There was something so sweet and infinitely tender about her words, instinct as they were with natural womanly pa.s.sion, that Geoffrey bent at heart beneath their weight as a fir bends beneath the gentle, gathering snow. What was he to do, how could he leave her? And yet she was right. He must go, and go quickly, lest his strength might fail him, and hand in hand they should pa.s.s a bourne from which there is no return.
"Heaven help us, Beatrice," he said. "I will go to-morrow morning and, if I can, I will keep away."
"You _must_ keep away. I will not see you any more. I will not bring trouble on you, Geoffrey."
"You talk of bringing trouble on me," he said; "you say nothing of yourself, and yet a man, even a man with eyes on him like myself, is better fitted to weather such a storm. If it ruined me, how much more would it ruin you?"
They were at the gate of the Vicarage now, and the wind rushed so strongly through the firs that she needed to put her lips quite close to his ear to make her words heard.
"Stop, one minute," she said, "perhaps you do not quite understand. When a woman does what I have done, it is because she loves with all her life and heart and soul, because all these are a part of her love. For myself, I no longer care anything--I have _no_ self away from you; I have ceased to be of myself or in my own keeping. I am of you and in yours. For myself and my own fate or name I think no more; with my eyes open and of my own free will I have given everything to you, and am glad and happy to give it. But for you I still do care, and if I took any step, or allowed you to take any that could bring sorrow on you, I should never forgive myself. That is why we must part, Geoffrey. And now let us go in; there is nothing more to say, except this: if you wish to bid me good-bye, a last good-bye, dear Geoffrey, I will meet you to-morrow morning on the beach."
"I shall leave at half-past eight," he said hoa.r.s.ely.
"Then we will meet at seven," Beatrice said, and led the way into the house.
Elizabeth and Mr. Granger were already seated at supper. They supped at nine on Sunday nights; it was just half-past.
"Dear me," said the old gentleman, "we began to think that you two must have been out canoeing and got yourselves drowned in good earnest this time. What have you been doing?"
"We have had a long walk," answered Geoffrey; "I did not know that it was so late."
"One wants to be pleased with one"s company to walk far on such a night as this," put in Elizabeth maliciously.
"And so we were--at least I was," Geoffrey answered with perfect truth, "and the night is not so bad as you might think, at least under the lee of the cliffs. It will be worse by and by!"
Then they sat down and made a desperate show of eating supper.
Elizabeth, the keen-eyed, noticed that Geoffrey"s hand was shaking. Now what, she wondered, would make the hand of a strong man shake like a leaf? Deep emotion might do it, and Elizabeth thought that she detected other signs of emotion in them both, besides that of Geoffrey"s shaking hand. The plot was working well, but could it be brought to a climax?
Oh, if he would only throw prudence to the winds and run away with Beatrice, so that she might be rid of her, and free to fight for her own hand.
Shortly after supper both Elizabeth and Beatrice went to bed, leaving their father with Geoffrey.
"Well," said Mr. Granger, "did you get a word with Beatrice? It was very kind of you to go that long tramp on purpose. Gracious, how it blows! we shall have the house down presently. Lightning, too, I declare."
"Yes," answered Geoffrey, "I did."
"Ah, I hope you told her that there was no need for her to give up hope of him yet, of Mr. Davies, I mean?"
"Yes, I told her that--that is if the greater includes the less," he added to himself.
"And how did she take it?"
"Very badly," said Geoffrey; "she seemed to think that I had no right to interfere."
"Indeed, that is strange. But it doesn"t mean anything. She"s grateful enough to you at heart, depend upon it she is, only she did not like to say so. Dear me, how it blows; we shall have a night of it, a regular gale, I declare. So you are going away to-morrow morning. Well, the best of friends must part. I hope that you will often come and see us.
Good-bye."
Once more a sense of the irony of the position overcame Geoffrey, and he smiled grimly as he lit his candle and went to bed. At the back of the house was a long pa.s.sage, which terminated at one end in the room where he slept, and at the other in that occupied by Elizabeth and Beatrice.
This pa.s.sage was lit by two windows, and built out of it were two more rooms--that of Mr. Granger, and another which had been Effie"s. The windows of the pa.s.sage, like most of the others in the Vicarage, were innocent of shutters, and Geoffrey stood for a moment at one of them, watching the lightning illumine the broad breast of the mountain behind.
Then looking towards the door of Beatrice"s room, he gazed at it with the peculiar reverence that sometimes afflicts people who are very much in love, and, with a sigh, turned and sought his own.
He could not sleep, it was impossible. For nearly two hours he lay turning from side to side, and thinking till his brain seemed like to burst. To-morrow he must leave her, leave her for ever, and go back to his coa.r.s.e unprofitable struggle with the world, where there would be no Beatrice to make him happy through it all. And she, what of her?
The storm had lulled a little, now it came back in strength, heralded by the lightning. He rose, threw on a dressing-gown, and sat by a window watching it. Its tumult and fury seemed to ease his heart of some little of its pain; in that dark hour a quiet night would have maddened him.
In eight hours--eight short hours--this matter would be ended so far as concerned their actual intercourse. It would be a secret locked for ever in their two b.r.e.a.s.t.s, a secret eating at their hearts, cruel as the worm that dieth not. Geoffrey looked up and threw out his heart"s thought towards his sleeping love. Then once more, as in a bygone night, there broke upon his brain and being that mysterious spiritual sense. Stronger and more strong it grew, beating on him in heavy unnatural waves, till his reason seemed to reel and sink, and he remembered naught but Beatrice, knew naught save that her very life was with him now.
He stretched out his arms towards the place where she should be.
"Beatrice," he whispered to the empty air, "Beatrice! Oh, my love! my sweet! my soul! Hear me, Beatrice!"
There came a pause, and ever the unearthly sympathy grew and gathered in his heart, till it seemed to him as though separation had lost its power and across dividing s.p.a.ce they were mingled in one being.
A great gust shook the house and pa.s.sed away along the roaring depths.
Oh! what was this? Silently the door opened, and a white draped form pa.s.sed its threshold. He rose, gasping; a terrible fear, a terrible joy, took possession of him. The lightning flared out wildly in the eastern sky. There in the fierce light she stood before him--she, Beatrice, a sight of beauty and of dread. She stood with white arms outstretched, with white uncovered feet, her bosom heaving softly beneath her night-dress, her streaming hair unbound, her lips apart, her face upturned, and a stamp of terrifying calm.
"In the wide, blind eyes uplift Thro" the darkness and the drift."
Great Heaven, she was asleep!
Hush! she spoke.
"You called me, Geoffrey," she said, in a still, unnatural voice. "You called me, my beloved, and I--have--come."
He rose aghast, trembling like an aspen with doubt and fear, trembling at the sight of the conquering glory of the woman whom he worshipped.
See! She drew on towards him, and she was _asleep_. Oh, what could he do?
Suddenly the draught of the great gale rushing through the house caught the opened door and crashed it to.
She awoke with a wild stare of terror.
"Oh, G.o.d, where am I?" she cried.
"Hush, for your life"s sake!" he answered, his faculties returning.
"Hush! or you are lost."
But there was no need to caution here to silence, for Beatrice"s senses failed her at the shock, and she sank swooning in his arms.
CHAPTER XXIII
A DAWN OF RAIN
That crash of the closing door did not awake Beatrice only; it awoke both Elizabeth and Mr. Granger. Elizabeth sat up in bed straining her eyes through the gloom to see what had happened. They fell on Beatrice"s bed--surely--surely----
Elizabeth slipped up, cat-like she crept across the room and felt with her hand at the bed. Beatrice was not there. She sprang to the blind and drew it, letting in such light as there was, and by it searched the room. She spoke: "Beatrice, where are you?"