Notwithstanding Martin's tenderness I had a vague fear that he had only
pretended to submit to my will, and before the day was over I had proof
of it.
During dinner we spoke very little, and after it was over we went out to
the balcony to sit on a big oak seat which stood there.
It was another soft and soundless night, without stars, very dark, and
with an empty echoing air, which seemed to say that thunder was not far
off, for the churning of the nightjar vibrated from the glen, and the
distant roar of the tide, now rising, was like the rumble of drums at a
soldier's funeral.
Just as we sat down the pleasure-steamer we had seen in the morning
re-crossed our breadth of sea on its way back to Blackwater; and lit up
on deck and in all its port-holes, it looked like a floating _café
chantant_ full of happy people, for they were singing in chorus a rugged
song which Martin and I had known all our lives--
_Ramsey town, Ramsey town, smiling by the sea,
Here's a health to my true love, wheresoe'er she be_.
When the steamer had passed into darkness, Martin said:
"I don't want to hurt you again, Mary, but before I go there's something
I want to know. . . . If you cannot divorce your husband, and if . . .
if you cannot come to me what . . . what is left to us?"
I tried to tell him there was only one thing left to us, and (as much
for myself as for him) I did my best to picture the spiritual heights
and beauties of renunciation.
"Does that mean that we are to . . . to part?" he said. "You going your
way and I going mine . . . never to meet again?"
That cut me to the quick, so I said--it was all I could trust myself to
say--that the utmost that was expected of us was that we should govern
our affections--control and conquer them.
"Do you mean that we are to stamp them out altogether?" he said.
That cut me to the quick too, and I felt like a torn bird that is
struggling in the lime, but I contrived to say that if our love was
guilty love it was our duty to destroy it.
"Is that possible?" he said.
"We must ask God to help us," I answered, and then, while his head was
down and I was looking out into the darkness, I tried to say that though
he was suffering now he would soon get over this disappointment.
"Do you _wish_ me to get over it?" he asked.
This confused me terribly, for in spite of all I was saying I knew at
the bottom of my heart that in the sense he intended I did not and could
not wish it.
"We have known and cared for each other all our lives, Mary--isn't that
so? It seems as if there never was a time when we didn't know and care
for each other. Are we to pray to God, as you say, that a time may come
when we shall feel as if we had never known and cared for each other at
all?"
My throat was fluttering--I could not answer him.
"_I_ can't," he said. "I never shall--never as long as I live. No
prayers will ever help me to forget you."
I could not speak. I dared not look at him. After a moment he said in a
thicker voice:
"And you . . . will you be able to forget _me_? By praying to God will
you be able to wipe me out of your mind?"