Edith turned round sharply, so sharply, in fact, that her mother was startled, for sudden movements were not characteristic of her.
"Do you really think that is all, mother?" she said. "And if so, how about the Sundays? He was not here last Sunday, and he is not coming down for next Sunday."
"But what do you mean, Edith?" asked Mrs. Hancock. "You have not had a quarrel or anything?"
What Edith could not say to her cousin was possible now.
"No, we have not quarrelled," she said. "But what if he doesn't even care to quarrel? What if he has ceased to care at all? Or"—it came out with difficulty—"or if he cares for somebody else?"
Mrs. Hancock was sufficiently disturbed not to call attention to another cuckoo, that, in defiance of the rhyme, was still gifted with complete speech.
"But what a wild and dreadful idea!" she said. "Have you any reason for supposing so?"
So far could Edith go. But she could not tell her mother that she had definite suspicions that affinities, attractions had begun to exert their force between her lover and Elizabeth. The chief feeling that kept her silent was pride. The confession would be humiliating; she would be acknowledging herself as having failed to feed the affection she had inspired. Her love for him, genuine though it was, and the best of which her nature was capable, was not large enough to make her drown herself. She still kept her own head above water, not guessing that it is through the drowning, the asphyxiation of self, that the full life of love is born. A second cause of reticence, less dominant, was her belief in Edward's loyalty. It was overlaid with suspicion, which, ivy-like, covered it, and thrust pushing tendrils between the stones of its solidity, but beneath all this rank growth it was still there. She did not yet quite soberly believe all that she suspected. She sat silent a moment, to her mother's huge discomfort, weighing her pride in the balance and confusing it with her loyalty.
"If it were not for his absence I should not have any reason," she said. "But I don't understand his absence."
The gospel according to Mr. Martin was of the greatest assistance on this point.
"Then, my dear, dismiss it altogether," said Mrs. Hancock, with relief. "Why, it was that very point that Mr. Martin spoke of last Sunday. Ah! I remember; you could not go to church because of your ankle. But he told us that we ourselves were responsible for most of our own unhappiness, and that if we only determined to feel cheerful and thankful we should find the causes of thankfulness being multiplied round us. Was it not a coincidence that he preached on that very subject? One can hardly call it a coincidence; indeed, one feels sure there must have been some purpose behind it. What lovely sunshine, is it not? And there is the old mill. So picturesque! Tell Denton to stop a moment and let us look at it."
A pause was made for the contemplation of this particular cause for thankfulness, and Mrs. Hancock put up her parasol to temper the other.
"Well, that is nice!" she said. "Shall we drive on? I have never heard Mr. Martin more convincing and eloquent, and I'm sure he practises what he preaches, for he has always got a smile and a pleasant word for everybody. So dismiss it all from your mind, dear, and I'll be bound you will find Edward coming down here before many days are past, just the same as ever, showing how right Mr. Martin is, for your cheerfulness will be rewarded. I see nothing odd in his having to stop up in town all the week; and as for his going away for a couple of Sundays to see his friends, what could be more natural? You would not wish him to be without friends, I am sure, or to shirk the claims of friendship. And since you said that his absence was your only ground for your dreadfully foolish idea, I think we may consider that we've disposed of that. Now let us look about us and enjoy ourselves. Oh, there's a windmill! How its sails are going round!"
Mrs. Hancock cast a slightly questioning glance at her daughter to see if Mr. Martin's wonderful prescription was acting at once, like laughing-gas, and, finding that Edith still sat serious and silent, proceeded to administer other fortifying medicines.
"He has often told us to busy ourselves with plans and thoughts for others," she said. "And there, again, how he practises what he preaches: he has had the dining-room repapered, since Mrs. Martin thought it was a little gloomy, and has given her the most beautiful new carpet for her sitting-room. And I'm sure I've never been happier in my life than this summer, with all your future, dear, to plan and scheme for, and with Elizabeth as well to think about. I must say I haven't had a moment to think about myself, even if I had wanted to."
Her kind face beamed with such smiles as Mr. Martin considered to be symptomatic of the Christian life.
"I've got a plan about Elizabeth," she said, "though it's a secret yet. But I should like to tell you about it. I am thinking of making a proposal to Elizabeth and suggesting that she should not go back to India as early as October. There is no great affection between her and her stepmother, and I expect she often feels very lonely and unhappy there, with no music and, as far as I can judge, only soldiers to talk to. Dear Elizabeth! I think she is enjoying our quiet life at Heathmoor. I dare say that after those dreadful wildernesses and jungles in India it seems to her one round of excitement and pleasure and parties and operas, all given her free. Indeed, I have a further plan still, which will make her quite wild with pleasure, I am sure. I am thinking of asking her to come with me to Egypt, and I have written to ask Uncle Bob about it, just to see if he will allow it before I say anything to her. Of course, he would pay for her journey—and, indeed, it is all on the way to India—and her hotel expenses. But I should not dream of charging her for her share of our sitting-room, if we have one. I shall go shares with Edward in that, and I dare say the servants at the hotel would not expect her to tip them!"
Mrs. Hancock's plans for other people always necessitated a certain amount of interpretation; it was important to look at them from her point of view. Here the interpretation was easy. It had occurred to her that she would be rather lonely when Edith and Edward left after their marriage, and that in Egypt it would be pleasant to have somebody in constant attendance on her, since the other two, presumably, would want to make all kinds of expeditions that she herself might not care to join in. She liked Elizabeth's vitality and fervour, finding it stimulating. This point she touched on next.
"I declare Elizabeth is as good as a tonic," she said, "with all her high spirits and gaiety, though for the last ten days she has not been quite so lively. I dare say it is the hot weather, though, to be sure, she ought to be used to that. Here we are, on the heath again. We shall be at home in ten minutes. How quickly we have come! Well, my darling, I do think I have managed to disperse your clouds for you this morning. I don't think Edward's absence will give you any more anxiety now that we have talked so fully about it. There is nothing like talking a thing thoroughly over. You will see that it will not be long before his stress of work is finished. Perhaps he is making quantities and quantities of money, for I hear that sometimes on the Stock Exchange people make fortunes in quite a short time. Would not that be exciting?"
Mrs. Hancock, as has been seen, had a great belief in the imitative instinct, which she interpreted by means of her own. To her it meant that if she herself felt thoroughly content and happy, it was certain that those round her would feel happy too, for she diffused happiness. In the same way, if she felt very well she knew that she diffused a spirit of health. It was a comfortable belief (like all the clauses of her creed), and she would have been quite incredulous if she had been told that all she had done was to accentuate Edith's suspicions by her allusion to Elizabeth's diminished liveliness, and to depress her thoroughly at the thought of Elizabeth joining them on the Egyptian tour. And had Edith known how Elizabeth had been spending this last hour while her mother had been so rich in unconvincingness, she would have known how solid her suspicions really were.
The girl had gone up to her bedroom after the motor had started in order to be secure against any further interruption, and had again read through the letter she had received from Edward that morning, which, as Edith had ascertained, contained two sheets. She heard his voice in the pleading sentences; it seemed to her as she read, with eyes that ever and again were too dim to decipher the words, that he was actually talking to her. And she could not interrupt him, argue with him as she would have done if he had been here; she had to fight the cumulative effect of those close-written lines. He besought her to allow him to come down, for it was at her instance that he stayed away, and tell Edith all. He scouted as childish the idea that absence could make any difference, that he could forget what she had called "the excited madness of that evening." Above all, again and yet again, with a lover's clamorous iteration, he begged her to see him.
Elizabeth sat with this letter in front of her for a long time after she had finished reading and rereading it, letting her tears have their way with her. In strange guise had the soft god come to her, girt about with bitterness and impossibilities. She raged at herself for loving him; she reviled this torturing demon that others found so sweet, but how she longed for the changed, transfigured aspect that he burned to show her. Once, for mere relief of heart, she filled a page with scrawled words of love, only to tear it up again, and once she filled another page with useless denials, with cold assertions that Edward was nothing to her, that she was perfectly indifferent to him. That, too, was fruitless; he knew she loved him, and even if she could have convinced him that it was not so, she could not have brought herself so to convince him to deny the most sacred truth that she had ever known. She could no more have done that than she could accept the love which brought misery on another and rose from the ashes of a broken promise. If there was no binding force in loyalty all ties were dissolved.
After a while her sobs grew quieter, and she tore up the letter she had begun to him when Edith, that morning, had come in from the garden. Till then, Elizabeth had not known that her cousin suspected anything, that she had begun to put the real construction on Edward's absence. Now it was necessary to quiet those suspicions, to let Edward know also, in a way she could not convey by letter, that while Edith claimed his promise, that promise could not be broken for any reason whatever. Nothing in the world seemed so certain as this. Edith must voluntarily give him up before.... Then she carefully erased that sentence. That contingency was not to be thought of yet.
Elizabeth felt utterly weary and confused and heart-sick. Obstacles, menacing and monstrous, faced her in whichever direction she turned. Perhaps Edward's presence would only confirm and strengthen Edith's suspicions, and lead her to the certainty which she suspected. Yet if Edward continued to be absent, that would lead to a break on his side, at his initiative, and it was that above all that must be avoided. If he threw her over, said he could not marry her, the hosts of hell and heaven combined would not be able to bring Elizabeth to him. She could not take what by right was Edith's against Edith's will. It was possible, and more than possible, that Edith might see he did not love her, and not release him only, but bid him begone. And yet Edward had never loved her, while she, loving him in her own manner, had been content with his liking and friendly intimacy. When she knew that his heart had been awakened, but not for her, would she still desire that moonlight, when his sun had risen on another land? Elizabeth, as she finished her letter to Edward, felt that she had not the slightest idea.
The letter got written, and no word of tenderness or love appeared in it; it might have been penned by some fossil of a family friend and written in prehistoric ink, for if she had not written like that there was but one other way in which she could write to him, and she would have said, "I am coming to you." The thinnest partition, but a partition the most impenetrable, insulated her from him. On this point her will stood utterly firm. In this short, dry note she did not attempt to argue the question; she merely told him that he must come down at once, and put an end to Edith's intolerable suspicions. "But for you to break your engagement to her will not bring me one step nearer you," were the concluding words. Whether she was acting wisely or not, whether there was not some step she could take later that would be cleverer, more tactful, she could not consider. The situation was simple enough, and they had to wait for Edith to decide its solution.
The thing was done; that cold, hard little sentence that finished her letter was written. All this last week of his absence she had wondered whether her will would stand firm enough to enable her to tell him that, and to make no other answer to his pleading. She knew that when he came down, as he assuredly would on the next day, she would be obliged to see him, to let him in justice state the case for himself. But she had now her own word to bind her; she would be able, by memory, to recapture the spirit of the moment when she wrote it. It was her definite decision, and the knowledge of it would fortify her. She would need it, she felt, when she was face to face with him and her overwhelming need of him.
A resolution taken and embedded in the mortar of fact always gives relief, even if a death-sentence is involved in it. The acute edge of suspense is removed, and when Elizabeth, having posted her letter, strolled out again into the garden, she was conscious of a certain tranquillity, to which for the last ten days she had been an utter stranger. She did not suppose that there was anything more than a lull in the tempest; she knew that it must again howl and buffet round her, but even as on the night after the opera, she had felt a momentary calm as she looked at the moonlit flood-tide, so now she was given another respite. But now she felt securer; she had gained a little ground, she could look out over the contention and estimate the odds against her as less desperate.
It was just here she had walked on the dewy morning, in ecstasy of unreflecting happiness, when the instinct to give thanks to Some One first came to her. To-day she saw the triumphant riot of midsummer under a noonday sun, and she, no less than the garden, was surrounded by the burden and heat. The dew and freshness had faded from the cool petals, and the heavy heads of the roses drooped on their stems. But with brimming eyes and bitten lip she encouraged herself to exhibit a sturdier pluck than they. She would not yield, she would not hang her head, she would, whatever the issues might be, be grateful to the power that had come into her soul, the power to love. Ignorantly, ten days ago, she had thought that sufficient; now, with greater knowledge, she wondered whether her ignorance had not told her right, after all. Then it seemed to matter nothing so long as she loved; now, just for a little while, she knew it mattered nothing. She caught a glimpse, as of snow-peaks behind storm-clouds, of a reality so lofty, so serene, that she almost distrusted her eyes.
Suddenly her mind sped on its magic flight to the low white house at Peshawar, from which so often she had lifted her eyes up through the heat-haze to the quivering lines of eternal snows, to the steadfast peaks that rose above all dust and storm-cloud, and she smiled as she recognized by what association of ideas her mind had winged its way thither. The gardens there would be withered in the heat, but she yearned for the scene where life had been so unperplexed. Above all, she yearned for her father, who even now retained the simplicity of youth; she yearned for his comradeship, his wisdom, his patience, his sympathy. She could have told him all the trouble so easily and confidently; she could hear him say, "Lizzie, dear, I am so sorry, but, of course, you had to do just what you did." She could have argued with him, taking the side of her longing and love, telling him that nothing could be counted or reckoned with against the fact that she and Edward loved each other. And again she could hear him say, "My dear, I know you don't think that really." And then she could have said, "No, no, I don't mean it," and have sobbed her heart out against that rough homespun jacket which he wore in the garden.
The garden! At the end was a low wall, over which one night she had vaulted, when, just outside, lay the dying Brahmin, to whom a beggar's death by the wayside, needy, indigent, was a triumph that transcended all telling, was the finding of that which all his life he had sought. His eyes, already dim in death, were open not upon death, but life. He had renounced all the fair things that the world offered to find something infinitely fairer. Round him, tired, hungry, dying, the banner of some stupendous triumph waved.
How had he reached that? By seeking.
And how had he sought? By renunciation.
And what had he found? Life.
The moment had worn the vividness and splendour of a dream, and Elizabeth was again conscious of the heavy-headed flowers and the noonday heat. The wheels of the motor scraped on the gravel sweep at the other side of the house, and in another minute she would be plunged back in the deeds and the needs of every day. But she no longer felt so utterly alone and desolate; far behind the storm she had seen the snows, and for a moment the moonlight had shone on the face of the dying Brahmin. There was some tie between them all, something that expressed itself in the peace of the great silence, and in the vision of the dying eyes, and—was she not right in hoping?—in the choice she had just made. There was one thread running through them, there was a factor common to them all.
And here was Mrs. Hancock coming into the garden.
"My dear, is it wise to be out in this sun without a hat?" she asked. "You have had a nice quiet time for your practising, haven't you? I was telling Edith that I felt sure Edward would think you had got on, when he comes down here again."
Elizabeth's letter to Edward had pressed upon him an immediate return to Heathmoor, at the cost of his week-end engagement, if such existed. To them both the desire of their hearts for each other had been revealed on that night of the opera, as chaos suddenly made manifest by a flash of lightning, and on all considerations it had been more decent and wise that he should absent himself. But, as Elizabeth had foreseen, this absence could not indefinitely continue, since it implied absence from Edith as well as herself, and was but of the nature of a temporary measure, to give breathing-space and time for reflection. She had told him, but not with confidence, that absence would restore his legitimate allegiance; poor girl, she had but little trust herself in the mildness of that prescription, which was, so to speak, but a dose where the knife was called for. In any case, Edith's revealed suspicions had rendered his return necessary. Whatever the solution of that knot into which the heart-strings of three young folk were tangled, it must be dealt with by his presence here.
For both girls the interval before he could answer, whether his reply was an argued negative to Elizabeth or an affirmative announcement to Edith, passed in acute discomfort, that rose and fell, like the ebb and flow of the physical pain of some deep-seated mischief, into crises of anguish and numb reactions. There was not an employment, there was scarcely a topic of conversation that did not conduct them sooner or later to an impassable road, where was a red flag and a danger signal. The hours passed in broken conversation and aching silences, with Edith sentinelled about by her fears and jealousies, Elizabeth torn with longings, and hearing amid the troubled peace of her renunciation voices that accused her of bitter cruelty to herself and to him and poured scorn on the tragic folly of her refusal. Twenty times that day she felt she could barely resist the need of telegraphing to him, cancelling her letter, and, acceding to his imperative desire, of simply taking the next train up to town, going to him, and saying, "I have come." But her will renounced him still, and her will still dominated her deeds. And all the time she knew that Edith watched her with sidelong glances that were quickly removed when her own eyes met them. Sometimes it seemed that Edith must speak, so intense was the miserable strain, but she always shied away at the last moment. Over those palpitating duellists, who never quite came to blows, presided Mrs. Hancock, unconscious and bland, foolish and voluble. She had experienced a moment's discomfort this morning, when Edith spoke to her of Edward's continued absence, but, as Mr. Martin would have her do, she dismissed it with complete success from her mind, telling herself that she had quite cleared it all up, and made Edith comfortable again. The obvious constraint that hung over the two girls she merely refused to admit into her mind. It might batter and ring at the door, and there was no need for her even to open that door a chink, and assert that she was out. She sat and knitted at her crossovers, and in the evening played patience, refusing to hear the signals of distress and trouble. Next day came a telegram from Edward to Edith announcing his arrival at half-past seven that evening, and asking, or rather supposing, that he might dine with them. It was delivered at lunch-time, and Edith, as she tore it open, glanced at Elizabeth opposite, and saw the sudden whiteness of her face, saw that she sat with her fork half-raised to her lips, then put it back on her plate again, that she waited with hand pressed to the table to control its trembling. His message gave rise to debate, for Mrs. Hancock and Edith were engaged to dine at the Vicarage that night, and a small solitary dinner had already, three hours before, been ordered for Elizabeth. There was to be a slip, a lamb cutlet—quite enough and not too much.
"Of course, it would be natural," said Mrs. Hancock, "to ask him to come and have a little dinner with you, dear Elizabeth, and then you could amuse yourselves by playing to each other afterwards till Edith and I returned. And then Edith and I could have made an excuse to get away perhaps at ten, or even five minutes before. But now your dinner is ordered; it is very provoking, and Mrs. Williams——"
Edith interrupted, watching Elizabeth narrowly. Her jealousy seemed to have divided itself into two camps. Part (and for the moment this was the stronger) allied itself with this scheme; if Elizabeth and Edward had an evening together, things (if there were things) would declare themselves; there would be an answer to that eternal question, "I want to know; I want to know!"
"That's a delightful plan, mother," she said; "and surely Mrs. Williams has got some cold beef. Edward says nobody can need more than plenty of cold beef for dinner. He and Elizabeth will enjoy an evening together; they will talk over the opera and play. And we shan't be obliged to hurry back from the Martins'."
This rather diabolical speech hit its mark. Elizabeth blushed furiously as she heard the yapping bitterness in Edith's voice. And it was not only with the rush of the conscious blood that her face flared; anger flamed at the innuendo, the double meanings.
"In fact, I needn't reply to Edward's telegram at all," said Edith, "and he will naturally come here for dinner."
Elizabeth looked up at her cousin. At the moment she completely and fervently hated her.
"Oh, that wouldn't do, Edith!" she said. "Edward would come over here all anxiety to see you, and find only me. He would be horribly disappointed and make himself very disagreeable. I shouldn't wonder if he went straight back to London again."
That was the first pass of the naked swords between them; yesterday they had not come to the touch of the steel, and the first bout was distinctly in Elizabeth's favour. Elizabeth had not parried only, she had attacked. And yet it was only with foolish words that could not wound that she had thrust. Had Edith only known, her cousin was fighting for her with a loyalty that was as divine as it was human, and calling on the loyalty of her lover to be up in arms. But her assault, with its sharp double meaning, only gratified a moment's laudable savagery and she instantly turned to her aunt.
"Oh, Aunt Julia," she said, "I should so like an evening alone. Do tell Edward you are out; he can be here all Sunday. I want to write to Daddy and I want to practise. Not play, but practise."
"Well, it would put Mrs. Williams out," said Mrs. Hancock, "to know that she had to provide dinner for Edward as well, for as for letting him eat nothing but cold beef, I think she would sooner leave my service than do that. Edward is a great favourite with Mrs. Williams. Indeed, where she would get provisions I don't know, for it's early closing, and even such shops as we have here are shut. I think your plan is the best, dear, and your father wouldn't like not to hear from you, and then there's your practice as well. I'll write a note to him. Has everybody finished? And which of you would like to drive with me this afternoon?"
Elizabeth, conscious of her own loyalty, did not in the least mind having another thrust at her cousin. Edith had provoked her; Edith should take the consequences—the superficial ones. She turned to her.
"It will be a good punishment for Edward," she said, "to find that you are out. You will be paying him back in his own coin for keeping away so long. Perhaps he will come round after you get back. If I were you I should say I was tired and would not see him."
Edith looked at her with her real anxiety, making anxious, imploring signals. Elizabeth saw and disregarded them.
"Of course, it would be the worst punishment of all for him," she said, "if you let him come round expecting to find you and he found only me alone with my lamb-cutlet. But you mustn't punish him as much as that, Edith. It would be too cruel."
Mrs. Hancock had passed out of the dining-room on the quest for the longer paragraphs in theMorning Post,and for a moment the two girls faced each other. Elizabeth was still quivering with indignation at Edith's first wanton attack, the attack which sounded so friendly and pleasant a salutation and which both knew was so far otherwise. And if Edith only knew what wrestlings, what blind strivings after light Elizabeth had undergone for her....
"Don't scold him too much," she said. "He is so nice. I love Edward! Shall I drive with Aunt Julia this afternoon, or would you like to?"
Elizabeth ran upstairs to her room and locked herself in. Already she was sick at heart for her barren dexterity. She had pricked Edith with her point, made her wince, startled her into miserable silence. And what was the good of it all? It did not even for the moment allay the savage anguish of her own wound. She threw herself on her bed and sobbed.
By soon after eight she had finished her dinner and was sitting in the drawing-room, neither writing to her father nor practising. For the last half-hour she had had one overpowering sensation in her mind, which absorbed the active power of thought, and spread itself like a dense enveloping mist, obscuring all other perceptions—namely, the knowledge that in the house next door Edward sat alone, or perhaps walked in the garden, longing to catch sight of her over the low brick wall. She, too, would have spent this hour of darkening twilight outside but for fear of seeing him, or more exactly but for the longing to see him which she must starve and deny. No doubt she would have to see him, have to listen to his pleading; but it was part of her resolve that she would use all her will to hold herself apart. But the thought of him possessed her, and she could not concentrate her mind enough even to attempt to practise or to write her overdue letter. It had taken all her nervous force to arrive where she was; now, like a bird after the flight of migration, she had to rest, to let the time go by, without stirring up her activities; for any activity she roused seemed to be directed from the cause of purpose that excited it, and to be sucked into the mill-race that but ran the swifter for an added volume of awakened perception.
Soon mere inactivity became even more impossible than employment, and she opened the piano. The wonder of music, which his love had so magically quickened in her, perhaps would not desert her even now, and she set herself to study the intellectual as well as the technical intricacies of Brahms' variations on the Handel themes. If she could give them any attention at all, she felt she could give them her whole attention; it was impossible merely to paddle knee-deep in that profound and marvellous sea; you had either to swim, or not enter it at all. She bent her mind to her work, as a man bends the resisting strength of a bow. She would string it; she willed that it should bend itself to its task.
How marvellous was this artistic vision! To the composer, the theme was like some sweet, simple landscape, a sketch of quiet country with a stream, perhaps, running through it. Then he set himself to see it in twenty different ways. He saw it with gentle morning sunshine asleep over it; he saw it congested with winter, green with the young growth of spring, triumphant in the blaze of summer, and gorgeous with the flare of the dying year. He saw it with rain-clouds lowering on its hills and swelling its streams with gathered waters; he saw it underneath the lash of rain, and echoing to the drums of thunder; he saw it beneath the moonlight, and white with starshine on snow.
Suddenly Elizabeth held her hands suspended over the keys, and in her throat a breath suspended. Through the maze of melody she had heard another sound, faint and tingling, that pierced through the noise of the vibrating strings. A bell had rung. Hearing it, she knew that unconsciously she had been listening for it with the yearning with which the eyes of the shipwrecked watch for a sail.
There were steps in the hall, a few words of indistinguishable talk, and she turned round on her music-stool and faced the door. It opened, whispering on the thick carpet, and Edward stood there.
In silence he held out both hands to her, and she rose. But she did not advance to him, or he to her.
She felt her lip trembling as she spoke.
"You should not have come," she said.
"You told me to come."
"But not to me. I told you to come to Edith."
He sat down in a chair near her.
"You have got to hear what I have to say," he said. "You have not heard it yet."
"Yes; you have written to me. I have answered you."
"I can't express myself in writing. I can only write symbols of what I mean."
"I understood your symbols very well. I am sure you understood mine."
It seemed to her that the real struggle had only just begun. Even as he had said, what he wrote had only been symbols compared to the awful reality of his presence. The short, sharp sentence that each had spoken rang with keen hostility; in each love was up in arms, battling, as with an enemy, for a victory that must be hard won.
"You speak as if you hated me for coming," he said. "If you do, I can't help it."
She raised her eyes to him.
"Oh, my dear, don't make it harder for me," she said. "It's hard enough already. I can't bear much more."
"I am going to make it as hard for you as I possibly can," said he. "I don't care what it costs you, so long as I convince you."
"You won't even convince me."
"I shall try my best. I believe your happiness as well as mine is at stake."
He paused a moment, and his voice, which had been low and quiet, like hers, suddenly raised itself.
"I want you!" he cried. "Oh, can you know what it means to want like that? I don't believe you can, or you could not resist. Do you realize what has happened? how, by a miracle of God-sent luck, we two have found each other? And you think that there can be an obstacle between us! There can't be! There is nothing in the world that is real enough to come between us. You do love me. I was wrong when I said I didn't believe you knew what it meant to want. When, for one moment, you clung to me, you knew. You were real then; you were yourself. But since then you have held up a barrier between us. I am here to tear it down."
"You can't tear it down," said Elizabeth.
"You shall tear it down yourself. I didn't know what love meant when I got engaged to Edith; that was because I hadn't seen you. Oh, I know, two years ago I had set eyes on you, but I hadn't seen you. It was obvious that I couldn't love just because I hadn't seen you. I couldn't unlock my heart without the key. And you were the key. Elizabeth, oh, Elizabeth, I worship you! Oh, my darling, what is the use of torturing me as you have been doing during these awful days! You won't go on—you won't!"
He had left his chair and was kneeling before her, with his hands clasped together on her lap. As he had said, his written words were but symbols compared to the reality; they were but as pictures of flames compared to the burning of authentic fire, as splashes of paint compared to actual sunshine. She could not speak just yet; only with the quivering semblance of a smile and eyes that were bright with tears could she answer him. But she did not shrink from him, nor move, and she laid her hands on his.
"Edward!" she said at last, and again, "Edward!"
Against some inward weight of unacknowledged conviction he allowed himself to hope, and, bending, he kissed the hands that lay on his. Not now, even, did she shrink, for she could not. It was as much as she could do not to respond. And she could not respond.
"You see, then?" he whispered. "At last you see!"
He looked up and faced the tender, inexorable love in her eyes.
"I see more clearly than ever," she said. "Please, dear, don't interrupt me. Not by word or by look even. I can't marry you unless—unless Edith voluntarily gives you up. I can't. I can't accept love that can be mine only through your disloyalty, through your breaking a promise you have given. And I can't let you take my love on those terms. It would kill love; it would kill the most sacred thing there is. No; loyalty is as sacred. And you mustn't ask her to set you free. Love can only give, only give—it cannot ask for itself."
He got up, wild with impotent yearning, inflamed to his inmost fibre.
"But are you flesh and blood!" he cried, "or are you some—some unsubstantial phantom that does not feel?"
She rose also with fire of loyalty to meet his fire of passion, and flung out her words with a strength that more than matched his violence.
"No, I am flesh and blood," she said, "and you know that I love you. But love is holier to me than to you. I can't love you differently. We can never come together while a single thread of loyalty, of common honour, has to be snapped to let us."
He interrupted.
"Trust your heart, my darling," he said; "only trust that!"
"I do trust it. And I trust yours. You know you are battling with not me alone, but yourself. There is something within you that tells you I am right."
"My cowardice. Nothing more. My fear of unpleasant things for which my real self does not care two straws."
She shook her head at him; then advanced and laid her long hands on his shoulders.
"It is just your real self that does care," she said. "Oh, my dear, I do not mean it is your false self that loves me. But it is your false self that has been urging me to-night. Edward"—and again her lips so trembled that she could scarcely speak—"Edward, I don't want to spare you one moment of the wretchedness that has come upon us, nor would I spare myself. If we were not suffering so, we should not love so. All our suffering is part of our love. I don't know why it has happened like this, why God didn't allow us to meet sooner. And that doesn't concern us. It is so. What does concern us is not to graft our love on to disloyalty and unfaithfulness. It is in our power to do right. I can't deliberately choose to find happiness for you or for me in a crime."
"Crime!"
"Yes, the worst sort of crime, for it is one that is a crime that we should commit against each other. I don't think"—and a shadow of a smile hung round Elizabeth's mouth—"I don't think I should feel so very bad if I murdered some one whom I hate. But in this I should be murdering all that is best in the man I love."
"You are talking wildly!" he said. "Murder! What nonsense!"
"I never spoke more deliberately," said she.
Again he was stung to a frenzy of impotence.
"And you admit you love me!" he cried. "You admit it!"
"But of course. Don't—don't be so silly!"
"But I can't do it. I can't let you go!" he broke out again. "And would you have me marry Edith, you, who talk about the sacredness of love?"
Elizabeth pushed him gently away from her.
"I don't know. I haven't had room in me to think about that," she said. "It has taken me, well—all my time to think about us."
He was silent a moment,
"Do you think she will let me go, when she knows?" he asked.
"I think she does know. At least I think she guesses."
"Well?"
"I can't tell. But I think she loves you. I am sure she loves you. And it is hard to let go a person one loves."
"It's impossible!" he cried suddenly.
"She may find it so."
"I wasn't thinking of her," said he.
He stretched out his arms wide and towards her.
"Elizabeth!" he cried.
She wavered where she stood. Never yet had the balance hung so evenly, as when now he made his final appeal to her, wordless except for her own name, for into that his whole soul went. She felt dragged to him by a force almost irresistible. From him and her alike for the moment all the ties and considerations of loyalty and honour were loosed; he knew only his overmastering need, she, the intensity of a woman's longing to give herself. Had the choice been then for the first time to be made, she would have flung herself to him. But the force of the choice she had made before had already made itself firm within her.
"No, no, no!" she said, and the words were drops of blood. Then once more she had power to turn from him.
She went back to the piano to close it, and mechanically shut up the music she had been playing from. Then, though she had heard nothing, she felt that some change had come into the room. From the edge of the field of vision she saw that Edward had turned towards the door, and she looked. The door was open, and Edith stood there.
Elizabeth let the piano-lid slip from her hands, and it fell with a bang and jar of wires.
"You are back early," she said. "At least it is early, is it not? Has Aunt Julia come back?"
"No. I telephoned for the car, and left almost immediately after dinner. My ankle began to hurt again."
The reaction after her struggle had begun in Elizabeth. Though it was for Edith's advantage she had done battle, it was not for Edith's sake, and the sight of her cousin suddenly filled her with bitter resentment. She felt perfectly sure also that this reason for her return was wholly fictitious; she had come back like this for an entirely different purpose. Elizabeth feigned an exaggerated sympathy.
"Oh, I am so sorry," she said, "and surely, Edith, it is madness to stand like that. I am sure you are in agonies. Of course you will go to bed at once. Shall not I ring for Filson? And then I will telephone and ask Dr. Frank to come round immediately. Is it very bad? Poor dear! But anyhow you have the pleasure of seeing Edward. You did not expect to find him here, did you? Did you?"
Goaded and self-accused of a foolish attempt at deceit, Edith turned to her.
"Yes, I did," she said, "I thought it extremely probable."
"Ah, and can it have been for the sake of finding him here as much as for the sake of your ankle, which I see you still continue to stand on, that you came back? Edward, do you hear? Edith expected to find you here. So she is not disappointed. And I'm sure her ankle feels much better."
It was scarcely possible to believe that this jeering, scoffing girl was the same who five minutes before pleaded with her lover with such womanly strength, such splendid self-repression, or that she could have thus battled for the rights of her whom she now so bitterly taunted. And indeed the mere identity of Edith was but a casual accident; Elizabeth had ranged herself on the side of a principle rather than the instance of it. For the rest, after the scene in which she had called upon every ounce of her moral force to aid her, she had nervously, entirely collapsed with a jar like that of the fallen piano-lid. Then her collapse spread a little farther; the angry fire that burned in her for this pitiful subterfuge went out, and, swaying as she stood, she put her hands before her eyes.
"I'm giddy!" she said. "I'm afraid I'm going to faint!"
Edward took a quick step towards her, but she waved him aside and fell on to the sofa. Edith looked at her without moving.
"You will be all right if you sit still a moment," she said, "and then I think it is you who had better go to bed. As Edward is here, I want to talk to him privately. Leave her alone, Edward; she is better left alone."
He paid no attention to this, and went to the sofa.
"Can I do anything for you?" he said. "Can't I get you some water, or some brandy?"
Elizabeth sat up.
"I shall be all right," she said. "I will just sit here a minute or two. Then I will go. Edith wants to talk to you. She—she has not seen you for so long."
Slowly her vitality returned, and with it for the second time that day the aching sense of the uselessness of her bitter, ironical words to her cousin, of the sheer stupidity of their wrangle. If Edith chose to tell a foolish tale about her ankle, it concerned nobody but herself. It did not matter, for one thing only in the world mattered. And with regard to that, for the present, she felt a total apathy. She had done her part; nobody, not even herself, could require anything more of her. She felt hugely and overwhelmingly tired, nothing more at all. She got up.
"I shall take your advice, Edith, and go to bed," she said. "If there is anything you want to tell me afterwards, please come up to my room. Good-night, Edward!"
Not till her steps had passed away up the stairs did either of the two others speak. Edith's face, firm, pretty, plump, showed not the slightest sign of emotion. She stood in front of the empty fire-place, waving her feather fan backwards and forwards opposite her knee, looking at it.
"I think you had better tell me what has happened," she said. "Or if you find a difficulty in doing that I will tell you. You imagine that you have fallen in love with Elizabeth."
An answer seemed superfluous. After a little pause she apparently thought so too, and went on, still in the same quiet, passionless tone.
"I have often watched you and her," she said. "She has used her music as an instrument to encourage you and draw you on——"
"That is not so!" said Edward.
"Of course you are bound to defend her. It is manly of you, and what I should expect from you. But that does not matter."
"Yes, it does matter," said he. "Throughout the fault has been entirely mine. You have got to believe that. You do not understand her at all if you think otherwise."
"I do not want to understand Elizabeth. Her nature and mine are so far apart that I do not attempt to understand her. What is perfectly clear to me is that she knew that you and I were engaged, and she has tried to come between us. So far I understand her, and for me that is far enough."
Edward looked at her. Half an hour ago he had wondered whether Elizabeth was flesh and blood. Now he wondered if Edith was.
"You are absolutely mistaken about her," he said. "It is she who has been unswervingly loyal to you. The disloyalty has been entirely mine. I know I can't make you believe it, but it is so."
Edith met his eye looking at her steadily without tremor.
"Yes, you can make me believe it, if you ask me to release you from your engagement to me," she said. "Do you do that?"
The waving of her fan ceased as she waited for his answer. She stood absolutely still, a marvel of self-control.
"No, I don't ask that," he said. "All the same, you must believe what I tell you about your cousin."
"And if I can't?"
"I will force you to. I will tell you what happened on the night of the opera; I will tell you why I have kept away all these days. I will even show you the letter from her that brought me back. You will have to believe."
For the moment nothing seemed to matter to him except that Edith should believe this, and in the silence that followed he watched her face, and marvelled at the change that came there. It was as if it was possible to see the belief penetrating into her brain, and transforming her features, even as the thaws of the spring penetrate into the congealed ground, softening its outlines and bedewing the spear-heads of frozen grass with moisture, that percolates and liquefies the ice-bound tussocks. Even so, Edith, frozen with jealous hate for Elizabeth, melted at the words the truth of which it was impossible to doubt, for the nature of the proofs he offered was the guarantee for them. She had to believe. And this unfreezing melted her; the crust of her hardness was dissolved, and pitiful imperative yearnings welled up from the very springs of her, that pierced and flooded the ground that had been sealed to their outflow. As far as her will went, she banished her bitterness and blame of Elizabeth; she was herself alone with her lover and her love, that was more adamantine than this mere frozen surface of hatred and jealousy had been. Till that crust was dissolved, the inner springs could not flow; now it was melted and they flooded her.
Her fan dropped unregarded at her feet, and she clasped her hands together.
"I believe you," she said. "It is you who—who are responsible. But you don't ask me to release you. That is well, for—for I can't release you. You can refuse to marry me, I suppose. A man can always do that if he has made a girl love him and has asked her to marry him."
He did not answer, and she went on winding and unwinding her fingers.
"You see I love you," she said, "and I can't let you go. And only a few weeks ago you liked me enough anyhow to want me to marry you. You thought you would be very well content to live with me always. I think that was about it. And I felt much the same towards you. Then immediately, when I found you wanted me, I began to love you. And I love you more and more. Before that nothing in the world had meant anything to me. Even if you asked me to let you go, I could not."
Still he said nothing, and she came up close to him, treading on her fan and breaking the ivory sticks of it.
"It would be simply impossible for me," she said. "Do you think that by my own act I could give you up, and let you marry Elizabeth—as I suppose you would do?"
She pointed through the open window at his house next door.
"Could I see you living there withher?" she asked. "Hear the gate clang as you went in on your return in the evening? See the lights lit in the house and quenched again at night, and know you were there with her, and that I had permitted it? Never, never! You can refuse to marry me, if you will; that is your affair. But don't, Edward, don't!" and her voice broke.
He felt utterly humiliated by her sudden entreaty. It was pitiful, it was intolerable that she whom he had sought light-heartedly with a view to comfort and quiet happiness and domestic peace should abase herself to him, asking that he should not withdraw so paltry a gift. He had known and liked and admired her for years, and had offered her, not knowing how cheap and shabby was his devotion, what was wholly unworthy of her acceptance. In return now she gave him unreservedly all she had, all she was capable of, only asking that his rubbish should not be taken from her.
And now as he sat there, full of cold pity for her, full of scorn for himself that he should give her pity and be unable to give her warmth, she knelt to him, clasping his knees. And her beseeching, so grovelling, so abandoned, seemed only to degrade him. Knowing now that he knew what love was, how royal was the gift she brought him, he saw himself bankrupt and abject, receiving the supplications of some noble petitioner.
With streaming eyes and voice that choked she besought him.
"Just give me what you can, my darling," she said, "and oh, how content I will be! It is so short a time ago that you thought I could make you happy, and I can—believe me, I can. I was not worthy when you asked me first, but I have learned so much since I began to love you, and I am worthier now. You have always liked me, we have always been good friends, and you will get over this sudden infatuation for Elizabeth. I will be so good about that; I won't be jealous of her. It wasn't your fault that you fell in love with her; I will never reproach you for it. We shall be so happy together very soon; she will go back to India and you will forget. I will do anything except give you up!"
Once or twice he had tried to interrupt her, but she swept his words away in the torrent of her entreaties. But here for a moment her voice utterly choked, and he put his arm round her, raising her, dragging her from her knees. Weeping hysterically, she clung to him, burying her face on his shoulder, and all the tenderness and kindliness in his nature came to him.
"My dear, don't talk like that," he said, soothing her, "and don't cry like that. Dry your eyes, Edith; there is nothing to cry about."
"Tell me, then," she sobbed, "what are you going to do with me?"
Still with his arm about her he led her across the room to the sofa where, half an hour ago, Elizabeth had fallen. There was no possibility of choice left him, and he saw that clearly enough. He could not break a promise made to one who loved him, the strength of whose love he had not even conjectured before. Undemonstrative and reticent by nature, Edith had never yet shown him her heart, nor had he known how completely it was his. There was no struggle any more; there was left to him only the self-humiliating task of comforting her.
"God knows I will give you all I can," he said. "I will do my best to make you happy. But, my dear, don't humiliate me any more. I know that you are giving me all a woman can give a man. And it is sweet of you to forgive me; I don't deserve to be forgiven. There, dry your eyes. Let me dry them for you. Never, never, I hope, will you cry again because of me."
Edith's sobbing had ceased, and with a woman's instinct she began to repair with deft fingers the little disorder of her dress.
"Oh, I will love you so, my darling!" she whispered. "We shall be happy; I know we shall be happy. And when I give you the best gift of all, when I give you a child, and another child...."
"Yes, yes, I know," he said. "And how their grannie will love them!"
She shrank away from him a moment at this. He had said anything that might comfort and quiet her, which came to his tongue.
"And how we shall love them!" he added quickly. "There, you look more yourself."
Still leaning on him, as if loth to let him go, she turned her tear-stained face round to the mirror above the sofa.
"Ah, but what a fright!" she said. "I shall just go and wash my face and then come back to you. Mother will be in any minute now. And I shall look into Elizabeth's room, shall I not? She—she said she wanted to know."
The sounds of the arrival of the motor hastened her departure upstairs, and next moment Mrs. Hancock came in.
"Well, it is nice to see you, my dear!" she said. "But I can't say it's a surprise, for I told Edith I was sure you would look in. But where's Edith? And where's Elizabeth?"
Edward shook hands.
"Elizabeth went to bed half an hour ago," he said. "She was not feeling very well. Edith has just gone upstairs. She was going to look in and see how she was."
Mrs. Hancock sat down to her patience-table. She always played patience when she had been to a party, to calm herself after the excitement.
"Isn't that like my darling Edith!" she said. "Forgetting all about her ankle, I'll be bound, and even about you, though you mustn't scold her for it. She will have told you that her ankle began to pain her. Fancy! There is a second king already. Ring the bell, dear Edward, I must have a little lemonade, and no doubt you would like a whisky and soda. Another ace—how provoking!"
Mrs. Hancock had a tremendous belief in her own perspicacity, and, looking at the young man, came to the very distinct conclusion that something had happened. His voice sounded rather odd, too. Simultaneously she caught sight of the wreck of Edith's fan on the floor. Her remarkable powers of imagination instantly enabled her to connect this deplorable accident—for Edith was usually so careful—with whatever it was that had happened. Perhaps there had been a little tiff over Edward's long-continued absence. She summoned up all her tact and all her optimism.
"Why, if that isn't Edith's fan!" she said. "She must have dropped it and stepped on it. Or it would be more like Elizabeth to step on it. And what a long time you have been away. Edith was almost disposed to blame you for that, until she and I had a good talk together. I told her it would never do for you to neglect either your business or your friends. Once Mr. Hancock was away from me for a month, when there was either a slump or a boom in the markets. Dear me, how the old words come back to one, though I'm sure I forget what they mean! Has it been a slump or a boom, dear Edward, all this last fortnight?"
"Oh, everything has been pretty quiet," said he absently. He could barely focus his attention enough on what she was saying to understand her. Upstairs Edith had gone in to see Elizabeth—to tell her what had happened——
"I see," said Mrs. Hancock, with great cordiality. "And so you have had to watch things very carefully. Such a pleasant dinner at Mr. Martin's, and a great deal of wise and witty talk. And I have such a lovely plan for Elizabeth, which I shall tell her about to-morrow, so there's no reason why I should not tell you now. I mean to let her stay with me after you have taken my darling away, all October and November, and come with me to Egypt, so that we shall all meet again, our happy little party. I have just heard from her father, who, of course, will pay for her travelling expenses, and he is quite agreeable, if Elizabeth likes. I quite look forward to telling her; she will go mad with joy, I think, for imagine a girl seeing Egypt at her age! I am very fond of Elizabeth; she is lively and cheerful, though I think she has felt the heat this last fortnight. So affectionate, is she not? And I'm not sure she doesn't like her Cousin Edward best of all of us."
This amazing display of tactful conversation, designed to take Edward's mind off any little tiff that he might have had with Edith, demanded some kind of appreciation from him.
"I should be delighted to know that Elizabeth liked me," he said.
"You may be sure she does. Such a common interest you have, too, in music. Ah! here is Edith; and my patience is coming out in spite of that horrid ace which blocked me so long. We were talking about Elizabeth, dear, and I was telling Edward how fond she is of him."
The poor lady had touched the limit of his endurance.
"I think I must be getting to bed," he said.
"Not wait and chat while I have my lemonade? Well, dear, it is nice to see you again, and I have no doubt that Edith will see you out, and lock the door after you, so that I need not ring for Lind again. Edith, my darling, your fan! Who could have stepped on it? Was it Elizabeth? And has your ankle ceased to pain you?"
Edward followed Edith out into the hall. There was no repressing his anxiety to know.
"Did you see her?" he asked.
"Yes. Oh, Edward, I have been wronging Elizabeth so. And I am sorry. She told me she didn't care for you, not one scrap. It—it had never entered her head. I asked her forgiveness for having had such dreadful thoughts about her. I don't know how I thought so. It has made me quite happy. You see, she never thought of you. And she kissed me and forgave me."
She lifted her face to his.
"She told me to tell you," she said. "She——"
Edward kissed her quickly and stepped out into the black, cloud-shadowed night.
Mrs. Hancock was distinctly aware when, three days afterwards, she started in her motor for a drive with Elizabeth, that in order to live worthily up to Mr. Martin's pattern of the thankful, cheerful Christian life, she had to keep a very firm hand on herself and nail her smile to her pleasant mouth. Indeed, for these last few days she had to set before herself an ideal not of cheerful, but of grinning Christianity. Like a prudent manager, however, she had steadfastly saved up as an all-conquering antidote to the depression and queerness which was so marked in Elizabeth, her joyful plan that should give the girl a month more of Heathmoor and her own undivided society and a reunited tour in Egypt afterwards at Colonel Fanshawe's expense. The prospect of that, she felt sure, could not possibly fail to restore to Elizabeth her accustomed exhilaration and liveliness.
Meantime Mrs. Hancock had carefully forborne to ask either of the girls (for Edith also had exhibited symptoms of queerness) what was ailing with the serenity of life. It fitted in with the cheerful gospel to know as little as possible about worrying and annoying topics, lest their infection should mar the soothing and uplifting influence over others of a mind wholly untroubled. Two inquiries only had she made (and those were from Edward), which elicited the comfortable fact that the event of the 8th of October still remained firm, and that he had not lost any money in the City. After that she firmly shut her eyes to any possible cause of trouble, and though one (and that the correct one) actually stood immediately in the foreground of her mental vision, she by long practice in obedience to Mr. Martin's gospel had reached a pitch of absolute perfection in the feat of mental eye-closing, even as a child frightened by the dark can by an effort of will shut out terrifying possibilities by the corresponding physical feat, or firmly bury its head under the bed-clothes.
But her victory over these subtle influences of gloom and general oddity had not been gained without effort. It had been distinctly hard to maintain an equable cheerfulness with Elizabeth. Sometimes for a little the girl was quite herself with a short-lived flood of high-spirited talk; sometimes from her sitting-room Mrs. Hancock would hear a flight of brilliant song-birds on the piano. But then suddenly the flood would cease from pouring, and the flight fail in mid-air. Once just after a silence had fallen on the ringing air she had come into the drawing-room to find Elizabeth sitting with her hands still resting on the keys, and her head bowed forward over them. Her assertion that she was not ill carried conviction; her denial that anything was the matter was less easy of belief. But she said it, and since successful inquiry might lead to disturbing information, Mrs. Hancock fell back on the unimpeachable general duty of trusting everybody completely and in particular of believing what Elizabeth said.
But it required an effort to remain perfectly comfortable, for she was surrounded with people who did not appear to be so, and Edward, so it seemed to her, though he had lost no money and was going to marry Edith on the 8th of October, seemed to have been drawn into what she looked upon as a vicious circle—vicious since it was wrong, positively wrong, not to be happy and comfortable. She was not quick or discerning in the interpretation of symptoms, nor, indeed, when she suspected that anything was amiss, quick to see symptoms at all. But through her closed eyelids, so to speak, there filtered the fact that Elizabeth altogether avoided looking at Edward, but that he observed her with furtive, eager glances, that somehow seemed disappointed in what they sought. Also, though Elizabeth took spasmodic and violent spells at the piano, she never played in the evening when Edward was there, but had evinced a sudden desire to learn the new patience which Mrs. Hancock had found in a ladies' paper. Mrs. Hancock did not so much wonder at that, for this particular mode of killing time was undoubtedly of thrilling interest, and she almost thought of buying Elizabeth a little patience-table for her birthday, which occurred in October. She intended in any case to look out the article in question in the catalogue from the stores and see how much it cost. There would be no harm in that, and if it cost more than she felt she could manage, why, there would be no necessity to say anything about it. But then an admirable notion struck her—her own table was getting a little rickety; it shook when she put cards down on to it. Also it was rather small for the great four-pack "King of Mexico," which she had fully determined to learn this autumn. So Elizabeth should have her old table, and she would get a new one of size No. 1 (bevelled edges and adjustable top). That it was even more expensive did not trouble her, and she impressively told herself that she would not have dreamed of buying it had it not been that she wanted to give dear Elizabeth a present. In fact, though she bought it apparently for herself it was really Elizabeth for whom this great expense was incurred. And all these rich and refreshing rewards—namely, another month at Heathmoor, instead of the cobras and deserts of India, a tour in Egypt, and the most expensive patience-table at the stores—she would announce to her fortunate niece as they went round by the Old Mill. How all the look of trouble and depression would fade from dear Elizabeth's face as she listened to the announcement of those delicious joys, one after the other. Mrs. Hancock felt a sudden gush of thankfulness to the kind disposition of Providence that had endowed her with the ample income which she was so eager to spend in securing the happiness of others; and even while, without self-conscious commonplace, she felt herself blessed in such opportunities and the will to take advantage of them, she could not help feeling how true it was that kindness and thought for others is so laden with gain for oneself. For she herself would have a new patience-table (size No. 1, with bevelled edges), a delightful companion throughout October, after Edith had left her, while Elizabeth's father would pay her expenses in Egypt. She could not help feeling also how much more Christian and how much more Martinesque it was to stifle, smother, and destroy whatever might be the cause of Elizabeth's trouble by this perfect shower of causes for happiness, rather than inquire into it and thus run the risk of being herself unsettled and made uneasy. But it had certainly required an effort; she had to put firmly out of her mind not only Elizabeth's possible worries, but also the remembrance of the evening when she had come back from dinner with the Martins, and thought Edward's voice had sounded odd, and seen Edith's fan lying broken on the floor. That had never been explained. Edith had said subsequently that she supposed she must have stepped on it, but it was very odd she should not have noticed it, for the breaking of all those ivory sticks must have made quite a loud snap. Meantime the gong that heralded the arrival of the motor had sounded quite two minutes and Elizabeth had not yet appeared. Mrs. Hancock thought she would just speak to her on the subject of punctuality, and then wipe all impression of blame away by the recital of these prospective benefits. Elizabeth was not downstairs, and it was just possible that she had not heard the gong; Lind was told to sound it again.
Elizabeth heard it the second time that it boomed, and rose from where she knelt by her bed, by the side of which five minutes ago she had flung herself, following, so it seemed to her, some blind instinctive impulse. That morning there had broken over her a storm of rayless despair. For a couple of days after her final rejection of Edward, when Edith's absolute determination not to give him up voluntarily had been known to her, the apathetic quiet of the step taken, of deliberate renunciation, had been hers. But it had not been, and the poor girl guessed it, the peace that is always eventually not only the reward but the consequence of self-abnegation, but only the exhaustion that follows a prolonged mental effort. Edith's choice, apart from the tremendous significance it had for herself, was incredible and monstrous to her nature. She did not question the fact that Edith loved Edward, but the notion of love not seeking the happiness of the beloved was to her inconceivable. She could not understand it, could not in consequence have the smallest sympathy with it. But this she had to take and did take on trust, and let depend on it her own unalterable decision—that decision that, as far as she could see, took the sun bodily out of her own life. From mere weariness she had found in the dull acquiescence in this an apathy that had for a couple of days anæsthetized her. Against this insensitiveness, knowing that it was valueless, she had made pitiful little struggles, seeking now to establish some kind of sympathy and renewal of intimacy with her cousin, now to rouse herself to feel in music the passion with which it had inspired her. Instead, for the present, she found she had a shrinking abhorrence of it. Its beauty had become remote, and from its withdrawn eminence, its unassailable snow-peaks, it mocked her. It did more than mock; it reminded her of all it had done for her, how through it she and Edward had been brought together, to stand now close to each other, embracing, overlapping, yet with a thin, unmeltable ice between them.
Then in due course had come the recuperation of her vital forces, and she had awoke this morning after long and dreamless sleep to find that the anæsthesia of her mind had passed off. For a couple of minutes perhaps she had lain still in the delicious consciousness of restored vigour, and of delight in the new freshness of the early day. Then as she became fully conscious of herself again, she found that what had been recuperated in her was but her capacity for suffering, and the blackness of a vivid despair, bright black, not dull black, fell on her, more black because she knew that it was a darkness of her own making. A word from her to Edward would scatter it and let loose the morning. She had no doubt of that, no doubt that he, at her bidding, would break the fetters of his promise that bound him as easily as if they had been but a wisp of unwoven straw. She told herself and, what was the more persuasive, she could hear his voice telling her that she was committing a crime against love, that she was refusing and bidding him profane the most sacred gift of all. She told herself that she was a fool to listen to any voice but that which sounded so insistently, but there was yet a voice, still and small, that was steadfast in its message to her. It was not that she cared one jot for the ordinary external consequences of a disobedience to that; she guessed that there would be a consensus of opinion in her favour if she disobeyed. No doubt they would say it was a deplorable accident that she and Edward had fallen in love with each other, but once the accident had happened it was best to make the best of a regrettable situation. The young man had never been in love with poor Edith; he had but fallen a lukewarm victim to the influence of propinquity and Mrs. Hancock. Certainly it was very sad for Miss Hancock, but she was young, she would get over it, and probably end by making quite a good marriage.
Elizabeth cared little for either the approval or condemnation of the world in general. The thought of it was remote and stifled and insignificant. But it was Edward who called to her, called loud, called closely and low, and she must be deaf not to listen to him, not hear him even. At whatever cost she had to approve of herself.
Black, empty aching, an intolerable loneliness. She had but one desire, apart from the desire of her heart, and that was to escape from it all, to go away as quickly as possible, to be out of sight of what she might not contemplate. Far away, across leagues of hot ocean and miles of plain baking from the summer solstice, was her father. No one else in the world did she want to see, to no one else—if even to him—could she pour out her woe. He would comprehend, would approve, she knew, of all she had done, not blaming her for letting love so completely envelop her, not praising her rejection of it, but simply seeing even as she had seen, in loneliness and heart's anguish, that there was no other course possible. She knew that as thoroughly as if she had already opened her whole heart to him.
There was a letter already written which she had not yet posted; now she opened it and added a postscript: "Father, dear," she wrote, "I am awfully—awfully unhappy, and can't write to you about it. But when you get this, please send me a telegram saying you want me home at once. Trust me that this is wiser. Don't delay, dear daddy."
The pen dropped from her fingers after she had re-directed her letter, and she sat quite still looking blankly at it. She had told Edith she did not love Edward, that she had never thought of him like that. If there could be degrees in this abject wretchedness, hers was a depth unplumbable. Yet this colossal lie seemed to her necessary. Edith, believing that her cousin loved Edward, yet refused to release him of her own will. So she was to have him, she must be given what was already hers, handsomely, largely. It would be wicked, even at the cost of this denial, to give him her with a stab, so to speak.
Emptiness, utter loneliness self-ordained. She must tell somebody about her misery; she must pour out her unshared grief, for the burden of it was intolerable. With dry blind eyes, with the groping instinct to seek, just to seek, she threw herself on her knees by her bed. She knew not what or whom she sought; there was just this blind unerring instinct in her soul, the instinct of the homing pigeon.
Mrs. Hancock put up her parasol when the three cushions were perfectly adjusted, and the car slid slowly forward.
"I think we shall have time to go round by the Old Mill," she said, "though we are a little late in starting. I wonder, Elizabeth, if you could make an effort to be more punctual, dear. I don't think there is a person in the world who hates blaming people as much as I do, so I don't want or mean to blame you. I only ask you to make a little effort. It is so easy to form a habit, and while you are about it you might just as well form the habit of punctuality as of unpunctuality."
"I am so sorry, Aunt Julia," said she. "I—I wasn't thinking about the time."
"No, dear, that is just it. I want you to think about the time a little more. There is just a little touch of selfishness and inconsiderateness in keeping other people waiting, and selfishness is so horrible, is it not? Edith is never unpunctual, though all the time her ankle was bad she got downstairs very slowly. But she allowed for that. What was the engrossing employment to-day that kept you?"