fast asleep. It was Christine. Her dark hair was all gathered loosely
back and coiled in a large knot low down against her fair throat, from
which the white lace of her gown fell backward, leaving its beautiful
pureness bare. There was a charming air of foreign taste and fashioning
about the whole costume. Poor Christine! She had put it on obediently
when Mrs. Murray had brought it to her, selecting it from among the
contents of her trunk as the most comfortable and suitable thing for the
convalescent to wear. It had been long since she had worn or even looked
at it, and it had brought back sad memories of her pretty wedding
outfit, but all her clothes had sad associations for her, and the ones
she had worn more recently would have been worse than this. So she put
it on unquestioningly, too listless to care much what she wore, a fact
which did not prevent its being exquisitely suitable to her.
She was very white, and the long black lashes that lay against her cheek
made a dark shadow under her eyes that made her look the more fragile.
Her face was infinitely sad; the corners of the mouth drooped piteously,
and a look of trouble now and then slightly contracted the brows.
Noel, who had cautiously drawn near, was seated in a low chair near her
feet, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of waking her, and breaking
the spell which seemed to hold him, also, in a sleep of enchantment. He
made up his mind deliberately that he would remain and be near her when
she waked. He had kept himself away from her long enough. Now he must
see and talk with her. He sat so for some time, the red roses in his
hands, and his steady, grave, intense dark eyes fastened upon her face.
Presently a long, deep sigh escaped her, and the fair figure on the
lounge moved slightly, and then settled into more profound repose. It
was evident that she was sleeping soundly. A thought occurred to Noel,
and moving with infinite cautiousness and slowness he took the roses one
by one and laid them over her white dress. One of her arms was raised
above her head, so that her cheek rested against it, and the other lay
along her side, the hand relaxed and empty.
As he was putting the last rose in its place, he observed this little,
fragile left hand particularly and saw a thing that made his heart
throb: the wedding-ring was gone from it. Christine was free indeed!
Here was the sign and token before his very eyes. Being free he might
win her for his own. The force of his love in this minute seemed strong
enough for any task. Oh, if he could only be patient! He felt it very
hard--the hardest task that could beset him, but he gathered all the
strength that was in him for a great resolve of patience. The
sacredness of it rendered it a prayer.
And Christine slept on profoundly. He had known each moment that she
might wake and discover him, but he felt himself prepared for that.
He looked at her and realized that she was well, for in spite of her
pallor, she had the look of youthful health and strength, and he said
to himself that his banishment was over and the time to set himself to
the task before him was come.
As he kept his eyes upon her lovely face a sudden little smile lifted,
ever so slightly, the corners of her mouth, as if there were pleasure in
her dream. The man's heart thrilled to see it. If a dream could make her
smile--if the power to smile remained to her--reality should do it, too.
If he could just be patient! If he could keep down the longing in his
heart that clamored for relief in uttered words!
A piece of wood upon the fire fell apart, sending up a bright little
blaze. The sound of it wakened Christine. Still with the memory of that
dream upon her she opened her eyes, and met Noel's gaze fixed on her in
sweet friendliness and gladness. For an instant neither spoke.
Christine's large eyes, clear as jewels in the firelight, gazed at him
across the bank of crimson roses that seemed to send a red flush to her
face.
Noel spoke first.
"All right again, at last!" he said, with a cheering smile. "Have you
had a pleasant nap?"
And he leaned forward and held out his hand.
A rush of sad remembrance came over Christine's face. The lines of her
mouth trembled a little and she dropped her eyes as she took his hand
in both her own and pressed it silently. Noel knew the touch meant only
gratitude, and it left him miserably unsatisfied, but he felt himself
strong to wait. She dropped his hand, and for a moment covered her face
with her own, as if to collect herself thoroughly. Then she sat upright
in her seat, scattering the roses to the floor. Noel knelt to gather
them up for her, and when he had collected the great mass into a
gorgeous bunch he knelt still as he held them out to her.
She took them, hiding her face in their glowing sweetness, and Noel,
rising, walked a few steps away, feeling it impossible to speak, unless
he allowed himself the words he had forsworn.
At this instant a cheery voice was heard in the hall.
"Who in the world left the front door open?" it said, in energetic,
matter-of-fact tones, at the sound of which Noel felt suddenly
fortified.
Mrs. Murray had entered just in time, for the sight of Christine here
alone had been almost too much for the resolutions of reserve in which
he had flattered himself he was so strong.
XIII.
In a little while the lives of Mrs. Murray and Christine had settled
into a calm routine of work and talk, and the simple recreations of
reading and house-decorating which were the only ones that Christine
ever seemed to think of. She never went out, and worked with as much
application as Mrs. Murray would permit at the embroidery which, at
her earnest request, the wise old lady had got for her. She and
Christine had a frank and loving talk, in which one was as interested
as the other, in Christine's making her own living, and in which it
was settled, to the joy of each, that their home in future was to be
together. They were days of strange peace and calm for poor Christine,
and her heart would swell with gratefulness for them, as she sat over
her beautiful embroidery, which was in itself a pleasure to her.
But the evenings were the best of all, for then Noel invariably
came--sometimes to look in and say a bright and cheery word, on his way
to keep an engagement, sometimes to give them the benefit of the bright
stories and good things he had heard at a dinner, and sometimes to spend
a whole long evening, talking, laughing and reading aloud from new
magazines and books which he brought with him in abundance. These were
the sorts of delights utterly unknown to Christine before. She had read
very little, and the world of delight that reading opened up to her was
new, inspiring and enchanting. Noel read aloud his favorite poets, their
two young hearts throbbing together, and their eyes alight with feeling
at the passages which left the matured heart of Mrs. Murray undisturbed.
It had been in vain that Mrs. Murray had tried to induce Christine
to sing. It occurred to her at last to put it in the light of a favor
to herself, and when she told Christine that she loved music very
dearly, and rarely had an opportunity to hear it, the girl went at once
and played and sang for her, and then Mrs. Murray used the same
argument--that of giving a friend pleasure--with regard to Noel. At
first it was difficult and awkward, but before very long Christine and
Noel were singing duets together, and music now became a delightful part
of their evening's entertainment. How dull the evenings were when Noel
did not come!--for sometimes there were engagements from which he could
not escape. Mrs. Murray missed him much herself and it pleased her to
be sure that Christine did also. Sometimes he would come late after a
dinner, and if it were only a brief half-hour that he spent with them
it made the evening seem a success, instead of a failure.
After a little while Mrs. Murray succeeded in inducing Christine to
take walks with her along those quiet unfashionable streets, in the
bracing air of the late autumn afternoons. She would return from these
expeditions so refreshed, with such a charming color in the fair, sweet
face to which peace and love and protecting companionship had given an
expression of new beauty, that Mrs. Murray would be half protesting at
the thought that the people that passed it, in the street, were deprived
of a sight of its loveliness by that close, thick veil, which it never
seemed to occur to Christine to lay aside. It seemed an instinct with
her, and her good friend felt hurt to the very heart when she thought
what the instinct had its foundation in.
In proportion as the influence of these days and weeks brought peace
and calm to Christine, to Noel they brought an excited restlessness.
He was under the spell of the strongest feeling that he had ever known.
All the circumstances of his intercourse with Christine, the difficult
self-repression to which he had compelled himself so long, and the
sudden sense of her freedom which made vigilance harder still--all these
things together brought about in him a state of excitement that kept
him continually on a strain. It was only in her presence that he was
calm, because it was there that he recognized most fully the absolute
need of calmness and self-control. Away from her, he sometimes rushed
into rash resolves, as to a resolute manly sort of wooing which he
felt tremendously impelled to, and in which he felt a power in him to
succeed. He would even make deliberate plans, and imagine himself going
to the house and insisting on seeing Christine alone, and then his
thoughts would fairly fly along, uttering themselves in excited words
that burned their way to Christine's heart and melted it.
But when, in actuality, he would come to where she was, all these brave
and manful purposes faded, like mist, before the commanding spell of her
deep and solemn calm. She seemed so tranquil in her assured sense of his
simple friendliness that he often thought she must have forgotten
entirely, in the excitement that followed, that he had offered her his
heart and hand and name, or else that she was so convinced of the fact
that it had been done in pity that she had never given it a second
thought.
So perplexed, bewildered, overwrought did he become with all these
thoughts that he forced himself to make some excuse and stay away from
Christine. When at last he went again, it was late in the evening and
his time, he knew, would be short. It was three days now since he had
been, and his blood flowed quick with impatience. He had thought of
little else as he sat through the long dinner, eating the dishes set
before him while he talked with a certain preoccupation to the beautiful
_debutante_ whom he had brought in, and who made herself her most
fascinating for him, Noel being just the sort of man to represent such a
girl's ideal--older, graver, more finished in manner than herself, and
possessed of the still greater charm of being thoroughly initiated in
all the mysteries of the great world, across whose threshold only she
had seen. She was exceedingly pretty, and Noel was too much an artist
not to be alive to it, but as he looked at the fair, unwritten page her
face represented to him, he was seeing, in his mind's eye, that far
lovelier face on which the spiritualizing, beautifying hand of sorrow
had been laid. He had not gone thus far on his journey of life without
deep suffering himself, and the heart that had suffered was the one to
which he felt his true kinship. At the close of the dinner the whole
party adjourned to the opera, Noel alone excusing himself, at the door
of the _debutante's_ carriage, on the plea of an important engagement.
The lovely bud looked vexed and disappointed, but Noel knew his place
at her side would be abundantly filled, and got himself away with all
the haste decorum permitted.
When he rang at Mrs. Murray's door Harriet ushered him into the little
drawing-room where Christine was seated at the piano singing. Mrs.
Murray was not present. Motioning the servant not to announce him he
took his position behind a screen, where he could see and hear without
being seen. Christine had heard neither his ring nor his entrance, so
she was utterly unconscious of any presence but her own, and indeed most
probably not of that, for there was a strange abandonment to sway of the
song as her voice, rich and full and deep, sang softly:
"I am weary with rowing, with rowing,
Let me drift adown with the stream.
I am weary with rowing, with rowing,
Let me lay me down and dream."
Noel knew the little song well, and in his fancy the full, pathetic
voice gave it a sound and meaning that his longing heart desired to hear
in it. The thrilling voice sang on, low and deep and full:
"The stream in its flowing, its flowing,
Shall bear us adown to the sea.
I am weary with rowing, with rowing,
I yield me to love and to thee.
I can struggle no longer, no longer,
Here in thine arms let me lie,
In thine arms which are stronger, are stronger
Than all on the earth, let me die."
The sweet voice trembled as the song came to an end, and Christine, with
a swift, impulsive movement, put her elbows on the keys of the piano,
making a harsh discord of sound, and dropped her face in her hands. She
remained so, without moving, for several minutes, while Noel, thrilling
in all his senses to the power of that subtly sweet song, kept also
profoundly still. He felt it was his only safety. If he had moved, it
must have been to clasp her in his arms.
At last she rose to her feet and began to put the music in order. It was
a moment when life, for each of them, seemed very hard. And yet, to one
who looked and saw them so, it seemed as if the best that earth could
offer might be theirs, and that they were made and fashioned to have and
to enjoy it.
The pretty room was a soft glow of firelight and lamplight mingled. The
rich harmonies of dark color made by carpets, hangings and furniture
were lighted here and there by an infinite number of the charming little
things that are the perfecting touches of a tasteful room. A bunch of
freshly-gathered autumn leaves was massed under the light from the
shaded lamp. Near by sat Christine. She had taken up a strip of gorgeous
embroidery in her hands, and was bending above it and trying hard to put
her stitches in with care. To-night there was a steady flush in her
cheeks that made her look more beautiful than he had ever seen her. He
advanced a step or two, and stood, unseen, at a little distance from
her, making unconsciously a complement to the picture. He took a step
forward--and she heard the sound and lifted her head. He came nearer and
his voice was sweet and thrilling as he said her name:
"Christine."
She raised her eyes and looked at him; but they dropped before his
steady gaze, and she did not answer.
"Let me speak to you a little, dear Christine," he went on, taking a
seat near her. He had himself well in hand and was determined not to
blunder. Christine sat opposite and drew her needle through and through,
saying neither yes nor no. "I want to be very careful not to hurt you,"
Noel went on, "but I have had it on my mind a long, long time to talk to
you about yourself. Do you intend to lead always, without change or
variation, the isolated, dull, restricted life you are leading now?"
"Oh, don't speak to me of any change!" she said entreatingly. "You have
been so good to me. Be good to me still. Let me stay here, as I am, in
this heaven of rest and peace. Mrs. Murray will keep me. She is not
tired of me. She loves to have me, and it is my one idea of blessedness
and comfort and rest."
Her voice was agitated almost to tears, and she had dropped her work and
clasped her hands together with a piteousness of appeal.
"No one will hinder you, Christine," he said. "Mrs. Murray is made
better and brighter and happier by your presence every day, and it would
be only the greatest grief to her to part with you. This is your sure
and safe and certain home as long as she lives, unless, of your own
choice, you should choose to change it."
Christine shook her head with a denial of the thought that was almost
indignant.
"Never," she said, "oh, never, never! I only ask to stay here, as I am,
until I die."
"Christine," he said, and she could feel his strong gaze on her, through
her lowered lids, "try to be honest with your own heart. Listen to its
voice and you will have to own you are not happy."
"Happy! How could I ever expect to be? It would be a shame to me even to
think of it. Oh, you do not know a woman's nature, or you could not talk
to me of happiness."
"I know your woman's nature, Christine--well enough to reverence it and
kneel to it, and I am not afraid to tell you you are outraging and
wronging it, by shutting out happiness from your heart. What is there to
hinder you from being happy? And oh, Christine, I know at least, there
is no happiness but love."
A silence, solemn and still as death, followed these fervent, low-toned
words. He could see the fluttering of her breath, and the look of deep,
affrighted pain upon her face made his heart quiver.
"Christine," he murmured in a voice grown softer and lower still, "try
not to be frightened or distressed. I cannot hold back my heart any
longer. I love you--dear and good and noble one. If you could only love
me a little, in return, I could make you so happy. I know I could,
Christine, and as for me--why my life, if you refuse me your love, is
worthless and wasted and dead. Oh, Christine, you are the very treasure
of my heart, whether you will or no. Be my wife. You can make my
happiness, as surely as I, if you will let me, can make yours."
He would not venture to take her hand, but he held out his to her,
saying in a voice that had sunk to a whisper:
"Only put your hand in mine, Christine, in token that you will try to
love me a little, and I will wait for all the rest."
He had bent very close to her, and she felt his breath against her hair
as his passionate whisper fell upon her ear. Her heart thrilled to it,
but she got up stiffly to her feet, bending her body away from him and
covering her eyes, for a moment, with her hand.
Noel, who had risen too, stepped backward instantly. He saw her lips
compressed convulsively as if in pain, and, for her sake, he thrust down
into his heart its great longing, and forced himself to think of her
alone. It cut him like a knife to see that she drew away from him.
"Don't shrink from me, Christine," he said. "If it distresses you for me
to speak I can be silent. I was obliged to tell you, but there it can
stop. I have laid the offering of my love and life before you and there
it is for you to take or leave. Perhaps I have startled you. If you will
only think about it and try to get used to the idea--"
But Christine had found her voice.
"I cannot think of it!" she cried. "I utterly refuse to think of it. Oh,
I am more miserable than ever I have been yet! If I am to make you
unhappy--if I am to spoil your life--"
"You have beautified and glorified and crowned it with love, Christine.
I should have gone to my grave without it, if you had not given it to
me. It is a godlike thing to feel what I feel for you. Come what may
I shall never be sorry for it. You have nothing to reproach yourself
with."
Christine was very pale. She felt herself trembling as she sank into a
chair and clasped her hands about her knee. Noel too sat down, but
farther away from her than he had been before.
"I entreat you not to be distressed--" he began, but she interrupted
him.
"Oh, I feel--I cannot tell you what I feel," she said. "Was ever a woman
at once so honored and so shamed? How could I give to any man a ruined
life like mine, and yet God knows how it is sweet to me to know you have
this feeling for me--to know that I may still arouse in such a heart as
yours this highest, holiest, purest, best of all the heart can give. Oh,
I pray God to let you feel and know the joy it is to me--and yet I'd
rather cut off my right hand than listen even to the thought of marrying
you."
Noel could not understand her. The look in her face completely baffled
him.
"Christine," he said, "there is but one thing to do. On one thing alone
the whole matter rests. Look at me."
His voice was resolute, though it was so gentle, and in obedience to its
bidding Christine raised her eyes to his.
"Answer me this, Christine. Do you love me?"
And looking straight into his eyes she answered:
"No."
Noel rose from his seat and crossed over to the fire, where he stood
with his back toward her. He did not see the passionate gesture with
which she strained her clasped hands to her breast a moment and then
stretched them out toward him. In a second she withdrew them and let
them fall in her lap. Her heart reproached her for the falseness of her
tongue, and this had been a passionate impulse of atonement to him for
the wrong that she had done. But stronger than her heart was the other
voice that told her to make her utmost effort to keep up the deceit, for
in the moment that the knowledge came to her that her heart, for the
first time, was possessed by a true and mighty love an instinct stronger
than that love itself compelled her to deny it--to give any answer, go
any length, do anything sooner than make an admission by which she might
be betrayed into doing a great and ineradicable wrong to the man she
loved. Yes, the man she loved! For one second's space she let the inward
flame leap up, and then she forced it back and smothered it down, with
all the power that was in her.
When Noel turned, his face was calm and he spoke, too, in a controlled
and quiet voice.
"We will not be the less friends for this, Christine," he said; "the
best that is left to me is to be near you when I can. You will not
forbid me this?"
He saw that her eyes consented. To save her life she could not deny him
this--or deny herself. Which was it that she thought of first?
"I think it best that Mrs. Murray should not know of it," he said, and
again she consented without speaking.
"I shall come as usual," he went on, "and, Christine, never reproach
yourself. Never dream but that it is more joy than I could ever have had
in any other way, only to come and see you and be near you and hear you
speak sometimes. Good-night," he added, taking her cold, little hand in
a gentle clasp. "It is the last time. You will see how faithful I will
be. But once for all--Christine, Christine, Christine!--let me tell you
that I love you with as great and true and strong a love as ever man had
for woman. You seem to me a being between earth and Heaven--better than
men and women here, and only a little below the angels."
She felt the hand that held hers loose its hold, the kind voice died
away, a door far off shut to, and Christine, rousing herself, looked
about her and found that she was alone.
XIV.
Two evenings later Noel called again, finding Mrs. Murray recovered
and able to join the group around the table as usual. There was no
consciousness expressed in the eyes of either Christine or himself
as they met. At first she was very grave and silent, but under the
influence of his easy talk her manner became perfectly natural, and at
the close of the evening she found herself wondering if the exciting
occurrences of their last meeting could be reality. Noel read aloud
most of the evening an agreeable, unexciting book, and Christine
thanked him from her heart that he did not ask, as usual, for music.
As for Mrs. Murray, as the days went on she found herself continually
wondering that such a state of things could last. She was perfectly sure
of Noel's feeling, and she thought its continued entire suppression very
strange. She was often tempted to make some excuse to leave them alone,
but a fear of the consequences held her back, for she was absolutely
unable to calculate upon Christine. She had not the courage to lift a
finger in the matter.
Almost imperceptibly a change was coming over Christine, and by degrees
Mrs. Murray became aware of it. She grew more silent and fond of being
alone. She even went out now and took long, companionless walks, coming
home exhausted and preoccupied. "Poor girl!" thought her kind, old
friend. "She is very unhappy, and for a little while, in her deliverance
from a worse unhappiness, she had managed to forget it partly."
On one occasion Noel rather urgently pressed the matter of being allowed
to bring his mother and sisters to call. He did so in the hope that time
might have somewhat modified Christine's feeling in the matter, but he
found it absolutely unchanged and was obliged to withdraw his request.
As the days and weeks went by Noel became every day more restless and
gloomy. He was unhappy if he stayed away from Christine, and yet to be
in her presence merely as a friendly visitor was often galling and
depressing to an almost intolerable degree. He scarcely ever saw her
alone for a moment, and he had a certain conviction that while Mrs.
Murray did some gentle plotting to leave them _tete-a-tete_ Christine
managed ingeniously to thwart her plans.