FullReads

“You are.”

I said it quietly–in full possession of myself. The trial of fortitude through which I had already passed seemed to have blunted my customary sense of feeling. I approached the disclosure which I was now bound to make with steady resolution, resigned to the worst that could happen when the truth was known.

“Do you remember the time,” I resumed, “when I was so eager to serve you that I proposed to make Susan your wife by making her rich?”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember asking me if I was thinking of the play we saw together at Rome? Is the story as present to your mind now, as it was then?”

“Quite as present.”

“You asked if I was performing the part of the Marquis–and if you were the Count. Rothsay! the devotion of that ideal character to his friend has been my devotion; his conviction that his death would justify what he had done for his friend’s sake, has been my conviction; and as it ended with him, so it has ended with me–his terrible position is my terrible position toward you, at this moment.”

“Are you mad?” Rothsay asked, sternly.

I passed over that first outbreak of his anger in silence.

“Do you mean to tell me you have married Susan?” he went on.

“Bear this in mind,” I said. “When I married her, I was doomed to death. Nay, more. In your interests–as God is my witness–I welcomed death.”

He stepped up to me, in silence, and raised his hand with a threatening gesture.

That action at once deprived me of my self-possession. I spoke with the ungovernable rashness of a boy.

“Carry out your intention,” I said. “Insult me.”

His hand dropped.

“Insult me,” I repeated; “it is one way out of the unendurable situation in which we are placed. You may trust me to challenge you. Duels are still fought on the Continent; I will follow you abroad; I will choose pistols; I will take care that we fight on the fatal foreign system; and I will purposely miss you. Make her what I intended her to be–my rich widow.”

He looked at me attentively.

“Is that your refuge?” he asked, scornfully. “No! I won’t help you to commit suicide.”

God forgive me! I was possessed by a spirit of reckless despair; I did my best to provoke him.

“Reconsider your decision,” I said; “and remember–you tried to commit suicide yourself.”

He turned quickly to the door, as if he distrusted his own powers of self-control.

“I wish to speak to Susan,” he said, keeping his back turned on me.

“You will find her in the library.”

He left me.

I went to the window. I opened it and let the cold wintry air blow over my burning head. I don’t know how long I sat at the window. There came a time when I saw Rothsay on the house steps. He walked rapidly toward the park gate. His head was down; he never once looked back at the room in which he had left me.

As he passed out of my sight, I felt a hand laid gently on my shoulder. Susan had returned to me.

“He will not come back,” she said. “Try still to remember him as your old friend. He asks you to forgive and forget.”

She had made the peace between us. I was deeply touched; my eyes filled with tears as I looked at her. She kissed me on the forehead and went out. I afterward asked what had passed between them when Rothsay spoke with her in the library. She never has told me what they said to each other; and she never will. She is right.

Later in the day I was told that Mrs. Rymer had called, and wished to “pay her respects.”

I refused to see her. Whatever claim she might have otherwise had on my consideration had been forfeited by the infamy of her conduct, when she intercepted my letter to Susan. Her sense of injury on receiving my message was expressed in writing, and was sent to me the same evening. The last sentence in her letter was characteristic of the woman.