Foul Play [164]
Then his hysterical nature came out, and he was so near fainting away that Helen sprinkled water on his temples, and applied eau-de-cologne to his nostrils, and murmured, "Poor, poor Arthur! Oh, was I born only to afflict those I esteem?"
He saw her with the tears of pity in her eyes, and he caught her hand, and said, "You were always the soul of honor; keep faith with me, and I will cure you of that unhappy attachment."
"What! Do you hold me to my engagement after what I have told you?"
"Cruel Helen! you know I have not the power to hold you."
"I am not cruel; and you have the power. But oh, think! For your own sake, not mine."
"I have thought; and this attachment to a man you cannot marry is a mere misfortune--yours as well as mine. Give me your esteem until your love comes back, and let our engagement continue."
"It was for you to decide," said Helen, coldly, "and you have decided. There is one condition I must ask you to submit to."
"I submit to it."
"What, before you hear it?"
"Helen, you don't know what a year of misery I have endured, ever since the report came of your death. My happiness is cruelly dashed now, but still it is great happiness by comparison. Make your conditions. You are my queen, as well as my love and my life."
Helen hesitated. It shocked her delicacy to lower the man she had consented to marry.
"Oh, Helen," said Arthur, "anything but secrets between you and me. Go on as you have begun, and let me know the worst at once."
"Can you be very generous, Arthur?--generous to him who has caused you so much pain?"
"I'll try," said Arthur, with a groan.
"I would not marry him, unless you gave me up. For I am your betrothed, and you are true to me. I _could_ not marry him, even if I were not pledged to you; but it so happens, I can do him one great service without injustice to you; and this service I have vowed to do before I marry. I shall keep that vow, as I keep faith with you. He has been driven from society by a foul slander; that slander I am to sift and confute. It will be long and difficult; but I shall do it; and you could help me if you chose. But that I will not be so cruel as to ask."
Arthur bit his lip with jealous rage; but he was naturally cunning, and his cunning showed him there was at present but one road to Helen's heart. He quelled his torture as well as he could, and resolved to take that road. He reflected a moment, and then he said:
"If you succeed in that, will you marry me next day?"
"I will, upon my honor."
"Then I will help you."
"Arthur, think what you say. Women have loved as unselfishly as this; but no man, that ever I heard of."
"No man ever did love a woman as I love you. Yes, I would rather help you, though with a sore heart, than hold aloof from you. What have we to do together?"
"Did I not tell you?--to clear his character of a foul stigma, and restore him to England, and to the world which he is so fitted to adorn."
"Yes, yes," said Arthur; "but who is it? Why do I ask, though? He must be a stranger to me."
"No stranger at all," said Helen; "but one who is almost as unjust to you as the world has been to him;" then, fixing her eyes full on him, she said, "Arthur, it is your old friend and tutor, Robert Penfold."
CHAPTER LV.
ARTHUR WARDLAW was thunderstruck; and for some time sat stupidly staring at her. And to this blank gaze succeeded a look of abject terror, which seemed to her strange and beyond the occasion. But this was not all; for, after glaring at her with scared eyes and ashy cheeks a moment or two, he got up and literally staggered out of the room without a word.
He had been taken by surprise, and, for once, all his arts had failed him.
Helen, whose eyes had never left his face, and had followed his retiring figure, was frightened at the weight of the blow she had struck; and strange thoughts and conjectures filled her mind. Hitherto, she had felt sure Robert Penfold was under a delusion as to Arthur Wardlaw, and that his suspicions were as unjust as they certainly were vague.