Part 58 (1/2)

”Ida!”

”I meant no reproach, but it will perhaps help you to think of that.

You _did_ love her, if it was only for a day, and that love will return.”

She moved from him, and he too rose.

”You shame me,” he said, under his breath. ”I am not worthy to touch your hand.”

”Yes,” she returned, smiling amid her tears, ”very worthy of all the love I have given you, and of the love with which _she_ will make you happy. I shall suffer, but the thought of your happiness will help me to bear up and try to live a life you would not call ign.o.ble. You will do great things, and I shall hear of them, and be glad. Yes; I know that is before you. You are one of those who cannot rest till they have won a high place. I, too, have my work, and--”

Her voice failed.

”Shall we never see each other again, Ida?”

”Perhaps. In a few years we might meet, and be friends. But I dare not think of that now.”

They clasped hands, for one dread moment resisted the lure of eyes and lips, and so parted.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

FORBIDDEN

December was half through, and it was the eve of Maud Enderby's marriage-day. Everything was ready for the morrow. Waymark had been away in the South, and the house to which he would take his wife now awaited their coming.

It was a foggy night. Maud had been for an hour to Our Lady of the Rosary, and found it difficult to make her way back. The street lamps were mere luminous blurs upon the clinging darkness, and the suspension of the wonted traffic made the air strangely still. It was cold, that kind of cold which wraps the limbs like a cloth soaked in icy water.

When she knocked at the door of her aunt's house, and it was opened to her, wreaths of mist swept in and hung about the lighted hall. It seemed colder within than without. Footsteps echoed here in the old way, and voices lost themselves in a m.u.f.fled resonance along the bare white walls. The house was more tomb-like than ever on such a night as thin To Maud's eyes the intruding fog shaped itself into ghostly visages, which looked upon her with weird and woeful compa.s.sion. She shuddered, and hastened upstairs to her mother's room.

After her husband's disappearance, Mrs. Enderby had pa.s.sed her days in a morbid apathy, contrasting strangely with the restless excitement which had so long possessed her. But a change came over her from the day when she was told of Maud's approaching marriage. It was her delight to have Maud sit by her bed, or her couch, and talk over the details of the wedding and the new life that would follow upon it. Her interest in Waymark, which had fallen off during the past half-year, all at once revived; she conversed with him as she had been used to do when she first made his acquaintance, and the publication of his book afforded her endless matter for gossip. She began to speak of herself as an old woman, and of spending her last years happily in the country.

To all appearances she had dismissed from her mind the calamity which had befallen her; her husband might have been long dead for any thought she seemed to give him. She was wholly taken up with childish joy in trivial matters. The dress in which Maud should be married gave her thoughts constant occupation, and she fretted at any opposition to her ideas. Still, like a child, she allowed herself to be brought round to others' views, and was ultimately led to consent that the costume should be a very simple one, merely a new dress, in fact, which Maud would be able to wear subsequently with little change. Even thus, every detail of it was as important to her as if it had been the most elaborate piece of bridal attire. In talking with Maud, too, she had lost that kind of awe which had formerly restrained her; it was as though she had been an affectionate mother ever since her daughter's birth. She called her by pet names, often caressed her, and wished for loving words and acts in return. Of Miss Bygrave's presence in the house she appeared scarcely conscious, never referring to her, and suffering a vague trouble if her sister entered the room where she was, which Theresa did very seldom.

The new dress had come home finished this evening whilst Maud was away.

On the latter's return, her mother insisted on seeing her at once in it, and Maud obeyed. A strange bride, rather as one who was about to wed herself to Heaven beneath the veil, than preparing to be led to the altar.

Having resumed her ordinary dregs, Maud went downstairs to the parlour where her aunt was sitting. Miss Bygrave laid down a book as she entered.

”We shall not see each other after tonight,” Theresa said, breaking the stillness with her grave but not unkind voice. ”Is there anything more you would like to say to me, Maud?”

”Only that I shall always think of you, and grieve that we are parted.”

”You are going into the world,” said the other sadly, ”my thoughts cannot follow you there. But your purer spirit will often be with me.”

”And your spirit with me. If I had been permitted to share your life, that would have been my greatest joy. I am consciously choosing what my soul would set aside. For a time I thought I had reconciled myself to the world; I found delight in it, and came to look on the promptings of the spirit as morbid fancies. That has pa.s.sed. I know the highest, but between me and it there is a gulf which it may be I shall never pa.s.s.”

”It is only to few,” said Theresa, looking at Maud with her smile of a.s.sured peace, ”that it is given to persevere and attain.”

As they sat once more in silence, there suddenly came a light knock at the house-door. At this moment Maud's thoughts had wandered back to a Christmas of her childhood, when she had sat just as to-night with her aunt, and had for the first time listened to those teachings which had moulded her life. The intervening years were swept away, and she was once more the thoughtful, wondering child, conscious of the great difference between herself and her companions; in spite of herself learning to regard the world in which they moved as something in which she had no part. Of those school companions a few came back to her mind, and, before all, the poor girl named Ida Starr, whom she had loved and admired. What had become of Ida, after she had been sent away from Miss Rutherford's school? She remembered that last meeting with her in the street, on the evening of Christmas Day, and could see her face.