The Treasure of Heaven | Page 7

been! It is a curious thing, perhaps, but with me a betrayed affection does not remain in my memory as affection at all, but only as a spurious image of the real virtue, not worth considering or regretting. Standing as I do now, on the threshold of the grave, I look back,--and in looking back I see none of those who wronged and deceived me,--they have disappeared altogether, and their very faces and forms are blotted out of my remembrance. So much so, indeed, that I could, if I had the chance, begin a new life again and never give a thought to the old!"
His eyes flashed a sudden fire under their shelving brows, and his right hand clenched itself involuntarily.
"I suppose," he continued, "that a kind of harking back to the memories of one's youth is common to all aged persons. With me it has become almost morbid, for daily and hourly I see myself as a boy, dreaming away the time in the wild garden of our home in Virginia,--watching the fireflies light up the darkness of the summer evenings, and listening to my sister singing in her soft little voice her favourite melody--'Angels ever bright and fair.' As I said to you when we began this talk, I had something then which I have never had since. Do you know what it was?"
Sir Francis, here finishing his cigar, threw away its glowing end, and shook his head in the negative.
"You will think me as sentimental as I am garrulous," went on Helmsley, "when I tell you that it was merely--love!"
Vesey raised himself in his chair and sat upright, opening his eyes in astonishment.
"Love!" he echoed. "God bless my soul! I should have thought that you, of all men in the world, could have won that easily!"
Helmsley turned towards him with a questioning look.
"Why should I 'of all men in the world' have won it?" he asked. "Because I am rich? Rich men are seldom, if ever, loved for themselves--only for what they can give to their professing lovers."
His ordinarily soft tone had an accent of bitterness in it, and Sir Francis Vesey was silent.
"Had I remained poor,--poor as I was when I first started to make my fortune," he went on, "I might possibly have been loved by some woman, or some friend, for myself alone. For as a young fellow I was not bad-looking, nor had I, so I flatter myself, an unlikable disposition. But luck always turned the wheel in my favour, and at thirty-five I was a millionaire. Then I 'fell' in love,--and married on the faith of that emotion, which is always a mistake. 'Falling in love' is not loving. I was in the full flush of my strength and manhood, and was sufficiently proud of myself to believe that my wife really cared for me. There I was deceived. She cared for my millions. So it chances that the only real love I have ever known was the unselfish 'home' affection,--the love of my mother and father and sister 'out in ole Virginny,' 'a love so sweet it could not last,' as Shelley sings. Though I believe it can and does last,--for my soul (or whatever that strange part of me may be which thinks beyond the body) is always running back to that love with a full sense of certainty that it is still existent."
His voice sank and seemed to fail him for a moment. He looked up at the large, bright star shining steadily above him.
"You are silent, Vesey," he said, after a pause, speaking with an effort at lightness; "and wisely too, for I know you have nothing to say--that is, nothing that could affect the position. And you may well ask, if you choose, to what does all this reminiscent old man's prattle tend? Simply to this--that you have been urging me for the last six months to make my will in order to replace the one which was previously made in favour of my sons, and which is now destroyed, owing to their deaths before my own,--and I tell you plainly and frankly that I don't know how to make it, as there is no one in the world whom I care to name as my heir."
Sir Francis sat gravely ruminating for a moment;--then he said:--
"Why not do as I suggested to you once before--adopt a child? Find some promising boy, born of decent, healthy, self-respecting parents,--educate him according to your own ideas, and bring him up to understand his future responsibilities. How would that suit you?"
"Not at all," replied Helmsley drily. "I have heard of parents willing to sell their children, but I should scarcely call them decent or self-respecting. I know of one case where a couple of peasants sold their son for five pounds