"Well?" she said, pressing her hands together, and speaking in a low voice.
"Ruth," said Dare, solemnly, laying his outspread hand upon his breast and then extending it in the air, "I am free."
Ruth"s eyes watched him like one in torture.
"How?" she said, speaking with difficulty. "You said you were free before."
"Ah!" replied Dare, raising his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my lawyer, and he says she is my wife."
"You told me she was not."
"It was an error," repeated Dare. "I had formerly been a husband to her, but we had been divorced; it was finished, wound up, and I thought she was no more my wife. There is in the English law something extraordinary which I do not comprehend, which makes an American divorce to remain a marriage in England."
"Go on," said Ruth, shading her eyes with her hand.
"I come back to Vandon," continued Dare, in a suppressed voice, "I come back overwhelmed, broken down, crushed under feet; and then,"--he was becoming dramatic, he felt the fire kindling--"I meet a friend, a n.o.ble heart, I confide in him. I tell all to Sir Charles Danvers,"--Ruth"s hand was trembling--"and last night he finds out by a chance that she was not a true widow when I marry her, that her first husband was yet alive, that I am free. This morning he tells me all, and I am here."
Ruth pressed her hands before her face, and fairly burst into tears.
He looked at her in astonishment. He was surprised that she had any feelings. Never having shown them to the public in general, like himself, he had supposed she was entirely devoid of them. She now appeared quite _emue_. She was sobbing pa.s.sionately. Tears came into his own eyes as he watched her, and then a light dawned upon him for the second time that day. Those tears were not for him. He folded his arms and waited. How suggestive in itself is a n.o.ble att.i.tude!
After a few minutes Ruth overcame her tears with a great effort, and, raising her head, looked at him, as if she expected him to speak. The suspense was gone out of her dimmed eyes, the tension of her face was relaxed.
"I am free," repeated Dare, "and I have your promise that if I am free you will still marry me."
Ruth looked up with a pained but resolute expression, and she would have spoken if he had not stopped her by a gesture.
"I have your promise," he repeated. "I tell my friend, Sir Charles Danvers, I have it. He also loves. He does not tell me so; he is not open with me, as I with him, but I see his heart. And yet--figure to yourself--he has but to keep silence, and I must go away, I must give up all. I am still married--_Ou!_--while he--But he is n.o.ble, he is sublime. He sacrifices love on the altar of honor, of truth. He tells all to me, his rival. He shows me I am free. He thinks I do not know his heart. But it is not only he who can be n.o.ble." (Dare smote himself upon the breast.) "I also can lay my heart upon the altar. Ruth,"--with great solemnity--"do you love him even as he loves you?"
There was a moment"s pause.
"I do," she said, firmly, "with my whole heart."
"I knew it. I divined it. I sacrifice myself. I give you back your promise. I say farewell, and voyage in the distance. I return no more to Vandon. There is no longer a home for me in England. I leave only behind with you the poor heart you have possessed so long!"
Dare was so much affected by the beauty of this last sentence that he could say no more, but even at that moment, as he glanced at Ruth to see what effect his eloquence had upon her, she looked so pallid and thin (her beauty was so entirely eclipsed) that the sacrifice did not seem quite so overwhelming, after all.
She struggled to speak, but words failed her.
He took her hands and kissed them, pressed them to his heart (it was a pity there was no one there to see), endeavored to say something more, and then rushed out of the room.
She stood like one stunned after he had left her. She saw him a moment later cross the garden, and flee away across the fields. She knew she had seen that gray figure and jaunty gray hat for the last time; but she hardly thought of him. She felt she might be sorry for him presently, but not now.
The suspense was over. The sense of relief was too overwhelming to admit of any other feeling at first. She dropped on her knees beside the writing-table, and locked her hands together.
"_He told_," she whispered to herself. "Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d!"
Two happy tears dropped onto Mr. Alwynn"s old leather blotting-book, that worn cradle of many sermons.
Was this the same world? Was this the same sun which was shining in upon her? What new songs were the birds practising outside? A strange wonderful joy seemed to pervade the very air she breathed, to flood her inmost soul. She had faced her troubles fairly well, but at this new great happiness she did not dare to look; and with a sudden involuntary gesture she hid her face in her hands.
It would be rash to speculate too deeply on the nature of Dare"s reflections as he hurried back to Atherstone; but perhaps, under the very real pang of parting with Ruth, he was sustained by a sense of the magnanimity of what, had he put it into words, he would have called his att.i.tude, and possibly also by a lurking conviction, which had a.s.sisted his determination to resign her that life at Vandon, after the episode of the American wife"s arrival, would be a social impossibility, especially to one anxious and suited to shine in society. Be that how it may, whatever had happened to influence him most of the chance emotion of the moment, it would be tolerably certain that in a few hours he would be sorry for what he had done. He was still, however, in a state of mental exaltation when he reached Atherstone, and began fumbling nervously with the garden-gate. Charles, who had been stalking up and down the bowling-green, went slowly towards him.
"What on earth do you mean by going off in that way?" he asked, coldly.
"Ah!" said Dare, perceiving him, "and she--the--is she gone?"
"Yes, half an hour ago. Your dog-cart has come back from taking her to the station, and is here now."
Dare nodded his head several times, and stood looking at him.
"I have been to Slumberleigh," he said.
"Yes, contrary to agreement."
"My friend," Dare said, seizing the friend"s limp, unresponsive hand and pressing it, "I know now why you keep silence last night. I reason with myself. I see you love her. Do not turn away. I have seen her. I have given her back her promise. I give her up to you whom she loves; and now--I go away, not to return."
And then, in the full view of the Atherstone windows, of the butler, and of the dog-cart at the front door, Dare embraced him, kissing the blushing and disconcerted Charles on both cheeks. Then, in a moment, before the latter had recovered his self-possession, Dare had darted to the dog-cart, and was driving away.
Charles looked after him in mixed annoyance and astonishment, until he noticed the butler"s eye upon him, when he hastily retreated, with a heightened complexion, to the shrubberies.
CONCLUSION.
It was the last day of October, about a week after a certain very quiet little funeral had taken place in the D---- Cemetery. The death of Raymond Deyncourt had appeared in the papers a day or two afterwards, without mention of date or place, and it was generally supposed that it had taken place some considerable time previously, without the knowledge of his friends.
Charles had been sitting for a long time with Mr. Alwynn, and after he left the rectory he took the path over the fields in the direction of the Slumberleigh woods.
The low sun was shining redly through a golden haze, was sending long burning shafts across the glade where Charles was pacing. He sat down at last upon a fallen tree to wait for one who should presently come by that way.
It was a still, clear afternoon, with a solemn stillness that speaks of coming change. Winter was at hand, and the woods were transfigured with a pa.s.sing glory, like the faces of those who depart in peace when death draws nigh.
Far and wide in the forest the bracken was all aflame--aflame beneath the glowing trees. The great beeches had turned to bronze and ruddy gold, and had strewed the path with carpets glorious and rare, which the first wind would sweep away. Upon the limes the amber leaves still hung, faint yet loath to go, but the horse-chestnut had already dropped its garment of green and yellow at its feet.
A young robin was singing at intervals in the silence, telling how the secrets of the nests had been laid bare, singing a requiem on the dying leaves and the widowed branches, a song new to him, but with the old plaintive rapture in it that his fathers had been taught before him since the world began.
She came towards him down the yellow glade through the sunshine and the shadow, with a spray of briony in her hand. Neither spoke. She put her hands into the hands that were held out for them, and their eyes met, grave and steadfast, with the light in them of an unalterable love. So long they had looked at each other across a gulf. So long they had stood apart. And now, at last--at last--they were together. He drew her close and closer yet. They had no words. There was no need of words. And in the silence of the hushed woods, and in the silence of a joy too deep for speech, the robin"s song came sweet and sad.
"Charles!"
"Ruth!"
"I should like to tell you something."