CHAPTER XLIII.

SALOME RELATES SOMETHING OF HER PREVIOUS HISTORY.

Dr. Winthrop was not hurt by his wife’s apparent doubt. He simply folded her closer in his arms and smiled fondly down upon her.

“Can it be possible that, during all the time you were at the chateau, you never saw my brother?” he remarked after a moment.

“No; I never saw him except once or twice in the distance, and then I had but a glimpse, and at dusk, when I was taking the air for a few moments. I supposed it was your brother, for he was with Madame Winthrop and your sister,” Salome replied.

“I remember now that he did not come often to my rooms during my illness,” said Dr. Winthrop reflectively.

“Doubtless,” he thought to himself, “he was improving the time to make love to Miss Rochester.”

“You recollect that Mr. Tillinghast would not leave you when you were extremely ill except for needed rest, and we did not think it best to have too many around you; and then, when you began to improve, you are aware that your brother went away with your mother and sister,” Salome responded, but not comprehending just why Dr. Winthrop had spoken of this.

He looked into her eyes and smiled.

“It was but natural that you should have been deceived. You think you saw me in Miss Rochester’s parlor that day, but you did not; for, during all the time that we were at the chateau, I never once entered those rooms except to prescribe for Miss Rochester when she was ill. The man you saw with her must have been my brother, Norman—my twin brother—who resembles me, whose voice and face and figure are so like mine that our most intimate friends can scarcely tell us apart.”

“Oh, if I had but known!” exclaimed Salome with a look of astonishment, but with a sigh of infinite relief, while her white fingers closed over her husband’s hand in a clinging grasp.

“But, my darling, it seems strange that you should have forgotten how ill I had been—that it would have been impossible for me to have held Miss Rochester in my arms, or to have supported her upon my breast at that time!” said Dr. Winthrop smiling again.

“I never thought of that,” Salome answered, wondering how she could have been so thoughtless and stupid. “If it had been you, you would have looked thin and white; but I was so wild with grief that it did not once occur to me to question your identity,” and the sweet face looking up into his began to clear, while she rested more contentedly in his embrace.

She was beginning to realize that no rival could ever usurp her place in her husband’s heart—that his love for her was as strong and deathless as hers for him.

“More than that, love,” he said. “Norman came to me only a short time ago, and confessed his love for Miss Rochester. I will tell you frankly that I expected to be obliged to marry her, although it almost seemed to me that it would be a crime to do so, when my heart was so filled with your image.”

And then he explained to Salome how he had been drawn into making a proposal to the scheming girl and been accepted, and she listened with a strange look on her face, although she made no comment on the tale.

“But you have spoken of your illness at the chateau—how long were you ill there?” Dr. Winthrop inquired, when his story was told.

“Three weeks.”

“It does not seem possible!” he cried astonished. “How could they manage to keep your presence in the house concealed so long? They told me that you had a fainting turn, and, fearing you were going to be ill, you had insisted upon going back to Paris. I supposed you were with the sisters and being most tenderly cared for, never suspecting the contrary until Harriet came to the chateau to inquire for you, and told me that no one knew anything about you; but—tell me just how it all happened, and how you were lured into that wretched place where I found you to-day.”

Salome began with the day when she fainted in the hall before Mrs. Rochester’s door, and told him everything that had occurred up to the time when she had discovered his presence in the ward, where she was a prisoner in Dr. Arnot’s asylum for lunatics.

Dr. Winthrop listened with a stern, white face, as all the treachery of those two women was revealed to him, and realized how they had plotted not only to ruin her life, but to make a dupe of him also.

“About this petition for a divorce—when was it sent, Salome?” he gravely asked, when she had concluded this portion of her story.

She gave him the exact date.

“And to whom?—what was the lawyer’s name?”

She told him.

“Ah! he was abroad last year—I know him. Miss Rochester must have met him then. Why, Salome, he is one of the most unprincipled scamps in his profession!—he will do anything for money, and is most successful in this particular branch of his business. He makes a specialty of procuring divorces secretly, and is very cunning in bringing about just what his clients desire. But,” he added, “we will see if we cannot put a stop to these proceedings at once.”

“Oh, can you—can you?” Salome eagerly cried.

“I am going to try,” he answered gravely. “I shall send a cable message commanding—if the decree has not already been granted—that all further attempts to obtain a separation be dropped—that such is the wish of both you and myself.”

“Oh, do, do! I wish, oh, I wish you would go this moment to send it,” Salome cried, clinging to him nervously, and raising an appealing look to him.

“It will do just as well an hour hence, love,” he returned soothingly, “and there is much about you that I still wish to learn. How did it happen that I found you in the hospital in this disguise? how did you happen to be in Paris at all? how did you escape from that terrible fire? Oh, my darling, go back to the hour of our separation and tell me everything—spare no one, for I must know the whole truth, no matter whom it involves.”

Salome leaned back in his arms, and, laying her head upon his shoulder, where she could look up and watch every varying expression of his dear face, began her story, and told him, as he requested, all that had occurred since their parting in New York. She tried to be as lenient as possible in speaking of his mother and sister, but she was truthful, and he could not fail to understand how much they had been to blame for the suffering which they had both been called upon to endure.

“What a tale!” he exclaimed, when she concluded; “it is full of romance—full of suffering, too. What danger, love, you have been in; what a narrow escape you had from that burning building. But nothing shall ever separate us again—not a thousand treacherous women; not a hundred marriage contracts made by arbitrary match-makers.”

Salome’s lovely face brightened at his words like a flower after a refreshing shower.

“Then you do not regret the fortune which your uncle left you upon such strange conditions?” she said inquiringly.

“Regret it, love! A world in the balance with you would be as nothing,” he cried, and caught her to him with a passion, which told her how heartfelt were his words.

It was very sweet, very comforting to her to be so loved after all the loneliness and barrenness of her life, during the long months of their separation.

But presently she raised her head and searched his face earnestly.

“What is it, dear? why are you so grave, as if you were regretting the fortune that I have lost?” he asked smilingly.

“I was wondering how I could best tell you something else,” she remarked, with something of hesitation in her manner.

“What do you mean? is it that old secret of the past?” he asked, growing grave, “the history of your life which has been the cause of so much suspicion, persecution, and wrong? Of course I shall be glad to have you give me your confidence, dear; but whatever you may have to tell me can never make the slightest difference in my love for you.”

She smiled.

“I know it,” she said, “and had I only known a little more of your own history, all this trouble and sorrow need never have come upon us. A word would have set everything right.”

“If you had known a little more of my history? I do not understand you, Salome,” Dr. Winthrop remarked, looking perplexed.

“Why did you not tell me about this Rochester-Hamilton contract?”

“Because I hated the very thought of it; and after I had broken the conditions, and forfeited my fortune by marrying the woman I loved, there was nothing to be said. Besides, what possible difference could it have made in our relations?”

“It would have made this difference, True,” Salome said, as she regarded him with tender earnestness, “that we should have escaped all that has made us so wretched, for I—your wife—am the Sadie Rochester whom you were destined by that arbitrary will to marry; you have already fulfilled the contract, which you so hated to contemplate, and the united estates of Brookside and Englehurst might have been our home long ago, if you had but confided to me the fact that you were Milton Hamilton’s heir and namesake.”

Dr. Winthrop sat regarding his wife in speechless astonishment during this explanation.

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed, as she concluded, “I am half tempted to believe that your brain has been turned after all. You surely cannot know what you are saying!”

“Oh, yes, I do. What I have told you is a fact,” she quietly returned. “My true name—the poor name that has occasioned so much suspicion and trouble—is Salome Howland Rochester.”

“And you are the Miss Rochester—the daughter of my uncle’s friend—whom these two wills destined me to marry?” the young physician cried, his face still blank with amazement and incredulity.

“Yes.”

“Then who is this other girl who has been masquerading under your name, and trying to trick me into a marriage with her?” he demanded in perplexity.

“Her real name is Sarah Rockwell. My father married Mrs. Rockwell, who was the widow of a cousin of my mother, when her daughter was a girl of twelve, and I was ten years of age. That would make her a distant cousin, in fact we called ourselves cousins, until she came to live in the same house with me.

“Her mother stipulated, when she became my father’s wife, that her daughter should be regularly adopted so that she could bear the same name, and thus she became Sarah Rochester. How she came to be called Sadie you will understand as I go on. When I was a little child I had a nurse who was very fond of me and she would not call me Salome. She said the name was too old-fashioned—too old-maidish. She tried to nickname me by calling me ‘Lomie;’ but this my mother objected to, and the nurse laughingly said there was nothing else but Sally. ‘Yes, we can call her Sadie,’ said my mother, and Sadie I was from that time on. After my father’s second marriage it was a little troublesome to have two children in the family with names so nearly alike, and my step-mother wanted to use my whole name, Salome; but my father had become accustomed to the other, and would not countenance the change. As I said before, she was twelve and I ten when she came to live with us, and she shared equally with me in every advantage, for Mrs. Rochester was particular to demand as much for her child, in every respect, as my father gave to his. But from the very first she was strangely jealous of me, and though she dared not be otherwise than civil to me in my father’s presence, it was soon patent to me that she was secretly my bitter enemy. My father was an invalid for many years, but though he was often irritable and had many whims and fancies, as invalids often have—even though he was strangely cold and indifferent to me—I loved him very dearly, and was never so happy as when I was in his room waiting upon him and ministering to his many wants. He had his own private attendant, but he often used to tell me that I was the better nurse of the two, and I know that I did become quite proficient in the care of him. We came abroad shortly after his marriage with Mrs. Rockwell, and travelled about from place to place, according to his pleasure or fancy; but nothing was ever said to me about his plans for my future, until a few months before he died. Then one day he told me that he had pledged me to the son and heir of his dearest friend and college chum, Milton Hamilton; who, although he resided in New York most of the time, owned the estate adjoining Brookside—a fine place belonging to my father, but which he had left after my mother’s death and had only visited at intervals since. I supposed from what my father told me, that the name of the man whom he wanted me to marry was also Hamilton; he did not tell me that he was simply the adopted son of his friend. He said that he was expecting him to join us abroad that fall, and he wished me to be prepared to give him a gracious reception. Of course I secretly rebelled at this arbitrary disposition of my hand; but at the time he told me about it, he was not as well as usual, and I said nothing in reply, fearing to excite him if I opposed the arrangement in any way. It came out afterward that he had told his wife more than he told me regarding these plans, but even she was appalled upon learning the truth regarding the disposal of his property. My father died very suddenly one day, while we were all out shopping, and we came home to find the servants wild with excitement, and the house in the greatest confusion. Mrs. Rochester is, however, a woman of rare executive ability, as you have doubtless learned, and she managed everything during this unlooked-for emergency very wisely, and with the utmost propriety.

“Every mark of respect was paid to the dead, and even the most critical could have found no fault with her deportment and arrangements at this time. But when the will was produced and read she was simply furious. It was then, too, that I learned the whole truth regarding his plans for my future. The will stated that I was to marry Mr. Hamilton’s heir, or forfeit the Rochester homestead and a hundred thousand dollars besides; fifty thousand dollars alone being held in reserve for me in case I refused to comply with my father’s wishes. A will to the same tenor and effect was made after his marriage with Mrs. Rockwell, which stated that the income of the previously mentioned fifty thousand dollars should go to her if I married Mr. Hamilton’s heir; if I did not, she was simply to share a certain amount of the income until I married to please myself, when she would receive ten thousand outright. The income of the fifty thousand dollars was to revert to me at her death. I will not attempt to describe her anger over this state of affairs. She claimed that my father had promised her fifty thousand dollars, and that he had shamefully wronged her by making such a will. She appeared to imagine that I was responsible for it, and she treated me accordingly. Of course she immediately became very anxious that I should fulfil the Rochester-Hamilton contract; you were expected to arrive at any time, and she insisted that the marriage must be solemnized immediately upon your arrival, or as soon after as it could be arranged.

“I was shocked at what seemed to me such indecent haste, especially when there had been a death so recently in the family, and I rebelled; besides, the idea of promising to marry a man whom I had never seen, and who, for aught I knew, might not be attracted to me, was horrible. She demanded a promise of obedience; I was high-spirited and refused to give it, and even threatened to leave her and return to America to escape you. Thereupon she locked me in my room, telling me that I should remain there a prisoner until I relented and came to her terms. This only made matters worse, arousing a feeling of antagonism and obstinacy within me; and one day, when Mrs. Rochester and Sarah were out driving, I bribed the maid, who was left to guard me, to let me run away. She sympathized with me, and agreed to the proposal. She even packed my trunk, and had it secretly taken out to a carriage which she ordered. I went directly to Calais, then to Dover, and from there to London. I remained there for a few weeks, trying to find some congenial employment, when, one day, I met a man who had once been a servant in our family.

“This meeting frightened me so I went to Liverpool, boarded a steamer, and sailed directly to Boston, where I arrived one dreary day in November. I had very little money left when I reached that city and felt like a stranger in a strange land, although America was my native country. I had never had to depend upon myself for a livelihood, but I knew that I must now do something. A happy inspiration led me to the City Hospital, for I believed that my experience in the sick-room of my father had fitted me for a nurse. The superintendent appeared to be pleased with me, even agreeing to give me a trial without the required recommendations and—the rest you know already, True.”

“My darling, what a sad experience you have had!” said Dr. Winthrop sadly. “It is no wonder that you rebelled against that wretched contract; but you need not have feared me. I was no less averse to it, for I felt that two men had no right to thus control the destinies of others. Still I had promised that I would meet you, and only the breaking out of an epidemic in New York prevented my arriving in Berlin before your father’s death. I wrote, explaining the delay, but it seems that my letter was never received. I intended, if we were pleased with each other, to ask you to be my wife, but I should never have urged the union—I could never have made any woman my wife against her will, even though a dozen fortunes were to be won by such a measure.”

“And I imagined that you were eager for the marriage,” replied Salome. “I thought you were coming to us to make it merely a matter of business, and I should be sacrificed at any cost. If I could have but known how well I should love you, how happy we might have been!” she concluded with a sigh.

“Ah, if I had but listened to you when you first wished to tell me your story, my darling, it would have saved us much of the sorrow that we have since known,” her husband remarked regretfully.

“Perhaps and yet——” Salome began thoughtfully.

“Yet what, my Peace?”

“I believe we should not have been so content in each other’s love; we might have had a feeling—a suspicion that each was thinking more of the union of the fortunes than the union of hearts, if we had met as was planned in the first place. I believe that I love you better for all the trial and sorrow.”