Part 24 (1/2)

”You will be quite well, aunt, I hope, by the time I come again perhaps in a few days. Good-bye till then.”

He left the room rather brusquely, and his face was black as thunder.

Elizabeth read his thoughts, and when they came out into the kitchen she forestalled him.

”Listen, Salve,” she said; ”I must, of course, stay here as long as aunt is ill.”

”Of course,” he replied; ”and you have acquaintances here.”

”You mean Fru Beck? Yes, she has been so kind to me, and I am attached to her--she is unhappily married, poor thing!”

Salve was astounded. Elizabeth seemed all in a moment to have forgotten a great deal--to have forgotten that there existed certain stumbling-blocks between them--was it perhaps because she was in her aunt's house? He looked coldly at her as if he could not quite comprehend what had come over her.

”You will remain, of course, as long as you please,” he said, and prepared to go; but could not help adding with bitterness--

”I daresay you find it lonely and dull at home.”

”You are not so far wrong there, Salve,” she replied. ”I have indeed found it lonely enough out there for many years now. You are so often away from home, and then I am left quite alone. It is two years now since I have been in here to see my aunt.”

”Elizabeth,” he burst out, trying hard to restrain himself, ”have you taken leave of your senses?”

”That is just what I want to avoid, Salve,” she said, with freezing deliberation.

He stared at her. She could stand and tell him this to his face!

”So these are your sentiments, then,” he observed, scornfully. ”I always suspected it; and now, for what I care, you may please yourself about coming home, Elizabeth,” he continued in a cold, indifferent tone.

”You ought always to have known what my sentiments were, Salve; that I was, perhaps, too much attached to you.”

”I shall send you money. You shall not have that as an excuse. So far as I am concerned, you may enjoy the society of Fru Beck and your fine friends as long as ever you please.”

”And why should I not be allowed to speak to Fru Beck?” she cried, with her head thrown back, and with an expression of rising anger. ”You don't mean, I suppose, that there is anything against me that should prevent my entering her house? But there must be an end to this, Salve--and it is for the sake of our love I say it; for if matters go on as they have been going on so long between us,” she concluded slowly, and with a tremor in her voice, ”you might live to see the day when it had ceased to exist. These things are not in our own power, Salve.”

He stood for a moment still, and gazed at her in speechless amazement, while the flash of his dark keen eyes showed that a devil had been roused within him, which he had the utmost difficulty in restraining.

”I will suppose that you have said this in a moment of excitement,” he said, with terrible calmness; ”I shall not be angry with you--I shall forget it; I promise you that. And I think that you have not been quite yourself to-day--ill--”

”Don't deceive yourself, Salve. I mean every word--as surely as I love you.”

”Farewell, Elizabeth; I shall be here again on Wednesday,” he said, as if he only held to his purpose, and did not care to hear any more of this. He left her then, and shut the door quietly behind him.

When he had gone, Elizabeth sank rather than sat down upon the bench.

She was frightened at what she had said. A profound dread took possession of her. She knew his nature so well, and knew that she was risking everything, that the result might be that he would leave her altogether, and take to some misguided life far away from home. And yet it must--it must be dared. And with G.o.d's help she would conquer, and bind him to her closer than ever he had been before.

CHAPTER XXIX.

As Salve stood and steered for home, he had as yet only a dull consciousness of what had occurred; but there was anger in his eye, and a hard determined look in his face. His pride had received a terrible shock. She had suddenly fallen upon him with all this on neutral ground; she had told him plainly that she had been unhappy, and that she felt she had been living under a tyranny the whole time of their married life. He smiled bitterly--well, he had been right, it seemed, all along in feeling that she was not open with him.