CHAPTER XLIV.

SALOME CONTINUES HER STORY.

“All this has been a test, at any rate,” Salome continued, after a few moments of thoughtful silence. “We are both sure that no unworthy motive has influenced us. We know that we preferred each other to wealth. I fled from my home rather than be driven into a marriage with one whom I was not sure I could love, while you insisted upon marrying me without regard to the fortune which you believed you were forfeiting.”

“Yes, it has been a test, as you say. Still I cannot be reconciled to our long separation. Oh, my darling, I have been very desolate without you! Just think of all the precious time that we have lost!” Dr. Winthrop said, with a quiver of pain in his tones.

“It has not been wholly lost, dear,” Salome returned, lifting her tender face upon which there glowed a holy light, “for I believe we have both tried to do some good in the world; out of our own sorrow, we have tried to be helpful to others. True we have suffered,” and she shivered slightly; “but I am sure we shall both appreciate the joy of the future far more on account of it. I know,” and her voice grew gravely sweet, “that I have helped to smooth and cheer the last of life for one, who, for many years, had led a very bitter and sorrowful existence; besides, I trust that I have won no mean victory over my own heart during my experiences here in Paris.”

Dr. Winthrop bent and touched her brow almost reverently with his lips.

“Dear heart, I understand you,” he said with emotion. “You have rewarded evil with good by saving the lives of those who have injured you; you have been an angel, my Salome!”

“No, True, I did not mean that,” she replied, smiling faintly and flushing. “I am far from being angelic, I assure you. But I confess there was much of bitterness in my heart; I am afraid that I was almost revengeful. Even when you asked me to go to the chateau, I had quite a struggle with myself before I could conquer; but now while I feel that I may have been instrumental in doing some good, I know that I have reaped a hundredfold in the conquest over self.”

Dr. Winthrop could not speak for a few moments. He folded her in a close embrace, and marvelled at the beautiful spirit that could be so gentle and forgiving toward those whose only object had been to crush her. For himself, he felt that he never could forgive his mother and sister for their treacherous scheming, their heartlessness and ill-will. He could see that they had been determined to separate them from the first, and he wondered how they would feel when they should learn the truth.

“Did madam—your mother write you about my meeting a strange man one day?” Salome questioned, breaking in upon these reflections.

Madam’s threat had suddenly recurred to her, and she wished to learn just how much her husband had been told.

“Yes, dear, but I wrote her in reply that I trusted my wife implicitly. Evelyn, she said, had been an eye-witness of the meeting, and they were both evidently very curious. But I felt sure that there had been nothing wrong in it—that if anything had occurred which I ought to know, you would yourself explain it to me upon my return,” Dr. Winthrop replied.

“Thank you, dear True, for your confidence in me,” Salome said, as she lifted her lips and touched his in a grateful caress—one which her husband doubly appreciated, since it was the first one she had voluntarily given him. “There was nothing suspicious or wrong in the meeting, on my part, although it may have seemed so to her,” she continued. “The man was the same one whom I met in London; as I told you, he had been a servant in our family—he went abroad with us to wait upon my father, attend to our baggage, and make himself generally useful. He had always pretended to be very fond of me, and though this may have been all very well when I was a child, it became very annoying as I grew older. When I was about nineteen, he one day boldly made love to me. I went to my father and told him at once of the insult, and he discharged the man on the spot. He was very angry, and vowed that he would be avenged upon us. He did not leave the country, but continued to follow us about from place to place. Although this was not pleasant, we did not fear him, or imagine that he would dare do us any injury. He must have known about my father’s death, and of my subsequent flight—he even traced me to London, though what possible good he could have expected to gain by so doing I cannot understand. I do not think he could have known of my sailing for America, for I never saw him again until we met in New York that day. I was greatly annoyed and frightened, for it seemed to me then that he was bent upon doing me some injury, and I cannot tell you how I longed for you, True, to protect me from him and his further insults. His name was William Brown, and he was a very smart, capable man in certain ways, but I sincerely hope I shall never see him again.”

Dr. Winthrop’s lip curled with scorn as he thought how his sister had played the spy upon his pure-minded, innocent wife. How utterly contemptible it seemed to him, and how simple the circumstances of the meeting, although, as his mother had represented it, there had seemed to be something perplexing and suspicious connected with it.

“I blame myself very much, Salome, for leaving you behind when I was called abroad to my father,” he said regretfully. “If I had only listened to your pleadings and taken you with me, I could have saved you all these wretched experiences. But I feared the voyage for you in the dead of winter, for you were far from strong. I knew if you took cold and were ill again it would go hard with you; so, though it nearly unmanned me to refuse you and leave you, I believed it was the only right thing for me to do.”

“I know you acted as you thought best, True, and I never thought of blaming you,” Salome answered. “The only thing that I rebelled against and questioned, was your apparently harsh judgment of me in sending me from your home, as if you regretted having ever brought me there; but now, knowing that you never received my letter, and understanding why you sent me away, I can see that I misjudged you.”

“It is not strange at all,” Dr. Winthrop said, feeling that she had been very lenient in her estimate of his apparent injustice. Then he added, with some curiosity:

“How do you account, Salome, for the fact that Miss Rochester has been masquerading under your name and position.”

“That is very easily explained,” the young wife answered. “They were excessively alarmed after I ran away from them, for of course they realized that upon me depended the hope of their ultimately coming into the possession of the income of the fifty thousand dollars mentioned in my father’s will. All this, you understand, I learned from them during my illness at the chateau. They believed me to be dead—they had seen a notice in a London paper, shortly after my disappearance, of the death of a girl bearing my name and answering to my description, a friendless girl, who had met with an accident, and been carried to the Home for the Friendless—and Mrs. Rochester conceived the plan of representing Sarah as the Rochester heiress, marrying her to the Hamilton heir, and thus securing, a fine position and great wealth for her daughter, besides the handsome income referred to in my father’s will for herself. Sarah was very readily changed to Sadie, and to inquisitive people, who had known that there were two Miss Rochesters, it was easy to say that she had lost her own daughter, and her only companion was now her husband’s child. We had been abroad for years, consequently had grown out of the remembrance of our old acquaintances, and no one would be the wiser for the deception. It was a very cunning plot and very cleverly developed, as you know, while if they had failed in making you their victim, they would still have had the fifty thousand dollars, provided I never made my appearance to claim it. The first intimation they had that I was not the girl who had died in London, was upon being told whom you had married by Madame Winthrop, but they thought they were safe again upon hearing that I had lost my life in that fire, and they believed that if they could secure you they would never have anything to fear hereafter. You can perhaps imagine their astonishment and dismay when, upon removing my cap and spectacles, after I had fainted before their door, in the chateau, they discovered who I was. Of course they recognized me instantly, and when they found I was too ill to be removed, they planned to conceal me in Sarah’s room until I should be well enough to be secretly sent away. Even then, I did not know that you were the heir of my father’s friend. Your mother and sister had represented to me that you had been pledged to some one else at the time of our marriage, but they did not tell me to whom, and I had no idea that you were in any way concerned until Sarah Rochester herself told me, on the day that she discovered my identity. It seemed as if the knowledge must kill me—as if everything in my life had gone at cross purposes. I was already the wife of the man whom my father had willed I should marry—the man whom I had fled from because I feared he would be odious to me, but whom fate had decreed that I should love with my whole soul. It seemed to me then as if I had recklessly thrown my life and my happiness away, for if I had remained quietly with Mrs. Rochester, you would ultimately have come to us, we should have been mutually attracted, and there would have been nothing to interfere with our future happiness. Of course, when they told me this, I understood all their plot at once. I knew why Sarah’s name had been changed to Sadie—why they were travelling with you, and the end they hoped to attain. I could understand, too, what a marplot they must regard me—that they must fear that I would betray their secret and spoil all their plans. It would be a terrible thing for Mrs. Rochester, after having carried her deception so far to be obliged to confess that she had been palming off her own daughter as the child of her husband, just to get his money and secure her a brilliant position in life. When they discovered, however, that I had no intention of revealing my identity to you, they recovered themselves somewhat, but I did not dream that they were plotting to shut me up in that dreadful place.”

“They are a couple of hardened criminals, and they shall be made to suffer for their wrong-doing; I will not spare them,” Dr. Winthrop said sternly.

“Ah! but they have been foiled in it—that will be a terrible punishment to them; and—and we are happy, True; I cannot wish anybody any ill,” Salome responded, as she laid her soft cheek against her husband’s with a trustful, contented air, that touched him deeply.

“That is true; but such people deserve to be dealt with to the extent of the law. When I think how they have tried to divorce us, and almost tricked me into this hated marriage, I feel as if nothing could be too bad for them,” he replied with a frown.

“I do not mind anything now, that I know you love me,” Salome said, with gleaming eyes. “The cruellest pang I suffered was when I believed you loved her—Sarah. O True, I was desperate enough then to do anything; you must know I was, or I never could have signed that letter to the New York lawyer.”

“The more I think of it, the more amazed I grow at the daring of those scheming women. I am almost tempted to believe that Sarah Rochester would have married me, even if she had failed to secure the decree, to gain her point,” Dr. Winthrop said, with a shrug of repulsion. “I begin to believe that people will do anything to attain wealth; truly, ‘the love of money is the root of all evil.’ But their consigning you to Dr. Arnot’s mad-house was the worst of all, and I swear that Mrs. Rochester shall be made to answer for that horrible crime. Oh, my darling, what if I had never gone there!”

Salome shuddered and clung to him. She could hardly persuade herself, even now, that the blessed present was not, after all, a mere dream or vision, and that she should not awake by and by, to find herself back in that wretched place, and surrounded by the hapless beings who had been her companions for so long.

“Do not let us talk of it any more, True; I do not want to think of anything now, but that I am safe, and belong wholly to you once more,” she sighed, a thrill of deep joy running through all her tones.

Dr. Winthrop’s heart bounded within him at her words, for they had told him how entirely she belonged to him.

“My wife! my wife!” he murmured fondly.

Salome lifted her arms, and twined them about his neck, drawing his face down to hers until their lips met.

It was the first time she had ever given such free expression to her affection for him, and it told him that her last doubt of his love—her last fear that he had married her from a sense of gratitude or duty had vanished forever, and that henceforth only the most perfect trust would exist between them.

Just at that moment there came a tap upon the door.

Harriet was very discreet, and had taken this way to warn the supposed lovers of her approach.

Salome released herself from her husband’s embrace and bade her come in; but the lovely flush upon her cheeks, the light of the perfect happiness that beamed from her eyes told their own story even before she said:

“Harriet, my good friend, it is but right that I should confide in you now. Dr. Winthrop is my husband. We were married nearly two years ago.”

The woman looked amazed for a moment, then recovering herself, responded, with a wise smile:

“I knew he was something to you, Miss Salome, the moment I saw you together; but I’m bound to confess I’d no idea that you got along quite so far. I’m sure I wish you both a great deal of joy. But—dinner’s ready,” she concluded practically, “and you’d both better come and have something to eat.”

Dr. Winthrop laughed heartily at this sudden descent from sentiment to the realities of life; but drawing Salome’s arm through his, they followed the woman to another room, where they found a tempting repast awaiting them.

Harriet refused to join them at the table, resolutely insisting that she should feel more at home if she served them.

After the meal was over Dr. Winthrop led Salome again into the cozy parlor, and then said:

“Now, love, I am going at once to send my cable message, and I shall not return again until I receive a reply. It may take a good many hours, but I shall make as quick and as thorough a business as possible of it, you may be very sure. But meantime,” he added, looking a trifle envious, “shall you feel quite safe to be left here over night?—shall you not feel lonely?”

“Oh, no; Harriet and I have been here many a night by ourselves, and besides there is a passage by which we can gain an entrance to the convent—we have only to pull a bell, and some one will come to us at once,” Salome replied confidently.

“Then I shall feel easy about you,” her husband said, his face clearing. “But,” he added with a smile, as he touched her coarse, gray serge dress, “when I come back to join you to-morrow I shall want to find my wife in some more fitting garb than this.”

“I have no longer any need of a disguise, and I shall be very glad to don some more becoming apparel,” Salome said, smiling, as she lifted her lips for his parting caress.

Even then she let him go with reluctance. She followed him to the door, and let him out with her own hands, while she told him with a shy smile and blush, that the time would seem long until he returned.

Then she went back to Harriet, who could no longer restrain the delight which the beautiful, happy face afforded her, and who caught her in her strong arms and gave her a vigorous hug.

“Bless your dear heart, Miss Salome!” she cried; “it does my old soul good to see that light on your face, and to know that you are happier than any queen on her throne. Now I am just dying to know the whole story. Sit down, and tell me all about it, while I eat my dinner.”

Salome obeyed, and sitting opposite the faithful creature, gave her a brief history of all that we already know.

“I knew those women were a couple of dev—fallen angels,” Harriet dryly remarked, when Salome told her how Mrs. Rochester had plotted to get her into the asylum. “It didn’t take me long to find that out when I went to nurse them through the cholera, for all they were so sweet when Dr. Winthrop was around. And to think that you were his wife and he never suspected it all the time you were taking care of him! No wonder you grew white and thin, with all the care, and with all you’ve suffered since. Bless my heart! but I don’t envy his mother and sister when they find out who was so good to them, when they were near dying with the plague. I hope they’ll never get over the shame of it—never!”

“And I hope, Harriet, that it will prove to be the one thing that will break down their pride and make them love me,” Salome responded, with grave sweetness.