Part 58 (1/2)

”And leave you penniless,” he says.

”No, not that. Some day you can pay me back, if you wish it. All these months you have given me every thing I could possibly desire, let me now make you some small return.”

Unfortunately, this speech angers him deeply.

”We are wasting time,” he says, quickly. ”Understand, once for all, I will receive nothing from you.”

”James,” says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., impulsively, going up to Scrope and taking his hand. She is white and nervous, and, in her agitation, is hardly aware that, for the first time, she has called him by his Christian name. ”Persuade him. Tell him he should accept this money.

Dear James, speak for me: _I_ am nothing to him.”

For the second time Brans...o...b.. turns and looks at her long and earnestly.

”I must say I think your wife quite right,” says Scrope, energetically. ”She wants you to take this money; your not taking it distresses her very much, and you have no right in the world to marry a woman and then make her unhappy.” This is faintly quixotic, considering all the circ.u.mstances, but n.o.body says anything. ”You ought to save Sartoris from the hammer no matter at what price,--pride or anything else. It isn't a fair thing, you know, Brans...o...b.., to lift the roof from off her head for a silly prejudice.”

When he has finished this speech, Sir James feels that he has been unpardonably impertinent.

”She will have a home with my uncle,” says Brans...o...b.., unmoved,--”a far happier and more congenial home than this has ever been.” A faint sneer disfigures his handsome mouth for a moment. Then his mood changes, and he turns almost fiercely upon Georgie. ”Why will you fight against your own good fortune?” he says. ”See how it is favoring you. You will get rid of me for years, perhaps--I hope--forever, and you will be comfortable with him.”

”No, I shall not,” says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., a brilliant crimson has grown upon her pale cheeks, her eyes are bright and full of anger, she stands back from him and looks at him with pa.s.sionate reproach and determination in her gaze. ”You think I will consent to live calmly here while you are an exile from your home? In so much you wrong me.

When you leave Sartoris, I leave it too,--to be a governess once more.”

”I forbid you to do that,” says Brans...o...b... ”I am your husband, and, as such, the law allows me some power over you. But this is only an idle threat,” he says, contemptuously. ”When I remember how you consented to marry even me to escape such a life of drudgery, I cannot believe you will willingly return to it again.”

”Nevertheless I shall,” says Georgie, slowly. ”You abandon me: why, then, should you have power to control my actions? And I will not live at Hythe, and I will not live at all in Pullingham unless I live here.”

”Don't be obstinate, Dorian,” says Sir James, imploringly. ”Give in to her: it will be more manly. Don't you see she has conceived an affection for the place by this time, and can't bear to see it pa.s.s into strange hands? In the name of common sense, accept this chance of rescue, and put an end to a most unhappy business.”

Dorian leans his arms upon the mantel-piece, and his head upon his arms. Shall he, or shall he not, consent to this plan? Is he really behaving, as Scrope has just said, in an unmanly manner?

A lurid flame from the fire lights up the room, and falls warmly upon Georgie's anxious face and clasped hands and sombre clinging gown; upon Dorian's bowed head and motionless figure, and upon Sir James, standing tall and silent within the shadow that covers the corner where he is. All is sad, and drear, and almost tragic!

Georgie, with both hands pressed against her bosom, waits breathlessly for Dorian's answer. At last it comes. Lifting his head, he says, in a dull tone that is more depressing than louder grief,--

”I consent. But I cannot live here just yet. I shall go away for a time. I beg you both to understand that I do this thing against my will for my wife's sake,--not for my own. Death itself could not be more bitter to me than life has been of late.” For the last time he turns and looks at Georgie. ”You know who has embittered it,” he says.

And then, ”Go: I wish to be alone!”

Scrope, taking Mrs. Brans...o...b..'s cold hand in his, leads her from the room. When outside, she presses her fingers on his in a grateful fas.h.i.+on, and, whispering something to him in a broken voice,--which he fails to hear,--she goes heavily up the staircase to her own room.

When inside, she closes the door, and locks it, and, going as if with a purpose to a drawer in a cabinet, draws from it a velvet frame.

Opening it, she gazes long and earnestly upon the face it contains: it is Dorian's.

It is a charming, lovable face, with its smiling lips and its large blue honest eyes. Distrustfully she gazes at it, as if seeking to discover some trace of duplicity in the clear open features. Then slowly she takes the photograph from the frame, and with a scissors cuts out the head, and, lifting the gla.s.s from a dull gold locket upon the table near her, carefully places the picture in it.

When her task is finished, she looks at it once again, and then laughs softly to herself,--a sneering unlovable laugh full of self-contempt.

Her whole expression is unforgiving, yet suggestive of deep regret.

Somehow, at this moment his last words came back to her and strike coldly on her heart: ”I wish to be alone!”