Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Harvest/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
Keep me in temper: I would not be mad!"
It is Christmas morning, and I am leaning out of the open window of the dining-room into the cold clear air, looking at the clean white world, that during the night has been covered over freshly, so that she is fair and spotless for the great, high festival, as a bride coming out of her chamber to meet her bridegroom. It is splendid enough, but a little cruel, perhaps, if one happens to notice that little dead robin yonder, whose crimson breast shows prettily enough against the snow. He has struggled gallantly through the bleak days and bitter nights, but to-day—on Christmas morning, the time of feasting and plenty—his poor, slender, starved, little body has found death.
Behind me the house is all alive and merry, with bustle and noise. They are all at home now save Jack, and they have decorated the whole place with holly and mistletoe, which gleams brightly red and white from every corner and cranny. The church clock strikes ten: in another hour church will begin, but I shall not go with the rest. I think I should stand here listening, though a year and a day passed before Paul came back.
What a noise the boys are making! I shall never be able to hear the sound of the carriage coming over the snow. Hark! What is that? My heart stands still, every pulse pauses, then bounds madly on, as a sound, a certain, dulled, muffled sound, comes to my ears from a distance. It is the sound of wheels—it is coming this way. Is that a carriage coming towards me? the snow has blinded my eyes, I cannot see. . . . I look up seeing, and there is George, alone. I do not move or speak as he comes over to me and looks into my face.
"He is dead?" I say, gently, looking away from him to a bird perched on a bough near, who is singing, absolutely singing—starved, and bitter cold as he is. Why do I not sing too?
"He is not dead," says George.
"Not dead!" I shriek, recoiling from him with parted lips and wide eyes—"not dead, did you say? Thank God! Thank God!"
And the frozen blood in my body stirs nimbly in my veins, and circulates once again; and whereas a minute ago I was a dead woman, now I am quick.
"But why did you not bring him?" I ask. "There could be nothing to detain him."
"He is here," says George; "he bade me to tell you," he goes on slowly and painfully, "that he was waiting for you at the old place—yes, at the old place, and you were to go at once, he said."
"He will have to wait a little, then," I say, with a delicious happy laughter bubbling straight up from my heart to my lips. "Oh, he has kept me waiting for him long enough! I don't seem to be able to take it all in at once," I add, putting my hand to my head; "but by-and-by, yes, by-and-by I shall be perfectly happy! How tired you look, George! how pale! How can I ever thank you enough for bringing him back to me? We shall never forget it, George—Paul and I—when we are so happy we shall never forget that we owe it all to you, for if you had not gone to Rome in time-'
"I know," he says, shivering. "Vasher is waiting for you, Nell."
"What a hurry you are in," I say, as I tie the strings of my cloak. "Now do you know that I mean to scold him—perhaps he was afraid I should, so did not come up to the house? Perhaps! But I shall be able to see him whenever I please now, you know, for he has come to stay."
George groans.
"Are you ill?" I ask, turning round from the looking-glass, where I am putting on my hat.
I must try and make myself look nice now Paul has come back.
But George does not answer.
"And I have been so wretched," I say, laughing softly, "though you always told me there was nothing in that presentiment, or the dream! Do you know you have not wished me a merry Christmas, sir? But, never mind, you have brought me the best Christmas gift of all."
He has turned his back to me, and is looking out of the window.
"Good-bye," I say, pausing at the door. "I shall not go to church this morning."
In the hall Dolly and the children crowd about me, but I just tell them Paul has come back, and break away from them all.
I wave my hand to George through the window. How terribly pale and strange he looks! Then I go away over the snow with hurrying, dancing feet. Have I not got my Christmas morning at last—real, golden, perfect? In the whole wide world does there beat such a happy heart as mine? I have not asked George how it happens that Paul never wrote: he shall tell me that himself, and I will be so angry with him, lazy, naughty, careless fellow. As I turn the corner of the meadow I see him standing with his back to me, leaning over the stile, and for a moment I stand still—the absolute delight of seeing him in the old familiar place is so keen, that it leaves me no immediate longing to touch his hand or hear his voice. Then I walk quickly on. He does not turn his head, and he used to hear my footfall quick enough. Perhaps the snow dulls it. I am close upon him when he looks round and faces me.
"You have come back," I say, thrusting both my eager hands into his; "and I have been so frightened, so miserable. . ."
He does not answer, only, as I lay my head down on his shoulder, he lifts his arms and folds them about me, pressing my head close against his breast.
"Do you know that I thought you would never come back, that you were dead, or that some one had come between us, and even now I cannot believe that you are here . . . you ought to have written, darling. Did you not guess what a miserable time it would be to me? I am going to scold you for it by-and-by, sir; but I shall have plenty of time for that—plenty of time! And I was wicked enough to doubt you, Paul—as though I might not have known better! I had all sorts of queer fancies. But I will never be afraid again, Paul—never again. I could even let you go away from me and be quite sure you would come back safely."
How silent Paul is! because he is so happy, I suppose; and how quickly he is breathing, as though he had been running hard.
"And you have come back to me on Christmas morning," I say, dreamily, "to give me the whitest, happiest, merriest Christmas. Do you know I asked George Tempest to wish me a merry Christmas just now, and he turned away. I suppose he is very tired, as you must be, darling."
I lift my head to look at his face, but he presses my head back in its place, stroking my face with his hand with a passionate tenderness that fills to overflowing my hungry heart.
"How quiet you are," I say; "but I do not want to hear you talk—it is quite enough for me to know that I have you so near me. What can come between us now that we are together?"
He draws my hand across his lips. How hot they are! how they quiver!
The church bells ring out sweet and cheerful across the fields; the peal rises and falls gaily. Can any sound be sweeter than Christmas bells when one is happy?
"Paul," I say in a whisper, "did you see that wicked paper? I might have known you would not believe it."
"It is cold here," he says; and I lift my head suddenly, and look into his face.
Is this my Paul—gaunt and worn, and pale as death, with deep burning eyes? He looks like a man just risen from a bed of illness.
"You have been ill," I cry. "That was why you stayed so long away and never wrote?"
"No," he says slowly, "not ill. We cannot talk here. Let us go to the old place."
But as we go I look at him again and again, and see plainly enough that he is ill. I should scarcely know him again for the man who went away from me a fortnight ago. As we cross the field I slip and stumble on the uneven, snow-covered ground, and hold out my hands to Paul to help me, but he does not seem to heed me; he walks forward alone.
In our snow parlour I sit down on the old log of wood; but he does not—he stretches himself out at my feet and lays his head against my shoulder. His face is hidden; he does not move, or stir, or speak. Is he only weary, or in actual bodily pain? I have so much to tell him, he has so much to tell me, I think that if I were not so perfectly happy merely knowing that he is with me I should be piqued, and a little angry. I never noticed until to-day that Paul's hair is streaked with grey—I always thought it was raven black; and it is full early for the colour to change. He is but little past thirty. I pull the short locks out between my fingers, and he shivers under my touch. Yes, he is ill, and it is madness for him to be out here in the cold.
"Paul!" I say, stooping over him, "you must not stay out here; come with me to the house."
He lifts his eyes to my face, painfully, giddily; then his head falls heavily back, and he clasps his arms tighter about me.
"Can you not wait a little while?" he says, and his voice is strange and harsh.
"Yes, I can wait," I say gently, looking out at the wide stretching sweep of white, just as I looked at it a few days ago, when I came hither alone; only then my heart was heavy as lead, and now it beats under the head of my lover.
I fold my arms about his neck close and warm: it is such a new delight to me to know that he is all my own. If he had been given back to me from the dead, I could not look at him with greater wonder and thankfulness. And yet it is altogether unaccountable, but though Paul has been with me all this time he has not kissed me once; no, nor seemed to think of such a thing! It never happened so before.
"Hark at the bells " I say, as they ring out, now loud, now clear, across the fields. "I wonder will they ring as sweetly as that when you and I are wed, Paul? And I actually dreamt that you were married to somebody else, dear. Was ever anything more foolish and senseless?"
He lifts his head, suddenly rises, and stands before me. The minute bell has almost done ringing as he begins to speak; it ceases and with the last stroke every joy and good and hope the world contains has died out to me for ever and ever . . . . and this is my white, merry Christmas morning!
Not a sound breaks the silence as we look in each other's deathly faces; then his mouth opens, and a terrible curse breaks from his lips and wanders out over the desolate stirless land; and my heart begins to move again, and sluggish life to creep into my body. His words do not shock me—do not even seem strange to me. I listen to them as idly as I used to hearken to the frozen brook yonder when it ran its summer course between the green banks.
"And why did you come back?" I ask, and my voice is much the same as usual, only maybe a little slower. Why are you not with your wife?"
"My wife!" The words leave his lips as though he cast a foul stain of leprosy from him. "Why did you let me go without a warning?" he cries, with clenched hands. "Did you know all the time that we had such a bitter enemy? Did you know that for years I have been spied on, dogged, followed; and that here, in your very home, lived one of that woman's spies to report our every word and act?"
"I knew we had an enemy," I say, sitting with stiffly-folded hands, and eyes that never lift themselves from the blank, blinding carpet of my parlour, " but I thought she had no power to harm us."
"And that has undone us," he cries, with a despair and a fury in his voice that makes it sound like nothing human. "If you had only warned me that morning before I left you———" He stops. "God forgive me for blaming you, when my own mad folly has brought us to this. And to think," he cries, smiting his brow with his clenched hand, "that I have lost you to get that vile—thing! After parting with you the day I set out for Rome, I walked some distance; and then, reproaching myself for having allowed you to return home alone, I retraced my steps. Turning the bend of the meadow, I saw you in George Tempest's arms, your head against his shoulder! and, acting under I don't know what impulse, instead of walking boldly forward, I turned sharply, and in another moment was out of sight. I returned to the Towers, just caught my train, and at Marseilles sat down to write to you. My first hot anger had passed by then your parting words of love and sorrow had come back to me with the stamp of their own beautiful truth upon them, and though I could not understand the situation in which I had found you I felt sure you could explain it. And though I did not like it—what man would?—I was not at that time actively jealous of him, or doubtful of you; that was to come after. In my letter I asked you how it was you came to be with him, and whether you had been ill or miserable, when I saw him holding you. I reached Rome safely, and on the day after my arrival I looked for the letter that you had promised to post to me the day after I left Silverbridge; but there was none—no, nor on the next day, or the next. Can you wonder that by degrees there grew up in my heart a terrible fear, a sickening doubt, with my absence had your love grown so faint and lifeless? And if I could have hurried back, I should not have done so; no word of mine should ever seek to determine your wandering allegiance. Only I could not yet suppose such a thing possible—you had seemed so honest, so true; your love-words were so freshly in my ears. But sometimes I remembered that so others had sounded, spoken to other men by women who had betrayed them."
"And did you never receive a letter from me?" I ask, slowly, remembering the dainty knot of flowers that I gathered so carefully and kissed so tenderly.
"I received one," he says, "later. Meanwhile, I was detained by business beyond the time that I had fixed to return to Silverbridge; and on the 21st a letter and a newspaper were brought to me. The former was in your handwriting, and your seal, with your name 'Nell' on it, looked me in the face so naturally and sweetly, that my doubts forsook me on the spot, and I kissed it like a fool, child. I opened the letter, and out fell a tiny withered nosegay of flowers, that seemed to have been plucked many days and had little scent; and for your sweet sake, I kissed them too, Nell, many times. Then I read your first love-letter. I took it in my hand so carefully, remembering that it had touched yours, and started as I read the first words—'Dear Mr. Vasher.' With all your wilful ways, I could not understand that. Well, it was a simple epistle enough. It was only to say that, after mature consideration, you had come to the conclusion that you would be happier as George Tempest's wife than as mine, and that you had already married him, and were going abroad immediately with him and his father. You sent a newspaper to corroborate your statement; you asked forgiveness from me for any disappointment you might cause me; and you signed yourself 'Helen Tempest.'"
"Have you it here?" I ask; and he takes it out of his pocket-book and hands it to me, and I sit looking at it much as a man may look at the knife that has stabbed his nearest and dearest to the heart. The writing on the envelope is mine, that on the sheet inside is not; but the forgery is so excellent that, were this letter a copy of one I had ever written, I should pronounce it to be my own. I give it back to him without a word.
"The sight of your handwriting," he goes on, "had so routed the jealous demons that had for the past ten days tormented me, that the letter itself came upon me like a rude, violent shock. Then I grew angry, and thought how unlike you it was to play me such a trick, and (knowing my weakness about Tempest) how unworthy of you! The joke seemed to me to be in the worst possible taste. I pushed your letter and the flowers aside, and mechanically opened the paper—not that I expected to find there the announcement you bade me look for, but because I thought some curious similarity of names to yours and Tempest's had suggested the sorry jest. And I found no less than the actual announcement of your marriage. I was still staring at it, incapable of any reasonable thought, when Mills knocked at the door, and asked for orders about something or other. As he was going out of the room, I asked him if he had heard any Silverbridge news since he came away. He hesitated for a moment, then took from his pocket a letter, which he laid on the table, then went away without a word. Like all the other servants, he knew pretty well how matters lay between you and me. The letter was addressed to him, and the enclosure was from a housemaid (apparently) living in your house. She said that you were married to young Mr. Tempest, to everybody's surprise; that people said it was like a stolen marriage, even though Mrs. Adair went to church to see you made man and wife, and Mr. Skipworth read the service. Nell, I had treated your letter as a bad joke, I had doubted the newspaper, for I know mistakes sometimes occur, but this third piece of evidence I could not, and did not doubt; none but a madman would. The gross improbability of the whole thing; the unlikelihood that you should be in so indecent a hurry to marry another man the moment my back was turned; the strangeness of your mother's abetting your rash act by her pre-sence, when she had countenanced your engagement to me; your father's absence, and the tacit disobedience displayed to him by the marriage in his absence—all these unnatural circumstances I recognised clearly enough, but they vanished before the one great fact that you were married; how or why, or where, mattered little enough—you were Tempest's wife."
"And then?" I ask, lifting my dull eyes to his bleached, wild face.
"And then I went mad—as utterly mad for the time as any wretch in Bedlam ; as drunk with grief as any senseless beast on the pavement; as incapable as either of accounting for or guiding my actions. Well, I wandered about all that day; at night I found myself back again in my rooms; and, as I sat there, my despair at losing you gave way to a fierce fury—that you should have dared to so trick and shame me; you, who had known of the disappointment I had found in my first love; you, to stab me so surely to the heart, who knew how entirely my whole life and belief in all things rested on the trust I had in your honesty and faithfulness. In that hour my love for you seemed to pass away even more utterly than it had done for Silvia when I found out her falsehood, for, be her sin what it might, she had been true to me, while you had deliberately left me without a pang, without a care.
"As I sat there, out of the darkness suddenly came clinging arms, and stole round my neck, drawing my burning head down to a soft embrace ; a tender voice, gentle as a mother's, whispered words of comfort in my ear. I did not know whether I was actually mad or dreaming. Had an angel dropped from heaven to tend me, or was my unknown consoler some earthly creature, like myself, who could care for so heart-bare, desolate a man as I? And some touch of the hand, some tone in the whispering voice, by-and-by informed me that this woman, who could lay aside all pride and thought of self, to come to me in my hour of agony, was Silvia, to whom I had dealt out such bitter mercy, and who, it now appeared, had loved me through it all, aye! from the first day to the last, while you, whom I had loved a hundred-fold more than I ever did her, had cast me from you as unhesitatingly, as coolly, as a withered flower or a soiled glove. I did not question how she knew my story. I asked no reasons for her coming; she gave none. She had only fled to me in my misery; recking, caring nothing for name or reputation—so I thought then—good God!
"The night wore on: her love, her tenderness, her clinging beauty, her great love worked in me like a charm. I have told you that in that hour I hated you for your falseness; well, in that hour I loved that woman for her truth. Had she not through good and evil report clung to me? Did not her own sin show white as snow beside your black, barefaced desertion? And remember that I was mad, child; utterly mad! My higher, better nature was dead within me. All reasoning, thinking power had gone out of me, and so—God knows the rest!—the maddening wiles of the woman, the rage that filled my heart against you . . . and the morning found us standing together before a priest, and, later on, at the British embassy man and wife.
"Even then the madness had not passed. I did not know what I had done, did not know what I had married. The darkness still lay upon my eyes. She was to me simply a woman who had been faithful; you a woman who had betrayed me. My thoughts never went any further than that. I did not love her, and did not hate her; I had simply no feeling for her whatever.
"We went to Florence immediately. Tempest was at that moment in the town, if we had known it. With the usual fatality where men's lives are concerned, there had been no less than three break-downs on the road, and he had arrived too late. Afterwards I found that, half-an-hour after we set out, he reached my door, but no message had been left, and he had no clue to our whereabouts, so he had a long search before he found us. At that time I never thought. It did not occur to me strange that Silvia should be in Rome alone and unattended; I never asked myself or her how she knew of your marriage, or how she could care to marry me knowing what effect the news had had upon me. I felt something like a man under the influence of an opiate that has not made him perfectly unconscious—everything passes around him as in a dream, but he knows that by-and-by he will awake and see things as they really are.
"On the morning after we reached Florence, my senses came back to me; for the first time I saw face to face this thing that I had done; knew that, married though you were, I loved you as madly as ever; knew that the woman I had made my wife was less to me than one sound of your voice, one touch of your hand. And, strangely enough, you had not seemed so lost to me when I knew you to be the wife of another man, as now that I found myself the husband of another woman. I walked out of the house in the still early morning, and the first man I met was your husband, George Tempest. There must have been murder in my eyes as I looked at him, for he said at once, 'It is all a mistake.'
"I don't know what happened after that. In an hour we had set out for England. You know the rest."
Yes, I know the rest, as I look upon the face that is now no more than a shadow. The features are there, but where is the life, the glow, the spirit, that filled it in bravely a fortnight ago—only a fortnight ago!
And we stand looking, looking into each other's haggard countenances, and dare not put out so much as the tips of our fingers to each other—'twixt him and me a great gulf lies. I wonder if I shall always be this dumb, senseless stone . . . will the spirit ever wake in me, and cry, and rend me?
"If I had to choose between dying now this minute and living over again the last hour, I would choose to die," he says slowly. "I have suffered enough, God knows, since you and I stood here together, but never half of what I did when I heard your footsteps coming over the snow, and dared not turn to face you; and then, when you thrust your little hands into mine, and ran on in your loving welcome . . . when I think of the future, of how I shall never watch for your coming, never see you stepping across the rye to meet me; never, in summer or seed time, or winter or harvest, listen for your steps and the sound of your gentle voice . . . we shall miss each other's morning kiss, child . . . at eventide we shall hold out despairing arms to each other the days will be empty and dreary . . . we shall call upon each other across the silence that gives back no answer. . . ."
His words enter my ears, but do not stir my heart; by-and-by they will come back to me perhaps. I shall have plenty of time after he is gone to muse over and be sorry for them—yes, all the rest of my life.
"We need not have quarrelled about the books—need we?" I ask with a faint smile. "I shall never have a chance of throwing any more at you."
"Hush!" he says sharply. "You used to say we were too happy. . . ."
"Paul," I say, shivering, "when do you go back to your wife?"
"Go back to her?" he asks, frowning. "Did I hear you aright?"
"Yes. Of course you will go back to her—you are bound to."
"Am I?" he says between his teeth. "I think not."
"She could not force you to marry her," I say steadily; "you did it of your own free will. What reason would you give to the world for casting her off?"
"What reason?" he asks, with a deep, steady blaze in his eyes. "She is no wife of mine, and it shall be my business to prove that she is not!"
"She loves you."
"Loves me!" he cries, with a fierce scorn in his voice. "She would have shown her love better by stabbing me to the heart! And you would send me back to her?"
"Yes, I would send you back."
"Ay!" he says below his breath, "I will go back to kill her!"
"Will you? Was Paul Vasher born to be a murderer?"
"Yes," he says doggedly, "even that!"
"No, you will not. That weak, sinful woman has no power to plunge your soul into guilt. She has ruined your life, but she can do no more. Shameful though she is, she is yours. You took her not for a day or a week, but for better for worse. You must bear the burden of the rash act you committed; and, remember, that any discredit you lay upon her will recoil upon yourself; for she is, in the eyes of the world, your wife, and the bearer of your name."
"In the sight of God she is not ! Did you ever love me?” he asks bitterly. "After all, I do not think you can know what love means to wish to send me back to that woman. Do you think that if you had been cheated into marrying another man, and you came to me, I would send you back to him? I would hold you—keep you—bind you in my arms so safely that no one should wrest you from me—my love, my darling!" He covers up his face, he trembles in a strong man's agony, and still, still I can look at him and feel absolutely nothing.
"As you will not take up your burden and bear it like a man," I say—and at my words he lifts his head—"I must take it up and bear it for you. I will never live to have people pointing at me and saying, 'That is the girl Paul Vasher loves, and who loves him—the married man. It is on her account that he does not live with his wife.' Do you think that I could bear it? If you will not go back to her, I will leave Silverbridge and go far away, where the prying finger of scandal cannot reach me."
"And why should you? Who will know the story?"
"Every one. Do you think she will keep silence ?"
"There can be no possible reproach to you in it."
"None if you are with her, much if you are apart. She who is known to stand between husband and wife receives but scant mercy from the world."
"Ask me something less hard," he says; and the veins in his forehead stand out like cords. "Even for you I cannot do this. Set me some task that body and soul do not utterly forbid. I am not mad, Nell; but I know my own strength, and I could not do it. What do you think I am made of, that I could see her fill your place, bear your name, stand by my side usurping your rights—she! Do you think I could ever let my eyes rest on her false face, without yours rising up before me? ever hear her called Mrs. Vasher, without longing to strike to earth the man that said it? ever endure to so much as touch her hand, when I was wearying, aching after you?—you think that I could do all this and live? Sooner or later I should break down—and———
"Paul," I say, and my voice is so hushed that I can scarcely hear it," do you not see that there is no safety for either you or me if you are not by the side of your wife! For the sake of all the love you bore me, in recompense for all the misery you have brought me, I ask this one mercy of you! Live with her as a stranger, if you will; but, in the eyes of the world, be man and wife."
A shamed streak of red comes into my cheek as I speak; then I bow my head and wait, and a terrible doubt crosses my mind us to whether I am acting for good or for evil in demanding this supreme expiation of a life. The silence is so long and unbroken that time seems to stand still; when he speaks his voice seems to come from a long way off. I lift my eyes and look at him, and in his there is the beaten, broken look that never comes into a man's face until the last hope is gone—the last stake lost.
"You have conquered," he says. "I will do it for your sake. Could any man do more? You must give me a little while to get used to the idea, a little while to get rid of some of my prejudices (he laughs harshly), then she shall be offered a place in my house as the mistress of it, to be treated by me as any other stranger within my gates; if she refuses, she can live alone."
A sick, jealous pain, the first that has begun to stir my dull heart, awakes as I look at him. What if he grow to love her again? Is she not fair as the day? and do men remember for ever? And I am sending him back to her! There is a little bitter silence, and then Paul kneels down in the snow and looks into my face, but I do not look at him: my heart is waking from its torpor, and I dare not. Yesterday he was my lover, to-day he is Silvia's husband. Not in one moment can I pass from the familiar friendship to the new unnatural position we hold towards each other.
"You have fixed my lot, child; what is to be your own?"
"I shall live."
"Will ever any one fill my place?"
"Never."
"No one man more than another?"
"No man."
"I was always a selfish brute," he says, slowly; "I am selfish still, and I tell you that I would rather see you lying in your coffin with violets in your pale hands, than know you to be another man's wife. And that is my love for you, Nell. I would have you love me to the very last beat of your heart. I would have the last thought of your sweet soul, the last call from your lips; as your name will be on mine when I die, sweetheart; as I shall love you to the day of my death—and after. And when we meet, as we shall meet, in another world, where there are no marriages, will you come to my side with lips as pure and untouched as they have ever been, save to me? as on mine no touch of living woman shall rest between now and then—so help me, God!"
"I will come to you," I say, simply.
The calm that lay on me, heavy as the snow on the once throbbing earth at my feet, has broken up now, and a wild fever of agony possesses me—a breathless longing to touch his hand, to speak one word of love and comfort to him—and I may not, dare not, though we are young, loving, together, though not a yard of space lies between us. We are separated, not for a week or a year, but for ever. Since he lifted his head from my shoulder when the bells were ringing, there has been space between us—Death himself could not set us farther from each other. I must get away soon—soon, or I shall break down utterly. I stand up. "Good-bye," I say in a whisper; "I am going now."
"So soon?" he says, and his voice is almost as faint as mine; "shall we not be apart all the rest of our lives?"
"Will talking give us back our murdered happiness, Paul? will talking about our beautiful yesterday quicken our dead to-morrow? We can never be any more to each other than we are now; we can never be any less. Let me go now while I have the strength."
"Strength!" he repeats hoarsely, as he peers into my face; "and I have brought you to this, my poor broken little white flower. It is my mad, senseless sin that has driven the colour from your cheeks, the gladness from your sweet eyes. Nell, Nell! I cannot let you go; you are my real wife, not that other, my life, my lily!"
"Should I be your lily, then?" I ask, tremblingly. But he who has been so chary of touching me since he has told me his evil tidings, comes closer; would fold his arms about me.
"Back!" I cry, springing aside; "what! would you be the falsest traitor on God's earth?"
"To her!" he cries, with a fierce gesture of loathing.
"To me!"
"To you," he mutters, then an ashen grey replaces the fire of a moment ago; his hands fall to his side; and so, with a hand's breadth between us, we stand looking on each other's wild faces,then—
"Good-bye," I say, in faintest, dreadest whisper; but he does not move or answer, and noiselessly I step past him; but when I have gone a score or so of steps, I pause shuddering, for over the cold desolate fields sweeps the wild and bitter cry of a strong man in his pain: O God! . . . . O God! . . .