Part 58 (1/2)

”Justine,” he said, speaking once more in his natural voice.

She raised her face from her hands, and they looked at each other.

”Justine--this afternoon--I said things I didn't mean to say.”

Her lips parted, but her throat was still full of sobs, and she could only look at him while the tears ran down.

”I believe I understand now,” he continued, in the same quiet tone.

Her hand shrank from his clasp, and she began to tremble again. ”Oh, if you only _believe_...if you're not sure...don't pretend to be!”

He sat down beside her and drew her into his arms. ”I am sure,” he whispered, holding her close, and pressing his lips against her face and hair.

”Oh, my husband--my husband! You've come back to me?”

He answered her with more kisses, murmuring through them: ”Poor child--poor child--poor Justine....” while he held her fast.

With her face against him she yielded to the childish luxury of murmuring out unjustified fears. ”I was afraid you had gone back to Hanaford----”

”Tonight? To Hanaford?”

”To tell your mother.”

She felt a contraction of the arm embracing her, as though a throb of pain had stiffened it.

”I shall never tell any one,” he said abruptly; but as he felt in her a responsive shrinking he gathered her close again, whispering through the hair that fell about her cheek: ”Don't talk, dear...let us never talk of it again....” And in the clasp of his arms her terror and anguish subsided, giving way, not to the deep peace of tranquillized thought, but to a confused well-being that lulled all thought to sleep.

x.x.xVII

BUT thought could never be long silent between them; and Justine's triumph lasted but a day.

With its end she saw what it had been made of: the ascendency of youth and s.e.x over his subjugated judgment. Her first impulse was to try and maintain it--why not use the protective arts with which love inspired her? She who lived so keenly in the brain could live as intensely in her feelings; her quick imagination tutored her looks and words, taught her the spells to weave about shorn giants. And for a few days she and Amherst lost themselves in this self-evoked cloud of pa.s.sion, both clinging fast to the visible, the palpable in their relation, as if conscious already that its finer essence had fled.

Amherst made no allusion to what had pa.s.sed, asked for no details, offered no rea.s.surances--behaved as if the whole episode had been effaced from his mind. And from Wyant there came no sound: he seemed to have disappeared from life as he had from their talk.

Toward the end of the week Amherst announced that he must return to Hanaford; and Justine at once declared her intention of going with him.

He seemed surprised, disconcerted almost; and for the first time the shadow of what had happened fell visibly between them.

”But ought you to leave Cicely before Mr. Langhope comes back?” he suggested.

”He will be here in two days.”

”But he will expect to find you.”

”It is almost the first of April. We are to have Cicely with us for the summer. There is no reason why I should not go back to my work at Westmore.”

There was in fact no reason that he could produce; and the next day they returned to Hanaford together.