"he had offered her his services, and so she had come to him, for she had no other friend to aid her in her sore distress." She might have added, that with the tact of her sex she had read Triplet to the bottom, and came to him, as she would to a benevolent, muscular old woman.
Triplet's natural impulse was to repeat most warmly his offers of service. He did so; and then, conscious of the picture, had a misgiving.
"Dear Mr. Triplet," began Mrs. Vane, "you know this person, Mrs.
Woffington?"
"Yes, madam," replied Triplet, lowering his eyes, "I am honored by her acquaintance."
"You will take me to the theater where she acts?"
"Yes, madam; to the boxes, I presume?"
"No! oh, no! How could I bear that? To the place where the actors and actresses are."
Triplet demurred. This would be courting that very collision, the dread of which even now oppressed him.
At the first faint sign of resistance she began to supplicate him, as if he was some great, stern tyrant.
"Oh, you must not, you cannot refuse me. You do not know what I risk to obtain this. I have risen from my bed to come to you. I have a fire here!" She pressed her hand to her brow. "Oh, take me to her!"
"Madam, I will do anything for you. But be advised; trust to my knowledge of human nature. What you require is madness. Gracious Heavens! you two are rivals, and when rivals meet there's murder or deadly mischief."
"Ah! if you knew my sorrow, you would not thwart me. Oh, Mr. Triplet! little did I think you were as cruel as the rest." So then this cruel monster whimpered out that he should do any folly she insisted upon.
"Good, kind Mr. Triplet!" said Mrs. Vane. "Let me look in your face? Yes, I see you are honest and true. I will tell you all." Then she poured in his ear her simple tale, unadorned and touching as Judah's speech to Joseph. She told him how she loved her husband; how he had loved her; how happy they were for the first six months; how her heart sank when he left her; how he had promised she should join him, and on that hope she lived.
"But for two months he had ceased to speak of this, and I grew heart-sick waiting for the summons that never came. At last I felt I should die if I did not see him; so I plucked up courage and wrote that I must come to him. He did not forbid me, so I left our country home. Oh, sir! I cannot make you know how my heart burned to be by his side. I counted the hours of the journey; I counted the miles. At last I reached his house; I found a gay company there. I was a little sorry, but I said: 'His friends shall be welcome, right welcome. He has asked them to welcome his wife.'"
"Poor thing!" muttered Triplet.
"Oh, Mr. Triplet! they were there to do honor to ----, and the wife was neither expected nor desired. There lay my letters with their seals unbroken. I know all _his_ letters by heart, Mr. Triplet. The seals unbroken--unbroken! Mr. Triplet."
"It is abominable!" cried Triplet fiercely. "And she who sat in my seat--in his house, and in his heart--was this lady, the actress you so praised to me?"
"That lady, ma'am," said Triplet, "has been deceived as well as you."
"I am convinced of it," said Mabel.
"And it is my painful duty to tell you, madam, that, with all her talents and sweetness, she has a fiery temper; yes, a very fiery temper," continued Triplet, stoutly, though with an uneasy glance in a certain direction; "and I have reason to believe she is angry, and thinks more of her own ill-usage than yours. Don't you go near her. Trust to my knowledge of the sex, madam; I am a dramatic writer. Did you ever read the 'Rival Queens'?"
"No."
"I thought not. Well, madam, one stabs the other, and the one that is stabbed says things to the other that are more biting than steel. The prudent course for you is to keep apart, and be always cheerful, and welcome him with a smile--and--have you read 'The Way to keep him'?"
"No, Mr. Triplet," said Mabel, firmly, "I cannot feign. Were I to attempt talent and deceit, I should be weaker than I am now. Honesty and right are all my strength. I will cry to her for justice and mercy. And if I cry in vain, I shall die, Mr. Triplet, that is all."
"Don't cry, dear lady," said Triplet, in a broken voice.
"It is impossible!" cried she, suddenly. "I am not learned, but I can read faces. I always could, and so could my Aunt Deborah before me. I read you right, Mr. Triplet, and I have read her too. Did not my heart warm to her among them all? There is a heart at the bottom of all her acting, and that heart is good and noble."
"She is, madam! she is! and charitable too. I know a family she saved from starvation and despair. Oh, yes! she has a heart--to feel for the _poor,_ at all events."
"And am I not the poorest of the poor?" cried Mrs. Vane. "I have no father nor mother, Mr. Triplet; my husband is all I have in the world--all I _had,_ I mean."
Triplet, deeply affected himself, stole a look at Mrs. Woffington. She was pale; but her face was composed into a sort of dogged obstinacy. He was disgusted with her. "Madam," said he, sternly, "there is a wild beast more cruel and savage than wolves and bears; it is called 'a rival,' and don't you get in its way."
At this moment, in spite of Triplet's precaution, Mrs. Vane, casting her eye accidentally round, caught sight of the picture, and instantly started up, crying, "She is there!" Triplet was thunderstruck. "What likeness!" cried she, and moved toward the supposed picture.
"Don't go to it!" cried Triplet, aghast; "the color is wet."
She stopped; but her eye and her very soul dwelt upon the supposed picture; and Triplet stood quaking. "How like! It seems to breathe. You are a great painter, sir. A glass is not truer."
Triplet, hardly knowing what he said, muttered something about "critics and lights and shades."
