Part 41 (1/2)
She stopped him by getting in front of him and saying, with face down, smoothing his sleeve as she spoke, ”You are a man, Philip, and you cannot understand. How can you, and how can I tell you? When a girl is not a woman, but only a child, she is a different person. She can't love anybody then--not really--not to say love, and the promises she makes can't count. It was not I that promised myself to Pete--if I did promise. It was my little sister--the little sister that was me long, long ago, but is now gone--put to sleep inside me somewhere. Is that _very_ foolish, darling?”
”But think of Pete,” said Philip; ”think of him going away for love of you, living five years abroad, toiling, slaving, saving, encountering privations, perhaps perils, and all for you, all for love of you. Then think of him coming home with his heart full of you, buoyed up with the hope of you, thirsting, starving, and yearning for you, and finding you lost to him, dead to him, worse than dead--it will kill him, Kate.”
She was unmoved by the picture. ”I am very sorry, but I do not love him,” she said quietly. ”I am sorry--what else can a girl be when she does not love a young man?”
”He left me to take care of you, too, and you see--you see by the telegram--he is coming home with faith in my loyalty. How can I tell him that I have broken my trust? How can I meet him and explain----”
”I know, Philip. Say we heard he was dead and----”
”No, it would be too wretched. It's only three weeks since the letter came--and it would not be true, Kate--it would revolt me.”
She lifted her eyes in a fond look of shame-faced love, and said again, ”_I_ know, then--lay the blame on me, Philip. What do I care? Say it was all my fault, and I made you love me. _I_ shan't care for anybody's talk. And it's true, isn't it? Partly true, eh?”
”If I talked to Pete of temptation I should despise myself,” said Philip; and then she threw her head up and said proudly--
”Very well, tell the truth itself--the simple truth, Philip. Say we tried to be faithful and loyal, and all that, and could not, because we loved each other, and there was no help for it.”
”If I tell him the truth, I shall die of shame,” said Philip. ”Oh, there is no way out of this miserable tangle. Whether I cover myself with deceit, or strip myself of evasion, I shall stain my soul for ever. I shall become a base man, and year by year sink lower and lower in the mire of lies and deceit.”
She listened with her eyes fixed on his quivering face, and her eyelids fluttered, and her fond looks began to be afraid.
”Say that we married,” he continued; ”we should never forget that you had broken your promise and I my trust. That memory would haunt us as long as we lived. We should never know one moment's happiness or one moment's peace. Pete would be a broken-hearted man, perhaps a wreck, perhaps--who knows?--dead of his own hand. He would be the ghost between us always.”
”And do you think I should be afraid of that?” she said. ”Indeed, no. If you were with me, Philip, and loved me still, I should not care for all the spirits of heaven itself.”
Her face was as pale as death now, but her great eyes were s.h.i.+ning.
”Our love would fail us, Kate,” said Philip. ”The sense of our guilt would kill it. How could we go on loving each other with a thing like that about us all day and all night--sitting at our table--listening to our talk--standing by our bed? Oh, merciful G.o.d!”
The terror of his vision mastered him, and he covered his face with both hands. She drew them down again and held them in a tight lock in her fingers. But the stony light of his eyes was more fearful to look upon, and she said in a troubled voice, ”Do you mean, Philip, that we--could--not marry--now?”
He did not answer, and she repeated the question, looking up into his face like a criminal waiting for his sentence--her head bent forward and her mouth open.
”We cannot,” he muttered. ”G.o.d help us, we dare not,” he said; and then he tried to show her again how their marriage was impossible, now that Pete had come, without treason and shame and misery. But his words frayed off into silence. He caught the look of her eyes, and it was like the piteous look of the lamb under the hands of the butcher.
”Is that what you came to tell me?” she asked.
His reply died in his throat. She divined rather than heard it.
Her doom had fallen on her, but she did not cry out. She did not yet realise in all its fulness what had happened. It was like a bullet-wound in battle; first a sense of air, almost of relief, then a pang, and then overwhelming agony.
They had been walking again, but she slid in front of him as she had done before. Her arms crept up his breast with a caressing touch, and linked themselves behind his neck.
”This is only a jest, dearest,” she said, ”some test of my love, perhaps. You wished to make sure of me--quite, quite sure--now that Pete is alive and coming home. But, you see, I want only one to love me, only one, dear. Come, now, confess. Don't be afraid to say you have been playing with me. I shan't be angry with you. Come, speak to me.”
He could not utter a word, and she let her arms fall from his neck; and they walked on side by side, both staring out to sea. The English mountains were black by this time. A tempest was raging on the other sh.o.r.e, though the air on this side was as soft as human breath. .
Presently she stopped, her feet sc.r.a.ped the gravel, and she exclaimed in a husky tone, ”I know what it is. It is not Pete. I am in your way.
That's it. You can't get on with me about you. I am not fit for you. The distance between us is too great.”
He struggled to deny it, but he could not. It was part of the truth. He knew too well how near to being the whole truth it was. Pete had come at the last moment to cover up his conscience, but Kate was stripping it naked and showing him the skeleton.