they brought harry pallant ashore, cold and lifeless, and carried him up in haste to the hotel. there the village doctor saw him at once, and detected a faint tremor of the heart. at the end of an hour the lungs began to act faintly of themselves, and the heart beat a little in some feeble fashion.
with care harry pallant came round, but it took a week or two before he was himself again, and louie nursed[pg 294] him meanwhile in fear and trembling, with breathless agony. she had one consolation—harry loved her. in the long nights the whole truth dawned upon her, clear and certain. she saw how harry had opened the letter, had jumped at once to the natural conclusion, and had tried to drown himself in order to release her. oh, why had he not trusted her? why had he not asked her? a woman naturally thinks like that; a man knows in his own soul that a man could never possibly do so.
she dared not tell him yet, for fear of a relapse. she could only wait and watch, and nurse him tenderly. and all the time she knew he distrusted her—knew he thought her a hypocrite and a traitor. for harry's sake she had to bear it.
at last, one day, when he was getting very much stronger, and could sit up in a chair and look bitterly out at the sea, she said to him in a gentle voice, very tentatively, "harry, dora ferrand and her husband have gone to spend the summer in norway."
harry groaned. "how do you know?" he asked. "has hugh written to you? what is it to us? who told you about it?"
louie bit her lip hard to keep back the tears. "dora telegraphed to me herself," she answered softly. "she telegraphed to me as soon as ever"—she hesitated a moment—"as soon as ever she saw your answer to her in the monitor."
harry's face grew white with horror. "my answer to her!" he cried in a ghastly voice, not caring to ask at the moment how louie came to know it was he who wrote the answers in the young people's monitor. "my answer to you, you mean, louie. it was your letter—yours, not dora's. you can't deceive me. i read it myself. my poor child, i saw your handwriting."
it was an awful thing that, in spite of all, he must have it out with her against his will; but he would not flinch[pg 295] from it—he would settle it then and there, once and for ever. she had introduced it herself; she had brought it down upon her own head. he would not flinch from it. it was his duty to tell her.
louie laid her hand upon his arm. he did not try to cast it off. "harry," she said, imploringly, persuasively, "there is a terrible mistake here—a terrible misunderstanding. it was unavoidable; you could not possibly have thought otherwise. but oh, harry, if you knew the suffering you have brought upon me, you would not speak so, darling—you would not speak so."
harry turned towards her passionately and eagerly. "then you didn't want me to die, louie?" he cried in a hoarse voice. "you didn't really want to get rid of me?"
louie withdrew her hand hastily as if she had been stung. "harry," she gasped, as well as she was able, "you misunderstood that letter altogether. it was not mine—it was dora ferrand's. dora wrote it, and i only copied it. if you will listen a minute i will tell you all, all about it."
harry flung himself back half incredulously on his chair, but with a new-born hope lighting up in part the gloom of his recovered existence.
"i went over to dora ferrand's the day after the ogilvies' dance," louie began tremulously, "and i found dora sitting in her boudoir writing a letter. i walked up without being announced, and when dora saw me she screamed a little, and then she grew as red as fire, and burst out crying, and tried to hide the letter she was writing. so i went up to her and began to soothe her, and asked her what it was, and wanted to read it. and dora cried for a long time, and wouldn't tell me, and was dreadfully penitent, and said she was very, very miserable. so i said, 'dora, is there anything wrong between you and mr. ferrand?' and she said, 'nothing, louie; i[pg 296] give you my word of honour, nothing. poor wetherby's as kind to me as anybody could be. but——' and then she began crying again as if her heart would burst, worse than ever. and i took her head on my shoulder, and said to her, 'dora, is it that you feel you don't love him?' and dora was in a dreadfully penitent fit, and she flung herself away from me, and said to me, 'oh, louie, don't touch me! don't kiss me! don't come near me! i'm not fit to associate with a girl like you, dear.... oh, louie, i don't love him; and—what's worse—i love somebody else, darling.' well, then, of course, i was horribly shocked, and i said, 'dora, dora, this is awfully wicked of you!' and dora cried worse than before, and sobbed away, and wouldn't be comforted. and there was a copy of the monitor lying on the table, and i saw it open at the correspondence, and i said, 'were you writing for advice to the monitor, dora?' and she looked up and nodded 'yes.' so i coaxed her and begged her to show me the letter, and at last she showed it to me; but she wouldn't tell me who she was in love with, harry; and, oh, harry, my darling, my darling, i never so much as dreamt of its being you, dear—the thought never even crossed my mind. i ran over everybody i could imagine she'd taken a fancy to, but i never for a moment thought of you, darling. i suppose, harry, i loved you too dearly even to suspect it. and then, i dare say, dora saw i didn't suspect it; but, anyhow, she went on and finished the letter—it was nearly done when i came in to her—and after that she said she couldn't bear to send it in her own handwriting, for fear anybody should know her and recognize it. so i said if she liked i'd copy it out for her, for by that time i was crying just as hard as she was, and so sorry for her and for poor mr. ferrand; and it never struck me that anybody could ever possibly think that i wrote it about myself. and—and—and that's all, harry."
harry listened, conscience-smitten, to the artless recital,[pg 297] which bore its own truth on the very surface of it, as it fell from louie's trembling lips, and then he held her off at arm's length when she tried to fall upon his neck and kiss him, whispering in a loud undertone, "oh, louie, louie, don't, don't! i don't deserve it! i have been too wicked—too mistrustful!"
louie drew forth a letter from her pocket and handed it to him silently. it was in dora's handwriting. he read it through in breathless anxiety.
"louie,—i dare not call you anything else now. you know it all by this time. we have heard about harry's accident from your sister. nobody but ourselves knows it was not an accident. and i have seen the answer in the monitor. of course harry wrote it. i see it all now. you can never forgive me. it is i who have brought all this misery upon you. i am a wretched woman. do not reproach me—i reproach myself more bitterly than anything you could say would ever reproach me. but don't forgive me and pity me either. if you forgive me i shall have to kill myself. it's all over now. i will do the only thing that remains for me—keep out of your way and his for ever. poor wetherby is going to take me for the summer to norway, as i telegraphed to you. we are just starting. when we return we shall winter in italy. i will leave london in future altogether. nobody but our three selves need ever know or suspect the reason. harry will recover, and you two will be happy yet. but i—i shall be as miserable for ever, as i truly deserve to be.
"your wretched friend,
"d. f."
harry crumpled up the letter bitterly in his hand. "poor soul," he said. "louie, i forgive her. can i myself ever hope for forgiveness?"[pg 298]
louie flung herself fiercely upon him. "my darling," she cried, "we will always trust one another in future. you couldn't help it, harry. it was impossible for you to have judged otherwise. but oh, my darling, what i have suffered! let us forgive her. harry, and let us love one another better now."
