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The Black Robe-Part45_WILKIE COLLINS (1824-1899)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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She looked frightened. "What will it tell me?" she asked.



"It will tell you, Stella, that false appearances once led you

into wronging an innocent man."



Having said this, I walked away to a window behind her, at the

further end of the room, so that she might not see me while she



read.

After a time--how much longer it seemed to be than it really



was!--I heard her move. As I turned from the window, she ran to

me, and fell on her knees at my feet. I tried to raise her; I



entreated her to believe that she was forgiven. She seized my

hands, and held them over her face--they were wet with her tears.



"I am ashamed to look at you," she said. "Oh, Bernard, what a

wretch I have been!"



I never was so distressed in my life. I don't know what I should

have said, what I should have done, if my dear old dog had not



helped me out of it. He, too, ran up to me, with the loving

jealousy of his race, and tried to lick my hands, still fast in



Stella's hold. His paws were on her shoulder; he attempted to

push himself between us. I think I successfully assumed a



tranquillity which I was far from really feeling. "Come, come!" I

said, "you mustn't make Traveler jealous." She let me raise her.



Ah, if she could have kissed _me_--but that was not to be done;

she kissed the dog's head, and then she spoke to me. I shall not



set down what she said in these pages. While I live, there is no

fear of my forgetting those words.



I led her back to her chair. The letter addressed to me by the

Rector of Belhaven still lay on the table, unread. It was of some



importance to Stella's complete enlightenment, as containing

evidence that the confession was genuine. But I hesitated, for



her sake, to speak of it just yet.

"Now you know that you have a friend to help and advise you--" I



began.

"No," she interposed; "more than a friend; say a brother."



I said it. "You had something to ask of me," I resumed, "and you

never put the question."



She understood me.

"I meant to tell you," she said, "that I had written a letter of



refusal to Mr. Romayne's lawyers. I have left Ten Acres, never to

return; and I refuse to accept a farthing of Mr. Romayne's money.



My mother--though she knows that we have enough to live on--tells

me I have acted with inexcusable pride and folly. I wanted to ask



if you blame me, Bernard, as she does?"

I daresay I was inexcusably proud and foolish too. It was the



second time she had called me by my Christian name since the

happy bygone time, never to come again. Under whatever influence



I acted, I respected and admired her for that refusal, and I

owned it in so many words. This little encouragement seemed to



relieve her. She was so much calmer that I ventured to speak of

the Rector's letter.



She wouldn't hear of it. "Oh, Bernard, have I not learned to

trust you yet? Put away those papers. There is only one thing I



want to know. Who gave them to you? The Rector?"

"No."



"How did they reach you, then?"

"Through Father Benwell."



She started at that name like a woman electrified.

"I knew it!" she cried. "It _is_ the priest who has wrecked my



married life--and he got his information from those letters,

before he put them into your hands." She waited a while, and



recovered herself. "That was the first of the questions I wanted

to put to you," she said. "I am answered. I ask no more."



She was surely wrong about Father Benwell? I tried to show her

why.



I told her that my reverend friend had put the letters into my

hand, with the seal which protected them unbroken. She laughed



disdainfully. Did I know him so little as to doubt for a moment

that he could break a seal and replace it again? This view was



entirely new to me; I was startled, but not convinced. I never

desert my friends--even when they are friends of no very long



standing--and I still tried to defend Father Benwell. The only

result was to make her alter her intention of asking me no more



questions. I innocently roused in her a ne w curiosity. She was

eager to know how I had first become acquainted with the priest,



and how he had contrived to possess himself of papers which were

intended for my reading only.






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