Part 68 (1/2)

”My father might do something.” Mrs. Roden shook her head. ”My sister will have money, though it may probably be insufficient to furnish such an income as they will want.”

”He would never live in idleness upon her money, my lord. Indeed I think I may say that he has quite resolved to drop the t.i.tle as idle lumber. You perhaps know that he is not easily persuaded.”

”The most obstinate fellow I ever knew in my life,” said Hampstead, laughing. ”And he has talked my sister over to his own views.” Then he turned suddenly round to Marion, and asked her a question. ”Shall I go now, dearest?” he said.

She had already told him to go,--to go, and never to return to her.

But the question was put to her in such a manner that were she simply to a.s.sent to his going, she would, by doing so, a.s.sent also to his returning. For the sake of her duty to him, in order that she might carry out that self-sacrifice in the performance of which she would now be so resolute, it was necessary that he should in truth be made to understand that he was not to come back to her. But how was this to be done while Mrs. Roden was present with them? Had he not been there then she could have asked her friend to help her in her great resolution. But before the two she could say nothing of that which it was in her heart to say to both of them. ”If it pleases you, my lord,” she said.

”I will not be 'my lord.' Here is Roden, who is a real duke, and whose ancestors have been dukes since long before Noah, and he is allowed to be called just what he pleases, and I am to have no voice in it with my own particular and dearest friends! Nevertheless I will go, and if I don't come to-day, or the day after, I will write you the prettiest little love-letter I can invent.”

”Don't,” she said;--oh so weakly, so vainly;--in a manner so utterly void of that intense meaning which she was anxious to throw into her words. She was conscious of her own weakness, and acknowledged to herself that there must be another interview, or at any rate a letter written on each side, before he could be made to understand her own purpose. If it must be done by a letter, how great would be the struggle to her in explaining herself. But perhaps even that might be easier than the task of telling him all that she would have to tell, while he was standing by, impetuous, impatient, perhaps almost violent, a.s.suring her of his love, and attempting to retain her by the pressure of his hand.

”But I shall,” he said, as he held her now for a moment. ”I am not quite sure whether I may not have to go to Trafford; and if so there shall be the love-letter. I feel conscious, Mrs. Roden, of being incapable of writing a proper love-letter. 'Dearest Marion, I am yours, and you are mine. Always believe me ever thine.' I don't know how to go beyond that. When a man is married, and can write about the children, or the leg of mutton, or what's to be done with his hunters, then I dare say it becomes easy. Good-bye dearest. Good-bye, Mrs. Roden. I wish I could keep on calling you d.u.c.h.ess in revenge for all the 'my lordings.'” Then he left them.

There was a feeling in the mind of both of them that he had conducted himself just as a man would do who was in a high good-humour at having been permanently accepted by the girl to whom he had offered his hand. Marion Fay knew that it was not so;--knew that it never could be so. Mrs. Roden knew that it had not been so when she had left home, now nearly two months since; and knew also that Marion had pledged herself that it should not be so. The young lord then had been too strong with his love. A feeling of regret came over her as she remembered that the reasons against such a marriage were still as strong as ever. But yet how natural that it should be so! Was it possible that such a lover as Lord Hampstead should not succeed in his love if he were constant to it himself? Sorrow must come of it,--perhaps a tragedy so bitter that she could hardly bring herself to think of it. And Marion had been so firm in her resolve that it should not be so. But yet it was natural, and she could not bring herself to express to the girl either anger or disappointment. ”Is it to be?” she said, putting on her sweetest smile.

”No!” said Marion, standing up suddenly,--by no means smiling as she spoke! ”It is not to be. Why do you look at me like that, Mrs. Roden?

Did I not tell you before you went that it should never be so?”

”But he treats you as though he were engaged to you?”

”How can I help it? What can I do to prevent it? When I bid him go, he still comes back again, and when I tell him that I can never be his wife he will not believe me. He knows that I love him.”

”You have told him that?”

”Told him! He wanted no telling. Of course he knew it. Love him! Oh, Mrs. Roden, if I could die for him, and so have done with it! And yet I would not wish to leave my dear father. What am I to do, Mrs.

Roden?”

”But it seemed to me just now that you were so happy with him.”

”I am never happy with him;--but yet I am as though I were in heaven.”

”Marion!”

”I am never happy. I know that it cannot be, that it will not be, as he would have it. I know that I am letting him waste his sweetness all in vain. There should be some one else, oh, so different from me!

There should be one like himself, beautiful, strong in health, with hot eager blood in her veins, with a grand name, with grand eyes and a broad brow and a n.o.ble figure, one who, in taking his name, will give him as much as she takes--one, above all, who will not pine and fade before his eyes, and trouble him during her short life with sickness and doctors and all the fading hopes of a hopeless invalid.

And yet I let him come, and I have told him how dearly I love him. He comes and he sees it in my eyes. And then it is so glorious, to be loved as he loves. Oh, Mrs. Roden, he kissed me.” That to Mrs. Roden did not seem to be extraordinary; but, not knowing what to say to it at the moment, she also kissed the girl. ”Then I told him that he must go, and never come back to me again.”

”Were you angry with him?”

”Angry with him! With myself I was angry. I had given him the right to do it. How could I be angry with him? And what does it matter;--except for his sake? If he could only understand! If he would only know that I am in earnest when I speak to him! But I am weak in everything except one thing. He will never make me say that I will be his wife.”

”My Marion! Dear Marion!”

”But father wishes it.”