Part 36 (1/2)

She was woman enough to know that this signature of hers would be a blow to him, although he must be in a great measure prepared for it.

She had been able to interpret looks, and had been conscious of unguarded moments in which he had betrayed himself; but, that he had mastered his weakness to the very last moment, that he would not understand when she hinted to him of the possibility of a reconciliation, that he was peremptory to her as she had been to him, that he opposed his pride to hers--these were offences for which he must now suffer, even though the cost to herself should be tenfold greater.

The demon of pride rose up within her again in all its fatal strength.

How often had it successfully held the field against all better feelings, not always for her own good or for that of others! But to-day another voice made itself heard as well. ”Arthur is fighting like a man against the misfortunes which are awaiting him on all sides, but he will succ.u.mb to them at last.”

And when he should so succ.u.mb, he would be alone, alone in his defeat as he had been in the battle. He had no friend, no confidant, not one.

The officials might serve him devotedly, strangers might admire him; but there was no one to cleave to, no one to feel for him, and the wife, whose place was at his side, was at this moment signing the paper by which she prayed for a separation with the briefest possible delay from the husband whom she had already abandoned, and who was now struggling day by day against imminent ruin.

Eugenie let fall the pen and stepped back from the writing-table. After all, what had been Arthur's crime? He had shown himself indifferent to a wife who, as he believed, had married him solely with a view to his wealth. When she had convinced him of his error, she had added contemptuous words such as no man will bear if he has a spark of honour in him. Here, too, his father's sins had been visited on him, and he had abundantly suffered for them during his short married life.

Since that first conversation no further trouble had come to her, except that her husband had held back from her in distant coldness, but he--what had he not endured? Eugenie best knew what the three months had really been, which to those about them had presented only the superficial calm of indifference, and which had held stings sharp enough to irritate a man beyond endurance.

It is possible to wound with every look, with every breath, and this had been done. Looking down on him from the elevation of her rank and position, she had tried to crush him into that pitiful nothingness which, in her opinion, was his proper condition. Day by day she had used her weapons, all the more ruthlessly when she found he was vulnerable. She had made of his home a place of torment, of his marriage a curse, and all this that she might revenge herself on him for his father's unscrupulous treatment of her family. With fullest intent she had driven him so far that he himself had proposed a separation, because he could no longer endure life at her side. If, at last, he drew himself up and pushed aside the hand which had so racked and tortured him, whose was the fault?

She sprang up from the seat on which she had thrown herself, and began to pace up and down in terrible agitation as though trying to escape from herself. She knew well what she was trying to obtain from herself, whither her efforts were tending.

There was but one thing now which could help and save, but that was impossible, that could not be! If she were to make the sacrifice of all her pride, and the sacrifice were not accepted frankly and freely as it was offered? Might she not have been mistaken, have read those eyes amiss; they had never been unveiled for more than an instant, and then only reluctantly. If he were again to meet her with that same freezing look, asking her by what right she was doing that which would have been any other woman's simple duty? If he were again to say that he would stand or fall alone, if he were to bid her go once more? No, never!

better the separation, better a whole life of misery and regret, than incur the possibility of such humiliation.

The departing sun, tipping the trees out yonder with gold, had long since set and twilight had fallen, but it brought no quiet or coolness to the heated overcrowded streets. Without, the sultry evening air was full of the same hum and stir; the stream of people still pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed unceasingly, and the sound of voices and of the rattle of carriages was still borne up confusedly to the windows above.

But, through it all, another sound was heard, faint at first as a mere whisper, but growing ever nearer, ever more distinct. Had it been wafted over from those green forest-heights and made its way through the great busy thoroughfares of the city up to the young wife's ears?

What it was she hardly knew; it was like the soughing of the wind in the pine branches, and, through it, echoed once more all the old forest music with its mysterious chords.

There came back to her vividly that first glimpse of spring, those bitter-sweet moments pa.s.sed under the shelter of the friendly woods.

The mists rose up around her again, the storm howled, and the brooks tumbled tumultuously down into the valleys below. Out of the thick grey mist one figure stood out clear and definite--the one figure which since that time had never left her sleeping or waking--and looked at her reproachfully with its great brown eyes.

He who has pa.s.sed through such a crisis as this, when all the powers of the soul are concentrated on the resolution shaping itself within, may have known these rapid flashes of memory, may have seen again old scenes in their fullest details rising up before the mind's eye, without visible or external cause, but with a force irresistible.

Eugenie felt that the air around her was full of these memories, felt that, one after the other, the weapons were falling from her hands, until at last there remained only the magic influence of that hour when she had made the discovery that her hate was at an end, and that, in its place, something else was springing up, something against which she had striven, as it were, to the death, but to which she must now make surrender.

It was soon over, that last short struggle between the old demon of unbending pride, unable to forgive the repulse it had once met with, and the woman's heart telling her that she was loved, spite of all.

This time the forest voices had not spoken in vain. They gained the victory at last. The paper, which was to divide two people who had sworn to be one for ever, lay torn upon the ground, and the young wife was on her knees, raising her beautiful face, down which the hot tears were streaming, and sobbing,

”I cannot--I cannot do him and myself this wrong. It would strike home to us both. Come what may, Arthur, I will stay by you.”

”Where is your sister?” asked the Baron, when, an hour later, he entered the lighted drawing-room and found his sons there alone. ”Has not Lady Eugenie been told that we are waiting for her?” he continued, turning to the servant who had been preparing the tea-table, and was about to leave the room.

Conrad forestalled the answer.

”Eugenie is not at home.” said he, signing to the man to go.

”Not at home!” repeated the Baron, in astonishment. ”Has she driven out so late as this? Where can she have gone?”