Part 114 (2/2)
”Can't you guess?”
”If I could I wouldn't ask.”
”I'll tell you. When you walk with me, I'm afraid you notice my infirmity the more.”
”I'll only go on one condition,” declared Mavis.
”That---?”
”That we go straight there from here.”
”I'm helpless where you're concerned,” he sighed, as he started his tricycle.
They went to the road bordering the sea, which just now they had to themselves. On the way they said little; each was occupied with their thoughts.
Mavis was touched by Harold's devotion; also, by his anxiety not to obtrude his infirmity upon her notice. She looked at him, to see in his eyes unfathomable depths of sadness. She repressed an inclination to shed tears. She had never been so near foregoing her resolve to make him the instrument of her hatred of his family. But the forces that decide these matters had other views. Mavis was staring out to sea, in order to hide her emotion from Harold's distress, when the sight of the haze where sea and sky met arrested her attention. Something in her memory struggled for expression, to be a.s.sisted by the smell of seaweed which a.s.sailed her nostrils.
In the twinkling of an eye, Mavis, in imagination, was at Llansallas Bay, with pa.s.sionate love and boundless trust in her heart for the lover at her side, to whom she had surrendered so much. The merest recollection of how her love had been betrayed was enough to dissipate the consideration that she was beginning to feel for Harold. Her heart turned to stone; determination possessed her.
”Still silent!” she exclaimed.
”I have to be.”
”Who said so?”
”The little sense that's left me.”
”Sense is often nonsense.”
”It's a bitter truth to me.”
”Particularly now?”
”Now and always.”
”May I know?”
”Why did you come into my life?” he asked, as if he had not heard her request.
”Why shouldn't I?”
”Why have you? Why have you?”
”You're not the only one who can ask that question,” she murmured.
He looked at her for some moments in amazement before saying:
”Say that again.”
<script>