Part 33 (1/2)
”Yes, a coward! Instead of remaining silent as I intended, and keeping my trouble within my own breast, you will compel me in self-defence to say that which will only give you pain to hear, thereby adding to my own suffering.”
”Perhaps you misjudge,” she replied, and her voice had a ring of pathos in it; ”any word of explanation--no matter what--would be less hard for me to endure than this suspense.”
”G.o.d knows I would make full explanation if I could, but I cannot, and I fear there is nothing I can say that will not add to your suspense. Miss Carleton, you must need no words from me to tell you that I love you. I have loved you almost from the first day of our meeting, and whatever life may have in store for me, you, and you alone, will have my love. But, loving you as I do, could I have looked forward to the present time, could I for one moment have foreseen what was awaiting me, believe me, you should never have known by word or look, or any other sign, of my love.”
He paused a moment, then continued. ”If that were all, I might have borne it; I could have locked my love forever within my own heart, and suffered in silence; but the fact that you have given me some reason to believe that you were not wholly indifferent to me,--the thought that I might in time have won your love,--makes the possibilities of the future a thousand times harder to bear. It is harder to forego the joys of Paradise when once you have had a glimpse within! It was to this I alluded when I spoke of the insurmountable barrier placed between myself and all that I hold holiest and best on earth!”
”But I do not understand!” she cried, her lovely color deepening and her eyes glowing with a new light, until Harold Mainwaring confessed to himself that never had he seen her so beautiful. ”What barrier could ever exist between you and me?”
For an instant he looked at her in silence, an agony of love and longing in his eyes; then drawing himself up to his full height, he said, slowly,--
”Not until I can stand before you free and clear from the faintest shadow of the murder of Hugh Mainwaring, will I ever ask for that most precious gift of your love!”
Her face blanched at the mere possibility suggested by his words.
”But you are innocent!” she cried in swift protest, ”and you could prove it, even were suspicion directed against you for a time.”
”Even admitting that I were, the taint of suspicion is sometimes as lasting as the stain of crime itself.”
She arose and stood proudly facing him. ”Do you think I would fear suspicion? To hear from your own lips that you love me and that you are innocent would be enough for me; I would defy the whole world!”
He did not at once reply, and when he spoke it was slowly and reluctantly, as though each word were wrung from him by torture.
”My dear Miss Carleton, even to you I cannot say that I am innocent.”
There was a moment's pause, during which she gazed at him, speechless with astonishment; a moment of intense agony to Harold Mainwaring, as he watched whether her faith in him would waver.
But she gave no sign, though she scanned his face, as the condemned criminal scans the doc.u.ment handed him as the fateful day approaches, to ascertain whether it contains his pardon or his death sentence.
”Understand me,” he said at last, gently, unable longer to endure the terrible silence, ”I do not admit that I am in any way guilty, but until I am fully acquitted of any share in or knowledge of the death of Hugh Mainwaring, I can make neither denial nor admission, one way or the other.”
”But you still love me?” she inquired, calmly.
”Miss Carleton,--Winifred,--how can you ask? You are, and always will be to me, the one, only woman upon earth.”
”That is sufficient,” she answered, with a strange, bright smile; ”my faith in you is perfect, and faith and love can wait.”
”Wait, my love! until when?” he cried.
”If needful, until Eternity's sunlight dispels Earth's shadows!
Eternity holds ample compensation for all of Earth's waiting.”
”But, my darling,” he said, half protesting, while he folded her to his breast, ”you know not the risk you may be running; I cannot accept the sacrifice that may be involved.”
”My decision is taken, and it is irrevocable,” she answered, with an arch smile; then added, ”There can be no barriers between us, Harold, for Love will find a way!”
CHAPTER XVIII
AN UNFORESEEN FOE