Robert Orange
hear their news. They are killing you. You seem calm, but your face! you
have never looked like this before. O, darling, it can't be what you
think it is."
He lifted her from the ground and took her in his arms again, as though
he could defy the cruel, invisible fate which had decreed their
separation.
"In any case," he said, "I won't give you back--I cannot. It is too much
to ask. You are mine--you were never his--never. God is not unjust, and
this is unjust. As for other people and outside opinion, they have not
mattered to me at any time, and least of all can they matter now. I
won't give you back."
She held him closer, already feeling, in spite of his words, the first
agony of their inevitable farewell.
"You love me!" she said, "you must never leave me. Kiss me, and promise
me that you will never leave me."
Grief and horror had broken down every barrier of reserve between them.
The pent-up passion on his side, the intense unconscious tenderness on
hers seemed to meet and blend in the one consuming thought that they
belonged to each other--that, in the awful struggle between the force of
circumstances and the force of life--they might have to part.
"Why should we two matter in so large a world?" she cried. "Surely we
need not suffer so much just for the discipline of our own souls? I
cannot, cannot, cannot go away. I can't live without you. I can't die
without you. I am tired of being alone. I am tired of trying to forget
you. And I have tried so hard."
Her face, from which all colour and joy and animation had departed,
seemed like a June rose dead, in all its perfection, on the tree. One
may see many such in a garden after a sudden frost.
"You mustn't leave me. They all frighten me. I have no one but you," she
continued; "God will understand. He doesn't ask any one to be alone. He
wasn't even crucified--alone. He didn't enter into Paradise--alone. Ask
me to do anything, but don't ask me to go away--to go back to Wrexham.
You are much stronger than I am. If you thought you ought to cut out
your heart by little pieces, you would do it. But you must think of me.
They may have all my money--that is all they care for. But I must have
you."
Although she made the appeal, he had resolved, in silence, long before,
that, come what might, he would not give her back. The decision rose on
the instant, without hesitation, doubt, or misgiving--a deliberate
choice between two courses.
"You cannot return to Parflete," he said quietly. "Don't despair. Your
marriage with him may be annulled. That aspect of the question is
revolting, abominable; but we are both in such a false position now that
we owe it as much to other people as we do to ourselves to put
everything in a true light. You are so brave, Brigit----"
"I am tired of being brave."
Her slender arms tightened about his neck; he could feel, from the whole
abandonment of her attitude and the slight weight of her childish form,
how little fitted she was physically for the squalid ordeal of the
law-courts. If she could live at all through horrors of the kind, it
would have to be by a miracle. And has one the right to hope for
miracles where the question of happiness or unhappiness in human love is
the egoistic point at stake? But, right or no right, there was in them
both that supreme and fatal force of affection which, if it be unusual,
is at least usual enough to be at the root of most mortal tragedies.
"I am tired or being brave," she repeated. "I want to rest."
In the mirror opposite them he saw the reflection of the bright garden
outside. How calm and still it seemed! Had he wandered there, years
before, with a beating heart, in search of his destiny, merely to find
it at last after the humiliation of a public scandal? Had his idyllic,
almost mystical romance, with all its aspirations, grace, and
unspeakable strength, been given to him just to be called from the
house-tops and discussed in the streets? Was this the end of all sublime
ideals? Did every delicate, secret sentiment have to endure, soon or
late, the awful test of degradation and mockery? Did it have to
come--this terrible day of trial when the Love which moves the sun and
the other stars had to pass through the common sieve with dust, ashes,
and much that was infinitely viler? No, he told himself, no: ten
thousand times, no.
"Listen," he said, "listen. You need not go back to him: he knows--every
one knows now that we love each other. We can't live together because
our marriage is not a marriage. Your marriage with Parflete was not a
marriage, but it appears so to the world. Is it worth while to undeceive
the world? When I think of the cost of such a proof--I say it is too
great. But if you are courageous--and you will be for my sake--we can
defy every one--on one condition. We must be sure of _ourselves_. We
must know that we can depend on ourselves. We may have to separate now
for some months--perhaps a year--perhaps longer; we must school
ourselves to look upon each other as friends--friends, nothing more. It
will be very hard--for me, and it is on my account only that we must
separate now. But you will accept this, even if you cannot understand
it, because my life here depends on you. I don't say anything about my
happiness. I leave that out of the reckoning. But if I am to live--to
get through the day's work, I must love you and I must see you. Later
on, we may be able to meet quite often. This will be something to which
I can look forward. All this has been in my mind always--ever since I
first met you. I feel now as though every thought, every hour, every
event of the last five months has been a preparation for this moment. On
one point, however, I have never wavered. We can't desecrate our love by
some odious law-suit. If this life were all, it would be different. But
it isn't all. It seems as though we are not to be everything to each
other. Yet we can be more than everything--we can be one existence even
if we cannot be man and wife. We can help each other, we may see each
other--in time."
"In time?" she repeated. The certainty that she would have to be
deprived of his presence for the greater part, at all events, of her
life came over her with intolerable anguish, and with it she felt a
presentiment of the future struggle to be waged against the profound
instinct which drew them, with all the strength of a river's current,
toward each other.
"No, no," she said, "if you send me away, I shall die. They frighten me;
they tell me lies. My mother is dead; my father is dead. I have no one
but you. You can't forsake me. You love me too much. I know you won't
leave me."
Her innocence made the recklessness of her appeal the more compelling.
The beseeching, intense affection of her soul transfigured her face with
an almost unearthly sweetness. White, trembling, and despairing she laid
her head upon his shoulder, holding him with both arms, and swaying from
the agony of a grief without hope and without tears.
"You must try to understand," he said, "you must try. You are so
young--such a child, but you do know that we can't live together, in the
same house, if our marriage is not valid. That would compromise your
honour. How else can I say what I must say?"
"I shouldn't mind. God would understand."
"But the world wouldn't understand. And one has to avoid the appearance
of evil."
"They may say anything they please. I should be very proud if they
misjudged me for your sake."
Then a thought suddenly pierced her. What would they say about his
honour? Would the world misjudge him? Her weakness became strength under
coercion of this new possibility; her cheeks burned at the light thrown
upon her first selfish impulse.
"O, why have I said such things?" she said, tearing herself away from
him, "and I used to think once that women like me were too bad to live.
I used to wonder how they could be so evil. That was because I had
never been tempted. And now I see how hard it is--how hard to fight. It
is so easy to judge others when you are married to some one you love.
But I begin to understand now--I ought to hide myself in a cell and pray
till I die for women who are unhappy."
She pushed back the soft golden hair which had fallen a little over her
face, brightening its sorrow. Every feature quivered under the invisible
cutting hand of cruel experience. In those last sharp moments of
introspection she had gained such a knowledge of suffering that a fire
seemed to have consumed her vision of life, reducing it to a frightful
desert of eternal woe and unavailing sacrifice. Partially stunned, and
partially blinded by misery, she felt the awful helplessness and pain of
what is sometimes called the second birth, a crisis in all human
development when the first true realisation comes that the soul is a
stranger, a rebel, strong as eternity, weak as the flesh, free as the
illimitable air.
"O, I do understand!" she said. "I have been pretending to myself that
we could do impossible things. But I didn't want to speak my own
death-warrant. No, don't come to me. Don't say one word to me. I know so
well now what must be done. We mustn't hesitate--we mustn't think. It is
something to know where you can't trust yourself. I can't trust my heart
at this moment. So I must just depend on the things I have been
taught--things which I accepted, oh, so easily, when I applied them to
other people. You must go away. You must leave me here with the
servants. Esther is good and kind. Pensee chose her for me. You can
leave me with her."
She supported herself by holding, in a desperate grasp, the heavy silk
draperies by the window. The image of her, leaning against the faded
scarlet curtain, tall, fragile, yet resolute, with heaving breast,
closed eyes, and pallid lips, remained before him night and day for
months, and though, in the process of time, the vividness of the picture
waned, it lived always among his unforgettable impressions.
"You must leave me," she said again.
"Yes, but I will come in the morning."
"You will rest, you will try to sleep--for my sake."
This time she lifted her head, and, turning towards him, met once more
the glance which she felt must have called her to life had she been
dead.
"You will come in the morning?"
"Yes."
Once more she held out her arms. He kissed her mouth, and eyes, and hair
once more. Neither could speak, and both were tearless. Then she went
with him to the door, opened it, and seemed to lead the way through the
long corridor, down some stone steps to the garden. She knew that he
would not leave the spot while she was in sight. So she walked back to
the house alone and mounted the steps, turning at each one to wave her
hand. He saw her enter at last, and close the window. Then she fell and
was helpless till she was found by Esther. Robert watched till the
lights were lit, and for some hours after they were finally
extinguished. The stars came out, and the moon made the languid night
seem white with beauty. Orange walked toward the town and the small
cemetery where Madame Bertin was buried. Then he threw himself by the
lonely grave which held the one creature on earth whom he seemed to have
a right to love without scruple and without restraint. And there he
remained till daybreak, weeping.
CHAPTER XIII
Lady Sara had written to the Duke of Marshire, and so fulfilled, in
part, her promise to her father. But, while she said much that was
graceful, coquettish, and characteristic, the Duke felt unable to regard
it as an acceptance of his offer. She was very kind with that kindness
which has no sort of encouragement in it. Among other things, she begged
for another week on the plea that "seven days furnished a very short
speculation when the result might possibly decide the whole course of