Part 38 (2/2)
”Yes, slightly.”
”Then,” in a curiously hard voice, ”you knew nothing good of him. Well,”
with a sigh, ”no matter; afterward you can tell me what it was. When I was eighteen he brought me home from school, not that he wanted my society,--I was rather in his way than otherwise, and it wasn't a good way,--but because he had a purpose in view. One day, when I had been home three months, a visitor came to see us. He was introduced to me by my father. He was young, dark, not ugly, well-mannered,” here she pauses as though to recover breath, and then breaks out with a pa.s.sion that shakes all her slight frame, ”but hateful, vile, _loathsome_.”
”My darling, don't go on; I don't want to hear about him,” implores Cyril, anxiously.
”But I must tell you. He possessed that greatest of all virtues in my father's eyes,--wealth. He was rich. He admired me; I was very pretty then. He dared to say he loved me. He asked me to marry him, and--I refused him.”
As though the words are forced from her, she utters them in short, unequal sentences; her lips have turned the color of death.
”I suppose he went then to my father, and they planned it all between them, because at this time he--that is, my father--began to tell me he was in debt, hopelessly, irretrievably in debt. Among others, he mentioned certain debts of (so-called) honor, which, if not paid within a given time, would leave him not only a beggar, but a disgraced one upon the face of the earth; and I believed him. He worked upon my feelings day by day, with pretended tears, with vows of amendment. I don't know,” bitterly, ”what his share of the bargain was to be, but I do know he toiled for it conscientiously. I was young, unusually so for my age, without companions, romantic, impressionable. It seemed to me a grand thing to sacrifice myself and thereby save my father; and if I would only consent to marry Mr. Arlington he had promised not only to avoid dice, but to give up his habits of intemperance. It is an old story, is it not? No doubt you know it by heart. Crafty age and foolish youth,--what chance had I? One day I gave in, I said I would marry Mr.
Arlington, and he sold me to him three weeks later. We were married.”
Here her voice fails her again, and a little moan of agonized recollection escapes her. Cyril, clasping her still closer to him, presses a kiss upon her brow. At the sweet contact of his lips she sighs, and two large tears gathering in her eyes roll slowly down her cheeks.
”A week after my wretched marriage,” she goes on, ”I discovered accidentally that my father had lied to me and tricked me. His circ.u.mstances were not so bad as he had represented to me, and it was on the condition that he was to have a certain income from Mr. Arlington yearly that he had persuaded me to marry him. He did not long enjoy it.
He died,” slowly, ”two months afterward. Of my life with--my husband I shall not tell you; the recital would only revolt you. Only to think of it now makes me feel deadly ill; and often from my dreams, as I live it all over again, I start, cold with horror and disgust. It did not last long, which was merciful: six months after our marriage he eloped with an actress and went to Vienna.”
”The blackguard! the scoundrel!” says Cyril, between his teeth, drawing his breath sharply.
”I never saw him again. In a little while I received tidings of his death: he had been stabbed in a brawl in some drinking-house, and only lived a few hours after it. And I was once more free.”
She pauses, and involuntarily stretches forth both her hands into the twilight, as one might who long in darkness, being thrust into the full light of day, seeks to grasp and retain it.
”When I heard of his death,” she says, turning to Cyril, and speaking in a clear intense tone, ”I _laughed_! For the first time for many months, I laughed aloud! I declared my thankfulness in a distinct voice.
My heart beat with honest, undisguised delight when I knew I should never see him again, should never in all the years to come s.h.i.+ver and tremble in his hated presence. He was dead, and I was heartily glad of it.”
She stops, in terrible agitation. An angry fire gleams in her large gray eyes. She seems for the moment to have utterly forgotten Cyril's nearness, as in memory she lives over again all the detested past. Cyril lays his hand lightly upon her shoulder, her eyes meet his, and then the anger dies from them. She sighs heavily, and then goes on:
”After that I don't know what happened for a long time, because I got brain-fever, and, but for one friend who all through had done his best for me, I should have died. He and his sister nursed me through it, and brought me back to life again; but,” mournfully, ”they could not restore to me my crushed youth, my ruined faith, my girlish hopes. A few months had changed me from a mere child into a cold, unloving woman.”
”Don't say that,” says Cyril, gently.
”Until now,” returns she, looking at him with eyes full of the most intense affection; ”now all is different.”
”Beloved, how you have suffered!” he says, pressing her head down again upon his breast, and caressing with loving fingers her rich hair. ”But it is all over, and if I can make you so, you shall be happy in the future. And your one friend? Who was he?”
She hesitates perceptibly, and a blush creeping up dyes her pale face crimson.
”Perhaps I know,” says Cyril, an unaccountable misgiving at his heart.
”Was it Colonel Trant? Do not answer me if you do not wish it,” very gently.
”Yes, it was he. There is no reason why I should not answer you.”
”No?”
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