Beatrice by H. Rider Haggard (page 5)

Beatrice’s face grew quite pale, her lips twitched and her grey eyes flashed angrily.

“Really,” she said, “and have /you/ any advice to give on the subject, Mr. Bingham?”

“Yes, Beatrice, I have. I have thought it over, and I think that– forgive me again–that if you can bring yourself to it, perhaps you had better marry him. He is not such a bad sort of man, and he is well off.”

They had been walking rapidly, and now they were reaching the spot known as the “Amphitheatre,” that same spot where Owen Davies had proposed to Beatrice some seven months before.

Beatrice passed round the projecting edge of rock, and walked some way towards the flat slab of stone in the centre before she answered. While she did so a great and bitter anger filled her heart. She saw, or thought she saw, it all. Geoffrey wished to be rid of her. He had discerned an element of danger in their intimacy, and was anxious to make that intimacy impossible by pushing her into a hateful marriage. Suddenly she turned and faced him–turned like a thing at bay. The last red rays of the sunset struck upon her lovely face made more lovely still by its stamp of haughty anger: they lay upon her heaving breast. Full in the eyes she looked him with those wide angry eyes of hers–never before had he seen her so imperial a mien. Her dignity and the power of her presence literally awed him, for at times Beatrice’s beauty was of that royal stamp which when it hides a heart, is a compelling force, conquering and born to conquer.

“Does it not strike you, Mr. Bingham,” she said quietly, “that you are taking a very great liberty? Does it not strike you that no man who is not a relation has any right to speak to a woman as you have spoken to me?–that, in short, you have been guilty of what in most people would be an impertinence? What right have you to dictate to me as to whom I should or should not marry? Surely of all things in the world that is my own affair.”

Geoffrey coloured to the eyes. As would have been the case with most men of his class, he felt her accusation of having taken a liberty, of having presumed upon an intimacy, more keenly than any which she could have brought against him.

“Forgive me,” he said humbly. “I can only assure you that I had no such intention. I only spoke–ill-judgedly, I fear–because–because I felt driven to it.”

Beatrice took no notice of his words, but went on in the same cold voice.

“What right have you to speak of my affairs with Mr. Davies, with an old boatman, or even with my father? Had I wished you to do so I should have asked you. By what authority do you constitute yourself an intermediary for the purpose of bringing about a marriage which you are so good as to consider would be to my pecuniary interest? Do you not know that such a matter is one which the woman concerned, the woman whose happiness and self-respect are at stake, alone can judge of? I have nothing more to say except this. I said just now that you had been guilty of what would in most people be an impertinence. Well, I will add something. In this case, Mr. Bingham, there are circumstances which make it–a cruel insult!”

She stopped speaking, then suddenly, without the slightest warning, burst into passionate weeping. As she did so, the first rush of the storm passed over them, winnowing the air as with a thousand eagles’ wings, and was lost on the moaning depths beyond.

The light went out of the sky. Now Geoffrey could only see the faint outlines of her weeping face. One moment he hesitated and one only; then Nature prevailed against him, for the next she was in his arms.

Beatrice scarcely resisted him. Her energies seemed to fail her, or perhaps she had spent them in her bitter words. Her head fell upon his shoulder, and there she sobbed her fill. Presently she lifted it and their lips met in a first long kiss. It was finished; this was the end of it–and thus did Geoffrey prosper Owen Davies’s suit.

“Oh, you are cruel, cruel!” he whispered in her ear. “You must have known I loved you, Beatrice, that I spoke against myself because I thought it to be my duty. You must have known that, to my sin and sorrow, I have always loved you, that you have never been an hour from my mind, that I have longed to see your face like a sick man for the light. Tell me, did you not know it, Beatrice?”

“How should I know?” she answered very softly; “I could only guess, and if indeed you love me how could you wish me to marry another man? I thought that you had learned my weakness and took this way to reproach me. Oh, Geoffrey, what have we done? What is there between you and me–except our love?”

“It would have been better if we had been drowned together at the first,” he said heavily.

“No, no,” she answered, “for then we never should have loved one another. Better first to love, and then to die!”

“Do not speak so,” he said; “let us sit here and be happy for a little while to-night, and leave trouble till to-morrow.”

And, where on a bygone day Beatrice had tarried with another wooer, side by side they sat upon the great stone and talked such talk as lovers use.

Above them moaned the rising gale, though sheltered as they were by cliffs its breath scarcely stirred their hair. In front of them the long waves boomed upon the beach, while far out to sea the crescent moon, draped in angry light, seemed to ride the waters like a boat.

And were they alone with their great bliss, or did they only dream? Nay, they were alone with love and lovers’ joys, and all the truth was told, and all their doubts were done. Now there was an end of hopes and fears; now reason fell and Love usurped his throne, and at that royal coming Heaven threw wide her gates. Oh, Sweetest and most dear! Oh, Dearest and most sweet! Oh, to have lived to find this happy hour –oh, in this hour to die!

See heaviness is behind us, see now we are one. Blow, you winds, blow out your stormy heart; we know the secret of your strength, you rush to your desire. Fall, deep waters of the sea, fall in thunder at the feet of earth; we hear the music of your pleading.

Earth, and Seas, and Winds, sing your great chant of love! Heaven and Space and Time, echo back the melody! For Life has called to us the answer of his riddle! Heart to heart we sit, and lips to lips, and we are more wise than Solomon, and richer than barbarian kings, for Happiness is ours.

To this end were we born, Dearest and most sweet, and from all time predestinate! To this end, Sweetest and most dear, do we live and die, in death to find completer unity. For here is that secret of the world which wise men search and cannot find, and here too is the gate of Heaven.

Look into my eyes, and let me gaze on yours, and listen how these things shall be. The world is but a mockery, and a shadow is our flesh, for where once they were there shall be naught. Only Love is real; Love shall endure till all the suns are dead, and yet be young.

Kiss me, thou Conqueror, for Destiny is overcome, Sorrow is gone by; and the flame that we have hallowed upon this earthly altar shall still burn brightly, and yet more bright, when yonder stars have lost their fire.

But alas! words cannot give a fitting form to such a song as this. Let music try! But music also folds her wings. For in so supreme an hour

“A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,”

and through that opened door come sights and sounds such as cannot be written.

They tell us it is madness, that this unearthly glory is but the frenzy of a passion gross in its very essence. Let those think it who will, but to dreamers let them leave their dreams. Why then, at such a time, do visions come to children of the world like Beatrice and Geoffrey? Why do their doubts vanish, and what is that breath from heaven which they seem to feel upon their brow? The intoxication of earthly love born of the meeting of youth and beauty. So be it! Slave, bring more such wine and let us drink–to Immortality and to those dear eyes that mirror forth a spirit’s face!

Such loves indeed are few. For they must be real and deep, and natures thus shaped are rare, nor do they often cross each other’s line of life. Yes, there are few who can be borne so high, and none can breathe that ether long. Soon the wings which Love lent them in his hour of revelation will shrink and vanish, and the borrowers will fall back to the level of this world, happy if they escape uncrushed. Perchance even in their life-days, they may find these spirit wings again, overshadowing the altar of their vows in the hour of earthly marriage, if by some happy fate, marriage should be within their reach, or like the holy pinions of the goddess Nout, folded about a coffin, in the time of earthly death. But scant are the occasions, and few there are who know them.

Thus soared Beatrice and Geoffrey while the wild night beat around them, making a fit accompaniment to their stormy loves. And thus they too fell from heaven to earth.

“We must be going, Geoffrey; it grows late,” said Beatrice. “Oh, Geoffrey, Geoffrey, what have we done? What can be the end of all this? It will bring trouble on you, I know that it must. The old saying will come true. I saved your life, and I shall bring ruin on you!”

It is characteristic of Beatrice that already she was thinking of the consequences to Geoffrey, not of those to herself.

“Beatrice,” said Geoffrey, “we are in a desperate position. Do you wish to face it and come away with me, far away to the other side of the world?”

“No, no,” she answered vehemently, “it would be your ruin to abandon the career that is before you. What part of the world could you go to where you would not be known? Besides there is your wife to think of. Ah, God, your wife–what would she say of me? You belong to her, you have no right to desert her. And there is Effie too. No, Geoffrey, no, I have been wicked enough to learn to love you–oh, as you were never loved before, if it is wicked to do what one cannot help–but I am not bad enough for this. Walk quicker, Geoffrey; we shall be late, and they will suspect something.”

Poor Beatrice, the pangs of conscience were finding her out!

“We are in a dreadful position,” he said again. “Oh, dearest, I have been to blame. I should never have come back here. It is my fault; and though I never thought of this, I did my best to please you.”

“And I thank you for it,” she answered. “Do not deceive yourself, Geoffrey. Whatever happens, promise me never for one moment to believe that I reproached or blamed you. Why should I blame you because you won my heart? Let me sooner blame the sea on which we floated, the beach where we walked, the house in which we lived, and the Destiny that brought us together. I am proud and glad to love you, dear, but I am not so selfish as to wish to ruin you: Geoffrey–I had rather die.”

“Don’t talk so,” he said, “I cannot bear it. What are we to do? Am I to go away and see you no more? How can we live so, Beatrice?”

“Yes, Geoffrey,” she answered heavily, taking him by the hand and gazing up into his face, “you are to go away and see me no more, not for years and years. This is what we have brought upon ourselves, it is the price that we must pay for this hour which has gone. You are to go away to-morrow, that we may be put out of temptation, and you must come back no more. Sometimes I shall write to you, and sometimes perhaps you will write to me, till the thing becomes a burden, then you can stop. And whether you forget me or not–and, Geoffrey, I do not think you will–you will know that I shall never forget you, whom I saved from the sea–to love me.”

There was something so sweet and infinitely tender about her words, instinct as they were with natural womanly passion, that Geoffrey bent at heart beneath their weight as a fir bends beneath the gentle, gathering snow. What was he to do, how could he leave her? And yet she was right. He must go, and go quickly, lest his strength might fail him, and hand in hand they should pass a bourne from which there is no return.

“Heaven help us, Beatrice,” he said. “I will go to-morrow morning and, if I can, I will keep away.”

“You /must/ keep away. I will not see you any more. I will not bring trouble on you, Geoffrey.”

“You talk of bringing trouble on me,” he said; “you say nothing of yourself, and yet a man, even a man with eyes on him like myself, is better fitted to weather such a storm. If it ruined me, how much more would it ruin you?”

They were at the gate of the Vicarage now, and the wind rushed so strongly through the firs that she needed to put her lips quite close to his ear to make her words heard.

“Stop, one minute,” she said, “perhaps you do not quite understand. When a woman does what I have done, it is because she loves with all her life and heart and soul, because all these are a part of her love. For myself, I no longer care anything–I have /no/ self away from you; I have ceased to be of myself or in my own keeping. I am of you and in yours. For myself and my own fate or name I think no more; with my eyes open and of my own free will I have given everything to you, and am glad and happy to give it. But for you I still do care, and if I took any step, or allowed you to take any that could bring sorrow on you, I should never forgive myself. That is why we must part, Geoffrey. And now let us go in; there is nothing more to say, except this: if you wish to bid me good-bye, a last good-bye, dear Geoffrey, I will meet you to-morrow morning on the beach.”

“I shall leave at half-past eight,” he said hoarsely.

“Then we will meet at seven,” Beatrice said, and led the way into the house.

Elizabeth and Mr. Granger were already seated at supper. They supped at nine on Sunday nights; it was just half-past.

“Dear me,” said the old gentleman, “we began to think that you two must have been out canoeing and got yourselves drowned in good earnest this time. What have you been doing?”

“We have had a long walk,” answered Geoffrey; “I did not know that it was so late.”

“One wants to be pleased with one’s company to walk far on such a night as this,” put in Elizabeth maliciously.

“And so we were–at least I was,” Geoffrey answered with perfect truth, “and the night is not so bad as you might think, at least under the lee of the cliffs. It will be worse by and by!”

Then they sat down and made a desperate show of eating supper. Elizabeth, the keen-eyed, noticed that Geoffrey’s hand was shaking. Now what, she wondered, would make the hand of a strong man shake like a leaf? Deep emotion might do it, and Elizabeth thought that she detected other signs of emotion in them both, besides that of Geoffrey’s shaking hand. The plot was working well, but could it be brought to a climax? Oh, if he would only throw prudence to the winds and run away with Beatrice, so that she might be rid of her, and free to fight for her own hand.

Shortly after supper both Elizabeth and Beatrice went to bed, leaving their father with Geoffrey.

“Well,” said Mr. Granger, “did you get a word with Beatrice? It was very kind of you to go that long tramp on purpose. Gracious, how it blows! we shall have the house down presently. Lightning, too, I declare.”

“Yes,” answered Geoffrey, “I did.”

“Ah, I hope you told her that there was no need for her to give up hope of him yet, of Mr. Davies, I mean?”

“Yes, I told her that–that is if the greater includes the less,” he added to himself.

“And how did she take it?”

“Very badly,” said Geoffrey; “she seemed to think that I had no right to interfere.”

“Indeed, that is strange. But it doesn’t mean anything. She’s grateful enough to you at heart, depend upon it she is, only she did not like to say so. Dear me, how it blows; we shall have a night of it, a regular gale, I declare. So you are going away to-morrow morning. Well, the best of friends must part. I hope that you will often come and see us. Good-bye.”

Once more a sense of the irony of the position overcame Geoffrey, and he smiled grimly as he lit his candle and went to bed. At the back of the house was a long passage, which terminated at one end in the room where he slept, and at the other in that occupied by Elizabeth and Beatrice. This passage was lit by two windows, and built out of it were two more rooms–that of Mr. Granger, and another which had been Effie’s. The windows of the passage, like most of the others in the Vicarage, were innocent of shutters, and Geoffrey stood for a moment at one of them, watching the lightning illumine the broad breast of the mountain behind. Then looking towards the door of Beatrice’s room, he gazed at it with the peculiar reverence that sometimes afflicts people who are very much in love, and, with a sigh, turned and sought his own.

He could not sleep, it was impossible. For nearly two hours he lay turning from side to side, and thinking till his brain seemed like to burst. To-morrow he must leave her, leave her for ever, and go back to his coarse unprofitable struggle with the world, where there would be no Beatrice to make him happy through it all. And she, what of her?

The storm had lulled a little, now it came back in strength, heralded by the lightning. He rose, threw on a dressing-gown, and sat by a window watching it. Its tumult and fury seemed to ease his heart of some little of its pain; in that dark hour a quiet night would have maddened him.

In eight hours–eight short hours–this matter would be ended so far as concerned their actual intercourse. It would be a secret locked for ever in their two breasts, a secret eating at their hearts, cruel as the worm that dieth not. Geoffrey looked up and threw out his heart’s thought towards his sleeping love. Then once more, as in a bygone night, there broke upon his brain and being that mysterious spiritual sense. Stronger and more strong it grew, beating on him in heavy unnatural waves, till his reason seemed to reel and sink, and he remembered naught but Beatrice, knew naught save that her very life was with him now.

He stretched out his arms towards the place where she should be.

“Beatrice,” he whispered to the empty air, “Beatrice! Oh, my love! my sweet! my soul! Hear me, Beatrice!”

There came a pause, and ever the unearthly sympathy grew and gathered in his heart, till it seemed to him as though separation had lost its power and across dividing space they were mingled in one being.

A great gust shook the house and passed away along the roaring depths.

Oh! what was this? Silently the door opened, and a white draped form passed its threshold. He rose, gasping; a terrible fear, a terrible joy, took possession of him. The lightning flared out wildly in the eastern sky. There in the fierce light she stood before him–she, Beatrice, a sight of beauty and of dread. She stood with white arms outstretched, with white uncovered feet, her bosom heaving softly beneath her night-dress, her streaming hair unbound, her lips apart, her face upturned, and a stamp of terrifying calm.

“In the wide, blind eyes uplift
Thro’ the darkness and the drift.”

Great Heaven, she was asleep!

Hush! she spoke.

“You called me, Geoffrey,” she said, in a still, unnatural voice. “You called me, my beloved, and I–have–come.”

He rose aghast, trembling like an aspen with doubt and fear, trembling at the sight of the conquering glory of the woman whom he worshipped.

See! She drew on towards him, and she was /asleep/. Oh, what could he do?

Suddenly the draught of the great gale rushing through the house caught the opened door and crashed it to.

She awoke with a wild stare of terror.

“Oh, God, where am I?” she cried.

“Hush, for your life’s sake!” he answered, his faculties returning. “Hush! or you are lost.”

But there was no need to caution here to silence, for Beatrice’s senses failed her at the shock, and she sank swooning in his arms.

CHAPTER XXIII

A DAWN OF RAIN

That crash of the closing door did not awake Beatrice only; it awoke both Elizabeth and Mr. Granger. Elizabeth sat up in bed straining her eyes through the gloom to see what had happened. They fell on Beatrice’s bed–surely–surely—-

Elizabeth slipped up, cat-like she crept across the room and felt with her hand at the bed. Beatrice was not there. She sprang to the blind and drew it, letting in such light as there was, and by it searched the room. She spoke: “Beatrice, where are you?”

No answer.

“Ah–h,” said Elizabeth aloud; “I understand. At last–at last!”

What should see do? Should she go and call her father and put them to an open shame? No. Beatrice must come back some time. The knowledge was enough; she wanted the knowledge to use if necessary. She did not wish to ruin her sister unless in self-defence, or rather, for the cause of self-advancement. Still less did she wish to injure Geoffrey, against whom she had no grudge. So she peeped along the passage, then returning, crept back to her bed like a snake into a hole and watched.

Mr. Granger, hearing the crash, thought that the front door had blown open. Rising, he lit a candle and went to see.

But of all this Geoffrey knew nothing, and Beatrice naturally less than nothing.

She lay senseless in his arms, her head rested on his shoulder, her heavy hair streamed down his side almost to his knee. He lifted her, touched her on the forehead with his lips and laid her on the bed. What was to be done? Bring her back to life? No, he dared not–not here. While she lay thus her helplessness protected her; but if once more she was a living, loving woman here and so–oh, how should they escape? He dared not touch her or look towards her–till he had made up his mind. It was soon done. Here she must not bide, and since of herself she could not go, why he must take her now, this moment! However far Geoffrey fell short of virtue’s stricter standard, let this always be remembered in his favour.

He opened the door, and as he did so, thought that he heard some one stirring in the house. And so he did; it was Mr. Granger in the sitting-room. Hearing no more, Geoffrey concluded that it was the wind, and turning, groped his way to the bed where Beatrice lay as still as death. For one moment a horrible fear struck him that she might be dead. He had heard of cases of somnambulists who, on being startled from their unnatural sleep, only woke to die. It might be so with her. Hurriedly he placed his hand upon her breast. Yes, her heart stirred–faintly indeed, but still it stirred. She had only swooned. Then he set his teeth, and placing his arms about her, lifted her as though she were a babe. Beatrice was no slip of a girl, but a well- grown woman of full size. He never felt her weight; it seemed nothing to him. Stealthily as one bent on midnight murder, he stepped with her to the door and through it into the passage. Then supporting her with one arm, he closed the door with his left hand. Stealthily in the gloom he passed along the corridor, his bare feet making no noise upon the boarded floor, till he reached the bisecting passage leading from the sitting-rooms.

He glanced up it apprehensively, and what he saw froze the blood in his veins, for there coming down it, not eight paces from him, was Mr. Granger, holding a candle in his hand. What could be done? To get back to his room was impossible–to reach that of Beatrice was also impossible. With an effort he collected his thoughts, and like a flash of light it passed into his mind that the empty room was not two paces from him. A stride and he had reached it. Oh, where was the handle? and oh, if the room should be locked! By a merciful chance it was not. He stepped through the door, knocking Beatrice’s feet against the framework as he did so, closed it–to shut it he had no time–and stood gasping behind it.

The gleam of light drew nearer. Merciful powers! he had been seen–the old man was coming in. What could he say? Tell the truth, that was all; but who would believe such a story? why, it was one that he should scarcely care to advance in a court of law. Could he expect a father to believe it–a father finding a man crouched like a thief behind a door at the dead of night with his lovely daughter senseless in his arms? He had already thought of going straight to Mr. Granger, but had abandoned the idea as hopeless. Who would believe this tale of sleep-walking? For the first time in his life Geoffrey felt terribly afraid, both for Beatrice and himself; the hair rose on his head, his heart stood still, and a cold perspiration started on to his face.

“It’s very odd,” he heard the old man mutter to himself; “I could almost swear that I saw something white go into that room. Where’s the handle? If I believed in ghosts–hullo! my candle has blown out! I must go and hunt for a match. Don’t quite like going in there without a light.”

For the moment they were saved. The fierce draught rushing through the open crack of the door from the ill-fitting window had extinguished the candle.

Geoffrey waited a few seconds to allow Mr. Granger to reach his room, and then once more started on his awful journey. He passed out of the room in safety; happily Beatrice showed no signs of recovery. A few quick steps and he was at her own door. And now a new terror seized him. What if Elizabeth was also walking the house or even awake? He thought of putting Beatrice down at the door and leaving her there, but abandoned the idea. To begin with, her father might see her, and then how could her presence be accounted for? or if he did not, she would certainly suffer ill effects from the cold. No, he must risk it, and at once, though he would rather have faced a battery of guns. The door fortunately was ajar. Geoffrey opened it with his foot, entered, and with his foot pushed it to again. Suddenly he remembered that he had never been in the room, and did not know which bed belonged to Beatrice. He walked to the nearest; a deep-drawn breath told him that it was the wrong one. Drawing some faint consolation from the fact that Elizabeth was evidently asleep, he groped his way to the second bed through the deep twilight of the room. The clothes were thrown back. He laid Beatrice down and threw them over her. Then he fled.

As he reached the door he saw Mr. Granger’s light disappear into his own room and heard his door close. After that it seemed to him that he took but two steps and was in his own place.

He burst out laughing; there was as much hysteria in the laugh as a man gives way to. His nerves were shattered by struggle, love and fear, and sought relief in ghastly merriment. Somehow the whole scene reminded him of one in a comic opera. There was a ludicrous side to it. Supposing that the political opponents, who already hated him so bitterly, could have seen him slinking from door to door at midnight with an unconscious lady in his arms–what would they have said?

He ceased laughing; the fit passed–indeed it was no laughing matter. Then he thought of the first night of their strange communion, that night before he had returned to London. The seed sown in that hour had blossomed and borne fruit indeed. Who would have dreamed it possible that he should thus have drawn Beatrice to him? Well, he ought to have known. If it was possible that the words which floated through her mind could arise in his as they had done upon that night, what was not possible? And were there not other words, written by the same master- hand, which told of such things as these:

“‘Now–now,’ the door is heard;
Hark, the stairs! and near–
Nearer–and here–
‘Now’! and at call the third,
She enters without a word.

Like the doors of a casket shrine,
See on either side,
Her two arms divide
Till the heart betwixt makes sign, ‘Take me, for I am thine.’

First, I will pray. Do Thou
That ownest the soul,
Yet wilt grant control
To another, nor disallow
For a time, restrain me now!”

Did they not run thus? Oh, he should have known! This he could plead, and this only–that control had been granted to him.

But how would Beatrice fare? Would she come to herself safely? He thought so, it was only a fainting fit. But when she did recover, what would she do? Nothing rash, he prayed. And what could be the end of it all? Who might say? How fortunate that the sister had been so sound asleep. Somehow he did not trust Elizabeth–he feared her.

Well might Geoffrey fear her! Elizabeth’s sleep was that of a weasel. She too was laughing at this very moment, laughing, not loud but long –the laugh of one who wins.

She had seen him enter, his burden in his arms; saw him come with it to her own bedside, and had breathed heavily to warn him of his mistake. She had watched him put Beatrice on her bed, and heard him sigh and turn away; nothing had escaped her. As soon as he was gone, she had risen and crept up to Beatrice, and finding that she was only in a faint had left her to recover, knowing her to be in no danger. Elizabeth was not a nervous person. Then she had listened till at length a deep sigh told her of the return of her sister’s consciousness. After this there was a pause, till presently Beatrice’s long soft breaths showed that she had glided from swoon to sleep.

The slow night wore away, and at length the cold dawn crept through the window. Elizabeth still watching, for she was not willing to lose a single scene of a drama so entrancing in itself and so important to her interests, saw her sister suddenly sit up in bed and press her hands to her forehead, as though she was striving to recall a dream. Then Beatrice covered her eyes with her hands and groaned heavily. Next she looked at her watch, rose, drank a glass of water, and dressed herself, even to the putting on of an old grey waterproof with a hood to it, for it was wet outside.

“She is going to meet her lover,” thought Elizabeth. “I wish I could be there to see that too, but I have seen enough.”

She yawned and appeared to wake. “What, Beatrice, going out already in this pouring rain?” she said, with feigned astonishment.

“Yes, I have slept badly and I want to get some air,” answered Beatrice, starting and colouring; “I suppose that it was the storm.”

“Has there been a storm?” said Elizabeth, yawning again. “I heard nothing of it–but then so many things happen when one is asleep of which one knows nothing at the time,” she added sleepily, like one speaking at random. “Mind that you are back to say good-bye to Mr. Bingham; he goes by the early train, you know–but perhaps you will see him out walking,” and appearing to wake up thoroughly, she raised herself in bed and gave her sister one piercing look.

Beatrice made no answer; that look sent a thrill of fear through her. Oh; what had happened! Or was it all a dream? Had she dreamed that she stood face to face with Geoffrey in his room before a great darkness struck her and overwhelmed her? Or was it an awful truth, and if a truth, how came she here again? She went to the pantry, found a morsel of bread and ate it, for faintness still pursued her. Then feeling better, she left the house and set her face towards the beach.

It was a dreary morning. The great wind had passed; now it only blew in little gusts heavy with driving rain. The sea was sullen and grey and grand. It beat in thunder on the shore and flew over the sunken rocks in columns of leaden spray. The whole earth seemed one desolation, and all its grief was centred in this woman’s broken heart.

Geoffrey, too, was up. How he had passed the remainder of that tragic night we need not inquire–not too happily we may be sure. He heard the front door close behind Beatrice, and followed out into the rain.

On the beach, some half of a mile away, he found her gazing at the sea, a great white gull wheeling about her head. No word of greeting passed between them; they only grasped each other’s hands and looked into each other’s hollow eyes.

“Come under the shelter of the cliff,” he said, and she came. She stood beneath the cliff, her head bowed low, her face hidden by the hood, and spoke.

“Tell me what has happened,” she said; “I have dreamed something, a worse dream than any that have gone before–tell me if it is true. Do not spare me.”

And Geoffrey told her all.

When he had finished she spoke again.

“By what shall I swear,” she said, “that I am not the thing which you must think me? Geoffrey, I swear by my love for you that I am innocent. If I came–oh, the shame of it! if I came–to your room last night, it was my feet which led me, not my mind that led my feet. I went to sleep, I was worn out, and then I knew no more till I heard a dreadful sound, and saw you before me in a blaze of light, after which there was darkness.”

“Oh, Beatrice, do not be distressed,” he answered. “I saw that you were asleep. It is a dreadful thing which has happened, but I do not think that we were seen.”

“I do not know,” she said. “Elizabeth looked at me very strangely this morning, and she sees everything. Geoffrey, for my part, I neither know nor care. What I do care for is, what must /you/ think of me? You must believe, oh!–I cannot say it. And yet I am innocent. Never, never did I dream of this. To come to you–thus–oh, it is shameless!”

“Beatrice, do not talk so. I tell you I know it. Listen–I drew you. I did not mean that you should come. I did not think that you would come, but it was my doing. Listen to me, dear,” and he told her that which written words can ill express.

When he had finished, she looked up, with another face; the deep shadow of her shame had left her. “I believe you, Geoffrey,” she said, “because I know that you have not invented this to shield me, for I have felt it also. See by it what you are to me. You are my master and my all. I cannot withstand you if I would. I have little will apart from yours if you choose to gainsay mine. And now promise me this upon your word. Leave me uninfluenced; do not draw me to you to be your ruin. I make no pretence, I have laid my life at your feet, but while I have any strength to struggle against it, you shall never take it up unless you can do so to your own honour, and that is not possible. Oh, my dear, we might have been very happy together, happier than men and women often are, but it is denied to us. We must carry our cross, we must crucify the flesh upon it; perhaps so–who can say?–we may glorify the spirit. I owe you a great deal. I have learnt much from you, Geoffrey. I have learned to hope again for a Hereafter. Nothing is left to me now–but that–that and an hour hence–your memory.

“Oh, why should I weep? It is ungrateful, when I have your love, for which this misery is but a little price to pay. Kiss me, dear, and go –and never see me more. You will not forget me, I know now that you will /never/ forget me all your life. Afterwards–perhaps–who can tell? If not, why then–it will indeed be best–to die.”

* * * * *

It is not well to linger over such a scene as this. After all, too, it is nothing. Only another broken heart or so. The world breaks so many this way and the other that it can have little pleasure in gloating over such stale scenes of agony.

Besides we must not let our sympathies carry us away. Geoffrey and Beatrice deserved all they got; they had no business to put themselves into such a position. They had defied the customs of their world, and the world avenged itself upon them and their petty passions. What happens to the worm that tries to burrow on the highways? Grinding wheels and crushing feet; these are its portion. Beatrice and Geoffrey point a moral and adorn a tale. So far as we can see and judge there was no need for them to have plunged into that ever-running river of human pain. Let them struggle and drown, and let those who are on the bank learn wisdom from the sight, and hold out no hand to help them.

Geoffrey drew a ring from his finger and gave it to his love. It was a common flat-sided silver ring that had been taken from the grave of a Roman soldier: one peculiarity it had, however; on its inner surface were roughly cut the words, “ave atque vale.” Greeting and farewell! It was a fitting gift to pass between people in their position. Beatrice, trembling sorely, whispered that she would wear it on her heart, upon her hand she could not put it yet awhile–it might be recognised.

Then thrice did they embrace there upon the desolate shore, once, as it were, for past joy, once for present pain, and once for future hope, and parted. There was no talk of after meetings–they felt them to be impossible, at any rate for many years. How could they meet as indifferent friends? Too much they loved for that. It was a final parting, than which death had been less dreadful–for Hope sits ever by the bed of death–and misery crushed them to the earth.

He left her, and happiness went out of his life as at nightfall the daylight goes out of the day. Well, at least he had his work to go to. But Beatrice, poor woman, what had she?

Geoffrey left her. When he had gone some thirty paces he turned again and gazed his last upon her. There she stood or rather leant, her hand resting against the wet rock, looking after him with her wide grey eyes. Even through the drizzling rain he could see the gleam of her rich hair, the marking of her lovely face, and the carmine of her lips. She motioned to him to go on. He went, and when he had traversed a hundred paces looked round once more. She was still there, but now her face was a blur, and again the great white gull hovered about her head.

Then the mist swept up and hid her.

Ah, Beatrice, with all your brains you could never learn those simple principles necessary to the happiness of woman; principles inherited through a thousand generations of savage and semi-civilized ancestresses. To accept the situation and the master that situation brings with it–this is the golden rule of well-being. Not to put out the hand of your affection further than you can draw it back, this is another, at least not until you are quite sure that its object is well within your grasp. If by misfortune, or the anger of the Fates, you are endowed with those deeper qualities, those extreme capacities of self-sacrificing affection, such as ruined your happiness, Beatrice, keep them in stock; do not expose them to the world. The world does not believe in them; they are inconvenient and undesirable; they are even immoral. What the world wants, and very rightly, in a person of your attractiveness is quiet domesticity of character, not the exhibition of attributes which though they might qualify you for the rank of heroine in a Greek drama, are nowadays only likely to qualify you for the reprobation of society.

What? you would rather keep your love, your reprehensible love which never can be satisfied, and bear its slings and arrows, and die hugging a shadow to your heart, straining your eyes into the darkness of that beyond whither you shall go–murmuring with your pale lips that /there/ you will find reason and fulfilment? Why it is folly. What ground have you to suppose that you will find anything of the sort? Go and take the opinion of some scientific person of eminence upon this infatuation of yours and those vague visions of glory that shall be. He will explain it clearly enough, will show you that your love itself is nothing but a natural passion, acting, in your case, on a singularly sensitive and etherealised organism. Be frank with him, tell him of your secret hopes. He will smile tenderly, and show you how those also are an emanation from a craving heart, and the innate superstitions of mankind. Indeed he will laugh and illustrate the absurdity of the whole thing by a few pungent examples of what would happen if these earthly affections could be carried beyond the grave. Take what you can /now/ will be the burden of his song, and for goodness’ sake do not waste your precious hours in dreams of a To Be.

Beatrice, the world does not want your spirituality. It is not a spiritual world; it has no clear ideas upon the subject–it pays its religious premium and works off its aspirations at its weekly church going, and would think the person a fool who attempted to carry theories of celestial union into an earthly rule of life. It can sympathise with Lady Honoria; it can hardly sympathise with /you/.

And yet you will still choose this better part: you will still “live and love, and lose.”

“With blinding tears and passionate beseeching, And outstretched arms through empty silence reaching.”

Then, Beatrice, have your will, sow your seed of tears, and take your chance. You may find that you were right and the worldlings wrong, and you may reap a harvest beyond the grasp of their poor imaginations. And if you find that they are right and /you/ are wrong, what will it matter to you who sleep? For of this at least you are sure. If there is no future for such earthly love as yours, then indeed there is none for the children of this world and all their troubling.

CHAPTER XXIV

LADY HONORIA TAKES THE FIELD

Geoffrey hurried to the Vicarage to fetch his baggage and say good- bye. He had no time for breakfast, and he was glad of it, for he could not have eaten a morsel to save his life. He found Elizabeth and her father in the sitting-room.

“Why, where have you been this wet morning, Mr. Bingham?” said Mr. Granger.

“I have been for a walk with Miss Beatrice; she is coming home by the village,” he answered. “I don’t mind rain, and I wanted to get as much fresh air as I could before I go back to the mill. Thank you–only a cup of tea–I will get something to eat as I go.”

“How kind of him,” reflected Mr. Granger; “no doubt he has been speaking to Beatrice again about Owen Davies.”

“Oh, by the way,” he added aloud, “did you happen to hear anybody moving in the house last night, Mr. Bingham, just when the storm was at its height? First of all a door slammed so violently that I got up to see what it was, and as I came down the passage I could almost have sworn that I saw something white go into the spare room. But my candle went out and by the time that I had found a light there was nothing to be seen.”

“A clear case of ghosts,” said Geoffrey indifferently. It was indeed a “case of ghosts,” and they would, he reflected, haunt him for many a day.

“How very odd,” put in Elizabeth vivaciously, her keen eyes fixed intently on his face. “Do you know I thought that I twice saw the door of our room open and shut in the most mysterious fashion. I think that Beatrice must have something to do with it; she is so uncanny in her ways.”

Geoffrey never moved a muscle, he was trained to keep his countenance. Only he wondered how much this woman knew. She must be silenced somehow.

“Excuse me for changing the subject,” he said, “but my time is short, and I have none to spare to hunt the ‘Vicarage Ghost.’ By the way, there’s a good title for somebody. Mr. Granger, I believe that I may speak of business matters before Miss Elizabeth?”

“Certainly, Mr. Bingham,” said the clergyman; “Elizabeth is my right hand, and has the best business head in Bryngelly.”

Geoffrey thought that this was very evident, and went on. “I only want to say this. If you get into any further difficulties with your rascally tithe-payers, mind and let me know. I shall always be glad to help you while I can. And now I must be going.”

He spoke thus for two reasons. First, naturally enough, he meant to make it his business to protect Beatrice from the pressure of poverty, and well knew that it would be useless to offer her direct assistance. Secondly, he wished to show Elizabeth that it would not be to the advantage of her family to quarrel with him. If she /had/ seen a ghost, perhaps this fact would make her reticent on the subject. He did not know that she was playing a much bigger game for her own hand, a game of which the stakes were thousands a year, and that she was moreover mad with jealousy and what, in such a woman, must pass for love.

Elizabeth made no comment on his offer, and before Mr. Granger’s profuse thanks were nearly finished, Geoffrey was gone.

Three weeks passed at Bryngelly, and Elizabeth still held her hand. Beatrice, pale and spiritless, went about her duties as usual. Elizabeth never spoke to her in any sense that could awaken her suspicions, and the ghost story was, or appeared to be, pretty well forgotten. But at last an event occurred that caused Elizabeth to take the field. One day she met Owen Davies walking along the beach in the semi-insane way which he now affected. He stopped, and, without further ado, plunged into conversation.

“I can’t bear it any longer,” he said wildly, throwing up his arms. “I saw her yesterday, and she cut me short before I could speak a word. I have prayed for patience and it will not come, only a Voice seemed to say to me that I must wait ten days more, ten short days, and then Beatrice, my beautiful Beatrice, would be my wife at last.”

“If you go on in this way, Mr. Davies,” said Elizabeth sharply, her heart filled with jealous anger, “you will soon be off your head. Are you not ashamed of yourself for making such a fuss about a girl’s pretty face? If you want to get married, marry somebody else.”

“Marry somebody else,” he said dreamily; “I don’t know anybody else whom I could marry except you, and you are not Beatrice.”

“No,” answered Elizabeth angrily, “I should hope that I have more sense, and if you wanted to marry me you would have to set about it in a different way from this. I am not Beatrice, thank Heaven, but I am her sister, and I warn you that I know more about her than you do. As a friend I warn you to be careful. Supposing that Beatrice were not worthy of you, you would not wish to marry her, would you?”

Now Owen Davies was at heart somewhat afraid of Elizabeth, like most other people who had the privilege of her acquaintance. Also, apart from matters connected with his insane passion, he was very fairly shrewd. He suspected Elizabeth of something, he did not know of what.

“No, no, of course not,” he said. “Of course I would not marry her if she was not fit to be my wife–but I must know that first, before I talk of marrying anybody else. Good afternoon, Miss Elizabeth. It will soon be settled now; it cannot go on much longer now. My prayers will be answered, I know they will.”

“You are right there, Owen Davies,” thought Elizabeth, as she looked after him with ineffable bitterness, not to say contempt. “Your prayers shall be answered in a way that will astonish you. You shall not marry Beatrice, and you shall marry /me/. The fish has been on the line long enough, now I must begin to pull in.”

Curiously enough it never really occurred to Elizabeth that Beatrice herself might prove to be the true obstacle to the marriage she plotted to prevent. She knew that her sister was fond of Geoffrey Bingham, but, when it came to the point that she would absolutely allow her affection to interfere with so glorious a success in life, she never believed for one moment. Of course she thought it was possible that if Beatrice could get possession of Geoffrey she might prefer to do so, but failing him, judging from her own low and vulgar standard, Elizabeth was convinced that she would take Owen. It did not seem possible that what was so precious in her own eyes might be valueless and even hateful to those of her sister. As for that little midnight incident, well, it was one thing and marriage was another. People forget such events when they marry; sometimes even they marry in order to forget them.

Yes, she must strike, but how? Elizabeth had feelings like other people. She did not mind ruining her sister and rival, but she would very much prefer it should not be known that hers was the hand to cut her down. Of course, if the worst came to the worst, she must do it. Meanwhile, might not a substitute be found–somebody in whom the act would seem not one of vengeance, but of virtue? Ah! she had it: Lady Honoria! Who could be better for such a purpose than the cruelly injured wife? But then how should she communicate the facts to her ladyship without involving herself? Again she hit upon a device much favoured by such people–“un vieux truc mais toujours bon”–the pristine one of an anonymous letter, which has the startling merit of not committing anybody to anything. An anonymous letter, to all appearance written by a servant: it was the very thing! Most likely it would result in a searching inquiry by Lady Honoria, in which event Elizabeth, of course against her will, would be forced to say what she knew; almost certainly it would result in a quarrel between husband and wife, which might induce the former to show his hand, or even to take some open step as regards Beatrice. She was sorry for Geoffrey, against whom she had no ill feeling, but it could not be helped; he must be sacrificed.

That very evening she wrote her letter and sent it to be posted by an old servant living in London. It was a master-piece in its way, especially phonetically. This precious epistle, which was most exceedingly ill writ in a large coarse hand, ran thus:

“My Ladi,–My consence druvs me to it, much again my will. I’ve tried hard, my ladi, not to speek, first acorse of miss B. as i heve knowed good and peur and also for the sakes of your evil usband that wulf in scheeps cloathin. But when i think on you my ladi a lorful legel wife gud and virtus and peur and of the things as i hev seen which is enuf to bring a blush to the face of a stater, I knows it is my holy dooty to rite your ladishipp as follers. Your ladishipp forgif me but on the nite of whittsundey last Miss B. Grainger wint after midnite inter the room of your bad usband–as I was to mi sham ther to se. Afterward more nor an hour, she cum out ain being carred /in his harmes/. And if your ladishipp dont believ me, let your ladishipp rite to miss elizbeth, as had this same misfortune to see as your tru frend,

“The Riter.”

In due course this charming communication reached Lady Honoria, bearing a London post-mark. She read and re-read it, and soon mastered its meaning. Then, after a night’s thought, she took the “Riter’s” advice and wrote to Elizabeth, sending her a copy of the letter (her own), vehemently repudiating all belief in it, and asking for a reply that should dissipate this foul slander from her mind for ever.

The answer came by return. It was short and artful.

“Dear Lady Honoria Bingham,” it ran, “you must forgive me if I decline to answer the questions in your letter. You will easily understand that between a desire to preserve a sister’s reputation and an incapacity (to be appreciated by every Christian) to speak other than the truth–it is possible for a person to be placed in the most cruel of positions–a position which I am sure will command even your sympathy, though under such circumstances I have little right to expect any from a wife believing herself to have been cruelly wronged. Let me add that nothing short of the compulsion of a court of law will suffice to unseal my lips as to the details of the circumstances (which are, I trust, misunderstood) alluded to in the malicious anonymous letter of which you inclose a copy.”

That very evening, as the Fates would have it, Lady Honoria and her husband had a quarrel. As usual, it was about Effie, for on most other subjects they preserved an armed neutrality. Its details need not be entered into, but at last Geoffrey, who was in a sadly irritable condition of mind, fairly lost his temper.

“The fact is,” he said, “that you are not fit to look after the child. You only think of yourself, Honoria.”

She turned on him with a dangerous look upon her cold and handsome face.

“Be careful what you say, Geoffrey. It is you who are not fit to have charge of Effie. Be careful lest I take her away from you altogether, as I can if I like.”

“What do you mean by that threat?” he asked.

“Do you want to know? Then I will tell you. I understand enough law to be aware that a wife can get a separation from an unfaithful husband, and what is more, can take away his children.”

“Again I ask what you mean,” said Geoffrey, turning cold with anger.

“I mean this, Geoffrey. That Welsh girl is your mistress. She passed the night of Whit-Sunday in your room, and was carried from it in your arms.”

“It is a lie,” he said; “she is nothing of the sort. I do not know who gave you this information, but it is a slanderous lie, and somebody shall suffer for it.”

“Nobody will suffer for it, Geoffrey, because you will not dare to stir the matter up–for the girl’s sake if not for your own. Can you deny that you were seen carrying her in your arms from your room on Whit-Sunday night? Can you deny that you are in love with her?”

“And supposing that I am in love with her, is it to be wondered at, seeing how you treat me and have treated me for years?” he answered furiously. “It is utterly false to say that she is my mistress.”

“You have not answered my question,” said Lady Honoria with a smile of triumph. “Were you seen carrying that woman in your arms and from your room at the dead of night? Of course it meant nothing, nothing at all. Who would dare to asperse the character of this perfect, lovely, and intellectual schoolmistress? I am not jealous, Geoffrey—-“

“I should think not, Honoria, seeing how things are.”

“I am not jealous, I repeat, but please understand that I will not have this go on, in your own interests and mine. Why, what a fool you must be. Don’t you know that a man who has risen, as you have, has a hundred enemies ready to spring on him like a pack of wolves and tear him to pieces? Why many even of those who fawn upon you and flatter you to your face, hate you bitterly in secret, because you have succeeded where they have failed. Don’t you know also that there are papers here in London which would give hundreds of pounds for the chance of publishing such a scandal as this, especially against a powerful political opponent. Let it once come out that this obscure girl is your mistress—-“

“Honoria, I tell you she is nothing of the sort. It is true I carried her from my room in a fainting fit, but she came there in her sleep.”

Lady Honoria laughed. “Really, Geoffrey, I wonder that you think it worth while to tell me such nonsense. Keep it for the divorce court, if ever we get there, and see what a jury says to it. Look here; be sensible. I am not a moralist, and I am not going to play the outraged wife unless you force me to it. I do not mean to take any further notice of this interesting little tale as against you. But if you go on with it, beware! I will not be made to look a fool. If you are going to be ruined you can be ruined by yourself. I warn you frankly, that at the first sign of it, I shall put myself in the right by commencing proceedings against you. Now, of course, I know this, that in the event of a smash, you would be glad enough to be rid of me in order that you might welcome your dear Beatrice in my place. But there are two things to remember: first, that you could not marry her, supposing you to be idiot enough to wish to do so, because I should only get a judicial separation, and you would still have to support me. Secondly, if I go, Effie goes with me, for I have a right to claim her at law; and that fact, my dear Geoffrey, makes me mistress of the situation, because I do not suppose that you would part with Effie even for the sake of Miss Beatrice. And now I will leave you to think it over.”

And with a little nod she sailed out of the room, completely victorious. She was indeed, reflected Geoffrey, “mistress of the situation.” Supposing that she brought a suit against him where would he be? She must have evidence, or she would not have known the story. The whole drama had clearly been witnessed by someone, probably either by Elizabeth or the servant girl, and that some one had betrayed it to Honoria and possibly to others. The thought made him sick. He was a man of the world, and a practical lawyer, and though, indeed, they were innocent, he knew that under the circumstances few would be found to believe it. At the very best there must be a terrible and shocking scandal, and Beatrice would lose her good name. He placed himself in the position of counsel for the petitioner in a like case, and thought how he would crush and crumple such a defence in his address to the jury. A probable tale forsooth!

Undoubtedly, too, Honoria would be acting wisely from her point of view. Public sympathy would be with her throughout. He knew that, as it was, he was believed generally to owe much of his success to his handsome and high-born wife. Now it would be said that he had used her as a ladder and then thrown her over. With all this, however, he might cope; he could even bear with the vulgar attacks of a vulgar press, and the gibes and jeers of his political and personal enemies, but to lose Effie he could not bear. And if such a case were brought against him it was almost certain that he would lose her, for, if he was worsted, custody of the child would be given to the injured wife.

Then there was Beatrice to be considered. The same malicious tongue that had revealed this matter to Honoria would probably reveal it to the rest of the world, and even if he escaped the worst penalties of outraged morality, they would certainly be wreaked upon her. Beatrice’s reputation would be blasted, her employment lost, and her life made a burden to her. Yes, decidedly, Honoria had the best of the position; decidedly, also, she spoke words of weight and common sense.

What was to be done? Was there no way out of it? All that night as Geoffrey sat in the House, his arms folded on his breast, and to appearance intently listening to the long harangues of the Opposition, this question haunted him. He argued the situation out this way and that way, till at the last he came to a conclusion. Either he must wait for the scandal to leak out, let Beatrice be ruined, and direct his efforts to the softening of Honoria, and generally to self- preservation, or he must take the bull by the horns, must abandon his great career and his country and seek refuge in another land, say America, taking Beatrice and Effie with him. Once the child was out of the jurisdiction, of course no court could force her from him.

Of the two courses, even in so far as he himself was concerned, what between the urgency of the matter and the unceasing pressure of his passion, Geoffrey inclined to the latter. The relations between himself and Honoria had for years been so strained, so totally different from those which should exist between man and wife, that they greatly mitigated in his mind the apparent iniquity of such a step. Nor would he feel much compunction at removing the child from her mother, for there was no love lost between the two, and as time went on he guessed shrewdly there would be less and less. For the rest, he had some seventeen thousand pounds in hand; he would take half and leave Honoria half. He knew that he could always earn a living wherever he went, and probably much more than a living, and of whatever he earned a strict moiety should be paid to Honoria. But first and above everything, there was Beatrice to be considered. She must be saved, even if he ruined himself to save her.

Lady Honoria, it is scarcely necessary to say, had little idea that she was driving her husband to such dangerous and determined councils. She wanted to frighten Geoffrey, not to lose him and all he meant to her; this was the last thing that she would wish to do. She did not greatly care about the Beatrice incident, but her shrewd common sense told her that it might well be used as an engine to ruin them all. Therefore she spoke as she did speak, though in reality matters would have to be bad indeed before she sought the aid of a court of law, where many things concerning herself might come to the light of day which she would prefer to leave in darkness.

Nor did she stop here; she determined to attack Geoffrey’s position in another way, namely, through Beatrice herself. For a long time Honoria hesitated as to the method of this attack. She had some knowledge of the world and of character, and from what she knew of Beatrice she came to the sound conclusion that she was not a woman to be threatened, but rather one to be appealed to. So after much thought she wrote to her thus:–

“A story, which I still hesitate to believe, has come to me by means of anonymous letters, as to your conduct with my husband. I do not wish to repeat it now, further than to say that, if true, it establishes circumstances which leave no doubt as to the existence of relations so intimate between you as to amount to guilt. It may not be true or it may, in which latter event I wish to say this: With your morality I have nothing to do; it is your affair. Nor do I wish to plead to you as an injured wife or to reproach you, for there are things too wicked for mere reproach. But I will say this: if the story is true, I must presume that you have some affection for the partner of your shame. I put myself out of the question, and in the name of that affection, however guilty it may be, I ask you to push matters no further. To do so will be to bring its object to utter ruin. /If you care for him, sever all connection with him utterly and for ever./ Otherwise he will live to curse and hate you. Should you neglect this advice, and should the facts that I have heard become public property, I warn you, as I have already warned him, that in self-preservation and for the sake of self-respect, I shall be forced to appeal to the law for my remedy. Remember that his career is at stake, and that in losing it and me he will lose also his child. Remember that if this comes about it will be through /you/. Do not answer this, it will do no good, for I shall naturally put no faith in your protestations, but if you are in any way or measure guilty of this offence, appealing to you as one woman to another, and for the sake of the man who is dear to both, I say do your best to redeem the evil, /by making all further communication between yourself and him an impossibility/. H.B.”

It was a clever letter; Lady Honoria could not have devised one more powerful to work on a woman like Beatrice. The same post that took it to her took another from Geoffrey himself. It was long, though guarded, and need not be quoted in its entirety, but it put the whole position before her in somewhat veiled language, and ended by saying, “Marriage I cannot give you, only life-long love. In other circumstances to offer this would be an insult, but if things should be as a I fear, it is worth your consideration. I do not say to you /come/, I say come /if you wish/. No, Beatrice, I will not put this cruel burden of decision upon you. I say /come!/ I do not command you to come, because I promised to leave you uninfluenced. But I pray you to do so. Let us put an end to this wretchedness, and count the world well lost as our price of love. Come, dearest Beatrice–to leave me no more till death. I put my life in your hands; if you take it up, whatever trouble you may have to face, you will never lose my affection or esteem. Do not think of me, think of yourself. You have given me your love as you once gave me my life. I owe something in return; I cannot see you shamed and make no offer of reparation. Indeed, so far as I am concerned, I shall think all I lose as nothing compared to what I gain in gaining you. Will you come? If so, we will leave this country and begin afresh elsewhere. After all, it matters little, and will matter less when everything is said and done. My life has for years been but as an unwholesome dream. The one real thing, the one happy thing that I have found in it has been our love. Do not let us throw it away, Beatrice.”

By return of post he received this answer written in pencil.

“No, dear Geoffrey. Things must take their course.–B.”

That was all.

CHAPTER XXV

ELIZABETH SHOWS HER TEETH

Hard had been Beatrice’s hours since that grey morning of separation. She must bear all the inner wretchedness of her lot; she must conceal her grief, must suffer the slings and arrows of Elizabeth’s sharp tongue, and strive to keep Owen Davies at a distance. Indeed, as the days went on, this last task grew more and more portentous. The man was quite unmanageable; his passion, which was humiliating and hateful to Beatrice, became the talk of the place. Everybody knew of it, except her father, and even his eyes began to be opened.

One night–it was the same upon which Geoffrey and Honoria respectively had posted their letters to Beatrice–anybody looking into the little room at Bryngelly Castle, which served its owner for all purposes except that of sleeping, would have witnessed a very strange sight. Owen Davies was walking to and fro–walking rapidly with wild eyes and dishevelled hair. At the turn of each length of the apartment he would halt, and throwing his arms into the air ejaculate:

“Oh, God, hear me, and give me my desire! Oh, God, answer me!”

For two long hours thus he walked and thus cried aloud, till at length he sank panting and exhausted into a chair. Suddenly he raised his head, and appeared to listen intently.

“The Voice,” he said aloud; “the Voice again. What does it say? To-morrow, to-morrow I must speak; and I shall win her.”

He sprang up with a shout, and once more began his wild march. “Oh, Beatrice!” he said, “to-morrow you will promise to marry me; the Voice says so, and soon, soon, perhaps in one short month, you will be my own–mine only! Geoffrey Bingham shall not come between us then, for I will watch you day and night. You shall be my very, very own–my own beautiful Beatrice,” and he stretched out his arms and clasped at the empty air–a crazy and unpleasant sight to see.

And so he walked and spoke till the dawn was grey in the east. This occurred on the Friday night. It was on the following morning that Beatrice, the unfortunate and innocent object of these amorous invocations, received the two letters. She had gone to the post-office on her way to the school, on the chance of there being a note from Geoffrey. Poor woman, his letters were the one bright thing in her life. From motives of prudence they were written in the usual semi- formal style, but she was quick to read between the lines, and, moreover, they came from his dear hand.

There was the letter sure enough, and another in a woman’s writing. She recognised the hand as that of Lady Honoria, which she had often seen on envelopes directed to Geoffrey, and a thrill of fear shot through her. She took the letters, and walking as quickly as she could to the school, locked herself in her own little room, for it was not yet nine o’clock, and looked at them with a gathering terror. What was in them? Why did Lady Honoria write to her? Which should she read first? In a moment Beatrice had made up her mind. She would face the worst at once. With a set face she opened Lady Honoria’s letter, unfolded it, and read. We already know its contents. As her mind grasped them her lips grew ashy white, and by the time that the horrible thing was done she was nigh to fainting.

Anonymous letters! oh, who could have done this cruel thing? Elizabeth, it must be Elizabeth, who saw everything, and thus stabbed her in the back. Was it possible that her own sister could treat her so? She knew that Elizabeth disliked her; she could never fathom the cause, still she knew the fact. But if this were her doing, then she must hate her, and most bitterly; and what had she done to earn such hate? And now Geoffrey was in danger on her account, danger of ruin, and how could she prevent it? This was her first idea. Most people might have turned to their own position and been content to leave their lover to fight his own battle. But Beatrice thought little of herself. He was in danger, and how could she protect him? Why here in the letter was the answer! “If you care for him sever all connection with him utterly, and for ever. Otherwise, he will live to curse and hate you.” No, no! Geoffrey would never do that. But Lady Honoria was quite right; in his interest, for his sake, she must sever all connection with him–sever it utterly and for ever. But how–how?

She thrust the letter into her dress–a viper would have been a more welcome guest–and opened Geoffrey’s.

It told the same tale, but offered a different solution. The tears started to her eyes as she read his offer to take her to him for good and all, and go away with her to begin life afresh. It seemed a wonderful thing to Beatrice that he should be willing to sacrifice so much upon such a worthless altar as her love–a wonderful and most generous thing. She pressed the senseless paper to her heart, then kissed it again and again. But she never thought of yielding to this great temptation, never for one second. He prayed her to come, but that she would not do while her will remained. What, /she/ bring Geoffrey to ruin? No, she had rather starve in the streets or perish by slow torture. How could he ever think that she would consent to such a scheme? Indeed she never would; she had brought enough trouble on him already. But oh, she blessed him for that letter. How deeply must he love her when he could offer to do this for her sake!

Hark! the children were waiting; she must go and teach. The letter, Geoffrey’s dear letter, could be answered in the afternoon. So she thrust it in her breast with the other, but closer to her heart, and went.

That afternoon as Mr. Granger, in a happy frame of mind–for were not his debts paid, and had he not found a most convenient way of providing against future embarrassment?–was engaged peaceably in contemplating his stock over the gate of his little farm buildings, he was much astonished suddenly to discover Owen Davies at his elbow.

“How do you do, Mr. Davies?” he said; “how quietly you must have come.”

“Yes,” answered Owen absently. “The fact is, I have followed you because I want to speak to you alone–quite alone.”

“Indeed, Mr. Davies–well, I am at your service. What is wrong? You don’t look very well.”

“Oh, I am quite well, thank you. I never was better; and there’s nothing wrong, nothing at all. Everything is going to be bright now, I know that full surely.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Granger, again looking at him with a puzzled air, “and what may you want to see me about? Not but what I am always at your service, as you know,” he added apologetically.

“This,” he answered, suddenly seizing the clergyman by the coat in a way that made him start.

“What–my coat, do you mean?”

“Don’t be so foolish, Mr. Granger. No, about Beatrice.”

“Oh. indeed, Mr. Davies. Nothing wrong at the school, I hope? I think that she does her duties to the satisfaction of the committee, though I admit that the arithmetic—-“

“No! no, no! It is not about the school. I don’t wish her to go to the school any more. I love her, Mr. Granger, I love her dearly, and I want to marry her.”

The old man flushed with pleasure. Was it possible? Did he hear aright? Owen Davies, the richest man in that part of Wales, wanted to marry his daughter, who had nothing but her beauty. It must be too good to be true!

“I am indeed flattered,” he said. “It is more than she could expect– not but what Beatrice is very good-looking and very clever,” he added hastily, fearing lest he was detracting from his daughter’s market value.

“Good-looking–clever; she is an angel,” murmured Owen.

“Oh, yes, of course she is,” said her father, “that is, if a woman– yes, of course–and what is more, I think she’s very fond of you. I think she is pining for you. I’ve though so for a long time.”

“Is she?” said Owen anxiously. “Then all I have to say is that she takes a very curious way of showing it. She won’t say a word to me; she puts me off on every occasion. But it will be all right now–all right now.”

“Oh, there, there, Mr. Davies, maids will be maids until they are wives. We know about all that,” said Mr. Granger sententiously.

His would-be son-in-law looked as though he knew very little about it indeed, although the inference was sufficiently obvious.

“Mr. Granger,” he said, seizing his hand, “I want to make Beatrice my wife–I do indeed.”

“Well, I did not suppose otherwise, Mr. Davies.”

“If you help me in this I will do whatever you like as to money matters and that sort of thing, you know. She shall have as fine a settlement as any woman in Wales. I know that goes a long way with a father, and I shall raise no difficulties.”

“Very right and proper, I am sure,” said Mr. Granger, adopting a loftier tone as he discovered the advantages of his position. “But of course on such matters I shall take the advice of a lawyer. I daresay that Mr. Bingham would advise me,” he added, “as a friend of the family, you know. He is a very clever lawyer, and, besides, he wouldn’t charge anything.”

“Oh, no, not Mr. Bingham,” answered Owen anxiously. “I will do anything you like, or if you wish to have a lawyer I’ll pay the bill myself. But never mind about that now. Let us settle it with Beatrice first. Come along at once.”

“Eh, but hadn’t you better arrange that part of the business privately?”

“No, no. She always snubs me when I try to speak to her alone. You had better be there, and Miss Elizabeth too, if she likes. I won’t speak to her again alone. I will speak to her in the face of God and man, as God directed me to do, and then it will be all right–I know it will.”

Mr. Granger stared at him. He was a clergyman of a very practical sort, and did not quite see what the Power above had to do with Owen Davies’s matrimonial intentions.

“Ah, well,” he said, “I see what you mean; marriages are made in heaven; yes, of course. Well, if you want to get on with the matter, I daresay that we shall find Beatrice in.”

So they walked back to the Vicarage, Mr. Granger exultant and yet perplexed, for it struck him that there was something a little odd about the proceeding, and Owen Davies in silence or muttering occasionally to himself.

In the sitting-room they found Elizabeth.

“Where is Beatrice?” asked her father.

“I don’t know,” she answered, and at that moment Beatrice, pale and troubled, walked into the room, like a lamb to the slaughter.

“Ah, Beatrice,” said her father, “we were just asking for you.”

She glanced round, and with the quick wit of a human animal, instantly perceived that some new danger threatened her.

“Indeed,” she said, sinking into a chair in an access of feebleness born of fear. “What is it, father?”

Mr. Granger looked at Owen Davies and then took a step towards the door. It struck him forcibly that this scene should be private to the two persons principally concerned.

“Don’t go,” said Owen Davies excitedly, “don’t go, either of you; what I have to say had better be said before you both. I should like to say it before the whole world; to cry it from the mountain tops.”

Elizabeth glared at him fiercely–glared first at him and then at the innocent Beatrice. Could he be going to propose to her, then? Ah, why had she hesitated? Why had she not told him the whole truth before? But the heart of Beatrice, who sat momentarily expecting to be publicly denounced, grew ever fainter. The waters of desolation were closing in over her soul.

Mr. Granger sat down firmly and worked himself into the seat of his chair, as though to secure an additional fixedness of tenure. Elizabeth set her teeth, and leaned her elbow on the table, holding her hand so as to shade her face. Beatrice drooped upon her seat like a fading lily, or a prisoner in the dock. She was opposite to them, and Owen Davies, his face alight with wild enthusiasm, stood up and addressed them all like the counsel for the prosecution.

“Last autumn,” he began, speaking to Mr. Granger, who might have been a judge uncertain as to the merits of the case, “I asked your daughter Beatrice to marry me.”

Beatrice gave a sigh, and collected her scattered energies. The storm had burst at last, and she must face it.

“I asked her to marry me, and she told me to wait a year. I have waited as long as I could, but I could not wait the whole year. I have prayed a great deal, and I am bidden to speak.”

Elizabeth made a gesture of impatience. She was a person of strong common sense, and this mixture of religion and eroticism disgusted her. She also know that the storm had burst, and that /she/ must face it.

“So I come to tell you that I love your daughter Beatrice, and want to make her my wife. I have never loved anybody else, but I have loved her for years; and I ask your consent.”

“Very flattering, very flattering, I am sure, especially in these hard times,” said Mr. Granger apologetically, shaking his thin hair down over his forehead, and then rumpling it up again. “But you see, Mr. Davies, you don’t want to marry me” (here Beatrice smiled faintly)– “you want to marry my daughter, so you had better ask her direct–at least I suppose so.”

Elizabeth made a movement as though to speak, then changed her mind and listened.

“Beatrice,” said Owen Davies, “you hear. I ask you to marry me.”

There was a pause. Beatrice, who had sat quite silent, was gathering up her strength to answer. Elizabeth, watching her from beneath her hand, thought that she read upon her face irresolution, softening into consent. What she really saw was but doubt as to the fittest and most certain manner of refusal. Like lightning it flashed into Elizabeth’s mind that she must strike now, or hold her hand for ever. If once Beatrice spoke that fatal “yes,” her revelations might be of no avail. And Beatrice would speak it; she was sure she would. It was a golden road out of her troubles.

“Stop!” said Elizabeth in a shrill, hard voice. “Stop! I must speak; it is my duty as a Christian. I must tell the truth. I cannot allow an honest man to be deceived.”

There was an awful pause. Beatrice broke it. Now she saw all the truth, and knew what was at hand. She placed her hand upon her heart to still its beating.

“Oh, Elizabeth,” she said, “in our dead mother’s name—-” and she stopped.

“Yes,” answered her sister, “in our dead mother’s name, which you have dishonoured, I will do it. Listen, Owen Davies, and father: Beatrice, who sits there”–and she pointed at her with her thin hand–“/Beatrice is a scarlet woman!/”

“I really don’t understand,” gasped Mr. Granger, while Owen looked round wildly, and Beatrice sunk her head upon her breast.

“Then I will explain,” said Elizabeth, still pointing at her sister. “She is Geoffrey Bingham’s /mistress/. On the night of Whit-Sunday last she rose from bed and went into his room at one in the morning. I saw her with my own eyes. Afterwards she was brought back to her bed in his arms–I saw it with my own eyes, and I heard him kiss her.” (This was a piece of embroidery on Elizabeth’s part.) “She is his lover, and has been in love with him for months. I tell you this, Owen Davies, because, though I cannot bear to bring disgrace upon our name and to defile my lips with such a tale, neither can I bear that you should marry a girl, believing her to be good, when she is what Beatrice is.”

“Then I wish to God that you had held your wicked tongue,” said Mr. Granger fiercely.

“No, father. I have a duty to perform, and I will perform it at any cost, and however much it pains me. You know that what I say is true. You heard the noise on the night of Whit-Sunday, and got up to see what it was. You saw the white figure in the passage–it was Geoffrey Bingham with Beatrice in his arms. Ah! well may she hang her head. Let her deny if it she can. Let her deny that she loves him to her shame, and that she was alone in his room on that night.”

Then Beatrice rose and spoke. She was pale as death and more beautiful in her shame and her despair than ever she had been before; her glorious eyes shone, and there were deep black lines beneath them.

“My heart is my own,” she said, “and I will make no answer to you about it. Think what you will. For the rest, it is not true. I am not what Elizabeth tells you that I am. I am /not/ Geoffrey Bingham’s mistress. It is true that I was in his room that night, and it is true that he carried me back to my own. But it was in my sleep that I went there, not of my own free will. I awoke there, and fainted when I woke, and then at once he bore me back.”

Elizabeth laughed shrill and loud–it sounded like the cackle of a fiend.

“In her sleep,” she said; “oh, she went there in her sleep!”

“Yes, Elizabeth, in my sleep. You do not believe me, but it is true. You do not wish to believe me. You wish to bring the sister whom you should love, who has never offended against you by act or word, to utter disgrace and ruin. In your cowardly spite you have written anonymous letters to Lady Honoria Bingham, to prevail upon her to strike the blow that should destroy her husband and myself, and when you fear that this has failed, you come forward and openly accuse us. You do this in the name of Christian duty; in the name of love and charity, you believe the worst, and seek to ruin us. Shame on you, Elizabeth! shame on you! and may the same measure that you have meted out to me never be paid back to you. We are no longer sisters. Whatever happens, I have done with you. Go your ways.”

Elizabeth shrank and quailed beneath her sister’s scorn. Even her venomous hatred could not bear up against the flash of those royal eyes, and the majesty of that outraged innocence. She gasped and bit her lip till the blood started, but she said nothing.

Then Beatrice turned to her father, and spoke in another and a pleading voice, stretching out her arms towards him.

“Oh, father,” she said, “at least tell me that /you/ believe me. Though you may think that I might love to all extremes, surely, having known me so many years, you cannot think that I would lie even for my love’s sake.”

The old man looked wildly round, and shook his head.

“In his room and in his arms,” he said. “I saw it, it seems. You, too, who have never been known to walk in your sleep from a child; and you will not say that you do not love him–the scoundrel. It is wicked of Elizabeth–jealousy bitter as the grave. It is wicked of her to tell the tale; but as it is told, how can I say that I do not believe it?”

Then Beatrice, her cup being full, once more dropped her head, and turned to go.

“Stop,” said Owen Davies in a hoarse voice, and speaking for the first time. “Hear what /I/ have to say.”

She lifted her eyes. “With you, Mr. Davies, I have nothing to do; I am not answerable to you. Go and help your accomplice,” and she pointed to Elizabeth, “to cry this scandal over the whole world.”

“Stop,” he said again. “I will speak. I believe that it is true. I believe that you are Geoffrey Bingham’s mistress, curse him! but I do not care. I am still willing to marry you.”

Elizabeth gasped. Was this to be the end of her scheming? Would the blind passion of this madman prevail over her revelations, and Beatrice still become his rich and honoured wife, while she was left poor and disgraced? Oh, it was monstrous! Oh, she had never dreamed of this!”

“Noble, noble!” murmured Mr. Granger; “noble! God bless you!”

So the position was not altogether beyond recovery. His erring daughter might still be splendidly married; he might still look forward to peace and wealth in his old age.

Only Beatrice smiled faintly.

“I thank you,” she said. “I am much honoured, but I could never have married you because I do not love you. You must understand me very little if you think that I should be the more ready to do so on account of the danger in which I stand,” and she ceased.

“Listen, Beatrice,” Owen went on, an evil light shining on his heavy face, while Elizabeth sat astounded, scarcely able to believe her ears. “I want you, and I mean to marry you; you are more to me than all the world. I can give you everything, and you had better yield to me, and you shall hear no more of this. But if you won’t, then this is what I will do. I will be revenged upon you–terribly revenged.”

Beatrice shook her head and smiled again, as though to bid him do his worst.

“And look, Beatrice,” he went on, waxing almost eloquent in his jealous despair, “I have another argument to urge on you. I will not only be revenged on you, I will be revenged upon your lover–on this Geoffrey Bingham.”

“/Oh!/” said Beatrice sharply, like one in pain. He had found the way to move her now, and with the cunning of semi-madness he drove the point home.

“Yes, you may start–I will. I tell you that I will never rest till I have ruined him, and I am rich and can do it. I have a hundred thousand pounds, that I will spend on doing it. I have nothing to fear, except an action for libel. Oh, I am not a fool, though you think I am, I know. Well, I can pay for a dozen actions. There are papers in London that will be glad to publish all this–yes, the whole story–with plans and pictures too. Just think, Beatrice, what it will be when all England–yes, and all the world–is gloating over your shame, and half-a-dozen prints are using the thing for party purposes, clamouring for the disgrace of the man who ruined you, and whom you will ruin. He has a fine career; it shall be utterly destroyed. By God! I will hunt him to his grave, unless you promise to marry me, Beatrice. Do that, and not a word of this shall be said. Now answer.”

Mr. Granger sank back in his chair; this savage play of human passions was altogether beyond his experience–it overwhelmed him. As for Elizabeth, she bit her thin fingers, and glared from one to the other. “He reckons without me,” she thought. “He reckons without me–I will marry him yet.”

But Beatrice leant for a moment against the wall and shut her eyes to think. Oh, she saw it all–the great posters with her name and Geoffrey’s on them, the shameless pictures of her in his arms, the sickening details, the letters of the outraged matrons, the “Mothers of ten,” and the moral-minded colonels–all, all! She heard the prurient scream of every male Elizabeth in England; the allusions in the House–the jeers, the bitter attacks of enemies and rivals. Then Lady Honoria would begin her suit, and it would all be dragged up afresh, and Geoffrey’s fault would be on every lip, till he was /ruined/. For herself she did not care; but could she bring this on one whose only crime was that she had learned to love him? No, no; but neither could she marry this hateful man. And yet what escape was there? She flung herself upon her woman’s wit, and it did not fail her. In a few seconds she had thought it all out and made up her mind.

“How can I answer you at a moment’s notice, Mr. Davies?” she said. “I must have time to think it over. To threaten such revenge upon me is not manly, but I know that you love me, and therefore I excuse it. Still, I must have time. I am confused.”

“What, another year? No, no,” he said. “You must answer.”

“I do not ask a year or a month. I only ask for one week. If you will not give me that, then I will defy you, and you may do your worst. I cannot answer now.”

This was a bold stroke, but it told. Mr. Davies hesitated.

“Give the girl a week,” said her father to him. “She is not herself.”

“Very well; one week, no more,” said he.

“I have another stipulation to make,” said Beatrice, “You are all to swear to me that for that week no word of this will pass your mouths; that for that week I shall not be annoyed or interfered with, or spoken to on the subject, not by one of you. If at the end of it I still refuse to accept your terms, you can do your worst, but till then you must hold your hand.”

Owen Davies hesitated; he was suspicious.

“Remember,” Beatrice went on, raising her voice, “I am a desperate woman. I may turn at bay, and do something which you do not expect, and that will be very little to the advantage of any of you. Do you swear?”

“Yes,” said Owen Davies.

Then Beatrice looked at Elizabeth, and Elizabeth looked at her. She saw that the matter had taken a new form. She saw what her jealous folly had hitherto hidden from her–that Beatrice did not mean to marry Owen Davies, that she was merely gaining time to execute some purpose of her own. What this might be Elizabeth cared little so that it did not utterly extinguish chances that at the moment seemed faint enough. She did not want to push matters against her sister, or her lover Geoffrey, beyond the boundary of her own interests. Beatrice should have her week, and be free from all interference so far as she was concerned. She realised now that it was too late how great had been her error. Oh, if only she had sought Beatrice’s confidence at first! But it had seemed to her impossible that she would really throw away such an opportunity in life.

“Certainly I promise, Beatrice,” she said mildly. “I do not swear, for ‘swear not at all,’ you know. I only did what I thought my duty in warning Mr. Davies. If he chooses to go on with the matter, it is no affair of mine. I had no wish to hurt you, or Mr. Bingham. I acted solely from my religious convictions.”

“Oh, stop talking religion, Elizabeth, and practise it a little more!” said her father, for once in his life stirred out of his feeble selfishness. “We have all undertaken to keep our mouths sealed for this week.”

Then Beatrice left the room, and after her went Owen Davies without another word.

“Elizabeth,” said her father, rising, “you are a wicked woman! What did you do this for?”

“Do you want to know, father?” she said coolly; “then I will tell you. Because I mean to marry Owen Davies myself. We must all look after ourselves in this world, you know; and that is a maxim which you never forget, for one. I mean to marry him; and though I seem to have failed, marry him I will, yet! And now you know all about it; and if you are not a fool, you will hold your tongue and let me be!” and she went also, leaving him alone.

Mr. Granger held up his hands in astonishment. He was a selfish, money-seeking old man, but he felt that he did not deserve to have such a daughter as this.

CHAPTER XXVI

WHAT BEATRICE SWORE

Beatrice went to her room, but the atmosphere of the place seemed to stifle her. Her brain was reeling, she must go out into the air–away from her tormentors. She had not yet answered Geoffrey’s letter, and it must be answered by this post, for there was none on Sunday. It was half-past four–the post went out at five; if she was going to write, she should do so at once, but she could not do so here. Besides, she must find time for thought. Ah, she had it; she would take her canoe and paddle across the bay to the little town of Coed and write her letter there. The post did not leave Coed till half-past six. She put on her hat and jacket, and taking a stamp, a sheet of paper, and an envelope with her, slipped quietly from the house down to old Edward’s boat-house where the canoe was kept. Old Edward was not there himself, but his son was, a boy of fourteen, and by his help Beatrice was soon safely launched. The sea glittered like glass, and turning southwards, presently she was paddling round the shore of the island on which the Castle stood towards the open bay.

As she paddled her mind cleared, and she was able to consider the position. It was bad enough. She saw no light, darkness hemmed her in. But at least she had a week before her, and meanwhile what should she write to Geoffrey?

Then, as she thought, a great temptation assailed Beatrice, and for the first time her resolution wavered. Why should she not accept Geoffrey’s offer and go away with him–far away from all this misery? Gladly would she give her life to spend one short year at his dear side. She had but to say the word, and he would take her to him, and in a month from now they would be together in some foreign land, counting the world well lost, as he had said. Doubtless in time Lady Honoria would get a divorce, and they might be married. A day might even come when all this would seem like a forgotten night of storm and fear; when, surrounded by the children of their love, they would wend peaceably, happily, through the evening of their days towards a bourne robbed of half its terrors by the fact that they would cross it hand- in-hand.

Oh, that would be well for her; but would it be well for him? When the first months of passion had passed by, would he not begin to think of all that he had thrown away for the sake of a woman’s love? Would not the burst of shame and obloquy which would follow him to the remotest corners of the earth wear away his affection, till at last, as Lady Honoria said, he learned to curse and hate her. And if it did not–if he still loved her through it all–as, being what he was, he well might do–could she be the one to bring this ruin on him? Oh, it would have been more kind to let him drown on that night of the storm, when fate first brought them together to their undoing.

No, no; once and for all, once and for ever, she would /not/ do it. Cruel as was her strait, heavy as was her burden, not one feather’s weight of it should he carry, if by any means in her poor power she could hold it from his back. She would not even tell him of what had happened–at any rate, not now. It would distress him; he might take some desperate step; it was almost certain that he would do so. Her answer must be very short.

She was quite close to Coed now, and the water lay calm as a pond. So calm was it that she drew the sheet of paper and the envelope from her pocket, and leaning forward, rested them on the arched covering of the canoe, and pencilled those words which we have already read.

“No, dear Geoffrey. Things must take their course.–B.”

Thus she wrote. Then she paddled to the shore. A fisherman standing on the beach caught her canoe and pulled it up. Leaving it in his charge, she went into the quaint little town, directed and posted her letter, and bought some wool. It was an excuse for having been there should any one ask questions. After that she returned to her canoe. The fisherman was standing by it. She offered him sixpence for his trouble, but he would not take it.

“No, miss,” he said, “thanking you kindly–but we don’t often get a peep at such sweet looks. It’s worth sixpence to see you, it is. But, miss, if I may make so bold as to say so, it isn’t safe for you to cruise about in that craft, any ways not alone.”

Beatrice thanked him and blushed a little. Vaguely it occurred to her that she must have more than a common share of beauty, when a rough man could be so impressed with it. That was what men loved women for, their beauty, as Owen Davies loved and desired her for this same cause and this only.

Perhaps it was the same with Geoffrey–no, she did not believe it. He loved her for other things besides her looks. Only if she had not been beautiful, perhaps he would not have begun to love her, so she was thankful for her eyes and hair, and form.

Could folly and infatuation go further? This woman in the darkest hour of her bottomless and unhorizoned despair, with conscience gnawing at her heart, with present misery pressing on her breast, and shame to come hanging over her like a thunder cloud, could yet feel thankful that she had won this barren love, the spring of all her woe. Or was her folly deep wisdom in disguise?–is there something divine in a passion that can so override and defy the worst agonies of life?

She was at sea again now, and evening was falling on the waters softly as a dream. Well, the letter was posted. Would it be the last, she wondered? It seemed as though she must write no more letters. And what was to be done? She would /not/ marry Owen Davies–never would she do it. She could not so shamelessly violate her feelings, for Beatrice was a woman to whom death would be preferable to dishonour, however legal. No, for her own sake she would not be soiled with that disgrace. Did she do this, she would hold herself the vilest of the vile. And still less would she do it for Geoffrey’s sake. Her instinct told her what he would feel at such a thing, though he might never say a word. Surely he would loathe and despise her. No, that idea was done with–utterly done with.

Then what remained to her? She would not fly with Geoffrey, since to do so would be to ruin him. She would not marry Owen, and not to do so would still be to ruin Geoffrey. She was no fool, she was innocent in act, but she knew that her innocence would indeed be hard to prove– even her own father did not believe in it, and her sister would openly accuse her to the world. What then should she do? Should she hide herself in some remote half-civilised place, or in London? It was impossible; she had no money, and no means of getting any. Besides, they would hunt her out, both Owen Davies and Geoffrey would track her to the furthest limits of the earth. And would not the former think that Geoffrey had spirited her away, and at once put his threats into execution? Obviously he would. There was no hope in that direction. Some other plan must be found or her lover would still be ruined.

So argued Beatrice, still thinking not of herself, but of Geoffrey, of that beloved one who was more to her than all the world, more, a thousand times, than her own safety or well-being. Perhaps she overrated the matter. Owen Davies, Lady Honoria, and even Elizabeth might have done all they threatened; the first of them, perhaps the first two of them, certainly would have done so. But still Geoffrey might have escaped destruction. Public opinion, or the sounder part of it, is sensibly enough hard to move in such a matter, especially when the person said to have been wronged is heart and soul on the side of him who is said to have wronged her.

Moreover there might have been ways out of it, of which she knew nothing. But surrounded as she was by threatening powers–by Lady Honoria threatening actions in the Courts on one side, by Owen Davies threatening exposure on another, by Elizabeth ready and willing to give the most damning evidence on the third, to Beatrice the worst consequences seemed an absolutely necessary sequence. Then there was her own conscience arrayed against her. This particular charge was a lie, but it was not a lie that she loved Geoffrey, and to her the two things seemed very much the same thing. Hers was not a mind to draw fine distinctions in such matters. /Se posuit ut culpabilem/: she “placed herself as guilty,” as the old Court rolls put it in miserable Latin, and this sense of guilt disarmed her. She did not realise the enormous difference recognised by the whole civilised world between thought and act, between disposing mind and inculpating deed. Beatrice looked at the question more from the scriptural point of view, remembering that in the Bible such fine divisions are expressly stated to be distinctions without a difference.

Had she gone to Geoffrey and told him her whole story it is probable that he would have defied the conspiracy, faced it out, and possibly come off victorious. But, with that deadly reticence of which women alone are capable, this she did not and would not do. Sweet loving woman that she was, she would not burden him with her sorrows, she would bear them alone–little reckoning that thereby she was laying up a far, far heavier load for him to carry through all his days.

So Beatrice accepted the statements of the plaintiff’s attorney for gospel truth, and from that false standpoint she drew her auguries.

Oh, she was weary! How lovely was the falling night, see how it brooded on the seas! and how clear were the waters–there a fish passed by her paddle–and there the first start sprang into the sky! If only Geoffrey were here to see it with her. Geoffrey! she had lost him; she was alone in the world now–alone with the sea and the stars. Well, they were better than men–better than all men except one. Theirs was a divine companionship, and it soothed her. Ah, how hateful had been Elizabeth’s face, more hateful even than the half-crazed cunning of Owen Davies, when she stretched her hand towards her and called her “a scarlet woman.” It was so like Elizabeth, this mixing up of Bible terms with her accusation. And after all perhaps it was true. –What was it, “Though thy sins be as scarlet, yet shall they be white as snow.” But that was only if one repented. She did not repent, not in the least. Conscience, it is true, reproached her with a breach of temporal and human law, but her heart cried that such love as she had given was immortal and divine, and therefore set beyond the little bounds of time and man. At any rate, she loved Geoffrey and was proud and glad to love him. The circumstances were unfortunate, but she did not make the world or its social arrangements any more than she had made herself, and she could not help that. The fact remained, right or wrong–she loved him, loved him!

How clear were the waters! What was that wild dream which she had dreamt about herself sitting at the bottom of the sea, and waiting for him–till at last he came. Sitting at the bottom of the sea–why did it strike her so strangely–what unfamiliar thought did it waken in her mind? Well, and why not? It would be pleasant there, better at any rate than on the earth. But things cannot be ended so; one is burdened with the flesh, and one must wear it till it fails. Why must she wear it? Was not the sea large enough to hide her bones? Look now, she had but to slip over the edge of the canoe, slip without a struggle into