Beatrice

No answer.

"Ah--h," said Elizabeth aloud; "I understand. At last--at last!"

What should see do? Should she go and call her father and put them to an open shame? No. Beatrice must come back some time. The knowledge was enough; she wanted the knowledge to use if necessary. She did not wish to ruin her sister unless in self-defence, or rather, for the cause of self-advancement. Still less did she wish to injure Geoffrey, against whom she had no grudge. So she peeped along the pa.s.sage, then returning, crept back to her bed like a snake into a hole and watched.

Mr. Granger, hearing the crash, thought that the front door had blown open. Rising, he lit a candle and went to see.

But of all this Geoffrey knew nothing, and Beatrice naturally less than nothing.

She lay senseless in his arms, her head rested on his shoulder, her heavy hair streamed down his side almost to his knee. He lifted her, touched her on the forehead with his lips and laid her on the bed. What was to be done? Bring her back to life? No, he dared not--not here.

While she lay thus her helplessness protected her; but if once more she was a living, loving woman here and so--oh, how should they escape? He dared not touch her or look towards her--till he had made up his mind.

It was soon done. Here she must not bide, and since of herself she could not go, why he must take her now, this moment! However far Geoffrey fell short of virtue"s stricter standard, let this always be remembered in his favour.

He opened the door, and as he did so, thought that he heard some one stirring in the house. And so he did; it was Mr. Granger in the sitting-room. Hearing no more, Geoffrey concluded that it was the wind, and turning, groped his way to the bed where Beatrice lay as still as death. For one moment a horrible fear struck him that she might be dead.

He had heard of cases of somnambulists who, on being startled from their unnatural sleep, only woke to die. It might be so with her. Hurriedly he placed his hand upon her breast. Yes, her heart stirred--faintly indeed, but still it stirred. She had only swooned. Then he set his teeth, and placing his arms about her, lifted her as though she were a babe.

Beatrice was no slip of a girl, but a well-grown woman of full size. He never felt her weight; it seemed nothing to him. Stealthily as one bent on midnight murder, he stepped with her to the door and through it into the pa.s.sage. Then supporting her with one arm, he closed the door with his left hand. Stealthily in the gloom he pa.s.sed along the corridor, his bare feet making no noise upon the boarded floor, till he reached the bisecting pa.s.sage leading from the sitting-rooms.

He glanced up it apprehensively, and what he saw froze the blood in his veins, for there coming down it, not eight paces from him, was Mr.

Granger, holding a candle in his hand. What could be done? To get back to his room was impossible--to reach that of Beatrice was also impossible. With an effort he collected his thoughts, and like a flash of light it pa.s.sed into his mind that the empty room was not two paces from him. A stride and he had reached it. Oh, where was the handle? and oh, if the room should be locked! By a merciful chance it was not. He stepped through the door, knocking Beatrice"s feet against the framework as he did so, closed it--to shut it he had no time--and stood gasping behind it.

The gleam of light drew nearer. Merciful powers! he had been seen--the old man was coming in. What could he say? Tell the truth, that was all; but who would believe such a story? why, it was one that he should scarcely care to advance in a court of law. Could he expect a father to believe it--a father finding a man crouched like a thief behind a door at the dead of night with his lovely daughter senseless in his arms? He had already thought of going straight to Mr. Granger, but had abandoned the idea as hopeless. Who would believe this tale of sleep-walking?

For the first time in his life Geoffrey felt terribly afraid, both for Beatrice and himself; the hair rose on his head, his heart stood still, and a cold perspiration started on to his face.

"It"s very odd," he heard the old man mutter to himself; "I could almost swear that I saw something white go into that room. Where"s the handle?

If I believed in ghosts--hullo! my candle has blown out! I must go and hunt for a match. Don"t quite like going in there without a light."

For the moment they were saved. The fierce draught rushing through the open crack of the door from the ill-fitting window had extinguished the candle.

Geoffrey waited a few seconds to allow Mr. Granger to reach his room, and then once more started on his awful journey. He pa.s.sed out of the room in safety; happily Beatrice showed no signs of recovery. A few quick steps and he was at her own door. And now a new terror seized him.

What if Elizabeth was also walking the house or even awake? He thought of putting Beatrice down at the door and leaving her there, but abandoned the idea. To begin with, her father might see her, and then how could her presence be accounted for? or if he did not, she would certainly suffer ill effects from the cold. No, he must risk it, and at once, though he would rather have faced a battery of guns. The door fortunately was ajar. Geoffrey opened it with his foot, entered, and with his foot pushed it to again. Suddenly he remembered that he had never been in the room, and did not know which bed belonged to Beatrice.

He walked to the nearest; a deep-drawn breath told him that it was the wrong one. Drawing some faint consolation from the fact that Elizabeth was evidently asleep, he groped his way to the second bed through the deep twilight of the room. The clothes were thrown back. He laid Beatrice down and threw them over her. Then he fled.

As he reached the door he saw Mr. Granger"s light disappear into his own room and heard his door close. After that it seemed to him that he took but two steps and was in his own place.

He burst out laughing; there was as much hysteria in the laugh as a man gives way to. His nerves were shattered by struggle, love and fear, and sought relief in ghastly merriment. Somehow the whole scene reminded him of one in a comic opera. There was a ludicrous side to it. Supposing that the political opponents, who already hated him so bitterly, could have seen him slinking from door to door at midnight with an unconscious lady in his arms--what would they have said?

He ceased laughing; the fit pa.s.sed--indeed it was no laughing matter.

Then he thought of the first night of their strange communion, that night before he had returned to London. The seed sown in that hour had blossomed and borne fruit indeed. Who would have dreamed it possible that he should thus have drawn Beatrice to him? Well, he ought to have known. If it was possible that the words which floated through her mind could arise in his as they had done upon that night, what was not possible? And were there not other words, written by the same master-hand, which told of such things as these:

""Now--now," the door is heard; Hark, the stairs! and near-- Nearer--and here-- "Now"! and at call the third, She enters without a word.

Like the doors of a casket shrine, See on either side, Her two arms divide Till the heart betwixt makes sign, "Take me, for I am thine."

First, I will pray. Do Thou That ownest the soul, Yet wilt grant control To another, nor disallow For a time, restrain me now!"

Did they not run thus? Oh, he should have known! This he could plead, and this only--that control had been granted to him.

But how would Beatrice fare? Would she come to herself safely? He thought so, it was only a fainting fit. But when she did recover, what would she do? Nothing rash, he prayed. And what could be the end of it all? Who might say? How fortunate that the sister had been so sound asleep. Somehow he did not trust Elizabeth--he feared her.

Well might Geoffrey fear her! Elizabeth"s sleep was that of a weasel.

She too was laughing at this very moment, laughing, not loud but long--the laugh of one who wins.

She had seen him enter, his burden in his arms; saw him come with it to her own bedside, and had breathed heavily to warn him of his mistake.

She had watched him put Beatrice on her bed, and heard him sigh and turn away; nothing had escaped her. As soon as he was gone, she had risen and crept up to Beatrice, and finding that she was only in a faint had left her to recover, knowing her to be in no danger. Elizabeth was not a nervous person. Then she had listened till at length a deep sigh told her of the return of her sister"s consciousness. After this there was a pause, till presently Beatrice"s long soft breaths showed that she had glided from swoon to sleep.

The slow night wore away, and at length the cold dawn crept through the window. Elizabeth still watching, for she was not willing to lose a single scene of a drama so entrancing in itself and so important to her interests, saw her sister suddenly sit up in bed and press her hands to her forehead, as though she was striving to recall a dream. Then Beatrice covered her eyes with her hands and groaned heavily. Next she looked at her watch, rose, drank a gla.s.s of water, and dressed herself, even to the putting on of an old grey waterproof with a hood to it, for it was wet outside.

"She is going to meet her lover," thought Elizabeth. "I wish I could be there to see that too, but I have seen enough."

She yawned and appeared to wake. "What, Beatrice, going out already in this pouring rain?" she said, with feigned astonishment.

"Yes, I have slept badly and I want to get some air," answered Beatrice, starting and colouring; "I suppose that it was the storm."

"Has there been a storm?" said Elizabeth, yawning again. "I heard nothing of it--but then so many things happen when one is asleep of which one knows nothing at the time," she added sleepily, like one speaking at random. "Mind that you are back to say good-bye to Mr.

Bingham; he goes by the early train, you know--but perhaps you will see him out walking," and appearing to wake up thoroughly, she raised herself in bed and gave her sister one piercing look.

Beatrice made no answer; that look sent a thrill of fear through her.

Oh; what had happened! Or was it all a dream? Had she dreamed that she stood face to face with Geoffrey in his room before a great darkness struck her and overwhelmed her? Or was it an awful truth, and if a truth, how came she here again? She went to the pantry, found a morsel of bread and ate it, for faintness still pursued her. Then feeling better, she left the house and set her face towards the beach.

It was a dreary morning. The great wind had pa.s.sed; now it only blew in little gusts heavy with driving rain. The sea was sullen and grey and grand. It beat in thunder on the sh.o.r.e and flew over the sunken rocks in columns of leaden spray. The whole earth seemed one desolation, and all its grief was centred in this woman"s broken heart.

Geoffrey, too, was up. How he had pa.s.sed the remainder of that tragic night we need not inquire--not too happily we may be sure. He heard the front door close behind Beatrice, and followed out into the rain.

On the beach, some half of a mile away, he found her gazing at the sea, a great white gull wheeling about her head. No word of greeting pa.s.sed between them; they only grasped each other"s hands and looked into each other"s hollow eyes.

"Come under the shelter of the cliff," he said, and she came. She stood beneath the cliff, her head bowed low, her face hidden by the hood, and spoke.

"Tell me what has happened," she said; "I have dreamed something, a worse dream than any that have gone before--tell me if it is true. Do not spare me."

And Geoffrey told her all.

When he had finished she spoke again.

"By what shall I swear," she said, "that I am not the thing which you must think me? Geoffrey, I swear by my love for you that I am innocent.

If I came--oh, the shame of it! if I came--to your room last night, it was my feet which led me, not my mind that led my feet. I went to sleep, I was worn out, and then I knew no more till I heard a dreadful sound, and saw you before me in a blaze of light, after which there was darkness."

"Oh, Beatrice, do not be distressed," he answered. "I saw that you were asleep. It is a dreadful thing which has happened, but I do not think that we were seen."

"I do not know," she said. "Elizabeth looked at me very strangely this morning, and she sees everything. Geoffrey, for my part, I neither know nor care. What I do care for is, what must _you_ think of me? You must believe, oh!--I cannot say it. And yet I am innocent. Never, never did I dream of this. To come to you--thus--oh, it is shameless!"

"Beatrice, do not talk so. I tell you I know it. Listen--I drew you. I did not mean that you should come. I did not think that you would come, but it was my doing. Listen to me, dear," and he told her that which written words can ill express.

When he had finished, she looked up, with another face; the deep shadow of her shame had left her. "I believe you, Geoffrey," she said, "because I know that you have not invented this to shield me, for I have felt it also. See by it what you are to me. You are my master and my all. I cannot withstand you if I would. I have little will apart from yours if you choose to gainsay mine. And now promise me this upon your word.

Leave me uninfluenced; do not draw me to you to be your ruin. I make no pretence, I have laid my life at your feet, but while I have any strength to struggle against it, you shall never take it up unless you can do so to your own honour, and that is not possible. Oh, my dear, we might have been very happy together, happier than men and women often are, but it is denied to us. We must carry our cross, we must crucify the flesh upon it; perhaps so--who can say?--we may glorify the spirit.

I owe you a great deal. I have learnt much from you, Geoffrey. I have learned to hope again for a Hereafter. Nothing is left to me now--but that--that and an hour hence--your memory.

"Oh, why should I weep? It is ungrateful, when I have your love, for which this misery is but a little price to pay. Kiss me, dear, and go--and never see me more. You will not forget me, I know now that you will _never_ forget me all your life. Afterwards--perhaps--who can tell?