Nevertheless her tactics answered their object of checking Sybil’s vehemence. Her sobs came to an end, and she presently rose with a quieter air.
“Madeleine,” said she, “do you really want to marry Mr. Ratcliffe?”
“What else can I do, my dear Sybil? I want to do whatever is for the best. I thought you might be pleased.”
“You thought I might be pleased?” cried Sybil in astonishment. “What a strange idea! If you had ever spoken to me about it I should have told you that I hate him, and can’t understand how you can abide him. But I would rather marry him myself than see you marry him. I know that you will kill yourself with unhappiness when you have done it. Oh, Maude, please tell me that you won’t!” And Sybil began gently sobbing again, while she caressed her sister.
Mrs. Lee was infinitely distressed. To act against the wishes of her nearest friends was hard enough, but to appear harsh and unfeeling to the one being whose happiness she had at heart, was intolerable. Yet no sensible woman, after saying that she meant to marry a man like Mr. Ratcliffe, could throw him over merely because another woman chose to behave like a spoiled child. Sybil was more childish than Madeleine herself had supposed. She could not even see where her own interest lay. She knew no more about Mr. Ratcliffe and the West than if he were the giant of a fairy-story, and lived at the top of a beanstalk. She must be treated as a child; with gentleness, affection, forbearance, but with firmness and decision. She must be refused what she asked, for her own good.
Thus it came about that at last Mrs. Lee spoke, with an appearance of decision far from representing her internal tremor.
“Sybil, dear, I have made up my mind to marry Mr. Ratcliffe because there is no other way of making everyone happy. You need not be afraid of him. He is kind and generous. Besides, I can take care of myself; and I will take care of you too. Now let us not discuss it anymore. It is broad daylight, and we are both tired out.”
Sybil grew at once perfectly calm, and standing before her sister, as though their roles were henceforward to be reversed, said:
“You have really made up your mind, then? Nothing I can say will change it?”
Mrs. Lee, looking at her with more surprise than ever, could not force herself to speak; but she shook her head slowly and decidedly.
“Then,” said Sybil, “there is only one thing more I can do. You must read this!” and she drew out Carrington’s letter, which she held before Madeleine’s face.
“Not now, Sybil!” remonstrated Mrs. Lee, dreading another long struggle. “I will read it after we have had some rest. Go to bed now!”
“I do not leave this room, nor will I ever go to bed until you have read that letter,” answered Sybil, seating herself again before the fire with the resolution of Queen Elizabeth; “not if I sit here till you are married. I promised Mr. Carrington that you should read it instantly; it’s all I can do now.”
With a sigh, Mrs. Lee drew up the window-curtain, and in the gray morning light sat down to break the seal and read the following letter:—
Washington,
My dear Mrs. Lee,
This letter will only come into your hands in case there should be a necessity for your knowing its contents. Nothing short of necessity would excuse my writing it. I have to ask your pardon for intruding again upon your private affairs. In this case, if I did not intrude, you would have cause for serious complaint against me.
You asked me the other day whether I knew anything against Mr. Ratcliffe which the world did not know, to account for my low opinion of his character. I evaded your question then. I was bound by professional rules not to disclose facts that came to me under a pledge of confidence. I am going to violate these rules now, only because I owe you a duty which seems to me to override all others.
I do know facts in regard to Mr. Ratcliffe, which have seemed to me to warrant a very low opinion of his character, and to mark him as unfit to be, I will not say your husband, but even your acquaintance.
You know that I am executor to Samuel Baker’s will. You know who Samuel Baker was. You have seen his wife. She has told you herself that I assisted her in the examination and destruction of all her husband’s private papers according to his special deathbed request. One of the first facts I learned from these papers and her explanations, was the following.
Just eight years ago, the great “Inter-Oceanic Mail Steamship Company,” wished to extend its service round the world, and, in order to do so, it applied to Congress for a heavy subsidy. The management of this affair was put into the hands of Mr. Baker, and all his private letters to the President of the Company, in press copies, as well as the President’s replies, came into my possession. Baker’s letters were, of course, written in a sort of cipher, several kinds of which he was in the habit of using. He left among his papers a key to this cipher, but Mrs. Baker could have explained it without that help.
It appeared from this correspondence that the bill was carried successfully through the House, and, on reaching the Senate, was referred to the appropriate Committee. Its ultimate passage was very doubtful; the end of the