Stephen looked over the book with utter unconcern, "Saints and angels, done in my leisure moments. They were intended as designs for the stained gla.s.s of an English church."
"But whom do you idealize by that type of woman you always adopt for the Virgin?"
"n.o.body."
And then a thought raced along Stephen"s mind and he looked up at his friend.
The truth is, Stephen"s introduction of Elfride"s lineaments had been so unconscious that he had not at first understood his companion"s drift.
The hand, like the tongue, easily acquires the trick of repet.i.tion by rote, without calling in the mind to a.s.sist at all; and this had been the case here. Young men who cannot write verses about their Loves generally take to portraying them, and in the early days of his attachment Smith had never been weary of outlining Elfride. The lay-figure of Stephen"s sketches now initiated an adjustment of many things. Knight had recognized her. The opportunity of comparing notes had come unsought.
"Elfride Swancourt, to whom I was engaged," he said quietly.
"Stephen!"
"I know what you mean by speaking like that."
"Was it Elfride? YOU the man, Stephen?"
"Yes; and you are thinking why did I conceal the fact from you that time at Endelstow, are you not?"
"Yes, and more--more."
"I did it for the best; blame me if you will; I did it for the best. And now say how could I be with you afterwards as I had been before?"
"I don"t know at all; I can"t say."
Knight remained fixed in thought, and once he murmured--
"I had a suspicion this afternoon that there might be some such meaning in your words about my taking her away. But I dismissed it. How came you to know her?" he presently asked, in almost a peremptory tone.
"I went down about the church; years ago now."
"When you were with Hewby, of course, of course. Well, I can"t understand it." His tones rose. "I don"t know what to say, your hoodwinking me like this for so long!"
"I don"t see that I have hoodwinked you at all."
"Yes, yes, but"----
Knight arose from his seat, and began pacing up and down the room. His face was markedly pale, and his voice perturbed, as he said--
"You did not act as I should have acted towards you under those circ.u.mstances. I feel it deeply; and I tell you plainly, I shall never forget it!"
"What?"
"Your behaviour at that meeting in the family vault, when I told you we were going to be married. Deception, dishonesty, everywhere; all the world"s of a piece!"
Stephen did not much like this misconstruction of his motives, even though it was but the hasty conclusion of a friend disturbed by emotion.
"I could do no otherwise than I did, with due regard to her," he said stiffly.
"Indeed!" said Knight, in the bitterest tone of reproach. "Nor could you with due regard to her have married her, I suppose! I have hoped--longed--that HE, who turns out to be YOU, would ultimately have done that."
"I am much obliged to you for that hope. But you talk very mysteriously.
I think I had about the best reason anybody could have had for not doing that."
"Oh, what reason was it?"
"That I could not."
"You ought to have made an opportunity; you ought to do so now, in bare justice to her, Stephen!" cried Knight, carried beyond himself. "That you know very well, and it hurts and wounds me more than you dream to find you never have tried to make any reparation to a woman of that kind--so trusting, so apt to be run away with by her feelings--poor little fool, so much the worse for her!"
"Why, you talk like a madman! You took her away from me, did you not?"
"Picking up what another throws down can scarcely be called "taking away." However, we shall not agree too well upon that subject, so we had better part."
"But I am quite certain you misapprehend something most grievously,"
said Stephen, shaken to the bottom of his heart. "What have I done; tell me? I have lost Elfride, but is that such a sin?"
"Was it her doing, or yours?"
"Was what?"
"That you parted."
"I will tell you honestly. It was hers entirely, entirely."
"What was her reason?"
"I can hardly say. But I"ll tell the story without reserve."
Stephen until to-day had unhesitatingly held that she grew tired of him and turned to Knight; but he did not like to advance the statement now, or even to think the thought. To fancy otherwise accorded better with the hope to which Knight"s estrangement had given birth: that love for his friend was not the direct cause, but a result of her suspension of love for himself.
"Such a matter must not be allowed to breed discord between us," Knight returned, relapsing into a manner which concealed all his true feeling, as if confidence now was intolerable. "I do see that your reticence towards me in the vault may have been dictated by prudential considerations." He concluded artificially, "It was a strange thing altogether; but not of much importance, I suppose, at this distance of time; and it does not concern me now, though I don"t mind hearing your story."
These words from Knight, uttered with such an air of renunciation and apparent indifference, prompted Smith to speak on--perhaps with a little complacency--of his old secret engagement to Elfride. He told the details of its origin, and the peremptory words and actions of her father to extinguish their love.
Knight persevered in the tone and manner of a disinterested outsider.
It had become more than ever imperative to screen his emotions from Stephen"s eye; the young man would otherwise be less frank, and their meeting would be again embittered. What was the use of untoward candour?
Stephen had now arrived at the point in his ingenuous narrative where he left the vicarage because of her father"s manner. Knight"s interest increased. Their love seemed so innocent and childlike thus far.
"It is a nice point in casuistry," he observed, "to decide whether you were culpable or not in not telling Swancourt that your friends were parishioners of his. It was only human nature to hold your tongue under the circ.u.mstances. Well, what was the result of your dismissal by him?"
"That we agreed to be secretly faithful. And to insure this we thought we would marry."
Knight"s suspense and agitation rose higher when Stephen entered upon this phase of the subject.
"Do you mind telling on?" he said, steadying his manner of speech.