I SAY NO

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The prospect of his recovery the next morning was gloomy indeed.
He had sunk into a state of deplorable weakness, in mind as well
as in body. The little memory of events that he still preserved
was regarded by him as the memory of a dream. He alluded to
Emily, and to his meeting with her unexpectedly. But from that
point his recollection failed him. They had talked of something
interesting, he said--but he was unable to remember what it was.
And they had waited together at a railway station--but for what
purpose he could not tell. He sighed and wondered when Emily
would marry him--and so fell asleep again, weaker than ever.

Not having any confidence in the doctor at Belford, Mrs. Delvin
had sent an urgent message to a physician at Edinburgh, famous
for his skill in treating diseases of the nervous system. "I
cannot expect him to reach this remote place, without some
delay," she said; "I must bear my suspense as well as I can."

"You shall not bear it alone," Emily answered. "I will wait with
you till the doctor comes."

Mrs. Delvin lifted her frail wasted hands to Emily's face, drew
it a little nearer--and kissed her.

CHAPTER LXIV.

ON THE WAY TO LONDON.

The parting words had been spoken. Emily and her companion were
on their way to London.

For some little time, they traveled in silence--alone in the
railway carriage. After submitting as long as she could to lay an
embargo on the use of her tongue, Mrs. Ellmother started the
conversation by means of a question: "Do you think Mr. Mirabel
will get over it, miss?"

"It's useless to ask me," Emily said. "Even the great man from
Edinburgh is not able to decide yet, whether he will recover or
not."

"You have taken me into your confidence, Miss Emily, as you
promised--and I have got something in my mind in consequence. May
I mention it without giving offense?"

"What is it?"

"I wish you had never taken up with Mr. Mirabel."

Emily was silent. Mrs. Ellmother, having a design of her own to
accomplish, ventured to speak more plainly. "I often think of Mr.
Alban Morris," she proceeded. "I always did like him, and I
always shall."

Emily suddenly pulled down her veil. "Don't speak of him!" she
said.

"I didn't mean to offend you."

"You don't offend me. You distress me. Oh, how often I have
wished--!" She threw herself back in a corner of the carriage and
said no more.

Although not remarkable for the possession of delicate tact, Mrs.
Ellmother discovered that the best course she could now follow
was a course of silence.

Even at the time when she had most implicitly trusted Mirabel,
the fear that she might have acted hastily and harshly toward
Alban had occasionally troubled Emily's mind. The impression
produced by later events had not only intensified this feeling,
but had presented the motives of that true friend under an
entirely new point of view. If she had been left in ignorance of
the manner of her father's death--as Alban had designed to leave
her; as she would have been left, but for the treachery of
Francine--how happily free she would have been from thoughts
which it was now a terror to her to recall. She would have parted
from Mirabel, when the visit to the pleasant country house had
come to an end, remembering him as an amusing acquaintance and
nothing more. He would have been spared, and she would have been
spared, the shock that had so cruelly assailed them both. What
had she gained by Mrs. Rook's detestable confession? The result
had been perpetual disturbance of mind provoked by self-torturing
speculations on the subject of the murder. If Mirabel was
innocent, who was guilty? The false wife, without pity and
without shame--or the brutal husband, who looked capable of any
enormity? What was her future to be? How was it all to end? In
the despair of that bitter moment--seeing her devoted old servant
looking at her with kind compassionate eyes--Emily's troubled
spirit sought refuge in impetuous self-betrayal; the very
betrayal which she had resolved should not escape her, hardly a
minute since!

She bent forward out of her corner, and suddenly drew up her
veil. "Do you expect to see Mr. Alban Morris, when we get back?"
she asked.

"I should like to see him, miss--if you have no objection."

"Tell him I am ashamed of myself! and say I ask his pardon with
all my heart!"

"The Lord be praised!" Mrs. Ellmother burst out--and then, when
it was too late, remembered the conventional restraints
appropriate to the occasion. "Gracious, what a fool I am!" she
said to herself. "Beautiful weather, Miss Emily, isn't it?" she
continued, in a desperate hurry to change the subject.

Emily reclined again in her corner of the carriage. She smiled,
for the first time since she had become Mrs. Delvin's guest at
the tower.

BOOK THE LAST--AT HOME AGAIN.

CHAPTER LXV.

CECILIA IN A NEW CHARACTER.

Reaching the cottage at night, Emily found the card of a visitor
who had called during the day. It bore the name of "Miss Wyvil,"
and had a message written on it which strongly excited Emily's
curiosity.

"I have seen the telegra m which tells your servant that you
return to-night. Expect me early to-morrow morning--with news
that will deeply interest you."

To what news did Cecilia allude? Emily questioned the woman who
had been left in charge of the cottage, and found that she had
next to nothing to tell. Miss Wyvil had flushed up, and had
looked excited, when she read the telegraphic message--that was
all. Emily's impatience was, as usual, not to be concealed.
Expert Mrs. Ellmother treated the case in the right way--first
with supper, and then with an adjournment to bed. The clock
struck twelve, when she put out the young mistress's candle. "Ten
hours to pass before Cecilia comes here!" Emily exclaimed. "Not
ten minutes," Mrs. Ellmother reminded her, "if you will only go
to sleep."

Cecilia arrived before the breakfast-table was cleared; as
lovely, as gentle, as affectionate as ever--but looking unusually
serious and subdued.

"Out with it at once!" Emily cried. "What have you got to tell
me?'

"Perhaps, I had better tell you first," Cecilia said, "that I
know what you kept from me when I came here, after you left us at
Monksmoor. Don't think, my dear, that I say this by way of
complaint. Mr. Alban Morris says you had good reasons for keeping
your secret."

"Mr. Alban Morris! Did you get your information from _him?_"

"Yes. Do I surprise you?"

"More than words can tell!"

"Can you bear another surprise? Mr. Morris has seen Miss Jethro,
and has discovered that Mr. Mirabel has been wrongly suspected of
a dreadful crime. Our amiable little clergyman is guilty of being
a coward--and guilty of nothing else. Are you really quiet enough
to read about it?"

She produced some leaves of paper filled with writing. "There,"
she explained, "is Mr. Morris's own account of all that passed
between Miss Jethro and himself."

"But how do _you_ come by it?"

"Mr. Morris gave it to me. He said, 'Show it to Emily as soon as
possible; and take care to be with her while she reads it.' There
is a reason for this--" Cecilia's voice faltered. On the brink of
some explanation, she seemed to recoil from it. "I will tell you
by-and-by what the reason is," she said.

Emily looked nervously at the manuscript. "Why doesn't he tell me
himself what he has discovered? Is he--" The leaves began to
flutter in her trembling fingers--"is he angry with me?"

"Oh, Emily, angry with You! Read what he has written and you
shall know why he keeps away."

Emily opened the manuscript.

CHAPTER LXVI.

ALBAN'S NARRATIVE.

"The information which I have obtained from Miss Jethro has been
communicated to me, on the condition that I shall not disclose
the place of her residence. 'Let me pass out of notice (she said)
as completely as if I had passed out of life; I wish to be
forgotten by some, and to be unknown by others.' With this one
stipulation, she left me free to write the present narrative of
what passed at the interview between us. I feel that the
discoveries which I have made are too important to the persons
interested to be trusted to memory.

1. _She Receives Me_.

"Finding Miss Jethro's place of abode, with far less difficulty
than I had anticipated (thanks to favoring circumstances), I
stated plainly the object of my visit. She declined to enter into
conversation with me on the subject of the murder at Zeeland.

"I was prepared to meet with this rebuke, and to take the
necessary measures for obtaining a more satisfactory reception.
'A person is suspected of having committed the murder,' I said;
'and there is reason to believe that you are in a position to say
whether the suspicion is justified or not. Do you refuse to
answer me, if I put the question?'

"Miss Jethro asked who the person was.

"I mentioned the name--Mr. Miles Mirabel.

"It is not necessary, and it would certainly be not agreeable to
me, to describe the effect which this reply produced on Miss
Jethro. After giving her time to compose herself, I entered into
certain explanations, in order to convince her at the outset of
my good faith. The result justified my anticipations. I was at
once admitted to her confidence.

"She said, 'I must not hesitate to do an act of justice to an
innocent man. But, in such a serious matter as this, you have a
right to judge for yourself whether the person who is now
speaking to you is a person whom you can trust. You may believe
that I tell the truth about others, if I begin--whatever it may
cost me--by telling the truth about myself.'

2. _She Speaks of Herself_.

"I shall not attempt to place on record the confession of a most
unhappy woman. It was the common story of sin bitterly repented,
and of vain effort to recover the lost place in social esteem.
Too well known a story, surely, to be told again.

"But I may with perfect propriety repeat what Miss Jethro said to
me, in allusion to later events in her life which are connected
with my own personal experience. She recalled to my memory a
visit which she had paid to me at Netherwoods, and a letter
addressed to her by Doctor Allday, which I had read at her
express request.

"She said, 'You may remember that the letter contained some
severe reflections on my conduct. Among other things, the doctor
mentions that he called at the lodging I occupied during my visit
to London, and found I had taken to flight: also that he had
reason to believe I had entered Miss Ladd's service, under false
pretenses.'

"I asked if the doctor had wronged her.

"She answered 'No: in one case, he is ignorant; in the other, he
is right. On leaving his house, I found myself followed in the
street by the man to whom I owe the shame and misery of my past
life. My horror of him is not to be described in words. The one
way of escaping was offered by an empty cab that passed me. I
reached the railway station safely, and went back to my home in
the country. Do you blame me?'

"It was impossible to blame her--and I said so.

"She then confessed the deception which she had practiced on Miss
Ladd. 'I have a cousin,' she said, 'who was a Miss Jethro like
me. Before her marriage she had been employed as a governess. She
pitied me; she sympathized with my longing to recover the
character that I had lost. With her permission, I made use of the
testimonials which she had earned as a teacher--I was betrayed
(to this day I don't know by whom)--and I was dismissed from
Netherwoods. Now you know that I deceived Miss Ladd, you may
reasonably conclude that I am likely to deceive You.'

"I assured her, with perfect sincerity, that I had drawn no such
conclusion. Encouraged by my reply, Miss Jethro proceeded as
follows.

3. _She Speaks of Mirabel_.

"'Four years ago, I was living near Cowes, in the Isle of
Wight--in a cottage which had been taken for me by a gentleman
who was the owner of a yacht. We had just returned from a short
cruise, and the vessel was under orders to sail for Cherbourg
with the next tide.

"'While I was walking in my garden, I was startled by the sudden
appearance Of a man (evidently a gentleman) who was a perfect
stranger to me. He was in a pitiable state of terror, and he
implored my protection. In reply to my first inquiries, he
mentioned the inn at Zeeland, and the dreadful death of a person
unknown to him; whom I recognized (partly by the description
given, and partly by comparison of dates) as Mr. James Brown. I
shall say nothing of the shock inflicted on me: you don't want to
know what I felt. What I did (having literally only a minute left
for decision) was to hide the fugitive from discovery, and to
exert my influence in his favor with the owner of the yacht. I
saw nothing more of him. He was put on board, as soon as the
police were out of sight, and was safely landed at Cherbourg.'

"I asked what induced her to run the risk of protecting a
stranger, who was under suspicion of having committed a murder.

"She said, 'You shall hear my explanation directly. Let us have
done with Mr. Mirabel first. We occasionally corresponded, during
the long absence on the continent; never alluding, at his express
request, to the horrible event at the inn. His last letter
reached me, after he had established himself at Vale Regis.
Writing of the society in the neighborhood, he infor med me of
his introduction to Miss Wyvil, and of the invitation that he had
received to meet her friend and schoolfellow at Monksmoor. I knew
that Miss Emily possessed a Handbill describing personal
peculiarities in Mr. Mirabel, not hidden under the changed
appearance of his head and face. If she remembered or happened to
refer to that description, while she was living in the same house
with him, there was a possibility at least of her suspicion being
excited. The fear of this took me to you. It was a morbid fear,
and, as events turned out, an unfounded fear: but I was unable to
control it. Failing to produce any effect on you, I went to Vale
Regis, and tried (vainly again) to induce Mr. Mirabel to send an
excuse to Monksmoor. He, like you, wanted to know what my motive
was. When I tell you that I acted solely in Miss Emily's
interests, and that I knew how she had been deceived about her
father's death, need I say why I was afraid to acknowledge my
motive?'

"I understood that Miss Jethro might well be afraid of the
consequences, if she risked any allusion to Mr. Brown's horrible
death, and if it afterward chanced to reach his daughter's ears.
But this state of feeling implied an extraordinary interest in
the preservation of Emily's peace of mind. I asked Miss Jethro
how that interest had been excited?

"She answered, 'I can only satisfy you in one way. I must speak
of her father now.'"

Emily looked up from the manuscript. She felt Cecilia's arm
tenderly caressing her. She heard Cecilia say, "My poor dear,
there is one last trial of your courage still to come. I am
afraid of what you are going to read, when you turn to the next
page. And yet--"

"And yet," Emily replied gently, "it must be done. I have learned
my hard lesson of endurance, Cecilia, don't be afraid."

Emily turned to the next page.

4. _She Speaks of the Dead_.

"For the first time, Miss Jethro appeared to be at a loss how to
proceed. I could see that she was suffering. She rose, and
opening a drawer in her writing table, took a letter from it.

"She said, 'Will you read this? It was written by Miss Emily's
father. Perhaps it may say more for me than I can say for
myself?'

"I copy the letter. It was thus expressed:

"'You have declared that our farewell to-day is our farewell
forever. For the second time, you have refused to be my wife; and
you have done this, to use your own words, in mercy to Me.

"'In mercy to Me, I implore you to reconsider your decision.

"'If you condemn me to live without you--I feel it, I know
it--you condemn me to despair which I have not fortitude enough
to endure. Look at the passages which I have marked for you in
the New Testament. Again and again, I say it; your true
repentance has made you worthy of the pardon of God. Are you not
worthy of the love, admiration, and respect of man? Think! oh,
Sara, think of what our lives might be, and let them be united
for time and for eternity.

"'I can write no more. A deadly faintness oppresses me. My mind
is in a state unknown to me in past years. I am in such confusion
that I sometimes think I hate you. And then I recover from my
delusion, and know that man never loved woman as I love you.

"'You will have time to write to me by this evening's post. I
shall stop at Zeeland to-morrow, on my way back, and ask for a
letter at the post office. I forbid explanations and excuses. I
forbid heartless allusions to your duty. Let me have an answer
which does not keep me for a moment in suspense.

"'For the last time, I ask you: Do you consent to be my wife?
Say, Yes--or say, No.'

"I gave her back the letter--with the one comment on it, which
the circumstances permitted me to make:

"'You said No?'

"She bent her head in silence.

"I went on--not willingly, for I would have spared her if it had
been possible. I said, 'He died, despairing, by his own hand--and
you knew it?'

"She looked up. 'No! To say that I knew it is too much. To say
that I feared it is the truth.'

"'Did you love him?'

"She eyed me in stern surprise. 'Have _I_ any right to love?
Could I disgrace an honorable man by allowing him to marry me?
You look as if you held me responsible for his death.'

"'Innocently responsible,' I said.

"She still followed her own train of thought. 'Do you suppose I
could for a moment anticipate that he would destroy himself, when
I wrote my reply? He was a truly religious man. If he had been in
his right mind, he would have shrunk from the idea of suicide as
from the idea of a crime.'

"On reflection, I was inclined to agree with her. In his terrible
position, it was at least possible that the sight of the razor
(placed ready, with the other appliances of the toilet, for his
fellow-traveler's use) might have fatally tempted a man whose
last hope was crushed, whose mind was tortured by despair. I
should have been merciless indeed, if I had held Miss Jethro
accountable thus far. But I found it hard to sympathize with the
course which she had pursued, in permitting Mr. Brown's death to
be attributed to murder without a word of protest. 'Why were you
silent?' I said.

"She smiled bitterly.

"'A woman would have known why, without asking,' she replied. 'A
woman would have understood that I shrank from a public
confession of my shameful past life. A woman would have
remembered what reasons I had for pitying the man who loved me,
and for accepting any responsibility rather than associate his
memory, before the world, with an unworthy passion for a degraded
creature, ending in an act of suicide. Even if I had made that
cruel sacrifice, would public opinion have believed such a person
as I am--against the evidence of a medical man, and the verdict
of a jury? No, Mr. Morris! I said nothing, and I was resolved to
say nothing, so long as the choice of alternatives was left to
me. On the day when Mr. Mirabel implored me to save him, that
choice was no longer mine--and you know what I did. And now again
when suspicion (after all the long interval that had passed) has
followed and found that innocent man, you know what I have done.
What more do you ask of me?'

"'Your pardon,' I said, 'for not having understood you--and a
last favor. May I repeat what I have heard to the one person of
all others who ought to know, and who must know, what you have
told me?'

"It was needless to hint more plainly that I was speaking of
Emily. Miss Jethro granted my request.

"'It shall be as you please,' she answered. 'Say for me to _his_
daughter, that the grateful remembrance of her is my one refuge
from the thoughts that tortured me, when we spoke together on her
last night at school. She has made this dead heart of mine feel a
reviving breath of life, when I think of her. Never, in our
earthly pilgrimage, shall we meet again--I implore her to pity
and forget me. Farewell, Mr. Morris; farewell forever.'

"I confess that the tears came into my eyes. When I could see
clearly again, I was alone in the room."

CHAPTER LXVII.

THE TRUE CONSOLATION.

Emily closed the pages which told her that her father had died by
his own hand.

Cecilia still held her tenderly embraced. By slow degrees, her
head dropped until it rested on her friend's bosom. Silently she
suffered. Silently Cecilia bent forward, and kissed her forehead.
The sounds that penetrated to the room were not out of harmony
with the time. From a distant house the voices of children were
just audible, singing the plaintive melody of a hymn; and, now
and then, the breeze blew the first faded leaves of autumn
against the window. Neither of the girls knew how long the
minutes followed each other uneventfully, before there was a
change. Emily raised her head, and looked at Cecilia.

"I have one friend left," she said.

"Not only me, love--oh, I hope not only me!"

"Yes. Only you."

"I want to say something, Emily; but I am afraid of hurting you."

"My dear, do you remember what we once read in a book of history
at school? It told of the death of a tortured man, in the old
time, who was broken on the wheel. He lived through it long
enough to say that the agony, after the first stroke of the club,
dulled his capacity for feeling pain when the next blows fell. I
fancy pain of the mind must f ollow the same rule. Nothing you
can say will hurt me now."

"I only wanted to ask, Emily, if you were engaged--at one
time--to marry Mr. Mirabel. Is it true?"

"False! He pressed me to consent to an engagement--and I said he
must not hurry me."

"What made you say that?"

"I thought of Alban Morris."

Vainly Cecilia tried to restrain herself. A cry of joy escaped
her.

"Are you glad?" Emily asked. "Why?"

Cecilia made no direct reply. "May I tell you what you wanted to
know, a little while since?" she said. "You asked why Mr. Morris
left it all to me, instead of speaking to you himself. When I put
the same question to him, he told me to read what he had written.
'Not a shadow of suspicion rests on Mr. Mirabel,' he said. 'Emily
is free to marry him--and free through Me. Can _I_ tell her that?
For her sake, and for mine, it must not be. All that I can do is
to leave old remembrances to plead for me. If they fail, I shall
know that she will be happier with Mr. Mirabel than with me.'
'And you will submit?' I asked. 'Because I love her,' he
answered, 'I must submit.' Oh, how pale you are! Have I
distressed you?"

"You have done me good."

"Will you see him?"

Emily pointed to the manuscript. "At such a time as this?" she
said.

Cecilia still held to her resolution. "Such a time as this is the
right time," she answered. "It is now, when you most want to be
comforted, that you ought to see him. Who can quiet your poor
aching heart as _he_ can quiet it?" She impulsively snatched at
the manuscript and threw it out of sight. "I can't bear to look
at it," she said. "Emily! if I have done wrong, will you forgive
me? I saw him this morning before I came here. I was afraid of
what might happen--I refused to break the dreadful news to you,
unless he was somewhere near us. Your good old servant knows
where to go. Let me send her--"

Mrs. Ellmother herself opened the door, and stood doubtful on the
threshold, hysterically sobbing and laughing at the same time.
"I'm everything that's bad!" the good old creature burst out.
"I've been listening--I've been lying--I said you wanted him.
Turn me out of my situation, if you like. I've got him! Here he
is!"

In another moment, Emily was in his arms--and they were alone. On
his faithful breast the blessed relief of tears came to her at
last: she burst out crying.

"Oh, Alban, can you forgive me?"

He gently raised her head, so that he could see her face.

"My love, let me look at you," he said. "I want to think again of
the day when we parted in the garden at school. Do you remember
the one conviction that sustained me? I told you, Emily, there
was a time of fulfillment to come in our two lives; and I have
never wholly lost the dear belief. My own darling, the time has
come!"

POSTSCRIPT.

GOSSIP IN THE STUDIO.

The winter time had arrived. Alban was clearing his palette,
after a hard day's work at the cottage. The servant announced
that tea was ready, and that Miss Ladd was waiting to see him in
the next room.

Alban ran in, and received the visitor cordially with both hands.
"Welcome back to England! I needn't ask if the sea-voyage has
done you good. You are looking ten years younger than when you
went away."

Miss Ladd smiled. "I shall soon be ten years older again, if I go
back to Netherwoods," she replied. "I didn't believe it at the
time; but I know better now. Our friend Doctor Allday was right,
when he said that my working days were over. I must give up the
school to a younger and stronger successor, and make the best I
can in retirement of what is left of my life. You and Emily may
expect to have me as a near neighbor. Where is Emily?"

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