The Heart

"Dear madam, it cannot be," I said, "and the truth is to be

concealed not only for your sake, but for that of others."

Then she broke out in another paroxysm of childish wailing that

never was such a wretched state of matters, such a wretched old

woman handicapped from serving one by her love for another. "Harry,

I cannot clear thee unless I convict my own granddaughter

Catherine," she said, piteously, "and if I spared her not, neither

her nor my pride, what of Mary? Catherine hath been like a mother to

the child, and she loves her better than she loves me. 'Twould kill

her, Harry. And, Harry, how can I give Mary to thee, and thou under

this ban? Mary Cavendish cannot wed a convict."

"That she cannot and shall not," I said; "she shall wed a much

worthier man and be happy, and sure 'tis her happiness that is the

question."

But Madam Cavendish stared at me with unreasoning anger, not

understanding, since she was a woman, and unreasoning as a woman

will be in such matters. "If you love not my granddaughter, Harry

Wingfield," she cried out, "'tis not her grandmother will fling her

at your head. I will let you know, sir, that she could have her pick

in the colony if she so chose, and it may be that she might not

choose you, Master Harry Wingfield."

I laughed. "Madam Cavendish," I said, rising and bowing, "were I a

king instead of a convict, then would I lay my crown at Mary

Cavendish's feet; as it is, I can but pave, if I may, her way to

happiness with my heart."

"Then you love her as I thought, Harry?"

"Madam," I said, "I love her to my honour and glory and never to my

discontent, and I pray you to believe with a love that makes no

account of selfish ends, and that I am happier at home with my books

than many a cavalier who shall dance with her at the ball."

"But, Harry," she said, piteously, "I pray thee to go."

I laughed and shook my head, and went away to my own quarters and

sat down to my books, but, at something past midnight, Madam

Cavendish sent for me in all haste. She had gone to bed, and I was

ushered to her bedroom, and when I saw her thin length of age scarce

rounding the coverlids, and her face frilled with white lace, and

her lean neck stretching up from her pillows with the piteous

outreaching of a bird, a great tenderness of compassion for

womanhood, both in youth and beauty and age and need, beyond which I

can express, came over me. It surely seems to me the part of man to

deal gently with them at all times, even when we suffer through

them, for there is about them a mystery of helplessness and

misunderstanding of themselves which should give us an exceeding

patience. And it seems to me that, even in the cases of those women

who are perhaps of greater wit and force of character than many a

man, not one of them but hath her helplessness of sex in her heart,

however concealed by her majesty of carriage. So, when I saw Madam

Cavendish, old and ill at ease in her mind because of me, and

realised all at once how it was with her in spite of that clear head

of hers and imperious way which had swayed to her will all about her

for near eighty years, I went up to her, and, laying a gentle hand

upon her head, laid it back upon the pillow, and touched her poor

forehead, wrinkled with the cares and troubles of so many years, and

felt all the pity in me uppermost. "'Tis near midnight, and you have

not slept, madam," I said. "I pray you not to fret any longer about

that which we can none of us mend, and which is but to be borne as

the will of the Lord."