"Get into the cab, Miss Brunel," said Will, abruptly.
He accompanied her across the pavement: an utter stranger could not have been more calm and cold. For a second she looked into his face, with pain, and wonder, and entreaty in her eyes; and then she took his hand, which had been outstretched to bid her good-bye, and said-
"Won"t you come with me? I-I am afraid--"
He got into the cab; the driver mounted his box and drove off; and so it was that Will, scarcely knowing how it had come about, found himself sitting once more beside Annie Brunel, with her hand still closed upon his.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A LAST WORD.
Every one knows Noel Paton"s "Dante and Beatrice"-the picture of the two lovers caught together in a supreme moment of pa.s.sion-their faces irradiated with the magical halo of a glowing twilight. His, tender, entreating, wistful, worshipful; hers, full of the unconscious sweetness and superb repose of a rare and exalted beauty. His eyes are upturned to hers; but hers dwell vaguely on the western glow of colour. And there is in the picture more than one thing which suggests the strange dissociation and the sadness, as well as the intercommunion and fellowship, of the closest love.
Why, asks the impatient reader, should not a romance be always full of this glow, and colour, and pa.s.sion? The warm light that touches the oval outline of a tender woman"s face is a beautiful thing, and even the sadness of love is beautiful: why should not a romance be full of these supreme elements? Why should not the romancist cut out the long prose pa.s.sages of a man"s life, and give us only those wonderful moments in which being glows with a sort of transformation?
The obvious reason is, that a romance written in such an exalted key would be insufferably unreal and monotonous: even in the "Venetianisches Grondellied," full of pure melody as it is, one finds jarring chords, which are only introduced to heighten the keen delight of the harmony which is to follow. Add to this the difficulty of setting down in words any tolerable representation of one of those pa.s.sionate joyous moments of love-delight which are the familiar theme of the musician and the painter.
That moment, however, in which Will Anerley met Annie Brunel"s eyes, and took her hand, and sat down beside her, was one of these. For many past days and weeks his life had been so unbearably dull, stagnant, prosaic, that the mere glad fact of this meeting drove from his mind all consideration of consequences. He looked in her eyes-the beautiful eyes that could not conceal their pleasure-and forgot everything else. For a time, neither of them spoke-the delight of being near to each other was enough; and when they began to recall themselves to the necessity of making some excuse to each other for having broken a solemn promise, they were driving along Piccadilly; and, away down in the darkness, they could see the luminous string of orange points that encircle the Green Park.
"I only returned to London to-day," he said, and there was a smile on his face, for he half-pitied his own weakness; "and I could not help going to see you. That was how I kept my promise. But you are not very angry?"
"No," she said, looking down.
There was no smile upon her face. The events of the last few weeks had been for her too tragic to admit of humorous lights.
"You ought not to have come," she said the next minute, hurriedly. "You ought to have stayed away. You yourself spoke of what might happen; and the surprise and the pain of seeing you-I had no thought of your being there-and I was sufficiently miserable at the time not to need any other thing to disturb me-and now-and now you are here, and you and I are the friends we have been--"
The pa.s.sionate earnestness of this speech, to say nothing of its words, surprised and astounded him: why should she have reason to be disturbed?
"Why should we not be friends?" he said.
She looked at him, with her big, tender, frank eyes, with a strange expression.
"You force me to speak. Because we cannot continue friends," she said, in a voice which was almost harsh in its distinctness. "After what you said to me, you have no right to see me. I cannot forget your warning; and I know where you ought to be this evening-not here, but down in St.
Mary-Kirby."
"That is true enough," said Will, gloomily. "I couldn"t have gone down to St. Mary-Kirby to-night: but, as you say, I have no business to be near you-none whatever. I should not have gone to the theatre; I ought to have stayed at home, and spent the time in thinking of you-why shouldn"t I say it, now that you have been so frank with me? You and I know each other pretty well, do we not? There is no reason, surely, why we may not regard each other as friends, whatever may happen. And why should I not tell you that I fear to go down to St. Mary-Kirby, and meet that poor Dove who has given me her heart?"
She said nothing: what could she say? It was not for her to blame him.
"And when I went to the theatre, I said, "It is the last time!" I could not help going. I did not intend to meet you when you came out."
"You did not?" she said.
There was, despite herself, a touch of disappointment in her tone. The strange joyous light that had pa.s.sed over her face on seeing him was the result of a sudden thought that he loved her so well that he was forced to come to her.
"No," he answered, "I did not intend to meet you; but the sudden pleasure of seeing you was so great that I had not the heart to refuse to come into the cab. And, now you know my secret, you may blame me as you please. I suppose I am weaker than other men; but I did not err wilfully. And now the thing is done, it is Dove whom I most consider.
How can I go to her with a lie in every word, and look, and action? Or how could I tell her the truth? Whichever way one turns, there is nothing but sadness and misery."
And still there was no word from the young girl opposite.
"I have not even the resource of blaming destiny," he continued. "I must blame my own blindness. Only you, looking at these things in your friendly and kindly way, will not blame me further for having indulged myself a last time in going to see you to-night. You will never have to complain again-never; and, indeed, I went to-night in a manner to bid you good-bye-so you won"t be hard on me--"
He was surprised to see, by the gleam of the lamp they pa.s.sed, that the girl was covertly sobbing, and that the large soft eyes were full of tears. At the same moment, however, the cabman pulled up at the corner of the little square in which Annie Brunel lived; and so they both got out. When Will turned from paying the cabman, she had walked on a bit in advance, and had not entered the square. He overtook her, and offered her his arm. The night was fine and still; a large lambent planet lay like a golden bell-flower in the soft purple before them, and a large harvest-moon, bronzed and discoloured, glimmered through the tall elms on the other side of the way, as it slowly rose up from the horizon.
"I have something to say to you," he heard the soft low voice say, "which I had hoped never to have said. It is better it should be said."
"If you have cause to blame me, or if you wish to prevent my seeing you again, by upbraiding me for having spoken honestly to you, I beg of you to say nothing that way. It is not needed. You will run no danger whatever of being annoyed again. I blame myself more than you can; and since we must part, let us part friends, with a kindly recollection of each other--"
"Don"t speak like that!" she said, imploringly, with another convulsive sob, "or you will break my heart. Is it not enough that-that-oh! I cannot, cannot tell you, and yet I must tell you!"
"What have you to tell me?" he said, with a cold feeling creeping over him. He began to suspect what her emotion meant; and he shrank from the suggestion, as from some great evil he had himself committed.
"You will think me shameless; I cannot help it. You say this is our last meeting; and I cannot bear to have you go away from me with the thought that you have to suffer alone. You think I ought to give you my sympathy, because I am your friend, and you will not be happy. But-but I will suffer too; and I am a woman-and alone-and whom have I to look to--?"
He stopped her, and looked down into her face.
"Annie, is this true?" he said, sadly and gravely.
He got no answer beyond the sight of her streaming eyes and quivering lips.
"Then are we the two wretchedest of G.o.d"s creatures," he said.
"Ah, don"t say that," she murmured, venturing to look up at him through her tears. "Should we not be glad to know that we can think kindly of each other, without shame? Unhappy, yes!-but surely not the very wretchedest of all. And you won"t misunderstand me? You won"t think, afterwards, that it was because I was an actress that I confessed this to you--?"
Even in such a moment a touch of Bohemianism!-a fear that her mother"s profession should suffer by her weakness.
"Dearest!" he said, tenderly-"for you are, G.o.d help me! my very, very dearest-we now know each other too well to have to make excuses for our confidence in each other."
They walked on now quite silently; there was too much for both of them to think about to admit of speech. As they walked southward, down the long and sombre thoroughfares, the large moon on their left slowly rose, and still rose, at every minute losing its ruddy hues, and gaining in clear, full light. They knew not whither they were going. There was no pa.s.ser-by to stare at them; they were alone in the world, with the solitary houses, and the great moon.
"You have not told me a minute too soon," he said, suddenly, with a strange exultation in his tone.
"What do you mean?"
"You and I, Annie, love each other. If the future is to be taken from us, let us recompense ourselves _now_. When you walk back to your house to-night and the door closes, you and I see each other no more.
To-morrow, and all the to-morrows after that, we are only strangers.
But for the next half-hour-my dearest, my dearest! show me your face, and let me see what your eyes say!-why should we not forget all these coming days, and live that half-hour for ourselves? It is but a little time; the sweetness of it will be a memory to us. Let us be lovers, Annie!-only for this little time we shall be together, my dearest! Let us try to imagine that you and I are to be married to-morrow-that all the coming years we are to be together-that now we have nothing to do but to yield ourselves up to our love--"
"I am afraid," she said, in a low voice, trembling.
"Why afraid, then?"
"That afterwards the recollection will be too bitter."