"Why, you little revengeful creature! And so I am to explain all before you will even treat me with decent civility."
"I do not want explanations," said Ruth, in a trembling tone. "We must not speak of the past. You asked me to come in Leonard"s--in my child"s name, and to hear what you had to say about him."
"But what I have to say about him relates to you even more. And how can we talk about him without recurring to the past? That past, which you try to ignore--I know you cannot do it in your heart--is full of happy recollections to me. Were you not happy in Wales?" he said, in his tenderest tone.
But there was no answer; not even one faint sigh, though he listened intently.
"You dare not speak; you dare not answer me. Your heart will not allow you to prevaricate, and you know you were happy."
Suddenly Ruth"s beautiful eyes were raised to him, full of lucid splendour, but grave and serious in their expression; and her cheeks, heretofore so faintly tinged with the tenderest blush, flashed into a ruddy glow.
"I was happy. I do not deny it. Whatever comes, I will not blench from the truth. I have answered you."
"And yet," replied he, secretly exulting in her admission, and not perceiving the inner strength of which she must have been conscious before she would have dared to make it--"and yet, Ruth, we are not to recur to the past! Why not? If it was happy at the time, is the recollection of it so miserable to you?"
He tried once more to take her hand, but she quietly stepped back.
"I came to hear what you had to say about my child," said she, beginning to feel very weary.
"_Our_ child, Ruth."
She drew herself up, and her face went very pale.
"What have you to say about him?" asked she, coldly.
"Much," exclaimed he--"much that may affect his whole life. But it all depends upon whether you will hear me or not."
"I listen."
"Good Heavens! Ruth, you will drive me mad. Oh! what a changed person you are from the sweet, loving creature you were! I wish you were not so beautiful." She did not reply, but he caught a deep, involuntary sigh.
"Will you hear me if I speak, though I may not begin all at once to talk of this boy--a boy of whom any mother--any parent, might be proud? I could see that, Ruth. I have seen him; he looked like a prince in that cramped, miserable house, and with no earthly advantages. It is a shame he should not have every kind of opportunity laid open before him."
There was no sign of maternal ambition on the motionless face, though there might be some little spring in her heart, as it beat quick and strong at the idea of the proposal she imagined he was going to make of taking her boy away to give him the careful education she had often craved for him. She should refuse it, as she would everything else which seemed to imply that she acknowledged a claim over Leonard; but yet sometimes, for her boy"s sake, she had longed for a larger opening--a more extended sphere.
"Ruth! you acknowledge we were happy once;--there were circ.u.mstances which, if I could tell you them all in detail, would show you how in my weak, convalescent state I was almost pa.s.sive in the hands of others. Ah, Ruth! I have not forgotten the tender nurse who soothed me in my delirium. When I am feverish, I dream that I am again at Llan-dhu, in the little old bed-chamber, and you, in white--which you always wore then, you know--flitting about me."
The tears dropped, large and round, from Ruth"s eyes--she could not help it--how could she?
"We were happy then," continued he, gaining confidence from the sight of her melted mood, and recurring once more to the admission which he considered so much in his favour. "Can such happiness never return?"
Thus he went on, quickly, anxious to lay before her all he had to offer, before she should fully understand his meaning.
"If you would consent, Leonard should be always with you--educated where and how you liked--money to any amount you might choose to name should be secured to you and him--if only, Ruth--if only those happy days might return."
Ruth spoke.
"I said that I was happy, because I had asked G.o.d to protect and help me--and I dared not tell a lie. I was happy. Oh! what is happiness or misery that we should talk about them now?"
Mr Donne looked at her, as she uttered these words, to see if she was wandering in her mind, they seemed to him so utterly strange and incoherent.
"I dare not think of happiness--I must not look forward to sorrow.
G.o.d did not put me here to consider either of these things."
"My dear Ruth, compose yourself! There is no hurry in answering the question I asked."
"What was it?" said Ruth.
"I love you so, I cannot live without you. I offer you my heart, my life--I offer to place Leonard wherever you would have him placed. I have the power and the means to advance him in any path of life you choose. All who have shown kindness to you shall be rewarded by me, with a grat.i.tude even surpa.s.sing your own. If there is anything else I can do that you can suggest, I will do it."
"Listen to me!" said Ruth, now that the idea of what he proposed had entered her mind. "When I said that I was happy with you long ago, I was choked with shame as I said it. And yet it may be a vain, false excuse that I make for myself. I was very young; I did not know how such a life was against G.o.d"s pure and holy will--at least, not as I know it now; and I tell you truth--all the days of my years since I have gone about with a stain on my hidden soul--a stain which made me loathe myself, and envy those who stood spotless and undefiled; which made me shrink from my child--from Mr Benson, from his sister, from the innocent girls whom I teach--nay, even I have cowered away from G.o.d Himself; and what I did wrong then, I did blindly to what I should do now if I listened to you."
She was so strongly agitated that she put her hands over her face, and sobbed without restraint. Then, taking them away, she looked at him with a glowing face, and beautiful, honest, wet eyes, and tried to speak calmly, as she asked if she needed to stay longer (she would have gone away at once but that she thought of Leonard, and wished to hear all that his father might have to say). He was so struck anew by her beauty, and understood her so little, that he believed that she only required a little more urging to consent to what he wished; for in all she had said there was no trace of the anger and resentment for his desertion of her, which he had expected would be a prominent feature--the greatest obstacle he had to encounter. The deep sense of penitence she expressed, he mistook for earthly shame; which he imagined he could soon soothe away.
"Yes, I have much more to say. I have not said half. I cannot tell you how fondly I will--how fondly I do love you--how my life shall be spent in ministering to your wishes. Money, I see--I know, you despise--"
"Mr Bellingham! I will not stay to hear you speak to me so again.
I have been sinful, but it is not you who should--" She could not speak, she was so choking with pa.s.sionate sorrow.
He wanted to calm her, as he saw her shaken with repressed sobs. He put his hand on her arm. She shook it off impatiently, and moved away in an instant.
"Ruth!" said he, nettled by her action of repugnance, "I begin to think you never loved me."
"I!--I never loved you! Do you dare to say so?"
Her eyes flamed on him as she spoke. Her red, round lip curled into beautiful contempt.
"Why do you shrink so from me?" said he, in his turn getting impatient.
"I did not come here to be spoken to in this way," said she. "I came, if by any chance I could do Leonard good. I would submit to many humiliations for his sake--but to no more from you."
"Are not you afraid to brave me so?" said he. "Don"t you know how much you are in my power?"
She was silent. She longed to go away, but dreaded lest he should follow her, where she might be less subject to interruption than she was here--near the fisherman"s nets, which the receding tide was leaving every moment barer and more bare, and the posts they were fastened to more blackly uprising above the waters.
Mr Donne put his hands on her arms as they hung down before her--her hands tightly clasped together.
"Ask me to let you go," said he. "I will, if you will ask me." He looked very fierce and pa.s.sionate and determined. The vehemence of his action took Ruth by surprise, and the painful tightness of the grasp almost made her exclaim. But she was quite still and mute.
"Ask me," said he, giving her a little shake. She did not speak. Her eyes, fixed on the distant sh.o.r.e, were slowly filling with tears.
Suddenly a light came through the mist that obscured them, and the shut lips parted. She saw some distant object that gave her hope.
"It is Stephen Bromley," said she. "He is coming to his nets. They say he is a very desperate, violent man, but he will protect me."
"You obstinate, wilful creature!" said Mr Donne, releasing his grasp.
"You forget that one word of mine could undeceive all these good people at Eccleston; and that if I spoke out ever so little, they would throw you off in an instant. Now!" he continued, "do you understand how much you are in my power?"
"Mr and Miss Benson know all--they have not thrown me off," Ruth gasped out. "Oh! for Leonard"s sake! you would not be so cruel."
"Then do not you be cruel to him--to me. Think once more!"