Part 13 (1/2)
”My darling, this has been too much for you!” he says, seeing the dread on her face as she stands close beside him. ”I should not have asked you to come here; but I felt that I could not go away till I had seen your face, and heard you tell me with your own lips that you have forgiven me.”
He has led her across the great paved court to a corner where they can stand together without being seen by any one pa.s.sing along the avenue.
There is something awful in the silence that broods round them; but the girl's nerves are too much shaken for her to be quite conscious of her surroundings. The man standing beside her is no less agitated.
”Honor, you know that, in acting as I did, I brought suffering upon myself--horrible suffering--apart from all social considerations! You have never doubted my love? You are true to me still; and I'm thankful for it. I would rather see you dead at my feet than know you were false to your solemn promise!”
The pa.s.sionate voice, speaking so close to her ear that she can feel his hot breath on her cheek, the pale eager face peering into hers, as if to read its secret even in the darkness, strikes a sudden chill through the girl. For the first time personal fear--fear of the man before her--a.s.sails her.
”Have you no word for me?” the man pleads wistfully. ”You stand there like a spirit, and say no word of comfort or of pity! By heavens, if I did not know all that you dared for my sake, I should swear that you had no love in your heart for me!”
”Love for you!” she cries at last, speaking on the impulse of the moment, as it is in her nature to speak. ”Why should I love you? What love had you for me when you shot my father--when----”
But he steps her almost savagely.
”I fired only one shot that night; but-- [lack in the text] ses on my false aim!--that missed the man I hated.”
”And that man was Brian Beresford?”
”Yes,” he answers slowly, defiantly, even, ”it was Brian Beresford. It is no fault of mine he is alive to-night.”
”And you would have killed him?” she cries, drawing back from him.
”Why not? He would have sent me to Kilmainham.”
He is changed already--the girl divines this instinctively, and shrinks still farther away from him against the damp wall. This life that he has led--separated from friends and equals--has done its work.
”And now, Honor, we have no time to lose. Everything is ready for me to get away to-night, but”--with a sudden break in the pa.s.sionate voice--”oh, my love, I cannot go without you!”
”You cannot go without me, Power?” the girl gasps. In her wildest dreams no such fancy as this had risen to trouble her. ”But you must go without me! I cannot go with you!”
”And why not, if you love me?”
”But I do not love you,” the girl says calmly. ”I am very sorry for you; but all love is done with between us. Surely, Power, after that night you knew it would be so?”
He does not answer her, and his silence fills her with more anxiety and fear than could any pa.s.sionate outburst.
He has walked to the end of the court, and stands there, looking over the broken parapet. Once she fancies that he raises his hand, as though beckoning to some one, but she is not certain, because it is so dark and he is so far off. As she stands s.h.i.+vering, she hears a step go slowly past. Surely it is Brian's step? Oh, what would she not give for the sight of his face now? And then his warning comes back to her--”He's a dangerous man--a man not to be trusted.” Can it be that he knew him better than she did? Power himself has not been careful to keep this meeting from his friends. More than once she has caught a glimpse of dark figures pa.s.sing to and fro at the farther end of the court, where the pillars are still standing; and, as she realizes the fact that she is alone, a helpless girl, in the midst of these men, desperate and lawless as she knows them to be, it is only by an immense effort she keeps from screaming aloud. It would be useless, she knows--it might even bring about the very results she has most to dread.
”Honor,” her lover says, coming back to her, ”I have no time to plead with you, and sure I have no need to tell you again how I love you. I thought and hoped you would have come with me this night of your own free will; but since you will not do that, by St. Joseph, you shall come without it!”
From the road comes a sudden shrill whistle, and the girl's heart sinks within her. Oh, how mad she has been to put herself in the power of this man and his a.s.sociates!
For an instant, as she leans against the wall behind her, a faintness steals over her. Her eyes grow dim, and there is a sound in her ears like the rush and roar of the weir down the river.
When this feeling has pa.s.sed away she hears Power's voice speaking, as it seems to her dizzy brain, out of great darkness.
”There is a car waiting to take us to Boyne. Once there we are with friends, and you can make all needful preparations for our journey.”