Half Brothers. Stretton Hesba

He enjoyed seeing the strange sights that were to be found in unexplored London as much as he had enjoyed the strange scenes in foreign lands. How the poor lived presented to him an interesting problem, to which the usual gatherings of ordinary society were flat and dull. George and he went to and fro in the slums, doing their utmost to lift here and there one victim out of the miry depths. It was a pleasure to him to give aid liberally; a pleasure to feel that these poor people were fond of him; but a far greater pleasure yet to stand in Margaret's eyes as the champion of the sorrowful and neglected.

CHAPTER IX.

       IS SOPHY ALIVE?

       Table of Contents

      "Leave Sidney alone with me to-night, Margaret; I have business to talk about," said Colonel Cleveland one evening, about a year after his accident. He had never been able to set his foot upon the ground since his fatal fall; and when Martin entered his room, and looked at the wasted frame and pallid face of the man who had once been so strong and full of life, tears of sympathy and pity stood in his eyes; and he grasped his thin and meager hand in silence.

      "I want a long talk with you alone," said Colonel Cleveland in a mournful voice. "Sit down, Sidney. Good Heavens! to think what a wreck I am! And not yet fifty! I was just your age when my Margaret was born; and I never guessed what she would grow to be for me. Margaret will be one-and-twenty next month. She is all the world to me."

      "And to me!" said Sidney to himself.

      "There must be some kind of settlement of affairs when she comes of age," continued her father, "and I'm afraid to let her know them. I've been a bad manager for her. What we are living on now is the interest of her mother's money, and the rent of Apley Hall, which I let six years ago for seven years. I could not afford to live in it any longer. My speculations always turned out badly, and Apley is heavily mortgaged. Margaret is not the great heiress the world thinks her. Do you think she will care, Sidney?"

      "Not a straw," he answered; "you need not be afraid of Margaret."

      "God bless her!" said Colonel Cleveland sadly. "I fancied I could double her fortune; but Margaret doesn't care about money, or what money brings; and she'll never think she has anything to forgive me. Ought I to tell her all, Sidney?"

      "Why?" he asked. "Women do not understand about money; and you could make a general statement that would satisfy her."

      "I might," said Colonel Cleveland, sighing and falling into a silence which lasted some minutes. "Sidney!" he exclaimed at last, sharply and hotly, "is it possible you don't see what a treasure my Margaret is? I know you have the reputation of not being a marrying man; and that was why I first ventured to ask you to come to see us. But I did not want to lose my girl then. Now I want to find somebody to take care of my darling when I'm gone. For I'm going, going; every day brings the end nearer. In another year I shall be lying in the vault at Apley beside her mother, and Margaret will be very lonely. Sidney, I thought you were in love with my girl."

      Sidney shaded his eyes with his hands, and little of his face could be seen. In love with her! The phrase seemed poor and commonplace. Why! she was dearer to him than all the world besides; he counted all he had as nothing in comparison with her love, if he could win it. But the memory of his great mistake stood between her and him. The mention of Apley, where he had first seen Sophy, brought vividly to his mind the narrow street, and the little shop, and Sophy's pretty face as it was when he first looked upon it. Oh, what a fool he had been!

      "I fancied you loved her," said Colonel Cleveland in an accent of bitter disappointment as Sidney remained silent; "and she is fit to be the wife of a prince. It is not the money you care about, Sidney? And such a marriage would have pleased your uncle; he spoke of it more than once, for he was very fond of Margaret; only I could not bear to think of such a thing then. Surely I can see what she is, though I am her father."

      "She is more than all you think her," answered Sidney vehemently. "You cannot value her more than I do. It is I who am unworthy. God knows I could not put my life beside her life—so pure and good and noble."

      "Is that all?" asked her father. "Of course a man's life cannot be as unsullied as a girl's. One must sow one's wild oats. Margaret will not think you unworthy; not she. She knows nothing of the world, absolutely nothing. It is a pure heart and a true one; and it is yours, if I'm not an old blunderhead. She loves you, and she has never given a thought to any other man. Think of that, Sidney! If you marry her I shall die happy."

      But once more a silence fell between them like a cloud. For a minute or two Sidney felt an unutterable joy in the thought that Margaret loved him. All at once the utter loneliness of all his future years, if he must give her up, flashed across him. For when Colonel Cleveland died this friendly and intimate intercourse between them must cease; and Margaret would in time become the wife of some other man. The mingled sweetness and bitterness of this moment were almost more than he could bear. Margaret loved him, and it was an exquisite happiness to know it; but behind her beloved image stood another forbidding his happiness. It was more than seven years since he had deserted Sophy; and he had been content to let the time slip away, uncertain of her fate, and dreading to learn that she was still alive. Why had he been such a coward? What could he now say to Margaret's father? To have that which he most longed for pressed upon him, and yet be unable to accept it, was torture to him. No path seemed open to him; it seemed impossible to confess the truth. For in the clear light shining upon his conduct at this moment he saw how dastardly and selfish it had been. He had forsaken a young and friendless girl in a moment of passion, and had left her in a strange land, far from her own people, when the hour of woman's sharpest peril was at hand. It was a horrible thing to have done; one which no true woman could forgive. And how would Margaret look upon him if she ever knew the truth?

      "I love Margaret," he said at last in a faltering voice, "but I cannot speak of it yet; and I cannot think of marriage for a while. Trust me, Colonel Cleveland. Margaret shall always find a friend in me; and if ever I can ask her to be my wife, it will be the happiest day in my life to me."

      "I regret I mentioned it to you," answered Colonel Cleveland stiffly.

      Sidney left him sooner than usual, and rode slowly back over the Common, as he had done last autumn, on the night when he first saw Margaret. But it was a month earlier in the year; and the leaves still hung thick upon the trees, which looked black and dense against the sky. The birds had not yet forsaken the Common in search after winter quarters, and a drowsy twitter from the low bushes answered the sound of his horse's hoofs as he rode along. A soft, westerly wind was blowing, and bringing with it the fresh air from all the open lands lying west of London. As he looked round at the house he saw Margaret standing on the balcony belonging to her window, a tall, slim, graceful figure, dressed in white, with the pale moonlight falling on her. His heart ached with a deep and heavy pain.

      "God bless her and keep her from sorrow," he said to himself.

      If it was true that Margaret loved him, a bitter sorrow lay before her, one of his making. He had done wrong in going so frequently to see her, and in making so much of her friendship. It had been an unconfessed pleasure to them both; but he ought to have foreseen for her, as well as for himself, what danger lay in its indulgence. Margaret was not brought into contact with any other men, excepting George, who was just married; and Sidney was obliged to own to himself that he had done all he could to win her affection. But he repented it now. Margaret's love could only bring her sorrow.

      He could have gone back and confessed to her his boyish folly, if it had been mere folly. Had Sophy died, he could have told Margaret all about it. But what he could not own was that for seven years he had left himself in absolute ignorance of her fate. No true woman could forgive a crime like that. It was a dastardly crime, he said to himself. He repented of it bitterly; but for some sins there seems no place of repentance, though it is sought carefully, with tears.

      Sidney passed the night in close and troubled thought. At last the time had come when he must turn back to the moment when he abandoned his young wife to her fate; and