No Name - Wilkie Collins (free e books to read online .TXT) 📗

it here. If he stops at home, he’ll be the ruin of both of you. He’ll shut his eyes to every consideration of prudence, and pester you to marry him; and when he has carried his point, he will be the first to turn round afterward and complain that you’re a burden on him. Hear me out! You’re in love with Frank⁠—I’m not, and I know him. Put you two together often enough; give him time enough to hug, cry, pester, and plead; and I’ll tell you what the end will be⁠—you’ll marry him.”

He had touched the right string at last. It rung back in answer before he could add another word.

“You don’t know me,” she said, firmly. “You don’t know what I can suffer for Frank’s sake. He shall never marry me till I can be what my father said I should be⁠—the making of his fortune. He shall take no burden, when he takes me; I promise you that! I’ll be the good angel of Frank’s life; I’ll not go a penniless girl to him, and drag him down.” She abruptly left her seat, advanced a few steps toward Mr. Clare, and stopped in the middle of the room. Her arms fell helpless on either side of her, and she burst into tears. “He shall go,” she said. “If my heart breaks in doing it, I’ll tell him tomorrow that we must say goodbye!”

Mr. Clare at once advanced to meet her, and held out his hand.

“I’ll help you,” he said. “Frank shall hear every word that has passed between us. When he comes tomorrow he shall know, beforehand, that he comes to say goodbye.”

She took his hand in both her own⁠—hesitated⁠—looked at him⁠—and pressed it to her bosom. “May I ask a favor of you, before you go?” she said, timidly. He tried to take his hand from her; but she knew her advantage, and held it fast. “Suppose there should be some change for the better?” she went on. “Suppose I could come to Frank, as my father said I should come to him⁠—?”

Before she could complete the question, Mr. Clare made a second effort and withdrew his hand. “As your father said you should come to him?” he repeated, looking at her attentively.

“Yes,” she replied. “Strange things happen sometimes. If strange things happen to me will you let Frank come back before the five years are out?”

What did she mean? Was she clinging desperately to the hope of melting Michael Vanstone’s heart? Mr. Clare could draw no other conclusion from what she had just said to him. At the beginning of the interview he would have roughly dispelled her delusion. At the end of the interview he left her compassionately in possession of it.

“You are hoping against all hope,” he said; “but if it gives you courage, hope on. If this impossible good fortune of yours ever happens, tell me, and Frank shall come back. In the meantime⁠—”

“In the meantime,” she interposed sadly, “you have my promise.”

Once more Mr. Clare’s sharp eyes searched her face attentively.

“I will trust your promise,” he said. “You shall see Frank tomorrow.”

She went back thoughtfully to her chair, and sat down again in silence. Mr. Clare made for the door before any formal leave-taking could pass between them. “Deep!” he thought to himself, as he looked back at her before he went out; “only eighteen; and too deep for my sounding!”

In the hall he found Norah, waiting anxiously to hear what had happened.

“Is it all over?” she asked. “Does Frank go to China?”

“Be careful how you manage that sister of yours,” said Mr. Clare, without noticing the question. “She has one great misfortune to contend with: she’s not made for the ordinary jog-trot of a woman’s life. I don’t say I can see straight to the end of the good or evil in her⁠—I only warn you, her future will be no common one.”

An hour later, Mr. Pendril left the house; and, by that night’s post, Miss Garth dispatched a letter to her sister in London.

Between the Scenes Progress of the Story Through the Post I From Norah Vanstone to Mr. Pendril

“Westmoreland House, Kensington, August 14th, 1846.

“Dear Mr. Pendril⁠—The date of this letter will show you that the last of many hard partings is over. We have left Combe-Raven; we have said farewell to home.

“I have been thinking seriously of what you said to me on Wednesday, before you went back to town. I entirely agree with you that Miss Garth is more shaken by all she has gone through for our sakes than she is herself willing to admit; and that it is my duty, for the future, to spare her all the anxiety that I can on the subject of my sister and myself. This is very little to do for our dearest friend, for our second mother. Such as it is, I will do it with all my heart.

“But, forgive me for saying that I am as far as ever from agreeing with you about Magdalen. I am so sensible, in our helpless position, of the importance of your assistance; so anxious to be worthy of the interest of my father’s trusted adviser and oldest friend, that I feel really and truly disappointed with myself for differing with you⁠—and yet I do differ. Magdalen is very strange, very unaccountable, to those who don’t know her intimately. I can understand that she has innocently misled you; and that she has presented herself, perhaps, under her least favorable aspect. But that the clue to her language and her conduct on Wednesday last is to be found in such a feeling toward the man who has ruined us, as the feeling at which you hinted, is what I can not and will not believe of my sister. If you knew, as I do, what a noble nature she has, you would not be surprised at this obstinate resistance of mine to your opinion. Will you try to alter