CHAPTER 4.

            NOEL was more deeply affected by the loss of his uncle than he had imagined possible, and regretted much that he had been prevented from passing more of the last few years with him. Sophia, who knew now the full extent of Mr. Tresham’s misfortunes, sought to console Noel by demonstrating the impossibility of his uncle ever having been happy again, had he lived; and endeavoured to brace him anew to the duty of extricating the estate, and becoming all that his uncle desired him to be.

            Margaret, on the other hand, said not a word of consolation. It was rather her nature to ponder over a grief than to talk about it, and she judged Edmund by herself. Once only she revealed to him the thought that now worked in her; and deeply pained he was at finding that she was reproaching herself with having been the cause of his long sojourn in Mexico, and consequent separation from his uncle.

            ‘Ah, Margaret,’ said Edmund to her one day, after vainly trying to relieve her of this notion; ‘providence must have a hard time of it with all the evil it allows, if its conscience is as tender as yours.’

            ‘What is the use of affection,’ she replied, ‘if it does not enable one to be a providence where one loves? It must be but a poor sort of deity that is so limited in its power.’

            ‘Do not aggravate grief by unfounded remorse,’ he answered.

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‘Rather let us consider this event as but a step in our mutual experience, and wait for the end, before judging its character or significance.’

            ‘The end!’ she exclaimed, sadly. ‘It can only be worse than the rest. Come life or come death, I see only room for worse self-reproach and sharper bitterness. Why cannot I die? Your uncle, who had nothing wherewith to reproach himself, has made his escape and knows sorrow no more. Sophia is right, Edmund; we will not grieve for him.’

            ‘Margaret, this is the first time I have ever seen you in a frame of mind that I cannot sympathise with.’

            ‘It is the first time you have ever seen me in the presence of death. It is the second or third time that I have been in its presence; but at the others, I was a child, and simply wondered. Now, I dread to think of the next time!’

            Noel saw that she was shaken from her usual serenity, and that other means were necessary to produce a reaction from the state into which she had fallen.

            ‘It is very wonderful,’ he remarked to her, to reflect how widely opposite are the extremes our nature can enclose. Sometimes, when after performing feats of mountaineering in the Alps I have dwelt awhile quietly in the valleys, I have found myself gazing with wonder and dread at the sharp peaks as they glittered far up in the sunlight, until I doubted the possibility of my having ever had daring and strength to climb them, and of my ever climbing them again. I forgot that the same exaltation of will, the same intensification of every faculty, would again carry me as safely to every altitude. What heights of being, what lofty ranges of feeling, have we traversed together! How have faith and love sustained us, as hand in hand we trod the thin crust of the red lava-current, flying with light steps o’er the surface, where but a few inches below or on each side all was molten and glowing! Ah, had it broken, and let us through! but, faith never shaken, and love never limited, were sufficient for the trial. Believe me, darling friend, what is called “repentance” is often nothing more than the timidity natural on reviewing in cool blood that which was achieved in hot. As well might the collapsed balloon shudder on thinking of its flight into heaven, after losing the inspiration which sustained its daring yet easy career. Honestly, now, you do not think you have committed a wrong. You but fancy so when you look from the point of view of some other

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person, and that one who sees the outside only, and knows nought of the impelling motive. Man may not forgive, because man knows not all as we know it. But God cannot disapprove, because by God we mean one who does know all. He is our ideal of perfect goodness and perfect knowledge, and if that – if He – condemns not, what need to be troubled about the verdict of those who have not all the evidence, and who probably would not understand it if they had!’

            Smiling sadly on him, she replied, –

            ‘Our positions are not quite the same. But yet I am sure that wrong was never in my heart. Thanks, thanks; I will try not to be foolish, and make you unhappy again. I some-times think that if I could be sure that you would never see me in any other light, I should regret nothing. I fear me that I have put in you the trust which ought to be put only in God.’

            His reflections after leaving her were to this effect:

            ‘I must write a tale that will show Margaret in what light she really appears to me. Words spoken are not enough. She requires the strong continuous light of words written. A sort of “Love and Duty,” in prose. A tale of Love. A tale of Duty. Margaret’s words seemed to presage t tale of Fate. Ah, how will it end?’

            Noel was thinking of returning to England and setting to work in earnest in carrying out his newly-conceived idea.’ This, with his uncle’s affairs, for he was left sole executor, would, he considered, worthily occupy all his time for months or years to come, and be no barrier to his absorption in the idea of Margaret. Truly, she was his divinity, and never did Buddhist yearn more towards his Nirvana. For him the life was wasted that had no reference to her. Even the enormous interests involved in his uncle’s affairs were worth a thought only in so far as his own power to serve her might be affected thereby.

            He was bidding good-bye to Margaret, when, in answer to his renewed offers of service, she said, –

            ‘There is only one way by which you can really serve me. It is by getting yourself married. Yes, I mean it,’ she continued, earnestly, and preventing his speaking; there will then be equal duties on both sides, and it will be better for all.’

            ‘Perhaps you have found me a victim?’ said Noel, somewhat crossly.

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            No, I leave you free choice, believing you will not choose unwisely.’

            And you have no one in your mind?’

            ‘I simply know this, that we shall both be happier and better when yon have interests and duties to occupy you apart from me. I am not so foolish as to suppose that you can all at once go and fall in love at will, but I think you can give enough to any woman to make her happy, without much cost to yourself; and by honestly trying to love her, it will be sure to come.’

            ‘You did not find it so in your own case.’

            ‘I? I am not a woman, according to James; and I some-times think he is right. But it always came easy to yon to love. I have your own confession to that effect, yon know,’ she said, with an arch smile.’

            Those miserable verses! Their contents are the best proof that they were not intended to be seen. But I shall not gratify you by telling yon how far the imagined in them predominated over the real.’

            ‘I do not blame you,’ she returned. Nor do I hold it to be a defect in any one’s disposition to be naturally so loving as to flow over readily to all objects that seem worthy. Rather is it a defect in mine that I cannot love where I ought and wish most to do so. But with you, I hope and believe that it will be different. Beginning with respect and affection, you will easily go on to love, and then all will be well; and you will come to look back on the past as a dream.’

            ‘I love my dreams too well to part from them so easily. But, tell me, is there any one that you have fixed upon for me?’

            ‘You have plenty of choice in London. Keep in mind what it is yon want, the kind of life and ambition, the pursuit of which will make you most happy and most useful; and surely among the multitude to be found in London drawing-rooms and in country houses yon will find what you require.’

            ‘You have become terribly practical of late. Is this from living with Sophia Bevan?’

            ‘She thinks in this matter very much as I do, and no one could have your real good more at heart. I dare say that out of the numbers of people she knows, she could tell you of some one who would be suitable to you. Why not ask her?’

            ‘Do you mean, ask her to have me herself?’

            ‘No, I do not mean that. I do not think she approves of.

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you sufficiently to take you. She does not appreciate what she calls “dreamers.” Sophia’s conscience is a very particular one in some things. It would probably take more love to blind it than she would care, or, indeed, think right, to indulge. My meaning was, that you should consult her about some other. If she would take you herself, there would be a happy end of the search.’

            ‘Well, Margaret, now that you have discharged your conscience in vain imaginings, we will talk about the actual. I am going to London to work at my uncle’s affairs and my own. Where do you think of passing next winter?’

            ‘My aunt,’ she replied, is disinclined to return to Linnwood and its gaieties so soon after Mr. Tresham’s death, so that we shall, most likely, winter abroad together. My own wish is to go to Dresden and study the paintings there. But they say it is such a cold place. Sophia prefers either Rome or London.’

            ‘James betrays no symptom yet of weariness at being alone?’

            ‘His last letter makes me rather uneasy. It was much longer than the others. And my journal which I sent him with notes on the paintings and things we had seen, induced him to say that it made him wish to be back in Italy with me, to save me from making such blunders in my antiquities.’

            ‘He loves you too well to spoil yon by over-praise. But seriously, I really expect every shipment to be the last, things are getting so bad; and I cannot think what he will do if forced to discontinue his work. He knows now that the mine belongs to himself and to me in equal shares. How do you think he will be affected by my uncle’s death? His position as half-proprietor is a different one to what it was?’’

            ‘It is impossible,’ answered Margaret, ‘to foresee his course. Put me out of the question, and yon could have no more steady man to deal with. But – he may remember that he is married.’

            ‘It is partly in the hope of making his work there a paramount consideration with him that I have told him the exact state of my uncle’s affairs, and the consequent change in my own prospects. I know that for himself he cares nothing for money, and would not hesitate to sacrifice everything he has if he thought he could further the cause he espouses in Mexico. But when he finds of what importance the mine now is to both of us, he may be more careful.’

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            ‘Do you think there is any danger to himself in being there?’ asked Margaret, anxiously.

            ‘Not so long as he keeps to his work and uses ordinary caution. My principal fear is as to what he may be tempted to do if the contest approaches his own neighbourhood. But that is not likely.’

            ‘I know little of James’s affairs,’ she said; ‘but, tell me, has he an income if he leaves Mexico?’

            ‘So long as I have one he has one,’ responded Edmund; ‘so do not be uneasy about that. If he can keep the mine going three or four years longer, we can sell it, and all be as rich as we can desire to be.’

            ‘I cannot tell you how grateful I am for your thought for him,’ she said. ‘But neither he nor I could ever consent to be a burden to you. Not that I should object, if I were alone,’ she hastened to add, for fear of paining him; ‘I should be only too happy to have a right to spend your money. But, as I am, I cannot. Besides, there could be no need, for both James and I could earn money in England, if necessary. Oh yes, you need not look so incredulous. You do not know what I can do when I exert my will.’

            Before he started she reminded him of her desire that he should marry, and indicated Sophia as a possible solution. He only replied, –

            ‘Thanks, but I think you mistake her. What she wants just now is a secretary rather than a husband, for she is deep in correspondence with heaps of notables about her girl’s college scheme. In the presence of interests of such magnitude matrimony would appear a frivolity.’

            Sophia, however, was not so engrossed as to be neglectful of her friend’s requirements. But she thought it best to venture only on a general remonstrance against his continued celibacy and desultoriness.’

            A man must have a mooring-place to date from,’ she urged. ‘It is impossible even to kick without a point of resistance. You are no exception to mechanical laws.’

            In reply to his pleading his diminished fortunes, she exclaimed, –

            ‘You can’t afford to marry? but you can afford to be married, I suppose! There are plenty of nice women who are not

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paupers. You have only to make up your mind that it is a duty to be done, and set about it directly you get home.’

            It was an immense delight to Noel to see how completely Margaret had won her aunt’s love and approbation.

            ‘She is the highest bred woman I ever knew,’ Lady Bevan had said to him. ‘Her demeanour as a young married woman, separated from her husband, is absolutely perfect.’

            It was finally settled that they should winter abroad again, but the place was not determined upon.