"Do you know what your words convey?" says Sartoris, more shocked than he can express.
"I think I do," says the girl, half pa.s.sionately; and then she turns aside, and moves as though she would leave him.
"This is terrible," says Sartoris, in a low voice full of pain. "And yet I cannot believe he is unkind to you."
"Unkind? No," with a little scornful smile: "I hear no harsh words, my lightest wish is law; yet the veriest beggar that crawls the road is happier than I am."
"It seems impossible," says Sartoris, quietly, looking intently at her flower-like face and lovely wistful eyes,--"seeing you, it seems impossible to me that he can do anything but love you."
"Do not profane the words," she says, quickly. Then she pauses, as though afraid to continue, and presently says, in a broken voice, "Am I--the only woman he has--loved?"
Something in the suppressed pa.s.sion of her tone tells Lord Sartoris that she too is in possession of the secret that for months has embittered his life. This discovery is horrible to him.
"Who has been cruel enough to make you wise on that subject?" he says, impulsively, and therefore unwisely.
Georgie turns upon him eyes brilliant with despair and grief.
"So"--she says, vehemently--"it is the world"s talk. You know it: it is, indeed, common property, this disgraceful story." Something within her chokes her words; she can say no more. Pa.s.sion overcomes her, and want of hope, and grief too deep for expression. The gentle wells that nature supplies are dead within her; her eyes, hot and burning, conceal no water wherewith to cool the fever that consumes them.
"You are a stranger to me," she says, presently. "Yet to you I have laid bare my thoughts. You think, perhaps, I am one to parade my griefs, but it is not so; I would have you----"
"I believe you," he interrupts her hastily. He can hardly do otherwise, she is looking so little, so fragile, with her quivering lips, and her childish pleading eyes, and plaintive voice.
"Take courage," he says, softly: "you are young: good days may yet be in store for you; but with me it is different. I am on the verge of the grave,--am going down into it with no one to soothe or comfort my declining years. Dorian was my one thought: you can never know how I planned, and lived, and dreamed for him alone; and see how he has rewarded me! For youth there is a future, and in that thought alone lies hope; for age there is nothing but the flying present, and even that, for me, has lost its sweetness. I have staked my all, and--lost!
surely, of we two, I should be the most miserable."
"Is that your belief?" says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., mournfully. "Forgive me if I say I think you wrong. You have but a little time to endure your grief, I have my life, and perhaps"--pathetically--"it will be a long one. To know I must live under his roof, and feel myself indebted to him for everything I may want, for many years, is very bitter to me."
Sartoris is cut to the heart: that it should have gone so far that she should shrink from accepting anything at Dorian"s hands, galls him sorely. And what a gentle tender boy he used to be, and how incapable of a dishonest thought or action! At least, something should be done for his wife,--this girl who has grown tired and saddened and out of all heart since her luckless marriage. He looks at her again keenly, and tells himself she is sweet enough to keep any man at her side, so dainty she shows in her simple linen gown, with its soft Quakerish frillings at the throat and wrists. A sudden thought at last strikes him.
"I am glad I have met you," he says, quietly. "By and by, perhaps, we shall learn to be good friends. In the mean time will you do me a small favor? will you come up to Hythe on Thursday at one o"clock?"
"If you want me to come," says Georgie, betraying through her eyes the intense surprise she feels at this request.
"Thank you. And will you give Dorian a written message from me?"
"I will," she says again. And tearing a leaf from his pocket-book, he writes, as follows:
"When last we parted, it was with the expressed determination on your part never again to enter my doors until such time as I should send for you. I do so now, and beg you will come up to Hythe on Thursday next at half-past one o"clock. I should not trouble you so far, but that business demands your presence. I give you my word not to detain you longer than is absolutely necessary."
Folding up this note, he gives it to her, and pressing her hand warmly, parts from her, and goes back again to Hythe.
When in answer to his uncle"s summons, Dorian walks into the library at Hythe on Thursday afternoon, he is both astonished and disconcerted to find his wife there before him. She had given the letter not to him, but to one of the men-servants to deliver to him: so that he is still in utter ignorance of her meeting in the wood with his uncle.
"You here?" he says to her, after he has acknowledged Lord Sartoris"s presence by the coldest and haughtiest of salutations.
She says, "Yes," in a low tone, without raising her eyes.
"I was not aware you and Lord Sartoris were on such intimate terms."
"We met by chance last Monday for the first time," returns she, still without troubling herself to turn her eyes in his direction.
"You will sit down?" says Sartoris, nervously pushing a chair towards him. Dorian is looking so pale and haggard, so unlike himself, that the old man"s heart dies within him. What "evil days" has he not fallen on!
"No, thank you: I prefer standing. I must, however, remind you of your promise not to detain me longer than you can help."
"Nor shall I. I have sent for you to-day to let you know of my determination to settle upon your wife the sum of twenty thousand pounds, to be used for her own exclusive benefit, to be hers absolutely to do with as may seem best to her."
"May I ask what has put this quixotic idea into your head?" asks Dorian, in a curious tone.
Georgie, who, up to this time, has been so astounded at the disclosure of the earl"s scheme as to be unable to collect her ideas, now feels a sudden light break in upon her. She rises to her feet, and comes a little forward, and, for the first time since his entrance, turns to confront her husband.
"Let me tell you," she says, silencing Lord Sartoris by a quick motion of the hand. "On Monday I told your uncle how--how I hated being indebted to you for everything I may require. And he has thought of this plan, out of his great kindness," turning eyes dark with tears upon Lord Sartoris,--"to render me more independent. I thank you," she says, going up to Sartoris and slipping her icy cold little hands into his, "but it is far--far too much."
"So you have been regaling Lord Sartoris (an utter stranger to you) with a history of all our private griefs and woes!" says Dorian, slowly, utter contempt in his tone and an ominous light in his eyes.
"You wrong her, Dorian," says his uncle, gently. "It is not as you represent it. It was by the merest chance I discovered your wife would feel happier if more her own mistress."
"And by what right, may I inquire, do you seek to come between my wife and me?" says Dorian, white with anger, standing, tall and strong, with his arms folded and his eyes fixed upon his uncle. "Is it not my part to support and keep her? Whose duty is it, if not mine? I wish to know why you, of all men, have dared to interfere."
"I have not come between you: I seek no such ungracious part," replies Sartoris, with quiet dignity. "I am only doing now what I should have done on her marriage morning had--had things been different."
"It seems to me that I am brought up here as a criminal before my judge and accuser," says Brans...o...b.., very bitterly. "Let me at least have the small satisfaction of knowing of what it is I am accused,--wherein lies my crime. Speak," he says, turning suddenly to his wife.
She is awed more than she cares to confess by his manner, which is different from anything she has ever seen in him before. The kind-hearted, easy-going Dorian is gone, leaving a stern, pa.s.sionate, disappointed man in his place.
"Have I ill-used you?" he goes on, vehemently. "Have I spoken harsh words to you, or thwarted you in any way? Ever since the first hour that saw you my wife have I refused to grant your lightest wish?
Speak, and let us hear the truth of this matter. I am a bad husband, you say,--so infamous that it is impossible for you to receive even the common necessaries of life at my hands! How have I failed in my duty towards you?"
"In none of the outward observances," she says, faintly. "And yet you have broken my heart!"
There is a pause. And then Dorian laughs aloud,--a terrible, sneering, embittered laugh, that strikes cold on the hearts of the hearers.
"Your heart!" he says, witheringly. "Why, supposing for courtesy"s sake you did possess such an inconvenient and unfashionable appendage, it would be still absurd to accuse me of having broken it, as it has never been for five minutes in my possession."
Taking out his watch, he examines it leisurely. Then, with an utter change of manner, addressing Lord Sartoris, he says, with cold and studied politeness,--
"If you have quite done with me, I shall be glad, as I have another appointment at three."
"I have quite done," says his uncle, wistfully, looking earnestly at the handsome face before him that shows no sign of feeling whatsoever.
"I thank you much for having so far obliged me."
"Pray do not mention it. Good-morning."
"Good-morning," says Sartoris, wearily. And Brans...o...b.., bowing carelessly, leaves the room without another word.
When he has gone, Georgie, pale and trembling, turns to Sartoris and lays her hand upon his arm.
"He hates me. He will not even look at me," she says, pa.s.sionately.