She's All the World to Me. Sir Hall Caine
me."
There was no answer. Christian continued.
"Go at once, my girl. Here," (diving into his pockets), "I've precious little money left, God help me, but here's enough to pay your way, and something to spare."
He offered a purse in his palm. The girl tossed up his hand with a disdainful gesture.
"It's not money I want from you," she said. Christian looked at her for a moment with blank amazement. She caught the expression, and answered it with a haughty curl of the lip. The sneer died off her face on the instant, and the tears began to gather in her eyes.
"It's not love a girl wants, then?" she said struggling to curl her lip again. "It's not love, then, that a girl like me can want," she said.
She had stopped the loom and covered up her face in her hands.
"No, no," she added, with a stifled sob, "love is for ladies—fine ladies in silks and satins—pure—virtuous. … Christian," she exclaimed, dropping her hands and looking into his face with indignant eyes, "I suppose there's a sort of woman that wants nothing of a man but money, is there?"
Christian's lips were livid. "That's not what I meant, Mona, believe me," he said.
The loom was still. The sweet serenity of the air left hardly a sense of motion.
"You talk of your father, too," the girl continued, lifting her voice. "What of my mother? You don't think of her. No, but I do, and it goes nigh to making my heart bleed."
"Hush, Mona," whispered Christian; but, heedless of the warning, she continued:
"To be torn away from the place where she was born and bred, where kith and kin still live, where kith and kin lie dead—that was hard. But it would have been harder, far harder, to remain, with shame cast at her from every face, as it has been every day for these five years."
She paused. A soft boom came up to them from the sea, where the unruffled waters rested under the morning sun.
"Yes, we have both suffered," said Christian. "What I have suffered God knows. Yes, yes; the man who lives two lives knows what it is to suffer. Talk of crime! no need of that, as the good, goody, charitable world counts crime. Let it be only a hidden thing, that's enough. Only a secret, and yet how it kills the sunshine off the green fields!" Christian laughed—a hollow, hard, cynical laugh.
"To find the thing creep up behind every thought, lie in ambush behind every smile, break out in mockery behind every innocent laugh. To have the dark thing with you in the dark night. No sleep so sweet but that it is haunted by this nightmare. No dream so fair but that an ugly memory steals up at first awakening—that, yes, that is to suffer!"
Just then a flight of sea-gulls disporting on a rock in the bay sent up a wild, jabbering noise.
"To know that you are not the man men take you for; that dear souls that cling to you would shudder at your touch if the scales could fall from their eyes, or if for an instant—as by a flash of lightning—the mask fell from your face."
Christian's voice deepened, and he added:
"Yet to know that bad as one act of your life may have been, that life has not been all bad; that if men could but see you as Heaven sees you, perhaps—perhaps—you would have acquittal—"
His voice trembled and he stopped. Mona was gazing out over the sea with blurred eyes that saw nothing.
Christian had been resting one foot on the loom. Lifting himself he stamped on the floor, threw back his head with a sudden movement, and laughed again, slightly.
"Something too much of this," he said. Then sobering once more, "Go back, Mona. It shan't be for long. I swear to you it shan't. But what must I do with debts hanging over me—"
"I'll tell you what you must not do," said the girl with energy.
Christian's eyes but not his lips asked "What?"
"You must not link yourself with that Bill Kisseck and his Curragh gang."
A puzzled look crossed Christian's face.
"Oh, I know their doings, don't you doubt it," said the girl.
"What do you know of Bill Kisseck?" said Christian with some perceptible severity. "Tell me, Mona, what harm do you know of Bill and his—his gang, as you call them?"
"I know this—I know they'll be in Castle Rushen one of these fine days."
Christian looked relieved. With a cold smile he said, "I dare say you're right, Mona. They are a rough lot, the Curragh fellows; but no harm in them that I know of."
"Harm!" Mona had started the loom afresh, but she stopped once more. "Harm!" she exclaimed again. Then in a quieter way, "Keep away from them, Christian. You've seen too much of them of late."
Christian started.
"Oh, I know it. But you can't touch pitch—you mind the old saying."
Mona had again started the loom, and was rattling at the levers with more than ordinary energy. Christian watched her for a minute with conflicting feelings. He felt that his manhood was being put to a severe strain. Therefore, assuming as much masculine superiority of manner as he could command, he said:
"We'll not talk about things that you don't quite understand, Mona. What Kisseck may do is no affair of ours, unless I choose to join him in any enterprise, and then I'm the best judge, you know."
The girl stopped. Resting her elbow on the upper lever, and gazing absently out at the window where the light waves in the bay were glistening through a drowsy haze, she said, quietly:
"The man that I could choose out of all the world is not one who lives on his father and waits for the storm to blow over. No, nor one that clutches at every straw, no matter what. He's the man who'd put his hand to the boats, or the plow, or the reins; and if he hadn't enough to buy me a ribbon, I'd say to myself, proudly, 'That man loves me!'"
Christian winced. Then assuming afresh his loftier manner, "As I say, Mona, we won't talk of things you don't understand."
"I'll not go back!" said the girl, as if by a leap of thought. The loom was started afresh with vigor.
"Then let me beg of you to be secret," whispered Christian, coming close to her ear.
The girl laughed bitterly.
"Never fear," she said, "it's not for the woman to blab. No, the world is all for the man, and the law too. Men make the laws and women suffer under them—that's the way of it."
The girl laughed again, and continued in mocking tones, "'Poor fellow, he's been sorely tempted,' says the world; 'tut on her, never name her,' says the law."
And once more the girl forced a hollow, bitter laugh.
Just then a child's silvery voice was heard in the street beneath. The blithe call was—
"Sweet violets and primroses the sweetest."
The little feet tripped under the window. The loom stopped, and they listened. Then Christian looked into the young woman's face, and blinding tears rose on the instant into the eyes of both.
"Mona!" he cried, in low passionate tones, and opened his arms. There was an unspeakable language in her face. She turned her head toward him longingly, yearningly, with heaving breast. He took one step toward her. She drew back. "No—not yet!" His arms fell, and he turned away.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Then the voice of Kerruish Kinvig could be heard in the outer factory.
"I've been middling long," he said, hurrying in, "but a man, a bailiff from England, came bothering about some young waistrel that I never heard of in my born days—had run away from his debts, and so on—had been traced to the Isle of Man, and on here to Peel. And think of that tomfool of a Tommy-Bill-beg sending the man to me. I bowled him off to your father."