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Page 54
"Margie Harrison!" he cried, his fingers closing tightly over hers.
"Margie! Mine! Mine at last! The ocean has given you up to me!"
"O Archer! where have you been? It has been so weary! And I have wanted
to see you so much--that I might tell you how I had wronged you--that I
might ask you to forgive me. Will you pardon me for believing that you
could ever be guilty of that man's death? If you knew--if you knew how
artfully it was represented to me--what overwhelming proofs were
presented, you would not wonder--"
"I do know all, Margie; Alexandrine told me. My poor wife! God rest her.
She believed me guilty, and yet her fatal love for me overlooked the
crime. She deceived me in many things, but she is dead, and I will not
be unforgiving. She poisoned my mind with suspicions of you and Louis
Castrani, and I was fool enough to credit her insinuations. Margie, I
want you to pardon me."
"I do, freely. Castrani is a noble soul. I love him as I would a
brother."
"Continue to do so, Margie. He deserves it, I think. The night I left
home, Alexandrine revealed to me the cause of your sudden rejection of
me. We quarrelled terribly. I remember it with bitter remorse. We parted
in anger, Margie, and she died without my forgiveness and blessing. It
was very hard, but perhaps, at the last, she did not suffer. I will
believe so."
"If she sinned, it was through love of you, Archer, and that should make
you very forgiving toward her."
"I have forgiven her long ago. I know the proofs were strong against me.
I am not sure but that they were sufficient to have convicted me of
murder in a court of law. You were conscious of my presence that night
in the graveyard, Margie?"
"Yes. I thought it was you. I knew no other man's presence had the power
to thrill and impress me as yours did."
"I meant to impress you, Margaret. I brought all the strength of my will
to bear on that object. I said to myself, she shall know that I am near
her, and yet my visible presence shall not be revealed to her. And now,
can you guess why I was there?"
"Hardly."
"Love ought to tell you."
"It might tell me wrong."
"No, Margie. Never! You know that I have loved you from the moment I saw
you first, and though for a long, long time I never dared to think you
would ever be to me anything more than a bright, beautiful vision, to be
worshipped afar off, yet it agonized me to think of giving you up to
another. For after that it would be a sin to love you. When I heard you
were to marry that man, I cannot tell you how I suffered. I set myself to
ascertain if you cared for him. And I was satisfied beyond a doubt that
you did not."
"You were correct. I did not."
"He was a villain of the deepest dye, Margie. I do not know as Arabel
Vere sinned in ridding the earth of him. When I think that but for her
crime you would now have been his wife, I am not sure that she was not
the instrument of a justly incensed Providence to work out the decrees
of the destiny."
"O, Archer! It was dreadful for him to die as he did. But what a life of
misery it saved me from! I will not think of it. I leave it all."
"It is best to do so. But to explain my presence at Harrison Park that
night. I went there hoping to catch a glimpse of you. I wanted to see you
once more before you were lost to me forever. I did not desire to speak
to you; I did not desire to disturb you in any way; but I wanted to see
you before that man had a legal claim on you. I watched your windows
closely. I had found out which was your window from one of the servants,
and I watched its light which burned through the dusky twilight like
the evening star. I wonder if you had a thought for me, that night,
Margie--your wedding night?"
"I did think of you--" she blushed, and hid her face on his shoulder--"I
did think of you. I longed inexpressibly to fly to your side and be
forever at rest!"
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