Part 8 (2/2)
He drew her gently back into the seat, and looked long and earnestly upon her face. She felt his gaze, but dared not return it, and her fair head drooped like a flower that bends beneath the glance of a scorching sun.
”Miss Weems,” he said at last, but his voice was so low and tremulous that it scarce rose above the rustle of the swinging willow boughs, ”you are soon to be a bride, and in your path the kind Destinies will shower blessings. When they wreathe the orange blossoms in your hair, and you are led to the altar by the hand to which you must cling for life, if I should not be there to wish you joy, you will not deem, will you, that I am less your friend?”
The fair head drooping yet lower was her only answer.
”And when you shall be the mistress of a home where Content will be shrined, the companion of your virtues, and over your threshold many friends shall be welcomed, if I should never sit beside your hearthstone, you will not, will you, believe that I have forgotten, or that I could forget?”
Still lower the fair head drooped, but she answered only with a falling tear.
”I told you the other day that we should be strangers through life, and why, I must not tell, although perhaps your woman's heart may whisper, and yet not condemn me for that which, Heaven knows, I have struggled against--alas, in vain! Do not turn from me. I would not breathe a word to you that in all honor you should not hear, although my heart seems bursting with its longing, and I would yield my soul with rapture from its frail casket, for but one moment's right to give its secret wings. I will bid you farewell to-morrow”--
”To-morrow!”
”Yes, the doctor says that the sea air will do me good, and an occasion offers to-morrow which I shall embrace. It will be like setting forth upon a journey through endless solitudes, where my only companions will be a memory and a sorrow.”
He paused a while, but continued with an effort at composure.
”Our hearts are tyrants to us, Miss Weems, and will not, sometimes, be tutored into silence. I see that I have moved, but I trust not offended you.”
”You have not offended,” she murmured, but in so low a tone that perhaps the words were lost in the faint moan of the swaying foliage.
”What I have said,” he continued earnestly, and taking her hand with a gentle but respectful pressure, ”has been spoken as one who is dying speaks with his fleeting breath; for evermore my lips shall be shackled against my heart, and the past shall be sealed and avoided as a forbidden theme. We are, then, good friends at parting, are we not?”
”Yes.”
”And, believe me, I shall be happiest when I think that you are happy--for you will be happy.”
She sighed so deeply that the words were checked upon his lips, as if some new emotion had turned the current of his thought.
”Are you _not_ happy?”
The tears that, in spite of her endeavor, burst from beneath the downcast lids, answered him as words could not have done. He was agitated and unnerved, and, leaning his brow against his hand, remained silent while she wept.
”Harold is a n.o.ble fellow,” he said at last, after a long silence, and when she had grown calmer, ”and deserves to be loved as I am sure you love him.”
”Oh, he has a n.o.ble heart, and I would die rather than cause him pain.”
”And you love him?”
”I thought I loved him.”
The words were faint--hardly more than a breath upon her lips; but he heard them, and his heart grew big with an undefined awe, as if some vague danger were looming among the shadows of his destiny. Oriana turned to him suddenly, and clasped his hand within her trembling fingers.
”Oh, Mr. Wayne! you must go, and never see me more. I am standing on the brink of an abyss, and my heart bids me leap. I see the danger, and, oh G.o.d! I have prayed for power to shun it. But Arthur, Arthur, if you do not help me, I am lost. You are a man, an honest man, an honorable man, who will not wrong your friend, or tempt the woman that cannot love you without sin. Oh, save me from myself--from you--from the cruel wrong that I could even dream of against him to whom I have sworn my woman's faith. I am a child in your hands, Arthur, and in the face of the reproaching Providence above me, I feel--I feel that I am at your mercy.
I feel that what you speak I must listen to; that should you bid me stand beside you at the altar, I should not have courage to refuse. I feel, oh G.o.d! Arthur, that I love you, and am betrothed to Harold. But you are strong--you have courage, will, the power to defy such weakness of the heart--and you will save me, for I know you are a good and honest man.”
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