"You are so lovely," he then said quietly.
She blushed like a girl.
"You are the most beautiful woman I know," said Sir Hugh. "There is no one like you," He put his hand out to hers, and, helplessly, she yielded it. "Amabel, do you know, I have fallen in love with you."
She stood looking at him, stupefied; her eyes ecstatic and appalled.
"Do I displease you?" asked Sir Hugh.
She did not answer.
"Do I please you?" Still she gazed at him, speechless.
"Do you care at all for me?" he asked, and, though grave, he smiled a little at her in asking the question. How could he not know that, for years, she had cared for him more than for anything, anyone?
And when he asked her this last question, the oppression was too great.
She drew her hand from his, and laid her arms upon the mantel-shelf and hid her face upon them. It was a helpless confession. It was a helpless appeal.
But the appeal was not understood, or was disregarded. In a moment her husband"s arms were about her.
This was new. This was not like their courtship.--Yet, it reminded her,--of what did it remind her as he murmured words of victory, clasped her and kissed her? It reminded her of Paul Quentin. In the midst of the amazing joy she knew that the horror was as great.
"Ah don"t!--how can you!--how can you!" she said.
She drew away from him but he would not let her go.
"How can I? How can I do anything else?" he laughed, in easy yet excited triumph. "You do love me--you darling nun!"
She had freed her hands and covered her face: "I beg of you," she prayed.
The agony of her sincerity was too apparent. Sir Hugh unclasped his arms. She went to her chair, sat down, leaned on the table, still covering her eyes. So she had leaned, years ago, with hidden face, in telling Bertram of the coming of the child. It seemed to her now that her shame was more complete, more overwhelming. And, though it overwhelmed her, her bliss was there; the golden and the black streams ran together.
"Dearest,--should I have been less sudden?" Sir Hugh was beside her, leaning over her, reasoning, questioning, only just not caressing her.
"It"s not as if we didn"t know each other, Amabel: we have been strangers, in a sense;--yet, through it all--all these years--haven"t we felt near?--Ah darling, you can"t deny it;--you can"t deny you love me."
His arm was pressing her.
"Please--" she prayed again, and he moved his hand further away, beyond her crouching shoulder.
"You are such a little nun that you can"t bear to be loved?--Is that it?
But you"ll have to learn again. You are more than a nun: you are a beautiful woman: young; wonderfully young. It"s astonishing how like a girl you are."--Sir Hugh seemed to muse over a fact that allured. "And however like a nun you"ve lived--you can"t deny that you love me."
"You haven"t loved me," Amabel at last could say.
He paused, but only for a moment. "Perhaps not: but," his voice had now the delicate aptness that she remembered, "how could I believe that there was a chance for me? How could I think you could ever come to care, like this, when you had left me--you know--Amabel."
She was silent, her mind whirling. And his nearness, as he leaned over her, was less ecstasy than terror. It was as if she only knew her love, her sacred love again, when he was not near.
"It"s quite of late that I"ve begun to wonder," said Sir Hugh. "Stupid a.s.s of course, not to have seen the jewel I held in my hand. But you"ve only showed me the nun, you darling. I knew you cared, but I never knew how much.--I ought to have had more self-conceit, oughtn"t I?"
"I have cared. You have been all that is beautiful.--I have cared more than for anything.--But--oh, it could not have been this.--This would have killed me with shame," said Amabel.
"With shame? Why, you strange angel?"
"Can you ask?" she said in a trembling voice.
His hand caressed her hair, slipped around her neck. "You nun; you saint.--Does that girlish peccadillo still haunt you?"
"Don"t--oh don"t--call it that--call me that!--"
"Call you a saint? But what else are you?--a beautiful saint. What other woman could have lived the life you"ve lived? It"s wonderful."
"Don"t. I cannot bear it."
"Can"t bear to be called a saint? Ah, but, you see, that"s just why you are one."
She could not speak. She could not even say the only answering word: a sinner. Her hands were like leaden weights upon her brows. In the darkness she heard her heart beating heavily, and tried and tried to catch some fragment of meaning from her whirling thoughts.
And as if her self-condemnation were a further enchantment, her husband murmured: "It makes you all the lovelier that you should feel like that.
It makes me more in love with you than ever: but forget it now. Let me make you forget it. I can.--Darling, your beautiful hair. I remember it;--it is as beautiful as ever.--I remember it;--it fell to your knees.--Let me see your face, Amabel."
She was shuddering, shrinking from him.--"Oh--no--no.--Do you not see--not feel--that it is impossible--"
"Impossible! Why?--My darling, you are my wife;--and if you love me?--"
They were whirling impossibilities; she could see none clearly but one that flashed out for her now in her extremity of need, bright, ominous, accusing. She seized it:--"Augustine."
"Augustine? What of him?" Sir Hugh"s voice had an edge to it.
"He could not bear it. It would break his heart."
"What has he to do with it? He isn"t all your life:--you"ve given him most of it already."
"He is, he must be, all my life, except that beautiful part that you were:--that you are:--oh you will stay my friend!"--
"I"ll stay your lover, your determined lover and husband, Amabel.
Darling, you are ridiculous, enchanting--with your barriers, your scruples." The fear, the austerity, he felt in her fanned his ardour to flame. His arms once more went round her; he murmured words of lover-like pleading, rapturous, wild and foolish. And, though her love, her sacred love for him was there, his love for her was a nightmare to her now. She had lost herself, and it was as though she lost him, while he pleaded thus. And again and again she answered, resolute and tormented:--"No: no: never--never. Do not speak so to me.--Do not--I beg of you."
Suddenly he released her. He straightened himself, and moved away from her a little. Someone had entered.
Amabel dropped her hands and raised her eyes at last. Augustine stood before them.
Augustine had on still his long travelling coat; his cap, beaded with raindrops, was in his hand; his yellow hair was ruffled. He had entered hastily. He stood there looking at them, transfixed, yet not astonished.
He was very pale.
For some moments no one of them spoke. Sir Hugh did not move further from his wife"s side: he was neither anxious nor confused; but his face wore an involuntary scowl.
The deep confusion was Amabel"s. But her husband had released her; no longer pleaded; and with the lifting of that dire oppression the realities of her life flooded her almost with relief. It was impossible, this gay, this facile, this unseemly love, but, as she rejected and put it from her, the old love was the stronger, cherished the more closely, in atonement and solicitude, the man shrunk from and repulsed. And in all the deep confusion, before her son,--that he should find her so, almost in her husband"s arms,--a flash of clarity went through her mind as she saw them thus confronted. Deeper than ever between her and Augustine was the challenge of her love and his hatred; but it was that sacred love that now needed safeguards; she could not feel it when her husband was near and pleading; Augustine was her refuge from oppression.