Lauraine wakes up next morning with a vague consciousness that she
has done something wrong, something which she regrets. Why should
she have granted this interview to Keith Athelstone? Why should he
have asked for it?
And yet, amidst all her disquietude, she smiles bitterly as she
thinks how far away, how "over and done with," is that old time
between them. She is married, he about to be married. There can be
nothing to fear now.
During breakfast she is silent and preoccupied. She wonders what
excuse she can make to Lady Etwynde for breaking a shopping
engagement; but, as if fate played into her hands, Lady Etwynde tells
her that Colonel Carlisle is coming to drive her to Bond Street that
morning to choose some diamonds he has seen, and so the dressmakers
must be put off. Lauraine seizes the chance delightedly, and says
she will stay at home and have a quiet morning for once, and at
half-past eleven Lady Etwynde drives off in her _fiancé's_ mail
phaeton, and Lauraine finds herself alone.
Her uneasiness increases. She can settle to nothing. A feverish
colour burns in her cheeks, her eyes are brilliant. Every step in
the street, every ring at the bell, startles and unnerves her. Again
and again she wishes she had not promised to see Keith. Again and
again does she find herself hoping, praying he may not come after all.
Twelve strikes. She is sitting in the "cameo" room--her own special
favourite--her eyes watch the hands of the clock with an absorbed
fascination.
One minute past, two, three, four, five. He will not come. Ten
minutes past. Now she is quite sure he will not. Is she relieved,
or sorry? Eleven minutes past.
He is here. "I am sorry to be late. I was detained," he says,
greeting her nervously. "I should have liked to keep up my old
character for punctuality."
She gives him her hand. Now that he _has_ come she feels calm and
composed once more, and all her gentle dignity of manner returns.
"And what is the momentous business on which I am to give my
opinion?" she asks, as he takes the low seat opposite her own and
looks steadily at her.
For an instant he is silent. Then he shakes back the soft hair from
his brow with the impatient gesture that she well remembers.
"It is only--this," he says. "If I go through with this marriage it
will drive me mad!"
Startled, surprised out of all her self-control, Lauraine looks at
him in dread and horror.
"Why do you come to me and tell me this?" she says piteously. "Of
what use is it?"
"None, I suppose. I only wanted to say I took your advice; that with
might and main I set myself to work to care for Nan. I might as well
have saved myself the trouble. There are times when a devil within
me rises and tempts me to kill her: when I hate myself for deceiving
her, and her for being deceived; when---- But why pain your ears
with such folly? This thing is too hard for me. I cannot do it,
Lorry--I _cannot_."
"Oh, Keith!" It is such a sorrowful little cry. It is just as when
in their childish days some deed or freak of his had grieved his
little playmate's gentle heart. It thrills through him with a pain
that is intolerable.
"For God's sake, don't speak like that--don't pity me!" he cries
wildly. "It is more than I can bear. Oh, Lorry, don't think I have
come here to-day to distress you with the old sorrow. It is not
that, indeed. I only wanted to say that I have brought double
dishonour on my head by trying to do what you seemed to think would
cure me; to ask you if you would have me go through with this
horrible farce--for, as there is a Heaven above us, I would sooner
die the worst death you could name, than speak such a lie in face of
God and man as I should speak did I promise to be a husband to--Nan."
His voice is low and husky, and the words come out with fierce,
unstudied eloquence.
Lauraine's heart aches as she listens, as she looks. She is utterly
at a loss what to say.
"I parted from you in anger. I spoke roughly, cruelly. I said I
would never come to you again," he goes on, looking at her white
face--his own as white and sorrowful. "I have longed often to ask
your pardon. I do it now. There is but one course open to me. I
must leave this country. I must leave any place that has a memory
of--you. I think sometimes I shall go mad if I don't. I think you
would be shocked, Lorry, if you could look into my soul and see the
utter blankness there. I am not old, and there is no ice in my veins
yet, and forgetfulness won't come for trying any more than--love.
Oh, if it only would--if it only would!"
For an instant a sob rises in his throat and chokes his utterance.
He rises, ashamed of his weakness, and paces the room with hurried,
uneven steps.
"I am forgetting myself. I did not mean to say such things," he says
presently. "When I am with you I can think of nothing else. Oh, my
darling! how _could_ you have given yourself away from me? Will ever
any man love you as I have done, and do!"
Lauraine's heart is rent asunder by the fierce, unstudied pathos of
his words. She sees that her own weakness has wrecked two lives
effectually, and now her whole soul is filled with anguish and with
dread.
"I can see at last that the only course for me to pursue is complete
avoidance of your presence," he goes on, coming over to the
mantelpiece as he speaks and leaning his arm upon it so as to keep
his face out of her sight. "We should be all, or nothing, to each
other; and I being mad and reckless, and you good and pure, it is
easy to see which of the two is our fate."
"Good and pure!" cries Lauraine, with sudden passionate shame; "had I
been _that_ I should never have paltered with temptation one single
moment. I should have been deaf to your entreaties and persuasions
that summer night. I should have sent you from me then, not weakly
yielded to a course of action that has made me as wretched as
yourself."
"You could never be _that_," he says, looking down at her anguished
face. "You are too cold, too proud. But so much the better. I
would not wish the worst foe I had to endure what I have endured for
you, and shall endure, I suppose, till I die. That sounds rather
like mock heroics," he adds, with a little bitter laugh; "but I think
you know me better than to suppose it's 'put on.' I made up my mind
when I saw you that I would tell you this farce could not go on. I
shall tell Nan the same. She's a good little thing, and is worth a
better fate than she would have as my wife. God! The mockery of
that word! At night sometimes it is as if a chorus of fiends were
jabbering it in my ears, and driving me mad with the horrible sound."
"What will you say--how explain?" falters Lauraine.
"Oh, you need not be afraid that your name will suffer," he says,
with bitterness. "I shall take care of that. Let her think me the
mean, contemptible cur I am."
The hot cruel colour flies into Lauraine's cheeks.
"You are ungenerous to say that!" she exclaims. "I am not afraid of
what any one says. I know I am to blame. But because I have erred
once it is no reason that I should do so again. Right and wrong are
set plainly enough before us. I have tried, feebly enough, to keep
to the straight path; I cannot forget duty, honour, so easily. If I
could--if I had--oh, Keith, ask yourself, would your love be what it
is now?"
"No; it would not," he says slowly. "Though I am so bitter against
you I would not have you shamed by my selfishness. I--I think--so
much at least you have taught me. But you--understand, do you not?
I cannot do impossibilities, and--now at last, I come to you to say
'Good-bye.'"
A sudden mist of tears dims her eyes. It seems as if all around
grows cold and grey, and a barrier of ice stands between her and any
hope of happiness.
There is a long silence. He still leans there, his head on his hand,
his face turned towards her as if to gaze his last on the beauty he
loves and remembers with so absorbed and passionate a fidelity. Her
eyes, amidst those blinding tears, meet his own longing gaze. She
rises from her seat and holds out her hand, while her voice, broken
and full of unutterable sadness, cries out: "Oh, Keith, what should I
say--what should I do? May God have mercy on us both."
"If you wish His mercy on _you_, don't cry," says Keith hoarsely, "or
you will make me so desperate that I shall forfeit any little bit of
kindness you may still feel! Be cold, cruel, scornful if you please,
but don't drive me mad with sight of your sorrow. Mine I can
bear--it is no new friend. But yours----" Lauraine dashes the tears
from her eyes, and makes a violent effort at self-control. "I cannot
ask you to forgive me," she says; "it would be better if you could
learn to hate me. I wonder you do not, when you think of all the
sorrow I have brought into your life."
"I have tried my best to hate you," he says gloomily; "I _cannot_.
Do you suppose that if, by any deed, any power of will, I could tear
your memory from my heart, and once again know peace, that I would
not do it? God knows how gladly! But I cannot; I must go on
thinking of you, loving you----"
He ceases abruptly, then goes on:
"And once you put your arms round my neck and told me you would be
mine 'for ever.' There are times now when I seem to feel that soft
touch and the thrill of your unasked kiss, and--and then, Lorry, I
remember that 'for ever' meant less than--four years."
"You--you promised," falters Lauraine.
"Yes, you are right. So I did. I seem to do nothing but make
promises and break them with you. Well, there is one comfort, after
to-day I shall have no chance of doing either one or other. There
can be no distance too wide to set between our lives. And--oh God,
to think of what might have been!"
"Life is full of mistakes," says Lauraine, weeping unrestrainedly
now. "Oh, had I but known--had I but known! Yet, Keith, something
tells me that time will bring you consolation--time and the
consciousness that you have done right."
"Your words are beyond my powers of acceptance," he answers gloomily.
"If I am doing right now, it is from no good motive, I assure you.
If again you said to me 'Stay,' there would be no more parting this
side the grave, Lorry, for you and me."
His voice is very low and unsteady, but she hears every word, and all
the wild love and longing, the weariness and emptiness of her life,
seem beating like waves against the poor weak barriers of honour.
"I think I would give all the world to be able to say it to-day," she
cries, with sudden passion. "But, oh, Keith! the 'to-morrow,' that
would follow; the sin and misery that would be with us both for ever!
Is life or love worth one's eternal ruin? Is our parting now to be
compared to that 'other' parting that would have to follow--the
eternal parting that would be so hopeless because of the guilt that
lay upon our souls?"
"I do not think a great love can ever be a sin," Keith answers
passionately. "And mine would last you if ever human love did last.
So much I know of myself, bad as I am."
"You are not bad," says Lauraine gently. "And I am sure you won't
threaten me with the worse misery of your recklessness as once before
you did. The nobler and better your life, the less will be my
suffering. And you won't be cruel enough to add to that, will you?"
The pleading voice, the tearful eyes, unman him. "Why don't you
abuse me, condemn me, call me the selfish brute I am?" he says, with
that rapid contrition that so often marks his wildest moods. "No,
Lorry, I won't be 'bad' if I can help it. I wouldn't wish to add to
your suffering, though I am so selfish. Let me go now, while I have
strength, while the good fit is on me. It mayn't last, you know, and
then----"
He is standing facing her, and white as death she looks up and meets
the mournful gaze of the "bad blue eyes." There is no badness in
them now, only a great anguish and a great despair. One long, long
look they give--a look that seems to read her heart, and all its love
that she denies, and all its suffering that he has given. He takes
her hands and draws her near, nearer. She trembles like a leaf. Her
eyelids droop, her lips quiver.
"May I--kiss you?" he whispers.
She makes no answer in words, for speech is beyond her. She forgets
everything now, save that she loves, and that this is an eternal
farewell to her lover.
There comes such a moment of forgetfulness to all women who love,
otherwise, indeed, there would be none to fall for love's sake only.
Otherwise, how easy would be the conflict that, of all others is the
wildest, the fiercest, and hardest to wage.
She lifts her head. The anguish, the entreaty in her eyes frighten,
and yet gladden him. For in this moment he feels he is master of her
fate, and she is unconscious of the fact. Did he but hold her in his
arms--did the tide of passion, locked back within his throbbing
heart, find vent in one word, one caress, he knows he could not
answer for himself--for her!
It is the critical moment of Keith Athelstone's life. All that is
best and worst in his heart are at war; all that is most hard to
resist wraps him in a flame of tempting that burns away all good
resolves, and almost stifles the faint whispers of a conscience that
pleads for her.
For her--for her. To save her from _herself_ as well as from his own
mad love. To leave her unharmed, untainted by the baseness of his
selfish passion; to be worthy of love, as love had been in those
sweet, glad, childish days. These thoughts flash like lightning
through his brain, even as he meets her mournful eyes, and reads
their unconscious betrayal.
"Oh, love, good-bye! Let me go!" he cries wildly, and throws her
hands aside with almost cruel force.
He is blind and dizzy with pain. A word, a look from her, and he
knows that his strength will be broken like a reed--that he will
never leave her again; and in his blindness and dizziness and agony
of heart he rushes away, flings the door wide open, and finds himself
face to face with--Sir Francis Vavasour!