But then, at last, he lifted his bowed head and gazed at her, seeing at one glance that she also was looking full at him. Seeing, too, that the sweet, delicate mouth was trembling, and that the pure, clear eyes were welling over with tears. And he observed also that, as he became witness of her emotion and deep sympathy for him and his despair, she turned her face away, while, moving towards a chair, she made a sign for him to also be seated.
"God bless you," she heard him mutter in a low, deep voice. "God bless you for your womanly compassion2."
"Mr. Granger," she said a moment later, and still the sweet mouth trembled and her eyes were full of tears, "I have sent for--asked you to come to me--because I know so much of your past--your hopes. So much, too, of your unhappiness. Oh! Mr. Granger, I was Sophy Jervis's greatest friend."
"I know it," he murmured. "I know it. She told you all: Of my love--nay3--it was not love, but idolatry!--of its too bitter ending. Though it is not, never can be ended."
"Ah! Mr. Granger, now you must live for other things. Live to see your wrongs redressed4, your honour restored, your name cleared. You have heard from my husband that there is proof of your innocence5."
"Yes," he said. "Yes, I have heard." But, still with his head bent6, he whispered the same words he had said to Sir Geoffrey outside on the quarter-deck, "It is too late."
"No. No. It is not too late. Geoffrey and I have talked together, and to-morrow he will go to see their Lordships. Oh! Mr. Granger, if you could return to your old calling, if you could once more serve the King in these troublous times, even in a subordinate position, yet with hope before you, would you not do so? Would you not lead a different life?"
"God knows I would, bankrupt as are all my hopes, all my future. Yet--you are aware of what I have been? Of what I am?"
"Yes, I know," and, although he could not see it, there was in her face a look of sublime7 pity for him. Pity that this man, still young and handsome--how handsome he must have been when first he won Sophy's love she could well understand, even though judging only of him now as he sat before her in his desolation and abasement8!--should have fallen to what he had.
"There is," he went on, "no baser thing in all this world than he who traffics in his fellow-men. Yet I elected to do it in my despair and bitterness. I might have earned a living otherwise, but this consorted9 with what I was, with what I had become."
"It is not too late. Will you not leave this life for--for--in memory of Sophy?"
"Yes," he whispered, "if you bid me do so for her sake--her memory. Yes. If my honour is cleared, but not otherwise, for otherwise it would be useless. If Sir Geoffrey, or any other captain, will take me, I will go back, even though as a seaman10 before the mast. I will do it for her sake, in return for your gracious pity of me."
"Thank God!" she cried. "Oh, thank God!" Then she rose and went to the 'scrutoire and, opening it, took out the packet of letters that she had shown her husband. "Read them; do with them what you will. Read them now, if you desire." Whereon she put the little parcel in his hand, and, leaving him alone, went into the next cabin.
"My love, my lost love," he murmured, as he glanced at them hurriedly, not knowing that she had gone away to give him ample time for their perusal11. "My sweet. And we are parted for ever. For ever! To all eternity12. Nothing can bring you back to me."
That he had wept she knew when she returned, yet a man's tears for her whom he has loved and lost need no pardon from another woman's heart; and so she gently bade him take the letters and keep them, extorting13 only from him a promise that he would in no way endeavour to communicate with Lady Glastonbury.
"For that," she said, "must never be. Neither sorrow nor trouble must ever come to her again. Have I your promise?"
"On my word of honour. As a man--who was once a gentleman--I swear it, yet, oh God! it is hard. Hard to think that I can look upon her handwriting again and the words that are not addressed to me, although concerning me. It is so long," he added, his voice deep and broken, "since a line has come from her. Yet I have promised, and I will keep my word."
"I know it. I take and believe your word."
"But," Granger continued, "if--when you write to her, you could tell her that--that--born of these letters," and he touched his breast as he spoke14, he having placed them there, "has come the promise of a better life for me--a life loveless, but no longer smirched and blemished--then I know she would be happier. If you could promise that!"
"I will do it," Ariadne answered, the tears again rushing to her eyes, and all her emotions thrilling at the sorrow and despair of the man before her. "I will do it."
And, now, Granger turned away, knowing there was no more to be said, yet inwardly blessing15 her who had that day been as a ministering angel to him.
"Farewell, madam," he said; "I cannot thank you--but--but----" Then, seeing that now she held out her hand again to him, and in such a manner that this time he could not fail to perceive her action, he took it in his own. And, o'er-mastered by her womanliness and supreme16 sympathy, he raised it to his lips.
"God bless and keep you and yours," he whispered again as he had whispered before; "God bless you for your sweet compassion."
* * * * * * *
Outside, Sir Geoffrey Barry was still engaged with the manifold duties pertaining17 to a ship which was soon to take part in a war that would doubtless be long, and must be deadly--as was and is ever the case when England and France contend for mastery. Already many things on deck were being stowed away which, when the time came, would be encumbrances18. The cutter, too, had just come off from shore, bringing with it, this time, some willing sailors. Sailors who, having been paid off from a disabled privateer, and having spent all their money on sickening debauches on shore, were only too ready to again go to sea and earn some more. A fine band of brawny19, dissolute men were these whom George Redway--now installed as captain of the cutter--brought on board with him; men who on shore were nothing but maddened and intoxicated20 devils, but who, when the enemy hove in sight and when they were at close quarters, would become heroes, nay, almost demigods. For then the old English blood became roused to its fullest and best; then woe21 betide those who encountered these men.
"A brisk crew of sea-dogs," said Sir Geoffrey, observing the traces of recent emotion on Granger's face but making no remark for the moment. "If I had not my full complement22, these are the fellows I should wish to keep."
"There is one at least whom you can keep if you so please," Granger said; "one who will work like, live with, those men there," and he pointed23 to where half a dozen sailors were swabbing the deck.
"Yourself!" exclaimed Geoffrey, his face lighting24. "Yourself! She has spoken to you of a different life?"
"She has spoken to me. In her mercy and goodness! And I have promised."
"Thank God! The trade I found you at a few days ago might well become the man you were supposed to be, not the man you are."
"That trade ends to-day. To-night, I tell the man who employs me that he must seek another tool. Almost directly, if you will have me; I can join your ship."
"We can perhaps do better than you say. Yet, to-morrow, I must speak to their Lordships. As an officer you cannot of course go----"
"I--an officer! I do not dream of that."
"But," Geoffrey continued, "the Resolution wants a gunner's mate. If I can transfer mine to her, you could come in this ship. If I cannot, then the Resolution must have you."
"What can I say? How utter----"
"Say nothing. Granger," he continued, "you have suffered deeply, and--and--we have been brother sailors. If I who sat in judgment25 on you once and wronged you unwittingly can now help to right you, I will do it." And he laid his hand upon the other's arm as a firm friend might do. "I want to see you once more the Lewis Granger who was known and spoken enviously26 of when he was in the Revenge," he continued. "I want to see my gunner's mate--if I can have him--back again in his old place amongst us when this coming war is over."
For a moment Lewis Granger stood there looking at the man before him--the man whose life was so bright and prosperous, yet, who, nevertheless, could feel such pity for one whose existence had been so broken.
"You forget," he whispered; "you forget. My disgrace, my ruin was not all. That, it seems, may be wiped out for ever. But what of the rest of my life? What have I been? Even during the past months. And--and--I have sent that man to death, a death in life, if nothing else."
"That counts not. What would he have done? To you--to Anne--to Ariadne! My God! Granger, you have instead saved him--from me. Had he been here now, were he within my reach, I would slay27 him myself as I would slay a snake."
"Yet I suggested the scheme to him, meaning thereby28 that he should fall into the trap."
"But not meaning that it should be carried out. He was the villain29, and his villainy has recoiled30 on his own head. Dismiss all recollection of that. Live now to be prosperous and happy."
"Happy--never! Happiness and I are parted; henceforth our ways are far asunder31. Let me go," he said, turning towards the side where the boat he had come in was waiting for him, "and if you can do what you say, if you can take me with you, let me know to-morrow after you have seen their Lordships. I shall be ready ere long."
"Farewell," said Geoffrey, with one hand grasping that of Granger, the other on his arm--and on his face the look of noble compassion that not often, but sometimes, passes between man and man--"farewell! To-morrow you shall hear from me--and--fear not. We sail together as comrades yet. I know it. Feel it."
Whatever Lewis Granger had to do to free himself from the hateful life which he had lived for the last few months was quickly done; and, ere another day had passed, he--in spite of protestations and remonstrances32 from the man whom he served--had cast that life behind him for ever. But still there remained one other thing to do, a journey to make.
He took the coach as the afternoon drew on, and so proceeded some dozen miles into the heart of the country, when, quitting it, he made his way on foot towards a village lying a mile or two from a great town. A little village that, here, rose upon a slight hill and was surmounted33 by an old church built of flint stones which, in the late March gloom of evening, stood up hoar and grim. And, striding through the village in which now lights were beginning to twinkle through the diamond-paned windows of thatched cottages, Lewis Granger made his way to the wicket-gate that opened into the churchyard, and so round to the farther side, and to a grave--a grave over which was a stone, having inscribed34 on it the words that told how, very suddenly, the Lady Hortensia Granger had died two years before.
"Ay," her son murmured to himself, as he stood there in the desolate35 place and felt the night wind rising over the flat country around. "Ay. Suddenly! The blow killed her as it fell--perhaps in God's mercy. Yet, if I could have seen her ere she went--surely, surely, she must have believed my vows36 that I was innocent. And now, she can never know."
That is the bitterness of it! The bitterness that those who have gone can never know what we would have told them had we not been too late. That that which has happened after they have gone can never be told now. And such bitterness had come to the racked heart of Lewis Granger: the grief and misery37 of knowing that, of the only two creatures in the world whom he could love, the one had died of horror engendered38 by belief in his shame; the other had not died, but she, too, had believed.
"Oh, God!" he muttered, standing there in the swift-coming darkness, "if they could only have trusted me; if they could have waited patiently in that trust."
A bitter cry this from an overcharged heart, yet one that has found an echo in thousands of others, and in other circumstances. "If they would only have had faith in us: would only have waited patiently in that faith!" Or, better still, if we who erred39 and felt and suffered had not scorned to justify40 ourselves in their eyes; had not defied the present and trusted to the future to right us, and had not taught ourselves to laugh at doubts and be willing to love and lose and leave it to the morrow to make amends41. The morrow that is never to be; the future that is never to come! For there is neither future nor morrow on this earth for the loved ones whose ears are dead and cold, and cannot hear our bitter plaint--nor ever any future for us either. The word has not been said--and it is too late! Too late! and only because that word, which would have righted all, has not been uttered. We were innocent, and scorned to proclaim our innocence; we loved and cloaked our love with assumed indifference42, with pretended infidelity; we worshipped, and were ashamed to acknowledge our worship. And, now, those are gone who hungered for the avowal43, and to whom it would have sounded as the sweetest music ever heard, and we are left, and--again!--it is too late.
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1
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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2
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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3
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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4
redressed
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| v.改正( redress的过去式和过去分词 )；重加权衡；恢复平衡 | |
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5
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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6
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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7
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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8
abasement
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| n.滥用 | |
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9
consorted
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| v.结伴( consort的过去式和过去分词 )；交往；相称；调和 | |
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10
seaman
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| n.海员，水手，水兵 | |
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11
perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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12
eternity
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| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
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13
extorting
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| v.敲诈( extort的现在分词 )；曲解 | |
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14
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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15
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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16
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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17
pertaining
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| 与…有关系的，附属…的，为…固有的(to) | |
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18
encumbrances
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| n.负担( encumbrance的名词复数 )；累赘；妨碍；阻碍 | |
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19
brawny
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| adj.强壮的 | |
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20
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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21
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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22
complement
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| n.补足物，船上的定员；补语；vt.补充，补足 | |
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23
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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24
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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25
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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26
enviously
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| adv.满怀嫉妒地 | |
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27
slay
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| v.杀死，宰杀，杀戮 | |
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28
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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29
villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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30
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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31
asunder
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| adj.分离的，化为碎片 | |
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32
remonstrances
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| n.抱怨，抗议( remonstrance的名词复数 ) | |
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33
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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34
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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35
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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36
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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37
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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38
engendered
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
erred
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| 犯错误，做错事( err的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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41
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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42
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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43
avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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