CHAPTER XVIII.
"I am afraid you must think it very rude of us, leaving you alone onthe last evening of your visit," says Miss Blessington next day toEsther, as the two girls stand together in the conservatory, pickingbits of heliotrope and maidenhair, and regardless of the ten and twentylittle pots that their long gowns have knocked down; "but, you see, itis such a long-standing engagement, and we can so seldom induce SirThomas to go to a ball, that we really could hardly get out of it."
She speaks politely, with that friendly suavity that one feels on theultimate and penultimate days of their stay to a guest that one is gladto be rid of.
"Oh, never mind me," says Essie, lightly; "I can always amuse myself:and, besides, it will be very nearly bedtime by the time you go."
"They intend me to go with them," St. John had said to her overnight,_a propos_ of this ball, "and of course I intend it too; onlysome prophetic instinct tells me that my head will begin to acheprodigiously towards dressing-time. I am half divided between that andtoothache, only I suppose that the latter necessitates the simulatingof acute bodily torture, and subjects one to unlimited offers of boiledfigs, hopbags, laudanum, and the Lord knows what."
Gerard had found his betrothed stubborner than he had expected asto her expressed resolution of departure. Looking at the childishroundness of her soft face, at the dewy meekness of her heavenly eyes,he had fancied her malleable by his hand, as clay by the potter's;and so, in most things, she would have been. In most things, it wasto her easier to yield than to resist--less trouble--and, besides, itpleased people; but in the one prime passion of her life, her love forher brother, you might as well try to move the Tower of London withyour finger and thumb as to stir her. After half an hour of arguments,persuasions, caresses, St. John is constrained vexedly to own tohimself that in that young faithful heart _lover_-love holds as yetonly the second place. The sole concession he could win from her wasthat of one day, the day of the ball.
"We may imagine the clock put on thirty years, and ourselves already inpossession," he says, laughing--"only minus the gout and wrinkles andspectacles we shall also have come into possession of by then."
* * * * *
"What the devil do people mean," says Sir Thomas, entering themorning-room that evening after dinner, with his hair brushed up intoa stiff cockatoo, and tugging away at a huge pair of white kid gloves,off which he has already succeeded in bursting both buttons, "dragginga man away from his own fireside to see a lot of fools cutting capers,and flourishing their heels in each other's faces?"
From Sir Thomas's description one would imagine that the Cancan washabitually danced at the balls he frequents.
The door opens, and Miss Blessington makes her appearance; looking, notvain or conscious, but calmly defiant of any one to make a better--atriumph of lace and tulle and flowers, and milk-white flesh, and grand,cold curves and contours.
"Oh, how beautiful!" cries Essie, clasping her little hands, with theunaffected admiration of one handsome woman for another. "I know it isrude to make personal remarks; but is not she, Lady Gerard?"
"It is a pretty dress," replies miladi, whose unwieldy bulk not eventhe cunningest of Parisian _couturieres_ has been able to fashion intoanything nearer than an approximation to any shape at all; "but I neverthink that Elise's taste is as good as Jane Clarke's used to be."
Constance has walked to a pier-glass, and is examining with anxietya bite that a gnat has been savage enough to inflict on her face, alittle under the lower lip, and which has been disturbing her wontedcomposed serenity ever since 3 p.m., when the catastrophe took place.
"Does it show much?" she asks, turning with a concerned, serious lookto Esther.
"Oh no! hardly at all."
"I think I will put a little bit of sticking-plaster on it," shecontinues, gravely. "It will only look like a patch; and patches arealways so becoming."
"Let me go and get you a bit!" cries Essie, good-naturedly, running off.
When she returns Sir Thomas is saying, fussily: "Now, why is not thatboy dressed? Always the same! Always late! Never in time for anything!"
"He is not coming, Sir Thomas; he has got a headache, and is gone tolie down--at least he said so," replies Constance, coldly, but castinga scrutinising glance at Esther (who is deftly, with a small pair ofscissors, cutting out a little circle of sticking-plaster) as shespeaks.
"Stuff and nonsense!" cries "that boy's" papa, angrily--"a pack oflies! A fine Miss Molly you have made of your son, miladi! He'll beafraid of going out shooting next year for fear of getting his feetwet!"
"Is that about the right size?" inquires Esther, timidly, raising apair of guilty pink cheeks, and exhibiting the result of her labours onthe point of the scissors.
"Good God! miladi, do take that plaguy long tail of yours up! How thedevil can I help treading on it?"
These are the last sweet words of Sir Thomas, as he follows wife andward into the carriage. They are gone, and Essie sits down in the largeempty room to await the resurrection of her lover. The sort of shyhalf-fear which always assails her at his expected approach comes overher more strongly than ever. A distant door bangs faintly somewhereabout the house; then another nearer. "He is coming!" she says toherself, and the quick blood rushes tingling to her fingers' ends.
It is a hot night, and the tall French windows stand unshuttered andopen. Some impulse of timid coquetry urges her to flee from before him:she is ashamed that he should see the plain letters of joy written onher face at his coming: she would fain have yet a few moments of thehappiness of expectancy, to whose delights those of reality are butseldom comparable. From the terrace a flight of stone steps leads down,with many a twist, to the mere. In a minute Essie has run lightly down,and is standing by the water's edge.
The dahlias are nodding their round drowsy heads, and the sentinelhollyhocks stand up stiff and pompous with their clusteredflower-spikes--rulers and law-givers among the flower-people; thelittle ripples are biting with playful tooth the low sedge-banks, andthe tall bulrush forest, whence the coot and the waterhen familiessailed out into life in the warm spring weather. To and fro rock theheavy, lazy, water-lily leaves, whose bloom-time is past two monthsago. Through her garden, the sky, the high moon walks stately, holdingher silver lamp, in whose light all things shine deliciously.
Essie stands entranced. It seems to her like the intermediate residenceof some happy soul, freed from the world's toil and moil, shrived fromsin, emancipated from life, where it should dwell in tempered blisstill that last day when heaven's brighter glories, stronger raptures,should burst upon and clothe it for aye. She strolls along the narrowgravel path, bathing her hands with childish delight in the moonbeams,and then stoops and picks up two or three little stones that thenight's sweet alchemy has gifted with a bright short glory not theirown. So stooping, she hears a man's quick firm foot running downthe garden steps. She raises herself, and goes to meet him with "amoonlight-coloured smile" on her face. "Aren't they lovely?" she asks,holding up her pebbly treasures for him to look at.
Not speaking, he takes the little pink palm, stones and all, intohis hand, and looks into her face; and then, as if yielding to atemptation that he hates, that he would fain resist, and to which,being over-strong, he must yet succumb, he snatches her to his breast,and kisses her fiercely--eyelids, lips, and neck--with a violence he ishimself hardly conscious of.
"Stop!" she cries, surprised, half-shocked, pushing him away from her."What do you mean? You frighten me!"
He recollects himself instantly, and releases her. "It _is_ alarmingbeing kissed, especially when you are not used to it," he answers, witha sneer.
She looks up at him in blank astonishment. Has he gone mad? Is it themoonlight that has given him that white wrathy look?
"Something has happened!" she says, quickly. "What is it? tell me!"
"Oh! nothing--a mere bagatelle!" he replies, with a little bitterlaugh. "It is only that I have been hearing a pleasant piece of news."
"What is it?"
"Only that an acquaintance of mine is going to be married!"
"Is it an acquaintance of mine too?"
"About the most intimate you have, I should say: yourself, in fact!"
"Is that news?" she asks, trying to smile. "I _am_ going to be married,am not I, to you?"
"I am not aware that my name is--Brandon," he answers, coldly, whilehis sorrowful, fierce eyes go through her heart like poisoned arrows.
She turns her head aside and groans. A great vague darkness blots outthe broad moon, and the stars' thick cohorts; the bright water besideher grows black as hell's sluggish rivers.
He had not known how much he had been buoyed up by hope till that mutegesture of hers bid him despair.
"It's true, then?" he asks in a voice of sharp rage and anguish,catching hold of the white wonder of her arm, on which his fingers,unwittingly cruel, leave crimson prints.
"Is _what_ true?" she asks, faintly, trying for yet a little longer tostave off Fate, to push away Nemesis, with her weak woman-fingers.
"That you are--God! am I choking?--engaged to Brandon?"
"I was once," she falters under her breath.
"How long ago?"
"When first I came here."
"And since then you have written to break it off?" he asks, while atone of joyful hope vibrates in his deep voice.
"No, I have not," she answers, in a frightened whisper.
St. John's face gathers blackness. "I am to understand, then," heresumes, in a constrained voice, out of which the man's strong willkeeps the pent passion from bursting forth, "that you belonged tohim at the time when I kept you out of bed one night to listen to aninteresting chapter in my own autobiography?"
"Yes."
"And when, in reply to my inquiries, you denied having any connectionbeyond common acquaintance with--with him?"
"Yes."
"And when you were good enough to overlook all trifling obstacles, andto consent to marry me?"
"Yes."
The little catechism ended, the last cobweb of doubt torn away, theystand dumb. Esther's guilty head sinks down on her breast as a flower'shead sinks overladen with rain. Suddenly she looks up and stretches outher arms. "Speak to me!" she says, huskily. "Curse me! strike me! callme some bad name--only speak!"
"I wish to God you were a man!" he answers, in a hard, low voice; whilehis straight brows draw together into one dark line across his face,and his lips look white and thin under his moustache.
"That you might _kill_ me!" she says, incoherent with excitement."Well, kill me now! If revenge is so pleasant to you, I give you leave!"
"Let us have no heroics, please," says he, contemptuously; "you don'tappear to be aware that it is not the fashion for English gentlemen tomurder women who make fools of them. It may be a sensible practice, butit is at present confined to the _tiers etat_."
Having spoken, he makes a slight movement to depart.
"Are you going to give me up?" she cries, smiting her hands together,and forgetting in her great dismay to reflect whether the remonstranceaccorded well with her dignity or not.
"I have no claim upon you," he answers, icily.
"What do you mean?" she cries, passionately. "You are unjust. Therecould be nothing too bad for _him_ to say of me, but what injury haveI done you? You ought to thank me and praise me for having been wickedand dishonourable and double-dealing for your sake."
"For my sake!" he repeats, with a sardonic smile. "I am hardly soconceited as to take it personally."
"What do you mean?" she asks, quickly. "If I did not do it for yoursake, for whose did I?"
He is silent.
"Do you mean," she inquires, slowly, her cheeks paling to the whitenessof snowdrops blowing, "that you think I gave him up because I wantedto be a grand lady--because I wanted to have all these fine things"(looking round at the flowering gardens, at the broad lake, at thestately house shimmering in the moonshine) "belonging to me?"
Still he holds his peace.
"Is that what you meant?" she repeats, urgently.
"I meant," he says, looking up, his eyes flashing with a hard, metallicgleam, "that you thought a rich man a better investment than a poorone, and, being equally and conveniently indifferent to both, youthought it wisest to select the former."
"If such is your opinion of me," she says, turning away indignantly, "Idon't wonder at your being in such a hurry to be rid of me!"
He looks askance at her out of the corners of his eyes. She has hiddenher face in her hands, but by the panting breast and heaved whiteshoulder he sees that she is weeping--that a storm of sobs is shakingher childish frame.
"I am in a hurry to be rid of you!" he says, harshly, steeling himselfagainst her. "From a woman who could throw a man over with thedeliberate, cold-blooded artlessness you have done, one may well sing'Te Deum' for being rescued in time."
She flings up her little head proudly, and the dusk splendour of hereyes blazes through great tears. "Listen to me!" she says, laying holdof his arm with one small burning hand. "I am a bad girl, I know, butI am not the calculating, mercenary wretch you take me for. I tell youhonestly that the first day I came here--I had never been staying ata great house before--I thought it must be pleasant to live in largerooms, and have gilt and ormolu and fine pictures about one, and tohave carriages and horses and servants, and not to be obliged to thinktwice before one spent sixpence; and I thought, too" (her long neckdroops, and she blushes painfully as she makes the confession), "whata pity it was that I was already engaged, for that otherwise, as I waspretty, you might have taken a fancy to me----" She stops, choked withmaiden shame. Upon his averted face an enduring flush, like a hecticautumn leaf's, burns red and angry.
"But as soon as I saw you, almost," she continues, commanding hertears with great difficulty--"as soon as you spoke to me, all suchthoughts went out of my head. I don't know why they did," she says,simply. "You were not particularly pleasant or civil; I did not thinkyou good-looking, and you gave me the idea of being ill-tempered; but"(with a sigh) "one cannot reason about those sort of things. I began tothink so much about what you _were_, that I forgot to remember what youhad."
He makes no comment upon her confession.
"Do you believe me?" she asks, eagerly, her little fingers tighteningtheir clasp upon his coat-sleeve.
Still he is dumb.
"Do you?" she repeats, excitedly, the quick breath passing to and fropantingly across the threshold of her crimson lips.
"Why do you insist on making me uncivil?" he says, with a sarcasticsmile. "I do _not_ believe you. I dare say you fancy you are tellingtruth; but if another man were to come on the scene with a fewthousands a-year more, and a higher position in the social scale, youwould enact the same part over again. Women must be true to theirinstincts. Those who are bent on rising must kick down the ladder bywhich they have climbed: it is an irreversible law."
"You are mistaken," she says, eagerly. "I have no desire to climb; if Icame here with any silly, childish idea that rich people were happierthan poor ones, I have been quite disillusioned. Bob" (how oddly thelittle unromantic name comes in among her heroics!)--"Bob is a happierman than you are, though he is only a lieutenant in a foot regiment,and has next to nothing to live upon."
"I have no doubt that _Bob_" (with a little sneering emphasis on themonosyllable) "is in all respects a very superior person to me," saysSt. John, with a bitter pale smile, like a gleam of wrathful sunlighton a day of east wind and clouds and driving sleet.
"I quite agree with you," she answers eagerly, her great eyes flashingangry, like unwonted meteors that blaze fitful in the winter sky, "andI wish to Heaven I had never left him!"
Over Gerard's features a spasm, contracting and puckering them, passesugly and painful; his hands clench themselves in the mightiness ofhis effort to govern his smitten soul. "That is easily remedied," heanswers, after a little pause, in a clear cold voice. "Why should notyou go back to him as you came? There
is no reason why he should everhear of this--this _episode_, this _interlude_, this _farce_."
"And you think that I am to be bandied about like a bale of goods!" shecries, scornfully, voice trembling and lip quivering with passion. "Youare like the woman in the Judgment of Solomon, who said, 'Let it beneither mine nor thine, but divide it!' _You_ love me! You never did!"
"Perhaps not," he answers, with slow difficulty; "perhaps what I lovedwas my ideal that I fancied I had found in you, and when I found I wasmistaken, perhaps the love went too! My God, I wish it had!"
Through the proud calmness of his voice penetrates a tone of bitter,unwilling tenderness. Hearing it, her whole soul is melted into fresh,quick tears.
"It is not my ideal, or any one else's, that I love in you!" she cries,stretching out eager white arms towards him; "it is yourself--your veryself! Oh, if I could but tear out my heart, and show it you! Oh! whywon't you believe me?"
He looks at her--looks at the innocently-wooing arms, at thetear-stained, dimpled, tremulous face--and feels his resolution wastingaway like wax before the fire, as Samson's wasted away in Delilah'slap. He turns his eyes away across the cool silvered flood, and hardenshis heart against her.
"Why cannot you?" she repeats, in her sweet, vibrating voice.
"Because I have not the faith that removes mountains," he answers,harshly; "because a thing must be probable, or at least possible,before I can give credit to it; because I am unable to understand how,for a man whom you confess to having thought ill-looking, ill-tempered,and ill-mannered, you could, out of pure disinterested love, throwover one to whom you must, at least, have pretended to be sincerelyattached."
"I never pretended anything of the kind," she answers, vehemently. "Ifyou don't believe me, ask him. I was engaged to him because he seemedunhappy, and because I did not see any particular reason why I shouldnot, and because he asked me."
Through all his bitter, surging wrath, St. John can hardly forbear asmile. "And you became engaged to me because I asked you?" he says,drily. "At that rate, there is no reason why the number of youraspirants should not be increased _ad infinitum_.
"And were you going to play the play out to the end, may I ask, and_marry_ us both?" he inquires, in the same cutting key.
No woman can stand being sneered at; she much prefers having the tablesand chairs flung at her head.
"Do you think it manly or witty to jeer at me," cries Essie, stungalmost to madness by his taunts, "because I have been fool enough todesert for you a man worth a hundred of you?"
Gerard stands motionless in the moonlight, with folded arms, and achill, painful smile on his stern mouth. "I have already announced myconviction of his superiority, and have advised you to return to him,"he says.
"Do you mean _really?_" asks Essie, her wild, wide eyes flaming inhalf-incredulous fear on his face.
"I do," he answers, with icy steadiness.
"And you have done with me altogether?" she says, brokenly, her tearsforcing their way through her slight shielding fingers, and falling oneafter another, slow and heavy, on the stones at her feet. "Serve meright!--Serve me right!"
Once again, intoxicated by her great fairness, he goes nigh topardoning her; once again his obstinate will comes to his aid. "If Iwere to marry you now," he says, resolutely, "my life would be one longsuspicion: I should love you madly, and should disbelieve in you."
With that, and his saying he should love her madly, a little creepinghope steals warmly about her heart. "Why should you disbelieve in me?"she asks, putting out a timid peace-making hand.
"Because a faith once broken can never be mended," he answers,sternly--"it may be patched up, but a patched faith will not do to gothrough life with; because a woman who has deceived a man once for oneobject may deceive him a second time for another. I should never," hesays (words coming quicker and emotion deepening as he proceeds), "lookin your sweet eyes without thinking I read some treachery in them; Ishould never press your heart against mine without fearing that it wasbeating for some one else."
She withdraws her rejected hand, and falls to weeping sorelier thanever, but very mutely.
"What madness induced you to tell me so many lies?" he cries,passionately, with mournful severity. "Were you bent on putting a gulf,that could never be bridged through all eternity, between us? Did notyou know that that is the one sin I could never forget or forgive?"
She looks down humbled and crestfallen, and says, sobbingly, "I wasafraid of you. I thought that, if I told you, I should lose you as Ihave done now, without telling you. I was on the point of speaking twoor three times, but you looked so angry that my courage failed, and I_dared_ not."
"Afraid of me!" he says, reproachfully. "By your own showing, then, youcould not have loved me perfectly, for 'perfect love casteth out fear,'If you are afraid of me, it is indeed time for us to part."
"I see you are bent on misconstruing every word I say," she says,hopelessly, and yet with a little petulant movement of shoulder andhead, "and so I'll hold my tongue."
He looks at her, not relentingly, but with infinite sadness. "I almostwish that Constance had left me in my Fool's Paradise!" he says.
"Constance!" exclaims Esther, quickly. "Was it she that told you?"
"It was," he answers, quietly: "she heard it this morning; she wasannoyed with me for not going to the ball, and chose this ingeniousand, I must say, complete mode of revenge."
"What _had_ I done to her?" says Essie, bringing her two hands togethersharply, and looking upwards to Heaven's great black, blue floor aboveher,
"Thick inlaid with patines of bright gold."
"What _had_ I done to her," she says, in a sort of wonder, "that sheshould do me such a mischief?"
Looking at her as she stands with upturned eyes, like some sweetprayerful saint or penitent Magdalen, drawn by a cunning hand thathas been resolved three centuries back into elemental dust--dust thathas stopped a bunghole perhaps, like Alexander's--Gerard's resolutionbreaks a little; not his resolution of parting from her--_that_ remainsfirm as ever--but his power of so parting with nonchalant coldness."Child!" he cries, a little roughly, and yet with a half-groan, placinga hand heavily on each of her shoulders--"Child! why are you so pretty?If it was your nature to be deceitful and underhand, why could not yoube ugly too? Your beauty is the one thing about you that I believe in,and it drives me distracted!"
"And yet," she answers, with a melancholy smile, "you told me just now,very calmly, to go back to--to _him:_ you seemed to contemplate withgreat equanimity the prospect of seeing me and my _distracting beauty_"(with a bitter emphasis) "in another man's possession."
"You are mistaken," he answers, with quick violence. "By God's help,I'll never see you again after to-night."
Hearing that heavy sentence, her knees tremble beneath her a little; amomentary dimness comes over her eyes; voice, breath, and heart seemto suspend their functions. No word of protest, of lamentation, ofentreaty, crosses her whitened lips.
"What right have I to be with you?" he asks, indignantly--"I, whocannot see you without coveting you? What right have I to steal anotherman's wife, any more than his horse or his money?"
"Let me go, then," she answers, with a low, moaning sigh--"since itmust be so. You know what is right better than I do. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" he answers, very shortly, and turns away his head sharply,that only the lake and the stars may see the distortion that thepassion of that parting is working on his face.
"Say you forgive me before I go!" says the tender, tremulous voice,that might unman a hero--might unsaint an anchorite--as she lingers yeta little minute beside him.
"Why should I say what is not true?" he asks, turning round roughlyupon her. "I don't forgive you, and never shall, either in this worldor the next."
"You must!" she says, sobbingly, the words coming a little wildlythrough a tempest of tears. "I cannot go unless you do; if I went now,I should remember you all my life as you are to-day; to-day would blotout all the happy hours
we have been together!"
For all answer he turns away from her, and buries his face in his hands.
"Look at me kindly once again!" she says, calmness growing out of herstrong emotion, putting up her two small hands and trying to draw hisaway from before his hidden face. "I may be very wicked; I suppose Iam--as you say so--mean, underhand, deceitful; but yet, for the sake ofwhat is gone, look at me kindly once again: that won't hurt you, as itis for the very last time!"
Still Gerard remains speechless--not from obstinacy, but because hecannot command his voice: and his pride revolts from speaking shakily,quaveringly, like an hysterical woman or paralytic old man.
"If I were a thief, or a murderer!" she says, indignantly, withdrawingher hands, "you could not turn from me with greater loathing!"
"You are a murderer!" he answers, with fierce vehemence, looking ather once again as she had asked him--looking at her with wrathful,reluctant passion, but not kindly. "You have murdered my wholefuture--my hope, my belief in women, in truth--my everything of lifebut what is merely animal. If you had murdered my body I could haveforgiven you much more easily. Time or disease must have done thatsooner or later, but now--" He stops abruptly.
"If I am a murderer, I am a suicide too," she replies, with a smilemore tearful than her tears. "St. John," she says, earnestly, "don'tyou know that people always attend to dying requests, however foolishand unreasonable they may be? This of mine is a dying request, forafter to-night I shall be dead to you. Say, 'Essie, I forgive you.'"
"What is it to you whether I forgive you or not?" he inquires,sullenly, with a certain savage pulling and biting of his moustache."Are you mistaking me for Brandon again? Why should two indifferentacquaintances like us go through the farce of begging each other'spardons? What are we to one another?"
"Nothing," she answers, calmly; "you need not be so eager to remindme of that; my memory needs no refreshing; but we _have been_something--do what you will you cannot take that away from me--so forthe sake of that 'have been,' say you forgive me!"
"Falsehoods don't pass my lips so glibly as they do yours," he answers,doggedly. "If I were to say, 'I forgive you' a thousand times, I shouldbe no nearer the doing it. Good-bye!" he says again, abruptly, puttingout his hand; feeling that the strain is too great for him, and thatif it last much longer he, being but human, will break under it. Heranswering farewell is to fling herself upon his breast.
"I can no more say 'good-bye,'" she says, desperately, in a passionatewhisper, "than you can say 'I forgive you.' St. John, take me back, tryme once again! I know I ought not to say it--that it is undignified,unwomanly, perhaps--but I cannot see my everything going away from mewithout reaching out a hand to stop it. Oh, my darling! give me onemore trial!"
Her arms cling about his brown throat close as the bindweed clingsabout the hedges in sultry August; her white warm breast heaves andpants against his, as the sea heaves and pants against the shore'stawny sides; her eyes, impassioned as only dark eyes can be--alluring,despairing--flame into his eyes, and down through his eyes into hisheart. Prisoned in those sweet, frail fetters, he feels strength andname and fame ebbing from him, as Merlin's ebbed under Vivien's wilycharm.
"Is not it better to be tricked by such a woman," Passion whispers,"than to spend long aeons of unswerving fidelity with one lessmaddeningly fair? Were not such moments of ecstasy very cheaplypurchased, even by years of suspicion and deceit?" But Will and Honourpush her back with their strong right hands. "She has deceived youonce, and therefore she will deceive you twice. She is enacting _this_melodrama on _your_ breast: she may enact the next on another man's.Put her away!--put her away!"
Hearkening to them, he, with a groan as of one that teareth out hisright eye, with relentless fingers unfastens her arms from about hisneck. "_Your_ darling!" he says, contemptuously; "you are forgettingwhom you are addressing!"
"I am, indeed," she answers, with a sudden revulsion of feeling; "butit is a mistake that one does not make twice in a lifetime."
"I hope not," he answers, taking, refuge in surly rudeness from thealmost overpowering temptation to fall at her feet and say, "Essie,come to me! deceive me! outwit me! overreach me; do what you please,I cannot help it! If there were a thousand Brandons and ten thousandtreacheries between us, I _must_ be yours, and you _must_ be mine!"
"I have degraded myself once to the dust before you," rejoins Essie, ina voice that tries to be angry, but is only trembling; "but there is nofear of my doing it again. And yet," she continues, after a pause, hersoft nature making it more difficult for her to part from him in angerthan to incur his contempt by again descending to supplication--"andyet, since I have confessed to having been wicked, you might as wellforgive me. How much the better will you be for going through lifewith the consciousness that you have made one wretched woman even moreunhappy than she would otherwise have been? You forgave that other girlwho deceived you because she did not love you. Forgive me, who deceivedyou, because I loved you too well!"
"I forgave her," he answers, sternly, "because I had ceased to careabout her--because what she stole from me had lost its value. Perhapsat some future period I may be in the same frame of mind towards you;at present I am some way off it. I neither can forgive you, nor have Ithe slightest wish to do so!"
Seeing that she is abasing herself in vain, she refrains. "Well, then,since you wish it, so it must be," she answers, with meek despair;and catching suddenly his hand before he has time to prevent her, shekisses it very humbly and sorrowfully. Then, unforgiven, unrecalled,she passes away. And Gerard, the battle over, the victory won, sitsdown on a garden-seat, and cries like a child for his pretty lostplaything.