Part 78 (1/2)

'You don't mean Samuel Axworthy! Oh! no. Why the last thing Leonard bade me, was always to pray for him.'

'Ah!' said Tom, with bent head, and colouring cheeks; 'but who are those for whom such as Leonard would feel bound to pray?'

There was a moment's silence, and then she said, 'His enemy! Is that what you mean? But then he would have known it was he.'

'He was entirely convinced that so it must have been, but there was no proof, and an unsupported accusation would only have made his own case worse.'

'And has he confessed? has he been touched and cleared Leonard at last?'

'No; he had no s.p.a.ce granted him. It was the receipt in your brother's writing that was found upon him.'

'The receipt? Yes, Leonard always said the receipt would clear him!

But oh, how dreadful! He must have had it all the time. How could he be so cruel! Oh! I never felt before that such wickedness could be;'

and she lay, looking appalled and overpowered.

'Think of your brother knowing it all, and bidding--and giving you that injunction--' said Tom, feeling the necessity of overcoming evil with good.

'Oh! if I had known it, I could not--I could not have been like Leonard! And where--what has become of him?' she asked, breathlessly.

'You speak as if he was dead.'

'Yes. He was killed in a fray at a gaming-house!'

There was a long silence, first of awe, then of thankfulness plainly beaming in her upraised eyes and transparent countenance, which Tom watched, filled with sensations, mournful but not wholly wretched.

Shattered as she was, sinking away from her new-found happiness, it was a precious privilege to be holding to her the longed--for draught of joy.

'Tell me about it, please,' she presently said. 'Where--how did the receipt come to light? Were the police told to watch for it? I want to know whom I have to thank.'

His heart beat high, but there was a spirit within him that could not brook any attempt to recall the promise he had pursued her with, the promise that he would not rest till he had proved her brother's innocence. He dreaded her even guessing any allusion to it, or fancying he had brought the proffered price in his hand; and when he began with, 'Can you bear to hear of the most shocking scene I ever witnessed?' he gave no hint of his true motive in residing at Paris, of the clue that Bilson's draft had given him in thither pursuing Axworthy, nor of his severe struggle in relinquis.h.i.+ng the quest. He threw over all the completest accidental air, and scarcely made it evident that it was he who had recognized the writing, and all that turned on it. Averil listened to the narration, was silent for some s.p.a.ce, then having gone over it in her own mind, looked up and said--

'Then all this came of your being at that hospital;' and a burning blush spread over the pale cheek, and made Tom shrink, start, and feel guilty of having touched the chord of obligation, connected with that obtrusive pledge of his. Above all, however, to repress emotion was his prime object; and he calmly answered, 'It was a good Providence that brought any one there who knew the circ.u.mstances.'

She was silent; and he was about to rise and relieve her from the sense of his presuming on her grat.i.tude, when a cough, accompanied with a pressure of her hand on her side, betrayed an access of suffering, that drew him on to his other purpose of endeavouring to learn her condition, and to do what he could for her relief. His manner, curiously like his father's, and all the home a.s.sociations connected with it, easily drew from her what he wanted to ascertain, and she perfectly understood its purport, and was calm and even bright.

'I was glad to be better when Henry went away,' she said; 'he had so much to do, and we thought I was getting well then. You must not frighten him and hurry him here, if you please,' she said, earnestly, 'for he must not be wasting his time here, and you think it will last a month or two, don't you?'

'I want to persuade Henry to bring you all home, and enter into partners.h.i.+p with Mr. Wright,' said Tom. 'The voyage would--might--it would be the best thing for you.'

'Could I ever be well enough again? Oh, don't tell me to think about it! The one thing I asked for before I die has been given me, and now I know he is free, I will--will not set my mind on anything else.'

There was a look so near heaven on her face, as she spoke, that Tom durst not say any more of home, or earthly schemes; but, quiet, grave, and awe-stricken, left her to the repose she needed, and betook himself to the other room, where Ella, of course, flew on him, having been hardly detained by Cora from breaking in before. His object was to go to see the medical man who had been attending Averil; and Cora a.s.suring him the horse had nothing to do in the frost, and telling him the times of the day when he would be most likely to find Dr. Laidlaw, he set forth.

Averil meantime lay on her sofa calmly happy, and thankful, the worn and wearied spirit full of rest and gladness unspeakable, in the fulness of grat.i.tude for the answered prayer that she might know her brother free before her death. If she had ever doubted of her own state, she had read full confirmation in her physician's saddened eyes, and the absence of all hopeful auguries, except the single hint that she might survive a voyage to England; and that she wished unsaid.

Life, for the last five years, had been mournful work; there had been one year of blind self-will, discord, and bitterness, then a crus.h.i.+ng stroke, and the rest exhausted submission and hopeless bending to sorrow after sorrow, with self-reproach running through all. Wearied out, she was glad to lay down the burthen, and accept the evening gleam as sunset radiance, without energy to believe it as the dawn of a brighter day. She shrank from being made even to wish to see Leonard.

If once she began to think it possible, it would be a hard sacrifice to give it up; and on one point her resolution was fixed, that she would not be made a cause for bringing him to share their wretchedness in America. Life and things of life were over with her, and she would only be thankful for the softening blessings that came at its close, without stirring up vain longings for more. That kindness of Tom May, for instance, how soothing it was after her long self-reproach for her petulant and cutting unjust reply to his generous affection--generous above all at such a moment!

And after all, it was he--it was he and no other who had cleared Leonard--he had fulfilled the pledge he had given when he did not know what he was talking of. How she hated the blush that the sudden remembrance had called up on her face! It was quite plain that he had been disgusted by her unkind, undignified, improper tone of rejection; and though out of humanity he had brought her the tidings, he would not let her approach to thanking him, she was ashamed that he should have traced an allusion, the most distant, to the scene he had, doubtless, loathed in remembrance. He would, no doubt, go away to-day or to-morrow, and then these foolish thoughts would subside, and she should be left alone with Cora and her thankfulness, to think again of the great change before her!

But Tom was not gone. Indeed Averil was much more ill before the next morning, partly from hysteria, the reaction of the morning's excitement, and partly from an aggravation of the more serious pulmonary affection. It was a temporary matter, and one that made his remaining the merest act of common humanity, since he had found Dr.

Laidlaw a very third-rate specimen, and her brother was too far off to have arrived in time to be of use. The fresh science and skill of the young physician were indeed of the highest value, and under his care Averil rallied after a few days of prostration and suffering, during which she had watched and observed a good deal, and especially the good understanding between her doctor and Cora Muller. When Cousin Deborah was sitting with her, they always seemed to be talking in the drawing-room; nay, there were reports of his joining in the fabrication of some of the delicacies that were triumphantly brought to her room; and Ella was in a state of impatient pique at being slighted by 'Mr.