"I will walk up. It is a fine night, and quite dry underfoot."
"And a very pleasant party it has been," said Mrs. Alwynn, as she and Ruth drove away together, "though Mrs. Thursby has not such a knack with her table as some. Not that I did not think the chrysanthemums and white china swans were nice, very nice; but, you see, as I told her, I had just been to Stoke Moreton, where things were very different. And you looked very well, my dear, though not so bright and chatty as Mabel; and Mrs. Thursby said she only hoped your waist was natural. The idea! And I saw Lady Carmian notice your gown particularly, and I heard her ask who you were, and Mrs. Thursby said--so like her--you were their clergyman"s niece. And so, my dear, I was not going to have you spoken of like that, and a little later on I just went and sat down by Lady Carmian, just went across the room, you know, as if I wanted to be nearer the music, and we got talking, and she was rather silent at first, but presently, when I began to tell her all about you, and who you were, she became quite interested, and asked such funny questions, and laughed, and we had quite a nice talk."
And so Mrs. Alwynn chatted on, and Ruth, happily hearing nothing, leaned back in her corner and wondered whether the evening were ever going to end. Even when she had bidden her aunt "Good-night," and, having previously told her maid not to sit up for her, found herself alone in her own room at last--even then it seemed that this interminable day was not quite over. She was standing by the dim fire, trying to gather up sufficient energy to undress, when a quiet step came cautiously along the pa.s.sage, followed by a low tap at her door. She opened it noiselessly, and found Mr. Alwynn standing without.
"Ruth," he said, "Dare has walked up with me. He is in the most dreadful state. I am sure I don"t know what to think. He has said nothing further to me, but he is bent on seeing you for a moment. It"s very late, but still--could you? He"s in the drawing-room now. My poor child, how ill you look! Shall I tell him you are too tired to-night to see any one?"
"I would rather see him," said Ruth, her voice trembling a little; and they went down-stairs together. In the hall she hesitated a moment. She was going to learn her fate. Had her release come? Had it come at the eleventh hour? Her uncle looked at her with kind, compa.s.sionate eyes, and hers fell before his as she thought how different her suspense was to what he imagined. Suddenly--and such demonstrations were very rare with her--she put her arms round his neck and pressed her cheek against his.
"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John!" she gasped, "it is not what you think."
"I pray G.o.d it may not be what I suppose," he said, sadly, stroking her head. "One is too ready to think evil, I know. G.o.d forgive me if I have judged him harshly. But go in, my dear;" and he pushed her gently towards the drawing-room.
She went in and closed the door quietly behind her.
Dare was leaning against the mantle-piece, which was draped in Mrs.
Alwynn"s best manner, with Oriental hangings having bits of gla.s.s woven in them. He was looking into the curtained fire, and did not turn when she entered. Even at that moment she noticed, as she went towards him, that his elbow had displaced the little family of china hares on a plush stand which Mrs. Alwynn had lately added to her other treasures.
"I think you wished to see me," she said, as calmly as she could.
He faced suddenly round, his eyes wild, his face quivering, and coming close up to her, caught her hand and grasped it so tightly that the pain was almost more than she could bear.
"Are you going to give me up?" he asked, hoa.r.s.ely.
"I don"t know," she said; "it depends on yourself, on what you are, and what you have been. You say she is not your wife?"
"I swear it."
"You need not do so. Your word is enough."
"I swear she is not my wife."
"One question remains," said Ruth, firmly, a flame of color mounting to her neck and face. "You say she is not your wife. Ought you to make her so?"
"No," said Dare, pa.s.sionately; "I owe her nothing. She has no claim upon me. I swear--"
"Don"t swear. I said your word was enough."
But Dare preferred to embellish his speech with divers weighty expressions, feeling that a simple affirmation would never carry so much conviction to his own mind, or, consequently, to another, as an oath.
A momentary silence followed.
"You believe what I say, Ruth?"
"Yes," with an effort.
"And you won"t give me up because evil is spoken against me?"
"No."
"And all is the same as before between us?"
"Yes."
Dare burst into a torrent of grat.i.tude, but she broke suddenly away from him, and went swiftly up-stairs again to her own room.
The release had not come. She laid her head down upon the table, and Hope, which had ventured back to her for one moment, took her lamp and went quite away, leaving the world very dark.
There are turning-points in life when a natural instinct is a surer guide than n.o.ble motive or high aspiration, and consequently the more thoughtful and introspective nature will sometimes fall just where a commonplace one would have pa.s.sed in safety. Ruth had acted for the best. When for the first time in her life she had been brought into close contact with a life spent for others, its beauty had appealed to her with irresistible force, and she had willingly sacrificed herself to an ideal life of devotion to others.
"But we are punished for our purest deeds, And chasten"d for our holiest thoughts."
And she saw now that if she had obeyed that simple law of human nature which forbids a marriage in which love is not the primary consideration, if she had followed that simple humble path, she would never have reached the arid wilderness towards which her own guidance had led her.
For her wilful self-sacrifice had suddenly paled and dwindled down before her eyes into a hideous mistake--a mistake which yet had its roots so firmly knit into the past that it was hopeless to think of pulling it up now. To abide by a mistake is sometimes all that an impetuous youth leaves an honorable middle age to do. Poor middle age, with its clear vision, that might do and be so much if it were not for the heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, which youth has bound upon its shoulders.
And worse than the dreary weight of personal unhappiness, harder to bear than the pang of disappointed love, was the aching sense of failure, of having misunderstood G.o.d"s intention, and broken the purpose of her life. For some natures the cup of life holds no bitterer drop than this.
Ruth dimly saw the future, the future which she had chosen, stretching out waste and barren before her. The dry air of the desert was on her face. Her feet were already on its sandy verge. And the iron of a great despair entered into her soul.
CHAPTER XXV.
Dare left Slumberleigh Hall early the following morning, and drove up to the rectory on his way to Vandon. After being closeted with Mr. Alwynn in the study for a short time, they both came out and drove away together. Ruth, invisible in her own room with a headache, her only means of defence against Mrs. Alwynn"s society, heard the coming and the going, and was not far wrong in her surmise that Dare had come to beg Mr. Alwynn to accompany him to Vandon--being afraid to face alone the mysterious enemy intrenched there.
No conversation was possible in the dog-cart, with the groom on the back seat thirsting to hear any particulars of the news which had spread like wildfire from Vandon throughout the whole village the previous afternoon, and which was already miraculously flying from house to house in Slumberleigh this morning, as things discreditable do fly among a Christian population, which perhaps "thinks no evil," but repeats it nevertheless.
There was not a servant in Dare"s modest establishment who was not on the lookout for him on his return. The gardener happened to be tying up a plant near the front door; the house-maids were watching un.o.bserved from an upper cas.e.m.e.nt; the portly form of Mrs. Smith, the house-keeper, was seen to glide from one of the unused bedroom windows; the butler must have been waiting in the hall, so prompt was his appearance when the dog-cart drew up before the door.
Another pair of keen black eyes was watching too, peering out through the c.h.i.n.ks between the lowered Venetian blinds in the drawing-room; was observing Dare intently as he got out, and then resting anxiously on his companion. Then the owner of the eyes slipped away from the window, and went back noiselessly to the fire.
Dare ordered the dog-cart to remain at the door, flung down his hat on the hall-table, and, turning to the servant who was busying himself in folding his coat, said, sharply, "Where is the--the person who arrived here yesterday?"
The man replied that "she" was in the drawing-room. The drawing-room opened into the hall. Dare led the way, suppressed fury in his face, looking back to see whether Mr. Alwynn was following him. The two men went in together and shut the door.
The enemy was intrenched and prepared for action.
Mrs. Dare, as we must perforce call her for lack of any other designation rather than for any right of hers to the t.i.tle, was seated on a yellow brocade ottoman, drawn up beside a roaring fire, her two smart little feet resting on the edge of the low bra.s.s fender, and a small work-table at her side, on which an elaborate medley of silks and wools was displayed. Her att.i.tude was that of a person at home, aggressively at home. She was in the act of threading a needle when Dare and Mr. Alwynn came in, and she put down her work at once, carefully replacing the needle in safety, as she rose to receive them, and held out her hand, with a manner the a.s.surance of which, if both men had not been too much frightened to notice it, was a little overdone.
Dare disregarded her gesture of welcome, and she sat down again, and returned to her work, with a laugh that was also a little overdone.
"What do you mean by coming here?" he said, his voice hoa.r.s.e with a furious anger, which the sight of her seemed to have increased a hundred-fold.
"Because it is my proper place," she replied, tossing her head, and drawing out a long thread of green silk; "because I have a right to come."
"You lie!" said Dare, fiercely, showing his teeth.