There was a great deal which she might have said, Steele thought, as he
held her sobbing in his arms, and tried to convince her that happiness
for both of them lay in following the path along which he sought to
direct her steps. He wanted her so; and they loved one another--two
all-sufficient reasons, as he saw matters, for throwing such deterrent
considerations as honour and duty to the winds. They owed a duty to
themselves as well as to others, he argued; and a loveless marriage was
dishonouring. She ought not to submit to the spoiling of both their
lives from motives of no higher consideration than fear of the world's
censure.
"What does it matter to us what any one thinks?" he asked. "This ruling
of one's life by the world's opinion is ridiculous. Here we are, you
and I, in love with one another, wanting one another. Life is very
sweet and precious while one loves. Prudence, but it isn't worth more
than a sigh when one is denied love. I want to make you mine before I
leave for France. We'll have our time together. Then, when I come
back, I will take you with me--to a new country where no one knows
anything about us. Dear, we shall be so happy."
"You may never come back," Prudence said, and sat up and started to dry
her tears. "What would become of me then?"
"I may not, of course." He stared at her with his hot eager eyes,
careless in that hour of passionate longing about the consequences
involved. He knew that for himself there was only one certainty--the
present. He lived in the present; it was useless to look ahead.
"Aren't you ready to risk something? I'd rather leave you my widow than
not have you," he declared. "I can't go away feeling that you belong to
some one else. Prudence, I'm mad with jealousy. I'm jealous of that
man's claim on you. I'm beside myself. I don't know what I'm saying.
I know only one thing--I want you. I'm just hungry for you. I can't
rest."
"Oh, hush!" she said.
"But you've got to hear," he insisted. "You've got to know. I've been
like this since you told me your news. I lie awake at nights, thinking,
thinking, till it seems as if I were going mad. I think of you always.
I'm wanting you always. For years I've thought of you as mine. I meant
from the beginning to win you. Life's just a nightmare for me while I
know you belong to some one else. You made a mistake. Set it right,
dear--as far as you can. Give yourself to me. Say you will--now."
He seized her again in his arms and held her and set his lips to hers.
Frightened as well as distressed. Prudence struggled against him,
pushed his face gently away. She felt the quick beating of his heart
against her breast while he held her close, and she knew that her own
heart was beating as rapidly; the pulses in her throat were going like
tiny hammers. The ardour of his kisses excited her. All the natural
impulses of youth, repressed so long, leapt up to answer his passion and
flamed into warmth beneath his touch. He stirred her, tempted her. She
had never experienced passionate love before, but she knew it now; it
burned her lips and set her blood on fire. She was a woman alight with
love for the first time in her life. Her eyes glowed softly, and behind
their glow, dried up as it were by that flame of love, the mist of
sorrow's unshed rain welled slowly and dimmed her sight of him.
"You can't refuse me," he pleaded. "My darling, you can't send me out
of your life."
"Oh, don't!" she sobbed, and clung to the gate, half swooning, and
rested her face on her arm. "You've no right to say these things to me;
it's wicked of me to listen. I ought not to have come out. I don't
know what to do. I don't know what to say to you. It's all so
difficult."
He refused to admit the difficulty.
"If you had an ounce of pluck," he said--"if you cared, you would know
what to do all right. I am asking you for one thing; it's yes or no.
Prudence."
He gripped her shoulder and pulled her forcibly round till she faced him
again.
"Look here!" he cried hoarsely. "Listen to me for a moment. This may
be the last time I shall see you--it will be the last time, if you
refuse what I ask. If I didn't know that you love me I wouldn't worry
you. I shouldn't want you if you did not want me. But you do. I don't
care a damn about your marriage. If you'll trust me, and come to me,
you shall never regret it. Oh! my little love!--my sweetheart! Don't
refuse what I ask. It means everything to me. Say you will, dear?"
"Oh, don't!" she entreated him again, and shrank back from the passion
in his eyes.
But his arms were about her; they held her tightly.
"Are you afraid?" he said, his face grim and set. "I'm dangerous to you
to-night, and you know it. Here we are alone in the night together.
What is to prevent me from taking what I want? Why should I consider
your scruples--or anything? I am going out to that inferno... Why
shouldn't I seize my good hour before I go? What's to prevent me?
What's to prevent me from kissing you now?"
He leaned over her and rained kisses on her mouth, kisses that seared
her lips, that almost stifled her. He was giving rein to his passion.
A quality both wild and lawless sprang to life in him and overrode his
better nature for the time. Disappointed hope and baulked desire drove
him to a frenzy of excess which in saner moments he would not have
believed himself capable of. He would have been horrified at this
complete loss of control had he been able to appreciate it. But a
spirit of recklessness held him before which his commonsense melted like
snow consumed by the fires which passion lit in his breast. It occurred
to him while he held her, crushed and trembling, in his arms and kissed
her madly, that he was a fool to attempt to reason with her. A girl
nursed in the washy traditions of her class, as Prudence was, should not
be hampered with the responsibility of choice: he ought to decide for
her--ought to take full responsibility for the step he was urging her to
accede to. It wasn't fair to burden her conscience with a sense of
willing concession. That was where he had made the mistake. He was
asking too much of her.
"Little love," he whispered against her lips, "don't be afraid. There
is nothing to fear in love; and I love you better than life. You are
going with me to-night. No, don't speak! You are nervous and unstrung.
You don't know what you want. Leave this to me. I've got a car
waiting in the village. We'll travel up to town in it; and later, when
I am drafted across the water, you'll go to France as my wife, and live
there until I can be with you again."
He drew back his head to look at her, and his face softened to a
wonderful tenderness; there were tears in his eyes. After a barely
perceptible pause, he resumed more quietly:
"Prudence, I've thought of this hour day and night since I saw your dear
face light up at sight of me, and your dear eyes smile their welcome
into mine. You are mine by every natural law; and I'm going to take
you. Scruples! We have no use for such folly. They didn't scruple to
marry you to a man too old for you. He had no scruple against taking
you without love. They've themselves to thank for this. What does it
matter? It's our own lives we have to think for. Leave everything to
me. Don't worry. I'll manage things. I am taking you away with me
to-night... Life's going to be just splendid, dear. We'll be together.
Oh, Prudence, it will be great--wonderful! My dear! ... Oh, my
dearest!"
Very tenderly he kissed her lips again. Prudence suddenly disengaged
herself from his arms and slipped to her feet and stood facing him, the
moonlight splashed on her hair and face, and on the slender bare arms,
which she lifted on an impulse, bringing the hands to rest on his
shoulders.
"We can't, dear," she said. "We can't. It isn't that I'm afraid; it
isn't that I don't love you--better than any one in all the world. It's
just because I love you so well, I think, that I can't have the beauty
of it spoiled. That sort of thing brings regret--always."
"You don't dare," he said in sullen tones. "You are thinking of what
people will say."
"No; it isn't that. I don't wish to pose as good--I've never been good.
But clean and decent living appeals to me. I'm cold, perhaps--even a
little hard; it isn't so difficult for me to practise restraint--when I
try--hard. I'm loving you with all my heart, dear; but I don't want to
do what you ask. If I agreed, I should hate myself, my life,
everything, when the glamour faded and I had time to reflect. I know
myself so well. I would rather go on with my dull loveless life than go
away with you and lose my self-respect."
"You don't love me," he said. "You couldn't talk like that if you were
in love. It's unnatural. I'd risk damnation for you."
She leaned a little nearer to him, and a new quality came into her
voice; her face was solemn and tender.
"There's something else I'm thinking of besides these things," she said.
"I can't bear that you should go to face death--to meet death,
perhaps--with this sin upon your soul. I don't like to think that men
can talk so lightly of sinning in such grave and terrible times."
He made an impatient sound that was like a cry of protest, and moved
restlessly under her hands.
"Oh, hang it all! One doesn't want to be thinking all the time about
that."
"When death stands so close as it stands to nearly every one of us these
days; when one reads of nothing else," she added quietly; "it makes one
think. It alters all one's view of life. I used to feel that my own
life mattered tremendously; that I had to make the most of every
opportunity which might add to my enjoyment. Now I see things
differently. I don't hold a lesser belief in the importance of life,
quite the reverse; but the personal point of view is altogether
unimportant. Satisfaction comes from living worthily. I have never
done that. I have been always selfish and inconsiderate for others. I
believe that to-night you have taught me self-knowledge. Teach me also
to be strong."
Her voice fell into silence, but she did not remove her hands from his
shoulders. And he remained for a few seconds motionless, looking at her
without speaking. The appeal in her eyes and in her voice was
irresistible; it was as an appeal to his manhood from some one
pathetically weak and conscious of her weakness; and the better side of
his nature responded to it. But it cost him more than she could ever
know to relinquish his dreams at her bidding.
He put his hands over hers and stood up. And so they remained for a
while close together, looking into each other's eyes.
"You are everything to me," he said at last, breaking the silence
unexpectedly. "I've thought of you so much--thought of you always as
belonging to me. It doesn't seem possible to rid myself of that idea.
I've no interest in life outside it."
"I know," she said. "I know. It is not going to be easy for me
either."
They came upon another pause.
"At least you have a cause to fight for," she said presently.
He shook his head.
"All that doesn't count, somehow. But I shall be glad to go now. I
shall never come back. Prudence."
"Ah, don't!" she cried, with a sob in her voice. "Don't say that. I
shall pray for your safety every day of my life."
"Pray rather for a swift and merciful bullet," he said. Then, seeing
the pain in her eyes, he took her face between his hands and kissed it.
"Don't cry, little love. There are worse things to face than the long
sleep. Alive or dead, you will live in my heart always. Keep my place
green in your memory, dear."
She dropped her face on his breast and sobbed her heart out in the
shelter of his arms.