Was any man more pitiful, more foolish, more pathetically lonely, more
grotesquely fooled by Fate than I?
Was all the world a lie?
Upon the face of my love was a trouble that for once clouded its
wondrous beauty. I tried to touch her hair, but she avoided me by a
gesture that made me shrink a little.
The years, the tranquil sorrow of my late life dropped from me; I became
again only the fierce, fearless, thoughtless lover; the man who had
walked with her and adored her beside that summer sea so long ago.
A madness of determination came to me. At all hazards she should be
mine. Shacklock was a liar and a schemer, a thief and an adventurer. I
would bear witness against him, even at risk of the vendetta which would
inevitably fall upon me.
She saw my changed face, and for the first time clung to me.
"Godfrey!" she whispered hoarsely, "have pity upon me, and remain
silent. Any word from you must reflect upon myself."
"I will not allow you to make this self-sacrifice," I cried fiercely.
"Remember Blumenthal."
"It was for my father's sake," she replied. "To save him."
"And now?"
She did not answer for several moments. Then in a low voice broken by
emotion she said:--
"To save myself."
"But it is madness!" I cried. "In what manner can you be in the power
of such a man? You surely know what he is?"
"Alas! I do--too well. If he had one grain of sympathy or feeling he
would surely release me."
"And your father approves of this shameful engagement?"
"He does, because he is ignorant of the truth."
"Then I will tell him," I said. "You shall never fall into that man's
hands. I love you, Ella--I love you with all the strength of my being--
with all my soul. If you are beneath the thrall of this adventurer, it
is my duty to extricate you."
"Ah! you can't--you can't," she cried. "If you only could, how gladly
would I welcome freedom--freedom to love you, Godfrey!" and she clung to
me tremblingly. "But it is all a vague dream of the unattainable," she
went on. "My whole life is on fire with shame, and my whole soul is
sick with falsehood. Between your life and mine, Godfrey, there is a
deep gulf fixed. I lied to you long ago--lied to save my dear father
from ruin, and you have forgiven. And now--Oh! God! I shudder as I
think--my life will be alone, all alone always."
I held her trembling hand in silence, and saw the tears streaming down
her white cheeks. I could utter no word. What she had said thrust home
to me the bitter truth that she must bow to that man's will, even though
I stood firm and valiant as her champion. My defiance would only mean
her ruin.
I had met my love again only to lose her in that unfathomable sea of
plot and mystery.
All the dark past, those years of yearning and black bitterness, came
back to me. I had thought her dead, and lived with her sweet tender
remembrance ever with me. Yet in future I should know that she lived,
the wife of an adventurer, suffering a good woman's martyrdom.
My heart grew sick with dread and longing. Again I would mourn the dead
indeed; dead days, dead love. It pressed upon my life like lead. What
beauty now would the daybreak smile on me? What fragrance would the
hillside bear for me as I roamed again the face of Europe?
I should see the sun for ever through my unshed tears. Around me on the
summer earth of Italy or the wintry gloom of the Russian steppe there
would be for ever silence. My love had passed beyond me.
Unconsciously we moved forward, I still holding her hand and looking
into the tearful eyes of her whom I had believed dead. Was it not the
perversity of life that snatched her again from me, even though we had
met to find that we still loved one another? Yes, it was decreed that I
should ever be a cosmopolitan, a wanderer, a mere wayfarer on the great
highways of Europe, always filled with longing regrets of the
might-have-been.
I remembered too well those gay Continental cities wherein I had spent
the most recent years of my weary life; cities where feasts and flowers
reign, where the golden louis jingle upon the green cloth, where the
passionate dark faces of the women glow, where voices pour forth
torrents of joyous words, where holiday dresses gleam gaily against the
shadows; cities of frolic and brilliancy, of laughter and music, where
vice runs riot hand in hand with wealth, and where God is, alas!
forgotten. Ah! how nauseous was it all to me. I had lived that life, I
had rubbed shoulders with those reckless multitudes, I had laughed amid
that sorry masquerade, yet I had shut my eyes to shut out from me the
frolic and brilliancy around, and stumbled on, sad, thoughtful, and yet
purposeless.
The gladness made me colder and wearier as I went. The light and
laughter would have driven me homeward in desolation, had I a home to
shelter me.
But, alas! I was only a wanderer--and alone.
"Tell me, darling," I whispered to my love, my heart bursting, "is there
absolutely no hope? Can you never free yourself from this man?"
"Never," was her despairing response.
And in that one single word was my future written upon my heart.
I spoke to her again. What I uttered I hardly knew. A flood of fierce,
passionate words arose to my lips, and then bending I kissed her--kissed
her with that same fierce passion of long ago, when we were both
younger, and when we had wandered hand in hand beside the lapping waves
at sunset.
She did not draw back, but, on the contrary, she kissed me fondly in
return. Her thin white hand stroked my brow tenderly, as though she
touched a child.
No words left her lips, but in her soft dear eyes I saw the truth--that
truth that held me to her with a band that was indivisible, a bond that,
though our lives lay apart, would still exist as strong as it had ever
been.
"Ella," I whispered at last, holding her slight, trembling form in my
embrace, and kissing her again upon the lips, "will you not tell me the
reason you dare not allow me to denounce this fellow? Is it not just
that I should know?"