Part 36 (2/2)

Ca.s.sandra's face hardened.

”No,” she said coldly. ”I am not thinking of Bernard. If there were only Bernard to consider, it would be different. Bernard has not kept his promise to love and cherish me all his life. I am a live woman, and he treats me like a machine. A man like that has no right to a wife.

If I left him, it would open his eyes to his own selfishness, and do him good. He would marry again, and his second wife would reap the benefit.

You need me more than Bernard needs me, and I need you... But there's the boy--”

”And,” said Peignton heavily, ”Teresa!”

Ca.s.sandra glanced at him swiftly, and into her eyes came fear.

”Dane... will you, can you,--marry her _new_?”

”I have told her that it's impossible, but she insisted on keeping on the engagement. I stood out, but she said that possibly your name might be dragged in if the engagement were broken off just now, after our visit to you.--I could not stand the risk of that, so--it was left!”

”And you are engaged to her still?”

”Nominally. Yes. She is very considerate. She makes it as easy for me as she can... That's a hateful thing to say! I hate myself for saying it. If it's hard for us, it's harder for her. She's the one left out.

She might have made things unbearable. Can you imagine what it would have been if she had blurted out the whole tale,--told it to her own people, to have it handed round the neighbourhood, with a hundred exaggerations within twenty-four hours? A girl might so easily have lost her head under the circ.u.mstances, but she--I don't think she reproached me once! She seemed all the way through to think of me more than herself.--I never saw her more sweet!”

A vision of Teresa had come into his mind as with flus.h.i.+ng cheeks she had said, ”There might be children!” Many times over had he recalled that moment, and always with the same tenderness and pain. Ca.s.sandra recognised the note in his voice, and felt a very human pang of jealousy.

”What did she say about _Me_?”

”You and I count as one. We must do. There's no considering us apart.

She fears that if I were free, it would be one barrier removed, and we should be the more tempted.--By holding me to my word, she is doing all that is in her power to prevent--”

Ca.s.sandra's short upper lip curved with a touch of scorn. It touched her pride that insignificant Teresa Mallison should presume to lay down rules for her guidance. It had pleased her to admit the girl to a certain amount of intimacy, but always it had been she who had condescended, Teresa who gratefully received. Ca.s.sandra was not a sn.o.b, but she was an Earl's daughter, and the consciousness of her birth was very present at that moment.

”It seems,” she said coldly, ”that we are in Teresa's hands! She has given you her orders, and you have obeyed.”

Then Peignton looked at her, and she quailed before the pa.s.sion in his eyes.

”Give me _your_ orders,” he said thickly, ”and she goes, everything goes! I'll throw over the whole thing to-night, work, honour, friends-- everything there is, if you will give me yourself--if you'll come to me to-night, and let me take you away--Oh, my Beautiful, if you only would...”

”Dane! Dane!” cried Ca.s.sandra sharply, ”_I want to_!” She covered her face with her hands, and he wrapped her close to his heart. ”Am I wicked? Am I wicked? I've always called a woman wicked who felt like this, but it seems now as if it would be so right, so natural: so much more natural than saying good-bye! But I can't--I can't do it. I'm bound with chains. It's the boy's home...”

They clung together in silence. On this point at least there was nothing more to be said, and each realised as much. The chains might tear Ca.s.sandra's heart, but they would not give way, for they were forged out of the strongest sentiment of the human heart. The mother in her would not stain her boy's home. In the midst of his misery, Peignton loved her the more for her loyalty.

Presently she spoke again in a low, exhausted voice:

”Dane--what shall you do?”

”I? I don't know. Leave Chumley as soon as possible. Go somewhere else. It doesn't matter where. Nothing matters. But I must clear out of this.”

”Is it necessary? If we meet very seldom? Never, if you think it better, in private! Would it really be easier if you never saw me? I don't feel as if I can live if I lose you altogether. Even to see you driving past in the street--”

Peignton shook his head.

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