Volume Ii Part 10 (1/2)
”I would not believe them.”
”But it is true.”
”What a villain the man must have been!--what a fool!--to cast away the flower he was unworthy to have worn! But, my poor darling, if this is so, you have the deeper need of my protecting care.”
”But it was I who divorced--him!”
”You have been cruelly used, then. Ah, what you must have suffered! It shall be all the more my care to make you forget your unhappiness.
Forget it you shall. Let's say no more about it.”
”But I must. You do not know how poor a thing you have anch.o.r.ed your heart to--how fickle and headstrong and vain a creature I have been! I pet.i.tioned for a divorce from my husband.”
”And you got it. Is not that a proof that you were in the right?--when the law granted your demand? What you must have come through! But it shall be mine to make you forget.”
”He--filed no rejoinder, as they call it He let the law take its course.”
”He did not, because he could not. The law has relieved you from an unworthy mate. Forget it, my poor darling. Forget _him_. We have the future before us. Forget all the past.”
”He refused to plead; but I am not so sure that he could not have pleaded successfully if he had chosen to do it. My pet.i.tion was an outrage to him.”
”Do not think it. A woman is not driven to take such a step without sufficient grounds.”
”That is what the judge said; but--ah me!--I do not know.”
”What has called up these morbid fancies in your mind, Rose? You were cheerful an hour ago.”
”He--has spoken to me. When you were gone he came to me--and things seem different now. I am not so sure that I was right, as I used to be.”
”The sneaking villain! Who is he? Where is he? To come molesting the woman he has wronged, so soon as my back was turned! Kicking is too good for such a hound. Where is he?”
”You must not ask. What would people say of me, if you and he were to meet?... But I am upset; my head is splitting. I do not know what I am saying, or what I do. I will go back to the village inn and lie down.”
”We can drive back to Clam Beach. No one will miss us. Come.”
”I want to be alone, and think. Do not come with me. Yonder is Lettice Deane; bring me to her, and then let me leave you.”
Lettice was following her own amus.e.m.e.nt in her own way. She was holding a kind of auction of her smiles as she walked upon the sands between Mr Sefton and Peter Wilkie, who vied with each other to engross her attention, flas.h.i.+ng speeches across her, to her infinite diversion, in their efforts to extinguish one another. It was amusing, but she cared nothing for either, and was mischievously ready to disgust them both alike, by yielding to Rose's pet.i.tion for her company back to the village.
”Is your head _very_ bad, Rose, dear?” she asked, full of sympathy, as soon as they were alone. ”It must be, to take you away from him so soon after his present. Or is it a sort of necessary discipline?--in case of his growing too confident on the head of it? Let me see it.
Everybody knows that the express man was sent after you here. What!
you have not put it on yet? I declare, I think you are rigorous. You owed him the satisfaction of seeing you wear it, I think, seeing how much it cost.”
”I have not got it. I could not accept it to-day. I have been trying to have an explanation and tell him everything. He--the other--dropped upon me suddenly when I was alone and not expecting him, and we talked--and, oh Lettice! I am in a maze. What am I to do? It seems to be I won't and I will with me, all the time. I can't do both, and I won't do either. I am distracted, Lettice. I must go to bed and try to think.”
”Who-o-o----!” Lettice could not whistle as some girls can; but that long-drawn masculine expression of--of everything at once--of the fat having fallen in the fire, with general loss, trouble, and confusion, seemed the only adequate and appropriate one for the occasion, and she framed her lips and voice to the nearest equivalent.
”And what will you do, dear?” she said, after a considerable pause.
”Don't bother me with questions, Lettie. I do not know in the very least. I shall go to bed, and try to sleep, and to forget everything.