Part 63 (1/2)
”I met you not very far from that square, and I thought----”
”Pray take time, and conclude your sentence.”
She shook her head.
”Some important business connected with my profession, and involving a case long ago placed in my hands, called me, despite the unfavourable weather, to that section of the city. Having particularly desired and instructed you to come home as soon as the rehearsal at Mrs. Brompton's ended, I certainly had no right to suppose you intended to disobey me.”
He paused, but she remained a pale image of silent sorrow.
”A few evenings since you asked me to trust you, and in defiance of my judgment I reluctantly promised to do so. Have you not forfeited your guardian's confidence?”
”Perhaps so; but it was unavoidable.”
”Unavoidable that you should systematically deceive me?” he demanded very sternly.
”I have not deceived you.”
”My duty as your guardian forces me to deal plainly with you. With whom have you arranged this disgraceful clandestine correspondence?”
Her gaze swept quite past him, ascended to the pitying brown eyes in her mother's portrait; and though she grew white as her Undine vesture, and he saw her shudder, her voice was unshaken.
”I cannot tell you.”
”Representing your mother's authority, I demand an answer.”
After an instant, she said:
”Though you were twenty times my guardian, I shall not tell you, sir.”
She seemed like some marble statue, which one might hack and hew in twain, without extorting a confession.
”Then you force me to a very shocking and shameful conclusion.”
Was there, she wondered, any conclusion so shameful as the truth, which at all hazard she was resolved for her mother's sake to hide?
”You are secretly meeting and arranging to correspond with some vagrant lover whom you blush so acknowledge.”
”Lover! Oh, merciful G.o.d! When I need a father, and a father's protecting name--when I am heart-sick for my mother, and her s.h.i.+elding healing love--how can you cruelly talk to me of a lover?
What right has a nameless, homeless waif to think of love? G.o.d grant me a father and a mother, a stainless name, and I shall never need, never wish, never tolerate a lover! Do not insult my misery.”
She lifted her clenched hands almost menacingly, and her pa.s.sionate vehemence startled her companion, who could scarcely recognize in the glittering defiant gaze that met his the velvet violet eyes over which the silken fringes had hung with such tender Madonna grace but a half-hour before.
”Regina, how could you deceive me so shamefully?”
”I did not intend to do so. I am innocent of the disgraceful motives you impute to me; but I cannot explain what you condemn so severely.
In all that I have done I have been impelled by a stern, painful sense of duty, and my conscience acquits me; but I shall not give you any explanation. To no human being, except my mother, will I confess the whole matter. Oh, send me at once to her! I asked you to trust me, and you believe me utterly unworthy, think I have forfeited your confidence, even your respect. It is hard, very hard, for I hoped to possess always your good opinion. But it must be borne, and now at least, holding me so low in your esteem, you will not keep me under your roof; you will gladly send me to mother. Let me go. Oh! do let me go--at once; to-morrow.”
She seemed inexplicably transformed into a woeful desperate woman, and the man's heart yearned to fold her closely in his arms, sheltering her for ever.