第121章

"Whisper it to me, Barbara."

She burst into a flood of tears.

"Is it because I once married another?"

"No, no. It is the remembrance of that night--you cannot have forgotten it, and it is stamped on my brain in letters of fire. I never thought so to betray myself. But for what passed that night you would not have asked me now."

"Barbara!"

She glanced up at him; the tone was so painful.

"Do you know that I /love/ you? That there is none other in the whole world whom I would care to marry but you? Nay, Barbara, when happiness is within our reach, let us not throw it away upon a chimera."

She cried more softly, leaning upon his arm. "Happiness? Would it be happiness for you?"

"Great and deep happiness," he whispered.

She read truth in his countenance, and a sweet smile illumined her sunny features. Mr. Carlyle read its signs.

"You love me as much as ever, Barbara!"

"Far more, far more," was the murmured answer, and Mr. Carlyle held her closer, and drew her face fondly to his. Barbara's heart was at length at rest, and she had been content to remain where she was forever.

And Richard? Had he got clear off? Richard was stealing along the road, plunging into the snow by the hedge because it was more sheltered there than in the beaten path, when his umbrella came in contact with another umbrella. Miss Carlyle had furnished it to him; not to protect his battered hat but to protect his face from being seen by the passers by. The umbrella he encountered was an aristocratic silk one, with an ivory handle; Dick's was of democratic cotton, with hardly any handle at all; and the respective owners had been bearing on, heads down and umbrellas out, till they, the umbrellas, met smash, right under a gas lamp. Aside went the umbrellas, and the antagonists stared at each other.

"How dare you, fellow? Can't you see where you are going on?"

Dick thought he should have dropped. He would have given all the money his pockets held if the friendly earth had but opened and swallowed him in; for he was now peering into the face of his own father.

Uttering an exclamation of dismay, which broke from him involuntarily, Richard sped away with the swiftness of an arrow. Did Justice Hare recognize the tones? It cannot be said. He saw a rough, strange looking man, with bushy, black whiskers, who was evidently scared at the sight of him. That was nothing; for the justice, being a justice, and a strict one, was regarded with considerable awe in the parish by those of Dick's apparent caliber. Nevertheless, he stood still and gazed in the direction until all sound of Richard's footsteps had died away in the distance.

Tears were streaming down the face of Mrs. Hare. It was a bright morning after the snowstorm, so bright that the sky was blue, and the sun was shining, but the snow lay deeply upon ground. Mrs. Hare sat in her chair, enjoying the brightness, and Mr. Carlyle stood near her.

The tears were of joy and of grief mingled--of grief at hearing that she should at last have to part with Barbara, of joy that she was going to one so entirely worthy of her as Mr. Carlyle.

"Archibald, she has had a happy home here; you will render yours as much so?"

"To the very utmost of my power."

"You will be ever kind to her, and cherish her?"

"With my whole strength and heart. Dear Mrs. Hare; I thought you knew me too well to doubt me."

"Doubt you! I do not doubt you, I trust you implicitly, Archibald. Had the whole world laid themselves at Barbara's feet, I should have prayed that she might choose you."

A small smile flitted over Mr. Carlyle's lips. /He/ knew it was what Barbara would have done.

"But, Archibald, what about Cornelia?" returned Mrs. Hare. "I would not for a moment interfere in your affairs, or in the arrangements you and Barbara may agree upon, but I cannot help thinking that married people are better alone."

"Cornelia will quit East Lynne," said Mr. Carlyle. "I have not spoken to her yet, but I shall do so now. I have long made my mind up that if ever I did marry again, I and my wife would live alone. It is said she interfered too much with my former wife. Had I suspected it, Cornelia should not have remained in the house a day. Rest assured that Barbara shall not be an object to the chance."

"How did /you/ come over her?" demanded the justice, who had already given his gratified consent, and who now entered in his dressing gown and morning wig. "Others have tried it on, and Barbara would not listen to them."

"I suppose I must have cast a spell upon her," answered Mr. Carlyle, breaking into a smile.

"Here she is. Barbara," carried on the unceremonious justice, "what is it that you see in Carlyle more than anybody else?"

Barbara's scarlet cheeks answered for her. "Papa," she said, "Otway Bethel is at the door asking to speak to you. Jasper says he won't come in."

"Then I'm sure I'm not going out to him in the cold. Here, Mr. Otway, what are you afraid of?" he called out. "Come in."

Otway Bethel made his appearance in his usual sporting costume. But he did not seem altogether at his ease in the presence of Mrs. Hare and Barbara.

"The colonel wished to see you, justice, and ask you if you had any objection to the meeting's being put off from one o'clock till two," cried he, after nodding to Mr. Carlyle. "He has got a friend coming to see him unexpectedly who will leave again by the two o'clock train."

"I don't care which it is," answered Mr. Hare. "Two o'clock will do as well as one, for me."

"That's all right, then; and I'll drop in upon Herbert and Pinner and acquaint them."

Miss Carlyle's cold was better that evening, in fact she seemed quite herself again, and Mr. Carlyle introduced the subject of his marriage.

It was after dinner that he began upon it.

"Cornelia, when I married Lady Isabel Vane, you reproached me severely with having kept you in the dark--"

"If you had not kept me in the dark, but consulted me, as any other Christian would, the course of events would have been wholly changed, and the wretchedness and disgrace that fell on this house been spared to it," fiercely interrupted Miss Carlyle.