"You do not know what a woman"s affection is!" said Olive earnestly.
"How could she be desolate when she had you with her! Little would she care for being poor! And if, when sorely tried, you were bitter at times, the more need for her to soothe you. We can bear all things for those we love."
"Is it so?" Harold said, thoughtfully, his countenance changing, and his voice becoming soft as he looked upon her. "Do you think that any woman--I mean my mother, of course--would love _me_ with this love?"
And once more Olive taught herself to answer calmly, "I do think so."
Again there was a silence. Harold broke it by saying, "You would smile to know how childishly my last walk here haunts me; I really must go and see that love-stricken friend of mine. But you, I suppose, take no interest in his wooing?"
"O yes! I like to hear of young people"s happiness."
"But he was not quite happy. He did not know whether the woman he loved loved him. He had never asked her the question."
"Why not?"
"There were several reasons. First, because he was a proud man, and, like many others, had been deceived _once_. He would not again let a girl mock his peace. And he was right. Do you not think so?"
"Yes, if she were one who would act so cruelly. But no true woman ever mocked at true love. Rarely, _knowingly_, would she give cause for it to be cast before her in vain. If your friend be worthy, how knows he but that she may love him all the while?"
"Well, well, let that pa.s.s. He has other reasons." He paused and looked towards her, but Olive"s face was drooped out of sight. He continued,--"Reasons such as men only feel. You know not what an awful thing it is to cast one"s pride, one"s hope--perhaps the weal or woe of one"s whole life--upon a woman"s light "Yes" or "No." I speak," he added, abruptly, "as my friend, the youth in love, would speak."
"Yes, I know--I understand. Tell me more. That is, if I may hear."
"Oh, certainly. His other reasons were,--that he was poor; that, if betrothed, it might be years before they could marry; or, perhaps, as his health was feeble, he might die, and never call her wife at all.
Therefore, though he loved her as dearly as ever man loved woman, he held it right, and good, and just, to keep silence."
"Did he imagine, even in his lightest thought, that she loved him?"
"He could not tell. Sometimes it almost seemed so."
"Then he was wrong--cruelly wrong! He thought of his own pride, not of _her_. Little he knew the long, silent agony she must bear--the doubt of being loved causing shame for loving. Little he saw of the daily struggle: the poor heart frozen sometimes into dull endurance, and then wakened into miserable throbbing life by the shining of some hope, which pa.s.ses and leaves it darker and colder than before. Poor thing! Poor thing!"
And utterly forgetting herself, forgetting all but the compa.s.sion learnt from sorrow, Olive spoke with strong agitation.
Harold watched her intently. "Your words are sympathising and kind. Say on! What should he, this lover, do?"
"Let him tell her that he loves her--let him save her from the misery that wears away youth, and strength, and hope."
"What! and bind her by a promise which it may take years to fulfil?"
"If he has won her heart, she is already bound. It is mockery to talk as the world talks, of the sense of honour that leaves a woman "free." She is not free. She is as much bound as if she were married to him. Tell him so! Bid him take her to his heart, that, come what will, she may feel she has a place there. Let him not insult her by the doubt that she dreads poverty or long delay. If she loves him truly, she will wait years, a whole lifetime, until he claim her. If he labour, she will strengthen him; if he suffer, she will comfort him; in the world"s fierce battle, her faithfulness will be to him rest, and help, and balm."
"But," said Harold, his voice hoa.r.s.e and trembling, "what if they should live on thus for years, and never marry? What if he should die?"
"Die!"
"Yes. If so, far better that he should never have spoken--that his secret should go down with him to the grave."
"What, you mean that he should die, and she never know that he loved her! O Heaven! what misery could equal that!"
As Olive spoke, the tears sprang into her eyes, and, utterly subdued, she stood still and let them flow.
Harold, too, seemed strangely moved, but only for a moment. Then he said, very softly and quietly, "Miss Rothesay, you speak like one who feels every word. These are things we learn in but one school. Tell me--as a friend, who night and day prays for your happiness--are you not speaking from your own heart? You love, or you have loved?"
For a moment Olive"s senses seemed to reel. But his eyes were upon her--those truthful, truth-searching eyes.
"Must I look in his face and tell him a lie?" was her half-frenzied thought. "I cannot, I cannot! And the whole truth he will never, never know."
Dropping her head, she answered, in one word--"Yes!"
"And, with a woman like you, to love once is to love for evermore?"
Again Olive bent her head, and that was all. There was a sound as of crushed leaves, and those with which Harold had been playing fell scattered on the ground. He gave no other sign of emotion or sympathy.
For many minutes they walked on slowly, the little laughing brook beside them seeming to rise like a thunder-voice upon the dead silence. Olive listened to every ripple, that fell as it were like the boom of an engulphing wave. Nothing else she heard, or felt, or thought, until Harold spoke.
His tone was soft and very kind, and he took her hand the while. "I thank you for this confidence. You must forgive me if I did wrong in asking it. Henceforth I shall ask no more. If your life be happy, as I pray G.o.d it may, you will have no need of me. If not, hold me ever to your service as a true friend and brother."
She stooped, she leaned her brow upon the two clasped hands--her own and his--and wept as if her heart were breaking.
But very soon all this ceased, and she felt a calmness like death. Upon it broke Harold"s cold, clear voice--as cold and clear as ever.
"Once more, let me tell you all I owe you--friendship, counsel, patience,--for I have tried your patience much. I pray you pardon me!
From you I have learned to have faith in Heaven, peace towards man, reverence for women. Your friendship has blessed me--may G.o.d bless you."
His words ceased, somewhat tremulously; and she felt, for the first time, Harold"s lips touch her hand.
Quietly and mutely they walked home; quietly and mutely, nay, even coldly, they parted. The time had come and pa.s.sed; and between their two hearts now rose the silence of an existence.
CHAPTER XL.
Olive and Harold parted at Mrs. Flora"s gate. He had business in town, he said, but would return to dinner. So he walked quickly away, and Olive went in and crept upstairs. There, she bolted her door, groped her way to the bed, and lay down. Life and strength, hope and love, seemed to have ebbed from her at once. She felt no power or desire to weep.
Once or twice, she caught herself murmuring, half aloud,
"It is all over--quite over. There can be no doubt now."
And then she knew, by this utter death of hope, that it must have lived _once_--a feeble, half-unconscious life, but life it was. Despite her reason, and the settled conviction to which she had tutored herself, she must have had some faint thought that Harold loved her. Now, this dream gone, she might perhaps rise, as a soul rises from the death of the body, into a new existence. But of that she could not yet think. She only lay, motionless as a corpse, with hands folded, and eyes firmly closed. Sometimes, with a strange wandering of fancy, she seemed to see herself thus, looking down, as a spirit might do upon its own olden self, with a vague compa.s.sion. Once she even muttered, in a sort of childish way,
"Poor little Olive! Poor, crushed, broken thing!"
Thus she lay for many hours, sometimes pa.s.sing into what was either a swoon or a sleep. At last she roused herself, and saw by the shadows that it was quite late in the day. There is great mournfulness in waking thus of one"s own accord, and alone; hearing the various noises of the busy mid-day household, and feeling as if all would go on just the same without thought of us, even if we had died in that weary sleep.
Olive wished she had!--that is, had Heaven willed it. She could so easily have crept out of the bitter world, and no one would have missed her. Still, if it must be, she would try once more to lift her burden, and pursue her way.
There was a little comfort for her the minute she went downstairs.
Entering the drawing-room, she met Mrs. Flora"s brightest smile.