CHAPTER XXXI.

He wrote that very evening, after Mrs. Horneck had taken her departure, one of his merry letters to Katherine Bunbury, telling her that he had resolved to yield gracefully to her entreaties to visit her, and meant to leave for Barton the next day. When that letter was written he gave himself up to his thoughts.

All his thoughts were of Mary. He was going to place a barrier between her and himself. He was going to give himself a chance of life by making it impossible for him to love her. This writer of books had brought himself to think that if Mary Horneck were to marry Colonel Gwyn he, Oliver Goldsmith, would come to think of her as he thought of her sister—with the affection which exists between good friends.

While her mother had been talking to him about her and her loving heart, he had suddenly become possessed of the truth: it was her sympathetic heart that had led her to make the two mistakes of her life. First, she had fancied that she loved the impostor whom she had met in Devonshire, and then she had fancied that she loved him, Oliver Goldsmith. He knew what she meant by the words which she had spoken in his presence. He knew that if he had not been strong enough to answer her as he had done that day, she would have told him that she loved him.

Her mother was right. She was in great danger through her liability to follow the promptings of her heart. If already she had made two such mistakes as he had become aware of, into what disaster might not she be led in the future?

Yes; her mother was right. Safety for a girl with so tender a heart was to be found only in marriage—marriage with such a man as Colonel Gwyn undoubtedly was. He recollected the details of Colonel Gwyn's visit to himself, and how favourably impressed he had been with the man. He undoubtedly possessed every trait of character that goes to constitute a good man and a good husband. Above all, he was devoted to Mary Horneck, and there was no man who would be better able to keep her from the dangers which surrounded her.

Yes, he would go to Barton and carry out Mrs. Horneck's request. He would, moreover, be careful to refrain from any mention of the word duty, which would, the lady had declared, if introduced into his argument, tend to frustrate his intention.

He went down to Barton by coach the next day. He felt very ill indeed, and he was not quite so confident as Mrs. Horneck that the result of his visit would be to restore him to perfect health. His last thought before leaving was that if Mary was made happy nothing else was worth a moment's consideration.

She met him with a chaise driven by Bunbury, at the cross roads, where the coach set him down; and he could not fail to perceive that she was even more shocked than her mother had been at his changed appearance. While still on the top of the coach he saw her face lighted with pleasure the instant she caught sight of him. She waved her hand toward him, and Bunbury waved his whip. But the moment he had swung himself painfully and laboriously to the ground, he saw the look of amazement both on her face and on that of her brother-in-law.

She was speechless, but it was not in the nature of Bunbury to be so.

“Good Lord! Noll, what have you been doing to yourself?” he cried. “Why, you're not like the same man. Is he, Mary?”

Mary only shook her head.

“I have been ill,” said Oliver. “But I am better already, having seen you both with your brown country faces. How is my Little Comedy? Is she ready to give me another lesson in loo?”

“She will give you what you need most, you may be certain,” said Bunbury, while the groom was strapping on his carpet-bag. “Oh! yes; we will take care that you get rid of that student's face of yours,” he continued. “Yes, and those sunken eyes! Good Lord! what a wreck you are! But we'll build you up again, never fear! Barton is the place for you and such as you, my friend.”

“I tell you I am better already,” cried Goldsmith; and then, as the chaise drove off, he glanced at the girl sitting opposite to him. Her face had become pale, her eyes were dim. She had spoken no word to him; she was not even looking at him. She was gazing over the hedgerows and the ploughed fields.

Bunbury rattled away in unison with the rattling of the chaise along the uneven road. He roared with laughter as he recalled some of the jests which had been played upon Goldsmith when he had last been at Barton; but though Oliver tried to smile in response, Mary was silent. When the chaise arrived at the house, however, and Little Comedy welcomed her guest at the great door, her high spirits triumphed over even the depressing effect of her husband's artificial hilarity. She did not betray the shock which she experienced on observing how greatly changed was her friend since he had been with her and her sister at Ranelagh. She met him with a laugh and a cry of “You have never come to us without your scratch-wig? If you have forgot it, you will e'en have to go back for it.”

The allusion to the merriment which had made the house noisy when he had last been at Barton caused Oliver to brighten up somewhat; and later on, at dinner, he yielded to the influence of Katherine Bun-bury's splendid vitality. Other guests were at the table, and the genial chat quickly became general. After dinner, he sang several of his Irish songs for his friends in the drawing-room, Mary playing an accompaniment on the harpsichord. Before he went to his bed-room he was ready to confess that Mrs. Horneck had judged rightly what would be the effect upon himself of his visit to the house he loved. He felt better—better than he had been for months.

In the morning he was pleased to find that Mary seemed to have recovered her usual spirits. She walked round the grounds with him and her sister after breakfast, and laughed without reservation at the latter's amusing imitation, after the manner of Garrick, of Colonel Gwyn's declaration of his passion, and of Mary's reply to him. She had caught very happily the manner of the suitor, though of course she made a burlesque of the scene, especially in assuming the fluttered demureness which she declared she had good reason for knowing had frightened the lover so greatly as to cause him to talk of the evil results of drinking tea, when he had meant to talk about love.

She had such a talent for this form of fun, and she put so much character into her casual travesties of every one whom she sought to imitate, she never gave offence, as a less adroit or less discriminating person would be certain to have done. Mary laughed even more heartily than Goldsmith at the account her sister gave of the imaginary scene.

Goldsmith soon found that the proposal of Colonel Gwyn had passed into the already long list of family jests, and he saw that he was expected to understand the many allusions daily made to the incident of his rejection. A new nickname had been found by her brother-in-law for Mary, and of course Katherine quickly discovered one that was extremely appropriate to Colonel Gwyn; and thus, with sly glances and good-humoured mirth, the hours passed as they had always done in the house which humoured mirth, the hours passed as they had always done in the house which had ever been so delightful to at least one of the guests.

He could not help feeling, however, before his visit had reached its fourth day, that the fact of their treating in this humourous fashion an incident which Mrs. Horneck had charged him to treat very seriously was extremely embarrassing to his mission. How was he to ask Mary to treat as the most serious incident in her life the one which was every day treated before her eyes with levity by her sister and her husband?

And yet he felt daily the truth of what Mrs. Horneck had said to him—that Mary's acceptance of Colonel Gwyn would be an assurance of her future such as might not be so easily found again. He feared to think what might be in store for a girl who had shown herself to be ruled only by her own sympathetic heart.

He resolved that he would speak to her without delay respecting Colonel Gwyn; and though he was afraid that at first she might be disposed to laugh at his attempt to put a more serious complexion upon her rejection of the suitor whom her mother considered most eligible, he had no doubt that he could bring her to regard the matter with some degree of gravity.

The opportunity for making an attempt in this direction occurred on the afternoon of the fourth day of his visit. He found himself alone with Mary in the still-room. She had just put on an apron in order to put new covers on the jars of preserved walnuts. As she stood in the middle of the many-scented room, surrounded by bottles of distilled waters and jars of preserved fruits and great Worcester bowls of potpourri, with bundles of sweet herbs and drying lavenders suspended from the ceiling, Charles Bunbury, passing along the corridor with his dogs, glanced in.

“What a housewife we have become!” he cried. “Quite right, my dear; the head of the Gwyn household will need to be deft.”

Mary laughed, throwing a sprig of thyme at him, and Oliver spoke before the dog's paws sounded on the polished oak of the staircase.

“I am afraid, my Jessamy Bride,” said he, “that I do not enter into the spirit of this jest about Colonel Gwyn so heartily as your sister or her husband.”

“'Tis foolish on their part,” said she. “But Little Comedy is ever on the watch for a subject for her jests, and Charles is an active abettor of her in her folly. This particular jest is, I think, a trifle threadbare by now.”

“Colonel Gwyn is a gentleman who deserves the respect of every one,” said he.

“Indeed, I agree with you,” she cried. “I agree with you heartily. I do not know a man whom I respect more highly. Had I not every right to feel flattered by his attention?”

“No—no; you have no reason to feel flattered by the attention of any man from the Prince down—or should I say up?” he replied.

“'Twould be treason to say so,” she laughed. “Well, let poor Colonel Gwyn be. What a pity 'tis Sir Isaac Newton did not discover a new way of treating walnuts for pickling! That discovery would have been more valuable to us than his theory of gravitation, which, I hold, never saved a poor woman a day's work.”

“I do not want to let Colonel Gwyn be,” said he quietly. “On the contrary, I came down here specially to talk of him.”

“Ah, I perceive that you have been speaking with my mother,” said she, continuing her work.

“Mary, my dear, I have been thinking about you very earnestly of late,” said he.

“Only of late!” she cried. “Ah! I flattered myself that I had some of your thoughts long ago as well.”

“I have always thought of you with the truest affection, dear child. But latterly you have never been out of my thoughts.” She ceased her work and looked towards him gratefully—attentively. He left his seat and went to her side.

“My sweet Jessamy Bride,” said he, “I have thought of your future with great uneasiness of heart. I feel towards you as—as—perhaps a father might feel, or an elder brother. My happiness in the future is dependent upon yours, and alas! I fear for you; the world is full of snares.”

“I know that,” she quietly said. “Ah, you know that I have had some experience of the snares. If you had not come to my help what shame would have been mine!”

“Dear child, there was no blame to be attached to you in that painful affair,” said he. “It was your tender heart that led you astray at first, and thank God you have the same good heart in your bosom. But alas! 'tis just the tenderness of your heart that makes me fear for you.”

“Nay; it can become as steel upon occasions,” said she. “Did not I send Colonel Gwyn away from me?”

“You were wrong to do so, my Mary,” he said. “Colonel Gwyn is a good man—he is a man with whom your future would be sure. He would be able to shelter you from all dangers—from the dangers into which your own heart may lead you again as it led you before.”

“You have come here to plead the cause of Colonel Gwyn?” said she.

“Yes,” he replied. “I believe him to be a good man. I believe that as his wife you would be safe from all the dangers which surround such a girl as you in the world.”

“Ah! my dear friend,” she cried. “I have seen enough of the world to know that a woman is not sheltered from the dangers of the world from the day she marries. Nay, is it not often the case that the dangers only begin to beset her on that day?”

“Often—often. But it would not be so with you, dear child—at least, not if you marry Colonel Gwyn.”

“Even if I do not love him? Ah! I fear that you have become a worldly man all at once, Dr. Goldsmith. You counsel a poor weak girl from the standpoint of her matchmaking mother.”

“Nay, God knows, my sweet Mary, what it costs me to speak to you in this way. God knows how much sweeter it would be for me to be able to think of you always as I think of you know—bound to no man—the dearest of all my friends. I know it would be impossible for me to occupy the same position as I now do in regard to you if you were married. Ah! I have seen that there is no more potent divider of friendship than marriage.”

“And yet you urge upon me to marry Colonel Gwyn?”

“Yes—yes—I say I do think it would mean the assurance of your—your happiness—yes, happiness in the future.”

“Surely no man ever had so good a heart as you!” she cried. “You are ready to sacrifice yourself—I mean you are ready to forego all the pleasure which our meeting, as we have been in the habit of meeting for the past four years, gives you, for the sake of seeing me on the way to happiness—or what you fancy will be happiness.”

“I am ready, my dear child; you know what the sacrifice means to me.”

“I do,” she said after a pause. “I do, because I know what it would mean to me. But you shall not be called to make that sacrifice. I will not marry Colonel Gwyn.”

“Nay—nay—do not speak so definitely,” he said.

“I will speak definitely,” she cried. “Yes, the time is come for me to speak definitely. I might agree to marry Colonel Gwyn in the hope of being happy if I did not love some one else; but loving some one else with all my heart, I dare not—oh! I dare not even entertain the thought of marrying Colonel Gwyn.”

“You love some one else?” he said slowly, wonderingly. For a moment there went through his mind the thought—

“Her heart has led her astray once again.'”

“I love some one else with all my heart and all my strength,” she cried; “I love one who is worthy of all the love of the best that lives in the world. I love one who is cruel enough to wish to turn me away from his heart, though that heart of his has known the secret of mine for long.”

Now he knew what she meant. He put his hands together before her, saying in a hushed voice—

“Ah, child—child—spare me that pain—let me go from you.”

“Not till you hear me,” she said. “Ah! cannot you perceive that I love you—only you, Oliver Goldsmith?”

“Hush—for God's sake!” he cried.

“I will not hush,” she said. “I will speak for love's sake—for the sake of that love which I bear you—for the sake of that love which I know you return.”

“Alas—alas!”

“I know it. Is there any shame in such a girl as I am confessing her love for such a man as you? I think that there is none. The shame before heaven would be in my keeping silence—in marrying a man I do not love. Ah! I have known you as no one else has known you. I have understood your nature—so sweet—so simple—so great—so true. I thought last year when you saved me from worse than death that the feeling which I had for you might perhaps be gratitude; but now I have come to know the truth.”

He laid his hand on her arm, saying in a whisper—

“Stop—stop—for God's sake, stop! I—I—do not love you.”

She looked at him and laughed at first. But as his head fell, her laugh died away. There was a long silence, during which she kept her eyes fixed upon him, as he stood before her looking at the floor.

“You do not love me?” she said in a slow whisper. “Will you say those words again with your eyes looking into mine?”

“Do not humiliate me further,” he said. “Have some pity upon me.”

“No—no; pity is not for me,” she said. “If you spoke the truth when you said those words, speak it again now. Tell me again that you do not love me.”

“You say you know me,” he cried, “and yet you think it possible that I could take advantage of this second mistake that your kind and sympathetic heart has made for your own undoing. Look there—there—into that glass, and see what a terrible mistake your heart has made.”

He pointed to a long, narrow mirror between the windows. It reflected an exquisite face and figure by the side of a face on which long suffering and struggle, long years of hardship and toil, had left their mark—a figure attenuated by want and ill-health.

“Look at that ludicrous contrast, my child,” he said, “and you will see what a mistake your heart has made. Have I not heard the jests which have been made when we were walking together? Have I not noticed the pain they gave you? Do you think me capable of increasing that pain in the future? Do you think me capable of bringing upon your family, who have been kinder than any living beings to me, the greatest misfortune that could befall them? Nay, nay, my dear child; you cannot think that I could be so base.”

“I will not think of anything except that I love the man who is best worthy of being loved of all men in the world,” said she. “Ah, sir, cannot you perceive that your attitude toward me now but strengthens my affection for you?”

“Mary—Mary—this is madness!”

“Listen to me,” she said. “I feel that you return my affection; but I will put you to the test. If you can look into my face and tell me that you do not love me I will marry Colonel Gwyn.”

There was another pause before he said—

“Have I not spoken once? Why should you urge me on to so painful an ordeal? Let me go—let me go.”

“Not until you answer me—not until I have proved you. Look into my eyes, Oliver Goldsmith, and speak those words to me that you spoke just now.”

“Ah, dear child——”

“You cannot speak those words.” There was another long silence. The terrible struggle that was going on in the heart of that man whose words are now so dear to the hearts of so many million men and women, was maintained in silence. No one but himself could hear the tempter's voice whispering to him to put his arms round the beautiful girl who stood before him, and kiss her on her cheeks, which were now rosy with expectation.

He lifted up his head. His lips moved, He put out a hand to her a little way, but with a moan he drew it back. Then he looked into her eyes, and said slowly—

“It is the truth. I do not love you with the heart of a lover.”

“That is enough. Leave me! My heart is broken!”

She fell into a chair, and covered her face with her hands.

He looked at her for a moment; then, with a cry of agony, he went out of the room—out of the house.

In his heart, as he wandered on to the high road, there was not much of the exaltation of a man who knows that he has overcome an unworthy impulse.