Out of due time/Part 2

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Part I

Out of due time
by Josephine Mary Hope-Scott Ward

Part II

Part III

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1523327Out of due time — Part IIJosephine Mary Hope-Scott Ward

PART II.

I.

Next morning we were up early to see the three men start. Father Duly was to go with Paul and George to the Congress.

I came down after the others, and found Mr. Sutcliffe standing by the door. "D'Etranges has mislaid the MS. of his address for the Congress at the last moment," he said. "Marcelle is hunting for it; he says he knows it is in his bedroom. Miss Fairfax, stay a moment"—he led me on to the terrace—"I want to beg your pardon for what I said the day we met in the train. I understand now. I know how happy you are. I am horribly ashamed of myself. Do you think you can forget, really forget all I said? I was ill and morbid. I understand Paul much better after this week. I was never so intimate with him before. May I? Will you let me congratulate you really and truly now?"

I looked up into his earnest dark eyes and smiled. But I think, I may be wrong, that something of the unconscious strain I was living in showed in my face; and then a sudden recollection of Mary's especial mistake made me colour.

"You don't really forgive me?" he pleaded.

"Indeed, indeed I do," I cried. "My own family made the same mistake—exactly the same mistake."

"I shall write and give you both an account of Paul at the Congress," he said.

"Yea, yes, do write us everything."

"And bygones are really and truly bygones?" he insisted, as he heard the others coming.

"They are already forgotten," I said, a little solemnly.

It was a wonderful summer's morning on which Paul and George started.

Marcelle and I felt when they had gone, that the weather and the circumstances justified dawdling under the elms at the bottom of the garden.

"There is a sense of freedom in having parted with them," she said, while a tear still lingered on her eyelashes." Too much happiness is like too much sweet cake, I feel as if I wanted to swim in a rough sea or climb some rocks. What a comfort that Paul has such a friend ! I used to fear his being dropped into something — the sea, or a river, or a boiler, but le cher George wouldn't allow it Ah, Lisa, it is sweet to think of us all four together! I love to see Paul looking at you. I am not jealous when his eyes seem to talk to you and to say, 'Du bist meine Ruh,' as they do sometimes. I always thought I should be horribly, cruelly jealous of Paul's wife," she clenched her hand tightly as she spoke, "but I love you too much to mind. Besides, I am far too happy myself."

I could not answer her. I thought her candour had failed her for the first time. Could she have been happy had she not been secure of being first with Paul?

A small boy was passing down the road, and he was visible to us through the garden gate, holding a letter in his hand.

"It's old Mrs. Monk's grandson," said Marcelle. "Tom, Tom," she called in her shrill tones, and she went to meet the boy.