"Suppose you go back to Dexter, out of sheer compassion for a mad and miserable wretch who has already insulted you," proceeded my mother-in-law. "You can only go back accompanied by me, or by some other trustworthy person. You can only stay long enough to humor the creature's wayward fancy, and to keep his crazy brain quiet for a time. That done, all is done--you leave him. Even supposing Dexter to be still capable of helping you, how can you make use of him but by admitting him to terms of confidence and familiarity--by treating him, in short, on the footing of an intimate friend? Answer me honestly: can you bring yourself to do that, after what happened at Mr. Benjamin's house?"I had told her of my last interview with Miserrimus Dexter, in the natural confidence that she inspired in me as relative and fellow-traveler; and this was the use to which she turned her information! I suppose I had no right to blame her; I suppose the motive sanctioned everything. At any rate, I had no choice but to give offense or to give an answer. I gave it. I acknowledged that I could never again permit Miserrimus Dexter to treat me on terms of familiarity as a trusted and intimate friend.
Mrs. Macallan pitilessly pressed the advantage that she had won.
"Very well," she said, "that resource being no longer open to you, what hope is left? Which way are you to turn next?"There was no meeting those questions, in my present situation, by any adequate reply. I felt strangely unlike myself--I submitted in silence. Mrs. Macallan struck the last blow that completed her victory.
"My poor Eustace is weak and wayward," she said; "but he is not an ungrateful man. My child, you have returned him good for evil--you have proved how faithfully and how devotedly you love him, by suffering all hardships and risking all dangers for his sake. Trust me, and trust him! He cannot resist you. Let him see the dear face that he has been dreaming of looking at him again with all the old love in it, and he is yours once more, my daughter--yours for life." She rose and touched my forehead with her lips; her voice sank to tones of tenderness which I had never heard from her yet. "Say yes, Valeria," she whispered; "and be dearer to me and dearer to him than ever!"My heart sided with her. My energies were worn out. No letter had arrived from Mr. Playmore to guide and to encourage me. I had resisted so long and so vainly; I had tried and suffered so much;I had met with such cruel disasters and such reiterated disappointments--and he was in the room beneath me, feebly finding his way back to consciousness and to life--how could Iresist? It was all over. In saying Yes (if Eustace confirmed his mother's confidence in him), I was saying adieu to the one cherished ambition, the one dear and noble hope of my life. Iknew it--and I said Yes.
And so good-by to the grand struggle! And so welcome to the new resignation which owned that I had failed.
My mother-in-law and I slept together under the only shelter that the inn could offer to us--a sort of loft at the top of the house. The night that followed our conversation was bitterly cold. We felt the chilly temperature, in spite of the protection of our dressing-gowns and our traveling-wrappers. My mother-in-law slept, but no rest came to me. I was too anxious and too wretched, thinking over my changed position, and doubting how my husband would receive me, to be able to sleep.
Some hours, as I suppose, must have passed, and I was still absorbed in my own melancholy thoughts, when I suddenly became conscious of a new and strange sensation which astonished and alarmed me. I started up in the bed, breathless and bewildered.
The movement awakened Mrs. Macallan. "Are you ill?" she asked.
"What is the matter with you?" I tried to tell her, as well as Icould. She seemed to understand me before I had done; she took me tenderly in her arms, and pressed me to her bosom. "My poor innocent child," she said, "is it possible you don't know? Must Ireally tell you?" She whispered her next words. Shall I ever forget the tumult of feelings which the whisper aroused in me--the strange medley of joy and fear, and wonder and relief, and pride and humility, which filled my whole being, and made a new woman of me from that moment? Now, for the first time, I knew it! If God spared me for a few months more, the most enduring and the most sacred of all human joys might be mine--the joy of being a mother.
I don't know how the rest of the night passed. I only find my memory again when the morning came, and when I went out by myself to breathe the crisp wintry air on the open moor behind the inn.
I have said that I felt like a new woman. The morning found me with a new resolution and a new courage. When I thought of the future, I had not only my husband to consider now. His good name was no longer his own and mine--it might soon become the most precious inheritance that he could leave to his child. What had Idone while I was in ignorance of this? I had resigned the hope of cleansing his name from the stain that rested on it--a stain still, no matter how little it might look in the eye of the Law.
Our child might live to hear malicious tongues say, "Your father was tried for the vilest of all murders, and was never absolutely acquitted of the charge." Could I face the glorious perils of childbirth with that possibility present to my mind? No! not until I had made one more effort to lay the conscience of Miserrimus Dexter bare to my view! not until I had once again renewed the struggle, and brought the truth that vindicated the husband and the father to the light of day!
I went back to the house, with my new courage to sustain me. Iopened my heart to my friend and mother, and told her frankly of the change that had come over me since we had last spoken of Eustace.
She was more than disappointed--she was almost offended with me.