Part 21 (1/2)
”I'm sure you shouldn't blame me,” said she. ”You enabled me to learn how to endure your absence. You stayed away all these years. Naturally I've come to consider you as--”
”Nay, don't attempt to put me in the wrong. My heart is as warm to you as ever, in spite of the years of absence. Those years have made no change in me. Why should they have changed you, then? No--'tis not their fault if you are changed, nor mine neither. There is something wrong, I see. Be frank, dear, and tell me what it is. You need not be afraid of me--you know I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head. Oh, sweetheart, what has come between us? Tell me, I beg!”
”Why, nothing, of course--nothing but the gulf that time has widened.
That's all--sure 'tis enough.”
”But 'tis more than that. Were that all, and I came back to you thus, a minute's presence would bridge that gulf. All the old feelings would rush back. Why, if I were but a mere acquaintance whom you had once known in a friendly way, you wouldn't have greeted me so coldly. There would have been cordiality, smiles, a warm clasp of the hand, questions about my health and doings, at least a curiosity as to how I had pa.s.sed the years. But you meet me, not merely with lack of warmth, but with positive coldness. Nay, you were shocked, startled, frightened! You turned white, and stood still as if you saw a spirit, or as if you were caught in some crime! Yes, 'twas for all the world like that! And what was't you said? It pa.s.sed me then, I was so amazed at my reception--so different from the one I had pictured all the way thither, all the weeks and months. What was't you said?”
”Some word of surprise, I suppose; something of no meaning.”
”Nay, it had meaning, too. I felt that, though I put it aside for the time. Something about the night--ah, yes: 'to-night of all nights.'
And me of all men. Why so? Why to-night in particular? Why am I the most inconvenient visitor, and why _to-night_? Tell me that! Tell me--I have the right to know!”
”Nay, if you work yourself up into a fury so--”
”'Tis no senseless fury, madam! There's reason at the bottom of it, my lady! I must know, and I will know, what it is that my visit interferes with. You were not going out, I can see by your dress. Nor expecting company. Unless--no, it couldn't be that! You're not capable of that! You are my wife, you are Margaret Faringfield, William Faringfield's daughter. G.o.d forgive the mistrust--yet every husband with an imagination has tortured himself for an instant sometime with that thought, suppose his wife's heart _might_ stray? I've heard 'em confess the thought; and even I--but what a h.e.l.l it was for the moment it lasted! And how swiftly I put it from me, to dwell on your tenderness in the old days, your pride that has put you above the hopes of all men but me, the unworthy one you chose to reach down your hand to from your higher level!”
”So you have harboured _that_ suspicion, have you?” she cried, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.
”No, no; harboured it never! Only let my perverse imagination 'light, for the s.p.a.ce of a breath, on the possibility, to my unutterable torment. All men's fancies play 'em such tricks now and then, to torture them and take down their vanity. Men would rest too easy in their security, were it not so.”
”A man that suspects his wife, deserves to lose her allegiance,” cried Margaret, with a kind of triumphant imputation of blame, which was her betrayal.
He gazed at her with the dawning horror of half-conviction.
”Then I have lost yours?” he asked, in a tone stricken with doubt and dread.
”I didn't say so,” she replied, reddening.
”But your words imply that. You seemed to be justifying yourself by my suspicion. But there was no suspicion till now--nothing but a tormenting fancy of what I believed impossible. So you cannot excuse yourself that way.”
”I'm not trying to excuse myself. There's nothing to excuse.”
”I'm not sure of that! Your manner looks as if you realised having said too much--having betrayed yourself. Margaret, for G.o.d's sake, tell me 'tis not so! Tell me my fears are wrong! a.s.sure me I have not lost you--no, no, I won't even ask you. 'Tis not possible. I won't believe it of you--that you could be inconstant! Forgive me, dear--your strange manner has so upset me--but forgive me, I beg, and let me take you in my arms.” He had risen to approach her.
”No, no! Don't. Don't touch me!” she cried, rising in turn, for resistance. She kept her mind fixed upon the expected rewards of her project, and so fortified herself against yielding.
”By heaven, I'll know what this means!” he cried. He looked wildly about the room, as if the explanation might somewhere there be found.
Her own glance went with his, as if there might indeed be some evidence, which she must either make s.h.i.+ft to conceal, or invent an innocent reason for its presence. Her eye rested an instant upon a book that lay on the table. Philip noted this, picked up the book, turned the cover, and read the name on the first leaf.
”'Charles Falconer.' Who is he?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”'HE IS A--AN ACQUAINTANCE.'”]
”No matter,” she said quickly, and made to s.n.a.t.c.h the book away. ”He is a--an acquaintance. He is quartered in the house, in fact--a British officer.”
”An acquaintance? But why do you turn red? Why look so confused? Why try to take the book away from me? Oh, my G.o.d, it is true! it is true!” He dropped the volume, sank back upon a chair, and regarded her with indescribable grief.
”Why,” she blundered, ”a gentleman may lend a lady a novel--”