Part 75 (1/2)
”It is all very miserable,” he says, after a pause, occupied in trying to soothe.
”Ah! is it not? What trouble can be compared with it? To find him dead, without a word, a parting sign!” She sighs heavily. ”The bitterest sting of all lies in the fact that but for my own selfishness I might have seen him again. Had I returned home as I promised at the end of the month I should have met my brother living; but instead I lingered on, enjoying myself,”--with a shudder,--”while he was slowly breaking his heart over his growing difficulties. It must all have happened during this last month. He had no care on his mind when I left him; you know that. You remember how light-hearted he was, how kindly, how good to all.”
”He was indeed, poor--poor fellow!”
”And some have dared to blame him,” she says, in a pained whisper. ”You do not?”
”No--_no_.”
”I have been calculating,” she goes on, in a distressed tone, ”and the very night I was dancing so frivolously at that horrible ball he must have been lying awake here waiting with a sick heart for the news that was to--kill him. I shall never go to a ball again; I shall never dance again,” says Molly, with a pa.s.sionate sob, scorning, as youth will, the power of time to cure.
”Darling, why should you blame yourself? Such thoughts are morbid,”
says Luttrell, fondly caressing the bright hair that still lies loosely against his arm. ”Which of us can see into the future? And, if we could, do you think it would add to our happiness? Shake off such depressing ideas. They will injure not only your mind, but your body.”
”I do not think I should feel it all quite so much,” says Molly, in a low, miserable, expressionless voice, ”if I could only see him now and then. No, not in the flesh--I do not mean that,--but if I could only bring his face before my mind I might be content. For hours together I sit, with my hands clasped before my eyes, trying to conjure him up, and I cannot. Almost every casual acquaintance I possess, all the people whose living or dying matters to me not at all, rise at my command; but he never. Is it not curious?”
”Perhaps it is because your mind dwells too much upon him. But tell me of your affairs,” says Luttrell, abruptly but kindly, leading her to a sofa and seating himself beside her, with a view of drawing her from her unhappy thoughts. ”Are they as bad as Mrs. Ma.s.sereene says?”
”Quite as bad.”
”Then what do they mean to do?” In a tone of the deepest commiseration.
”'They'? We, you mean. What others, I suppose, have learned to do before us--work for our daily bread.”
An incredulous look comes into his eyes, but he wisely subdues it.
”And what do you propose doing?” he asks, calmly, meaning in his own mind to humor her.
”You are like Mr. Buscarlet,--he would know everything,” says Molly, with a smile; ”but this is a question you must not ask me,--just yet. I have a hope,--perhaps I had better say an idea; and until it is confirmed or rejected I shall tell no one of it. No, not even you.”
”Well, never mind. Tell me instead when you intend leaving Brooklyn.”
”In a fortnight we must leave it. Is it not a little while?--only two short weeks in which to say good-bye forever to my home,--(how much that word comprises!)--to the place where all my life has been spent,--where every stone, and tree, and path is endeared to me by a thousand memories.”
”And after?”
”We go to London. There I hope to work out my idea.”
”You have forgotten to tell me,” says Luttrell, slowly, ”my part in all these arrangements.”
”Yours? Ah, Teddy, you put an end to our engagement in good time. Now it must have been broken, whether we liked it or not.”
”Meaning that I must not throw in my lot with yours? Do you know what folly you are talking?” says Luttrell, almost roughly. ”Ours, I am a.s.sured, is an engagement that _cannot_ be broken. Not all the cruel words that could be spoken--that have been spoken”--in a low tone of reproach--”have power to separate us. You are mine, Molly, as I am yours, forever. I will never give you up. And now--now--in the hour of your trouble----” Breaking off, he gets up from his seat and commences to pace the room excitedly.
She has risen too, and is standing with her eyes fixed anxiously upon him. At length, ”Let us put an end now to all misconceptions and doubts,” he says, stopping before her. ”Your manner that last evening at Herst, your greeting of to-day, have led me to hope again. I would know without further delay whether I am wrong in thinking you care more for me than for any other man. Am I? Speak, Molly, tell me now--here--if you love me.”
”I do--I do!” cries she, bursting into tears again, and flinging herself in an abandonment of grief into his longing arms. ”And that is what makes my task so hard. That is why I have not allowed myself to see you all these past days. It was not coldness, Teddy, it was love. I dared not see you, because all must be at an end between us.”
”Do you think, with you in my arms like this, with the a.s.surance of your love fresh upon your lips, and now”--stooping--”upon mine, I can do anything but laugh at such treason as that?”
”Nay, but you must listen, Teddy, and believe that I am earnest in all that I say. For the future I shall neither see you nor hear from you: I must even try to forget you, if I would succeed in what lies before me.