When I reached the bottom of the stairway he took my hand, and I did not
know whether it was his hand or mine that was trembling. He led me
across the lawn to the seat in the shrubbery that almost faced my
windows. In the soft and soundless night I could hear his footsteps on
the turf and the rustle of my dress over the grass.
We sat, and for a moment he did not speak. Then with a passionate rush
of words he said:
"Mary, I hadn't meant to say what I'm going to say now, but I can't do
anything else. You are in trouble, and I can't stand by and see you so
ill-used. I can't and I won't!"
I tried to answer him, but my throat was fluttering and I could not
speak.
"It's only a few days before I ought to sail, but they may be enough in
which to do something, and if they're not I'll postpone the expedition
or put it off, or send somebody in my place, for go away I cannot and
leave you like this."
I tried to say that he should not do that whatever happened to me, but
still I could not speak.
"Mary. I want to help you. But I can only do so if you give me the
_right_ to do it. Nobody must tell me I'm a meddler, butting in where I
have no business. There are people enough about you who would be only
too ready to do that--people related to you by blood and by law."
I knew what he was coming to, for his voice was quivering in my ears
like the string of a bow.
"There is only one sort of right, Mary, that is above the right of
blood, and you know what that is."
My eyes were growing so dim that I could hardly see the face which was
so close to mine.
"Mary," he said, "I have always cared for you. Surely you know that. By
the saints of God I swear there has never been any other girl for me,
and now there never will he. Perhaps I ought to have told you this
before, and I wanted to do so when I met you in Rome. But it didn't
seem fair, and I couldn't bring myself to do it."
His passionate voice was breaking; I thought my heart was breaking also.
"All I could do I did, but it came to nothing; and now you are here and
you are unhappy, and though it is so late I want to help you, to rescue
you, to drag you out of this horrible situation before I go away. Let me
do it. Give me the right of one you care enough for to allow him to
speak on your behalf."
I knew what that meant. I knew that I was tottering on the very edge of
a precipice, and to save myself I tried to think of Father Dan, of
Martin's mother, of my own mother, and since I could not speak I
struggled to pray.
"Don't say you can't. If you do I shall go away a sorrowful man. I shall
go at once too--to-night or to-morrow morning at latest, for my heart
bleeds to look at you and I can't stay here any longer to see you
suffer. It is not torture to me--it's hell!"
And then the irrepressible, overwhelming, inevitable moment came. Martin
laid hold of my right hand and said in his tremulous voice:
"Mary . . . Mary . . . I . . . I love you!"
I could hear no more. I could not think or pray or resist any longer.
The bitter struggle was at an end. Before I knew what I was doing I was
dropping my head on to his breast and he with a cry of joy was gathering
me in his arms.
I was his. He had taken his own. Nothing counted in the presence of our
love. To be only we two together--that was everything. The world and the
world's laws, the Church and the Canons of the Church were blotted out,
forgotten, lost.
For some moments I hardly breathed. I was only conscious that over my
head Martin was saying something that seemed to come to me with all the
deep and wonderful whispers of his heart.
"Then it's true! It's true that you love me! Yes, it's true! It's true!
No one shall hurt you again. Never again! No, by the Lord God!"
And then suddenly--as suddenly as the moment of intoxication had come to
me--I awoke from my delirium. Some little thing awakened me. I hardly
know what it was. Perhaps it was only the striking of the cuckoo clock
in my room.
"What are we doing?" I said.
Everything had rolled back on me--my marriage, Father Dan's warning, my
promise to Martin's mother.
"Where are we?" I said.
"Hush! Don't speak," said Martin. "Let us think of nothing
to-night--nothing except our love."
"Don't say that," I answered. "We are not free to love each other," and
then, trying to liberate myself from his encircling arms I cried:
"God help me! God forgive me!"
"Wait!" said Martin, holding me a moment longer. "I know what you feel,
and I'm not the man to want a girl to wrong her conscience. But there's
one question I must ask you. If you _were_ free, could you love me
then?"
"Don't ask me that. I must not answer it."
"You must and shall," said Martin. "Could you?"
"Yes."
"That's enough for me--enough for to-night anyway. Have no fear. All
shall be well. Go to your room now."
He raised me to my feet and led me back to the foot of the balcony, and
there he kissed my hand and let me go.
"Good night!" he said softly.
"Good night!" I answered.
"God bless you, my pure sweet girl!"
At the next moment I was in my room, lying face down on my bed--seeing
no hope on any side, and sobbing my heart out for what might have been
but for the hard law of my religion and the cruel tangle of my fate.