‘EUNICE.
‘Whoso for hours or lengthy days
Shall catch her aspect’s changeful rays,
Then turn away, can none recall
Beyond a galaxy of all
In hazy portraiture;
Lit by the light of azure eyes
Like summer days by summer skies:
Her sweet transitions seem to be
A kind of pictured melody,
And not a set contour.
‘AE. M.’
A strange expression had overspread Cytherea’s countenance. It rapidly
increased to the most death-like anguish. She flung down the paper,
seized Owen’s hand tremblingly, and covered her face.
‘Cytherea! What is it, for Heaven’s sake?’
‘Owen--suppose--O, you don’t know what I think.’
‘What?’
’”_The light of azure eyes_,”’ she repeated with ashy lips.
‘Well, “the light of azure eyes”?’ he said, astounded at her manner.
‘Mrs. Morris said in her letter to me that her eyes are _black_!’
‘H’m. Mrs. Morris must have made a mistake--nothing likelier.’
‘She didn’t.’
‘They might be either in this photograph,’ said Owen, looking at the
card bearing Mrs. Manston’s name.
‘Blue eyes would scarcely photograph so deep in tone as that,’ said
Cytherea. ‘No, they seem black here, certainly.’
‘Well, then, Manston must have blundered in writing his verses.’
‘But could he? Say a man in love may forget his own name, but not that
he forgets the colour of his mistress’s eyes. Besides she would have
seen the mistake when she read them, and have had it corrected.’
‘That’s true, she would,’ mused Owen. ‘Then, Cytherea, it comes to
this--you must have been misinformed by Mrs. Morris, since there is no
other alternative.’
‘I suppose I must.’
Her looks belied her words.
‘What makes you so strange--ill?’ said Owen again.
‘I can’t believe Mrs. Morris wrong.’
‘But look at this, Cytherea. If it is clear to us that the woman had
blue eyes two years ago, she _must_ have blue eyes now, whatever Mrs.
Morris or anybody else may fancy. Any one would think that Manston could
change the colour of a woman’s eyes to hear you.’
‘Yes,’ she said, and paused.
‘You say yes, as if he could,’ said Owen impatiently.
‘By changing the woman herself,’ she exclaimed. ‘Owen, don’t you see
the horrid--what I dread?--that the woman he lives with is not Mrs.
Manston--that she was burnt after all--and that I am _his wife_!’
She tried to support a stoicism under the weight of this new trouble,
but no! The unexpected revulsion of ideas was so overwhelming that she
crept to him and leant against his breast.
Before reflecting any further upon the subject Graye led her upstairs
and got her to lie down. Then he went to the window and stared out of
it up the lane, vainly endeavouring to come to some conclusion upon
the fantastic enigma that confronted him. Cytherea’s new view seemed
incredible, yet it had such a hold upon her that it would be necessary
to clear it away by positive proof before contemplation of her fear
should have preyed too deeply upon her.
‘Cytherea,’ he said, ‘this will not do. You must stay here alone all the
afternoon whilst I go to Carriford. I shall know all when I return.’
‘No, no, don’t go!’ she implored.
‘Soon, then, not directly.’ He saw her subtle reasoning--that it was
folly to be wise.
Reflection still convinced him that good would come of persevering
in his intention and dispelling his sister’s idle fears. Anything was
better than this absurd doubt in her mind. But he resolved to wait till
Sunday, the first day on which he might reckon upon seeing Mrs. Manston
without suspicion. In the meantime he wrote to Edward Springrove,
requesting him to go again to Mrs. Manston’s former lodgings.