"You forget yourself," she said proudly. "How dare you speak to me so?
Have you forgotten Miss Lesley? Or are you a traitor to us both?"
Esterbrook made no answer. He bowed his pale, miserable face before her, self-condemned.
The breast of the bay sparkled with its countless gems like the breast of a fair woman. The sh.o.r.es were purple and amethystine in the distance. Far out, bluish, phantom-like sails cl.u.s.tered against the pallid horizon. The dory danced like a feather over the ripples. They were close under the shadow of Chapel Point.
Marian Lesley waited in vain for her lover that afternoon. When he came at last in the odorous dusk of the June night she met him on the acacia-shadowed verandah with cold sweetness. Perhaps some subtle woman-instinct whispered to her where and how he had spent the afternoon, for she offered him no kiss, nor did she ask him why he had failed to come sooner.
His eyes lingered on her in the dim light, taking in every detail of her sweet womanly refinement and loveliness, and with difficulty he choked back a groan. Again he asked himself what madness had come over him, and again for an answer rose up the vision of Magdalen Crawford"s face as he had seen it that day, crimsoning beneath his gaze.
It was late when he left. Marian watched him out of sight, standing under the acacias. She shivered as with a sudden chill. "I feel as I think Vashti must have felt," she murmured aloud, "when, discrowned and unqueened, she crept out of the gates of Shushan to hide her broken heart. I wonder if Esther has already usurped my sceptre. Has that girl at the Cove, with her pale, priestess-like face and mysterious eyes, stolen his heart from me? Perhaps not, for it may never have been mine. I know that Esterbrook Elliott will be true to the letter of his vows to me, no matter what it may cost him. But I want no pallid shadow of the love that belongs to another. The hour of abdication is at hand, I fear. And what will be left for throneless Vashti then?"
Esterbrook Elliott, walking home through the mocking calm of the night, fought a hard battle with himself.
He was face to face with the truth at last--the bitter knowledge that he had never loved Marian Lesley, save with a fond, brotherly affection, and that he did love Magdalen Crawford with a pa.s.sion that threatened to sweep before it every vestige of his honour and loyalty.
He had seen her but three times--and his throbbing heart lay in the hollow of her cold white hand.
He shut his eyes and groaned. What madness. What unutterable folly! He was not free--he was bound to another by every cord of honour and self-respect. And, even were he free, Magdalen Crawford would be no fit wife for him--in the eyes of the world, at least. A girl from the Cove--a girl with little education and no social standing--aye! but he loved her.
He groaned again and again in his misery. Afar down the slope the bay waters lay like an inky strip and the distant, murmurous plaint of the sea came out of the stillness of the night; the lights at the Cove glimmered faintly.
In the week that followed he went to the Cove every day. Sometimes he did not see Magdalen; at other times he did. But at the end of the week he had conquered in the bitter, heart-crushing struggle with himself. If he had weakly given way to the first mad sweep of a new pa.s.sion, the strength of his manhood rea.s.serted itself at last.
Faltering and wavering were over, though there was pa.s.sionate pain in his voice when he said at last, "I am not coming back again, Magdalen."
They were standing in the shadow of the pine-fringed point that ran out to the left of the Cove. They had been walking together along the sh.o.r.e, watching the splendour of the sea sunset that flamed and glowed in the west, where there was a sea of mackerel clouds, crimson and amber tinted, with long, ribbon-like strips of apple-green sky between. They had walked in silence, hand in hand, as children might have done, yet with the stir and throb of a mighty pa.s.sion seething in their hearts.
Magdalen turned as Esterbrook spoke, and looked at him in a long silence. The bay stretched out before them, tranced and shimmering; a few stars shone down through the gloom of dusk. Right across the translucent greens and roses and blues of the west hung a dark, unsightly cloud, like the blurred outline of a monstrous bat. In the dim, reflected light the girl"s mournful face took on a weird, unearthly beauty. She turned her eyes from Esterbrook Elliott"s set white face to the radiant gloom of the sea.
"That is best," she answered at last, slowly.
"Best--yes! Better that we had never met! I love you--you know it--words are idle between us. I never loved before--I thought I did.
I made a mistake and I must pay the penalty of that mistake. You understand me?"
"I understand," she answered simply.
"I do not excuse myself--I have been weak and cowardly and disloyal.
But I have conquered myself--I will be true to the woman to whom I am pledged. You and I must not meet again. I will crush this madness to death. I think I have been delirious ever since that day I saw you first, Magdalen. My brain is clearer now. I see my duty and I mean to do it at any cost. I dare not trust myself to say more. Magdalen, I have much for which to ask your forgiveness."
"There is nothing to forgive," she said steadily. "I have been as much to blame as you. If I had been as resolute as I ought to have been--if I had sent you away the second time as I did the first--this would not have come to pa.s.s. I have been weak too, and I deserve to atone for my weakness by suffering. There is only one path open to us. Esterbrook, good-bye." Her voice quivered with an uncontrollable spasm of pain, but the misty, mournful eyes did not swerve from his. The man stepped forward and caught her in his arms.
"Magdalen, good-bye, my darling. Kiss me once--only once--before I go."
She loosened his arms and stepped back proudly.
"No! No man kisses my lips unless he is to be my husband. Good-bye, dear."
He bowed his head silently and went away, looking back not once, else he might have seen her kneeling on the damp sand weeping noiselessly and pa.s.sionately.
Marian Lesley looked at his pale, determined face the next evening and read it like an open book.
She had grown paler herself; there were purple shadows under the sweet violet eyes that might have hinted of her own sleepless nights.
She greeted him calmly, holding out a steady, white hand of welcome.
She saw the traces of the struggle through which he had pa.s.sed and knew that he had come off victor.
The knowledge made her task a little harder. It would have been easier to let slip the straining cable than to cast it from her when it lay unresistingly in her hand.
For an instant her heart thrilled with an unutterably sweet hope.
Might he not forget in time? Need she snap in twain the weakened bond between them after all? Perhaps she might win back her lost sceptre, yet if--
Womanly pride throttled the struggling hope. No divided allegiance, no hollow semblance of queenship for her!
Her opportunity came when Esterbrook asked with grave earnestness if their marriage might not be hastened a little--could he not have his bride in August? For a fleeting second Marian closed her eyes and the slender hands, lying among the laces in her lap, clasped each other convulsively.
Then she said quietly, "Sometimes I have thought, Esterbrook, that it might be better--if we were never married at all."
Esterbrook turned a startled face upon her.
"Not married at all! Marian, what do you mean?"
"Just what I say. I do not think we are as well suited to each other after all as we have fancied. We have loved each other as brother and sister might--that is all. I think it will be best to be brother and sister forever--nothing more."
Esterbrook sprang to his feet.
"Marian, do you know what you are saying? You surely cannot have heard--no one could have told you--"
"I have heard nothing," she interrupted hurriedly. "No one has told me anything. I have only said what I have been thinking of late. I am sure we have made a mistake. It is not too late to remedy it. You will not refuse my request, Esterbrook? You will set me free?"
"Good heavens, Marian!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I cannot realize that you are in earnest. Have you ceased to care for me?" The rigidly locked hands were clasped a little tighter.
"No--I shall always care for you as my friend if you will let me. But I know we could not make each other happy--the time for that has gone by. I would never be satisfied, nor would you. Esterbrook, will you release me from a promise which has become an irksome fetter?"
He looked down on her upturned face mistily. A great joy was surging up in his heart--yet it was mingled with great regret.
He knew--none better--what was pa.s.sing out of his life, what he was losing when he lost that pure, womanly nature.
"If you really mean this, Marian," he said slowly, "if you really have come to feel that your truest love is not and never can be mine--that I cannot make you happy--then there is nothing for me to do but to grant your request. You are free."
"Thank you, dear," she said gently, as she stood up.
She slipped his ring from her finger and held it out to him. He took it mechanically. He still felt dazed and unreal.
Marian held out her hand.