CHAPTER XV.
TWO JUMPS AND A CONCLUSION
The advertisements produced no answer except from persons hoping to make money by the case – such as the railway porter, who could swear to the baby, the lady who was really the mother, or the detective who wanted a good long-staying job. There seemed no hope or help from the advertisement. Well, then, what next?
By this time Richard Woodroffe, though never before engaged upon this kind of business, found himself so much interested in the subject that he could think of nothing else. He occupied himself with putting the case into a statement, which he kept altering. He carried himself back in imagination to the transference of the baby; he saw the doctor taking it from the mother and giving it to an ayah in the railway station. And there he stopped.
His friend Sir Robert was the doctor – his friend Sir Robert, who knew all the theatrical and show folk, as well as the royal princes and the dukes and illustrious folk. Well, he knew this physician well enough to be certain that a secret was as safe behind those steady, deep-set eyes as with any father confessor. That square chin did not belong to a garrulous temper, that big brain was a treasury of family secrets; he knew where all the skeletons were kept; this was only one of a thousand secrets; his patients told him everything – that was, of course, because he was a specialist in nervous disorders, which have a good deal to do with family and personal secrets. Fortunately, personal secrets are not family secrets.
There is a deep-seated prejudice against the upper ten thousand in the matter of family secrets. They are supposed to possess a large number of these awkward chronicles, and they are all supposed to be scandals. Aristocratic circles are supposed to be very much exposed to the danger of catching a family secret, a disease which is contagious, and is passed on from one family to another with surprising readiness. They are supposed also to be continually engaged in hushing up, hiding away, sending accomplices and servants cognizant of certain transactions to America and the Antipodes, even dropping them into dungeons. They are believed to be always trying to forget the last scandal but one, while they are destroying the proofs of the last scandal. For my own part, while admitting the contagion of the disorder, I would submit that an earl is no more liable to it than an alderman, a baron no more than a butcher. Middle-class families are always either going up or going down. With those which are going up there is an immense quantity of things to be forgotten. We wipe out with a sponge a deplorable great-aunt, we look the other way when we pass her grave; we agree to forget a whole family of cousins; we do not wish ourselves to be remembered more than, say, thirty years back; we desire that no inquiry, other than general, shall be made into our origins. In a word – if we may compress so great a discovery in a single sentence – the middle class – the great middle class – backbone, legs, brain, and tongue, as we all know, of the country – the class to which we all, or nearly all, belong – is really the home and haunt of the family secret.
This secret, however, was not in the ordinary run – not those which excitable actresses pour into the ears of physicians. Moreover, if the theory was true, it was a secret, Richard reflected, as much of the doctor's as of the lady's. And, again, since adoption became substitution, although the young doctor may have assisted in the former, the old doctor might not be anxious for the story to get about now that it meant the latter.
Here, however, were the facts as related by Alice herself.
An unknown lady, according to the doctor's statement, called upon him and stated that she was anxious to adopt a child in place of her own, which she had just lost by death.
This was early in February, 1874.
The lady stated further that she wanted a child about fifteen months of age, light-haired, blue-eyed.
(The child she adopted was thirteen months of age.)
(Did the child die in Birmingham? As the lady was apparently passing through, did the child die at a hotel?)
Dr. Steele called upon Alice, then in great poverty and distress, and asked her if she would let the child be adopted, or whether she would suffer it to go into the workhouse. She chose the former alternative, and accepted the sum of fifty pounds for her child.
The money was paid in five-pound notes. She did not know the numbers.
There were no marks on the child by which he might be identified.
On the child's clothes, before giving him up, the mother pinned a paper, giving his Christian name – Humphrey.
He was the son of Anthony Woodroffe. In the Woodroffe family there was always a Humphrey.
Nothing else, nothing else – no clue, no suggestion, or hint, or opening anywhere, except resemblance. The strange likeness of this young man Humphrey to himself haunted Dick; he looked at himself in the glass. Any one could see that his features, his hair, his eyes, were those of Humphrey. Differences there were – in stature, in expression, in carriage. Dick was as elastic and springy as the other was measured and slow of gait. As for that other resemblance, said by Alice to be even more marked – that between Humphrey and Anthony Woodroffe, the actor, John Anthony – it was even more remarkable. These resemblances one may look for in sons and in brothers, but not in cousins separated by five hundred years. Another point which he kept to himself was the resemblance which he found in Humphrey to Alice, his mother by theory. It was not the same kind of resemblance as the other – features, face, head, all were different; it was that resemblance which reminds – a resemblance not defined in words, but unmistakable. And all day long and all night Dick saw this resemblance.
He put down the points —
1. The strongest possible resemblance – so stated by the mother of the adopted child – of son to father.
2. A strong resemblance as between brothers or sons of the same father.
3. A resemblance – was it fancy of his own? – as between mother and son.
4. The lady who adopted the boy must have belonged to an Indian family, because there was an ayah with her.
5. The age of the child adopted corresponded very nearly with the age of Sir Humphrey.
He went to the British Museum and consulted "Debrett." He took the trouble to go there because he did not possess the volume, and none of his friends had ever heard of it. There he read, as the doctor had read a few weeks before, that the present holder of the Woodroffe baronetcy was Humphrey Arundale, second baronet, son of the late Sir Humphrey, etc., born on December the 2nd, 1872.
There was nothing much to be got out of that little paragraph. But, as Dick read it again and again, the letters began to shift themselves. It is astonishing how letters can, by a little shifting, convey a very different meaning. This is what he read now —
"Woodroffe, Humphrey, falsely calling himself second baronet, and son of the late Sir Humphrey, really son of one John Anthony Woodroffe, distant cousin of Sir Humphrey, vocalist, comedian, and vagabond, by Alice, daughter of Tom, Dick, or Harry Pennefather, engaged in small trade, of Hackney; born in 1873, sold by his mother in February, 1874, through the agency of Sir Robert Steele, M.D., F.R.S., Ex-President of the Royal College of Physicians, now of Harley Street, to Lilias, Lady Woodroffe, daughter of the Earl of Dunedin, who passed him off as her own child.
"Collateral branches – Richard, son of the late John Anthony Woodroffe, by Bethia, his second wife, after he had divorced and deserted the above mentioned Alice, October 14, 1875; unmarried, has no club, musician, singer, comedian, vagabond."
He put back the volume. "It's a very remarkable Red Book," he said; "nobody knows how they get at these facts. Now, I, for my part, don't seem able to get at the truth, however much I try; and there 'Debrett' has it in print, for all the world to read."
He then looked up the same work twelve years before. He found under the name of Woodroffe the fact that Sir Humphrey the elder retired from active service, and returned to England early in February, 1874.
"The old man came home, then," he said, "at the very time when the adoption was negotiated. At that very time. How does that bear on the case? Well, if his own child died, there was perhaps time to get another to take its place before he got home."
Now, Dick in a small way was a story-teller; he was in request by those who knew him because he told stories very well, and also because he told very few, and would only work when he could capture an idea, and when a story came of its own accord; he was the author of one or two comediettas; further, he had been on the stage, and had played many parts. From this variegated experience he understood the value of drawing your conclusion first, and putting together your proofs afterwards: perhaps the proofs might fail to arrive; but the conclusion would remain. Geometry wants to build up proofs and arrive at a conclusion which one would not otherwise guess. Who could possibly imagine that the square on the side opposite the right angle is equal to the sum of the squares on the sides containing the right angle? Not even the sharpest woman ever created would arrive at such a conclusion without proofs. In law also, chiefly because men are mostly liars, exact proof is demanded – proof arrived at by painfully picking the truth out of the lies. This young man, for his part, partly because he was a story-teller and a dramatist, partly because he was a musician, found it the best and readiest method to jump at the truth first, and to prove it afterwards. He arrived at this conclusion, which perfectly satisfied him, without any reason, like a kangaroo, by a jump. In fact, he took two jumps.
It is always a great help in cases requiring thought and argument and construction – because every good case is like a story in requiring construction – to consult the feminine mind; if you are interested in the owner, or tenant, of a certain mind, it makes the consultation all the better. Richard Woodroffe consulted Molly every day. By talking over the case again and again, and by looking at it in company, one becomes more critical and at the same time clearer in one's views. There were, as you know, many reasons why Richard should consult this young lady, apart from her undoubted intelligence.
"Why, Molly," he asked – "why – I put it to your feminine perceptions – why was this good lady so profoundly moved by the mere sight of the fellow? She wasn't moved by the sight of me. Yet I am exactly like him, I believe. It was at the theatre. She was in a private box; he was one of a line of Johnnies in the stalls. She was so much affected that she had to leave the house. She met him again at Steele's dinner. She was affected in the same way. Why? She is presumed never to have seen the fellow before; she certainly has not seen him for twenty-four years. Why, I ask, was she so much affected? She tells me that the sight of him always affects her in exactly the same way – with the same mysterious yearning and longing and with a sadness indescribable.
"Wait a minute. Hear me out. Is it his resemblance to a certain man – her first husband? But again, I am like him, and she does not yearn after me a bit. What can it be except an unknown sense – the maternal instinct – which is awakened in her? What is it but his own identity, which she alone can understand – with her child?"
"Dick," said Molly, "it's a tremendous jump. Yet, of course – "
"Of course. I knew you would agree with me. The intuitions – the conclusions – the insight of women are beyond everything. Molly, it is a blessed thing that you are retained in this case. The sight of you is to me a daily refresher; the look of you is a heavy fee; and the voice of you is an encouragement. Stand by me, Molly – and I will pull this half-brother of mine down from that bad eminence and ask him, when he stands beside me, with an entirely new and most distinguished company of cousins, how he feels, and what has become of his superiority. You shall introduce him to the pew-opener, and I will present him to the draper."
Again, there was the second jump. "I ask you that, Molly. Do you imagine that the doctor is really and truly as ignorant as he would have us believe, of the lady's name? He knows Lady Woodroffe; he asks her son to dinner. To be sure, he knows half the world. If he attended the dead child, of course he would have known her name. But I suppose he did not. If so, since the lady came to him immediately after the death, he might have consulted the registers, to find what children of that age had died during a certain week in Birmingham – if the child did die there, of which we are not certain. Even in a great city like Birmingham there are not many children of that age dying every day; very few dying in hotels; and very few children indeed belonging to visitors and strangers. Molly mine – if the doctor did not know, the doctor might have known. Is that so? Deny it if you can."
"I suppose so, Dick, though really I don't see what you are driving at."
"Very well, then. We go on. Why did the doctor go out of his way to invite Humphrey to meet his true mother? Now, I know Dr. Steele. He's an awfully good fellow – charitable and good-natured; he'll do anything for a man; but he's a man of science, and he's always watching and thinking and putting things together. I've heard him talk about heredity, and what a man gets from his ancestors. Now, I'm quite certain, Molly – without any proof – I don't want any proof. Hang your hard-and-fast matter-of-fact evidence! I am quite certain, I say, that Steele invited Humphrey and his mother and myself in order to look at us all and watch differences and likenesses. You see, the case may be a beautiful illustration of hereditary qualities. Here is a young man separated from his own people from infancy. There can be no imitation; and now, after twenty years and more, the man of science can contemplate the son, brought up in a most aristocratic and superior atmosphere; the mother, who has always remained in much the same condition except for money; and another son, who has been brought up like his father, a vagabond and a wanderer – with a fiddle. It was a lovely chance for him. I saw him looking at us all dinner-time; in the evening, when I was playing, I saw him, under his bushy eyebrows, looking from Humphrey to his mother. I wondered why. Now I know. The doctor, Molly, is an accomplice."
"An accomplice! Oh! And a man in that position!"
"An accomplice after the act, not before it. My theory is this: Dr. Steele met the lady after he came to town. How he managed to raise himself from the cheap general practitioner to a leading London physician, one doesn't know. It's like stepping from thirty shillings a week to being a star at fifty pounds; no one knows how it's done. Do you think Lady Woodroffe was useful in talking about him? If I wrote a story, I should make the doctor dog the lady's footsteps and coerce her into advancing him. But this isn't a story. However, I take it that he met her, recognized her, and that they agreed that nothing was to be said about this little transaction of the past. Then, of course, when Alice turned up unexpectedly, and asked where the child was to be seen, there was nothing to do except to hold up his hands and protest that he knew nothing about the child."
"But all this is guess-work, Dick."
"Yes. I am afraid we have nothing before us but guess-work. Unless we get some facts to go upon. Look here. A woman is standing on one side of a high wall; another woman is on the other side of the wall. There is a door in the wall; Sir Robert keeps the key of that door in his pocket. There is only one key, and he has it. Unless he consents to unlock the door, those two women can never meet. And so my half-brother will remain upon his eminence."
They fell into a gloomy silence.
Dick broke it. "Molly, what about our good friend, the mother of this interesting changeling?"
"She is strangely comforted by the reflection that the matter is in your hands. Dick, you have found favour in her sight and in her husband's."
"Good, so far."
"And she is firmly persuaded that you will bring the truth to light. She still clings to her dream, you know."
"Does she talk about Humphrey? Was she taken with him?"
"She says little. She lies down and shuts her eyes. Then she is thinking of him. She likes me to play, so that she may think about him. When we drive out, I am sure she is looking for him in the crowd. If he were to call, she would tell him everything. And I am certain that she dreams of heaping upon him all that a young man can possibly desire as soon as she gets him back."
"I hope the poor soul will not meet with disappointment. But I fear, Molly – I fear." He relapsed into his gloomy silence. "I hold the two ends of the chain in my hands, but I cannot connect the ends. I might go to Steele and show him what I suspect. He would only laugh at me. He laughs like the Sphynx, sometimes. If I went to Lady Woodroffe, I should be handed over to her solicitors, and by them conducted to the High Court of Justice; I should hear plain speaking from the Judge on the subject of defamation of character. Everybody would believe that I was a black-mailer. I should be called upon to pay large sums of money as damages; and I should have to go through the Court of Bankruptcy."
The mind of this inquirer had never before been exercised upon any matter more knotty than the presentation of a simple plot, or the difficulty of getting people off the stage. Sometimes, in moments of depression, he even doubted his own conclusions – a condition of mind fatal to all discovery, because it is quite certain that the eye of faith first perceives what the slow piecing together of facts afterwards proves. You must perceive the truth, somehow, first before you can prove it. Perhaps it is not the truth which is at first discerned. In that case, the seeker after truth has at least an imaginary object by which to direct his steps. It may lead him wrong; on the other hand, it may help him to recover the clue which will lead him straight to the heart of things. In a word, one wants a theory to assist all research in things of science or in things of practice.
"Dick," said Molly, "about those registers."
"What about them?"
"Why, that the doctor might have found the name of the child by simply looking into the registers."
"If the child, that is to say, died in Birmingham."
"Yes – if it died in Birmingham. Well, then, Dick – if the doctor could search those registers – " She stopped for a moment. They always do it on the stage, to heighten the effect.
"Well, Molly?"
"Why can't you?"
Dick sat down suddenly, knocked over by the shock of this suggestion.
"Good Heavens, Molly! Oh the depth and the height and the spring and the leap of woman's wit! Why can't I? why can't I? Molly, I am a log, and a lump, and a lout. I deserve that you should take my half-brother. No – not that! Good-bye, good-bye, incomparable shepherdess!" He raised her hand and kissed it. "I fly – I hasten – on the wings of the wind – to Birmingham – the city of Hidden Truth – to read the Revelations of the Register."
CHAPTER XVI.
A WRETCH
Hilarie sat alone in the deep recesses of the western porch of the old church. Although it was November, this sheltered porch was still warm; the swallows that make the summer, and their friends the swifts, were gone; the leaves which still clung to the trees were red and brown and yellow; the grass which clothed the graves no longer waved under the breeze with light and shade and sunshine; none of the old bedesmen were walking the churchyard; even the children in the school were silent over their work, as if singing only belonged to summer; and the wind whistled mournfully in the branches of the yew. Her face, always so calm and restful to others, was troubled and disturbed as she sat by herself.
She held two letters in her hand. One of them was open. She had already read it twice; now she read it a third time. It was from Molly, and it ran as follows: —
"Dearest President of the only college where they teach sweet thoughts and gracious manners and nothing else – where they have only one professor, who is the president and the chaplain and all the lecturers – I have not seen you for so long a time that I am ashamed. Now I am going to tell you why. I must make confession, and then I must ask your advice. I can do this much better by writing than by talking, so that I will write first and we will talk afterwards. I have to tell you most unexpected things, and most wonderful events. They are full of temptations and quandaries.
"First, for my confession. Your ambition for me has been that I should be ambitious for myself. I have done my best to meet your wish; I have tried to be ambitious in the best way – your way. You thought that I might make a serious attempt at serious acting – that I might become a queen of tragedy. Alas! I have felt for some time that I must abandon the attempt. I cannot portray the emotions, I cannot feel the emotions, of tragedy; my nature is too shallow; I cannot realize a great passion. I only know that it must produce in voice, and face, and speech, and gesture, changes and indications that cannot be taught. As for me, when I try, I become either stilted or wooden. The passion does not seize me and possess me. Ambition, of a kind, is not wanting. I like to imagine myself a great actress, sweeping across the stage with a velvet train; I like to think of the people rising and applauding; but, as for the part, I am not moved at all. I think about nothing but myself. If I look in the glass, I am told that I have not the face for tragedy. If I begin to declaim, I cannot feel the words. I am just like the young man who kept on dreaming that he was a great poet, until he made the disagreeable discovery that in order to be a great poet it is absolutely necessary to write great poems. My dear Hilarie, I must put a stop to this attempt at once. I have been a burden to you for five long years. Let me not load you with more than is necessary. I don't say anything about thanks, because you know – you know.
"Dick – you remember Dick, my father's old young friend – the Dick that turned up on tramp that day you three cousins met – tells me that in comedy I should do well. You shall hear, directly, that it is quite possible that I may change the buskin for the sock – which he says is the classical way of putting it. He tells me that an expressive face – mine can screw up or be pulled out like an indiarubber face – a tall figure, and a fairly good voice, are wanted first of all; and that I have all three. But you will see directly that poor Dick is not quite a disinterested person. Still, he may be right, and I must say that if I am to go on the stage, I would rather make them laugh than cry. It must be much more pleasant to broaden their faces with smiles than to stiffen them with terror at the sight of the blood-stained dagger.
"The stage seems the only profession open to a girl like me, if I am to have a profession at all – which you will understand directly is no longer absolutely necessary. I was born behind the footlights, Dick was born in the sawdust; so there seems a natural fitness. However, until I knew you all, my acquaintances were these folk; I have never learned to think of myself as belonging to the world at all. To my young imagination the world consisted of a great many people, whose only occupation was to scrape money together in order to buy seats at a theatre. Some made things, some painted things, some built things, some contrived things, some wrote things; they were extremely industrious, because their industry brought them tickets. The shops, I imagined, were only established and furnished for the purpose of providing things wanted by the show folk. I have never, in fact, got rid of that feeling. The show was everything; all the world existed only to be dramatized. Even the Church, you see, could be put upon the stage. So, as I said, the stage is the only profession for me, if I am to choose a profession.
"There is another thing. I suppose I got this idea, too, from my up-bringing. It is that to be an actress is the one honourable career for a woman. Not to be a great actress – but just an actress, that's all. I believe that the people who really belong to this profession from one generation to another, don't really care very much about being great actors; they are just content to belong to the profession, just as most doctors have no ambition to become great doctors, but are just content with being in the profession. In acting it is the new-comer who wants to be great. There is something comfortable and satisfying in a position of humble utility. I may possibly become the housemaid of farce, with a black daub upon my face.
"The next thing is about my newly discovered cousin, Alice Haveril. She is the kindest of women – next to one. She heaps kindnesses upon me. She loads me with dresses, gold chains, bonnets, gloves, and would load me with money if I could take it. But I will not have that form of gift.
"I am very much with her, because she has no friends here, and her husband is much engaged with his affairs. She is in most delicate health, with a weak heart. She has a terrible trouble, the nature of which I have recently learned; and she wants some one with her constantly. I spend most of the day with her; I drive with her, go shopping with her, read to her, and talk to her.
"Now, dear Hilarie, here is my temptation. My cousin Alice wants me to go back to America with her and her husband. He would like it, too. They are enormously rich; they could make me an heiress. The husband, John Haveril, is as honest and kindly a man as you could wish to find. He is a man who has made his own way; he has not the manners of society; but he is not vulgar; he is well bred by instinct.
"This is, I confess, a great temptation. It is more than a temptation, it seems almost a duty. I have found this poor, fragile creature; I know why she suffers. I think I ought not to leave her.
"If I accept their offer, I shall become one of the rich heiresses of America. It will mean millions. But then I really do not want millions. I shall have to give up all my friends if I go away to America. This would be very hard. I should also lose the happiness of desiring things I cannot now obtain. I believe that longing after things unattainable is the chief happiness of the impecunious. Only think of forming a wish and having it instantly realized! How selfish, how thoughtless of other people, how fat and coarse and lazy, one would become! Dick has often spoken of the terrible effect produced upon the mind by the possession of wealth. Perhaps he has prejudiced me.
"The next temptation comes from a certain young man. He besieges me – he swears he cannot live without me. He wants me to be engaged secretly – he says that I have promised. But I have not. As for keeping any secrets from you, and especially a matter of this importance, it is ridiculous. The young man is, in fact, one of the cousins – Sir Humphrey."
At this point Hilarie started, laid down the letter, looked up; read the words again; went on, with a red spot in either cheek.
"I confess humbly that the position which he offers attracts me. That so humble a person as myself should be elevated without any warning, so to speak, to this position – his mother is a great leader in the philanthropic part of society – is a curious freak of fortune. It is like a story-book. As for the man – well, for my own feeling about him, it is certainly quite true that I could very well live without him. I certainly should not droop and languish if he were to go somewhere else; yet – you know him, Hilarie. He is clever in a way. He thinks he has ideas about Art – he paints smudges, puts together chords, and writes lines that rhyme. He also plays disjointed bits, and complains that they do not appeal to me. That is harmless, however. His manners are distinguished, I suppose. He is quite contemptuous of everybody who has work to do. If you talk to him about the world below, it is like running your head against a stone wall. He loves me, he says, for the opposites. And what that means, I don't know. I suppose that, as a gentleman, he could be trusted to behave with decency and kindness to his wife. At the same time, I have found him, more than once, of a surprising ill temper, moody, jealous, violent, and I think that he is selfish in the cultivated manner – that is to say, selfish with refinement.
"I cannot and will not be guilty of a secret engagement; while a secret marriage, which he also vehemently urges, unknown to his mother or my friends, and to be kept in retirement, concealed from everybody, is a degradation to which I would never submit. I cannot understand what my lover means by such a proposal, nor why he cannot see that the thing is an insult and an impossibility.
"However, I have refused concealment. Meantime a most romantic and wonderful discovery is going to be disclosed. I must not set it down on paper, even for your eyes, Hilarie. It is a discovery of which Humphrey knows nothing as yet. He will learn it, I believe, in a few days. When he does learn it, it will necessitate a complete change in all his views of life; it will open the world for him; it will take him out of his narrow grooves; it will try him and prove him. Now, dear Hilarie, am I right to wait – without his knowing why? If he receives this discovery as he ought – if it brings out in him what is really noble in his character, I can trust myself to him. At the same time, it will deprive him of what first attracted me in him; but I must not tell you more.
"Lastly, my dear old Dick has been making love to me, just as he did when I was fifteen and he was seventeen, going about with my father, practising and playing. Such a Conservative – so full of prejudices is Dick. I confess to you, dear Hilarie, I would rather marry Dick than anything else. We should never have any money – Dick gives away all he gets. He will not put by. 'If I am ill,' he says, 'take me to the hospital.' 'If I die,' he says, 'bury me in the hedge, like the gipsy folk.' He never wants money, and I should sometimes go on tramp with him, and we should sit in the woods, and march along the roads, and hear the skylark sing, and yearn for the unattainable, and go on crying for we know not what, like the little children. Oh, delightful! And Dick is always sweet and always good – except, perhaps, when he speaks of Humphrey, who has angered him by cold and superior airs. Dick is a philosopher, except on that one side. When I think of marrying Dick, dear Hilarie, my heart stands still. For then I get a most lovely dream. I close my eyes to see it better. It is a most charming vision. There is a long road with a broad strip of turf on either side, and a high hedge for shade and flowers, goodly trees at intervals; a road which runs over the hills and down the valleys and along brooks; crosses bridges, and has short cuts through fields and meadows; overhead the lark sings; from the trees the yellow-hammer cries, 'A little bit of bread and no cheese;' clouds fly across the sky; all kinds of queer people pass along – vagrants, beggars, gipsies, soldiers, – just the common sort. On the springy turf at the side I myself walk, carrying the fiddle – in the middle of the road Dick tramps, going large and free; over his shoulders hangs the bag which contains all we want; now and then he bursts out singing as he goes. In the coppice we sit down on the trunk of a tree and take lunch out of a paper bag. Sometimes, when we are quite alone in a coppice, far away from the world, Dick takes his fiddle out of the case and plays to me, all alone, music that lifts me out of myself and carries me away, I know not whither. Who would not marry a great magician? And in my dream about Dick I am never tired. I never regret my lot – I never want money. Dick is never savage, like Humphrey – he despises no one; he is loved by everybody. Oh, Hilarie, I would ask for nothing – nothing better than to give myself to Dick, and to follow him and be his slave – his grateful slave! Is this love, Hilarie? Write to me, dear Hilarie, and tell me what I ought to do."
Hilarie laid down the letter with a sigh. "Strange," she said. "Molly sees her own path of happiness quite plainly; yet she cannot follow it. What she does not know is that she has shattered my own dream."