Shirley Brooks

“ And, thought Robert Urquhart, as he moodily pondered over the story, and wished that he had used even stronger or more reiterated arguments, when Arthur Lygon shall have had all this strange business explained to him, when he shall have declared himself satisfied, and gently rebuked Laura for not having at once confided in him, and their hands and lips have again met in token of perfect reconciliation, will he be again the happy, confiding husband of other days? Reason would bid him resume his old, calm happiness; but when did reason ever make the heart hear her? ”

“ All else that I would say to you, dear friend, is that you must nerve yourself to learn, not from me, but from my husband, that which will grieve you to the soul. But if, through his worldly, or shall I say his professional notion of a kindness, which unhappily will be a mistaken one, he should deem it right not to lay the whole truth before you——”
“You intend to do so?”
“Grievous, bitterly grievous, dear Arthur, as such a duty would be, and much as I hope that I shall not be called upon to perform it, I feel that from it, if it must be done, I ought not to shrink.” ”

“ When honour and happiness, and not only our own honour and happiness, but that of those we love beyond all words, is brought into peril by such a miscreant as that man, I do not believe that anything we may do can be blamed. But let that be as it may, I have decided, or I would not be here, and I will be deterred by no fear, if our one great fear can be ended for ever.”
“I can make you no answer, Laura,” said Bertha, “I feel like a child in your hands.” ”

“ Lygon leave your home?”
“My God,” said Arthur, “is not that the mystery which you must help me to solve.”
“I repeat, be a man, Arthur. Come.”
“I swear,” said Lygon, “that your meaning is a mystery to me.”
“Arthur,” said Mr. Berry, “it is not kind of you to force me to use words that even hint at shame. But if you will have it so, tell me. Do you believe that Mrs. Lygon left your house with a lover, or to join one?”
The young husband turned a ghastly white, and he felt his limbs tremble under him at the presence of the foul phantom which these words had called up. ”

“ Berry, calmly, “but believe me, Mr. Hawkesley, such words as you employ in the hope of wounding me, go by me like the idle wind. They are meant to hurt, but are powerless. You, who have not the privilege of being a Christian, cannot comprehend the pity with which you are regarded by those who know better things. If you come to Lipthwaite to-night, and can bow yourself at our family altar, you shall hear how little anger and how much love we bear for those who wrong and insult us. Farewell, Mr. Hawkesley.” ”

“ If there was one man on earth whom Arthur would have avoided at that moment, it was the man who was welcoming him so cordially. Without time to consider what course to adopt, without a shadow of preparation for inevitable questions, the answers to which might determine the events of a life, here he was in the irresistible grasp of his friend, the husband of the woman whose history Lygon had so lately learned, of the woman who had enabled Laura to escape from a husband vulgarly deceived by her shameless sister. ”

“ Berry stepped rapidly to his side.
“Nay, Arthur—you must let me call you so, when in trouble, at all events—this is not well. I will not say that in this world it is not sometimes a duty to avoid intruding one’s sorrows upon others, and though we are enjoined to bear one another’s burdens, we are not always required to impose our own. But if friendship, Christian friendship, means anything, it means that we are to seek counsel and comfort one of another. You came hither for that purpose; do not be afraid to carry it out. You will find no cold hearts here, in the hour of your sorrow, Arthur.” ”

“ Nay, I don’t mean that I doubt you, but when a man has a serious affair of the heart, he gets very untrustworthy, for the time. I don’t know a more demoralising thing than falling in love—it destroys all a man’s ideas of the sacredness of friendship, and makes him sacrifice anything and everything in the hope of pleasing somebody who is laughing at him all the time, and whom he will heartily hate in twelve months.”
“Frightful creed!” said Silvain. “Do not trust me.”
“Yes, I will, because you have a brain as well as a heart.” What have they been telling this ass, thought Ernest. ”

“ That is foolish talk, Arthur Lygon.”
“Believing it, I am here,” said Lygon.
“Cut this sort of thing short,” said Robert Urquhart, almost sternly. “We are not to play with words, when there is honour or shame in the matter before us. You are either meaning to tell me nothing, in which case the sooner we two part company the better; or, which is more likely, you are preparing the way to tell me what you ought. You will take your choice, of course, but you call me your friend.”
“You are impatient, Urquhart,” said Lygon, with a forced composure. “You have not heard me to the end.” ”

“ Intimately acquainted with the nature of Lygon, Urquhart trembled for the future of Laura’s husband from the first moment when he had doubted her. Devoted, thoughtful, cheerful, proud of his wife as well as earnestly attached to her, affectionate in his manner as well as in his heart, and, in brief, what is rightly considered the model of a husband, Arthur Lygon, blessed with health, energy, and worldly prosperity, seemed a man destined to a long life of tranquil but not stagnant happiness. ”

“ The look did not escape Laura, who immediately and suddenly threw back the curtain of the alcove bed.
“What thoughts you put into my head, Bertha,” she said, almost reproachfully.
Bertha smiled—but such a helpless smile!
“Now, Bertha,”said Mrs. Lygon, clearing back her hair from her forehead, and speaking in a firm under-tone, “listen to me. We must bring this persecution to an end.”
“O, if we could,” replied poor Bertha, feebly.
“If we could,” repeated her sister. “It must be done. Whatever price we have to pay for freedom from it, the price must be paid.” ”

“ No, I am sure that you are not.”
“I do not believe, dear Beatrice, that even your affection for her is much greater than mine; but I feel that we ought to be prepared for bad news,” said Hawkesley. “But, tell me, why has Clara left the place where her father desired her to stay?”
“Because, like any loving and high-spirited child, she could not bear to hear the things that the woman said, day by day, and night by night, about her mother. I love the dear thing from my very heart for refusing to bear it any longer. ”

“ One of them must assuredly speak, and therefore it had better be himself.
“The secret, Arthur,” he said, “is that a woman was weak, and a man was a villain.”
That was a strange effect which came over the face of Arthur Lygon at the words. The eyes lighted up with pleasure, a smile came to the lips, and a half sob proclaimed that a weight was suddenly lifted from his heart. The voice, though broken, was almost cheerful, as he replied—
“And Laura has kept the secret from me! Well, she knew all, and what there was to pity—and—she should have told me. I might have been trusted.” ”

“ Nor did Arthur Lygon at once take up his hat and depart. A handsome man, happily married, seldom loses, at the age of thirty-five, his bachelor habit of paying some attention to appearances; and Mr. Lygon went to the other end of his comfortable, double-sashed apartment—exclusively his own—brushed his wavy dark brown hair, washed his aristocratic hands, and gave himself that good-natured look-over which a man who has no objectionable vanity, but has the laudable desire to be as presentable as he conveniently can, usually performs before re-joining society. ”

“ My dear Beatrice, you have known Laura from babyhood, and can say for yourself whether there was ever the faintest defect in her beautifully ordered mind.”
“But is it not the most delicate minds that are most easily injured?”
“Assuredly not. That is one of the mistakes of ignorance—don’t be angry with the word, dearest; I use the strongest purposely. It is the machine in which there are flaws and damages that flics, the perfect one is true and safe to the last. Pray drive away the thought—reject it as absolutely as I do.” ”