The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
She laid her head on his shoulder, and there she whispered in a voice he hardly recognized, so dominated it was by sorrow and pain: "It must be good-bye, beloved; we must not meet. Ah! never any more. I have been meaning to say this to you all the day. I cannot bear it either. Oh, we must part, and it must end; but oh, not--not in that way!"
He tried to persuade her, he pleaded with her, drew pictures of their happiness that surely would be, talked of Italy and eternal summer and exquisite pleasure and bliss.
And all the time he felt her quiver in his arms and respond to each thought, as her imagination took fire at the beautiful pictures of love and joy. But nothing shook her determination.
At last she said: "Dearest, if I were different perhaps, stronger and braver, I could go away and live with you like that, and keep it all a glorious thing; but I am not--only a weak creature, and the memory of my broken word, and Josiah's sorrow, and your mother's anguish, would kill all joy. We could have blissful moments of forgetfulness, but the great ghost of remorse would chase for me all happiness away. Dearest, I love you so; but oh, I could not live, haunted like that; I should just--die."
Then he knew all hope was over, and the mad passion went out of him, and his arms dropped to his sides as if half life had fled. She looked up in his face in fear at its ghastly whiteness.
And at this moment, through the parted willows, there appeared the sullen, mocking eyes of Morella Winmarleigh.
She pushed the bushes aside, and, followed by Lord Wensleydown, she came towards the summer-house.
Her slow senses had taken in the scene. Hector was evidently very unhappy, she thought, and that hateful woman had been teasing him, no doubt.
Thus her banal mind read the tragedy of these two human lives.
XXVII
Morella Winmarleigh had been taking an evening stroll with Lord Wensleydown. They had come upon the two in the summer-house quite by accident, but now they had caught them they would stick to them, and make their walk as tiresome as possible, they both decided to themselves.
After very great emotion such as Hector and Theodora had been experiencing, to have this uncongenial and hateful pair as companions was impossible to bear.
Neither Hector or Theodora stirred or made room for them on the seat.
"Isn't this a sweet place, Lord Wensleydown?" Miss Winmarleigh said. "Why have you never brought me here before? How did you find it, Hector?" turning to him in a determined fashion. "You will have to show us the way back, as we are quite lost!" and she giggled irritatingly.
"The first turn to the right at the end of the willows," said Hector, with what politeness he could summon up, "and I am sure you will be able to get to the house quite safely. As you are in such a hurry, don't let us keep you. Mrs. Brown and I are going the other way by the river, when we do start."
"Oh, we are not in a hurry at all," said Lord Wensleydown. "Do come with us, Mrs. Brown, we are feeling so lonely."
Theodora rose. She could bear no more of this.
"Let us go," she said to Hector, and they started, leading the way. And for a while they heard the others in mocking titters behind them, but presently, when near the house, they quickened their pace, and were again alone and free from their tormentors.
They had not spoken at all in this hateful walk, and now he turned to her.
"My darling," he said, "life seems over for me."
"And for me, too, Hector," she said. "And when we come to this dark piece of wood I want you to kiss me once more and say good-bye forever, and go out of my life." There was a passionate sob in her voice. "And oh! _Bien-aim_, please promise me you will leave to-morrow. Do not make it more impossible to bear than it already is."
But he was silent with pain. A mad, reckless revolt at fate flooded all his being.
It was past eight o'clock now, and when they came to the soothing gloom of the dark firs he crushed her in his arms, and a great sob broke from him and rent her heart.
"My darling, my darling! Good-bye," he said, brokenly. "You have taught me all that life means; all that it can hold of pleasure and pain. Henceforth, it is the gray path of shadows; and oh, God take care of you and grant us some peace."
But she was sobbing on his breast and could not speak.
"And remember," he went on, "I shall never forget you or cease to worship and adore you. Always know you have only to send me a message, a word, and I will come to you and do what you ask, to my last drop of blood. I love you! Oh, God! I love you, and you were made for me, and we could have been happy together and glorified the world."
Then he folded her again in his arms and held her so close it seemed the breath must leave her body, and then they walked on silently, and silently entered the house by the western garden door.
The evening was a blank to Theodora. She dressed in her satins and laces, and let her maid fasten her wonderful emeralds on throat and breast and hair. She descended to the drawing-room and walked in to dinner with some strange man--all as one in a dream. She answered as an automaton, and the man thought how beautiful she was, and what a pity for so beautiful a woman to be so stupid and silent and dull.
"Almost wanting," was his last comment to himself as the ladies left the dining-room.
Then Theodora forced herself to speak--to chatter to a now complacent group of women who gathered round her. Those emeralds, and the way the diamonds were set round them, proved too strong an attraction for even Lady Harrowfield to keep far away.
She was going to have her rubies remounted, and this seemed just the pattern she would like.
So the time passed, and the men came into the room. But Hector was not with them. He had found a telegram, it transpired, which had been waiting for him on his return, and it would oblige him to go to Bracondale immediately, so he was motoring up to London that night. He had acted his part to the end, and no one guessed he was leaving the best of his life behind him. When Theodora realized he was gone she suddenly felt very faint; but she, too, was not of common clay, and breeding will tell in crises of this sort, so she sat up and talked gayly. The evening passed, and at last she was alone for the night.
There are moralists who will assure us the knowledge of having done right brings its own consolation. And in good books, about good women, the heroine experiences a sense of peace and satisfaction after having resigned the forbidden joy of her life. But Theodora was only a human being, so she spent the night in wild, passionate regret.
She had done right with no stern sense of the word "Right" written up in front of her, but because she was so true and so sweet that she must keep her word and not betray Josiah. She did not analyze anything. Life was over for her, whatever came now could only find her numb. By an early train Josiah left for London.
"Take care of yourself, my love," he had said, as he looked in at her door, "and write to me this afternoon as to what train you decide to leave by on Thursday."
She promised she would, and he departed, thoroughly satisfied with his visit among the great world.
The day was spent as the other days, and after lunch Theodora escaped to her room. She must write her letter to Josiah for the afternoon's post. She had discovered the train left at eleven o'clock. It did not take her long, this little note to her husband, and then she sat and stared into space for a while.
The terrible reaction had begun. There was no more excitement, only the flatness, the blank of the days to look forward to, and that unspeakable sense of loss and void. And oh, she had let Hector go without one word of her passionate love! She had been too unnerved to answer him when he had said his last good-bye to her in the wood.
She