The Queen of Hearts

e letters which the morning’s post brought to The Glen Tow

little circle renders it necessary that I

I read alone

l items of private intelligence from insignificant subaltern officers? Prepare, if you have, for a sudden a

it to travel at last, and I leave, thanks to the privilege of a wounded man, by the next ship. The name of the vessel and the time of starting are on the list which I inclose

s I know that the newspapers must, by this time, have given you plenty of information. Let me fill the rest of this paper with a subject which is very near to

ove heaven and earth to keep her at The Glen Tower till I come back. Do you anticipate my confession from this entreaty? My dear, dear father, all my hopes res

his abrupt confession. Now that I have made it, let me go on and tell you why I have kept my attachment up to th

e only, I constrained myself to leave the words unspoken which might have made her my promised wife. I resolved to spare her the dreadful suspense of waiting for her betrothed husband till the perils of war might, or might not, give him back to her. I resolved to save her from the bitter grief of my death if a bullet laid me low. I resolved to preserve her from the wretched sacrifice of herself if I came back, as many a brave man will come back from this war, invalided for life. Leaving her untra

little impression on her; sometimes I doubt if she has a suspicion of my love. She lives in a gay world — she is the center of perpetual admiration — men with all the qualities to win a woman’s heart are perpetually about her — can I, dare I hope? Yes, I must! Only keep her, I entreat you, at The Glen Tower. In that quiet world, in that freedom from fri

ng, I trust, when I confess that what I read deeply affected me. I think I never felt

hope. My son was to come back, at the latest, on the first of November, and Jessie’s allotted six weeks would expire on the twenty-second of October. Ten days too soon! B

in Paris, and Jessie was, of course, to accompany her — to accompany her into that very circle of the best English and the best French society which contained in it the elements most adverse to

ted six weeks by ten days. After the caution to be silent impressed on me (and most naturally, poor boy) in George’s letter,

no means so certain that she was not tired of her evenings. I had latterly noticed symptoms of weariness after the lamps were lit, and a suspicious regularity in retiring to bed the moment the clock struck ten. If I could provide her with a new amu

he novels had both failed to attract her

with my new eyes, to listen to her with my new ears, to study her secretly with my new purposes, and my new hopes and fears. To my dismay (for I wanted the very weather itself to favor George’s interests), it was raining heavily that morning. I knew, therefore, that I should probably find her in her own sitting-room. When I knocked at her door, with George’s

unate box of novels was open by her side, and the books were lying, for the most part, strewed about on the ground at her feet. One volume lay open, bac

real state of her feelings toward George took possession of me. After the customary condolences on the impri

lks of being ordered home, and tells me I may

his return, for in that case she might have dete

id. “How very nice.

ilk dress, with its pretty trimming of cherry-colored ribbon, lay quite still over the bosom beneath it. For all the information I could get from her look and manner, we might as well have been a hundred miles apart from each other. Is the best woman in the world lit

longing her sojourn with us on a rainy day, so I changed the t

here,” I asked, “to amu

ls,” she said, carelessly, “but I

en do for a dull day in

a story is concerned, the greater part of them might as well be sermons as novels. Oh, dear me! what I want is something that seizes hold of my interest, and makes me forget when it is time to dress for dinner — something that keeps me reading, reading, reading, in a breathless state to find out the end. You know what I mean — at least you ought. Why, there was that little chance story you told me yesterday in the garden — don’t you remember? — about your strange client, whom you never saw again: I declare it was much more interesting than half these novels, beca

at the same moment. She had started an idea in my mind — the very idea of which I had been

e next five minutes, and then, making a sudden remembrance of business my apology for lea

own personal experience and (if I could get them to help me) from the experience of my brothers as well. Strange people and startling events had connected themselves with Owen’s past life as a clergyman, with Morgan’s past life as a doctor, and with my past life as a lawyer, which offered elements of interest of a strong and striking kind ready to our hands. If these narratives were written plainly and unpretendingly; i

xternal and present things; and I searched back through the mysterious labyrinth

nameless inner light, which no eye saw but mine, the dead procession of immaterial scenes and beings unrolled its silent length. I saw once more the pleading face of a friend of early days, with the haunting vision that had tortured him through life by his side again — with the long-forgotten despair in his eyes which had once touched my heart, and bound me to him, till I

reading to draw them back — a husband secretly following the first traces of a mystery which his wife’s anxious love had fatally hidden from him since the day when they first met; these, and other visions like them, shadowy reflections of the living beings and the real events that had been once, peopled the solitude and the

ll that I have written here. His kind heart was touched as mine had been. He felt

n help, and I will give every hour

had preserved for half his lifetime, and the very existence of which he had forgotten long since; I recalled to him the names of persons to whose necessities he had ministered in his sacred office, a

y; to affect a cynical indifference, which he was far from really and truly feeling; and to indulge in plenty of quaint sarcasm on the subject of Jessie and his nephew

pressed, Morgan took refuge in his customary abruptness, spread out his paper violently on the table,

markable experiences of his own in his professiona

e ink, “I’m to make her flesh creep, and to fright

for I had hardly been more than an hour at my desk before I found the old literary facility of my youthful days, when I was a writer for the magazines, returning to me as if by magic. I worked on unremittingly till dinner-time, and then resumed the pen after we had all se

The great strain on the intellect — the strain of invention — was spared me by my having real characters and events ready to my hand. If I had been called on to create, I should, in all probability, have suffered severely by contrast with the very worst of those unfortunate novelists whom Jessie

ghborhood of the house. Although I had interruptions to contend with on the part of Owen and Morgan, neither of whom possessed my experience in the production of what heavy

and opened my negotiations for the

h her, I noticed that she rose suddenly and went to the writing-table. My suspicions were aroused d

e the compliment of asking me to stay a little longer, I should have returned it

e took up her pen t

. “I was just on the point of b

ed in coincidences of that sort before, but now,

How do you think I and my brothers have been employing ourselves a

proaching departure,” she answered, tapping h

the truth. She started up from the table, and approached me with t

lly mean it

nted to begin the first evening’s reading on that very night. I disappointed her sadly by explaining that we required time to prepare ourselves, and by assuring her that w

f my six weeks’ visit. I suppose you are not setting a trap to catch me? This

dangerously close guess a

t you said yesterday. If it had struck me earlier, we should have

y way. “I retract the word ‘trap,’ and I beg pardon for calling y

o the writing-ta

story. Shut up the paper-case till that time, and then

t terribly close guess of her

, “that the story will turn out t

are done; corresponding numbers shall be written inside folded pieces of card and well mixed together; you shall pick out any one card you like;

it makes me of some importance; and I must be

wait patiently for

ently as

about writing to your aunt until

the proof of it.” She raised her hand with theatrical so

mind at ease for the first time si

ught to myself, “and all the aunts in Christendom shall