"No. I have never forgotten you," I protested quickly. "I shall never
forget."
"Did you not utter those same words to that woman who fascinated you a
few months ago?" she suggested with a slight curl of the lip.
"If I did, it was because I was beneath the spell of her beauty--a
beauty so mysterious as to be almost supernatural," I answered. "I love
you nevertheless," I added in a low tone, so that none should overhear.
"I swear I do."
"It is useless," she exclaimed, with a frown of displeasure. "Further
discussion of the subject will lead to no alteration of my decision.
You know me well enough to be aware that if I am determined no argument
will turn me from my purpose."
"But my future depends upon you, Muriel," I cried in despair. "Through
years--ever since the old days in Stamford--I have admired you, and as
time has progressed, and you have become more beautiful and more
refined, my admiration has developed into a true and honest love. Will
you never believe me?"
"No," she answered. "I can never believe you. Besides, we could never
be happy, for our paths in life will lie in very different directions."
"That's all foolish sentiment," I exclaimed. "I have to ask permission
of no one as to whom I may marry. Why will you not reconsider this
decision of yours? You know well--you must have seen long, long ago--
that I love you."
"I have already told you my intention," she responded with a frigidity
of manner that again crushed all hope from my heart. "To-night must be
our last night together. Afterwards we must remember one another only
as acquaintances."
"No, no!" I protested. "Don't say that."
"It must be," she responded decisively. All argument appeared useless,
so I remained silent.
It was nine o'clock before we left the restaurant, too early for her to
return to Madame Gabrielle's, therefore at my invitation she accompanied
me to my chambers, and sat with me in my sitting-room for a long time.
So long had we been platonic friends that I could not bring myself to
believe that that was really her farewell visit. She sat in the same
chair in which Aline had sat on the first night when she had so
strangely come into my life, and now again she chatted on merrily, as in
the old days, inquiring after mutual friends in Stamford, and what
changes had been effected in sleepy, lethargic Duddington. I had told
her all the latest gossip of the place, when suddenly I observed--
"Just now everybody in the village is taken up with the new curate."
"No curate gets on well for very long with old Layton," she remarked.
"Mr Farrar was a splendid preacher, and they said it was because the
rector was jealous of his talents that he got rid of him."
"Yes, Farrar was a clever fellow, but Yelverton, the new man, is an
awfully good chap. He was at college with me, and you may judge my
astonishment when I met him, after years of separation, in my mother's
drawing-room."
"What did you say his name was?" she inquired, with knit brows.
"Yelverton--Jack Yelverton," I answered.
"Yelverton!" She uttered the name in a strange voice, and seemed to
shrink at its pronouncement.
"Yes. He's a thoroughly good fellow. He was in London--believes in
social reform among the poor, and all that sort of thing. Do you know
him?"
"I--well, yes. If it is the same man, I've heard of him. He did a lot
of good down in the East End somewhere," she answered evasively.
"I suppose all the girls will be running after him," I laughed. "It's
really extraordinary what effect a clerical collar has upon some girls;
and mothers, too, for the matter of that."
"They think the Church a respectable profession, perhaps," she said,
joining in my laughter.
"Well, if you're a clergyman you are not compelled to swindle people; a
proceeding which nowadays is the essence of good business," I said.
"The successful commercial man is the fellow who is able to screw the
largest amount of profits out of his customers; the rich stockbroker is
merely a lucky gambler; and the company promoter is but a liar whose
ingenuity is such that by exaggeration he obtains money out of the
public's pockets to float his bubble concerns. It is difficult indeed
nowadays to find an honest man in trade, and the professions are not
much better off. Medicine is but too often quackery; the law has long
been synonymous with swindling; parliamentary Honours are too often the
satisfying of unbounded egotism; and the profession of the Church is
more often than not followed by men to whom a genteel profession is a
necessity, whose capabilities are not sufficient to enable them to enter
journalism or literature, and who profess in the pulpit what they don't
practise in private life."
She laughed again.
"That's a sweeping condemnation," she declared. "But there's a great
deal of truth in it. Trade is mostly dishonest, and the more clever the
rogue the larger the fortune he amasses."
"Yes," I argued; "the man who has for years gained huge profits from the
public--succeeded in hoodwinking them with some patent medicine, scented
soap, or other commodity out of which he has made eighty per cent,
profit--is put forward as the type of the successful business man.
There is really no morality in trade in these days."
"And this Mr Yelverton is actually curate of Duddington," she said
pensively. "Strange that he should go and bury himself down there,
isn't it?"
"He hasn't been well," I said. "Work in the slums has upset his health.
He's a good fellow. Not one of those who go in for the Church as an
easy means of obtaining five or six hundred a year and a snug parsonage,
but an earnest, devout man whose sole object is to do good among his
fellow-creatures. Would that there were more of his sort about."
Thus we chatted on. It seemed as though she knew more of Yelverton than
she would admit, and that she had learned with surprise of his
whereabouts.
Only once again, when she rose to go, I spoke to her of the great sorrow
at my heart, and then alone with her in the silence of my room I
implored her to reciprocate my love.
She stood motionless, allowing her hand to rest in mine, while I
reiterated my declaration of affection. But when I had finished she
withdrew her hand firmly, and with a negative gesture burst into tears.
I saw how agitated she was, how she trembled when her white hands came
into contact with mine.
She tried to escape me, but I would not release her. Loving her as I
did, I was determined that she should not slip away from me. Surely, I
urged, I, her oldest friend, had a right to her rather than a stranger
whom she had only known a few brief weeks. She was unjust to me.
Suddenly, while I was imploring earnestly that she would hesitate before
thus casting my love aside, the clock of St Martin's struck the
half-hour.