|It seemed as if Clare had resolved to treat the singular words which
Agnes had said to her as soon as she had told her of Claude Westwood's
confession and her reply, as though they had never been uttered.
Whatever impression they produced upon the girl she certainly gave no
sign that she attached even the smallest amount of importance to them.
Her mood was that of the rapturous lover for some days. She had never
been out of temper since she had come to The Knoll, except for a few
moments after her friend Signor Rodani had visited her; but she had
never been in the rapturous mood which now possessed her. Her life was a
song--a lover's song.
The labour of love at which she was engaged daily kept her indoors.
Drawing after drawing she executed for the book, and even those
task-masters, Messrs. Skekels & Shackles, expressed themselves
thoroughly satisfied with the progress of the book and the “blocks.”
The latter were found to be admirable; in fact, the reproductions were,
Clare affirmed, better than the originals. She was not mistaken. Mr.
Shackles was acquainted with a young artist of striking skill in the art
of preparing effective “blocks,” and he treated Miss Tristram's drawings
with the utmost freedom. He regarded them as an excellent and suggestive
basis for really striking pictures, and he took care that, by the
time the picture reached the “block” stage, it possessed some striking
elements.
Claude Westwood also seemed to think that he could scarcely do better
than ignore the words that Agnes had spoken to him when he had come to
her for congratulations. He made an effort to resume his former friendly
relations with her, but he never quite succeeded in his efforts in this
direction. Agnes, he felt, did not respond to him as he had expected
she would, and she gave him now and again the impression that she still
regarded their relations as somewhat strained. He was obliged to see
Clare frequently, and he was too polite to ignore the presence of Agnes,
though she would have much preferred him to do so, and he knew it. The
fact of his knowing it made him feel a little uncomfortable.
A week had passed in this unsatisfactory way, when one afternoon, Agnes,
having come in from her drive, sat down with Clare to their tea and hot
cakes. The girl was not quite so lively as she had been during the week,
and Agnes noticed the change, inquiring the cause of it.
Clare coloured slightly, and laughed uneasily.
“Somehow I feel a little startled,” said she. “Claude has been here.”
“What, you consider that a sufficient explanation?” said Agnes.
Clare laughed more uneasily still.
“He has been saying something that startled me. The fact is that
he--well, he thinks that I--that he--I should rather say that we, he
and I, would complete the book more satisfactorily if we were--You see,
Agnes dear, he does not like coming here so frequently; he feels that he
is trespassing upon your patience.”
“He is wrong, then,” said Agnes. “But what is the alternative that he
proposes?”
“He thinks that we should get married at once and go to the Court
together,” replied Clare, in a low voice.
“And what do you say to that proposal?”
“Well, you know, dearest Agnes, it is not six months since my dear
mother's death: still--ah, dear, would she not wish to see me happy?”
“Yes; but is that saying that she would wish to see you married?”
“He is coming to talk to you about it after dinner to-night.”
Clare spoke quietly as she rose from her seat and left the room.
He came very late. Agnes only was in the drawing-room, for Clare had
gone to her studio after dinner, saying she wished to finish one of the
pictures.
He was as uneasy in addressing her as Clare had been. He began to speak
the moment he entered the room. Agnes interrupted him.
“You have not yet seen Clare,” she said.
“I have not come to see her. It is you whom I have come to see,” said
he. “The fact is, my dear Agnes”--
“Go to her,” said Agnes. “Go to her and kiss her; it will be for the
last time.”
She spoke almost sorrowfully. He was impressed by the tone.
“For the last time--to-night, you mean to say,” he suggested.
“For the last time on earth!” said she.
“You are mad,” he cried, after a pause, during which he stared at her.
“You are mad; you do not know me--you do not know her.”
“You will not go to her?”
“I will not go to her--I will not leave this room until you have told me
what you mean by saying these words. You shall tell me what these words
mean--if they have any meaning.”
“Very well, I will tell you. A week ago you said some words to me. You
put a question to me which I promised to answer at my own time. You
said, 'Will you force me to wish that I had never seen you?' You said
that to me--you--Claude Westwood--to me.”
“I admit that I was cruel--I know that I was cruel.”
“Oh no; you were not cruel. You have shown me since your return that you
regard women as too humble an organisation to be susceptible of great
suffering. You are a scientific man, and one of your theories is that
the lower in the scheme of creation is any form of life, the less
capable it is of suffering. You cleave your worm in twain--there is a
little wriggle--no more--each half goes off quite briskly in its own
way. You chop off a lizard's tail without causing it any particular
inconvenience; I wonder if you think of me as a little better than the
worm, a little higher than the lizard. How could any man say words of
such cruelty to a woman whom he had once promised to love, if he had not
believed her to be dead to all sense of suffering?”
She stood before him with her hands clenched and her eyes flashing; but
only for a few moments. Then she made a gesture of contempt--she gave a
little shudder as she turned away from him.
He remained motionless for a brief space, then went without a word to
the door. The sound of his fingers on the handle caused her to look
round.
“Don't go away for a moment,” she said. “You will pardon that tirade of
mine, I am sure. I don't know how it was forced from me. I shall not be
so foolish again.”
“I think I had better go: you are scarcely yourself to-night,” said he.
“Scarcely myself? Well, perhaps I am not. I must confess that that
outburst of mine surprised me. It will not occur again, I promise you.”
“I think I had better leave you.”
He still stood at the door. In his voice there was again a tone of
reproach. There was some sadness in the little shake of his head, as
though he meant to suggest that he was greatly pained at not being able
to trust her.
His attitude stung her. She became white once more. She put up her hand
to her throat. She was making a great effort to calm herself. Still it
was some moments before she was able to say:
“Very well, very well. Do not come any nearer to me. You came to talk
business. Continue. You were about to tell me that you mean to go to
London to-morrow in order to get the document that will enable you to
marry some one without delay. The name of Claude Westwood will appear at
one part of that document. What name is to appear beside yours?”
“Why do you ask that?” he said, removing his hand from the handle of the
door.
“In order to prevent any mistake,” said she. “You have probably sent
forward to the proper authorities the name of Clare Tristram.”
He was grave. He shook his head sadly, and put his hand upon the lock of
the door once again. He somehow suggested that he expected her to tell
him that it was not the name of Clare Tristram but of Agnes Mowbray
which should by right be or the special licence, beside his name.
She took a step toward him, as if she were about to speak angrily; but
she checked herself.
“There is no such person as Clare Tristram,” she said.
He gave a single glance toward her. Then he sighed and shook his head
gently as before. He turned the handle of the door.
“Don't open that door, for God's sake! She is the daughter of Carton
Standish, who killed your brother.”
He did not give a start nor did he utter a cry as she whispered those
words. He only turned and looked at her. He looked at her for a long
time--several seconds. The silence was awful. The clock on the bracket
chimed the second quarter.
“My God! mad--this woman is mad!” he said, in a whisper that sounded
like a gasp.
She made no attempt to reply. He went to her.
“What have you said?” he asked. “I don't seem to recollect. Did you say
anything?”
“I stated a fact,” she replied. “I am sincere when I say that I would to
God it were not true.”
“She--she--my beloved--the daughter--it is a lie--you have told me a
lie--confess that it is a lie!”
“I cannot, even though you should make your fingers meet upon my arm!”
He almost flung her away from him. He had grasped her by the wrist. He
covered his face with his hands. She looked at her wrist--the red marks
over the white flesh.
“I'll not believe it!” he cried suddenly. “Agnes, Agnes; you will
confess that it is a falsehood?”
“Alas! Alas!” she cried,
“I'll not believe it. Proofs--where are your proofs?”
“This is the letter which she brought to me from her mother--the letter
written by her mother on her deathbed.”
She unlocked an escritoire, and took out a letter. He glanced at it, and
gave a cry of agony.
“O God--my God! And I cursed him--I cursed him and every one belonging
to him!”
He threw himself into a chair and bowed his head down to his hands.
“I prayed that evil might fall upon all that pertained to him,” he
cried. “My prayer has been heard. The curse has fallen!”
“Is there any tragedy in life like the answering of a prayer? I prayed
for your safe return, and--you returned.”
She spoke without bitterness. There was no bitterness in her heart at
that moment.
There was a long pause before he looked up.
“And you--you--knowing all--avowed us to be together--you did not keep
us apart. You brought this misery upon us!”
“I thought you were safe from such a fate; it was only when we were at
the Court that I learned that you loved her; even then I believed that
she loved another man. When I said those words of warning to you a week
ago, what was your reply tome? 'Do not make me wish that I had never
seen you.' Those were your words.”
“And what shall my words be now?”
A little thrill went through her. She turned upon him.
“You wish you had never seen me?” she said, her voice tremulous with
emotion. “But if that is your wish, what do you think is mine? Nine
years--my God!--nine years out of a woman's life! Ruin--you have made
my life a ruin! Was there ever such truth as mine? Was there ever such
falsehood as yours? Do you remember nothing of the past? Do you remember
nothing of the words which you spoke in my hearing in this very room
nearly nine years ago? 'I will be true to you for ever--I shall make a
name that will in some degree be worthy of you.' Those were your words
as we parted. Not a tear would I shed until you had gone away, though my
tears were choking me. But then--then--oh, my God! what then? What voice
is there that can tell a man of the agony of a constant woman? The days,
the months, the years of that terrible constancy! nights of terror when
I saw you lying dead among the wild places of that unknown world--nights
when a passion of tears followed a passion ot prayer for your safety!
Oh, the agony of those long years that robbed me of my youth--that
scarred my face with lines of care! Well, they came to an end, my prayer
was answered, you returned in safety; but instead of having some pity
for the woman who had wasted her life in waiting for you, you flung me
aside with scarcely a word, and now you reproach me--you reproach me!
Give me back those years of my life that you robbed me of--give me back
my youth that I wasted upon you--give me back the tears that I shed for
you--and then I will listen to your reproaches.”
“I deserve your worst reproaches,” said he, his head still bowed down.
“I deserve the worst, and you have not spared me.”
“Ah, I have spared you,” she said. “I might have allowed you to
marry the daughter of that man, and to find out the terrible truth
afterwards.”
“It is just that I should suffer; but she--she--my beloved--is it just
that she should suffer?”
He had risen and was walking to and fro with clasped hands.
“Alas! alas! Her judgment comes from you. It was you yourself who
repeated those dreadful words--'unto the third and fourth generation.'”
“She is guiltless--she shall never know of her father's crime.”
He had stopped in the centre of the room and was looking toward the
door.
“She shall not hear of it from me,” said Agnes. “She shall at least be
spared that pain, in addition to the pain of parting from you.”
“She shall be spared ever, that,” said he in a low voice.
“What?”
“I cannot part from her It is too late now.”
“You do not mean that”--
“I mean that I shall marry her.”
A cry came from Agnes before he had quite spoken.
“Ah, you will not be so pitiless,” she said. “You will not do her that
injustice. You will not wreck her life, too.”
“I will marry her,” said he doggedly.
“You will marry her to make her happy for a month--happy in a fool's
paradise--happy till you begin to think that the face beside you may be
the same as the face that watched your brother lying in his blood--that
the hand which you caress--Oh, Claude, cannot you see that every day,
every hour, she could not but feel that you are nursing a secret that
separates you more completely from her than if an ocean were between
you? Can you hope to keep that secret from her? Do you know nothing of
woman? Claude, she will read your secret in a month.”
“God help me, I will marry her and let the worst come upon us!”
“You shall not do her this injustice if I can help it.”
“You cannot help it.”
“I will tell her that she is the daughter of Carton Standish; and then,
if she chooses to marry you, she will do so with her eyes open.”
She went to the door.
“No--no; not that--not that,” he cried.
She opened the door and called the girl's name. He threw himself once
more down on a chair and bowed his head.
The answering voice of Clare was heard, and then the sound of her feet
on the oak floor of the passage.
“You will come here for a few moments, Clare,” said Agnes, and the girl
entered the room.
He kept his face bowed down almost to his knees, as he cried:
“No, no; don't tell her that. Take her away; I cannot look at her. Take
her away; tell her anything but that.”
Clare gasped. She caught the arm which Agnes held out to her.
“Clare,” said Agnes, “you must nerve yourself for the worst. Mr.
Westwood wishes to be released from his engagement to you. He has heard
something; that is to say, he has come to the conclusion that--that he
must leave this country without delay--in short, to-morrow he sets out
for Africa once more.”
“That is not true!” cried Clare. “I can hear the false ring in your
words. Claude--Claude, you do not mean”--
“Take her away--take her away! I cannot look at her. I see him--him in
the room.”
The girl gave a start, and looked from the one to the other. She
straightened herself and the expression on her face was one of defiance.
“Very well,” she said. “Yes, it is very well.”
She gave a long sigh, then a gasp. Her face became deathly white. She
did not fall. Agnes had caught her in her arms.