The Woman's Way. Charles Garvice
'This is my elder brother; this old, haggard-looking man, clad like a beggar, is the Marquess of Sutcombe and you are an impostor'?"
"Grant the case as you put it. I am poor, but not unhappy. I will venture to say that I am far happier than you, Talbot," said Mr. Clendon, his dark eyes scanning the careworn face of the Marquess. "I have my niche in the world; I earn my living, such as it is; I am free from care; I have enough laid by to save me from a pauper's grave, while you——"
"Oh, I'm unhappy enough, I'll admit," said the Marquess, with a deep sigh. "I hold your place, and all that it means in the way of money and power; but I'm alone in the world, worse than alone; for Percy, my only son, I tell you—by Heaven, there is not a morning I wake that I do not dread to hear that he has done something to disgrace the name he bears. Wilfred, if you've a mind to take it all back——"
He stretched out his hands with a gesture of renunciation, almost an eager, anticipatory relief.
Mr. Clendon shook his head. "No," he said, resolutely, "you must continue to bear the burden I have imposed upon you, Talbot; and I beg you to believe me, fully and undoubtingly, that I shall never relieve you of your responsibilities, which you have borne so well. Oh, of course, I have watched. I know how admirably you have filled your place, and where I should have failed. Fate, Providence knew better than I what was best for me, for all of us, when it drove me out of the world."
"Tell me, why can't you tell me, why you disappeared?" demanded the Marquess. "Surely you owe it to me!"
"No, I have buried the past," said Mr. Clendon. "Let it lie. But I will tell you why I have forced myself to come to you—yes, forced myself, Talbot, for I knew that it was better that I should remain as one dead."
"Yes, tell me," said the Marquess, with feverish eagerness. "If there is anything I can do, if you have decided to stick to your resolution, if there is nothing I can say that will persuade you to come forward——"
"There is nothing," Mr. Clendon assured him calmly.
The Marquess sighed heavily. "Then you must let me—how shall I put it?—provide for you, take care of your future. You must want money. Oh, it's absurd; it drives me mad! To think that nearly every penny I possess is yours. But tell me what I'm to do, Wilfred."
"Nothing for me—that is directly," said Mr. Clendon. "Don't say any more about myself. I am touched by your generosity—yes, generosity, Talbot; for I feel that you have every reason, every right, to turn upon me and upbraid me for presenting myself after all this time, for harrowing you with the knowledge of my existence. You can do nothing for me in the way of money. I have all I need. I have grown so used to the poverty of my surroundings that, if I were raised out of them I should feel like the prisoner released from the Bastille, and weep for my cell and the prison rations. But you can do something for someone in whom I am interested."
The Marquess looked up, with something like a gleam of apprehension.
"Someone belonging to you? Your son—daughter?"
Mr. Clendon was silent for a moment, then he said: "No, I have no son or daughter. I am childless. The person of whom I speak is a young girl, no relation of mine, scarcely a friend, save for the fact that I have been of service to her, and that she regards me as the only friend she has. We live in the same block of buildings—have met as ships pass in the night. She is a poor girl who has been working as a kind of secretary, but her employer has died suddenly, and she is now penniless and helpless."
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