The Weapons of Mystery Part 36

"Painful, Justin?" she cried. "You know I will gladly be your wife."

I will not write of what happened then. It is not for the eyes of the world to see. Tears come into my eyes now as I remember how her new-found happiness lit up her eyes with joy, and how the colour came into her beautiful cheeks. G.o.d alone knows how happy we were. We had been kept asunder by a cruel hand, and had been brought together again by long and bitter struggles, struggles which would never have been but for the love of G.o.d and the love in our hearts. Then, when our joy was fullest, a choir from a neighbouring church began to sing--

"Christians, awake, salute the happy morn, Whereon the Saviour of mankind was born."

It was indeed, a happy Christmas morn to us. The darkness had rolled away, and the light of heaven shone upon us.

When I left shortly after, I asked whether I should come the next day, or rather when daylight came, and spend Christmas Day with her.

"You must not be later than nine o'clock," she said, with a glad laugh, while my heart seemed ready to break for joy.

I have nearly told my story now; the loving work of months is almost at an end, and soon I must drop my pen. I am very happy, happier than I ever hoped to be. My new-found strength not only brought me freedom from my enemy, not only enabled me to accomplish my purpose, but gave me fuller and richer life. Gertrude and I live under brighter skies than we should do had I not been led through so terrible an experience. Thus the Eternal Goodness brings good out of evil.

Voltaire is on the Continent. I do not think that he has ever returned to England; while his mother, who still lives the same kind of life as of yore, supplies him with money. It appears that she has means which were unknown to her friends, and thus she keeps him supplied. Of course the relations.h.i.+p between them explains their being in league in Yorks.h.i.+re. She was ever seeking to serve him then; she is still trying to do the same. She never speaks to me. But for me, she says, her son would have married Gertrude, and then she would have lived with her Herod, who would have been a country gentleman, not the poor outcast he is now.

Kaffar has gone back to Egypt. He stayed in London a few days after the scene on Christmas Eve, and I gave him house-room in my old lodgings; but he tired of England, so I sent him back to Cairo. I think he is a far better man than he was, but I am not at all sorry that he dislikes England. He writes sometimes, but I never receive his letters without thinking of the terrible night on the Yorks.h.i.+re moors--of the dark waters, the red hand, and the terrible struggle. Although I am now entirely free from any such influences, I cannot help fearfully wondering at the awful power one being can exert over another. How an evil man could almost deplete me of my own self, and make me see according to his will and act according to his desires, is to me beyond explanation. Truly does our greatest poet say--

"We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep."

Tom Temple is married, and lives happily at Temple Hall. Tom attributes all his happiness to the ghost. He should never have had the pluck to ask Edith Gray to be his wife, he says, had not his lady-love been so fearful.

"But you found no difficulty in getting her consent, Tom?" I said one day at Temple Hall.

"Difficulty!" laughed Tom. "She said 'Yes' before I had stuttered out my little speech."

"I couldn't bear to see you in such an agony of pain," blus.h.i.+ngly replied his happy little wife.

Ah, well, Tom deserves his happiness, because he makes those around him happy.

Simon Slowden lives with Gertrude and me. He declared that he couldn't bear the idea of leaving us, after he'd gone through so much to bring us together. We are not sorry for this, for he has been an incalculable help to me in many ways. But for him, perhaps, I should never have the treasure I now possess, the truest and n.o.blest wife G.o.d ever gave to man; but for him, I might have dragged out my weary life, disappointed and almost broken-hearted. Of course this might not be so; but I know that Simon was one of my greatest helpers in making me the happiest man on earth.

I will close my story with a secret. Yesterday, Simon came to me, looking very grave.

"If I remember aright, yer honour," he said, "I told you as 'ow I'd completely finished wi' all belongin' to the female persuasion."

"You did, Simon."

"Well, I've changed my mind. I used to think after that waccinatin'

business gived me small-pox, that I was done for; but that 'ere Emily the 'ousemaid 'ev bin waccinated, and she 'ev had small-pox too. Well, 't seems to me as 'ow it must hev bin special Providence as hev brought us together, as we read in the Book of Job; and not likin' to go 'gin Providence, I axed her to change her name to Slowden."

"Well, Simon, what was her reply?"

"She seed the force o' my reasonin's in a minute, and so, as you may say, 'there'll be good brought out o' evil,' even the evil o'

waccinatin'; for it's give us both small-pox, and we both live. Our faces be a bit pitty, but kisses ain't none the less sweet for that."

"And when is it to come off, Simon?"

"I'm goin' to the registrar's now, yer honour, so three weeks to-morrow I shall be took in and done for, and all threw waccination."

THE END

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