"I cannot say it again."
She slowly shook her head, not comprehending, and for a while sat silent, struggling with her own thoughts. Then, suddenly instinct with the subtle fear which had driven her into speech:
"When I said--said that to you--last summer; when I cried in the swinging seat there--because I could not answer you--as I wished to--did _that_ change you, Captain Selwyn?"
"No."
"Then y-you are unchanged?"
"Yes, Eileen."
The first thrill of deep emotion struck through and through her.
"Then--then _that_ is not it," she faltered. "I was afraid--I have sometimes wondered if it was... . I am very glad, Captain Selwyn... . Will you wait a--a little longer--for me to--to change?"
He stood up suddenly in the darkness, and she sprang to her feet, breathless; for she had caught the low exclamation, and the strange sound that stifled it in his throat.
"Tell me," she stammered, "w-what has happened. D-don"t turn away to the window; don"t leave me all alone to endure this--this _something_ I have known was drawing you away--I don"t know where! What is it? Could you not tell _me_, Captain Selwyn? I--I have been very frank with you; I have been truthful--and loyal. I gave you, from the moment I knew you, all of me there was to give. And--and if there is more to give--now--it was yours when it came to me.
"Do you think I am too young to know what I am saying? Solitude is a teacher. I--I am still a scholar, perhaps, but I think that you could teach me what my drill-master, Solitude, could not ... if it--it is true you love me."
The mounting sea of pa.s.sion swept him; he turned on her, unsteadily, his hands clenched, not daring to touch her. Shame, contrition, horror that the damage was already done, all were forgotten; only the deadly grim duty of the moment held him back.
"Dear," he said, "because I am unchanged--because I--I love you so--help me!--and G.o.d help us both."
"Tell me," she said steadily, but it was fear that stilled her voice.
She laid one slim hand on the table, bearing down on the points of her fingers until the nails whitened, but her head was high and her eyes met his, straight, unwavering.
"I--I knew it," she said; "I understood there was something. If it is trouble--and I see it is--bring it to me. If I am the woman you took me for, give me my part in this. It is the quickest way to my heart, Captain Selwyn."
But he had grown afraid, horribly afraid. All the cowardice in him was in the ascendant. But that pa.s.sed; watching his worn face, she saw it pa.s.sing. Fear clutched at her; for the first time in her life she desired to go to him, hold fast to him, seeking in contact the rea.s.surance of his strength; but she only stood straighter, a little paler, already half divining in the clairvoyance of her young soul what lay still hidden.
"Do you ask a part in this?" he said at last.
"I ask it."
"Why?"
Her eyes wavered, then returned his gaze:
"For love of you," she said, as white as death.
He caught his breath sharply and straightened out, pa.s.sing one hand across his eyes. When she saw his face again in the dim light it was ghastly.
"There was a woman," he said, "for whom I was once responsible." He spoke wearily, head bent, resting the weight of one arm on the table against which she leaned. "Do you understand?" he asked.
"Yes. You mean--Mrs. Ruthven."
"I mean--her. Afterward--when matters had altered--I came--home."
He raised his head and looked about him in the darkness.
"Came home," he repeated, "no longer a man; the shadow of a man, with no hope, no outlook, no right to hope."
He leaned heavily on the table, his arm rigid, looking down at the floor as he spoke.
"No right to hope. Others told me that I still possessed that right. I knew they were wrong; I do not mean that they persuaded me--I persuaded myself that, after all, perhaps my right to hope remained to me. I persuaded myself that I might be, after all, the substance, not the shadow."
He looked up at her:
"And so I dared to love you."
She gazed at him, scarcely breathing.
"Then," he said, "came the awakening. My dream had ended."
She waited, the lace on her breast scarce stirring, so still she stood, so pitifully still.
"Such responsibility cannot die while those live who undertook it. I believed it until I desired to believe it no longer. But a man"s self-persuasion cannot alter such laws--nor can human laws confirm or nullify them, nor can a great religion do more than admit their truth, basing its creed upon such laws... . No man can put asunder, no laws of man undo the burden... . And, to my shame and disgrace, I have had to relearn this after offering you a love I had no right to offer--a life which is not my own to give."
He took one step toward her, and his voice fell so low that she could just hear him:
"She has lost her mind, and the case is hopeless. Those to whom the laws of the land have given care of her turned on her, threatened her with disgrace. And when one friend of hers halted this miserable conspiracy, her malady came swiftly upon her, and suddenly she found herself helpless, penniless, abandoned, her mind already clouded, and clouding faster! ... Eileen, was there then the shadow of a doubt as to the responsibility? Because a man"s son was named in the parable, does the lesson end there--and are there no others as prodigal--no other bonds that hold as inexorably as the bond of love?
"Men--a lawyer or two--a referee--decided to remove a burden; but a higher court has replaced it."
He came and stood directly before her:
"I dare not utter one word of love to you; I dare not touch you. What chance is there for such a man as I?"
"No chance--for us," she whispered. "Go!"
For a second he stood motionless, then, swaying slightly, turned on his heel.
And long after he had left the house she still stood there, eyes closed, colourless lips set, her slender body quivering, racked with the first fierce grief of a woman"s love for a man.
CHAPTER XII
HER WAY
Neergard had already begun to make mistakes. The first was in thinking that, among those whose only distinction was their wealth, his own wealth permitted him the same insolence and ruthlessness that so frequently characterised them.
Clever, vindictively patient, circ.u.mspect, and commercially competent as he had been, his intelligence was not of a high order. The intelligent never wilfully make enemies; Neergard made them gratuitously, cynically kicking from under him the props he used in mounting the breach, and which he fancied he no longer needed as a scaffolding now that he had obtained a foothold on the outer wall. Thus he had sneeringly dispensed with Gerald; thus he had shouldered Fane and Harmon out of his way when they objected to the purchase of Neergard"s acreage adjoining the Siowitha preserve, and its incorporation as an integral portion of the club tract; thus he was preparing to rid himself of Ruthven for another reason. But he was not yet quite ready to spurn Ruthven, because he wanted a little more out of him--just enough to place himself on a secure footing among those of the younger set where Ruthven, as hack cotillon leader, was regarded by the young with wide-eyed awe.
Why Neergard, who had forced himself into the Siowitha, ever came to commit so gross a blunder as to dragoon, or even permit, the club to acquire the acreage, the exploiting of which had threatened their existence, is not very clear.