Fate delights in playing mankind spiteful tricks.
The present instance is no exception. Lauraine has sunk back into
her chair, faint and spent with emotion; scarcely conscious, indeed,
of what is going on around her; and in this state her husband's rough
voice breaks upon her ear.
"What the devil's the matter? I met Athelstone flying out like a
bomb-shell, and you look like a ghost. Have you been having
a--fraternal quarrel?"
She starts to her feet and looks at him with wild, wide eyes.
"Francis, you--" she gasps.
"You don't seem very pleased to see me," says her husband, looking at
her suspiciously. "What on earth have you been doing with yourself?
You look as ill as possible." He takes her hand and kisses her
carelessly on the cheek as he speaks.
"I have not been well," she falters, trying for composure, "and
Etwynde asked me to come to her for a few weeks, and I thought the
change would do me good. How is it you are in London? Did you know
I was here?"
"Yes. I got your letter at the club and came on. I only arrived
last night."
He throws himself into a chair, and looks at her curiously. "What
was the row with Athelstone?--you haven't told me." Lauraine grows
very white.
"He is going abroad--away for years. His engagement is all over. He
came to say good-bye."
Sir Francis gives a long whistle.
"_Nom de Dieu_? Is that so? And have you had a hand in breaking it
off, my lady?"
"What do you mean?" she asks, looking at him with grave surprise.
"Mean? Oh, you and Keith were such chums always. I thought he had
done it because you--objected. I know you never liked the marriage."
"It had nothing to do with me," says Lauraine coldly. "And the girl
was very fond of him. I am sorry for her."
"It strikes me that Jean wasn't so far out, after all," says Sir
Francis, with a harsh laugh. "You and Keith _do_ seem to have a
remarkably good understanding with each other."
Lauraine looks at him, her eyes dark with anger. "Since when have
you taken to speak so familiarly of Lady Jean Salomans?" she asks;
"and by what right does she discuss my actions with you?"
"Come, that won't do," says her husband, throwing himself back in his
chair, and looking at her defiantly. "It's rather too like the
proverb of the pot and the kettle. You discuss me with Keith
Athelstone, I have no doubt, and--other things too."
"Do you mean to insult me?" asks Lauraine, rising from her seat, and
looking steadily at him. He shrugs his shoulders.
"You are always so tragic. Insult you? No. Only before you
question my actions, it might be as well to look at your own. Are
they quite--blameless?"
She stands there, and all the colour fades from her face; her limbs
tremble. "I will not affect to misunderstand you," she says slowly.
"But----"
He interrupted her roughly. "Don't trouble to explain. Of course we
all know you are _sans reproche_. Only don't turn the cold shoulder
to other women, when you yourself are no better than they--seem.
Were I a jealous husband I should have forbidden Keith Athelstone
your presence long ere this."
"There would have been no need," she says proudly. "I am not a woman
to forget honour and self-respect."
"Oh, fine words are easy," scoffs her husband. "To the untempted
virtue is no merit. And although any one could see Keith Athelstone
was making himself a fool about you, yet you never cared a straw for
him. If you had----"
"Well?" she asks, very low, as he pauses.
He laughs again. "You would have been no better than--others, I
suppose. What you call self-respect is only another word for
cold-heartedness."
Lauraine thinks of the scene through which she has just passed.
Cold-hearted? Well, if she be, she thanks God for the fact. That
her husband should speak thus to her fills her with an intense shame.
After all, would he have cared so very much, if---- The evil thought
coils round her like a serpent, she feels sick and stifled, and full
of pain and fear.
"I am going to my room," she says hurriedly. "Will you excuse me?
I--I am not very well."
"_Ma chére_," laughs her husband roughly, "one doesn't stand on
ceremony after a few years of married life. Don't stay here for me.
I'm off too, now. I have heaps of things to do."
"Will you dine with us to-night?" asks Lauraine.
"To-night? Well, yes. I suppose it will look better, and I should
like to see what sort of fellow your æsthetic friend has captured.
Jove! if men only knew what fools they are to marry!"
But Lauraine has left. Sir Francis takes up his hat. His face is
dark and disturbed.
"Jean was right. There is something," he mutters. "But Lauraine is
not like--her. Should I be better pleased if she were? Sometimes I
think I would give the world for freedom; and yet----"
The door opens. Lady Etwynde sweeps in, as radiant and fair a vision
as eyes could wish to behold.
"Sir Francis! You here, and alone! Why, where is Lauraine?"
"Gone to her room. Not well, or tired, or something," he says, as he
shakes hands. "I am glad you have had her here; she mopes herself to
death down at the Chase. I can't see what she is so fond of it for.
I detest it myself."
"There are associations, you see," says Lady Etwynde. "Her child was
born there, and there died."
He feels somewhat ashamed. He thinks of his wife--how young, how
sorrowful she looked; how all the life and radiance seemed crushed
out of her heart. But then the old weariness and impatience assert
themselves. Life with Lauraine has been so flat and monotonous.
"Well, at all events it does not agree with her," he says, brusquely.
"I was glad to find her in town. I got her letter at the club."
"Will you dine with us to-night?" asks Lady Etwynde. "We are quite
alone, so it won't be very lively, and you have had so much brilliant
society lately."
He looks quickly at her. He is always suspicious of women's words;
always given to looking under them for some hidden meaning. But Lady
Etwynde's face is innocence itself.
"Thanks. Yes. I told Lauraine I would come," he says, not very
cordially, for indeed an evening with these two women looks a dreary
penance to him.
"And you will stay here, will you not?" says Lady Etwynde. "You
won't go back to an hotel while Lauraine is in town?"
"Oh, I could not think of inflicting myself upon you," he says
hurriedly: "and it is such a flying visit--thanks all the same. And
now, good-bye till to-night."
"Good-bye," says Lady Etwynde coldly. She thinks his behaviour both
strange and callous, and very uncomplimentary to his wife. Then he
leaves, and she goes to Lauraine, and finds her lying in a darkened
room, white, and spent and exhausted.
"My dear, what is it?" she asks, in alarm. "Has anything happened?
Are you ill?" For a moment Lauraine hesitates. Then the sight of
the sweet, compassionate face melts the hardness that she fain would
keep about her heart, and in a few broken words she relates the whole
sad tale of that interview and farewell.
"My only comfort is that at last he will go--surely he will leave
me," she says, in conclusion. "Indeed, it is time. The strain is
more than I can bear. Besides, Sir Francis has noticed it--he said
so; and his words were scarce a greater insult than I deserved, for
if I have not sinned as the world counts sin, yet I have not been
guiltless--far from it."
Lady Etwynde looks at her wistfully. In her own great happiness she
can feel tenfold the sorrowful fate of these sundered lives. "And he
is going to break off his marriage?" she says anxiously.
"Yes," says Lauraine. "He says to go through with it is beyond his
power."
"Poor fellow!" exclaims Lady Etwynde, with involuntary compassion.
She is angry with him, and yet sorry for him, for he has proved so
faithful; and, after all, is any love quite unselfish if it be worth
the name?
"My poor Lauraine!" she murmurs involuntarily. "Your marriage has
indeed been a fatal error; but, as I have said before, there remains
nothing but to make the best of it. The only thing for you and Keith
is separation. All other feelings except that one forbidden one are
a poor pretence. I feared that long ago. I am glad you have been so
brave, and he too. Believe me, hard as duty is, the very effort of
doing it creates strength for further trials. The consciousness of
right is a satisfaction in itself, even when one is misjudged."
Lauraine listens, and the tears stand on her lashes, and roll slowly
down her cheeks.
"My life is very hard," she says bitterly.
"Would it be less hard if you had ceased to respect yourself, if you
had lost the creeds and faiths which still make honour your one
anchor of safety? I think not."
"I can think of nothing now save him and his unhappiness," cries
Lauraine wildly. "I have never loved him as I love him to-day. Oh!
I know it is wrong, shameful to say such a thing; but it is the
truth, and I must speak it--this once. Why, do you know that when he
said good-bye to me I could have flung myself at his feet and said,
'Let the world go by, let sin or misery be my portion for
evermore--only do not you leave me!' It seemed as if nothing in life
was worth anything beside one hour of love! And yet--well, how good
an actress I must be, Etwynde--he called me cold-hearted."
"Thank God he did!" exclaims Lady Etwynde. "Oh, Lauraine, your good
angel must have saved you to-day. I did not think it had come to
this; and I cannot find it in my heart to blame you, for--I love too."
"And my husband taunted me with being no better than other women,
simply because I had never been tempted," continues Lauraine
presently. "Well, perhaps in heart I am not. He may have been
right, and virtue is, after all, only a matter of--temperament."
"Oh, hush! I cannot bear to hear you talk like that," cries Lady
Etwynde. "Does he--does Sir Francis suspect anything?"
"He said he knew Keith loved me," answers Lauraine wearily. "Fancy
hearing one's husband speak of the love of another man! I felt
treacherous--shamed in his sight and my own. He could not
understand--he would not believe in the long, long struggle, the
pain, the suffering of it all. I feel as if conscience and honour
had both suffered in the conflict, as if with my child I had lost all
that was pure and of any worth in me. And now the world may say what
it likes. I don't care even to contradict it."
"That is not true," exclaims Lady Etwynde. "You have struggled
nobly, you have done your best, and the fruits of the victory will be
yours in time. At least you hold the hope of meeting your little
child, innocent and unshamed, despite fierce tempting and all the
weariness and sorrow of your life."
Lauraine's tears fall faster and more fast.
"My child! Oh, why was he not left to me? The touch of his innocent
kiss, the sound of his voice, the clasp of his arms were strong as
all the chains of duty cannot be. And now there is no one--no one.
And I am so lonely, so desolate, and life looks so long, and death so
far away!"
The tears rush to Lady Etwynde's eyes. "Oh, my darling! What can I
say to comfort you? Do you know, Lauraine once--in years that are
gone--when I felt reckless and despairing as yourself, I left the
house, and went out full of some wild resolve too terrible to
mention. It was a Sunday evening, I remember well. The bells were
sounding everywhere, and I walked on through the quiet streets with
madness in my heart. Suddenly, as I passed the open door of a
church, I heard a voice singing. Involuntarily I stopped, listened,
entered. It was a large church, and full of people. Some one gave
me a chair, and I sank down wearily enough. Then, pealing above the
chords of the organ, floating up to the great vaulted roof, I heard
again the beautiful voice, and it sang these words: 'O rest in the
Lord; wait patiently for Him, and He shall give thee thy heart's
desire.' You know them, do you not, and the music that weds them so
exquisitely from the 'Elijah'? I knelt there with my head bowed on
my hands, and the tears falling down my cheeks. I remembered
nothing; neither place nor presence. It only seemed as if an angel's
voice was breathing comfort to my passion-wrecked soul, as if that
beautiful promise fell over my spirit and brought peace, and healing,
and rest.' 'Thy heart's desire!' Oh, Lauraine, think of that!
Twelve long years ago that message came to me, and I was comforted!
Twelve years, and now God _has_ fulfilled His promise. My heart's
desire is mine."
Lauraine has listened, stilled and awed.
"Thy heart's desire." The words sink into her very soul, and wake a
thousand varied emotions.
"But my 'heart's desire' is all wrong--all sin--whichever way I look
at it," she says, half despairingly.
"God can make it right," whispers Lady Etwynde drawing the white, sad
face down upon her bosom, and softly kissing the weary lips. "If you
can take those words home to your heart as I did, my darling, your
burden will grow easier to bear; the strength you ask for will be
given. Oh, life is hard, terribly hard, I know! There is so much
sorrow, so little joy; and then the errors, the sins which beset, the
weakness that shackles us!--but still, still, we are not tried
_beyond_ our strength, and we may be able at last to look back and
see it was all for the best!"
"What would I not give to recall these last four years!" cries
Lauraine bitterly. "How different my life might have been!"
"There's no turning back," says Lady Etywnde solemnly. "Errors, once
committed, are irrevocable; for them we must suffer; by them we must
abide. Ah, my dear! who would not live their time again if they
might, and by the light of the present alter all the mistakes of the
past? But it cannot be done. All the remorse and all the regret are
so futile. Tears of blood cannot wash away one memory, take out the
sting of one mistake. We must just bear life as it is, till Death
seals all its woes into forgetfulness."
"You are so good," cries Lauraine sadly. "I am not like you. I am
wicked and rebellious, and I cannot accept my fate with patience,
even though I know my own past weakness is to blame for all my
present misery."
"I am not good. Do not praise me," says Lady Etwynde humbly. "And I
know I do not deserve my present happiness. It makes me fearful of
my great joy. For I was so wicked and rebellious once, and I wonder
often that God did not take my life instead of sparing it, and
blessing it as He has done. Now, darling, you look worn out, and
must need rest. I will leave you for awhile. If your husband
suspects anything you must try and banish such suspicions, or your
married life will grow yet more unhappy. The great wrench is over,
the worst is past. Time, and the consciousness of having done what
is right, will give you peace and comfort at last. Youth and
strength are yours still, and many good gifts of life, and if you
throw yourself into others' sufferings, and widen your sympathy with
the interests and trials of those around you, believe me it will do
much to making your own troubles less. I speak from an experience as
bitter as, if less hopeless, than your own." And once more kissing
the closed lips which seem too weary for tears, she lays Lauraine
back on the pillows, and softly leaves the room.
"'Thy heart's desire!'" Lauraine cries to herself. "Oh, God--not
that--not that should be my prayer. Teach my heart to say, 'Thy
will, not mine!'"