The wind had risen yet higher; it blew an icy blast from behind him as he cantered home. Through the hazy atmosphere a cloud of dun, vaporish red could be seen trailing over the dim fells. It poised above the ball crown of the Eel Crags like a huge supernatural bird with outstretched wings.
Hugh held the reins with half-frozen hands. He barely felt the biting cold. His soul was in a tumult, and he was driven on by fears that were all but insupportable. For months a thick veil had overspread his conscience, and now, in an instant, and by an accident, it was being rent asunder. He had lulled his soul to sleep. But no opiate of sophistry could keep the soul from waking. His soul was waking now. He began to suspect that he had been acting like a scoundrel.
At the vicarage he stopped, dismounted, and entered. Standing in the hall, he overheard voices in the kitchen. They were those of Brother Peter and little Jacob Berry, the tailor, who had been hired to sew by the day, and was seated on the dresser.
"I"ve heard of such sights afore," the little tailor was saying. "When auld Mother Langdale"s son was killed at wrustlin" down Borrowdale way, and Mother Langdale was abed with rheumatis, she saw him come to the bed-head a-dripping wet with blood, as plain as plain could be, and in less nor an hour after they brought him home to the auld body on a shutter--they did, for sure."
"Shaf on sec stories! I don"t know as some folks aren"t as daft as Mother Langdale herself!" Peter muttered in reply.
Hugh Ritson beat the door heavily with his riding-whip.
"Parson Christian at home now?" he asked, when Peter opened it.
"Been and gone," said Peter.
"Did you tell him I meant to come back?"
"Don"t know as I did."
Hugh"s whip came down impatiently on his leggins.
"Do you know anything?" he asked. "Do you know that you are now talking to a gentleman?"
"Don"t know as I do," mumbled Peter, backing in again.
"If Miss Greta is at home tell her I should be glad to speak with her--do you hear?" Peter disappeared.
Hugh was left alone in the hall. He waited some minutes, thinking that Peter was carrying his message. Presently he overheard that worthy reopening the discussion on Mother Langdale"s sanity with little Jacob in the kitchen. The deep d.a.m.nation he desired just then for Brother Peter was about to be indicated by another l.u.s.ty rap on the kitchen door, when the door of the parlor opened, and Greta herself stood on the threshold with a smile and an outstretched hand.
"I thought it was your voice," she said, and led the way in.
"Your cordial welcome heaps coals of fire on my head, Greta. I cannot forget in what spirit we last talked and parted."
"Let us think no more about it," said Greta, and she drew a chair for him to the fire.
He remained standing, and as if benumbed by strong feeling.
"I have come to speak of it--to ask pardon for it--I was in the wrong,"
he said, falteringly.
She did not respond, but sat down with drooping eyes. He paused, and there was an ominous silence.
"You don"t know what I suffered, or what I suffer still. You are very happy. I am a miserable man. Greta, do you know what it is to love without being loved? How can you know? It is torture beyond the gift of words--misery beyond the relief of tears. It is not jealousy; that is no more than a vulgar kind of envy. It is a nameless, measureless torment."
He paused again. She did not speak. His voice grew tremulous.
"I"m not one of the fools who think that the souls that are created for each other must needs come together--that destiny draws them from the uttermost parts of the earth--that, trifle as they will with their best hopes, fate is stronger than they are, and true to the pole-star of ultimate happiness. I know the world too well to believe nonsense like that. I know that every day, every hour, men and women are casting themselves away--men on the wrong women, women on the wrong men--and that all this is a tangle that will never, never be undone."
He stepped up to where she sat and dropped his voice to a whisper.
"Greta--permit me to say it--I loved you dearly. Would to Heaven I had not! My love was not of yesterday. It was you and I, I and you. That was the only true marriage possible to either of us from world"s end to world"s end. But Paul came between us; and when I saw you give yourself to the wrong man--"
Greta had risen to her feet.
"You say you come to ask pardon for what you said, but you really come to repeat it." So saying, she made a show of leaving the room.
Hugh stood awhile in silence. Then he threw off his faltering tone and drew himself up.
"I have come," he said, "to warn you before it is too late. I have come to say, while it is yet time, never marry my brother, for as sure as G.o.d is above us, you will repent it with unquenchable tears if you do."
Greta"s eyes flashed with an expression of disdain.
"No," she said; "you have come to threaten me--a sure sign that you yourself have some secret cause for fear."
It was a home-thrust, and Hugh was. .h.i.t.
"Greta, I repeat it, you are marrying the wrong man."
"What right have you to say so?"
"The right of one who could part you forever with a word."
Greta was sore perplexed. Like a true woman, she would have given half her fortune at that moment to probe this mystery. But her indignation got the better of her curiosity.
"It is false!" she said.
"It is true!" he answered. "I could speak the word that would part you wider than the poles asunder."
"Then I challenge you to speak it," she exclaimed.
They faced each other, pale, and with quivering lips.
"It is not my purpose. I have warned you," he said.
"You do not believe your own warning," she answered.
He winced, but said not a word.
"You have come to me with an idle threat, and fear is written on your own face."
He drew his breath sharply, and did not reply.
"Whatever it is, you do not believe it."
He was making for the door. He came back a step.
"Shall I speak the word?" he said. "Can you bear it?"
"Leave me," she said, "and carry your falsehood with you!"