A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy (page 7)

unforgiving was heightened by the thought of yesterday’s artifice, which might possibly add disgust to his disappointment. The certainty of one more day’s affection, which she gained by silence, outvalued the hope of a perpetuity combined with the risk of all.

The trepidation caused by these thoughts on what she had intended to say shook so naturally the words she did say, that Knight never for a moment suspected them to be a last moment’s substitution. He smiled and pressed her hand warmly.

‘My dear Elfie–yes, you are now–no protestation–what a winning little woman you are, to be so absurdly scrupulous about a mere iota! Really, I never once have thought whether your nineteenth year was the last or the present. And, by George, well I may not; for it would never do for a staid fogey a dozen years older to stand upon such a trifle as that.’

‘Don’t praise me–don’t praise me! Though I prize it from your lips, I don’t deserve it now.’

But Knight, being in an exceptionally genial mood, merely saw this distressful exclamation as modesty. ‘Well,’ he added, after a minute, ‘I like you all the better, you know, for such moral precision, although I called it absurd.’ He went on with tender earnestness: ‘For, Elfride, there is one thing I do love to see in a woman–that is, a soul truthful and clear as heaven’s light. I could put up with anything if I had that–forgive nothing if I had it not. Elfride, you have such a soul, if ever woman had; and having it, retain it, and don’t ever listen to the fashionable theories of the day about a woman’s privileges and natural right to practise wiles. Depend upon it, my dear girl, that a noble woman must be as honest as a noble man. I specially mean by honesty, fairness not only in matters of business and social detail, but in all the delicate dealings of love, to which the licence given to your sex particularly refers.’

Elfride looked troublously at the trees.

‘Now let us go on to the river, Elfie.’

‘I would if I had a hat on,’ she said with a sort of suppressed woe.

‘I will get it for you,’ said Knight, very willing to purchase her companionship at so cheap a price. ‘You sit down there a minute.’ And he turned and walked rapidly back to the house for the article in question.

Elfride sat down upon one of the rustic benches which adorned this portion of the grounds, and remained with her eyes upon the grass. She was induced to lift them by hearing the brush of light and irregular footsteps hard by. Passing along the path which intersected the one she was in and traversed the outer shrubberies, Elfride beheld the farmer’s widow, Mrs. Jethway. Before she noticed Elfride, she paused to look at the house, portions of which were visible through the bushes. Elfride, shrinking back, hoped the unpleasant woman might go on without seeing her. But Mrs. Jethway, silently apostrophizing the house, with actions which seemed dictated by a half-overturned reason, had discerned the girl, and immediately came up and stood in front of her.

‘Ah, Miss Swancourt! Why did you disturb me? Mustn’t I trespass here?’

‘You may walk here if you like, Mrs. Jethway. I do not disturb you.’

‘You disturb my mind, and my mind is my whole life; for my boy is there still, and he is gone from my body.’

‘Yes, poor young man. I was sorry when he died.’

‘Do you know what he died of? ‘

‘Consumption.’

‘Oh no, no!’ said the widow. ‘That word “consumption” covers a good deal. He died because you were his own well-agreed sweetheart, and then proved false–and it killed him. Yes, Miss Swancourt,’ she said in an excited whisper, ‘you killed my son!’

‘How can you be so wicked and foolish!’ replied Elfride, rising indignantly. But indignation was not natural to her, and having been so worn and harrowed by late events, she lost any powers of defence that mood might have lent her. ‘I could not help his loving me, Mrs. Jethway!’

‘That’s just what you could have helped. You know how it began, Miss Elfride. Yes: you said you liked the name of Felix better than any other name in the parish, and you knew it was his name, and that those you said it to would report it to him.’

‘I knew it was his name–of course I did; but I am sure, Mrs. Jethway, I did not intend anybody to tell him.’

‘But you knew they would.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘And then, after that, when you were riding on Revels-day by our house, and the lads were gathered there, and you wanted to dismount, when Jim Drake and George Upway and three or four more ran forward to hold your pony, and Felix stood back timid, why did you beckon to him, and say you would rather he held it? ‘

‘O Mrs. Jethway, you do think so mistakenly! I liked him best– that’s why I wanted him to do it. He was gentle and nice–I always thought him so–and I liked him.’

‘Then why did you let him kiss you?’

‘It is a falsehood; oh, it is, it is!’ said Elfride, weeping with desperation. ‘He came behind me, and attempted to kiss me; and that was why I told him never to let me see him again.’

‘But you did not tell your father or anybody, as you would have if you had looked upon it then as the insult you now pretend it was.’

‘He begged me not to tell, and foolishly enough I did not. And I wish I had now. I little expected to be scourged with my own kindness. Pray leave me, Mrs. Jethway.’ The girl only expostulated now.

‘Well, you harshly dismissed him, and he died. And before his body was cold, you took another to your heart. Then as carelessly sent him about his business, and took a third. And if you consider that nothing, Miss Swancourt,’ she continued, drawing closer; ‘it led on to what was very serious indeed. Have you forgotten the would-be runaway marriage? The journey to London, and the return the next day without being married, and that there’s enough disgrace in that to ruin a woman’s good name far less light than yours? You may have: I have not. Fickleness towards a lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is wantonness.’

‘Oh, it’s a wicked cruel lie! Do not say it; oh, do not! ‘

‘Does your new man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man of yours! As much of the story as was known is creeping about the neighbourhood even now; but I know more than any of them, and why should I respect your love?’

‘I defy you!’ cried Elfride tempestuously. ‘Do and say all you can to ruin me; try; put your tongue at work; I invite it! I defy you as a slanderous woman! Look, there he comes.’ And her voice trembled greatly as she saw through the leaves the beloved form of Knight coming from the door with her hat in his hand. ‘Tell him at once; I can bear it.’

‘Not now,’ said the woman, and disappeared down the path.

The excitement of her latter words had restored colour to Elfride’s cheeks; and hastily wiping her eyes, she walked farther on, so that by the time her lover had overtaken her the traces of emotion had nearly disappeared from her face. Knight put the hat upon her head, took her hand, and drew it within his arm.

It was the last day but one previous to their departure for St. Leonards; and Knight seemed to have a purpose in being much in her company that day. They rambled along the valley. The season was that period in the autumn when the foliage alone of an ordinary plantation is rich enough in hues to exhaust the chromatic combinations of an artist’s palette. Most lustrous of all are the beeches, graduating from bright rusty red at the extremity of the boughs to a bright yellow at their inner parts; young oaks are still of a neutral green; Scotch firs and hollies are nearly blue; whilst occasional dottings of other varieties give maroons and purples of every tinge.

The river–such as it was–here pursued its course amid flagstones as level as a pavement, but divided by crevices of irregular width. With the summer drought the torrent had narrowed till it was now but a thread of crystal clearness, meandering along a central channel in the rocky bed of the winter current. Knight scrambled through the bushes which at this point nearly covered the brook from sight, and leapt down upon the dry portion of the river bottom.

‘Elfride, I never saw such a sight!’ he exclaimed. ‘The hazels overhang the river’s course in a perfect arch, and the floor is beautifully paved. The place reminds one of the passages of a cloister. Let me help you down.’

He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the stones. They walked on together to a tiny cascade about a foot wide and high, and sat down beside it on the flags that for nine months in the year were submerged beneath a gushing bourne. From their feet trickled the attenuated thread of water which alone remained to tell the intent and reason of this leaf-covered aisle, and journeyed on in a zigzag line till lost in the shade.

Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating all this, looked critically at Elfride.

‘Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust itself and get thin as the years go on from eighteen to eight-and-twenty?’ he asked at length.

‘Oh no!’ she said quickly, with a visible disinclination to harbour such a thought, which came upon her with an unpleasantness whose force it would be difficult for men to understand. She added afterwards, with smouldering uneasiness, ‘Do you really think that a great abundance of hair is more likely to get thin than a moderate quantity?’

‘Yes, I really do. I believe–am almost sure, in fact–that if statistics could be obtained on the subject, you would find the persons with thin hair were those who had a superabundance originally, and that those who start with a moderate quantity retain it without much loss.’

Elfride’s troubles sat upon her face as well as in her heart. Perhaps to a woman it is almost as dreadful to think of losing her beauty as of losing her reputation. At any rate, she looked quite as gloomy as she had looked at any minute that day.

‘You shouldn’t be so troubled about a mere personal adornment,’ said Knight, with some of the severity of tone that had been customary before she had beguiled him into softness.

‘I think it is a woman’s duty to be as beautiful as she can. If I were a scholar, I would give you chapter and verse for it from one of your own Latin authors. I know there is such a passage, for papa has alluded to it.’

“‘Munditiae, et ornatus, et cultus,” &c.–is that it? A passage in Livy which is no defence at all.’

‘No, it is not that.’

‘Never mind, then; for I have a reason for not taking up my old cudgels against you, Elfie. Can you guess what the reason is?’

‘No; but I am glad to hear it,’ she said thankfully. ‘For it is dreadful when you talk so. For whatever dreadful name the weakness may deserve, I must candidly own that I am terrified to think my hair may ever get thin.’

‘Of course; a sensible woman would rather lose her wits than her beauty.’

‘I don’t care if you do say satire and judge me cruelly. I know my hair is beautiful; everybody says so.’

‘Why, my dear Miss Swancourt,’ he tenderly replied, ‘I have not said anything against it. But you know what is said about handsome being and handsome doing.’

‘Poor Miss Handsome-does cuts but a sorry figure beside Miss Handsome-is in every man’s eyes, your own not excepted, Mr. Knight, though it pleases you to throw off so,’ said Elfride saucily. And lowering her voice: ‘You ought not to have taken so much trouble to save me from falling over the cliff, for you don’t think mine a life worth much trouble evidently.’

‘Perhaps you think mine was not worth yours.’

‘It was worth anybody’s!’

Her hand was plashing in the little waterfall, and her eyes were bent the same way.

‘You talk about my severity with you, Elfride. You are unkind to me, you know.’

‘How?’ she asked, looking up from her idle occupation.

‘After my taking trouble to get jewellery to please you, you wouldn’t accept it.’

‘Perhaps I would now; perhaps I want to.’

‘Do!’ said Knight.

And the packet was withdrawn from his pocket and presented the third time. Elfride took it with delight. The obstacle was rent in twain, and the significant gift was hers.

‘I’ll take out these ugly ones at once,’ she exclaimed, ‘and I’ll wear yours–shall I?’

‘I should be gratified.’

Now, though it may seem unlikely, considering how far the two had gone in converse, Knight had never yet ventured to kiss Elfride. Far slower was he than Stephen Smith in matters like that. The utmost advance he had made in such demonstrations had been to the degree witnessed by Stephen in the summer-house. So Elfride’s cheek being still forbidden fruit to him, he said impulsively.

‘Elfie, I should like to touch that seductive ear of yours. Those are my gifts; so let me dress you in them.’

She hesitated with a stimulating hesitation.

‘Let me put just one in its place, then?’

Her face grew much warmer.

‘I don’t think it would be quite the usual or proper course,’ she said, suddenly turning and resuming her operation of plashing in the miniature cataract.

The stillness of things was disturbed by a bird coming to the streamlet to drink. After watching him dip his bill, sprinkle himself, and fly into a tree, Knight replied, with the courteous brusqueness she so much liked to hear–

‘Elfride, now you may as well be fair. You would mind my doing it but little, I think; so give me leave, do.’

‘I will be fair, then,’ she said confidingly, and looking him full in the face. It was a particular pleasure to her to be able to do a little honesty without fear. ‘I should not mind your doing so– I should like such an attention. My thought was, would it be right to let you?’

‘Then I will!’ he rejoined, with that singular earnestness about a small matter–in the eyes of a ladies’ man but a momentary peg for flirtation or jest–which is only found in deep natures who have been wholly unused to toying with womankind, and which, from its unwontedness, is in itself a tribute the most precious that can be rendered, and homage the most exquisite to be received.

‘And you shall,’ she whispered, without reserve, and no longer mistress of the ceremonies. And then Elfride inclined herself towards him, thrust back her hair, and poised her head sideways. In doing this her arm and shoulder necessarily rested against his breast.

At the touch, the sensation of both seemed to be concentrated at the point of contact. All the time he was performing the delicate manoeuvre Knight trembled like a young surgeon in his first operation.

‘Now the other,’ said Knight in a whisper.

‘No, no.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know exactly.’

‘You must know.’

‘Your touch agitates me so. Let us go home.’

‘Don’t say that, Elfride. What is it, after all? A mere nothing. Now turn round, dearest.’

She was powerless to disobey, and turned forthwith; and then, without any defined intention in either’s mind, his face and hers drew closer together; and he supported her there, and kissed her.

Knight was at once the most ardent and the coolest man alive. When his emotions slumbered he appeared almost phlegmatic; when they were moved he was no less than passionate. And now, without having quite intended an early marriage, he put the question plainly. It came with all the ardour which was the accumulation of long years behind a natural reserve.

‘Elfride, when shall we be married?’

The words were sweet to her; but there was a bitter in the sweet. These newly-overt acts of his, which had culminated in this plain question, coming on the very day of Mrs. Jethway’s blasting reproaches, painted distinctly her fickleness as an enormity. Loving him in secret had not seemed such thorough-going inconstancy as the same love recognized and acted upon in the face of threats. Her distraction was interpreted by him at her side as the outward signs of an unwonted experience.

‘I don’t press you for an answer now, darling,’ he said, seeing she was not likely to give a lucid reply. ‘Take your time.’

Knight was as honourable a man as was ever loved and deluded by woman. It may be said that his blindness in love proved the point, for shrewdness in love usually goes with meanness in general. Once the passion had mastered him, the intellect had gone for naught. Knight, as a lover, was more single-minded and far simpler than his friend Stephen, who in other capacities was shallow beside him.

Without saying more on the subject of their marriage, Knight held her at arm’s length, as if she had been a large bouquet, and looked at her with critical affection.

‘Does your pretty gift become me?’ she inquired, with tears of excitement on the fringes of her eyes.

‘Undoubtedly, perfectly!’ said her lover, adopting a lighter tone to put her at her ease. ‘Ah, you should see them; you look shinier than ever. Fancy that I have been able to improve you!’

‘Am I really so nice? I am glad for your sake. I wish I could see myself.’

‘You can’t. You must wait till we get home.’

‘I shall never be able,’ she said, laughing. ‘Look: here’s a way.’

‘So there is. Well done, woman’s wit!’

‘Hold me steady!’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And don’t let me fall, will you?’

‘By no means.’

Below their seat the thread of water paused to spread out into a smooth small pool. Knight supported her whilst she knelt down and leant over it.

‘I can see myself. Really, try as religiously as I will, I cannot help admiring my appearance in them.’

‘Doubtless. How can you be so fond of finery? I believe you are corrupting me into a taste for it. I used to hate every such thing before I knew you.’

‘I like ornaments, because I want people to admire what you possess, and envy you, and say, “I wish I was he.” ‘

‘I suppose I ought not to object after that. And how much longer are you going to look in there at yourself?’

‘Until you are tired of holding me? Oh, I want to ask you something.’ And she turned round. ‘Now tell truly, won’t you? What colour of hair do you like best now?’

Knight did not answer at the moment.

‘Say light, do!’ she whispered coaxingly. ‘Don’t say dark, as you did that time.’

‘Light-brown, then. Exactly the colour of my sweetheart’s.’

‘Really?’ said Elfride, enjoying as truth what she knew to be flattery.

‘Yes.’

‘And blue eyes, too, not hazel? Say yes, say yes!’

‘One recantation is enough for to-day.’

‘No, no.’

‘Very well, blue eyes.’ And Knight laughed, and drew her close and kissed her the second time, which operations he performed with the carefulness of a fruiterer touching a bunch of grapes so as not to disturb their bloom.

Elfride objected to a second, and flung away her face, the movement causing a slight disarrangement of hat and hair. Hardly thinking what she said in the trepidation of the moment, she exclaimed, clapping her hand to her ear–

‘Ah, we must be careful! I lost the other earring doing like this.’

No sooner did she realise the significant words than a troubled look passed across her face, and she shut her lips as if to keep them back.

‘Doing like what?’ said Knight, perplexed.

‘Oh, sitting down out of doors,’ she replied hastily.

Chapter XXIX

‘Care, thou canker.’

It is an evening at the beginning of October, and the mellowest of autumn sunsets irradiates London, even to its uttermost eastern end. Between the eye and the flaming West, columns of smoke stand up in the still air like tall trees. Everything in the shade is rich and misty blue.

Mr. and Mrs. Swancourt and Elfride are looking at these lustrous and lurid contrasts from the window of a large hotel near London Bridge. The visit to their friends at St. Leonards is over, and they are staying a day or two in the metropolis on their way home.

Knight spent the same interval of time in crossing over to Brittany by way of Jersey and St. Malo. He then passed through Normandy, and returned to London also, his arrival there having been two days later than that of Elfride and her parents.

So the evening of this October day saw them all meeting at the above-mentioned hotel, where they had previously engaged apartments. During the afternoon Knight had been to his lodgings at Richmond to make a little change in the nature of his baggage; and on coming up again there was never ushered by a bland waiter into a comfortable room a happier man than Knight when shown to where Elfride and her step-mother were sitting after a fatiguing day of shopping.

Elfride looked none the better for her change: Knight was as brown as a nut. They were soon engaged by themselves in a corner of the room. Now that the precious words of promise had been spoken, the young girl had no idea of keeping up her price by the system of reserve which other more accomplished maidens use. Her lover was with her again, and it was enough: she made her heart over to him entirely.

Dinner was soon despatched. And when a preliminary round of conversation concerning their doings since the last parting had been concluded, they reverted to the subject of to-morrow’s journey home.

‘That enervating ride through the myrtle climate of South Devon– how I dread it to-morrow!’ Mrs. Swancourt was saying. ‘I had hoped the weather would have been cooler by this time.’

‘Did you ever go by water?’ said Knight.

‘Never–by never, I mean not since the time of railways.’

‘Then if you can afford an additional day, I propose that we do it,’ said Knight. ‘The Channel is like a lake just now. We should reach Plymouth in about forty hours, I think, and the boats start from just below the bridge here’ (pointing over his shoulder eastward).

‘Hear, hear!’ said the vicar.

‘It’s an idea, certainly,’ said his wife.

‘Of course these coasters are rather tubby,’ said Knight. ‘But you wouldn’t mind that?’

‘No: we wouldn’t mind.’

‘And the saloon is a place like the fishmarket of a ninth-rate country town, but that wouldn’t matter?’

‘Oh dear, no. If we had only thought of it soon enough, we might have had the use of Lord Luxellian’s yacht. But never mind, we’ll go. We shall escape the worrying rattle through the whole length of London to-morrow morning–not to mention the risk of being killed by excursion trains, which is not a little one at this time of the year, if the papers are true.’

Elfride, too, thought the arrangement delightful; and accordingly, ten o’clock the following morning saw two cabs crawling round by the Mint, and between the preternaturally high walls of Nightingale Lane towards the river side.

The first vehicle was occupied by the travellers in person, and the second brought up the luggage, under the supervision of Mrs. Snewson, Mrs. Swancourt’s maid–and for the last fortnight Elfride’s also; for although the younger lady had never been accustomed to any such attendant at robing times, her stepmother forced her into a semblance of familiarity with one when they were away from home.

Presently waggons, bales, and smells of all descriptions increased to such an extent that the advance of the cabs was at the slowest possible rate. At intervals it was necessary to halt entirely, that the heavy vehicles unloading in front might be moved aside, a feat which was not accomplished without a deal of swearing and noise. The vicar put his head out of the window.

‘Surely there must be some mistake in the way,’ he said with great concern, drawing in his head again. ‘There’s not a respectable conveyance to be seen here except ours. I’ve heard that there are strange dens in this part of London, into which people have been entrapped and murdered–surely there is no conspiracy on the part of the cabman?’

‘Oh no, no. It is all right,’ said Mr. Knight, who was as placid as dewy eve by the side of Elfride.

‘But what I argue from,’ said the vicar, with a greater emphasis of uneasiness, ‘are plain appearances. This can’t be the highway from London to Plymouth by water, because it is no way at all to any place. We shall miss our steamer and our train too–that’s what I think.’

‘Depend upon it we are right. In fact, here we are.’

‘Trimmer’s Wharf,’ said the cabman, opening the door.

No sooner had they alighted than they perceived a tussle going on between the hindmost cabman and a crowd of light porters who had charged him in column, to obtain possession of the bags and boxes, Mrs. Snewson’s hands being seen stretched towards heaven in the midst of the melee. Knight advanced gallantly, and after a hard struggle reduced the crowd to two, upon whose shoulders and trucks the goods vanished away in the direction of the water’s edge with startling rapidity.

Then more of the same tribe, who had run on ahead, were heard shouting to boatmen, three of whom pulled alongside, and two being vanquished, the luggage went tumbling into the remaining one.

‘Never saw such a dreadful scene in my life–never!’ said Mr. Swancourt, floundering into the boat. ‘Worse than Famine and Sword upon one. I thought such customs were confined to continental ports. Aren’t you astonished, Elfride?’

‘Oh no,’ said Elfride, appearing amid the dingy scene like a rainbow in a murky sky. ‘It is a pleasant novelty, I think.’

‘Where in the wide ocean is our steamer?’ the vicar inquired. ‘I can see nothing but old hulks, for the life of me.’

‘Just behind that one,’ said Knight; ‘we shall soon be round under her.’

The object of their search was soon after disclosed to view–a great lumbering form of inky blackness, which looked as if it had never known the touch of a paint-brush for fifty years. It was lying beside just such another, and the way on board was down a narrow lane of water between the two, about a yard and a half wide at one end, and gradually converging to a point. At the moment of their entry into this narrow passage, a brilliantly painted rival paddled down the river like a trotting steed, creating such a series of waves and splashes that their frail wherry was tossed like a teacup, and the vicar and his wife slanted this way and that, inclining their heads into contact with a Punch-and-Judy air and countenance, the wavelets striking the sides of the two hulls, and flapping back into their laps.

‘Dreadful! horrible!’ Mr. Swancourt murmured privately; and said aloud, I thought we walked on board. I don’t think really I should have come, if I had known this trouble was attached to it.’

‘If they must splash, I wish they would splash us with clean water,’ said the old lady, wiping her dress with her handkerchief.

‘I hope it is perfectly safe,’ continued the vicar.

‘O papa! you are not very brave,’ cried Elfride merrily.

‘Bravery is only obtuseness to the perception of contingencies,’ Mr. Swancourt severely answered.

Mrs. Swancourt laughed, and Elfride laughed, and Knight laughed, in the midst of which pleasantness a man shouted to them from some position between their heads and the sky, and they found they were close to the Juliet, into which they quiveringly ascended.

It having been found that the lowness of the tide would prevent their getting off for an hour, the Swancourts, having nothing else to do, allowed their eyes to idle upon men in blue jerseys performing mysterious mending operations with tar-twine; they turned to look at the dashes of lurid sunlight, like burnished copper stars afloat on the ripples, which danced into and tantalized their vision; or listened to the loud music of a steam- crane at work close by; or to sighing sounds from the funnels of passing steamers, getting dead as they grew more distant; or to shouts from the decks of different craft in their vicinity, all of them assuming the form of ‘Ah-he-hay!’

Half-past ten: not yet off. Mr. Swancourt breathed a breath of weariness, and looked at his fellow-travellers in general. Their faces were certainly not worth looking at. The expression ‘Waiting’ was written upon them so absolutely that nothing more could be discerned there. All animation was suspended till Providence should raise the water and let them go.

‘I have been thinking,’ said Knight, ‘that we have come amongst the rarest class of people in the kingdom. Of all human characteristics, a low opinion of the value of his own time by an individual must be among the strangest to find. Here we see numbers of that patient and happy species. Rovers, as distinct from travellers.’

‘But they are pleasure-seekers, to whom time is of no importance.’

‘Oh no. The pleasure-seekers we meet on the grand routes are more anxious than commercial travellers to rush on. And added to the loss of time in getting to their journey’s end, these exceptional people take their chance of sea-sickness by coming this way.’

‘Can it be?’ inquired the vicar with apprehension. ‘Surely not, Mr. Knight, just here in our English Channel–close at our doors, as I may say.’

‘Entrance passages are very draughty places, and the Channel is like the rest. It ruins the temper of sailors. It has been calculated by philosophers that more damns go up to heaven from the Channel, in the course of a year, than from all the five oceans put together.’

They really start now, and the dead looks of all the throng come to life immediately. The man who has been frantically hauling in a rope that bade fair to have no end ceases his labours, and they glide down the serpentine bends of the Thames.

Anything anywhere was a mine of interest to Elfride, and so was this.

‘It is well enough now,’ said Mrs. Swancourt, after they had passed the Nore, ‘but I can’t say I have cared for my voyage hitherto.’ For being now in the open sea a slight breeze had sprung up, which cheered her as well as her two younger companions. But unfortunately it had a reverse effect upon the vicar, who, after turning a sort of apricot jam colour, interspersed with dashes of raspberry, pleaded indisposition, and vanished from their sight.

The afternoon wore on. Mrs. Swancourt kindly sat apart by herself reading, and the betrothed pair were left to themselves. Elfride clung trustingly to Knight’s arm, and proud was she to walk with him up and down the deck, or to go forward, and leaning with him against the forecastle rails, watch the setting sun gradually withdrawing itself over their stern into a huge bank of livid cloud with golden edges that rose to meet it.

She was childishly full of life and spirits, though in walking up and down with him before the other passengers, and getting noticed by them, she was at starting rather confused, it being the first time she had shown herself so openly under that kind of protection. ‘I expect they are envious and saying things about us, don’t you?’ she would whisper to Knight with a stealthy smile.

‘Oh no,’ he would answer unconcernedly. ‘Why should they envy us, and what can they say?’

‘Not any harm, of course,’ Elfride replied, ‘except such as this: “How happy those two are! she is proud enough now.” What makes it worse,’ she continued in the extremity of confidence, ‘I heard those two cricketing men say just now, “She’s the nobbiest girl on the boat.” But I don’t mind it, you know, Harry.’

‘I should hardly have supposed you did, even if you had not told me,’ said Knight with great blandness.

She was never tired of asking her lover questions and admiring his answers, good, bad, or indifferent as they might be. The evening grew dark and night came on, and lights shone upon them from the horizon and from the sky.

‘Now look there ahead of us, at that halo in the air, of silvery brightness. Watch it, and you will see what it comes to.’

She watched for a few minutes, when two white lights emerged from the side of a hill, and showed themselves to be the origin of the halo.

‘What a dazzling brilliance! What do they mark?’

‘The South Foreland: they were previously covered by the cliff.’

‘What is that level line of little sparkles–a town, I suppose?’

‘That’s Dover.’

All this time, and later, soft sheet lightning expanded from a cloud in their path, enkindling their faces as they paced up and down, shining over the water, and, for a moment, showing the horizon as a keen line.

Elfride slept soundly that night. Her first thought the next morning was the thrilling one that Knight was as close at hand as when they were at home at Endelstow, and her first sight, on looking out of the cabin window, was the perpendicular face of Beachy Head, gleaming white in a brilliant six-o’clock-in-the- morning sun. This fair daybreak, however, soon changed its aspect. A cold wind and a pale mist descended upon the sea, and seemed to threaten a dreary day.

When they were nearing Southampton, Mrs. Swancourt came to say that her husband was so ill that he wished to be put on shore here, and left to do the remainder of the journey by land. ‘He will be perfectly well directly he treads firm ground again. Which shall we do–go with him, or finish our voyage as we intended?’

Elfride was comfortably housed under an umbrella which Knight was holding over her to keep off the wind. ‘Oh, don’t let us go on shore!’ she said with dismay. ‘It would be such a pity!’

‘That’s very fine,’ said Mrs. Swancourt archly, as to a child. ‘See, the wind has increased her colour, the sea her appetite and spirits, and somebody her happiness. Yes, it would be a pity, certainly.’

”Tis my misfortune to be always spoken to from a pedestal,’ sighed Elfride.

‘Well, we will do as you like, Mrs. Swancourt,’ said Knight, ‘but—-‘

‘I myself would rather remain on board,’ interrupted the elder lady. ‘And Mr. Swancourt particularly wishes to go by himself. So that shall settle the matter.’

The vicar, now a drab colour, was put ashore, and became as well as ever forthwith.

Elfride, sitting alone in a retired part of the vessel, saw a veiled woman walk aboard among the very latest arrivals at this port. She was clothed in black silk, and carried a dark shawl upon her arm. The woman, without looking around her, turned to the quarter allotted to the second-cabin passengers. All the carnation Mrs. Swancourt had complimented her step-daughter upon possessing left Elfride’s cheeks, and she trembled visibly.

She ran to the other side of the boat, where Mrs. Swancourt was standing.

‘Let us go home by railway with papa, after all,’ she pleaded earnestly. ‘I would rather go with him–shall we?’

Mrs. Swancourt looked around for a moment, as if unable to decide. ‘Ah,’ she exclaimed, ‘it is too late now. Why did not you say so before, when we had plenty of time?’

The Juliet had at that minute let go, the engines had started, and they were gliding slowly away from the quay. There was no help for it but to remain, unless the Juliet could be made to put back, and that would create a great disturbance. Elfride gave up the idea and submitted quietly. Her happiness was sadly mutilated now.

The woman whose presence had so disturbed her was exactly like Mrs. Jethway. She seemed to haunt Elfride like a shadow. After several minutes’ vain endeavour to account for any design Mrs. Jethway could have in watching her, Elfride decided to think that, if it were the widow, the encounter was accidental. She remembered that the widow in her restlessness was often visiting the village near Southampton, which was her original home, and it was possible that she chose water-transit with the idea of saving expense.

‘What is the matter, Elfride?’ Knight inquired, standing before her.

‘Nothing more than that I am rather depressed.’

‘I don’t much wonder at it; that wharf was depressing. We seemed underneath and inferior to everything around us. But we shall be in the sea breeze again soon, and that will freshen you, dear.’

The evening closed in and dusk increased as they made way down Southampton Water and through the Solent. Elfride’s disturbance of mind was such that her light spirits of the foregoing four and twenty hours had entirely deserted her. The weather too had grown more gloomy, for though the showers of the morning had ceased, the sky was covered more closely than ever with dense leaden clouds. How beautiful was the sunset when they rounded the North Foreland the previous evening! now it was impossible to tell within half an hour the time of the luminary’s going down. Knight led her about, and being by this time accustomed to her sudden changes of mood, overlooked the necessity of a cause in regarding the conditions– impressionableness and elasticity.

Elfride looked stealthily to the other end of the vessel. Mrs. Jethway, or her double, was sitting at the stern–her eye steadily regarding Elfride.

‘Let us go to the forepart,’ she said quickly to Knight. ‘See there–the man is fixing the lights for the night.’

Knight assented, and after watching the operation of fixing the red and the green lights on the port and starboard bows, and the hoisting of the white light to the masthead, he walked up and down with her till the increase of wind rendered promenading difficult. Elfride’s eyes were occasionally to be found furtively gazing abaft, to learn if her enemy were really there. Nobody was visible now.

‘Shall we go below?’ said Knight, seeing that the deck was nearly deserted.

‘No,’ she said. ‘If you will kindly get me a rug from Mrs. Swancourt, I should like, if you don’t mind, to stay here.’ She had recently fancied the assumed Mrs. Jethway might be a first- class passenger, and dreaded meeting her by accident.

Knight appeared with the rug, and they sat down behind a weather- cloth on the windward side, just as the two red eyes of the Needles glared upon them from the gloom, their pointed summits rising like shadowy phantom figures against the sky. It became necessary to go below to an eight-o’clock meal of nondescript kind, and Elfride was immensely relieved at finding no sign of Mrs. Jethway there. They again ascended, and remained above till Mrs. Snewson staggered up to them with the message that Mrs. Swancourt thought it was time for Elfride to come below. Knight accompanied her down, and returned again to pass a little more time on deck.

Elfride partly undressed herself and lay down, and soon became unconscious, though her sleep was light How long she had lain, she knew not, when by slow degrees she became cognizant of a whispering in her ear.

‘You are well on with him, I can see. Well, provoke me now, but my day will come, you will find.’ That seemed to be the utterance, or words to that effect.

Elfride became broad awake and terrified. She knew the words, if real, could be only those of one person, and that person the widow Jethway.

The lamp had gone out and the place was in darkness. In the next berth she could hear her stepmother breathing heavily, further on Snewson breathing more heavily still. These were the only other legitimate occupants of the cabin, and Mrs. Jethway must have stealthily come in by some means and retreated again, or else she had entered an empty berth next Snewson’s. The fear that this was the case increased Elfride’s perturbation, till it assumed the dimensions of a certainty, for how could a stranger from the other end of the ship possibly contrive to get in? Could it have been a dream?

Elfride raised herself higher and looked out of the window. There was the sea, floundering and rushing against the ship’s side just by her head, and thence stretching away, dim and moaning, into an expanse of indistinctness; and far beyond all this two placid lights like rayless stars. Now almost fearing to turn her face inwards again, lest Mrs. Jethway should appear at her elbow, Elfride meditated upon whether to call Snewson to keep her company. ‘Four bells ‘ sounded, and she heard voices, which gave her a little courage. It was not worth while to call Snewson.

At any rate Elfride could not stay there panting longer, at the risk of being again disturbed by that dreadful whispering. So wrapping herself up hurriedly she emerged into the passage, and by the aid of a faint light burning at the entrance to the saloon found the foot of the stairs, and ascended to the deck. Dreary the place was in the extreme. It seemed a new spot altogether in contrast with its daytime self. She could see the glowworm light from the binnacle, and the dim outline of the man at the wheel; also a form at the bows. Not another soul was apparent from stem to stern.

Yes, there were two more–by the bulwarks. One proved to be her Harry, the other the mate. She was glad indeed, and on drawing closer found they were holding a low slow chat about nautical affairs. She ran up and slipped her hand through Knight’s arm, partly for love, partly for stability.

‘Elfie! not asleep?’ said Knight, after moving a few steps aside with her.

‘No: I cannot sleep. May I stay here? It is so dismal down there, and–and I was afraid. Where are we now?’

‘Due south of Portland Bill. Those are the lights abeam of us: look. A terrible spot, that, on a stormy night. And do you see a very small light that dips and rises to the right? That’s a light- ship on the dangerous shoal called the Shambles, where many a good vessel has gone to pieces. Between it and ourselves is the Race– a place where antagonistic currents meet and form whirlpools–a spot which is rough in the smoothest weather, and terrific in a wind. That dark, dreary horizon we just discern to the left is the West Bay, terminated landwards by the Chesil Beach.’

‘What time is it, Harry?’

‘Just past two.’

‘Are you going below?’

‘Oh no; not to-night. I prefer pure air.’

She fancied he might be displeased with her for coming to him at this unearthly hour. ‘I should like to stay here too, if you will allow me,’ she said timidly.

‘I want to ask you things.’

‘Allow you, Elfie!’ said Knight, putting his arm round her and drawing her closer. ‘I am twice as happy with you by my side. Yes: we will stay, and watch the approach of day.’

So they again sought out the sheltered nook, and sitting down wrapped themselves in the rug as before.

‘What were you going to ask me?’ he inquired, as they undulated up and down.

‘Oh, it was not much–perhaps a thing I ought not to ask,’ she said hesitatingly. Her sudden wish had really been to discover at once whether he had ever before been engaged to be married. If he had, she would make that a ground for telling him a little of her conduct with Stephen. Mrs. Jethway’s seeming words had so depressed the girl that she herself now painted her flight in the darkest colours, and longed to ease her burdened mind by an instant confession. If Knight had ever been imprudent himself, he might, she hoped, forgive all.

‘I wanted to ask you,’ she went on, ‘if–you had ever been engaged before.’ She added tremulously, ‘I hope you have–I mean, I don’t mind at all if you have.’

‘No, I never was,’ Knight instantly and heartily replied. ‘Elfride’–and there was a certain happy pride in his tone–‘I am twelve years older than you, and I have been about the world, and, in a way, into society, and you have not. And yet I am not so unfit for you as strict-thinking people might imagine, who would assume the difference in age to signify most surely an equal addition to my practice in love-making.’

Elfride shivered.

‘You are cold–is the wind too much for you?’

‘No,’ she said gloomily. The belief which had been her sheet- anchor in hoping for forgiveness had proved false. This account of the exceptional nature of his experience, a matter which would have set her rejoicing two years ago, chilled her now like a frost.

‘You don’t mind my asking you?’ she continued.

‘Oh no–not at all.’

‘And have you never kissed many ladies?’ she whispered, hoping he would say a hundred at the least.

The time, the circumstances, and the scene were such as to draw confidences from the most reserved. ‘Elfride,’ whispered Knight in reply, ‘it is strange you should have asked that question. But I’ll answer it, though I have never told such a thing before. I have been rather absurd in my avoidance of women. I have never given a woman a kiss in my life, except yourself and my mother.’ The man of two and thirty with the experienced mind warmed all over with a boy’s ingenuous shame as he made the confession.

‘What, not one?’ she faltered.

‘No; not one.’

‘How very strange!’

‘Yes, the reverse experience may be commoner. And yet, to those who have observed their own sex, as I have, my case is not remarkable. Men about town are women’s favourites–that’s the postulate–and superficial people don’t think far enough to see that there may be reserved, lonely exceptions.’

‘Are you proud of it, Harry?’

‘No, indeed. Of late years I have wished I had gone my ways and trod out my measure like lighter-hearted men. I have thought of how many happy experiences I may have lost through never going to woo.’

‘Then why did you hold aloof?’

‘I cannot say. I don’t think it was my nature to: circumstance hindered me, perhaps. I have regretted it for another reason. This great remissness of mine has had its effect upon me. The older I have grown, the more distinctly have I perceived that it was absolutely preventing me from liking any woman who was not as unpractised as I; and I gave up the expectation of finding a nineteenth-century young lady in my own raw state. Then I found you, Elfride, and l felt for the first time that my fastidiousness was a blessing. And it helped to make me worthy of you. I felt at once that, differing as we did in other experiences, in this matter I resembled you. Well, aren’t you glad to hear it, Elfride?’

‘Yes, I am,’ she answered in a forced voice. ‘But I always had thought that men made lots of engagements before they married– especially if they don’t marry very young.’

‘So all women think, I suppose–and rightly, indeed, of the majority of bachelors, as I said before. But an appreciable minority of slow-coach men do not–and it makes them very awkward when they do come to the point. However, it didn’t matter in my case.’

‘Why?’ she asked uneasily.

‘Because you know even less of love-making and matrimonial prearrangement than I, and so you can’t draw invidious comparisons if I do my engaging improperly.’

‘I think you do it beautifully!’

‘Thank you, dear. But,’ continued Knight laughingly, ‘your opinion is not that of an expert, which alone is of value.’

Had she answered, ‘Yes, it is,’ half as strongly as she felt it, Knight might have been a little astonished.

‘If you had ever been engaged to be married before,’ he went on, ‘I expect your opinion of my addresses would be different. But then, I should not—-‘

‘Should not what, Harry?’

‘Oh, I was merely going to say that in that case I should never have given myself the pleasure of proposing to you, since your freedom from that experience was your attraction, darling.’

‘You are severe on women, are you not?’

‘No, I think not. I had a right to please my taste, and that was for untried lips. Other men than those of my sort acquire the taste as they get older–but don’t find an Elfride—-‘

‘What horrid sound is that we hear when we pitch forward?’

‘Only the screw–don’t find an Elfride as I did. To think that I should have discovered such an unseen flower down there in the West–to whom a man is as much as a multitude to some women, and a trip down the English Channel like a voyage round the world!’

‘And would you,’ she said, and her voice was tremulous, ‘have given up a lady–if you had become engaged to her–and then found she had had ONE kiss before yours–and would you have–gone away and left her?’

‘One kiss,–no, hardly for that.’

‘Two?’

‘Well–I could hardly say inventorially like that. Too much of that sort of thing certainly would make me dislike a woman. But let us confine our attention to ourselves, not go thinking of might have beens.’

So Elfride had allowed her thoughts to ‘dally with false surmise,’ and every one of Knight’s words fell upon her like a weight. After this they were silent for a long time, gazing upon the black mysterious sea, and hearing the strange voice of the restless wind. A rocking to and fro on the waves, when the breeze is not too violent and cold, produces a soothing effect even upon the most highly-wrought mind. Elfride slowly sank against Knight, and looking down, he found by her soft regular breathing that she had fallen asleep. Not wishing to disturb her, he continued still, and took an intense pleasure in supporting her warm young form as it rose and fell with her every breath.

Knight fell to dreaming too, though he continued wide awake. It was pleasant to realize the implicit trust she placed in him, and to think of the charming innocence of one who could sink to sleep in so simple and unceremonious a manner. More than all, the musing unpractical student felt the immense responsibility he was taking upon himself by becoming the protector and guide of such a trusting creature. The quiet slumber of her soul lent a quietness to his own. Then she moaned, and turned herself restlessly. Presently her mutterings became distinct:

‘Don’t tell him–he will not love me….I did not mean any disgrace–indeed I did not, so don’t tell Harry. We were going to be married–that was why I ran away….And he says he will not have a kissed woman….And if you tell him he will go away, and I shall die. I pray have mercy–Oh!’

Elfride started up wildly.

The previous moment a musical ding-dong had spread into the air from their right hand, and awakened her.

‘What is it?’ she exclaimed in terror.

‘Only “eight bells,”‘ said Knight soothingly. ‘Don’t be frightened, little bird, you are safe. What have you been dreaming about?’

‘I can’t tell, I can’t tell!’ she said with a shudder. ‘Oh, I don’t know what to do!’

‘Stay quietly with me. We shall soon see the dawn now. Look, the morning star is lovely over there. The clouds have completely cleared off whilst you have been sleeping. What have you been dreaming of?’

‘A woman in our parish.’

‘Don’t you like her?’

‘I don’t. She doesn’t like me. Where are we?’

‘About south of the Exe.’

Knight said no more on the words of her dream. They watched the sky till Elfride grew calm, and the dawn appeared. It was mere wan lightness first. Then the wind blew in a changed spirit, and died away to a zephyr. The star dissolved into the day.

‘That’s how I should like to die,’ said Elfride, rising from her seat and leaning over the bulwark to watch the star’s last expiring gleam.

‘As the lines say,’ Knight replied—-

‘”To set as sets the morning star, which goes Not down behind the darken’d west, nor hides Obscured among the tempests of the sky, But melts away into the light of heaven.”‘

‘Oh, other people have thought the same thing, have they? That’s always the case with my originalities–they are original to nobody but myself.’

‘Not only the case with yours. When I was a young hand at reviewing I used to find that a frightful pitfall–dilating upon subjects I met with, which were novelties to me, and finding afterwards they had been exhausted by the thinking world when I was in pinafores.’

‘That is delightful. Whenever I find you have done a foolish thing I am glad, because it seems to bring you a little nearer to me, who have done many.’ And Elfride thought again of her enemy asleep under the deck they trod.

All up the coast, prominences singled themselves out from recesses. Then a rosy sky spread over the eastern sea and behind the low line of land, flinging its livery in dashes upon the thin airy clouds in that direction. Every projection on the land seemed now so many fingers anxious to catch a little of the liquid light thrown so prodigally over the sky, and after a fantastic time of lustrous yellows in the east, the higher elevations along the shore were flooded with the same hues. The bluff and bare contours of Start Point caught the brightest, earliest glow of all, and so also did the sides of its white lighthouse, perched upon a shelf in its precipitous front like a mediaeval saint in a niche. Their lofty neighbour Bolt Head on the left remained as yet ungilded, and retained its gray.

Then up came the sun, as it were in jerks, just to seaward of the easternmost point of land, flinging out a Jacob’s-ladder path of light from itself to Elfride and Knight, and coating them with rays in a few minutes. The inferior dignitaries of the shore– Froward Point, Berry Head, and Prawle–all had acquired their share of the illumination ere this, and at length the very smallest protuberance of wave, cliff, or inlet, even to the innermost recesses of the lovely valley of the Dart, had its portion; and sunlight, now the common possession of all, ceased to be the wonderful and coveted thing it had been a short half hour before.

After breakfast, Plymouth arose into view, and grew distincter to their nearing vision, the Breakwater appearing like a streak of phosphoric light upon the surface of the sea. Elfride looked furtively around for Mrs. Jethway, but could discern no shape like hers. Afterwards, in the bustle of landing, she looked again with the same result, by which time the woman had probably glided upon the quay unobserved. Expanding with a sense of relief, Elfride waited whilst Knight looked to their luggage, and then saw her father approaching through the crowd, twirling his walking-stick to catch their attention. Elbowing their way to him they all entered the town, which smiled as sunny a smile upon Elfride as it had done between one and two years earlier, when she had entered it at precisely the same hour as the bride-elect of Stephen Smith.

Chapter XXX

‘Vassal unto Love.’

Elfride clung closer to Knight as day succeeded day. Whatever else might admit of question, there could be no dispute that the allegiance she bore him absorbed her whole soul and existence. A greater than Stephen had arisen, and she had left all to follow him.

The unreserved girl was never chary of letting her lover discover how much she admired him. She never once held an idea in opposition to any one of his, or insisted on any point with him, or showed any independence, or held her own on any subject. His lightest whim she respected and obeyed as law, and if, expressing her opinion on a matter, he took up the subject and differed from her, she instantly threw down her own opinion as wrong and untenable. Even her ambiguities and espieglerie were but media of the same manifestation; acted charades, embodying the words of her prototype, the tender and susceptible daughter-in-law of Naomi: ‘Let me find favour in thy sight, my lord; for that thou hast comforted me, and for that thou hast spoken friendly unto thine handmaid.’

She was syringing the plants one wet day in the greenhouse. Knight was sitting under a great passion-flower observing the scene. Sometimes he looked out at the rain from the sky, and then at Elfride’s inner rain of larger drops, which fell from trees and shrubs, after having previously hung from the twigs like small silver fruit.

‘I must give you something to make you think of me during this autumn at your chambers,’ she was saying. ‘What shall it be? Portraits do more harm than good, by selecting the worst expression of which your face is capable. Hair is unlucky. And you don’t like jewellery.’

‘Something which shall bring back to my mind the many scenes we have enacted in this conservatory. I see what I should prize very much. That dwarf myrtle tree in the pot, which you have been so carefully tending.’

Elfride looked thoughtfully at the myrtle.

‘I can carry it comfortably in my hat box,’ said Knight. ‘And I will put it in my window, and so, it being always before my eyes, I shall think of you continually.’

It so happened that the myrtle which Knight had singled out had a peculiar beginning and history. It had originally been a twig worn in Stephen Smith’s button-hole, and he had taken it thence, stuck it into the pot, and told her that if it grew, she was to take care of it, and keep it in remembrance of him when he was far away.

She looked wistfully at the plant, and a sense of fairness to Smith’s memory caused her a pang of regret that Knight should have asked for that very one. It seemed exceeding a common heartlessness to let it go.

‘Is there not anything you like better?’ she said sadly. ‘That is only an ordinary myrtle.’

‘No: I am fond of myrtle.’ Seeing that she did not take kindly to the idea, he said again, ‘Why do you object to my having that?’

‘Oh no–I don’t object precisely–it was a feeling.–Ah, here’s another cutting lately struck, and just as small–of a better kind, and with prettier leaves–myrtus microphylla.’

‘That will do nicely. Let it be put in my room, that I may not forget it. What romance attaches to the other?’

‘It was a gift to me.’

The subject then dropped. Knight thought no more of the matter till, on entering his bedroom in the evening, he found the second myrtle placed upon his dressing-table as he had directed. He stood for a moment admiring the fresh appearance of the leaves by candlelight, and then he thought of the transaction of the day.

Male lovers as well as female can be spoilt by too much kindness, and Elfride’s uniform submissiveness had given Knight a rather exacting manner at crises, attached to her as he was. ‘Why should she have refused the one I first chose?’ he now asked himself. Even such slight opposition as she had shown then was exceptional enough to make itself noticeable. He was not vexed with her in the least: the mere variation of her way to-day from her usual ways kept him musing on the subject, because it perplexed him. ‘It was a gift’–those were her words. Admitting it to be a gift, he thought she could hardly value a mere friend more than she valued him as a lover, and giving the plant into his charge would have made no difference. ‘Except, indeed, it was the gift of a lover,’ he murmured.

‘I wonder if Elfride has ever had a lover before?’ he said aloud, as a new idea, quite. This and companion thoughts were enough to occupy him completely till he fell asleep–rather later than usual.

The next day, when they were again alone, he said to her rather suddenly–

‘Do you love me more or less, Elfie, for what I told you on board the steamer?’

‘You told me so many things,’ she returned, lifting her eyes to his and smiling.

‘I mean the confession you coaxed out of me–that I had never been in the position of lover before.’

‘It is a satisfaction, I suppose, to be the first in your heart,’ she said to him, with an attempt to continue her smiling.

‘I am going to ask you a question now,’ said Knight, somewhat awkwardly. ‘I only ask it in a whimsical way, you know: not with great seriousness, Elfride. You may think it odd, perhaps.’

Elfride tried desperately to keep the colour in her face. She could not, though distressed to think that getting pale showed consciousness of deeper guilt than merely getting red.

‘Oh no–I shall not think that,’ she said, because obliged to say something to fill the pause which followed her questioner’s remark.

‘It is this: have you ever had a lover? I am almost sure you have not; but, have you?’

‘Not, as it were, a lover; I mean, not worth mentioning, Harry,’ she faltered.

Knight, overstrained in sentiment as he knew the feeling to be, felt some sickness of heart.

‘Still, he was a lover?’

‘Well, a sort of lover, I suppose,’ she responded tardily.

‘A man, I mean, you know.’

‘Yes; but only a mere person, and—-‘

‘But truly your lover?’

‘Yes; a lover certainly–he was that. Yes, he might have been called my lover.’

Knight said nothing to this for a minute or more, and kept silent time with his finger to the tick of the old library clock, in which room the colloquy was going on.

‘You don’t mind, Harry, do you?’ she said anxiously, nestling close to him, and watching his face.

‘Of course, I don’t seriously mind. In reason, a man cannot object to such a trifle. I only thought you hadn’t–that was all.’

However, one ray was abstracted from the glory about her head. But afterwards, when Knight was wandering by himself over the bare and breezy hills, and meditating on the subject, that ray suddenly returned. For she might have had a lover, and never have cared in the least for him. She might have used the word improperly, and meant ‘admirer’ all the time. Of course she had been admired; and one man might have made his admiration more prominent than that of the rest–a very natural case.

They were sitting on one of the garden seats when he found occasion to put the supposition to the test. ‘Did you love that lover or admirer of yours ever so little, Elfie?’

She murmured reluctantly, ‘Yes, I think I did.’

Knight felt the same faint touch of misery. ‘Only a very little?’ he said.

‘I am not sure how much.’

‘But you are sure, darling, you loved him a little?’

‘I think I am sure I loved him a little.’

‘And not a great deal, Elfie?’

‘My love was not supported by reverence for his powers.’

‘But, Elfride, did you love him deeply?’ said Knight restlessly.

‘I don’t exactly know how deep you mean by deeply.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘You misapprehend; and you have let go my hand!’ she cried, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Harry, don’t be severe with me, and don’t question me. I did not love him as I do you. And could it be deeply if I did not think him cleverer than myself? For I did not. You grieve me so much–you can’t think.’

‘I will not say another word about it.’

‘And you will not think about it, either, will you? I know you think of weaknesses in me after I am out of your sight; and not knowing what they are, I cannot combat them. I almost wish you were of a grosser nature, Harry; in truth I do! Or rather, I wish I could have the advantages such a nature in you would afford me, and yet have you as you are.’

‘What advantages would they be?’

‘Less anxiety, and more security. Ordinary men are not so delicate in their tastes as you; and where the lover or husband is not fastidious, and refined, and of a deep nature, things seem to go on better, I fancy–as far as I have been able to observe the world.’

‘Yes; I suppose it is right. Shallowness has this advantage, that you can’t be drowned there.’

‘But I think I’ll have you as you are; yes, I will!’ she said winsomely. ‘The practical husbands and wives who take things philosophically are very humdrum, are they not? Yes, it would kill me quite. You please me best as you are.’

‘Even though I wish you had never cared for one before me?’

‘Yes. And you must not wish it. Don’t!’

‘I’ll try not to, Elfride.’

So she hoped, but her heart was troubled. If he felt so deeply on this point, what would he say did he know all, and see it as Mrs. Jethway saw it? He would never make her the happiest girl in the world by taking her to be his own for aye. The thought enclosed her as a tomb whenever it presented itself to her perturbed brain. She tried to believe that Mrs. Jethway would never do her such a cruel wrong as to increase the bad appearance of her folly by innuendoes; and concluded that concealment, having been begun, must be persisted in, if possible. For what he might consider as bad as the fact, was her previous concealment of it by strategy.

But Elfride knew Mrs. Jethway to be her enemy, and to hate her. It was possible she would do her worst. And should she do it, all might be over.

Would the woman listen to reason, and be persuaded not to ruin one who had never intentionally harmed her?

It was night in the valley between Endelstow Crags and the shore. The brook which trickled that way to the sea was distinct in its murmurs now, and over the line of its course there began to hang a white riband of fog. Against the sky, on the left hand of the vale, the black form of the church could be seen. On the other rose hazel-bushes, a few trees, and where these were absent, furze tufts–as tall as men–on stems nearly as stout as timber. The shriek of some bird was occasionally heard, as it flew terror- stricken from its first roost, to seek a new sleeping-place, where it might pass the night unmolested.

In the evening shade, some way down the valley, and under a row of scrubby oaks, a cottage could still be discerned. It stood absolutely alone. The house was rather large, and the windows of some of the rooms were nailed up with boards on the outside, which gave a particularly deserted appearance to the whole erection. From the front door an irregular series of rough and misshapen steps, cut in the solid rock, led down to the edge of the streamlet, which, at their extremity, was hollowed into a basin through which the water trickled. This was evidently the means of water supply to the dweller or dwellers in the cottage.

A light footstep was heard descending from the higher slopes of the hillside. Indistinct in the pathway appeared a moving female shape, who advanced and knocked timidly at the door. No answer being returned the knock was repeated, with the same result, and it was then repeated a third time. This also was unsuccessful.

From one of the only two windows on the ground floor which were not boarded up came rays of light, no shutter or curtain obscuring the room from the eyes of a passer on the outside. So few walked that way after nightfall that any such means to secure secrecy were probably deemed unnecessary.

The inequality of the rays falling upon the trees outside told that the light had its origin in a flickering fire only. The visitor, after the third knocking, stepped a little to the left in order to gain a view of the interior, and threw back the hood from her face. The dancing yellow sheen revealed the fair and anxious countenance of Elfride.

Inside the house this firelight was enough to illumine the room distinctly, and to show that the furniture of the cottage was superior to what might have been expected from so unpromising an exterior. It also showed to Elfride that the room was empty. Beyond the light quiver and flap of the flames nothing moved or was audible therein.

She turned the handle and entered, throwing off the cloak which enveloped her, under which she appeared without hat or bonnet, and in the sort of half-toilette country people ordinarily dine in. Then advancing to the foot of the staircase she called distinctly, but somewhat fearfully, ‘Mrs. Jethway!’

No answer.

With a look of relief and regret combined, denoting that ease came to the heart and disappointment to the brain, Elfride paused for several minutes, as if undecided how to act. Determining to wait, she sat down on a chair. The minutes drew on, and after sitting on the thorns of impatience for half an hour, she searched her pocket, took therefrom a letter, and tore off the blank leaf. Then taking out a pencil she wrote upon the paper:

‘DEAR MRS. JETHWAY,–I have been to visit you. I wanted much to see you, but I cannot wait any longer. I came to beg you not to execute the threats you have repeated to me. Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, let any one know I ran away from home! It would ruin me with him, and break my heart. I will do anything for you, if you will be kind to me. In the name of our common womanhood, do not, I implore you, make a scandal of me.–Yours, E. SWANCOURT.’

She folded the note cornerwise, directed it, and placed it on the table. Then again drawing the hood over her curly head she emerged silently as she had come.

Whilst this episode had been in action at Mrs. Jethway’s cottage, Knight had gone from the dining-room into the drawing-room, and found Mrs. Swancourt there alone.

‘Elfride has vanished upstairs or somewhere,’ she said.

‘And I have been reading an article in an old number of the PRESENT that I lighted on by chance a short time ago; it is an article you once told us was yours. Well, Harry, with due deference to your literary powers, allow me to say that this effusion is all nonsense, in my opinion.’

‘What is it about?’ said Knight, taking up the paper and reading.

‘There: don’t get red about it. Own that experience has taught you to be more charitable. I have never read such unchivalrous sentiments in my life–from a man, I mean. There, I forgive you; it was before you knew Elfride.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Knight, looking up. ‘I remember now. The text of that sermon was not my own at all, but was suggested to me by a young man named Smith–the same whom I have mentioned to you as coming from this parish. I thought the idea rather ingenious at the time, and enlarged it to the weight of a few guineas, because I had nothing else in my head.’

‘Which idea do you call the text? I am curious to know that.’

‘Well, this,’ said Knight, somewhat unwillingly. ‘That experience teaches, and your sweetheart, no less than your tailor, is necessarily very imperfect in her duties, if you are her first patron: and conversely, the sweetheart who is graceful under the initial kiss must be supposed to have had some practice in the trade.’

‘And do you mean to say that you wrote that upon the strength of another man’s remark, without having tested it by practice?’

‘Yes–indeed I do.’

‘Then I think it was uncalled for and unfair. And how do you know it is true? I expect you regret it now.’

‘Since you bring me into a serious mood, I will speak candidly. I do believe that remark to be perfectly true, and, having written it, I would defend it anywhere. But I do often regret having ever written it, as well as others of the sort. I have grown older since, and I find such a tone of writing is calculated to do harm in the world. Every literary Jack becomes a gentleman if he can only pen a few indifferent satires upon womankind: women themselves, too, have taken to the trick; and so, upon the whole, I begin to be rather ashamed of my companions.’

‘Ah, Henry, you have fallen in love since and it makes a difference,’ said Mrs. Swancourt with a faint tone of banter.

‘That’s true; but that is not my reason.’

‘Having found that, in a case of your own experience, a so-called goose was a swan, it seems absurd to deny such a possibility in other men’s experiences.’

‘You can hit palpably, cousin Charlotte,’ said Knight. ‘You are like the boy who puts a stone inside his snowball, and I shall play with you no longer. Excuse me–I am going for my evening stroll.’

Though Knight had spoken jestingly, this incident and conversation had caused him a sudden depression. Coming, rather singularly, just after his discovery that Elfride had known what it was to love warmly before she had known him, his mind dwelt upon the subject, and the familiar pipe he smoked, whilst pacing up and down the shrubbery-path, failed to be a solace. He thought again of those idle words–hitherto quite forgotten–about the first kiss of a girl, and the theory seemed more than reasonable. Of course their sting now lay in their bearing on Elfride.

Elfride, under Knight’s kiss, had certainly been a very different woman from herself under Stephen’s. Whether for good or for ill, she had marvellously well learnt a betrothed lady’s part; and the fascinating finish of her deportment in this second campaign did probably arise from her unreserved encouragement of Stephen. Knight, with all the rapidity of jealous sensitiveness, pounced upon some words she had inadvertently let fall about an earring, which he had only partially understood at the time. It was during that ‘initial kiss’ by the little waterfall:

‘We must be careful. I lost the other by doing this!’

A flush which had in it as much of wounded pride as of sorrow, passed over Knight as he thought of what he had so frequently said to her in his simplicity. ‘I always meant to be the first comer in a woman’s heart, fresh lips or none for me.’ How childishly blind he must have seemed to this mere girl! How she must have laughed at him inwardly! He absolutely writhed as he thought of the confession she had wrung from him on the boat in the darkness of night. The one conception which had sustained his dignity when drawn out of his shell on that occasion–that of her charming ignorance of all such matters–how absurd it was!

This man, whose imagination had been fed up to preternatural size by lonely study and silent observations of his kind–whose emotions had been drawn out long and delicate by his seclusion, like plants in a cellar–was now absolutely in pain. Moreover, several years of poetic study, and, if the truth must be told, poetic efforts, had tended to develop the affective side of his constitution still further, in proportion to his active faculties. It was his belief in the absolute newness of blandishment to Elfride which had constituted her primary charm. He began to think it was as hard to be earliest in a woman’s heart as it was to be first in the Pool of Bethesda.

That Knight should have been thus constituted: that Elfride’s second lover should not have been one of the great mass of bustling mankind, little given to introspection, whose good-nature might have compensated for any lack of appreciativeness, was the chance of things. That her throbbing, self-confounding, indiscreet heart should have to defend itself unaided against the keen scrutiny and logical power which Knight, now that his suspicions were awakened, would sooner or later be sure to exercise against her, was her misfortune. A miserable incongruity was apparent in the circumstance of a strong mind practising its unerring archery upon a heart which the owner of that mind loved better than his own.

Elfride’s docile devotion to Knight was now its own enemy. Clinging to him so dependently, she taught him in time to presume upon that devotion–a lesson men are not slow to learn. A slight rebelliousness occasionally would have done him no harm, and would have been a world of advantage to her. But she idolized him, and was proud to be his bond-servant.

Chapter XXXI

‘A worm i’ the bud.’

One day the reviewer said, ‘Let us go to the cliffs again, Elfride;’ and, without consulting her wishes, he moved as if to start at once.

‘The cliff of our dreadful adventure?’ she inquired, with a shudder. ‘Death stares me in the face in the person of that cliff.’

Nevertheless, so entirely had she sunk her individuality in his that the remark was not uttered as an expostulation, and she immediately prepared to accompany him.

‘No, not that place,’ said Knight. ‘It is ghastly to me, too. That other, I mean; what is its name?–Windy Beak.’

Windy Beak was the second cliff in height along that coast, and, as is frequently the case with the natural features of the globe no less than with the intellectual features of men, it enjoyed the reputation of being the first. Moreover, it was the cliff to which Elfride had ridden with Stephen Smith, on a well-remembered morning of his summer visit.

So, though thought of the former cliff had caused her to shudder at the perils to which her lover and herself had there been exposed, by being associated with Knight only it was not so objectionable as Windy Beak. That place was worse than gloomy, it was a perpetual reproach to her.

But not liking to refuse, she said, ‘It is further than the other cliff.’

‘Yes; but you can ride.’

‘And will you too?’

‘No, I’ll walk.’

A duplicate of her original arrangement with Stephen. Some fatality must be hanging over her head. But she ceased objecting.

‘Very well, Harry, I’ll ride,’ she said meekly.

A quarter of an hour later she was in the saddle. But how different the mood from that of the former time. She had, indeed, given up her position as queen of the less to be vassal of the greater. Here was no showing off now; no scampering out of sight with Pansy, to perplex and tire her companion; no saucy remarks on LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI. Elfride was burdened with the very intensity of her love.

Knight did most of the talking along the journey. Elfride silently listened, and entirely resigned herself to the motions of the ambling horse upon which she sat, alternately rising and sinking gently, like a sea bird upon a sea wave.

When they had reached the limit of a quadruped’s possibilities in walking, Knight tenderly lifted her from the saddle, tied the horse, and rambled on with her to the seat in the rock. Knight sat down, and drew Elfride deftly beside him, and they looked over the sea.

Two or three degrees above that melancholy and eternally level line, the ocean horizon, hung a sun of brass, with no visible rays, in a sky of ashen hue. It was a sky the sun did not illuminate or enkindle, as is usual at sunsets. This sheet of sky was met by the salt mass of gray water, flecked here and there with white. A waft of dampness occasionally rose to their faces, which was probably rarefied spray from the blows of the sea upon the foot of the cliff.

Elfride wished it could be a longer time ago that she had sat there with Stephen as her lover, and agreed to be his wife. The significant closeness of that time to the present was another item to add to the list of passionate fears which were chronic with her now.

Yet Knight was very tender this evening, and sustained her close to him as they sat.

Not a word had been uttered by either since sitting down, when Knight said musingly, looking still afar–

‘I wonder if any lovers in past years ever sat here with arms locked, as we do now. Probably they have, for the place seems formed for a seat.’

Her recollection of a well-known pair who had, and the much- talked-of loss which had ensued therefrom, and how the young man had been sent back to look for the missing article, led Elfride to glance down to her side, and behind her back. Many people who lose a trinket involuntarily give a momentary look for it in passing the spot ever so long afterwards. They do not often find it. Elfride, in turning her head, saw something shine weakly from a crevice in the rocky sedile. Only for a few minutes during the day did the sun light the alcove to its innermost rifts and slits, but these were the minutes now, and its level rays did Elfride the good or evil turn of revealing the lost ornament.

Elfride’s thoughts instantly reverted to the words she had unintentionally uttered upon what had been going on when the earring was lost. And she was immediately seized with a misgiving that Knight, on seeing the object, would be reminded of her words. Her instinctive act therefore was to secure it privately.

It was so deep in the crack that Elfride could not pull it out with her hand, though she made several surreptitious trials.

‘What are you doing, Elfie?’ said Knight, noticing her attempts, and looking behind him likewise.

She had relinquished the endeavour, but too late.

Knight peered into the joint from which her hand had been withdrawn, and saw what she had seen. He instantly took a penknife from his pocket, and by dint of probing and scraping brought the earring out upon open ground.

‘It is not yours, surely?’ he inquired.

‘Yes, it is,’ she said quietly.

‘Well, that is a most extraordinary thing, that we should find it like this!’ Knight then remembered more circumstances; ‘What, is it the one you have told me of?’

‘Yes.’

The unfortunate remark of hers at the kiss came into his mind, if eyes were ever an index to be trusted. Trying to repress the words he yet spoke on the subject, more to obtain assurance that what it had seemed to imply was not true than from a wish to pry into bygones.

‘Were you really engaged to be married to that lover?’ he said, looking straight forward at the sea again.

‘Yes–but not exactly. Yet I think I was.’

‘O Elfride, engaged to be married!’ he murmured.

‘It would have been called a–secret engagement, I suppose. But don’t look so disappointed; don’t blame me.’

‘No, no.’

‘Why do you say “No, no,” in such a way? Sweetly enough, but so barely?’

Knight made no direct reply to this. ‘Elfride, I told you once,’ he said, following out his thoughts, ‘that I never kissed a woman as a sweetheart until I kissed you. A kiss is not much, I suppose, and it happens to few young people to be able to avoid all blandishments and attentions except from the one they afterwards marry. But I have peculiar weaknesses, Elfride; and because I have led a peculiar life, I must suffer for it, I suppose. I had hoped–well, what I had no right to hope in connection with you. You naturally granted your former lover the privileges you grant me.’

A ‘yes’ came from her like the last sad whisper of a breeze.

‘And he used to kiss you–of course he did.’

‘Yes.’

‘And perhaps you allowed him a more free manner in his love-making than I have shown in mine.’

‘No, I did not.’ This was rather more alertly spoken.

‘But he adopted it without being allowed?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much I have made of you, Elfride, and how I have kept aloof!’ said Knight in deep and shaken tones. ‘So many days and hours as I have hoped in you–I have feared to kiss you more than those two times. And he made no scruples to…’

She crept closer to him and trembled as if with cold. Her dread that the whole story, with random additions, would become known to him, caused her manner to be so agitated that Knight was alarmed and perplexed into stillness. The actual innocence which made her think so fearfully of what, as the world goes, was not a great matter, magnified her apparent guilt. It may have said to Knight that a woman who was so flurried in the preliminaries must have a dreadful sequel to her tale.

‘I know,’ continued Knight, with an indescribable drag of manner and intonation,–‘I know I am absurdly scrupulous about you–that I want you too exclusively mine. In your past before you knew me– from your very cradle–I wanted to think you had been mine. I would make you mine by main force. Elfride,’ he went on vehemently, ‘I can’t help this jealousy over you! It is my nature, and must be so, and I HATE the fact that you have been caressed before: yes hate it!’

She drew a long deep breath, which was half a sob. Knight’s face was hard, and he never looked at her at all, still fixing his gaze far out to sea, which the sun had now resigned to the shade. In high places it is not long from sunset to night, dusk being in a measure banished, and though only evening where they sat, it had been twilight in the valleys for half an hour. Upon the dull expanse of sea there gradually intensified itself into existence the gleam of a distant light-ship.

‘When that lover first kissed you, Elfride was it in such a place as this?’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘You don’t tell me anything but what I wring out of you. Why is that? Why have you suppressed all mention of this when casual confidences of mine should have suggested confidence in return? On board the Juliet, why were you so secret? It seems like being made a fool of, Elfride, to think that, when I was teaching you how desirable it was that we should have no secrets from each other, you were assenting in words, but in act contradicting me. Confidence would have been so much more promising for our happiness. If you had had confidence in me, and told me willingly, I should–be different. But you suppress everything, and I shall question you. Did you live at Endelstow at that time?’

‘Yes,’ she said faintly.

‘Where were you when he first kissed you?’

‘Sitting in this seat.’

‘Ah, I thought so!’ said Knight, rising and facing her.

‘And that accounts for everything–the exclamation which you explained deceitfully, and all! Forgive the harsh word, Elfride– forgive it.’ He smiled a surface smile as he continued: ‘What a poor mortal I am to play second fiddle in everything and to be deluded by fibs!’

‘Oh, don’t say it; don’t, Harry!’

‘Where did he kiss you besides here?’

‘Sitting on–a tomb in the–churchyard–and other places,’ she answered with slow recklessness.

‘Never mind, never mind,’ he exclaimed, on seeing her tears and perturbation. ‘I don’t want to grieve you. I don’t care.’

But Knight did care.

‘It makes no difference, you know,’ he continued, seeing she did not reply.

‘I feel cold,’ said Elfride. ‘Shall we go home?’

‘Yes; it is late in the year to sit long out of doors: we ought to be off this ledge before it gets too dark to let us see our footing. I daresay the horse is impatient.’

Knight spoke the merest commonplace to her now. He had hoped to the last moment that she would have volunteered the whole story of her first attachment. It grew more and more distasteful to him that she should have a secret of this nature. Such entire confidence as he had pictured as about to exist between himself and the innocent young wife who had known no lover’s tones save his–was this its beginning? He lifted her upon the horse, and they went along constrainedly. The poison of suspicion was doing its work well.

An incident occurred on this homeward journey which was long remembered by both, as adding shade to shadow. Knight could not keep from his mind the words of Adam’s reproach to Eve in PARADISE LOST, and at last whispered them to himself–