“How do you know? I did not dare to come to you; and you were a child then. Ah, but you are quite right, Hester; it was different. But a man cannot vegetate forever. I endured it as long as I could. Now it is all on a turn of the cards, and I may be able to face the world tomorrow, and have my own way.”
“On a turn of the cards! Edward, you cannot mean it is play? You are not a—gambler?” Hester gave a little convulsive cry, clutching him by the arm with both her hands.
He laughed. “Not with cards, certainly,” he said. “I am a respectable banker, my darling, and very knowing in my investments, with perhaps a taste for speculation—but that nobody has brought home to me yet. It is a very legitimate way of making a fortune, Hester. It is only when you lose that it becomes a thing to blame.”
“Do you mean speculation, Edward?”
“Something of that sort; a capital horse when it carries you over the ford—and everything that is bad when you lose.”
“But do you mean—tell me—that it is simple speculation—that this is all that makes you anxious?” Hester had never heard that speculation was immoral, and her mind was relieved in spite of herself.
“Only—simple speculation! Good Lord! what would she have?” he cried, in a sort of unconscious aside, with a strange laugh; then added, with mock gravity, “that’s all, my darling; not much, is it? You don’t think it is worth making such a fuss about?”
“I did not say that,” said Hester, gravely, “for I don’t understand it, nor what may be involved; but it cannot touch the heart. I was afraid—”
“Of something much worse,” he said, with the same strange laugh. “What were you afraid of?—tell me. You did not think I was robbing the bank, or killing Catherine?”
“Edward!”—she did not like these pleasantries—“why do you talk so wildly? Come in with me, and my mother will give you some tea.”
“I want you, and not any tea. I should like to take you up in my arms, and carry you away—away—where nobody could know anything about us more. I should like to disappear with you, Hester, and let people suppose we were dead or lost, or whatever they pleased.”
“I wonder,” said Hester, “why you should have lived so long close to me, and never found out that you wanted me so much till now. Oh, don’t laugh so! You have always been very cool, and quite master of yourself, till now.”
“It was time enough, it appears, when you make so little response,” he said; “but all that is very simple if you but knew. I had to keep well with so many. Now that it is all on a turn of the dice, and a moment may decide everything, I may venture to think of myself.”
“Dice! What you say is all about gambling, Edward.”
“So it is, my sweetest. It is a trick I have got. Chance is everything in business—luck, whatever that may be: so that gambling words are the only words that come natural. But don’t leave the talking to me; you can talk better than I can; you are not a silent angel. Tell me something, Hester. Tell me what you thought that night. Tell me what this little heart is saying now.”
Hester was not touched by that reference to her little heart, which was not a little heart, but a great one, bounding wildly in her breast with perplexity and pain, as well as love, but ready for any heroic effort.
“If I were to tell you perhaps you would not like it, Edward. It makes me happy that you should want me, and lean on me, and give me your burden to bear; but I want so much more. Perhaps I am not so gentle as women ought to be. My mother would be content, but I am not. I want to know everything, to help you to think, to understand it all. And besides, Edward—No, one thing is enough; I will not say that.”
“Yes, say everything; it is all sweet from you.”
“Then, Edward, come home and let my mother know. She will betray nobody. We ought not to meet in the dark like two—to send little hidden notes. We are responsible to the people who love us. We ought to be honest—to mamma, to Catherine Vernon.”
“We ought to go and hand in the banns, perhaps,” he said, with sudden bitterness, “like two—honest shopkeepers, as you say. Catherine Vernon would give me away. And is this all you know of love, Hester?—it is the woman’s way, I suppose—congratulations, wedding presents, general triumph over everybody. How should you understand me when I speak of disappearing with my love, getting lost, dying even, if it were together—?”
There was a pause, for Hester was wounded, yet touched, both to the heart. She said, after a moment, almost under her breath, “I can understand that too.” The faltering of her voice, the droop of her head, and his own need for her, more urgent than either, changed Edward’s sarcastic mood. He drew her closer to him, and put down his face close to her ear.
“We must not fight,” he said, “my only love. I am going away, and I can’t quarrel with you, my only love! And I am your only love. There has never been anybody between us. I will come back in two or three days; but Hester, another time, if it should be for good, would you come?—you would come?—with me?”
“Elope!” she said, breathless, her eyes large in the darkness, straining upon the face which was too near her own to be very clear.
He laughed. “If you like the word; it is an innocent word. Yes, elope then,” he said.
“But why?—but why? It would wound them all—it would break their hearts; and for what reason?” Hester cried.
XXXVII
Alarms
Edward was about a week away from home. He had often been away before, and
