Part 36 (1/2)

”I had thought to find that you and he were hand and glove.”

”Oh no.”

”But you are prospering in this business?”

”Yes,--I suppose we are prospering. It is one of those hazardous things in which a man can never tell whether he be really prosperous till he is out of it. I fell into it altogether against my will. I had no alternative.”

”It seems to me to have been a golden chance.”

”As far as immediate results go it has been golden.”

”That at any rate is well, Paul. And now,--now that we have got back into our old way of talking, tell me what all this means. I have talked to no one after this fas.h.i.+on since we parted. Why should our engagement be over? You used to love me, did you not?”

He would willingly have left her question unanswered, but she waited for an answer. ”You know I did,” he said.

”I thought so. This I know, that you were sure and are sure of my love to you. Is it not so? Come, speak openly like a man. Do you doubt me?”

He did not doubt her, and was forced to say so. ”No, indeed.”

”Oh, with what bated, half-mouthed words you speak,--fit for a girl from a nursery! Out with it if you have anything to say against me!

You owe me so much at any rate. I have never ill-treated you. I have never lied to you. I have taken nothing from you,--if I have not taken your heart. I have given you all that I can give.” Then she leaped to her feet and stood a little apart from him. ”If you hate me, say so.”

”Winifred,” he said, calling her by her name.

”Winifred! Yes, now for the first time, though I have called you Paul from the moment you entered the room. Well, speak out. Is there another woman that you love?”

At this moment Paul Montague proved that at any rate he was no coward. Knowing the nature of the woman, how ardent, how impetuous she could be, and how full of wrath, he had come at her call intending to tell her the truth which he now spoke. ”There is another,” he said.

She stood silent, looking into his face, thinking how she would commence her attack upon him. She fixed her eyes upon him, standing quite upright, squeezing her own right hand with the fingers of the left. ”Oh,” she said, in a whisper ”that is the reason why I am told that I am to be--off.”

”That was not the reason.”

”What,--can there be more reason than that,--better reason than that?

Unless, indeed, it be that as you have learned to love another so also you have learned to--hate me.”

”Listen to me, Winifred.”

”No, sir; no Winifred now! How did you dare to kiss me, knowing that it was on your tongue to tell me I was to be cast aside? And so you love--some other woman! I am too old to please you, too rough,--too little like the dolls of your own country! What were your--other reasons? Let me hear your--other reasons, that I may tell you that they are lies.”

The reasons were very difficult to tell, though when put forward by Roger Carbury they had been easily pleaded. Paul knew but little about Winifred Hurtle, and nothing at all about the late Mr. Hurtle.

His reasons curtly put forward might have been so stated. ”We know too little of each other,” he said.

”What more do you want to know? You can know all for the asking. Did I ever refuse to answer you? As to my knowledge of you and your affairs, if I think it sufficient, need you complain? What is it that you want to know? Ask anything and I will tell you. Is it about my money? You knew when you gave me your word that I had next to none.

Now I have ample means of my own. You knew that I was a widow. What more? If you wish to hear of the wretch that was my husband, I will deluge you with stories. I should have thought that a man who loved would not have cared to hear much of one--who perhaps was loved once.”

He knew that his position was perfectly indefensible. It would have been better for him not to have alluded to any reasons, but to have remained firm to his a.s.sertion that he loved another woman. He must have acknowledged himself to be false, perjured, inconstant, and very base. A fault that may be venial to those who do not suffer, is d.a.m.nable, deserving of an eternity of tortures, in the eyes of the sufferer. He must have submitted to be told that he was a fiend, and might have had to endure whatever of punishment a lady in her wrath could inflict upon him. But he would have been called upon for no further mental effort. His position would have been plain. But now he was all at sea. ”I wish to hear nothing,” he said.

”Then why tell me that we know so little of each other? That, surely, is a poor excuse to make to a woman,--after you have been false to her. Why did you not say that when we were in New York together?

Think of it, Paul. Is not that mean?”

”I do not think that I am mean.”