"Oh, I am very glad to see you. Come and sit down."
"You are not too busy for a little talk?"
"Not at all."
She wheeled the leather-covered chair a little nearer to the fire, and made him sit down on it. He cast his eye round the cheery room, noting the books and papers that she was using, the evidences of steady work and thought. The firelight leaped and glanced on the ruddy walls, and the coals crackled in the grate; a dash of rain against the window, a blast of wind in the distance, emphasized the contrast between the warmth and light and restfulness within the house, the coldness and the storm without.
Alan held his hands to the blaze, and listened for a moment to the wind before he spoke.
"One does not feel inclined," he said, "to turn out on such a day as this."
"Happily, you have no need to turn out," Lettice answered, taking his words in their most literal sense.
"Not to day, perhaps; but very soon. Lettice, the time has come when we must decide on our next step. I cannot stay here any longer--on our present terms, at least. But I have not come to say good-bye. Is there any reason why I should say good-bye--save for a time?"
He had risen from his chair as he spoke, and was standing before her.
Lettice shaded her eyes with her hands. Ah, if she could only give way to the temptation which she felt vaguely aware that he was going to raise! If she could only be weak in spite of her resolution to be strong, if she could only take to herself at once the one consolation and partnership which would satisfy her soul, how instantly would her depression pa.s.s away! How easily with one word could she change the whole current and complexion of life for the man who was bending over her! He was still only half-redeemed from ruin; he might fall a prey to despair again, if she shrank in the supreme moment from the sacrifice demanded of her.
Alan did not know how her heart was pleading for him. Something, indeed, he divined, as he saw her trembling and shaken by the strife within. His heart bounded with sudden impulse from every quickened vein, and his lips drew closer to her hidden face.
"Lettice!"
There was infinite force and tenderness in the whispered word, and it pierced her to the quick. She dropped her hands, and looked up.
But one responsive word or glance, and he would have taken her in his arms. He understood her face, her eyes, too well to do it. She gave him no consent; if he kissed her, if he pressed her to his breast, he felt that he should dominate her body only, not her soul. And he was not of that coa.r.s.e fibre which could be satisfied so. If Lettice did not give herself to him willingly, she must not give herself at all.
"Lettice!" he said again, and there was less pa.s.sion but more entreaty in his tone than before he met that warning glance, "will you not let me speak?"
"Is there anything for us to say," she asked, very gently, "except _good-bye_?"
"Would you turn me away into the cold from the warmth and brightness of your home, Lettice? Don"t be angry with me for saying so. I have had very little joy or comfort in my life of late, and it is to you that I owe all that I know of consolation. You have rescued me from a very h.e.l.l of despair and darkness, and brought me into paradise. Now do you bid me go? Lettice, it would be cruel. Tell me to stay with you ... and to the last hour of my life I will stay."
He was standing beside her, with one hand on the wooden arm of her circular chair. She put her hand over his fingers almost caressingly, and looked up at him again, with tears in her sweet eyes.
"Have I not done what I wanted to do?" she said. "I found you weak, friendless, ill; you have got back your strength, and you know that you have at least one friend who will be faithful to you. My task is done; you must go away now and fight the world--for my sake."
"For your sake? You care what I do, then: Lettice, you care for me? Tell me that you love me--tell me, at last!"
She was silent for a moment, and he felt that the hand which rested on his own fluttered as if it would take itself away. Was she offended?
Would she withdraw the mute caress of that soft pressure? Breathlessly he waited. If she took her hand away, he thought that he should almost cease to hope.
But the hand settled once more into its place. It even tightened its pressure upon his fingers as she replied--
"I love you with all my heart," she said; "and it is just because I love you that I want you to go away."
With a quick turn of his wrist he seized the hand that had hitherto lain on his, and carried it to his lips. They looked into each other"s eyes with the long silent look which is more expressive even than a kiss.
Soul draws very near to soul when the eyes of man and woman meet as theirs met then. The lips did not meet, but Alan"s face was very close to hers. When the pause had lasted so long that Lettice"s eyelids drooped, and the spell of the look was broken, he spoke again.
"Why should I go away? Why should the phantom of a dead past divide us?
We belong to one another, you and I. Think of what life might mean to us, side by side, hand in hand, working, striving together, you the stronger, giving me some of your strength, I ready to give you the love you need--the love you have craved for--the love that you have won!
Lettice, Lettice, neither G.o.d nor man can divide us now!"
"Hush! you are talking wildly," she answered, in a very gentle tone.
"Listen to me, Alan. There is one point in which you are wrong. You speak of a dead past. But the past is not dead, it lives for you still in the person of--your wife."
"And you think that she should stand in our way? After all that she has done? Can any law, human or divine, bind me to her now? Surely her own acts have set me free. Lettice, my darling, do not be blinded by conventional views of right and wrong. I know that if we had loved each other and she had been a woman of blameless life, I should not be justified in asking you to sacrifice for me all that the world holds dear; but think of the life she has led--the shame she has brought upon me and upon herself. Good G.o.d! is anyone in the world narrow-minded enough and base enough to think that I can still be bound to her?"
"No, Alan; but your course is clear. You must set yourself free."
"Seek my remedy in the courts? Have all the miserable story bandied about from lip to lip, be branded as a wretched dupe of a wicked woman on whom he had already tried to revenge himself? That is what the world would say. And your name would be brought forward, my dearest; it would be hopeless to keep it in the background now. Your very goodness and sweetness would be made the basis of an accusation.... I could not bear it, I could not see you pilloried, even if I could bear the shame of it myself."
He sank on his knees beside her, and let his head sink almost to her shoulder. She felt that he trembled, she saw that his lips were pale, and that the dew stood on his forehead. His physical strength had not yet returned in full measure, and the contest with Lettice was trying it to the utmost.
Lettice had turned pale too, but she spoke even more firmly than before.
"Alan," she said, "is this brave?"
"Brave? no!" he answered her. "I might be brave for myself, but how can I be brave for you? You will suffer more than you have any conception of, when you are held up to the scorn--the loathing--of the world. For you know she will not keep to the truth--she will spit her venom upon you--she will blacken your character in ways that you do not dream----"
"I think I have fathomed the depths," said Lettice, with a faint, wan smile. "I saw her myself when you were in prison, and she has written to my brother Sydney. Oh, yes," as he lifted his face and looked at her, "she stormed, she threatened, she has accused ... what does it matter to me what she says, or what the world says, either? Alan, it is too late to care so much for name and fame. I crossed the line which marks the boundary between convention and true liberty many weeks ago. The best thing for me now, as well as for you, is to face our accusers gallantly, and have the matter exposed to the light of day."
"I have brought this upon you!" he groaned.
"No, I have brought it on myself. Dear Alan, it is the hardest thing in the world to be brave for those we love--we are much too apt to fear danger or pain for them. Just because it is so hard, I ask you to do this thing. Give me courage--don"t sap my confidence with doubts and fears. Let us be brave together, and for one another, and then we shall win the battle and be at peace."
"It will be so hard for you."
"Not harder than it has been for you these many years. My poor dear my heart has bled so many times to think how you have suffered! I am proud to have a share in your suffering now. I am not ashamed to tell you that I love you, for it is my love that is to make you strong and brave, so that we may conquer the world together, despise its scorn, and meet its sneers with smiles! We will not run away from it, like cowards! I come of a fighting race on my mother"s side, the very suggestion of flight makes my blood boil, Alan! No, we will die fighting, if need be, but we will not run away."
"Yes, yes, my brave darling, you are right. We will stand or fall together. It was not for myself that I hesitated."
"I know--I know. So you see, dear, that we must part."
"For a time only."
"You will see Mr. Larmer to-morrow?"
"I will."
They were silent for a while. Her arm was round his neck, and his head was resting against her wearily. It was Lettice who first roused herself.
"This must not be," she said, drawing back her arm.
"Alan, let us be friends still--and nothing else. Let us have nothing to reproach ourselves with by and by."
He sighed as he lifted his head from its resting place.
"I will go to Larmer to-day," he said. "There is nothing to be gained by waiting. But--have you thought of all that that woman may do to us?
Lettice, I tremble almost for your life."