Part 42 (1/2)
”Not in vain, my darling. Even the sight of you for a few minutes has been like a glimpse of Elysium.”
”And I must return,” she said, ”as I came--with my love thrown back, my prayers unanswered, my sorrow redoubled.”
She hid her face in her hands and wept aloud. Presently she bent forward.
”Norman,” she said, in a low whisper, ”my darling, I appeal to you for my own sake. I love you so dearly that I cannot live away from you--it is a living death. You cannot realize it. There are few moments, night or day, in which your face is not before me--few moments in which I do not hear your voice. Last night I dreamed that you stood before me with outstretched arms and called me. I went to you, and you clasped me in your arms. You said, 'My darling wife, it has all been a mistake--a terrible mistake--and I am come to ask your pardon and to take you home.' In my dream, Norman, you kissed my face, my lips, my hands, and called me by every loving name you could invent. You were so kind to me, and I was so happy. And the dream was so vivid, Norman, that even after I awoke I believed it to be reality. Then I heard the sobbing of the waves on the beach, and I cried out, 'Norman, Norman!' thinking you were still near me; but there was no reply. It was only the silence that roused me to a full sense that my happiness was a dream. There was no husband with kind words and tender kisses. I thought my heart would have broken. And then I said to myself that I could live no longer without making an effort once more to change your decision. Oh, Norman, for my sake, do not send me back to utter desolation and despair! Do not send me back to coldness and darkness, to sorrow and tears. Let me be near you! You have a thousand interests in life--I have but one. You can live without love, I cannot. Oh, Norman, for my sake, for my love's sake, for my happiness' sake, take me back, dear--take me back!”
The golden head dropped forward and fell on his breast, her hands clung to him with almost despairing pain.
”I will be so humble, darling. I can keep away from all observation. It is only to be with you that I wish--only to be near you. You cannot be hard--you cannot send me away; you will not, for I love you!”
Her hands clung more closely to him.
”Many men have forgiven their wives even great crimes, and have taken them back after the basest desertion. Overlook my father's crime and pardon me, for Heaven's dear sake!”
”My dearest Madaline, if you would but understand! I have nothing to pardon. You are sweetest, dearest, loveliest, best. You are one of the purest and n.o.blest of women. I have nothing to pardon; it is only that I cannot take disgrace into my family. I cannot give to my children an inheritance of crime.”
”But, Norman,” said the girl, gently, ”because my father was a felon, that does not make me one--because he was led into wrong, it does not follow that I must do wrong. Insanity may be hereditary, but surely crime is not; besides, I have heard my father say that his father was an honest, simple, kindly northern farmer. My father had much to excuse him. He was a handsome man, who had been flattered and made much of.”
”My darling I could not take your hands into mine and kiss them so, if I fancied that they were ever so slightly tainted with sin.”
”Then why not take me home. Norman?”
”I cannot,” he replied, in a tone of determination. ”You must not torture me, Madaline, with further pleading. I cannot--that is sufficient.”
He rose and walked with rapid steps down the sh.o.r.e. How bard it was, how terrible--bitter almost as the anguish of death!
She was by his side again, walking in silence. He would bare given the whole world if he could have taken her into his arms and have kissed back the color into her sad young face.
”Norman,” said a low voice, full of bitterest pain, ”I am come to say good-by. I am sorry I have done harm--not good. I am sorry--forgive me, and say good-by.”
”It has made our lot a thousand times harder, Madaline,” he returned, hoa.r.s.ely.
”Never mind the hards.h.i.+p; you will soon recover from that,” she said. ”I am sorry that I have acted against your wishes, and broken the long silence. I will never do it again, Norman.”
”Never, unless you are ill and need me,” he supplemented. ”Then you have promised to send for me.”
”I will do so” she said. ”You will remember, dear husband, that my last words to you were 'Good-by, and Heaven bless you.'”
The words died away on her lips. He turned aside lest she should see the trembling of his face; he never complained to her. He knew now that she thought him hard, cold, unfeeling, indifferent--that she thought his pride greater than his love; but even that was better than that she should know he suffered more than she did--she must never know that.
When he turned back from the tossing waves and the summer sun she was gone. He looked across the beach--there was no sign of her. She was gone; and he avowed to himself that it would be wonderful if ever in this world he saw her again. She did not remain at Tintagel; to do so would be useless, hopeless. She saw it now. She had hoped against hope: she had said to herself that in a year and a half he would surely have altered his mind--he would have found now how hard it was to live alone, to live without love--he would have found that there was something dearer in the world than family pride--he would have discovered that love outweighed everything else. Then she saw that her antic.i.p.ations were all wrong--he preferred his dead ancestors to his living wife.
She went back to Winiston House and took up the dreary round of life again. She might have made her lot more endurable and happier, she might have traveled, have sought society and amus.e.m.e.nt; but she had no heart for any of these things. She had spent the year and a half of her lonely married life in profound study, thinking to herself that if he should claim her he would be pleased to find her yet more accomplished and educated. She was indefatigable, and it was all for him.
Now that she was going back, she was without this mainspring of hope--her old studies and pursuits wearied her. To what end and for what purpose had been all her study, all her hard work? He would never know of her proficiency; and she would not care to study for any other object than to please him.