"Amethyst, love me--I must tell--he came--Tony. Done with? Oh no,
no,--it has been burning me up. But I cried out, and there came like a
great light in my heart of a sudden, and for a moment I hated him like a
fiend; and I escaped, and got to you. But oh--my life to come--my life
to come! I can't be glad that He saved me! But He did!"
She pressed her face into Amethyst's neck, kissing her with burning
lips.
"Christ came between," she said. "He took me from him."
The tone of intense conviction awed Amethyst all the more, that it was
so quiet and sad. She was greatly shocked at the revelation of Una's
trial, and reproached herself for her failure as guard or guide.
Nothing however but tender soothing was possible now, and Una lay quite
passive, till her throbbing pulses grew quieter, and at last she seemed
to fall asleep.
Then Amethyst stole over to the open window, and looked across the
square. The midsummer dawn was stealing over the sky, the sound of the
dance music at the ball mingled with the twitter of the London sparrows.
She could see the blaze of light in the houses opposite.
Her own fate pressed so upon her that she could scarcely think of Una's,
save with a sort of half-incredulous surprise. If she herself was
tempted--if this that she purposed was a sin against herself, no angel
with a flaming sword would stop her way.
Was it indeed so? She had been stopped, with the words of
self-committal upon her lips, and, in the moment's pause, had come upon
her a revulsion of feeling almost as complete as that which Una had
described. Sir Richard's momentary want of tact in pressing her, the
sudden recall of the past by Una's reference to it--Suddenly all her
philosophy, her good sense, and her surface contentment fell away, and
over her there came with a rush the thought, the feeling rather, of that
other night,--of Lucian's boyish wooing, of his first kiss, of her own
rapturous joy. Her strong nerves gave way, and sinking into a chair she
wept silently, but with a passion of anguish, for the days that were
gone for ever.
A tap at the door roused her. She hurried to open it, and there stood
Tory, who, at her sign of silence, caught her hand and pulled her across
the passage into her own room.
"Oh, Amethyst," she said, "I've got something dreadful to tell you.
Charles came late to the ball--I saw Carrie looking out for him ever so
often--and he talked and laughed loud as he came up-stairs, and I saw
Tony and Sir Richard look at each other. But he went up to Carrie and
asked her to dance, and they spun about oddly, and knocked up against
the wall, and he would have thrown her down, if Tony, who was dancing
with Kat, hadn't somehow caught her; and then Sir Richard took hold of
him, and pulled him into the hall, and there was a sort of row and a
noise. And oh, Amethyst, he was as tipsy as ever he could be, horrid
brute! He might be a bad lot, without disgracing us in that way!"
And Tory stamped her foot, and for once cried hot tears of shame and
anger.
"What happened then?" said Amethyst, pale and horror-struck.
"Sir Richard took him down-stairs, and he called out that he wouldn't be
insulted, even if Grattan had lent him money."
"What?" interrupted Amethyst.
"Why, didn't you guess? I did. Indeed I heard my lady say so. How
could Charles have shown up, else? It will be all right, I suppose,
when he marries you."
"I never thought of such a thing," said Amethyst, utterly thrown off her
balance.
"You're very innocent still, Amethyst," said Tory, recovering her usual
manner, "you'll never be the same as if my lady had brought you up.
Why, if Charles is the only person Sir Richard gave money to, to get us
all up here--which I doubt--you may be quite sure he won't be the last."
Tory was not an impressionable person, but she never forgot Amethyst's
face, as she turned and fled back into Una's room.