"Reflection is unnecessary," I answered quickly. "I know that I love you truly. That surely is sufficient."
"It might be if I were free," she responded in a low, hoa.r.s.e voice.
"But I tell you to-day, Frank, as I told you before, this love dream of ours is impossible of realisation."
"Then you do reciprocate my love?" I cried, in joyous eagerness.
"Come, tell me. Do not keep me longer in suspense."
"I have already told you," she answered in a low, intense voice. "Of what use is it to continue this painful discussion?"
"Of every use," I cried in desperation. "Give me one word of hope, Eva.
Tell me that some day you will try and love me better than you do now; that some day in the future you will become my wife. Tell me--"
"No! no!" she cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand away and receding from me. "No, Frank, I cannot--I will not lie to you."
"Then can you never love me--never?" I cried despairingly.
"Never," she answered hoa.r.s.ely, and her answer struck deep into my heart. "I have sinned--sinned before G.o.d and before man--and love no longer knows a place in my heart," and her fine head was bowed before me.
"Sinned!" I gasped. "What do you mean?"
"I am as a social leper," she panted, raising her head and looking at me with wild, unnatural gaze. "If you knew the dark and awful truth you would shun me rather than kiss my hand. Yet you say you love me--you!
who would have so great a cause to hate me if you knew the ghastly truth!"
"But," I cried, wondering at these strange words, and with my suspicions again aroused, "I do love you, nevertheless, Eva. I shall always love you, I swear it, for my very life is yours."
"Your life!" she echoed in a weird, harsh voice, as she stood, pale-faced, swaying before me, her hands clasped to her breast, her lips cold and white. "Yes," she said, in a strange, half-hysterical tone.
"Yes, it is true, too true, alas! that your future is in my hands. Only by a miracle have you come back to life, a grim shadow of a crime to taunt, to defy, to denounce. Ah! Frank, you do not know the terrible truth; you will never know--never!"
I was bewildered. Horror possessed me. The darkness of an irreversible fact spread over her and made her terrible to me. All must be given up.
Conscience p.r.o.nounced this dread decree and multiplied the pain a thousand times.
Destiny had once more taken me by the elbow.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
EVA MAKES A CONFESSION.
"Why may I not know the truth?" I asked the blanched and agitated woman before me. Her involuntary declaration that I had only returned to life by little short of a miracle was in itself clear proof that she was aware of the attempt made to a.s.sa.s.sinate me. I therefore determined to question her further and ascertain whether Boyd"s grave suspicion had any absolute foundation. "You know, Eva," I went on, standing before her with my hand upon her shoulder in deep earnestness, "you know how strong is my affection; you know that you are all the world to me."
Often during my many visits to that riverside house, so cool and peaceful after the busy turmoil in which fate compelled me to earn my bread, I had spoken of my love for her, and now in my desperation I told her that I could not leave the woman whom I had so long worshipped in the ideal, whom I had instantly recognised as being the embodiment of that ideal, of whose presence I could not endure to be deprived even in thought.
She stood silent, with her back to the table, looking into my eyes while I told her these things. A ray of sunlight tipped her auburn hair with gold. Sometimes she would seem to yield to a kind of bliss as she listened to my avowal; to forget all else than ourselves and my words.
At others a look of anguish would suddenly cloud her features, and once she shuddered, pressing her hands to her eyes, saying--
"Frank, you must not! Spare me this. I cannot bear it! Indeed I can"t."
Sometimes, in the days that had pa.s.sed, when I had spoken of my love, joy and pain would succeed each other on her face; indeed, often they would be present at the same moment. From the look of complete abandonment to happiness that sometimes, though never for long, shone on her features when we had idled up that shady, picturesque backwater, where the kingfishers nested, I felt that she loved me, and that eventually that love would gain the victory. Thus, continually, I tried to elicit an expression of her feelings in words. Sweet to me as was the confession of her looks, I sought also a confession of speech.
Alas! however, she seemed determined to give me no single word of encouragement.
"But why," I asked, as she stood there with bent head, her hand toying nervously with her rings, "why is it that when I speak of what most occupies my heart you become silent or sorrowful?"
She smiled, a strange, artificial smile, and for an instant her clear blue eyes--those eyes which spoke of an absolute purity of soul--met mine, as she replied--
"Can a woman explain her caprice any more than a man can understand it?"
Without heeding this evasion I went on--
"Is it that you are already pledged to marry some other man?"
"No," she answered, quickly and earnestly.
"Then it is because you do not wish me to love you," I observed reproachfully.
Her look startled me, for it contained besides a world of grief and pity, something of self-reproach. She regarded me strangely, first as if my words were a welcome truth, then, while her brow darkened, a mental anguish forced itself into her expression.
"You were mad to come here to me," she said, with a quick, apprehensive look. "If you knew the truth you would never again cross the threshold of this house."
"Why?" I demanded, in an instant alert.
"For a reason that is secret," she responded with a shade of sadness.
That ring of earnestness in her voice it seemed impossible to counterfeit. Puzzled, I gazed at her, striving to read her countenance.
Her head was bent, her colour changing; do what she would she could not keep the blood quite steady in her cheek.
"But may I not know, Eva?" I implored. "Surely you will not refuse to warn or guide one who is so entirely devoted to you as I am?"
"I cannot warn you, except to say that treachery may be sweetly concealed, and danger lurk where you may least suspect its presence."
"You wish to place a gulf between us," I cried impatiently. "But that"s impossible. I cannot rest without you; I am drawn to you as though by some power of magic. I am yours in life, in death."
"Ah, no!" she cried suddenly, putting up her hands to her face. "Speak not of death. You are making vows that must ere long be broken," and she sighed deeply.
Was not her att.i.tude, standing there pale and trembling, the att.i.tude of a guilty woman who feared the revelation of her crime? I looked again at her, and becoming convinced that it was, I regarded her with inexpressible scorn and love, horror and adoration. She seemed to have changed of late. She pondered over my words, weighing them without any idle misleadings of fancy. Did she never dream as she had done when we first met?
"Why must my vows be broken when my love for you is so fervent, Eva?" I demanded, in a voice a trifle hard, I think.
She shuddered and gave a gesture of despair as if there were, indeed, no defence for her. A great darkness was over my mind like the plague of an unending night.
"I have warned you," she responded, in a strange low tone. "If you really love me as you say you do, remain away from this house."
"Why are you so anxious that I should not visit you?" I demanded, puzzled. Then I added: "Of course in order to gain your love I am prepared to accept any conditions you may propose. If I do not again come here, will you meet me in London?"
"I can say nothing of the future," she answered slowly. "For your own sake--indeed, for mine also--do not come here again. Promise me, I beg of you."
This request was the more curious in the light of recent events. Was it that she could not bear me to kiss the hand that had attempted to slay me?
"All this is very strange, Eva," I said with a sudden seriousness. "I cannot understand your att.i.tude in the least. Why not be more explicit?"