Part 83 (2/2)
CHAPTER XXIII.
HOW RYLTON'S EVIL GENIUS COMES TO HIM AND SPEAKS SWEET TREACHERIES WITHIN HIS EAR; AND HOW HE RENOUNCES HER AND ALL HER DEEDS.
”You!” says Rylton. His voice is as low as her own, and strange--it sounds strange even to himself. Her hands are lying on his arms--the little hands he used to call snowflakes long ago. Great heaven!
_how_ long ago!
He does not repulse her--that is beyond him--but in this new strange voice of his there is a.s.suredly no welcome. He feels choking. The dead past is so horribly dead that he cannot bear to look upon it.
He feels cold--benumbed. What is he to say to her, or she to him?
Must this battle be fought? And through all this weary wondering there is ever present with him a strong fear.
If t.i.ta should hear of this--if she should learn that Marian was here to-night--with him--alone! His heart sinks within him. Not all the waters of Jordan could wash him clean in her eyes.
A sudden anger against this woman rises within him. Has she not been his undoing from first to last? Gently, but with determination, he lifts her fingers from his arms.
”Is this wise?” says he.
”No one can know. _No_ one,” says she hurriedly. ”I have arranged it all. I am staying with the Heriots, and when I heard at dinner that you would be here to-night, I felt that I _should_--_must_ see you.”
She flings back the soft furred cloak that is enfolding her with a little rapid movement, as though stifling. It falls in a loose ma.s.s at her feet, and leaves her standing before him a very picture of beauty perfected. Beauty ripe, yet fres.h.!.+
All in black! From head to foot black clothes her. In her hair jet stars are s.h.i.+ning, round her neck jet sparkles, making more fair the sweet fair flesh beneath; and her gown that clings around her shapely limbs as though it loves them, is black, too, and glittering with black beads.
She is looking her loveliest. Maurice takes a step towards her.
Nature (as poor a thing at times as it is often grand) compels this step, then suddenly he stops. All at once, from the shadow of the room, the memory of a small, sweet, angry, frowning little face stands out.
”Still----” begins he.
”You need not be uneasy about me,” says Marian, in the full egotism of her nature, still believing herself as dear to him as in those old days when he was at her feet. ”I told them--the Heriot girl (who _would_ follow me, and see to my bad headache)--that I should go for a long walk in the park to ease the pain; I told her not to expect me for some time. You know they let me do as I like. I ran through the park, and at the village inn I engaged a fly.”
”But the people at the inn?”
”They could not see me. They did not know me; and, besides, I felt I could risk all to see you.” She pauses. She lifts her beautiful face to his, and suddenly flings herself into his arms. ”Oh, Maurice! you are free now--free! Oh! those _cursed_ days when your mother watched and followed me. Now at last I can come to you, and you are free!”
”Free?”
”Yes, yes.” She has raised herself again from his unwilling arms, and is gazing at him feverishly. So wild is her mood, so exalted in its own way, that she does not mark the coldness of his mien. ”What is that little fool to you? Nothing! A mere shadow in your path!”
”She is my wife,” says Rylton steadily.
”And _such_ a wife!” Marian laughs nervously, strangely. ”Besides,”
eagerly, ”that might be arranged.” She leans towards him. There is something terrible to Rylton in the expression of her eyes, the certainty that lies in them, that he is as eager to rid his life of t.i.ta as she is. ”There are acts, words of hers that could be used.
On less”--again she goes close to him and presses the fingers of one hand against his breast--”on far less evidence than we could produce _many_ a divorce has been procured.”
Rylton's eyes are fixed upon her. A sense of revulsion is sickening him. How _her_ eyes are s.h.i.+ning! So might a fiend look; and her fingers--they seem to burn through his breast into his very soul.
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