Part 64 (1/2)
”Hateful? Why? I only wish you had laid his cheek open,” says Sir James, venomously. ”But of course this poor little hand could not manage so much.” Stooping involuntarily, he presses his lips to the hand that rests upon her knee.
”That wasn't the hand at all,” says Miss Peyton, feeling inexpressibly consoled by his tone and manner.
”Wasn't it? Then I shall kiss the right one now,” says Sir James, and caresses the other hand right warmly.
”I can't go on to Sartoris to-day,” says Clarissa, in a troubled tone, checking her horse in the middle of the broad avenue.
”No; come home instead,” says Scrope; and, turning, they go slowly, and almost silently, back to Gowran.
Horace, rousing himself after his encounter with Clarissa, puts his hand impulsively to his face, the sting of the blow still remaining.
His illness has left him somewhat prostrate and weak; so that he feels more intensely than he otherwise would the pain that has arisen from the sudden stroke. A bitter execration rises to his lips; and then, feeling that all hope of reconciliation with Clarissa is at an end, he returns to Langham Station, and, with a mind full of evil thoughts and bitter revenge, goes back to town.
Wild and disturbed in appearance, he breaks in upon Ruth as she sits reading alone in the very room where she had last seen Clarissa. As he enters, she utters a glad little cry of welcome, and, springing to her feet, goes over to him.
”So soon returned?” she says, joyfully; and then something she sees in his face freezes within her all further expressions of pleasure: his eyes are dark, his whole face is livid with rage.
”So you betrayed me?” he says, pus.h.i.+ng her away from him. ”Now, no lies! I saw Clarissa Peyton to-day, and I know everything.”
”You have been to Pullingham?” exclaims she, with a little gasp.
”Horace, do not blame me. What was I to do? When she came in here, and saw me----”
”Clarissa, here?”
”Yes, here. I was afraid to tell you of it before, you seemed so weak, so fretful. Last Tuesday week--the day you had the sleeping-draught from Dr. Gregson--she came; she entered the room, she came near you, she touched you, she would”--faintly--”have kissed you. But how could I bear that? I stepped forward just in time to prevent her lips from meeting yours.”
”And so,” he says, with slow vindictiveness, taking no notice of her agony, ”for the sake of a mere bit of silly sentimentality you spoiled every prospect I have in life.”
”Horace, do not look at me like that,” she entreats, painfully.
”Remember all that has pa.s.sed. If for one moment I went mad and forgot all, am I so much to be blamed? You had been mine--altogether mine--for so long that I had not strength in one short moment to relinquish you. When she would have kissed you, it seemed to me more than I could endure.”
”Was it? It is but a little part of what you will have to endure for the future,” he says, brutally. ”You have wilfully ruined me, and must take the consequences. My marriage with Clarissa Peyton would have set me straight with the world once more, and need not have altered our relations with each other one iota.”
”You would have been false to your wife?” murmurs she, shrinking back from him. ”Oh, no! that would have been impossible!”
He laughs ironically.
”I tell you candidly,” he says, with reckless emphasis, ”I should have been false to one or other of you, and it certainly would not have been to you.”
”You malign yourself,” she says, looking at him with steadfast love.
”Do I? What a fool you are!” he says, roughly. ”Well, by your own mad folly you have separated us irretrievably. Blame yourself for this, not me. My affairs are so hopelessly entangled that I must quit the country without delay. Your own mad act has rolled an ocean between us.”
He turns, and goes towards the door. Wild with grief and despair, she follows him, and lays a detaining hand upon his arm.
”Not like this, Horace!” she whispers, desperately. ”Do not leave me like this. Have pity. You shall not go like this! Be merciful: you are my all!”