CHAPTER XXIX.

After a very restless night he hastened to Johnson, but found that Johnson had already gone to Garrick's house, and at Garrick's house Goldsmith learned that Johnson and Garrick had driven to Edmund Burke's; so it was plain that Baretti's friends were losing no time in setting about helping him. They all met in the Bow Street Police Court, and Goldsmith found that Burke had already instructed a lawyer on behalf of Baretti. His tender heart was greatly moved at the sight of Baretti when the latter was brought into court, and placed in the dock, with a constable on each side. But the prisoner himself appeared to be quite collected, and seemed proud of the group of notable persons who had come to show their friendship for him. He smiled at Reynolds and Goldsmith, and, when the witnesses were being examined, polished the glasses of his spectacles with the greatest composure. He appeared to be confident that Sir John Fielding would allow him to go free when evidence was given that Jackson had been a man of notoriously bad character, and he seemed greatly surprised when the magistrate announced that he was returning him for trial at the next sessions.

Goldsmith asked Sir John Fielding for permission to accompany the prisoner in the coach that was taking him to Newgate, and his request was granted.

He clasped Baretti's hand with tears in his eyes when they set out on this melancholy drive, saying—

“My dear friend, I shall never forgive myself for having brought you to this.”

“Psha, sir!” said Baretti. “'Tis not you, but the foolish laws of this country that must be held accountable for the situation of the moment. In what country except this could a thing so ridiculous occur? A gross ruffian attacks me, and in the absence of any civil force for the protection of the people, I am compelled to protect myself from his violence. It so happens that instead of the fellow killing me, I by accident kill him, and lo! a pigheaded magistrate sends me to be tried for my life! Mother of God! that is what is called the course of justice in this country! The course of idiocy it had much better be called!”

“Do not be alarmed,” said Goldsmith. “When you appear before a judge and jury you will most certainly be acquitted. But can you forgive me for being the cause of this great inconvenience to you?”

“I can easily forgive you, having no reason to hold you in any way responsible for this contretemps,” said Baretti. “But I cannot forgive that very foolish person who sat on the Bench at Bow street and failed to perceive that my act had saved his constables and his hangman a considerable amount of trouble! Heavens! that such carrion as the fellow whom I killed should be regarded sacred—as sacred as though he were an Archbishop! Body of Bacchus! was there ever a contention so ridiculous?”

“You will only be inconvenienced for a week or two, my dear friend,” said Goldsmith. “It is quite impossible that you could be convicted—oh, quite impossible. You shall have the best counsel available, and Reynolds and Johnson and Beauclerk will speak for you.”

But Baretti declined to be pacified by such assurances. He continued railing against England and English laws until the coach arrived at Newgate.

It was with a very sad heart that Goldsmith, when he was left alone in the coach, gave directions to be driven to the Hor-necks' house in Westminster. On leaving his chambers in the morning, he had been uncertain whether it was right for him to go at once to Bow street or to see Mary Horneck. He felt that he should relieve Mary from the distress of mind from which she had suffered for so long, but he came to the conclusion that he should let nothing come between him and his duty in respect of the man who was suffering by reason of his friendship for him, Goldsmith. Now, however, that he had discharged his duty so far as he could in regard to Baretti, he lost no time in going to the Jessamy Bride.

Mrs. Horneck again met him in the hall. Her face was very grave, and the signs of recent tears were visible on it.

“Dear Dr. Goldsmith,” she said, “I am in deep distress about Mary.”

“How so, madam?” he gasped, for a dreadful thought had suddenly come to him. Had he arrived at this house only to hear that the girl was at the point of death?

“She returned from Barton last night, seeming even more depressed than when she left town,” said Mrs. Horneck. “But who could fancy that her condition was so low as to be liable to such complete prostration as was brought about by my son's announcement of this news about Signor Baretti?”

“It prostrated her?”

“Why, when Charles read out an account of the unhappy affair which is printed in one of the papers, Mary listened breathlessly, and when he read out the name of the man who was killed, she sank from her chair to the floor in a swoon, just as though the man had been one of her friends, instead of one whom none of us could ever possibly have met.”

“And now?”

“Now she is lying on the sofa in the drawingroom awaiting your coming with strange impatience—I told her that you had been here yesterday and also the day before. She has been talking very strangely since she awoke from her faint—accusing herself of bringing her friends into trouble, but evermore crying out, 'Why does he not come—why does he not come to tell me all that there is to be told?' She meant you, dear Dr. Goldsmith. She has somehow come to think of you as able to soothe her in this curious imaginary distress, from which she is suffering quite as acutely as if it were a real sorrow. Oh, I was quite overcome when I saw the poor child lying as if she were dead before my eyes! Her condition is the more sad, as I have reason to believe that Colonel Gwyn means to call to-day.”

“Never mind Colonel Gwyn for the present, madam,” said Goldsmith, “Will you have the goodness to lead me to her room? Have I not told you that I am confident that I can restore her to health?”

“Ah, Dr. Goldsmith, if you could!—ah, if you only could! But alas, alas!”

He followed her upstairs to the drawingroom where he had had his last interview with Mary. Even before the door was opened the sound of sobbing within the room came to his ears.

“Now, my dear child,” said her mother with an affectation of cheerfulness, “you see that Dr. Goldsmith has kept his word. He has come to his Jessamy Bride.”

The girl started up, but the struggle she had to do so showed him most pathetically how weak she was.

“Ah, he is come he is come!” she cried. “Leave him with me, mother; he has much to tell me.”

“Yes.” said he; “I have much.”

Mrs. Horneck left the room after kissing the girl's forehead.

She had hardly closed the door before Mary caught Goldsmith's hand spasmodically in both her own—he felt how they were trembling-as she cried—

“The terrible thing that has happened! He is dead—you know it, of course? Oh, it is terrible—terrible! But the letters!—they will be found upon him or at the place where he lived, and it will be impossible to keep my secret longer. Will his friends—he had evil friends, I know—will they print them, do you think? Ah, I see by your face that you believe they will print the letters, and I shall be undone—undone.”

“My dear,” he said, “you might be able to bear the worst news that I could bring you; but will you be able to bear the best?”

“The best! Ah, what is the best?”

“It is more difficult to prepare for the best than for the worst, my child. You are very weak, but you must not give way to your weakness.”

She stared at him with wistful, expectant eyes. Her hands were clasped more tightly than ever upon his own. He saw that she was trying to speak, but failing to utter a single word.

He waited for a few moments and then drew out of his pocket the packet of her letters, and gave it to her. She looked at it strangely for certainly a minute. She could not realise the truth. She could only gaze mutely at the packet. He perceived that that gradual dawning of the truth upon her meant the saving of her life. He knew that she would not now be overwhelmed with the joy of being saved.

Then she gave a sudden cry. The letters dropped from her hand. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him again and again on the cheeks. Quite as suddenly she ceased kissing him and laughed—not hysterically, but joyously, as she sprang to her feet with scarcely an effort and walked across the room to the window that looked upon the street. He followed her with his eyes and saw her gazing out. Then she turned round with another laugh that rippled through the room. How long was it since he had heard her laugh in that way?

She came toward him, and then he knew that he had had his reward, for her cheeks that had been white were now glowing with the roses of June, and her eyes that had been dim were sparkling with gladness.

“Ah,” she cried, putting out both her hands to him. “Ah, I knew that I was right in telling you my secret, and in asking you to help me. I knew that you would not fail me in my hour of need, and you shall be dear to me for evermore for having helped me. There is no one in the world like you, dear Oliver Goldsmith. I have always felt that—so good, so true, so full of tenderness and that sweet simplicity which has made the greatest and best people in the world love you, as I love you, dear, dear friend! O, you are a friend to be trusted—a friend who would be ready to die for his friend. Gratitude—you do not want gratitude. It is well that you do not want gratitude, for what could gratitude say to you for what you have done? You have saved me from death—from worse than death—and I know that the thought that you have done so will be your greatest reward. I will always be near you, that you may see me and feel that I live only because you stretched out your kind hand and drew me out of the deep waters—the waters that had well-nigh closed over my head.”

He sat before her, looking up to the sweet face that looked down upon him. His eyes were full of tears. The world had dealt hardly with him; but he felt that his life had not been wholly barren of gladness, since he had lived to see—even through the dimness of tears—so sweet a face looking into his own with eyes full of the light of—was it the gratitude of a girl? Was it the love of a woman?

He could not speak. He could not even return the pressure of the small hands that clasped his own with all the gracious pressure of the tendrils of a climbing flower.

“Have you nothing to say to me—no word to give me at this moment?” she asked in a whisper, and her head was bent closer to his, and her fingers seemed to him to tighten somewhat around his own.

“What word?” said he. “Ah, my child, what word should come from such a man as I to such a woman as you? No, I have no word. Such complete happiness as is mine at this moment does not seek to find expression in words. You have given me such happiness as I never hoped for in my life. You have understood me—you alone, and that to such as I means happiness.”

She dropped his hands so suddenly as almost to suggest that she had flung them away from her. She took an impatient step or two in the direction of the window.

“You talk of my understanding you,” she said in a voice that had a sob in it. “Yes, but have you no thought of understanding me? Is it only a man's nature that is worth trying to understand? Is a woman's not worthy of a thought?”

He started up and seemed about to stretch his arms out to her, but with a sudden drawing in of his breath he put his hands behind his back and locked the fingers of both together.

Thus he stood looking at her while she had her face averted, not knowing the struggle that was going on between the two powers that are ever in the throes of conflict within the heart of a man who loves a woman well enough to have no thought of himself—no thought except for her happiness.

“No,” he said at last. “No, my dear, dear child; I have no word to say to you! I fear to speak a word. The happiness that a man builds up for himself may be destroyed by the utterance of one word. I wish to remain happy—watching your happiness—in silence. Perhaps I may understand you—I may understand something of the thought which gratitude suggests to you.”

“Ah, gratitude!” said she in a tone that was sad even in its scornfulness. She had not turned her head toward him.

“Yes, I may understand something of your nature—the sweetest, the tenderest that ever made a woman blessed; but I understand myself better, and I know in what direction lies my happiness—in what direction lies your happiness.”

“Ah! are you sure that they are two—that they are separate?” said she. And now she moved her head slowly so that she was looking into his face.

There was a long pause. She could not see the movement of his hands. He still held them behind him. At last he said slowly—

“I am sure, my dear one. Ah, I am but too sure. Would to God there were a chance of my being mistaken! Ah, dear, dear child, it is my lot to look on happiness through another man's eyes. And, believe me, there is more happiness in doing so than the world knows of. No, no! Do not speak—for God's sake, do not speak to me! Do not say those words which are trembling on your lips, for they mean unhappiness to both of us.”

She continued looking at him; then suddenly, with a little cry, she turned away, and throwing herself down on the sofa, burst into tears, with her face upon one of the arms, which her hands held tightly.

After a time he went to her side and laid a hand upon her hair.

She raised her head and looked up to him with streaming eyes. She put a hand out to him, saying in a low but clear voice—

“You are right. Oh, I know you are right. I will not speak that word; but I can never—never cease to think of you as the best—the noblest—the truest of men. You have been my best friend—my only friend—and there is no dearer name that a man can be called by a woman.”

He bent his head and kissed her on the forehead, but spoke no word.

A moment afterwards Mrs. Horneck entered the room.

“Oh, mother, mother!” cried the girl, starting up, “I knew that I was right—I knew that Dr. Goldsmith would be able to help me. Ah, I am a new girl since he came to see me. I feel that I am well once more—that I shall never be ill again! Oh, he is the best doctor in the world!”

“Why, what a transformation there is already!” said her mother. “Ah, Dr. Goldsmith was always my dear girl's friend!”

“Friend—friend!” she said slowly, almost gravely. “Yes, he was always my friend, and he will be so forever—my friend—our friend.”

“Always, always,” said Mrs. Horneck. “I am doubly glad to find that you have cast away your fit of melancholy, my dear, because Colonel Gwyn has just called and expresses the deepest anxiety regarding your condition. May I not ask him to come up in order that his mind may be relieved by seeing you?”

“No, no! I will not see Colonel Gwyn to-day,” cried the girl. “Send him away—send him away. I do not want to see him. I want to see no one but our good friend Oliver Goldsmith. Ah, what did Colonel Gwyn ever do for me that I should wish to see him?”

“My dear Mary——”

“Send him away, dear mother. I tell you that indeed I am not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to have a visitor. Dr. Goldsmith has not yet given me a good laugh, and till you come and find us laughing together as we used to laugh in the old days, you cannot say that I am myself again.”

“I will not do anything against your inclinations, child,” said Mrs. Horneck. “I will tell Colonel Gwyn to renew his visit to you next week.”

“Do, dear mother,” cried the girl, laughing. “Say next week, or next year, sweetest of mothers, or—best of all—say that he had better come by and by, and then add, in the true style of Mr. Garrick, that 'by and by is easily said.'”