"Oh, you are a partisan!" says he irritably, rising abruptly, and preparing to pace the room.
Margaret catches his coat as he goes by her.
"I entreat, I implore you to be quiet. It is so _slight_ a part.i.tion," says she. "Do sit down like a dear boy and talk softly, unless"--wistfully and evidently hopefully--"you want to go away."
"Well, I don"t," says he grimly.
He reseats himself. An extraordinary fascination keeps him in this room, even in face of the fact that the mistress of it is plainly longing for his departure. She has even openly hinted at it. And the fascination? It lies there behind the folding-doors. There is no romance in it, he tells himself; it is rather the feeling of an enemy who knows his foe to be close by. He turns to Margaret.
"Why did she refuse that money?"
"Why did you refuse hers?"
"Pshaw! You"re evading the question. To take half of her little pittance! I wonder you can even suggest the thing. It--it is almost an insult," says he, reddening to his brows.
"I didn"t mean it," says Margaret quickly, the more so that she thinks he is going to walk the room again. "Of course you could not have taken it."
"And yet I did take her money," says he miserably; "I wish to heaven now I hadn"t. _Then_ it seemed a fair exchange--her money for my t.i.tle; it is done every day, and no one thinks anything of it--but now---- It was a most cursed thing," says he.
"It would have been nothing--nothing," says Margaret eagerly, "if you had been heart-whole. But to marry her, loving another, that was wrong--unpardonable----"
"Unpardonable!" He looks at her with a start. What does she mean? Is he beyond pardon, indeed? Pardon from---- "That"s all over," says he.
"It wasn"t over _then!"_
"I don"t know----" He gets up and walks to the window in an agitated fashion, and then back again. "Margaret, I don"t believe I ever loved her."
Margaret stares at him.
"You are talking of Marian?"
"Yes; Marian. If I did love her, then there is no such thing as love--love the eternal--because I love her no longer."
"It is not that," says Margaret; "but love can be killed. Poor love!" she sighed. "Marian of her own accord has killed yours."
There is a long pause; then: "Well, I"m glad of it," says he.
He lifts his arms high above his head, as a man might who yawns, or a man might who has all at once recognised that he is rid of a great enc.u.mbrance.
"I suppose you did not come here to discuss your love affairs with Marian," says Margaret, a little coldly.
In a strange sort of way she had liked Marian, and she knew that Marian, in a strange sort of way, clung to _her_. And, besides, to say love could be killed! It was tantamount to saying love could die! Has _her_ love died? Colonel Neilson had been with her a good deal since her return to town, and there had been moments of heart-burning, when she had searched her heart indeed, and found it wanting--wanting in its fixed determination to be true for ever to the dear dead beloved. And such a miserable wanting, a mere craving to be as others are--to live in the life of another, to know the warmth, the _breath_ of the world"s sunshine--to love, and be loved again.
No wonder Margaret is angry with Rylton for bringing all these delinquencies into the light of certainty.
"No," says Sir Maurice moodily. "I came here to see you."
"You told me you intended leaving town yesterday."
"Yes, I know. I meant it. But I"ve changed my mind about stopping in the country--at least, I"m running down to The Place for the night to see after some business with the agent, but I"ll be back to-morrow."
"Really, you must forgive me if I say I don"t think much of your mind," says Margaret, who is still a little sore over her own reflections.
"I don"t think much of it myself," says Rylton, with increasing gloom.
At this abject surrender Margaret"s tender heart relents.
"I believe all you have told me," says she; "and I suppose I"m glad of it, although--Well, never mind that. Marian deserves no pity, but still----"
"Pshaw!" says he. "What has Marian got to do with it? Marian never cared _that_ about me." He makes an expressive movement with his fingers--a little snap. "I know now that Marian only played with me.
I amused her. I was the plaything of an hour."
"You wrong her there, Maurice."
"Do I? How? They tell us"--with a bitter smile--"that if a woman loves a man she will cling to him through all things--poverty, ill-repute, even crime. But poverty, the least of these things, daunted _her."_
"She had known so _much_ poverty----"
"Are you pleading _her_ cause now?" says Maurice, with a slight smile. "You plead it badly. The very fact of her knowing it so well should not have deterred her from trying it again with the man she loved. I offered to throw up everything for her, to go abroad, to work, to wrestle with fortune for her sake, but she----" He stops, and draws a long breath. "Well, it is over," says he.
"That is. But your future life----"
"I"m not a favourite of G.o.ds, am I?" says he, laughing. "My future life! Well, I leave it to them. So t.i.ta is looking well?"
"Yes; quite well. A little pale, I said."
"She never had much colour. She never speaks of me, I suppose?"
"Sometimes--yes."
Rylton looks down at the carpet, and then laughs a little awkwardly.
"I expect I had better not inquire into it," says he. "It is a general remark, yet it is _all _question."
"Of course, she remembers things," says Margaret nervously.
If he were to make another scene, to prance up and down the room, and talk at the top of his lungs, there is no knowing _what_ may not happen, considering who is standing behind those folding-doors.
"We can all remember things," says Sir Maurice, rising and holding out his hand. He bids her good-bye. As he gets to the door he looks back. "Tell her I didn"t like to keep her in durance vile longer than was necessary," says he.
With this parting shot, he goes down the stairs and out of the house.
CHAPTER XXI.
HOW MARGARET MAKES A FEARFUL DISCOVERY; HOW SHE RUSHES TO THE RESCUE, BUT IS FAR FROM WELL RECEIVED; AND HOW t.i.tA GIVES HERSELF AWAY, NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE.