Part 55 (2/2)
At last I heard a step, and looking through the leaves I saw the object of my thoughts coming through the garden, reading a letter. My eyes glistened with triumph. ”The chance I coveted has come,” I muttered, and I watched her intently. She soon crushed the letter in her hand and came swiftly toward the arbor, with a face so full of deep and almost wild distress that my heart relented, and I resolved to be as gentle as I before had intended to be decisive and argumentative. I hastily changed my seat to the angle by the entrance, so that I could intercept her should she try to escape the interview.
She entered, and throwing herself down on the seat, buried her face in her arm.
”Miss Warren,” I began.
She started up with a pa.s.sionate gesture. ”You have no right to intrude on me now,” she said, almost sternly.
”Pardon me, were I not here when you entered, I would still have a right to come. You are in deep distress. Why must I be inhuman any more than yourself? You have at least promised me friends.h.i.+p, but you treat me like an enemy.”
”You have been my worst enemy.”
”I take issue with you there at once. I've never had a thought toward you that was not most kind and loyal.
”Loyal!” she replied, bitterly; ”that word in itself is a stab.”
”Miss Warren,” I said, very gently, ”you make discord in the old garden to-day.”
She dropped her letter on the ground and sank on the seat again. Such a pa.s.sion of sobs shook her slight frame that I trembled with apprehension. But I kept quiet, believing that Nature could care for her child better than I could, and that her outburst of feeling would bring relief. At last, as she became a little more self-controlled, I said, gravely and kindly:
”There must be some deep cause for this deep grief.”
”Oh, what shall I do?” she sobbed. ”What shall I do? I wish the earth would open and swallow me up.”
”That wish is as vain as it is cruel. I wish you would tell me all, and let me help you. I think I deserve it at your hands.”
”Well, since you know so much, you may as well know all. It doesn't matter now, since every one will soon know. He has written that his business will take him to Europe within a month--that we must be married--that he will bring his sister here to-night to help me make arrangements. Oh! oh! I'd rather die than ever see him again. I've wronged him so cruelly, so causelessly.”
In wild exultation I s.n.a.t.c.hed a pocketbook from my coat and cried:
”Miss Warren--Emily--do you remember this little York and Lancaster bud that you gave me the day we first met? Do you remember my half-jesting, random words, 'To the victor belong the spoils'? See, the victor is at your feet.”
She sprang up and turned her back upon me. ”Rise!” she said, in a voice so cold and stern that, bewildered, I obeyed.
She soon became as calm as before she had been pa.s.sionate and unrestrained in her grief; but it was a stony quietness that chilled and disheartened me before she spoke.
”It does indeed seem as if the truth between us could never be hidden,”
she said, bitterly. ”You have now very clearly shown your estimate of me. You regard me as one of those weak women of the past whom the strongest carry off. You have been the stronger in this case--oh, you know it well! Not even in the house of G.o.d could I escape your vigilant scrutiny. You hoped and watched and waited for me to be false. Should I yield to you, you would never forget that I had been false, and, in accordance with your creed, you would ever fear--that is, if your pa.s.sion lasted long enough--the coming of one still stronger, to whom in the weak necessity of my nature, I again would yield. Low as I have fallen, I will never accept from a man a mere pa.s.sion devoid of respect and honor. I'm no longer ent.i.tled to these, therefore I'll accept nothing.”
She poured out these words like a torrent, in spite of my gestures of pa.s.sionate dissent, and my efforts to be heard; but it was a cold, pitiless torrent. Excited as I was, I saw how intense was her self-loathing. I also saw despairingly that she embraced me in her scorn.
”Miss Warren,” I said, dejectedly, ”since you are so unjust to yourself, what hope have I?”
”There is little enough for either of us,” she continued, more bitterly; ”at least there is none for me. You will, no doubt, get bravely over it, as you said. Men generally do, especially when in their hearts they have no respect for the woman with whom they are infatuated. Mr. Morton, the day of your coming was indeed the day of _my_ fate. I wish you could have saved the lives of the others, but not mine. I could then have died in peace, with honor unstained. But now, what is my life but an intolerable burden of shame and self-reproach?
Without cause and beyond the thought of forgiveness, I've wronged a good, honorable man, who has been a kind and faithful friend for years.
He is bringing his proud, aristocratic sister here to-night to learn how false and contemptible I am. The people among whom I earned my humble livelihood will soon know how unfit I am to be trusted with their daughters--that I am one who falls a spoil to the strongest. I have lost everything--chief of all my pearl of great price--my truth.
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