Cry, O lover,
Love is over.
When Lady Etwynde comes back, she finds Lauraine lying cold and
insensible on the little balcony.
In great alarm she tries to recover her to consciousness, and at last
succeeds. With a heavy sigh the dark eyes open, and Lauraine rises
and goes back to her low lounge by the window, and there lies faint,
white, and exhausted, while, with a great and tender pity, her friend
hovers about, speaking soothing words, and asking nothing of the
cause of this strange fainting fit. She can guess it well enough.
Half an hour passes. Then Lauraine lifts her head with a little
languid smile.
"You must think me very foolish," she says.
"Why should I?" asks Lady Etwynde, simply. "My dear, I think I know
what is troubling you. I have known it long. Do not speak of it
unless you wish, if it pains you in any way. But be sure of my
sympathy always."
"I am sure of it," answers Lauraine. "I think I have never made a
friend of any woman but you. You are always so good, and one always
feels one can trust you. But you are right. Something _is_
troubling me very much. I feel to-night as if life was altogether
too hard!"
"Who of us does not feel _that_ at some time or other?" says Lady
Etwynde, sadly. "A time when to look back or to look forward seems
alike equally hard; for during the one we think of what 'might have
been,' and during the other we dread to think what _may_ be. There
are two very sad things in this life: the waste of love, the dearth
of happiness. Both of these are with you now. They were with me
once. But I lived through the struggle, and you will do the same.
You think it is impossible now. Ah, my dear, so did I; so does every
one who suffers. And yet physical force drags us on whether we will
or not."
"I have been very foolish," says Lauraine, the tears standing in her
eyes as they look out at the quiet night. "When I was young, a mere
girl, Keith and I betrothed ourselves. You know my mother was his
guardian, and all our childhood was passed together. No one could
influence him or manage him as I could. He was always impulsive,
reckless, passionate, but oh! so loving and so generous of heart.
Well, as we grew older the love seemed to grow with us. Then my
mother began to notice it. She became alarmed; we were parted; but
still neither of us forgot. At last Keith spoke to my mother. Of
course she laughed, and treated it as a boy's fancy. He had nothing,
and we were not rich; at least, so she said always. He grew angry,
and said he would go abroad, and make a fortune. She said 'very
well; when he had made it he could come back and claim me.' In the
end he went to America. We were not allowed to correspond, and year
after year went by. I heard nothing from him or about him. Then I
was introduced to London life. I had a season of triumphs, gaiety,
amusements. I will not say it weakened my memory of Keith, but at
least it filled up the emptiness of my life, and I was young, and
enjoyment seemed easy enough. In my third season, I met Sir Francis
Vavasour. From that time my mother's whole soul was bent on a
marriage between us. I cannot tell you now the thousand and one
things that combined to throw us together, to wind a web about my
careless feet. The memory of Keith had grown less distinct. Four
years had passed, and no sign. I began to think he had forgotten.
Later on, I found my mother had deceived me. He _had_ written to
her, speaking always of his unfalterable fidelity; then came the news
of brighter prospects of a great fortune in store; of entreaty to
tell me, and let me hear from him. She did nothing of the sort. She
only told me that if I did not accept Sir Francis it meant ruin to
her. That her debts were enormous; that I had cost her a small
fortune in these three seasons; that--oh, I cannot tell you it all
now. I am not naturally weak-minded, but I suffered myself to be
persuaded. I never attempt to hold myself blameless; still, had I
known about Keith.... Well, on my wedding-day, I received a letter
from him. He was possessor of a large fortune, he loved me more than
ever, and he would be in London, at our house, on that very day.
Imagine my feelings. It was all too late then. Nothing could be
done. I had to school myself as best I could to meet my girlhood's
lover an hour after I had become Sir Francis Vavasour's wife. It was
a terrible ordeal. Poor Keith! Oh, what I felt when I saw what I
had given him to bear. He was half mad, and I--oh, how sick and
ashamed and wicked I felt. We parted again, and for eighteen months
we did not meet. Then he came to Rome one winter, and I was there.
He greeted me like any other acquaintance. I thought he had
forgotten. Gradually our old friendship was resumed. Gradually he
became my constant companion, and the confidence and sympathy and
interests of the past seemed to awaken, and be with us both again. I
dreamt of no harm. He never by word or look betrayed that he loved
me still. I thought it was all over and done with, and feared no
danger. I was not unhappy. Sir Francis was very kind, and I had my
boy. I troubled myself in no way about what might be said, Keith had
been a sort of brother to me so long. We left Rome and came to
London. Then it was that he betrayed himself; then it was that I too
learnt I cared for him as I had no right to do."
"And the Gloire de Dijon roses were left under the cedar tree,"
murmurs Lady Etwynde, faintly.
Lauraine starts and blushes. "Yes, it was that night. I almost hate
to think of it, and yet--oh, Etwynde, _can_ I help loving him? _Can_
I tear him out of my heart?"
"My dear," says her friend, gravely, "if love were within our power
to give, or to withhold, life would be an easy enough matter for most
of us. It has been at cross purposes always. I suppose it won't
change tactics, even for our advanced age."
"Well," sighs Lauraine, wearily, "I did what I could, but Keith made
me promise that I would not banish him; that I would let him see me
sometimes still; that----"
"My dear," murmurs Lady Etwynde, gently, "you were never so foolish
as that?"
"I was," answers Lauraine. "I--I pitied him so, and he seemed so
desperate, and I had done him all the wrong. I am not a bit of a
heroine, Etwynde. I have little moral strength, and he promised he
would speak of love no more, so--
"So you believed him?" interpolates Lady Etwynde. "Of course, man
like, he--kept his promise?"
"Until--to-night," falters Lauraine. "When I saw him, when we met as
we did, I cannot tell you how awful I felt. It was as if Fate had
purposely thrown him across my path when I was most weak, and most
unhappy."
"And what have you done?" asks Lady Etwynde, pityingly.
"I have sent him away--for ever!"
"Lauraine, had you strength--
"Oh," says Lauraine, with a little hysterical laugh, "we quarrelled
desperately first. He said some dreadful things to me, and I--I
don't know if I was not equally hard and unjust. But in any case it
was better than sentiment--was it not? The next thing we shall hear
is that he is going to marry Miss Anastasia Jane Jefferson."
"Lauraine, you are jesting!" exclaims Lady Etwynde. "What, that
little American doll who 'guesses' and 'calculates,' and is only a
few degrees better than Mrs. Bradshaw Woollffe? Impossible! I know
she has a _penchant_ for him--at least, it looked like it--but after
loving you----"
"Oh, it will be 'moonlight after sunlight,'" says Lauraine, bitterly,
"if I may copy Tennyson and say so. Why should he make a martyr of
himself? I can be nothing to him, and it is all shame, and sin, and
horror now. Oh, God! that I should live to say so--my darling
boy----" A sob breaks from her. She thinks of Keith--bold, bright,
_debonnaire_ Keith, with his sunny smile and his bold, bright eyes
that for her were always so soft and loving; Keith, with his merry
ways and wild freaks, and steadfast, tender heart; Keith as he _was_,
as he never again can be to her, in all the years to come!
"It is all my fault--mine!" she cries between her heavy sobs. "And I
have made him so unhappy; and if he goes to the bad, if he gets wild
and reckless, oh, what shall I do? How can I sit and bear my life,
and look on _his_, as if it were nothing to me?"
Lady Etwynde kneels beside her and puts her arms round her in
silence. "It will be hard, terribly hard," she says, tenderly. "But
oh, my dear, you have had strength to do what was right to-day. You
will have strength to bear the consequences."
"Was it right?" wails Lauraine, in exceeding bitterness. "He said
not. He called me cold and calculating, and said I have spoilt all
his life now, and he is so young, and I---- Oh, how I could love him
now!"
"Hush!" whispers Lady Etwynde, gently; "you must not think of that.
Right! Of course it was right, Men are so selfish, that unless a
woman ruins herself for their sake they will always say she does not
love. _Love!_ Faugh, the word as they mean it is different to our
interpretation. I have not patience to think of it. Love is
something purer, holier, nobler than sensual gratification. It is
sympathy, it is fidelity without reward; it is consecration without a
vow. Did we take our teaching of it from _them_, Heaven help us all.
Thank God, something within us helps us to the right, the pure, the
better part of it. Lauraine, do not waste your pity thus. What
right had he to dishonour you in your grief, your loneliness, by any
such words as these? If indeed he loved you, you should have been
sacred to him for your child's sake, even though he ignored your
husband. Can you not see it too, dear? As for saying you have
ruined his life, that is cowardly. He does not love you worthily or
he would never have uttered so weak a reproach." She ceases. She
feels the shudder that runs through the slender figure. She knows
her words hurt and sting, but she is pained and angered and sore
distressed. She feels a hatred and intolerance of Keith Athelstone's
selfish passion.
"You do not know," murmurs Lauraine; "you cannot judge. Of love no
one can, save just the two who love. For them it is all so
different, and everything else looks of such small account."
A warm flush comes over her face; she dashes the tears away from her
eyes. Lady Etwynde unloosens the clasp of her arms, and stands up, a
little stern, a little troubled.
"You are right. An outsider must always take a calmer and more
dispassionate view of the matter; but I hope in time you will see him
as he is. Once you were married, your lives lay apart. He should
not have come near you, and, from your own account, he has broken all
laws of honour, and put the selfishness of passion before everything
that is good and honest and pure."
"You are hard on him," says Lauraine, quietly. "You don't know him
as I do. No one ever did seem to understand Keith but myself."
"He is certainly no paragon of virtue," Lady Etwynde answers,
contemptuously. "But, my darling, don't let us quarrel over him. He
is a man, and I know what men are when they love. As for you, you
have behaved nobly, despite your pain. Believe me, the thought will
bring its own comfort in time, and--you say--he will never come back
again?"
"So he said."
"Has he never said that before?"
"Yes," answers Lauraine; "on my wedding-day."
"I hope he will keep his word this time then," says Lady Etwynde.
"He can do you no good, and he only makes your life more unhappy. My
dear, be wise for the future, and avoid him."
"That is my only wish now," answers Lauraine, rising from her low
chair and passing her hand wearily across her aching brow. "And my
only safety, too," she adds, in her own heart.
But Lady Etwynde hears only the first sentence, and is glad of it and
content.
"He will not be faithful," she thinks, as she moves by Lauraine's
side to her chamber on the next floor. "Men never are. So much life
has taught me!"