"Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows;And when we meet at any time again,Be it not seen in either of our browsThat we one jot of former love retain."—Drayton.
"Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows;And when we meet at any time again,Be it not seen in either of our browsThat we one jot of former love retain."—Drayton.
"Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows;And when we meet at any time again,Be it not seen in either of our browsThat we one jot of former love retain."—Drayton.
Not until Mrs. Branscombe has dismissed her maid for the night does she discover that the plain gold locket in which she had placed Dorian's picture is missing. She had (why, she hardly cares to explain even to herself) hung it round her neck; and now, where is it?
After carefully searching her memory for a few moments, she remembers that useless visit to the library before dinner, and tells herself she must have dropped it then. She will go and find it. Slipping into a pale-blue dressing-gown, that serves to make softer and more adorable her tender face and golden hair, she thrusts her feet into slippers of the same hue, and runs down-stairs for the third time to-day, to the library.
Opening the door, the brilliant light of many lamps greets her, and, standing by the fire is her husband, pale and haggard, with the missing locket in his hand. He has opened it, and is gazing at his own face with a strange expression.
"Is this yours?" he asks, as she comes up to him. "Did you come to look for it?"
"Yes." She holds out her hand to receive it from him, but he shows some hesitation about giving it.
"Let me advise you to take this out of it," he says, coldly, pointing to his picture. "Its being here must render the locket valueless. What induced you to give it such a place?"
"It was one of my many mistakes," returns she, calmly, making a movement as though to leave him; "and you are right. The locket is, I think, distasteful to me. I don't want it any more: you can keep it."
"I don't want it, either," returns he, hastily; and then, with a gesture full of passion, he flings it deliberately into the very heart of the glowing fire. There it melts, and grows black, and presently sinks, with a crimson coal, utterly out of sight.
"The best place for it," says he, bitterly. "I wish I could as easily be obliterated and forgotten."
Is it forgotten? She says nothing, makes no effort to save the fated case that holds his features, but, with hands tightly clenched, watches its ruin. Her eyes are full of tears, but she feels benumbed, spiritless, without power to shed them.
Once more she makes a movement to leave him.
"Stay," he says, gently; "I have a few things to say to you, that may as well be got over now. Come nearer to the fire: you must be cold."
She comes nearer, and, standing on the hearth-rug, waits for him to speak. As she does so, a sharp cough, rising to her throat, distresses her sufficiently to bring some quick color into her white cheeks. Though in itself of little importance, this cough has now annoyed her for at least a fortnight, and shakes her slight frame with its vehemence.
"Your cough is worse to-night," he says, turning to regard her more closely.
"No, not worse."
"Why do you walk about the house so insufficiently clothed?" asks he, angrily, glancing at her light dressing-gown with great disfavor. "One would think you were seeking ill health. Here, put this round you." He tries to place upon her shoulders the cashmere shawl she had worn when coming in from the garden in the earlier part of the evening. But she shrinks from him.
"No, no," she says, petulantly; "I am warm enough; and I do not like that thing. It is black,—the color of Death!"
Her words smite cold upon his heart. A terrible fear gains mastery over him. Death! What can it have to do with one so fair, so young, yet, alas! so frail?
"You will go somewhere for change of air?" he says, entreatingly, going up to her and laying his hand upon her shoulder. "It is of this, partly, I wish to speak to you. You will find this house lonely and uncomfortable (though doubtless pleasanter) when I am gone. Let me write to my aunt, Lady Monckton. She will be very glad to have you for a time."
"No; I shall stay here. Where are you going?"
"I hardly know; and I do not care at all."
"How long will you be away?"
"How can I answer that question either? There is nothing to bring me home."
"How soon do you go?" Her voice all through is utterly without expression, or emotion of any kind.
"Immediately," he answers, curtly. "Are you in such a hurry to be rid of me? Be satisfied, then: I start to-morrow." Then, after an unbroken pause, in which even her breathing cannot be heard, he says, in a curious voice, "I suppose there will be no occasion for me to write to you while I am away?"
She does not answer directly. She would have given half her life to be able to say, freely, "Write to me, Dorian, if only a bare line, now and then, to tell me you are alive;" but pride forbids her.
"None, whatever," she says, coldly, after her struggle with her inner self. "I dare say I shall hear all I care to hear from Clarissa or Sir James."
There is a long silence. Georgie's eyes are fixed dreamily upon the sparkling coals. His eyes are fixed on her. What a child she looks in her azure gown, with her yellow hair falling in thick masses over her shoulders. So white,so fair, so cruelly cold! Has she no heart, that she can stand in that calm, thoughtful attitude, while his heart is slowly breaking?
She has destroyed all his happy life, this "amber witch," with her loveliness, and her pure girlish face, and her bitter indifference; and yet his love for her at this moment is stronger, perhaps, than it has ever been. He is leaving her. Shall he ever see her again?
Something at this moment overmasters him. Moving a step nearer to her, he suddenly catches her in his arms, and, holding her close to his heart, presses kisses (unforbidden) upon her lips and cheek and brow.
In another instant she has recovered herself, and, placing her hands against his chest, frees herself, by a quick gesture, from his embrace.
"Was that how you used to kissher?" she says, in a choked voice, her face the color of death. "Let me go: your touch is contamination."
Almost before the last word has passed her lips, he releases her, and, standing back, confronts her with a face as livid as her own.
In the one hurried glance she casts at him, she knows that all is, indeed, over between them now; never again will he sue to her for love or friendship. She would have spoken again,—would, perhaps, have said something to palliate the harshness of her last words,—but by a gesture he forbids her. He points to the door.
"Leave the room," he says, in a stern commanding tone; and, utterly subdued and silenced by his manner, she turns and leaves him.
"A goodly apple, rotten at the heart.Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"—Merchant of Venice."No hinge nor loopTo hang a doubt on."—Othello.
"A goodly apple, rotten at the heart.Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"—Merchant of Venice."No hinge nor loopTo hang a doubt on."—Othello.
"A goodly apple, rotten at the heart.Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"—Merchant of Venice.
"No hinge nor loopTo hang a doubt on."—Othello.
Dorian has been two months gone, and it is once again close on Christmas-tide. All the world is beginningto think of gifts, and tender greetings, and a coming year. Clarissa is dreaming of wedding garments white as the snow that fell last night.
The post has just come in. Clarissa, waking, stretches her arms over her head with a little lazy delicious yawn, and idly turns over her letters one by one. But presently, as she breaks the seal of an envelope, and reads what lies inside it, her mood changes, and, springing from her bed, she begins to dress herself with nervous rapidity.
Three hours later, Sir James, sitting in his library, is startled by the apparition of Clarissa standing in the door-way with a very miserable face.
"What on earth has happened?" says Sir James, who is a very practical young man and always goes at once to the root of a mystery.
"Horace is ill," says Miss Peyton, in a tone that might have suited the occasion had the skies just fallen. "Oh, Jim, what shall I do?"
"My dearest girl," says Scrope, going up to her and taking her hands.
"Yes, he is very ill! I had not heard from him for a fortnight, and was growing wretchedly uneasy, when to-day a letter came from Aunt Emily telling me he has been laid up with low fever for over ten days. And he is very weak, the doctor says, and no one is with him. And papa is in Paris, and Lord Sartoris is with Lady Monckton, and Dorian—no one knows where Dorian is!"
"Most extraordinary his never getting any one to write you a line!"
"Doesn't that only show how fearfully ill he must be? Jim, you will help me, won't you?"
This appeal is not to be put on one side.
"Of course I will," says Scrope: "you know that—or you ought. What do you want me to do?"
"To take me to him. I want to see him with my own eyes."
"To go yourself?" says Sir James, extreme disapprobation in his tone. "You must be out of your mind."
"I am not," returns she, indignantly. "I never was more in it. And I am going, any-way."
"What will your father say?"
"He will say I was quite right. Dear,dear,DEARJim,"—slipping her hand through his arm, and basely descending fromhauteurto coaxing,—"do say you will take me to him. It can't be wrong! Am I not going to be his wife in a month's time?"
Sir James moves a chair out of his way with most unnecessary vehemence.
"How that alters the case I can't see," he says, obstinately.
"You forsake me!" says Miss Peyton, her eyes filling with tears. "Do. I can't be much unhappier than I am, but I did depend on you, you were always so much my friend." Here two large tears run down her cheeks, and they, of course, decide everything.
"I will take you," he says, hastily. "To-day?—The sooner the better, I suppose."
"Yes; by the next train. Oh, how obliged to you I am! Dear Jim, I shall never forget it to you!"
This is supposed to be grateful to him, but it is quite the reverse.
"I think you are very foolish to go at all," he says, somewhat gruffly.
"Perhaps I am," she says, with a rueful glance. "But you cannot understand. Ah! if you loved, yourself, you could sympathize with me."
"Could I?" says Sir James, with a grimace that is meant for a smile, but as such is a most startling specimen of its class.
So they go up to town, and presently arrive at the house where Horace lies unconscious of all around him. The door is opened to them by an unmistakable landlady,—a fat, indolent person, with sleepy eyes, and a large mouth, and a general air about her suggestive of perpetual beef-steaks and bottled stout.
This portly dame, on being questioned, tells them, "Mr. Branscum has just bin given his draft, and now he is snoozin' away as peaceable as a hinfant, bless 'im."
"Is he—in bed?" asks Sir James, diffidently, this large person having the power to reduce him to utter subjection.
"Lawks! no, sir. He wouldn't stay there he's that contrairy. Beggin' yore parding, sir, he's yore brother?"
Sir James nods. She may prove difficult, this stout old lady, if he declares himself no relative.
"To be shore!" says she. "I might 'a' knowed by the speakin' likeness between you. You're the born himage of 'im. After his draft we laid 'im on the sofy, and there he is now, sleepin' the sleep of the just. Just step up and see him; do, now. He is in a state of comus, and not expectit to get out of it for two hours."
"The young—lady—will go up," says Sir James, feeling, somehow, as if he has insulted Clarissa by calling her "a young lady." "She would like" (in a confidential tone that wins on the stout landlady) "to see him alone, just at first."
"Just so," says Mrs. Goodbody, with a broad wink; and Clarissa is forthwith shown up-stairs, and told to open the first door she comes to.
"And you," says Mrs. Goodbody to Sir James, "will please just to step in 'ere and wait for her, while I see about the chicking broth!"
"What a charming room!" says Sir James, hypocritically; whereupon the good woman, being intensely flattered, makes her exit with as much grace as circumstances and her size will permit.
Clarissa opening the door with a beating heart, finds herself in a pretty, carefully-shaded room, at the farther end of which, on a sofa, Horace lies calmly sleeping. He is more altered than even her worst fears had imagined, and as she bends over him she marks, with quick grief, how thin and worn and haggard he has grown.
The blue veins stand out upon his nerveless hands. Tenderly, with the very softest touch, she closes her own fingers over his. Gently she brushes back the disordered hair from his flushed forehead, and then, with a quick accession of coloring, stoops to lay a kiss upon the cheek of the man who is to be her husband in one short month.
A hand laid upon her shoulder startles and deters her from her purpose. It is a light, gentle touch, but firm and decided and evidently meant to prevent her from giving the caress. Quickly raising herself, Clarissa draws back, and, turning her head, sees——
Who is it? Has time rolled backwards? A small, light, gray-clad figure stands before her, a figure only toowell remembered! The brown hair brushed back from the white temples with the old Quakerish neatness, the dove-like eyes, the sensitive lips, cannot be mistaken. Clarissa raises her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight.
Oh! not that! Anything but that! Not Ruth Annersley!
A faint sick feeling overcomes her; involuntarily she lays a hand upon the back of a chair near her, to steady herself; while Ruth stands opposite to her, with fingers convulsively clinched, and dilated nostrils, and eyes dark with horror.
"What brings you here?" asks Ruth, at length, in a voice hard and unmusical.
"To see the man whose wife I was to have been next month," says Clarissa, feeling compelled to answer. "And"—in a terrible tone—"who are you?"
"The woman who ought to be his wife," says Ruth, in the same hard tone, still with her hands tightly clasped.
Clarissa draws her breath hard, but returns no answer; and then there falls upon them a long, long silence, that presently becomes unbearable. The two women stand facing each other, scarcely breathing. The unnatural stillness is undisturbed save by the quick irregular gasps of the sick man.
Once he sighs heavily, and throws one hand and arm across his face. Then Ruth stirs, and, going swiftly and noiselessly to his side, with infinite tenderness draws away the arm and replaces it in its former position. She moves his pillows quietly, and passes her cool hand across his fevered brow.
"Ruth?" he moans, uneasily, and she answers, "I am here, darling," in the faintest, sweetest whisper.
Something within Clarissa's heart seems to give way. At this moment, for the first time, she realizes the true position in which he has placed her. A sensation of faintness almost overcomes her, but by a supreme effort she conquers her weakness, and crushes back, too, the rising horror and anger that have sprung into life. A curious calm falls upon her,—a state that often follows upon keen mental anguish. She is still completing the victory she has gained over herself, when Ruth speaks again.
"This is no place for you!" she says, coldly, yet withher hand up to her cheek, as though to shield her face from the other's gaze.
Clarissa goes up to her then.
"So you are found at last," she says, somewhat monotonously. "And, of all places, here! Is there any truth in the world, I wonder? Was it shame kept you from writing, all these months, to your unhappy father? Do you know that an innocent man—his brother"—pointing with a shivering gesture to the unconscious Horace—"has been suffering all this time for his wrong-doing?"
"I know nothing," replies Ruth, sternly. "I seek to know nothing. My intercourse with the world ceased with my innocence."
"You knew of my engagement to him?" says Clarissa, again motioning towards the couch.
"Yes."
"Before you left Pullingham?"
"No! oh, no!—not then," exclaims Ruth, eagerly. "I did not believe it then. Do not judge me more harshly than you can help."
The dull agony that flashes into her eyes quickens into life some compassionate feeling that still lies dormant in Clarissa's breast.
"I do not judge you at all," she says, with infinite gentleness. Then, with an impulsive movement, she turns and lays her hand upon her shoulder. "Come home with me—now!" she says. "Leave this place, Ruth, I implore you, listen to me!"
"Do not," says Ruth, shrinking from her grasp; "I am not fit for you to touch. Remember all that has passed."
"Do you think I shall ever forget!" says Clarissa, slowly. "But for your father's sake: he is ill,—perhaps dying. Come. For his sake you will surely return?"
"It is too late!" says the girl, in a melancholy voice. And then, again, "It is impossible." Yet it is apparent that a terrible struggle is taking place within her breast: how it might have ended, whether the good or bad angel would have gained the day, can never now be said; a sigh, a broken accent, decided her.
"My head!" murmurs the sick man, feebly, drawing his breath wearily, and as if with pain. "Ruth, Ruth, are youthere?" The querulous dependent tone rouses into instant life all the passionate tenderness that is in Ruth's heart. Having soothed him by a touch, she turns once more to Clarissa.
"He too is sick,—perhaps dying," she says, feverishly. "I cannot leave him! I have sacrificed all for him, and I shall be faithful unto the end. Leave me: I have done you the greatest wrong one woman can do another. Why should you care for my salvation?" Through all the defiance there is bitter misery in her tone.
"I don't know why; yet I do," says poor Clarissa, earnestly.
"You are a saint," says Ruth, with white lips. And then she falls upon her knees. "Oh, if it be in your heart," she cries, "grant me your forgiveness!"
Clarissa bursts into tears.
"I do grant it," she says. "But I would that my tongue possessed such eloquence as could induce you to leave this house." She tries to raise Ruth from her kneeling position.
"Let me remain where I am," says Ruth, faintly. "It is my right position. I tell you again to go; this is no place for you. Yet stay you, sweet woman,"—she cries, with sudden fervor, catching hold of the hem of Clarissa's gown and pressing it to her lips,—"let me look at you once again! It is my final farewell to all that is pure; and I would keep your face fresh within my heart."
She gazes at her long and eagerly.
"What! tears?" she says; "and for me? Oh, believe me, though I shall never see you again, the recollection of these tears will soothe my dying hours, and perhaps wash out a portion of my sins!"
Her head drops upon her hands. So might the sad Magdalen have knelt. Her whole body trembles with the intensity of her emotion, yet no sound escapes her.
"Ruth, for the last time, I implore you to come with me," says Clarissa, brokenly. And once more the parched lips of the crouching woman frame the words, "It is too late!"
A moment after, the door is opened, and closed again and Clarissa has looked her last upon Ruth Annersley.
How she makes her way down to the room where SirJames sits awaiting her, Clarissa never afterwards remembers.
"It is all over: take me away!" she says, quietly, but somewhat incoherently.
"He isn't dead?" says Sir James, who naturally conceives the worst from her agitation.
"No: it is even worse," she says. And then she covers her face with her hands, and sinks into a chair. "Ruth Annersley is here!" When she has said this, she feels that life has almost come to an end. How shall she make this wretched revelation to her father, to Georgie, to all the rest of the world?
As for Sir James, he stands at some distance from her, literally stunned by the news. Words seem to fail him. He goes up to her and takes one of her small icy-cold hands in his.
"Did you see her?"
"Yes."
"The scoundrel!" says Sir James, in a low tone. Then, "Is he very ill?" There is unmistakable meaning in his tone.
"Very." And here she falls to bitter weeping again.
It is a cruel moment: Sir James still holds her hand, but can find no words to say to comfort her; indeed, where can comfort lie?
At this instant a heavy footfall resounds along the passage outside. It warns them of the sylph-like approach of Mrs. Goodbody. Sir James going quickly to the door, intercepts her.
"My—my sister is quite upset," he says, nervously. "Mr. Branscombe was—was worse than she expected to find him."
"Upset!—and no wonder, too," says Mrs. Goodbody, with heavy sympathy, gazing approvingly at Miss Peyton. "There's no denying that he's so worn out, the pore dear, as it's quite dispiritin' to see 'im, what with his general appearings and the fear of a bad turn at any mingit. For myself, I take my meals quite promiscuous like, since he fell ill,—just a bit here and a bit there, it may be, but nothing reg'lar like. I ain't got the 'art. Howsoever, 'hope on, hope never,' is my motter, miss; and we must allus hope for the best, as the sayin' is."
"Just so," says Sir James, who doesn't know, in the very least, what to say.
"A good wife, sir, I allus say, is half the battle; and that lady up-stairs, she is a reg'lar trump, she is, and so devoted, as it's quite affectin' to witness. Good-mornin' sir—thank you, sir. I'll see to him, you be bound; and, with his good lady above, there ain't the smallest——"
Sir James, opening the hall door in despair, literally pushes Clarissa out and into the cab that is awaiting them. For a long time she says nothing; and just as he is beginning to get really anxious at her determined silence, she says, with some difficulty,—
"Jim, promise me something?"
"Anything," says Jim.
"Then never again allude to this day, or to anything connected with it; and never again mention—his—name to me, unless I first speak to you."
"Never!" returns he, fervently. "Be sure of it."
"Thank you," she says, like a tired child; and then, sinking back in her corner of the cab, she cries long and bitterly.
"Our doubts are traitors,And make us lose the good we oft might win."—Shakespeare."The day goeth down red darkling,The moaning waves dash out the light,And there is not a star of hope sparklingOn the threshold of my night."—Gerald Massey.
"Our doubts are traitors,And make us lose the good we oft might win."—Shakespeare."The day goeth down red darkling,The moaning waves dash out the light,And there is not a star of hope sparklingOn the threshold of my night."—Gerald Massey.
"Our doubts are traitors,And make us lose the good we oft might win."—Shakespeare.
"The day goeth down red darkling,The moaning waves dash out the light,And there is not a star of hope sparklingOn the threshold of my night."—Gerald Massey.
The morning after her unfortunate visit to town, Clarissa sends to Mrs. Branscombe, asking her to come to her without delay. The secret that is in her heart weighs heavily, and Georgie must be told. Yet, now, when the door opens, and Georgie stands before her, she is dumb, and cold, and almost without power to move.
"What is it?" says Mrs. Branscombe, suddenly. The sad little smile that of late has been peculiar to her fades at sight of Clarissa's grief-stricken face. She advances,and lays a hand upon her arm. "You look positively ill, Clarissa: something dreadful has happened. I can see it in your eyes. It is bad news. Dorian,—he is not——"
She puts her hand to her throat, and leans on a chair.
"It is no bad news for you," says Clarissa, faintly, "but for me." She pauses.
"Are you in trouble, dearest?" says Mrs. Branscombe, sadly. "I thought you the happiest girl alive. Is there nothing but misery in this wretched world?"
"I was in town yesterday," Clarissa begins, with an effort, and then stops. How is she to betray her lover's falseness?
"And you saw Horace, and he is ill?" says Georgie, anxiously. "Tell me all, Clarissa."
"It is so hard to tell," says poor Clarissa; and then she turns her face to the wall, and wishes honestly that all things for her might now be at an end:
"Love, art thou bitter?Sweet is death to me."
"Love, art thou bitter?Sweet is death to me."
At this moment she could have gladly welcomed death.
"There are many things," she says, "but this worst of all. He does not love me; he has never loved me. And there is some one else; and——"
"Who is it?" asks Georgie, breathlessly, though the truth as yet is far from her.
"Ruth Annersley! She was there,—in his rooms!" says Clarissa; and, after this, there is a silence that lasts for several minutes.
The unhappy truth is told. Clarissa, shamed and heartbroken, moves away, that her companion may not see her face. As for Mrs. Branscombe, at first intense wonder renders her motionless; and then, as the exact meaning of this terrible story breaks in upon her, a great and glorious gleam of unmistakable rapture lights all her face, and, sinking upon aprie-Dieunear her, she presses her hands tightly together. That Dorian is exonerated, is her first thought; that he will never forgive her, is her second; and this drives all the blood from her cheeks, and the gladness from her heart, and brings her back again to the emptiness and barrenness that have made life a wilderness to her for so many months.
Going over to Clarissa, she lays her arms gently round her neck. There seems to be a new bond, born of grief, between them now.
"Do not pity me," says Clarissa, entreatingly.
"Pity you? no! There is no occasion for it. You are fortunate in having escaped such a fate as was in store for you. In time you will forget all this, and be happy in some other way."
"Shall I?" says Clarissa, drearily. "But, in the mean time, what shall I do? How shall I fill the blank here?" She lays her hand upon her heart.
"He is a wretch," says Georgie, with sudden fire. "If I were a man, I should kill him."
"You should rather be thankful to him," says Clarissa, with some bitterness. "My misery has proved your joy. The shadow has been raised from Dorian."
"Clarissa, if you speak to me like that you will break my heart," says Georgie, deeply grieved. "How could I know joy when you are unhappy? And—and, besides, there is no joy for me anywhere. Dorian will never forgive me. How could he? I, his wife, was the one who most heartily condemned him and believed in his guilt."
"When you see him, all will be well. But he should be told; you will see to that."
"Of course, darling. He is coming home next week. But how shall I meet him and say all this to him! The very thought of it is terrible."
"Next week?—so soon?"
"Yes; I had a line from him this morning,—the only one he wrote me since his departure; but that was my own fault. I am almost sorry he is coming now," says Mrs. Branscombe, nervously. "I shall dread the look in his eyes when I confess to him how readily I believed in that false rumor."
"You hardly deserve pity," says Clarissa, suddenly, turning upon her with some just anger. "You undervalued him all through. Instead of going 'down on your knees to thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love,' you deliberately flung it away. How different it has been with me! I trusted blindly, and see my reward! Even yet I cannot realize it. It seems like some strange horrible nightmare, from which I must awake. Yesterday I was so happy; to-day——"
She breaks down, and bursts into bitter weeping.
Georgie throws herself on her knees before her.
"Is this your luggage, sir? Glad to see you back again, sir."
"Thank you, Jeffers. Yes, that is mine. All right at home, I hope? Your mistress quite well?"
"Quite well, sir. She is at home, awaiting you."
Dorian turns away with a bitter smile. "At home, awaiting him!" What a wretched fool he once was, when he used to really picture to himself a fair fond woman waiting and longing for his return, whenever Fate had called him from her side!
Arriving at Sartoris, he runs up the stairs to his own room, meeting no one on his way. He smiles again—the same unlovely smile—as he tells himself that Jeffers exaggerated the case a little,—as, plainly, Georgie has taken special pains to be out of the way to avoid meeting him on his first arrival.
Opening his door, he goes in, closing it firmly behind him. Everything in the room is just as he had left it. Nothing has been changed; the very book he had been reading is lying now open at the page he had last looked into. A glorious fire is burning in the grate. A delicate Bohemian vase is filled with some rare sweet flowers.
Whose hand had gathered them? If it was one of the servants, it was very thoughtful. He is very fond of flowers. He moves listlessly about, wondering vaguely how everything can look, after some months' absence, so exactly as if he had seen it only yesterday, when a small object lying on a side-table attracts his notice.
It is a little gray glove, soiled, finger-pressed, warm as if its owner but just a minute since had drawn it from her hand. It is yet almost a part of the white, soft flesh it had covered. His brow contracts, and a pained expression crosses his face. Taking it up, he lays it in his open palm, and regards it earnestly; he hesitates, and then, as though unable to prevent himself, he raises it and presses it passionately to his lips. An instant later, with a contemptuous gesture and an inward anathema upon his ownweakness, he flings it far from him through the open window down on to the balcony beneath,—where it flutters to Mrs. Branscombe's feet!
Mechanically she stoops and picks it up. She has been hurrying towards the house, having only just heard of her husband's arrival, she not having expected him for some time later, trains at Pullingham being none of the most punctual.
Gazing at the luckless glove, her whole expression changes. She is beneath his window: was it his hand flung it so disdainfully to the ground,—the glove she had worn such a short time before, when gathering the flowers that are now making his room so sweet? Clasping the unoffending bit of kid closely in her hand, she enters the house, by a wide French window, and goes straight into Dorian's room.
At the door she hesitates, and then knocks somewhat nervously.
"Come in." His voice has been so long a stranger to her that she almost starts on hearing it, and the last remnant of her courage vanishes. She opens the door and goes slowly in.
Dorian's back is turned to her. His coat is off, and he is brushing his hair before a glass in the furious fashion men, as a rule, affect. As she enters, he turns, and putting down the brushes, regards her with undisguised surprise. Plainly, he has not expected her.
"How d'ye do?" he says, presently. It is perfectly absurd; yet neither of them laughs. It is the most ridiculous greeting he could possibly have made her, considering all things; yet no sense of ridicule touches them. They are too near to tragedy to harbor a thought of comedy.
"I did not expect you until five," says Georgie, in a constrained tone. "If I had known, I should have been ready to receive you."
"Pray do not apologize," he says, coldly. "It is very good of you to come here now. It is more than I expected."
"I came," says Georgie, with an effort, "because I have something to tell you, that should be told without delay."
"What is it?" he asks, quickly. "Is my uncle well?"
"Quite well. I saw him yesterday. It has nothing to do with him; though, of course, it must touch him very nearly."
"You will be tired," he says, with grave but distant politeness. "Sit down while you tell me your news."
"No; I prefer standing." She clasps one hand tightly over the other, and leans against the wall; she cannot, try as she will, remove her eyes from his face. "What I want to say is this: I have heard of Ruth Annersley!"
"Have you?" with an ominous calm in look and tone. "Where is she?"
"With—your brother!"
Dorian walks abruptly to the window, and stands there so that his face cannot be seen. He is distressed beyond measure. So his old suspicions have proved true, after all, and Horace's protestations were as basest lies. He feels sick at heart for his brother's honor,—that miserable remnant of a once fair thing, that costly garment, now reduced to rags. After a while he forces himself to speak again.
"Who found her there?" he asks, huskily.
"Clarissa."
"Clarissa?" He is now thoroughly shocked. "What cruel fate made her the discoverer?"
"Chance. He was ill, and she went to see him, out of pure love for him. She was rewarded by a sight of Ruth Annersley!"
"Poor girl!" says Branscombe, sadly. "So true,—so trusting."
Georgie draws her breath quickly. Are not his words a reflection upon her?—she, who has so failed in faith and love?
"I suppose that is all you have to tell me," says Dorian, presently, in an absent, weary way.
"Not quite all," she says, with a trembling voice. She forces herself to come nearer to him, and now stands before him like a small pale culprit, unable to lift her eyes to his. "I want to tell you how deeply I regret the injustice, the—"
"No, no," interrupts he, impatiently. "Let nothing be said about that. It would be worse than useless. Why waste words over what can never be undone?"
Still she perseveres bravely, although her breath is coming quicker, and her lips are trembling.
"I must tell you how sorry I am," she says, with a suppressed sob. "I want to ask you, if possible, to forg——"
"Believe me, it will be better to leave all this unsaid," he interrupts her, gravely.
"Then you do not care to hear how I have regretted the wrong I did you, and——?"
"As you ask me the question, I will answer you. No, I do not. Had you, at any time, felt one particle of affection for me, you could never have so misunderstood me. Let things now remain as they are. Though I think that perhaps, for the short time I shall remain at home, it will be better for your sake that we should appear before the world, at least, as friends."
"You are leaving home again?" she asks, timidly. Now, as he stands before her, so tall, and strong, and unforgiving, with this new-born dignity upon him, she fully realizes, for the first time, all she has recklessly resigned. He had loved her at one time, surely, and she had trampled on that love, until she had crushed out of it all life and sweetness:
"For it so falls outThat what we have we prize not to the worthWhile we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,Why, then we rack the value; then we findThe virtue that possession would not show usWhile it was ours."
"For it so falls outThat what we have we prize not to the worthWhile we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,Why, then we rack the value; then we findThe virtue that possession would not show usWhile it was ours."
"Yes, as soon as I can finish the business that has brought me back. I fear that will keep me two months, at least. I wish I could hasten it, but it would be impossible." He grows slightlydistrait, but, after a moment, rouses himself with a start, and looks at her. "Am I keeping you?" he asks, courteously. (To her the courtesy is a positive cruelty.) "Do not let me detain you any longer. Is there anything more you wish to say to me?"
"Nothing." His last words have frozen within her all desire for reconciliation. Is he, indeed, in such great haste to be gone? Without another word, she goes to the door, but, as she puts out her hand to open it, something within her grasp becomes known to her. It is the glove she hadpicked up on the balcony half an hour ago, and has held ever since almost unconsciously.
"Was it—was it you that threw this from the window?" she says, suddenly, for the last time raising her beautiful eyes to her husband's face.
"Yes. This was no place for it," returns he, sternly.
Going down the staircase, full of grief and wounded pride, she encounters Lord Sartoris.
"He has come?" asks the old man, in an agitated manner, laying his hand on her arm.
"He has. If you wish to see him, he is in his own room," replies she, in a singularly hard tone.
"Have you told him everything?" asks Sartoris, nervously. "It was a fatal mistake. Do you think he will forgive me?"
"How can I say?" says Mrs. Branscombe, with a bitter smile. "I can only tell you he has not forgiven me."
"Bless me!" says Lord Sartoris; "then, I suppose, I haven't a chance."
He is disheartened by her words, and goes very slowly on his way towards his nephew's room. When they are once more face to face, they pause and look with uncertainty upon each other. Then the older man holds out his hands beseechingly.
"I have come to demand your forgiveness," he says, with deep entreaty. "Dorian—grant it!—I am very old——"
In an instant Dorian's arm is round his neck, as it used to be in the days long ago, before the dark cloud had rolled between them.
"Not another word, or I shall never forgive you!" says Branscombe, tenderly, with the old smile upon his lips. And Sartoris, strong, obstinate, self-willed man that he is, lays his head down upon his "boy's" shoulder, and sobs aloud.
"Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautifulIn the contempt and anger of her lips."—Twelfth Night.
"Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautifulIn the contempt and anger of her lips."—Twelfth Night.
"Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautifulIn the contempt and anger of her lips."—Twelfth Night.
The dark day is growing colder and more drear. The winds are sighing sadly. A shivering sobbing breeze, that rushes in a mournful fashion through the naked twigs, tells one the year is drawing to a close, and that truly it is "faint with cold, and weak with old."
Clarissa, riding along the forest path that leads to Sartoris, feels something akin to pleasure in the sound of the rushing torrent that comes from above and falls headlong into the river that runs on her right hand.
There is, too, a desolation in the scene that harmonizes with her own sad thoughts. She has watched the summer leaves and flowers decay, but little thought her own hopes and longings should have died with them. Is she never to know peace, or joy, or content again? On her "rests remembrance like a ban:" she cannot shake it off.
"Rest! rest! Oh, give me rest and peace!" she cries aloud to her soul, but no rest cometh. The world seems colorless, without tint or purpose. She would gladly forget, if that might be, but it seems impossible to her.
"Ourselves we cannot recreate,Nor get our souls to the same keyOf the remembered harmony."
"Ourselves we cannot recreate,Nor get our souls to the same keyOf the remembered harmony."
The past—that is, her happy past—seems gone; the present is full of grief; the future has nothing to offer. This fact comes to her, and, with her eyes full of tears, she turns the corner and finds herself face to face with Horace Branscombe.
The old smile is on his face; he comes to her and holds out both his hands to take hers. He is worn and thin, and very handsome.
"I am too fortunate to meet you so soon," he says. "Yet I hardly think I should shake hands with you." Evidently, some thought unknown to her is in his mind.
"I am glad you have come to that conclusion," she says, "as there is no desire whatever on my part that our hands should meet."
He is plainly puzzled.
"What a strange welcome!" he says, reproachfully. "My letters during the past week should have explained everything to you."
"I have had none," says Clarissa, shortly.
"No? Was that why I received no answers? I have risen from a sick-bed to come to you, and demand the reason of your silence."
"I am sorry you troubled yourself so far. Ruth Annersley could have given you the answer you require."
His face blanches perceptibly; and his eyes, in their usual stealthy fashion, seek the ground.
"What have I to do with her?" he says, sullenly.
"Coward!" says Miss Peyton, in a low tone. "Do you, then, deny even all knowledge of the woman you have so wronged?"
"Take care! do not go too far," cries he, passionately, laying his hand upon her bridle, close to the bit. "Have you no fear?"
"Of you? none!" returns she, with such open contempt as stings him to the quick. "Remove your hand, sir."
"When I have said all I wish to say," returns he, coarsely, all his real brutality coming to the surface. "You shall stay here just as long as I please, and hear every word I am going to say. You shall——"
"Will you remove your hand?"
"When it suits me," returns he; "not before."
Passionate indignation conquers her self-control. Raising her arm, she brings down her riding-whip, with swift and unexpected violence, upon his cheek. The blow is so severe that, for the moment, he loses his presence of mind, and, swaying backward, lets the bridle go. Clarissa, finding herself free, in another moment is out of his reach and on her way to Sartoris.
As she reaches the gate, she meets James Scrope coming out, and, drawing rein, looks at him strangely.
"Have you seen a ghost?" asks he, slipping from his saddle, and coming up to her. "Your face is like death."
"I have, the ghost of an old love, but, oh, how disfigured! Jim, I have seen Horace."
She hides her face with her hands. She remembers the late scene with painful distinctness, and wonders if she has been unwomanly, coarse, undeserving of pity. She will tell him,—that is, Scrope,—and, if he condemns her, her cup will be indeed full.
Sir James—who, as a rule, is the most amiable of men—is now dark with anger.
"Branscombe—here?" he says, indignantly.
"Yes. He had evidently heard nothing. But I told him; and—and then he said things he should not have said; and he held my reins; and I forgot myself," says poor Clarissa, with anguish in her eyes; "and I raised my whip, and struck him across the face. Jim, if you say I was wrong in doing this thing, you will kill me."
"Wrong!" says Scrope. "Hanging would be too good for him. Oh, to think you should have been alone on such an occasion as that!"
"But it was a hateful thing to do, wasn't it?" says Miss Peyton, faintly.
"Hateful? Why? I only wish you had laid his cheek open," says Sir James, venomously. "But of course this poor little hand could not manage so much." Stooping involuntarily, he presses his lips to the hand that rests upon her knee.
"That wasn't the hand at all," says Miss Peyton, feeling inexpressibly consoled by his tone and manner.
"Wasn't it? Then I shall kiss the right one now," says Sir James, and caresses the other hand right warmly.
"I can't go on to Sartoris to-day," says Clarissa, in a troubled tone, checking her horse in the middle of the broad avenue.
"No; come home instead," says Scrope; and, turning, they go slowly, and almost silently, back to Gowran.
Horace, rousing himself after his encounter with Clarissa, puts his hand impulsively to his face, the sting of the blow still remaining. His illness has left him somewhat prostrate and weak; so that he feels more intensely than he otherwise would the pain that has arisen from the sudden stroke. A bitter execration rises to his lips; and then, feeling that all hope of reconciliation with Clarissa is at an end, he returns to Langham Station, and, with amind full of evil thoughts and bitter revenge, goes back to town.
Wild and disturbed in appearance, he breaks in upon Ruth as she sits reading alone in the very room where she had last seen Clarissa. As he enters, she utters a glad little cry of welcome, and, springing to her feet, goes over to him.
"So soon returned?" she says, joyfully; and then something she sees in his face freezes within her all further expressions of pleasure: his eyes are dark, his whole face is livid with rage.
"So you betrayed me?" he says, pushing her away from him. "Now, no lies! I saw Clarissa Peyton to-day, and I know everything."
"You have been to Pullingham?" exclaims she, with a little gasp. "Horace, do not blame me. What was I to do? When she came in here, and saw me——"
"Clarissa, here?"
"Yes, here. I was afraid to tell you of it before, you seemed so weak, so fretful. Last Tuesday week—the day you had the sleeping-draught from Dr. Gregson—she came; she entered the room, she came near you, she touched you, she would"—faintly—"have kissed you. But how could I bear that? I stepped forward just in time to prevent her lips from meeting yours."
"And so," he says, with slow vindictiveness, taking no notice of her agony, "for the sake of a mere bit of silly sentimentality you spoiled every prospect I have in life."
"Horace, do not look at me like that," she entreats, painfully. "Remember all that has passed. If for one moment I went mad and forgot all, am I so much to be blamed? You had been mine—altogether mine—for so long that I had not strength in one short moment to relinquish you. When she would have kissed you, it seemed to me more than I could endure."
"Was it? It is but a little part of what you will have to endure for the future," he says, brutally. "You have wilfully ruined me, and must take the consequences. My marriage with Clarissa Peyton would have set me straight with the world once more, and need not have altered our relations with each other one iota."
"You would have been false to your wife?" murmursshe, shrinking back from him. "Oh, no! that would have been impossible!"
He laughs ironically.
"I tell you candidly," he says, with reckless emphasis, "I should have been false to one or other of you, and it certainly would not have been to you."
"You malign yourself," she says, looking at him with steadfast love.
"Do I? What a fool you are!" he says, roughly. "Well, by your own mad folly you have separated us irretrievably. Blame yourself for this, not me. My affairs are so hopelessly entangled that I must quit the country without delay. Your own mad act has rolled an ocean between us."
He turns, and goes towards the door. Wild with grief and despair, she follows him, and lays a detaining hand upon his arm.
"Not like this, Horace!" she whispers, desperately. "Do not leave me like this. Have pity. You shall not go like this! Be merciful: you are my all!"
"Stand out of my way," he says, between his teeth: and then, as she still clings to him in her agony, he raises his hand and deliberately strikes her. Not violently, not severely, but still with sufficient force to make her stagger backwards and catch hold of a chair to keep her from falling.
He is gone: and she, stunned, quivering, half blind with nervous horror, still stands by the chair and tries to realize all that has passed. As she draws a deep breath, she places her hand, with a spasmodic movement, to her left side, as though to quell some darting pain that lies there. The action brings back consciousness, and that saddest of all things, memory.
"He did not mean it," she whispers to herself, with white set lips. "It was not a blow; it was only that he wished to put me to one side, and I was in his way, no doubt: I angered him by my persistency. Darling! How could I think that he would hurt me?"
Languid, heart-broken, she creeps to her bed, and, flinging herself upon it, dressed as she is, sleeps heavily until the morn, "diffusing round a trembling flood of light," wakes her to grief once more.