CHAPTER XXXIII.

"I MUST GO TO FETCH HER HOME."

When Philip Ray left Crawford's House that night he felt anything at all but the elation supposed to be proper in the accepted suitor of a beautiful girl. He had, indeed, a great many troubles in his mind, and as he walked home to his lonely lodgings in Camberwell he was nearly a miserable man. It would not be true to say he was out and out miserable, but he was perilously close to it.

In the first place, he had to leave Hetty behind him, a thing almost beyond endurance. Then, when removed from the intoxicating influence of her presence and undistracted by the magic of her beauty, he began to turn his eyes inward upon himself, and investigate his own unworthiness with brutal candour--nay, with gross injustice.

What on earth was he that a faultless, an exquisite creature like Hetty should give herself to him? That was a question he asked himself over and over again, without being able to find any reason whatever for her sacrifice. More than once he felt inclined to go back, make a clean breast of it by telling her that as a friend he would recommend her to have nothing whatever to do with himself. The words of love and devotion she had spoken to him on the island were a source of intense pain to him. A nice kind of fellow _he_ was indeed for her to say _she_ would follow round all the world! He was obtaining love under false pretences, that's what he was doing. And such love! and from such a perfect creature! It was simply a monstrous fraud! There was something underhand and dishonourable about it; for if she had only known him for what he was, she would flee out of the very parish away from him. He must have been mad to ask her to marry him.

It had all come on him suddenly. When he suggested that she should go to the island with him on the excuse of seeing how the boy got on, he had no intention of proposing to her; and, nevertheless, no sooner had he set foot on the Ait than he must retain her hand and ask her to give it to him for ever! Could he have meant the whole thing as a joke, or was the Master of all Evil at the bottom of it?

But the full turpitude of his act did not appear until he considered ways and means. At present his salary was barely enough to keep himself in the strictest economy. He could not, after paying for food, lodgings, and clothes all on the humblest scale, save five pounds a year. It is true he had a yearly increase of salary, and by-and-by would have the chance of promotion. But at the most favourable estimate he could not hope to have an income on which he might prudently marry sooner than between twenty and thirty years. Say, in twenty-five years, when his salary would be sufficient, he would be fifty-two and she forty-five! If he had any hair left on his head then it would be snow-white, and he would be sure to have rheumatism and most likely a touch of asthma as well. He would have confirmed bachelor habits and exacting notions about his food and an abject horror of the east wind. He would tell old stories as new, and laugh at them, and the younger men in the office would laugh at him for laughing at these old tales, and mimic him behind his back, and call him an old fossil and other endearing names, indicative of pity in them and senility in him! What a poor idiot he had been to speak to the girl!

It was true the Layards were not very well off themselves now; but they had once been rich, and naturally Hetty ought to be raised by marriage far up above their present position. She was a lady and a beauty, and the most enchanting girl that ever the sun shone on, and ought to wear a coronet if such things went by charm; and here was he, a pauper junior clerk in one of the most miserably-paid branches of the Civil Service, coolly asking her to be his wife! His conduct had been criminal, nothing short of it.

What on earth would Frank say when he told him of it? If Frank was an honourable man he would go over to Layard, and advise the brother to forbid the suitor his house.

Suitor, indeed! Pretty suitor he was to go wooing such a girl as Hetty!

But then Hetty had told him she loved him and would follow him to the ends of the earth, and he'd just like to hear any man in _his_ presence say Hetty wasn't to do what she pleased, even if her pleasure took such a preposterous form as love for him. Now that he came to think of it in that way, if it pleased Hetty to love him she should love him, in spite of all the Franks and all the brothers in Christendom; for wasn't Hetty's happiness and pleasure dearer to him than the welfare of empires? And if he hadn't quite a hundred a year, he could make it more by coaching fellows for the Civil Service and in a thousand other ways.

Philip Ray having arrived at this more hopeful and wholesome view of his affairs went to bed, and lay awake some time trying to compose a poem in his sweetheart's praise. Having found, however, that he could not keep the lines of equal length, and that the rhymes came in now at the wrong places and anon not at all, he abandoned poetry as an occupation with which he had no familiarity, and took to one in which he had experience--sleep.

When he awoke next morning all his troubles and doubts had cleared away. The lead of the night before had been transmuted into gold by the alchemy of sleep. He seemed to himself really a fairly good fellow (which was no egotistical over-estimate, but a very fair appraisement of his value). No insuperable difficulties presented themselves in his mind to the making thirty, forty, fifty pounds a year more than his salary. He knew Hetty loved him, and he simply adored his exquisite jocund Hebe with the rich heart and frank avowal of love. A fig for obstacles with such a prize before him! If any considerable sum of money was attached to the setting of the Thames on fire here was your man able and willing to undertake the feat.

When the afternoon came, and he found himself released from the drudgery of his desk, he hastened to Welford. Alfred Layard did not get home in the evening until eight o'clock, and, of course, Ray could not call at Crawford's House until after that hour. But he could go to the Ait, and who could say but Hetty might appear at the window, or even come out on Crawford's Quay? In any case he wanted to see Frank and tell him what he had done, for he would as soon have thought of picking a pocket as of keeping a secret from his brother-in-law.

Philip Ray hastened along the canal with long quick strides, swinging his arms as he went. Now that the prospect of seeing Hetty again was close upon him he had not only lost all his gloom, but was in a state of enthusiastic hopefulness. He hailed the island three times before Bramwell answered.

"I thought you were never coming," said he, as the two shook hands upon his landing.

"I was busy when you hailed," said Bramwell, "and I could not believe it was you so early." Then noticing the excitement of his brother-in-law, he said, "What is the matter? Has anything happened?"

"Yes. Let us go in. I want to talk to you most particularly," said Ray. Then in his turn noticing the appearance and manner of the other, he said, "What is the matter with _you?_ _You_ too look as if something had happened."

"I have been up all night at work," he answered, as they entered the cottage.

Ray's sister had gone to Mrs. Pemberton's to get the luggage she had left there.

They went into the sitting-room. Frank was playing by himself in the old timber-yard.

"Now, what is your news?" asked Bramwell, feeling sick at the thought that it must be something about Ainsworth.

Ray fidgeted on his chair. He found it more easy to say to himself, "I must tell Frank at once," than to accomplish the design now that the two were face to face. He hummed and hawed, and loosed his collar by thrusting his finger between his neck and the band of his shirt, but no words came. At last he got up and began walking about nervously.

"What is it, Philip? Can I do anything for you?" asked Bramwell, in a placid voice and with a quiet smile.

"No, thank you, Frank, I've done it all myself. I've done all that man could do."

Bramwell turned pale; seizing the arms of his chair, he said apprehensively, "You don't mean to say have met Ainsworth, and----"

"No--no--no!"

Bramwell threw himself back, infinitely relieved.

"The fact is I have made a fool of myself."

"In what way, Philip?"

"You know my income?"

Bramwell nodded.

"Well, it may as well come out first as last. I--don't start, and pray, pray don't laugh at me--I've fallen in love."

Bramwell nodded again and looked grave.

"And I have proposed."

Bramwell looked pained.

"And have been accepted."

"There is no chance whatever of my knowing anything of the lady?" said Bramwell in a tone implying that the answer must be in the negative.

"There is. You do. I proposed last night on this island to Miss Layard, and she has accepted me."

"Merciful heavens!" cried the other man, springing to his feet.

Ray paused and stared at his brother-in-law. "Why, what on earth is the matter with you, Frank? There is nothing so very shocking or astonishing in it, is there? I know for a man in my position it was rash, almost mad, to do such a thing. But there is nothing to make you look scared. Tell me why you are so astonished and shocked? If I told you I had shot Ainsworth you couldn't look more alarmed."

"I'll tell you later--not now. Go on with your story, Philip. When you know all you will see why I was startled. It has nothing to do with you. I wish you and Miss Layard all the happiness that can fall to the lot of mortals; but I need scarcely tell you that, my dear, dear Philip."

"I know it, Frank. You need not tell me you wish me well. You're the most-generous-hearted fellow alive. You have suffered cruel wrong through my blood, but never through me personally. Yet I believe if I had done you a personal wrong you would shake my hand and wish me well all the same. I believe if you yourself had thought of Hetty, and she chose me, you would be just as cordial in your good wishes as you are now."

"I should indeed," said Bramwell, with a strange light in his eyes. "And now tell me the rest of your story."

Again he shook his brother-in-law warmly by both hands, and then sat down.

"There is nothing else to tell. When we came over here to see about the boy last night I asked her to be my wife, and she consented. By the way, how did he get on after I left?"

"For a while his rest was broken," said Bramwell, with a wan smile, "but after that he slept perfectly till it was time to get up."

"I knew the child was only dreaming. But Hetty"--yes, he had called her Hetty to his brother-in-law: how incomparably rich this made him feel!--"but Hetty was fairly terrified, and I thought it better to give way to her. It was nothing but a nightmare or a dream."

"Do you know, I am not so sure of that, Philip?"

"So sure of what?" asked the other man, drawing down his straight eyebrows over his eyes, and peering into Bramwell's face, looking for symptoms of incipient insanity.

"That it was all a dream," answered the other, returning his gaze.

"Are you mad?" cried Ray, drawing back, and regarding his companion with severe displeasure.

"That is the second time I have been asked the same question within the past twenty-four hours. Do you know who the other person was who asked me that question?"

"Who?"

"Kate."

"O, he is mad!" cried Ray, stopping in his walk and surveying Bramwell with pity and despair.

The other went on, quietly looking his brother-in-law in the face steadily.

"The crisis of that disease went in her favour. She inserted that announcement of her death in order that I might feel myself free to marry if I chose. On her way to the River she came to this place to get one more sight of her child. I found her here----"

"And you forgave her?" said Ray, in a breathless voice.

"Yes."

"Why?" fiercely.

"Because I thought it would be well for her to be near her child. And she is to stay here----"

"Here? With you? You do not mean to say you will meet her day after day for evermore?"

"Why not? She had nowhere else to go to--except the River."

"But he will come again, and she will leave you."

"No, no. He will not come again. Her beauty is gone for ever."

"Her beauty gone for ever! How came that to be?"

"The illness marked her for life."

"And yet she may stay?"

"Why not? Will it not comfort her to be near her child?"

"O, Frank, you make all other men look small!"

"I said I would tell you why I started and cried out a while ago. Last night, when I believed myself free, I thought I might speak to Miss Layard----"

"O, my brother! O, this is the cruellest blow that ever fell on man! My heart is breaking for you."

"I did not know last night that your mind was set on Miss Layard."

"Do not speak of me."

"Boland's Ait!" cried a voice from without.

"Hark!" said Bramwell, holding up his finger. "That is Kate's voice. I must go to fetch her home."