A pair of blue eyes
“Since you are not given to confidence, I want to ask you some plain
questions. Have I your permission?”
“Yes,” she said, and there came over her face a weary resignation. “Say
the harshest words you can; I will bear them!”
“There is a scandal in the air concerning you, Elfride; and I cannot
even combat it without knowing definitely what it is. It may not refer
to you entirely, or even at all.” Knight trifled in the very bitterness
of his feeling. “In the time of the French Revolution, Pariseau, a
ballet-master, was beheaded by mistake for Parisot, a captain of the
King’s Guard. I wish there was another ‘E. Swancourt’ in the
neighbourhood. Look at this.”
He handed her the letter she had written and left on the table at Mrs.
Jethway’s. She looked over it vacantly.
“It is not so much as it seems!” she pleaded. “It seems wickedly
deceptive to look at now, but it had a much more natural origin than
you think. My sole wish was not to endanger our love. O Harry! that was
all my idea. It was not much harm.”
“Yes, yes; but independently of the poor miserable creature’s remarks,
it seems to imply—something wrong.”
“What remarks?”
“Those she wrote me—now torn to pieces. Elfride, DID you run away with
a man you loved?—that was the damnable statement. Has such an
accusation life in it—really, truly, Elfride?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Knight’s countenance sank. “To be married to him?” came huskily from
his lips.
“Yes. Oh, forgive me! I had never seen you, Harry.”
“To London?”
“Yes; but I——”
“Answer my questions; say nothing else, Elfride Did you ever
deliberately try to marry him in secret?”
“No; not deliberately.”
“But did you do it?”
A feeble red passed over her face.
“Yes,” she said.
“And after that—did you—write to him as your husband; and did he
address you as his wife?”
“Listen, listen! It was——”
“Do answer me; only answer me!”
“Then, yes, we did.” Her lips shook; but it was with some little
dignity that she continued: “I would gladly have told you; for I knew
and know I had done wrong. But I dared not; I loved you too well. Oh,
so well! You have been everything in the world to me—and you are now.
Will you not forgive me?”
It is a melancholy thought, that men who at first will not allow the
verdict of perfection they pronounce upon their sweethearts or wives to
be disturbed by God’s own testimony to the contrary, will, once
suspecting their purity, morally hang them upon evidence they would be
ashamed to admit in judging a dog.
The reluctance to tell, which arose from Elfride’s simplicity in
thinking herself so much more culpable than she really was, had been
doing fatal work in Knight’s mind. The man of many ideas, now that his
first dream of impossible things was over, vibrated too far in the
contrary direction; and her every movement of feature—every
tremor—every confused word—was taken as so much proof of her
unworthiness.
“Elfride, we must bid good-bye to compliment,” said Knight: “we must do
without politeness now. Look in my face, and as you believe in God
above, tell me truly one thing more. Were you away alone with him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you return home the same day on which you left it?”
“No.”
The word fell like a bolt, and the very land and sky seemed to suffer.
Knight turned aside. Meantime Elfride’s countenance wore a look
indicating utter despair of being able to explain matters so that they
would seem no more than they really were,—a despair which not only
relinquishes the hope of direct explanation, but wearily gives up all
collateral chances of extenuation.
The scene was engraved for years on the retina of Knight’s eye: the
dead and brown stubble, the weeds among it, the distant belt of beeches
shutting out the view of the house, the leaves of which were now red
and sick to death.
“You must forget me,” he said. “We shall not marry, Elfride.”
How much anguish passed into her soul at those words from him was told
by the look of supreme torture she wore.
“What meaning have you, Harry? You only say so, do you?”
She looked doubtingly up at him, and tried to laugh, as if the
unreality of his words must be unquestionable.
“You are not in earnest, I know—I hope you are not? Surely I belong to
you, and you are going to keep me for yours?”
“Elfride, I have been speaking too roughly to you; I have said what I
ought only to have thought. I like you; and let me give you a word of
advice. Marry your man as soon as you can. However weary of each other
you may feel, you belong to each other, and I am not going to step
between you. Do you think I would—do you think I could for a moment? If
you cannot marry him now, and another makes you his wife, do not reveal
this secret to him after marriage, if you do not before. Honesty would
be damnation then.”
Bewildered by his expressions, she exclaimed—
“No, no; I will not be a wife unless I am yours; and I must be yours!”
“If we had married——”
“But you don’t MEAN—that—that—you will go away and leave me, and not be
anything more to me—oh, you don’t!”
Convulsive sobs took all nerve out of her utterance. She checked them,
and continued to look in his face for the ray of hope that was not to
be found there.
“I am going indoors,” said Knight. “You will not follow me, Elfride; I
wish you not to.”
“Oh no; indeed, I will not.”
“And then I am going to Castle Boterel. Good-bye.”
He spoke the farewell as if it were but for the day—lightly, as he had
spoken such temporary farewells many times before—and she seemed to
understand it as such. Knight had not the power to tell her plainly
that he was going for ever; he hardly knew for certain that he was:
whether he should rush back again upon the current of an irresistible
emotion, or whether he could sufficiently conquer himself, and her in
him, to establish that parting as a supreme farewell, and present
himself to the world again as no woman’s.
Ten minutes later he had left the house, leaving directions that if he
did not return in the evening his luggage was to be sent to his
chambers in London, whence he intended to write to Mr. Swancourt as to
the reasons of his sudden departure. He descended the valley, and could
not forbear turning his head. He saw the stubble-field, and a slight
girlish figure in the midst of it—up against the sky. Elfride, docile
as ever, had hardly moved a step, for he had said, Remain. He looked
and saw her again—he saw her for weeks and months. He withdrew his eyes
from the scene, swept his hand across them, as if to brush away the
sight, breathed a low groan, and went on.
Chapter XXXV
“And wilt thou leave me thus?—say nay—say nay!”
The scene shifts to Knight’s chambers in Bede’s Inn. It was late in the
evening of the day following his departure from Endelstow. A drizzling
rain descended upon London, forming a humid and dreary halo over every
well-lighted street. The rain had not yet been prevalent long enough to
give to rapid vehicles that clear and distinct rattle which follows the
thorough washing of the stones by a drenching rain, but was just
sufficient to make footway and roadway slippery, adhesive, and clogging
to both feet and wheels.
Knight was standing by the fire, looking into its expiring embers,
previously to emerging from his door for a dreary journey home to
Richmond. His hat was on, and the gas turned off. The blind of the
window overlooking the alley was not drawn down; and with the light
from beneath, which shone over the ceiling of the room, came, in place
of the usual babble, only the reduced clatter and quick speech which
were the result of necessity rather than choice.
Whilst he thus stood, waiting for the expiration of the few minutes
that were wanting to the time for his catching the train, a light
tapping upon the door mingled with the other sounds that reached his
ears. It was so faint at first that the outer noises were almost
sufficient to drown it. Finding it repeated Knight crossed the lobby,
crowded with books and rubbish, and opened the door.
A woman, closely muffled up, but visibly of fragile build, was standing
on the landing under the gaslight. She sprang forward, flung her arms
round Knight’s neck, and uttered a low cry—
“O Harry, Harry, you are killing me! I could not help coming. Don’t
send me away—don’t! Forgive your Elfride for coming—I love you so!”
Knight’s agitation and astonishment mastered him for a few moments.
“Elfride!” he cried, “what does this mean? What have you done?”
“Do not hurt me and punish me—Oh, do not! I couldn’t help coming; it
was killing me. Last night, when you did not come back, I could not
bear it—I could not! Only let me be with you, and see your face, Harry;
I don’t ask for more.”
Her eyelids were hot, heavy, and thick with excessive weeping, and the
delicate rose-red of her cheeks was disfigured and inflamed by the
constant chafing of the handkerchief in wiping her many tears.
“Who is with you? Have you come alone?” he hurriedly inquired.
“Yes. When you did not come last night, I sat up hoping you would
come—and the night was all agony—and I waited on and on, and you did
not come! Then when it was morning, and your letter said you were gone,
I could not endure it; and I ran away from them to St. Launce’s, and
came by the train. And I have been all day travelling to you, and you
won’t make me go away again, will you, Harry, because I shall always
love you till I die?”
“Yet it is wrong for you to stay. O Elfride! what have you committed
yourself to? It is ruin to your good name to run to me like this! Has
not your first experience been sufficient to keep you from these
things?”
“My name! Harry, I shall soon die, and what good will my name be to me
then? Oh, could I but be the man and you the woman, I would not leave
you for such a little fault as mine! Do not think it was so vile a
thing in me to run away with him. Ah, how I wish you could have run
away with twenty women before you knew me, that I might show you I
would think it no fault, but be glad to get you after them all, so that
I had you! If you only knew me through and through, how true I am,
Harry. Cannot I be yours? Say you love me just the same, and don’t let
me be separated from you again, will you? I cannot bear it—all the long
hours and days and nights going on, and you not there, but away because
you hate me!”
“Not hate you, Elfride,” he said gently, and supported her with his
arm. “But you cannot stay here now—just at present, I mean.”
“I suppose I must not—I wish I might. I am afraid that if—you lose
sight of me—something dark will happen, and we shall not meet again.
Harry, if I am not good enough to be your wife, I wish I could be your
servant and live with you, and not be sent away never to see you again.
I don’t mind what it is except that!”
“No, I cannot send you away: I cannot. God knows what dark future may
arise out of this evening’s work; but I cannot send you away! You must
sit down, and I will endeavour to collect my thoughts and see what had
better be done.
At that moment a loud knocking at the house door was heard by both,
accompanied by a hurried ringing of the bell that echoed from attic to
basement. The door was quickly opened, and after a few hasty words of
converse in the hall, heavy footsteps ascended the stairs.
The face of Mr. Swancourt, flushed, grieved, and stern, appeared round
the landing of the staircase. He came higher up, and stood beside them.
Glancing over and past Knight with silent indignation, he turned to the
trembling girl.
“O Elfride! and have I found you at last? Are these your tricks, madam?
When will you get rid of your idiocies, and conduct yourself like a
decent woman? Is my family name and house to be disgraced by acts that