CHAPTER XXV.    NOT THE LAST WORD.

As soon as he could decently leave his cousin at home, he did; and then he walked hastily down to the house in which Mrs. Rosewarne had taken rooms. Miss Rosewarne was not at home, the small maid-servant said. Was Mrs. Rosewarne? Yes; so he would see her.

He went up stairs, never thinking how his deep trouble about so insignificant an incident would strike a third person.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said right out, "I want you to tell me if Wenna wishes our acquaintance to end. Has she been speaking to you? Just now she passed me in the street as if she did not wish to see me again."

"Probably," said Mrs. Rosewarne, amused as well as surprised by the young man's impetuosity, "she did not see you then. Wenna often passes people so. Most likely she was thinking about other things, for she had another letter from Jamaica just before she went out."

"Oh, she has had another letter from Jamaica this morning?" Trelyon said, with an angry light appearing in his eyes. "That is it, is it?"

"I don't understand you," Mrs. Rosewarne was saying, when both of them heard Wenna enter below.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said with a sudden entreaty in his voice, "would you mind letting me see Wenna alone for a couple of minutes? I want to ask her if she is offended with me: you won't mind, will you?"

"Not in the least," she said, good-naturedly; and then she added, at the door, "Mind, Mr. Trelyon, Wenna is easily hurt. You must speak gently to her."

About a minute afterward Wenna, having laid her hat and shawl aside, came into the room. When she found Trelyon there alone, she almost shrank back, and her face paled somewhat: then she forced herself to go forward and shake hands with him, though her face still wore a frightened and constrained look.

"Wenna," he said, "don't go away: I want to speak to you for a minute. You are offended with me about something, and I want you to tell me why. If you wish our friendship to cease, say so, and I will obey you; but you must tell me why first."

"I am not offended with you, Mr. Trelyon," she said in a low and nervous voice. "Do not think that. But—but I think it will be better if you will let our friendship cease, as you say."

"Oh no," he said, "I will not in this fashion. You've got to tell me what is the matter first. Now remember this. Not very long ago you chose to quarrel with me about nothing—absolutely about nothing. You know quite well that I meant no harm to you by lending Mr. Roscorla that money, yet you must needs flare up and give it me as hot as you could, all for nothing. What could I do? Why, only wait until you saw what a mistake you had made."

"It was very wrong of me," she said: "I ask your forgiveness. But now it is quite different: I am not angry with you at all. I should like to remain your friend, and yet I think it better not. I—I cannot explain to you, Mr. Trelyon, and I am sure you won't ask me when I say so."

He looked at her for a moment, and then he said, gently and yet firmly, "Look here, Wenna. You think I am only a boy—that may or may not be—but I am going to talk reasonably to you for once. Come over to this chair by the window and sit down."

She followed him in passive obedience. She took the one chair, he the other.

"Perhaps I am only a boy," he said, "but I have knocked about a good deal, and I have kept my eyes as wide open as most folks. I suppose ill-natured people might say that as I had nothing to do at Eglosilyan, I wanted to have a flirtation with the only girl who was handy. I know better. Year after year I saw more and more of you, bit by bit, and that after I had been abroad or living in other places in England from time to time. I got to believe that I had never seen anywhere any girl or woman who was so honest as you are, and good in a dozen secret ways that needed a deal of discovering. I found out far more about you than you imagined. I heard of you in cottages that you never knew I was in; and everything I heard made me respect you more and more. Mind this, too. I had no sort of personal liking for the sort of thing you were doing. I don't admire beastly little rooms and poverty and sick people as appealing to a fine sentiment. There never was anything of the parson or the benevolent old lady about me. I would rather give half a crown to an impertinent little boy who had just whopped another boy bigger than himself than give a halfpenny tract to a sickly child in its mother's arms: that's original sin in me, I suppose. But all that squalid sort of work you were in only made the jewel shine the more. I used to think I should like to marry a very grand woman, who could be presented at court without a tremor, who would come into a drawing-room as if she was conferring a favor on the world at large; and I certainly never thought I should find the best and finest woman I had ever seen in back kitchens sewing pinafores for children. And then when I found her there, wasn't it natural I should put some store by her friendship? I suppose you didn't know what I thought of you, Wenna, because I kept chaffing you and Mabyn? I have told you something of it now; and now I want you to say whether you have a right to shunt me off like this, without a word of explanation."

She sat still, silent and nervous. The rude and impetuous eloquence of his speech, broken by many a hesitating stammer, had touched her. There was more thoughtfulness and tenderness in this wild lad than she had supposed.

"How can I explain?" she burst out suddenly. "I should cover myself with shame!"

"And what have you to be ashamed of?" he said with a stare. The distress she was obviously suffering was so great that he had almost a mind to take her at her word and leave the house without further ado.

Just at this moment, when he was considering what would be the most generous thing to do, she seemed to nerve herself to speak to him, and in a low and measured voice she said, "Yes, I will tell you. I have had a letter this morning from Mr. Roscorla. He asks me if it is true that you are paying me such attention that people notice it; and he asks me if that is how I keep my promise to him."

Something like a quiver of rage passed through the young man at this moment, but his teeth were kept firmly together. She did not look up to his face.

"That is not all. I must tell you that I was deeply shocked and grieved by this letter; but on looking back over the past six weeks I think a suspicious person might have been justified in complaining to Mr. Roscorla. And—and—and, Mr. Trelyon, did you see that dried flower in my Prayer-book last night?"

Her resolution was fast ebbing away: he could see that her hands were clasped piteously together.

"Yes, I did," he said boldly.

"And oh what could you have thought of me?" she cried in her distress. "Indeed, Mr. Trelyon, it was all a mistake. I did not keep the flower—I did not, indeed. And when I thought you had seen it I could have died for shame."

"And why?" he said in a way that made her lift up her startled eyes to his face. There was a strange look there, as of a man who had suddenly resolved to dare his fate, and yet was imploringly anxious as to the result. "For you have been frank with me, and so will I be with you. Why should you not have kept that flower? Yes, I sent it to you, and with all the purpose that such a thing could carry. Yes, you may be as angry as you please; only listen, Wenna. You don't love that man whom you are engaged to marry; you know in your heart that you do not believe in his love for you; and are you surprised that people should wish to have you break off an engagement that will only bring you misery?"

"Mr. Trelyon!"

"Wenna, one minute: you must hear me. Do with my offer what you like—only here it is: give me the power to break off this engagement, and I will. Give me the right to do that. Don't mind me in the matter. It is true I love you—there, I will say it again: there is nothing I think of from morning till night but my love for you—and if you would say that some time I might ask you to be my wife, you would give me more happiness than you could dream of. But I don't wish that now. I will remain your friend if you like, Wenna; only let me do this thing for you, and when you are free you can then say yes or no."

She rose, not proud and indignant, but weeping bitterly. "I have deserved this," she said, apparently overwhelmed with mortification and self-reproach. "I have earned this shame, and I must bear it. I do not blame you, Mr. Trelyon: it is I who have done this. How many weeks is it since the man left England to whom I promised to be faithful? and already—But this I can do, Mr. Trelyon: I will bid you good-bye now, and I will never see you again."

Her face was quite pale. She held out her hand.

"No," he said firmly. "We don't part like that, Wenna. First, let me say that you have nothing to accuse yourself of. You have done nothing and said nothing of which any man, however mean and suspicious, could complain. Perhaps I was too hasty in speaking of my love for you. In that case I've got to pay for my folly."

"And it is folly, Mr. Trelyon," she said passionately, and yet with nothing but tenderness in her face. "How could you have thought of marrying me? Why, the future that ought to lie before you is far more than you can imagine yet; and you would go and hamper it by marrying an innkeeper's daughter! It is folly indeed, and you will see that very soon. But—but I am very sorry all this has occurred: it is another grief to me that I have troubled you. I think I was born to bring grief to all my friends."

He was anxiously debating what he should do; and he needed all his wits at that moment, for his own feelings were strong within him, and clamoring for expression. Should he insist? Should he bear down all opposition? Happily, quieter counsels prevailed, for there was no mistake as to the absolute truthfulness of what the girl had said.

"Well, Wenna," he said, "I will do anything you like, only to remain your friend. Is that possible? Will you forgive all that I have said if I make you a promise not to repeat it, and never again to mention your engagement to Mr. Roscorla?"

"No, we must part now altogether," she said slowly. Then by haphazard she glanced up at his face for a moment, and there was a great sadness in her eyes. "It is a hard thing to part. Perhaps it will not be necessary that you should never come to see me. But we must not be friends as we have been, for I have my duty to do toward him."

"Then I may come to see you sometimes?"

She hesitated: "You may come to see my mother sometimes. And I will always think of you as a dear friend, whether I see you or not."

He went outside, and drew a long breath. "I had to keep a tight grip on the reins that time," he was thinking to himself—"a precious tight grip; but I did it."

He thought of the look there was in her eyes when she finally bid him goodbye. His face grew the happier as he thought of it. He was clearly not at all down-hearted about his rejection: on the contrary, he went and told his cousin Juliott that the little affair of the morning had been quite satisfactorily arranged, that Miss Wenna and he were very good friends again, and that it was quite a mistake to imagine that she was already married to Mr. Roscorla.

"Harry," said his cousin, "I strictly forbid you to mention that gentleman's name."

"Why, Jue?" he said.

"Because I will not listen to the bad language you invariably use whenever you speak of him; and you ought to remember that you are in a clergyman's house. I wonder Miss Rosewarne is not ashamed to have your acquaintance, but I dare say you amend your ways when you are in her presence. She'll have [Pg_197]plenty to reform if ever she takes you for a husband."

"That's true enough, Jue," the young man said penitently. "I believe I'm a bad lot, but then look at the brilliant contrast which the future will present. You know that my old grandmother is always saying to me, 'Harry, you were born with as many manners as most folks, and you've used none; so you'll have a rare stock to come and go on when you begin.'"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]