Harry—was very rich, was clever, and was beautiful; and moreover she had been Harry’s first love. Was it reasonable that she with her little claims, her puny attractions, should stand in Harry’s way when such a prize as that came across him! And as for his weakness;—might it not be strength, rather than weakness;—the strength of an old love which he could not quell, now that the woman was free to take him? For herself—had she not known that she had only come second? As she thought of him with his noble bride and that bride’s great fortune, and of her own insignificance, her low birth, her doubtful prettiness—prettiness that had ever been doubtful to herself, of her few advantages, she told herself that she had no right to stand upon her claims. “I wish I had known it sooner,” she said, in a voice so soft that Cecilia strained her ears to catch the words. “I wish I had known it sooner. I would not have come up to be in his way.”
“But you will be in no one’s way, Flo, unless it be in hers.”
“And I will not be in hers,” said Florence, speaking somewhat louder, and raising her head in pride as she spoke. “I will be neither in hers nor in his. I think I will go back at once.”
Cecilia upon this, ventured to look round at her, and saw that she was very pale, but that her eyes were dry and her lips pressed close together. It had not occurred to Mrs. Burton that her sister-in-law would take it in this way—that she would express herself as being willing to give way, and that she would at once surrender her lover to her rival. The married woman, she who was already happy with a husband, having enlisted all her sympathies on the side of a marriage between Florence and Harry Clavering, could by no means bring herself to agree to this view. No one liked success better than Cecilia Burton, and to her success would consist in rescuing Harry from Lady Ongar and securing him for Florence. In fighting this battle she had found that she would have against her Lady Ongar—of course, and then her husband, and Harry himself too, as she feared; and now also she must reckon Florence also among her opponents. But she could not endure the idea of failing in such a cause. “Oh, Florence, I think you are so wrong,” she said.
“You would feel as I do, if you were in my place.”
“But people cannot always judge best when they feel the most. What you should think of is his happiness.”
“So I do;—and of his future career.”
“Career! I hate to hear of careers. Men do not want careers, or should not want them. Could it be good for him to marry a woman who has been false—who