Part 23 (2/2)

”_I_ understand,” she said simply. ”Sometimes, you know, we are quicker.

And you in your cell, how should you find out? That is why I must tell you, because, though I am a woman, you are a priest. Partly for that reason I may speak, partly because I love you, Stephen Arnold, better and more ardently than you can ever love me, or anybody, I think, except, perhaps, your G.o.d. And I am tired of keeping silence.”

She was so direct, so unimpa.s.sioned, that half his distress turned to astonishment, and he faced her as if a calm and reasoned hand had been laid upon the confusion in him. Meeting his gaze, she unbarred a flood-gate of happy tenderness in her eyes.

”Love!” he gasped in it, ”I have nothing to do with that.”

”Oh,” she said, ”you have everything to do with it.”

Something leaped in him without asking his permission, a.s.suring him that he was a man, until then a placid theory with an unconscious basis. It was therefore a blow to his saints.h.i.+p, or it would have been, but he warded it off, flushed and trembling. It was as if he had been ambuscaded. He had to hold himself from the ignominy of flight; he rose to cut his way out, making an effort to strike with precision.

”Some perversity has seized you,” he said. The muscles about his mouth quivered, giving him a curious aspect. ”You mean nothing of what you say.”

”Do you believe that?”

”I--I cannot think anything else. It is the only way I can--I can--make excuse.”

”Ah, don't excuse me!” she murmured, with an astonis.h.i.+ng little gay petulance.

”You cannot have thought”--in spite of himself he made a step toward the door.

”Oh, I did think--I do think. And you must not go.” She, too, stood up and stayed him. ”Let us at least see clearly.” There was a persuading note in her voice; one would have thought, indeed, that she was dealing with a patient, or a child. ”Tell me,” she clasped her hands behind her back and looked at him in marvellous, simple candour, ”do I really announce this to you? Was there not in yourself anywhere--deep down--any knowledge of it?”

”I did not guess--I did not dream!”

”And--now?” she asked.

A heavenly current drifted from her, the words rose and fell on it with the most dazing suggestion in their soft hesitancy. It must have been by an instinct of her art that her hand went up to the cross on Arnold's breast and closed over it, so that he should see only her. The familiar vision of her stood close, looking things intolerably new and different.

Again came out of it that sudden liberty, that unpremeditated rush and shock in him. He paled with indignation, with the startled resentment of a woman wooed and hostile. His face at last expressed something definite--it was anger. He stepped back and caught at his hat. ”I am sorry,” he said, ”I am sorry. I thought you infinitely above and beyond all that.”

Hilda smiled and turned away. If he choose, it was his opportunity to go, but he stood regarding her, twirling his hat. She sat down, clasping her knees, and looked at the floor. There was a square of sunlight on the carpet, and motes were rising in it.

”Ah well, so did I,” she said meditatively, without raising her eyes.

Then she leaned back in the chair and looked at him, in her level simple way.

”It was a foolish theory,” she said, ”and--now--I can't understand it at all. I am amazed to find that it even holds good with you.”

It was so much in the tone of their usual discussions that Arnold was conscious of a lively relief. The instinct of flight died down in him, he looked at her with something like inquiry.

”It will always be to me curious,” she went on, ”that you could have thought your part in me so limited, so poor. That is enough to say. I find it hard to understand, anybody would, that you could take so much pleasure in me and not--so much more.” She opened her lips again, but kept back the words. ”Yes,” she added, ”that is enough to say.”

But for her colourless face and the tenseness about her lips it might have been thought that she definitely abandoned what she had learned she could not have. There was a note of acquiescence and regret in her voice, of calm reason above all; and this sense reached him, induced him to listen, as he generally listened, for anything she might find that would explain the situation. His fingers went from habit, as a man might play with his watch-chain, to the symbol of his faith; her eyes followed them, and rested mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feeling in them, wistful, acknowledging, deeply speculative. ”You could not forget that?” she said, and shook her head as if she answered herself.

He looked into her upturned face and saw that her eyes were swimming.

”Never!” he said, ”Never,” but he walked to the nearest chair and sat down. He seemed suddenly aware that he need not go away, and his head, as it rose in the twilight against the window, was grave and calm.

Without a word a great tenderness filled the s.p.a.ce between them; an interpreting compa.s.sion went to and fro. Suddenly a new light dawned in Hilda's eyes; she leaned forward and met his in an absorption which caught them out of themselves into some s.p.a.ce where souls wander, and perhaps embrace. The moment died away, neither of them could have measured it, and when it had finally ebbed--they were conscious of every subsiding throb--a silence came instead, like a margin for the beauty of it. After a time the woman spoke. ”Once before,” she began, but he put up his hand and she stopped. Then, as if she would no longer be restrained, ”That is all I want,” she whispered. ”That is enough.”

For a time they said very little, looking back upon their divine moment; the shadows gathered in the corners of the room and made quiet conversation which was almost audible in the pauses. Then Hilda began to speak, steadily, calmly. You, too, would have forgotten her folly in what she found to say, as Arnold did; you, too, would have drawn faith and courage from her face. One would not be irreverent, but if this woman were convicted of the unforgivable sin she could explain it and obtain justification rather than pardon.

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