Part 15 (2/2)
Torilla was still.
”Us?” she whispered.
”Yes a us!” the Marquis repeated. ”We both knew what happened when I kissed you, and yet I let you go because I believed I would never see you again and perhaps in time I could forget.”
He drew in his breath.
”But we have met again, Torilla, and now I know I cannot live without you.”
It was what she felt about him, Torilla thought wildly, and she knew it was the answer to everything that had perplexed and confused her.
Everything that she had been feeling, searching for and worried about was because she had fallen in love when he touched her lips.
She had tried to fight against it, she had tried to deny it, but it was love. The love her mother had felt for her father and he for her.
Love that was Divine, and yet very human, love that made it impossible for her to think of ever belonging to any other man.
”I love you, Torilla!”
The Marquis spoke the words very slowly and yet they seemed to vibrate through her.
”B-Beryl!”
She whispered the word, and yet it seemed to Torilla as she spoke that it was trumpeted round the room to echo and re-echo.
”Yes a Beryl,” the Marquis answered.
He walked towards the mantelpiece to stand looking down into the fireplace that was filled with flowers as if he thought somehow amongst them he would find a solution.
Torilla stood looking at him, his broad shoulders, his athletic body, his dark head.
Now the barriers were down she knew that she loved him, with her whole being, her mind, her body and her soul.
Everything she was, was his.
”I will go to Beryl and tell her the truth,” the Marquis suggested.
”No, you a cannot do a that.”
”I will ask her to release me from a marriage, which could only bring unhappiness to both of us.”
”Beryl wants to a marry you,” Torilla said, ”and you know as well as I do that it would a hurt her Socially in a a manner that would be a indefensibly cruel if you jilted her.”
”Perhaps I could persuade her to refuse me?”
Torilla made a helpless little gesture with her hands.
”She would never do that. And you know as well there could be no happiness for us if we a hurt Beryl and caused a scandal.”
The Marquis turned to face her.
”You are saying all the things I expected you to say, but how can we go on living without each other?”
His face was suddenly drawn and there was an expression of pain in his eyes that made Torilla long to put her arms round him and comfort him.
She knew that what he was suggesting was wrong, completely wrong.
At the same time she thought wonderingly that she had taken it for granted that he was asking her to marry him, although he had not actually p.r.o.nounced the words.
Once again he read her thoughts and said quietly, ”You know that I want more than my hope of Heaven to make you my wife, Torilla. I have laughed at love a I told my mother it was something that would never happen to me. But I have been confounded by my own words.”
He paused before he went on, ”I love you as I did not think it possible to love any woman. Your face is always before my eyes. At night I hold you in my arms as I held you once, then, fool that I was, I let you go.”
”It was a wrong of me to let you a kiss me,” Torilla whispered.
”It was not wrong but inevitable, something that was bound to happen, because, without knowing it, I have always been looking for you and I think perhaps, my darling, you have been looking for me.”
That was true, Torilla thought, but she had not been aware of it. Only now did she know that he was everything she had ever dreamt of a imagined a her ideal.
”Would you be brave enough to come away with me?” the Marquis asked. ”To go abroad where we could be married and live quietly for a few years until the scandal and gossip had died down. People forget very quickly.”
”How could we a do that to a Beryl?” Torilla questioned.
Equally she thought that nothing could be more wonderful, more perfect, than to be with him and to have nothing to distract their minds from each other.
Then she told herself it would be wrong and wicked to take her happiness at the expense of someone she loved as she loved Beryl.
”I love you,” she said softly, ”I shall always a love you and there could never be a another man I could marry.”
At her words the Marquis took a step towards her, a light in his eyes.
”But I cannot go a away with you,” Torilla finished. ”We must a forget that we have ever said such things to a each other. You belong to Beryl. She has promised to become your wife and I would not allow you to do a anything that was a dishonourable.”
Her voice trembled on the word and the Marquis with an inexpressible pain in his voice responded, ”I might have known it would be a punishment for all my sins that I should fall in love with someone as good and pure as you.”
”I am neither,” Torilla a.s.serted, ”but we could not build our happiness on a cruelty.”
The Marquis sighed and it seemed to Torilla almost a cry of pain.
”Perhaps we will find a solution,” he smurmured, but his voice was dull.
”There will not be one,” Torilla answered despairingly, ”but I shall pray for you and wherever you go, whatever you do a I shall pray that my love will keep you safe and a perhaps in some little way inspire you.”
”As you have inspired me already. Ever since you and I met, Torilla, I have found myself thinking in a manner I have never thought before, wanting to give instead of to take.”
He put his hand over his eyes as he continued, ”What I saw the conditions in the mine that bears my name, I was appalled, humiliated and ashamed. I would not have felt like that if I had not known you.”
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