CHAPTER XXXIII.

"A goodly apple, rotten at the heart.
Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"
Merchant of Venice

"No hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on."
Othello.

DORIAN has been two months gone, and it is once again close on Christmas-tide. All the world is beginning | | 273 to think of gifts, and tender greetings, and a coming year. Clarissa is dreaming of wedding garments white as the snow that fell last night.

The post has just come in. Clarissa, waking, stretches her arms over her head with a little lazy delicious yawn, and idly turns over her letters one by one. But presently, as she breaks the seal of an envelope, and reads what lies inside it, her mood changes, and, springing from her bed, she begins to dress herself with nervous rapidity.

Three hours later, Sir James, sitting in his library, is startled by the apparition of Clarissa standing in the door-way with a very miserable face.

"What on earth has happened?" says Sir James, who is a very practical young man and always goes at once to the root of a mystery.

"Horace is ill," says Miss Peyton, in a tone that might have suited the occasion had the skies just fallen. "Oh, Jim, what shall I do?"

"My dearest girl," says Scrope, going up to her and taking her hands.

"Yes, he is very ill! I had not heard from him for a fortnight, and was growing wretchedly uneasy, when to-day a letter came from Aunt Emily telling me he has been laid up with low fever for over ten days. And he is very weak, the doctor says, and no one is with him. And papa is in Paris, and Lord Sartoris is with Lady Monckton, and Dorian-no one knows where Dorian is!"

"Most extraordinary his never getting any one to write you a line!"

"Doesn't that only show how fearfully ill he must be? Jim, you will help me, won't you?"

This appeal is not to be put on one side.

"Of course I will," says Scrope: "you know that--or you ought. What do you want me to do?"

"To take me to him. I want to see him with my own eyes."

"To go yourself?" says Sir James, extreme disapprobation in his tone. "You must be out of your mind."

"I am not," returns she, indignantly. "I never was more in it. And I am going, anyway."

"What will your father say?"

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"He will say I was quite right. Dear, dear, DEAR Jim,"--slipping her hand through his arm, and basely descending from hauteur to coaxing,--"do say you will take me to him. It can't be wrong! Am I not going to be his wife in a month's time?"

Sir James moves a chair out of his way with most unnecessary vehemence.

"How that alters the case I can't see," he says, obstinately.

"You forsake me!" says Miss Peyton, her eyes filling with tears. "Do. I can't be much unhappier than I am, but I did depend on you, you were always so much my friend." Here two large tears run down her cheeks, and they, of course, decide everything.

"I will take you," he says, hastily. "To-day?-The sooner the better, I suppose."

"Yes; by the next train. Oh, how obliged to you I am! Dear Jim, I shall never forget it to you!"

This is supposed to be grateful to him, but it is quite the reverse.

"I think you are very foolish to go, at all," he says, somewhat gruffly.

"Perhaps I am," she says, with a rueful glance. "But you cannot understand. Ah! if you loved, yourself, you could sympathize with me."

"Could I?" says Sir James, with a grimace that is meant for a smile, but as such is a most startling specimen of its class.

So they go up to town, and presently arrive at the house where Horace lies unconscious of all around him. The door is opened to them by an unmistakable landlady,--a fat, indolent person, with sleepy eyes, and a large mouth, and a general air about her suggestive of perpetual beef-steaks and bottled stout.

This portly dame, on being questioned, tells them, "Mr. Branscum has just bin given his draft, and now he is snoozin' away as peaceable as a hinfant, bless 'im."

"Is he--in bed?" asks Sir James, diffidently, this large person having the power to reduce him to utter subjection.

"Lawks! no, sir. He wouldn't stay there: he's that contrairy. Beggin' yore parding, sir, he's yore brother?"

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Sir James' nods. She may prove difficult, this stout old lady, if he declares himself no relative.

"To be shore!" says she. "I might 'a' knowed by the speakin' likeness between you. You're the born himage of im. After his draft we laid 'im on the sofy, and there he is now, sleepin' the sleep of the just. Just step up and see him; do, now. He is in a state of comus, and not expectit to get out of it for two hours.

"The young--lady--will go up," says Sir James, feeling, somehow, as if he has insulted Clarissa by calling her "a young lady." "She would like " (in a confidential tone that wins on the stout landlady) "to see him alone, just at first."

"Just so," says Mrs. Goodbody, with a broad wink; and Clarissa is forthwith shown up-stairs, and told to open the first door she comes to.

"And you," says Mrs. Goodbody to Sir James, "will please just to step in 'ere and wait for her, while I see about the chicking broth!"

"What a charming room!" says Sir James, hypocritically ; whereupon the good woman, being intensely flattered, makes her exit with as much grace as circumstances and her size will permit.

Clarissa opening the door with a beating heart, finds herself in a pretty, carefully-shaded room, at the farther end of which, on a sofa, Horace lies calmly sleeping. He is more altered than even her worst fears had imagined, and as she bends over him she marks, with quick grief, how thin and worn and haggard he has grown.

The blue veins stand out upon his nerveless hands. Tenderly, with the very softest touch, she closes her own lingers over his. Gently she brushes back the disordered hair from his flushed forehead, and then, with a quick accession of coloring, stoops to lay a kiss upon the cheek of the man who is to be her husband in one short month.

A hand laid upon her shoulder startles and deters her from her purpose. It is a light, gentle touch, but firm and decided and evidently meant to prevent her from giving the caress. Quickly raising herself, Clarissa draws back, and, turning her head, sees----

Who is it? Has time rolled backwards? A small, light, gray-clad figure stands before her, a figure only too | | 276 well remembered! The brown hair brushed back from the white temples with the old Quakerish neatness, the dove-like eyes, the sensitive lips, cannot be mistaken. Clarissa raises her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight.

Oh! not that! Anything but that! Not Ruth Annersley!

A faint sick feeling overcomes her; involuntarily she lays a hand upon the back of a chair near her, to steady herself ; while Ruth stands opposite to her, with fingers convulsively clinched, and dilated nostrils, and eyes dark with horror.

"What brings you here?" asks Ruth, at length, in a voice hard and unmusical.

"To see the man whose wife I was, to have been next month," says Clarissa, feeling compelled to answer. "And"--in a terrible tone--"who are you?"

"The woman who ought to be his wife," says Ruth, in the same hard tone, still with her hands tightly clasped.

Clarissa draws her breath hard, but returns no answer; and then there falls upon them a long, long silence, that presently becomes unbearable. The two women stand facing each other, scarcely breathing. The unnatural stillness is undisturbed save by the quick irregular gasps of the sick man.

Once he sighs heavily, and throws one hand and arm across his face. Then Ruth stirs, and, going swiftly and noiselessly to his side, with infinite tenderness draws away the arm and replaces it in its former position. She moves his pillows quietly, and passes her cool hand across his fevered brow.

"Ruth?" he moans, uneasily, and she answers, "I am here, darling," in the faintest, sweetest whisper.

Something within Clarissa's heart seems to give way. At this moment, for the first time, she realizes the true position in which he has placed her. A sensation of faintness almost overcomes her, but by a supreme effort she conquers her weakness, and crushes back, too, the rising horror and anger that have sprung into life. A curious calm falls upon her,--a state that often follows upon keen mental anguish. She is still completing the victory she has over herself, when Ruth speaks again.

"This is no place for you!" she says, coldly, yet with | | 277 her hand up to her cheek, as though to shield her face from the other's gaze.

Clarissa goes up to her then.

"So you are found at last," she says, somewhat monotonously. "And, of all places, here! Is there any truth in the world, I wonder? Was it shame kept you from writing, all these months, to your unhappy father? Do you know that an innocent man--his brother"--pointing with a shivering gesture to the unconscious Horace--"has been suffering all this time for his wrong--doing?"

"I know nothing," replies Ruth, sternly. "I seek to know nothing. My intercourse with the world ceased with my innocence."

"You knew of my engagement to him?" says Clarissa, again motioning towards the couch.

"Yes."

"Before you left Pullingham?"

"No ! oh, no!--not then," exclaims Ruth, eagerly. "I did not believe it then. Do not judge me more harshly than you can help."

The dull agony that flashes into her eyes quickens into life some compassionate feeling that still lies dormant in Clarissa s breast.

"I do not judge you at all," she says, with infinite gentleness. Then, with an impulsive movement, she turns and lays her hand upon her shoulder. "Come home with me--now!" she says. "Leave this place, Ruth, I implore you, listen to me!"

"Do not," says Ruth, shrinking from her grasp; "I am not fit for you to touch. Remember all that has passed."

"Do you think I shall ever forget!" says Clarissa, slowly. "But for your father's sake: he is ill,--perhaps dying. Come. For his sake you will surely return?"

"It is too late!" says the girl, in a melancholy voice. And then, again, "It is impossible." Yet it is apparent that a terrible struggle is taking place within her breast: how it might have ended, whether the good or bad angel would have gained the day, can never now be said; a sigh, a broken accent, decided her.

"My head!" murmurs the sick man, feebly, drawing his breath wearily, and as if with pain. "Ruth, Ruth, are you | | 278 there?" The querulous dependent tone rouses into instant life all the passionate tenderness that is in Ruth's heart. Having soothed him by a touch, she turns once more to Clarissa.

"He too is sick,--perhaps dying," she says, feverishly. "I cannot leave him! I have sacrificed all for him, and I shall be faithful unto the end. Leave me: I have done you the greatest wrong one woman can do another. Why should you care for my salvation?" Through all the defiance there is bitter misery in her tone.

"I don't know why ; yet I do," says poor Clarissa, earnestly.

"You are a saint," says Ruth, with white lips. And then she falls upon her knees. "Oh, if it be in your heart," she cries, "grant me your forgiveness!"

Clarissa bursts into tears.

"I do grant it," she says. "But I would that my tongue possessed such eloquence as could induce you to leave this house." She tries to raise Ruth from her kneeling position.

"Let me remain where I am," says Ruth, faintly. "It is my right position. I tell you again to go; this is no place for you. Yet stay you, sweet woman,"--she cries, with sudden fervor, catching hold of the hem of Clarissa's gown and pressing it to her lips,--"let me look at you once again! It is my final farewell to all that is pure; and I would keep your face fresh within my heart."

She gazes at her long and eagerly.

"What! tears?" she says; "and for me? Oh, believe me, though I shall never see you again, the recollection of these tears will soothe my dying hours, and perhaps wash out a portion of my sins!"

Her head drops upon her hands. So might the sad Magdalen have knelt. Her whole body trembles with the intensity of her emotion, yet no sound escapes her.

"Ruth, for the last time, I implore you to come with me," says Clarissa, brokenly. And once more the parched lips of the crouching woman frame the words, "It is too late!"

A moment after, the door is opened, and closed again, and Clarissa has looked her last upon Ruth Annersley. How she makes her way down to the room where Sir | | 279 James sits awaiting her, Clarissa never afterwards remembers.

"It is all over: take me away!" she says, quietly, but somewhat incoherently.

"He isn't dead?" says Sir James, who naturally conceives the worst from her agitation.

"No: it is even worse," she says. And then she covers her face with her hands, and sinks into a chair. "Ruth Annersley is here!" When she has said this, she feels that life has almost come to an end. How shall she make this wretched revelation to her father, to Georgie, to all the rest of the world?

As for Sir James, he stands at some distance from her, literally stunned by the news. Words seem to fail him. He goes up to her and takes one of her small icy-cold hands in his.

"Did you see her?"

"Yes."

"The scoundrel!" says Sir James, in a low tone. Then, "Is he very ill?" There is unmistakable meaning in his tone.

"Very." And here she falls to bitter weeping again.

It is a cruel moment: Sir James still holds her hand, but can find no words to say to comfort her; indeed, where can comfort lie?

At this instant a heavy footfall resounds along the pas-sage outside. It warns them of the sylph-like approach of Mrs. Goodbody. Sir James going quickly to the door, intercepts her.

"My--my sister is quite upset," he says, nervously. "Mr. Branscombe was--was worse than she expected to find him."

"Upset!--and no wonder, too," says Mrs. Goodbody, with heavy sympathy, gazing approvingly at Miss Peyton. "There's no denying that he's so worn out, the pore dear, as it's quite dispiritin' to see 'im, what with his general appearings and the fear of a bad turn at any mingit. For myself, I take my meals quite promiscuous like, since he fell ill,--just a bit here and a bit there, it may be, but nothing reg'lar like. I ain't got the 'art. Howsoever, `hope on, hope never,' is my motter, miss; and we must allus hope for the best, as the sayin' is."

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"Just so," says Sir James, who doesn't know, in the very least, what to say.

"A good wife, sir, I allus say, is half the battle; and that lady up-stairs, she is a reg'lar trump, she is, and so devoted, as it's quite affectin' to witness. Good-mornin' sir--thank you, sir. I'll see to him, you be bound; and, with his good lady above, there ain't the smallest----"

Sir James, opening the hall door in despair, literally pushes Clarissa out and into the cab that is awaiting them. For a long time she says nothing; and just as he is beginning to get really anxious at her determined silence, she says, with some difficulty,

"Jim, promise me something?"

"Anything," says Jim.

"Then never again allude to this day, or to anything connected with it; and never again mention--his--name to me, unless I first speak to you."

"Never!" returns he, fervently. "Be sure of it."

"Thank you," she says, like a tired child ; and then, sinking back in her corner of the cab, she cries long and bitterly.