Part 32 (1/2)
He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.
What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to have used her for his own aims, however high?
”Amaryllis--you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong.”
But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment.
She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.
”Of course, I forgive you, John--but I cannot cease from loving Denzil, that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences.
John dearest, let us be friends--and live as friends, then everything won't be so hard.”
He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering acutely--must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?
”But I love you, Amaryllis--I love you, dearest child--”
And now again she said ”Alas!”--and that was all.
”Amaryllis--this is a frightful sacrifice to me--must you insist upon it?”
Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose--and she stood up and faced him.
”I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up, conventional girl--milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will--I had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and pa.s.sionate as a savage”--her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,--”I _could not_ belong to two men--it would utterly degrade me, then I do not know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul--and while he lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what pa.s.sion means to me--fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family, and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the only terms I can offer you now.”
John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.
Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.
”John,” she whispered softly, ”won't you always be my dearest friend? And when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must love it because it is mine and an Ardayre--and the comfort of that must fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of life--perhaps that is why fate forced me to know.”
John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips--those he told himself he must renounce for evermore.
”Amaryllis,”--his voice was husky still, ”yes--I will be your friend, darling--and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and living--and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped against hope--and then when I knew that everything was impossible--I felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I gratified all your wishes perhaps--Ah!--I see it was very cruel. Darling, I would have told you the truth--presently--but then the war came, and the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand.”
She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes--her one idea was now to comfort him since she need no longer fear.
”John, if you had explained the whole thing to me--I do not know, perhaps I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand--or his children which may be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented--I cannot be sure. But somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid--I don't know really. I have only been wondering--but perhaps there are powerful currents connected with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them.”
They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his emotion at last.
”It may be so--”
”You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand,” she went on, ”then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir--and now--if the child is a boy--”
John started.
”We neither of us thought of that.”
”But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist--it is only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too--but surely the war cannot go on long now?”