CHAPTER XXVI.

It seemed as if Clare had resolved to treat the singular words which Agnes had said to her as soon as she had told her of Claude Westwood's confession and her reply, as though they had never been uttered. Whatever impression they produced upon the girl she certainly gave no sign that she attached even the smallest amount of importance to them. Her mood was that of the rapturous lover for some days. She had never been out of temper since she had come to The Knoll, except for a few moments after her friend Signor Rodani had visited her; but she had never been in the rapturous mood which now possessed her. Her life was a song—a lover's song.

The labour of love at which she was engaged daily kept her indoors. Drawing after drawing she executed for the book, and even those task-masters, Messrs. Skekels & Shackles, expressed themselves thoroughly satisfied with the progress of the book and the “blocks.” The latter were found to be admirable; in fact, the reproductions were, Clare affirmed, better than the originals. She was not mistaken. Mr. Shackles was acquainted with a young artist of striking skill in the art of preparing effective “blocks,” and he treated Miss Tristram's drawings with the utmost freedom. He regarded them as an excellent and suggestive basis for really striking pictures, and he took care that, by the time the picture reached the “block” stage, it possessed some striking elements.

Claude Westwood also seemed to think that he could scarcely do better than ignore the words that Agnes had spoken to him when he had come to her for congratulations. He made an effort to resume his former friendly relations with her, but he never quite succeeded in his efforts in this direction. Agnes, he felt, did not respond to him as he had expected she would, and she gave him now and again the impression that she still regarded their relations as somewhat strained. He was obliged to see Clare frequently, and he was too polite to ignore the presence of Agnes, though she would have much preferred him to do so, and he knew it. The fact of his knowing it made him feel a little uncomfortable.

A week had passed in this unsatisfactory way, when one afternoon, Agnes, having come in from her drive, sat down with Clare to their tea and hot cakes. The girl was not quite so lively as she had been during the week, and Agnes noticed the change, inquiring the cause of it.

Clare coloured slightly, and laughed uneasily.

“Somehow I feel a little startled,” said she. “Claude has been here.”

“What, you consider that a sufficient explanation?” said Agnes.

Clare laughed more uneasily still.

“He has been saying something that startled me. The fact is that he—well, he thinks that I—that he—I should rather say that we, he and I, would complete the book more satisfactorily if we were—You see, Agnes dear, he does not like coming here so frequently; he feels that he is trespassing upon your patience.”

“He is wrong, then,” said Agnes. “But what is the alternative that he proposes?”

“He thinks that we should get married at once and go to the Court together,” replied Clare, in a low voice.

“And what do you say to that proposal?”

“Well, you know, dearest Agnes, it is not six months since my dear mother's death: still—ah, dear, would she not wish to see me happy?”

“Yes; but is that saying that she would wish to see you married?”

“He is coming to talk to you about it after dinner to-night.”

Clare spoke quietly as she rose from her seat and left the room.

He came very late. Agnes only was in the drawing-room, for Clare had gone to her studio after dinner, saying she wished to finish one of the pictures.

He was as uneasy in addressing her as Clare had been. He began to speak the moment he entered the room. Agnes interrupted him.

“You have not yet seen Clare,” she said.

“I have not come to see her. It is you whom I have come to see,” said he. “The fact is, my dear Agnes”—

“Go to her,” said Agnes. “Go to her and kiss her; it will be for the last time.”

She spoke almost sorrowfully. He was impressed by the tone.

“For the last time—to-night, you mean to say,” he suggested.

“For the last time on earth!” said she.

“You are mad,” he cried, after a pause, during which he stared at her. “You are mad; you do not know me—you do not know her.”

“You will not go to her?”

“I will not go to her—I will not leave this room until you have told me what you mean by saying these words. You shall tell me what these words mean—if they have any meaning.”

“Very well, I will tell you. A week ago you said some words to me. You put a question to me which I promised to answer at my own time. You said, 'Will you force me to wish that I had never seen you?' You said that to me—you—Claude Westwood—to me.”

“I admit that I was cruel—I know that I was cruel.”

“Oh no; you were not cruel. You have shown me since your return that you regard women as too humble an organisation to be susceptible of great suffering. You are a scientific man, and one of your theories is that the lower in the scheme of creation is any form of life, the less capable it is of suffering. You cleave your worm in twain—there is a little wriggle—no more—each half goes off quite briskly in its own way. You chop off a lizard's tail without causing it any particular inconvenience; I wonder if you think of me as a little better than the worm, a little higher than the lizard. How could any man say words of such cruelty to a woman whom he had once promised to love, if he had not believed her to be dead to all sense of suffering?”

She stood before him with her hands clenched and her eyes flashing; but only for a few moments. Then she made a gesture of contempt—she gave a little shudder as she turned away from him.

He remained motionless for a brief space, then went without a word to the door. The sound of his fingers on the handle caused her to look round.

“Don't go away for a moment,” she said. “You will pardon that tirade of mine, I am sure. I don't know how it was forced from me. I shall not be so foolish again.”

“I think I had better go: you are scarcely yourself to-night,” said he.

“Scarcely myself? Well, perhaps I am not. I must confess that that outburst of mine surprised me. It will not occur again, I promise you.”

“I think I had better leave you.”

He still stood at the door. In his voice there was again a tone of reproach. There was some sadness in the little shake of his head, as though he meant to suggest that he was greatly pained at not being able to trust her.

His attitude stung her. She became white once more. She put up her hand to her throat. She was making a great effort to calm herself. Still it was some moments before she was able to say:

“Very well, very well. Do not come any nearer to me. You came to talk business. Continue. You were about to tell me that you mean to go to London to-morrow in order to get the document that will enable you to marry some one without delay. The name of Claude Westwood will appear at one part of that document. What name is to appear beside yours?”

“Why do you ask that?” he said, removing his hand from the handle of the door.

“In order to prevent any mistake,” said she. “You have probably sent forward to the proper authorities the name of Clare Tristram.”

He was grave. He shook his head sadly, and put his hand upon the lock of the door once again. He somehow suggested that he expected her to tell him that it was not the name of Clare Tristram but of Agnes Mowbray which should by right be or the special licence, beside his name.

She took a step toward him, as if she were about to speak angrily; but she checked herself.

“There is no such person as Clare Tristram,” she said.

He gave a single glance toward her. Then he sighed and shook his head gently as before. He turned the handle of the door.

“Don't open that door, for God's sake! She is the daughter of Carton Standish, who killed your brother.”

He did not give a start nor did he utter a cry as she whispered those words. He only turned and looked at her. He looked at her for a long time—several seconds. The silence was awful. The clock on the bracket chimed the second quarter.

“My God! mad—this woman is mad!” he said, in a whisper that sounded like a gasp.

She made no attempt to reply. He went to her.

“What have you said?” he asked. “I don't seem to recollect. Did you say anything?”

“I stated a fact,” she replied. “I am sincere when I say that I would to God it were not true.”

“She—she—my beloved—the daughter—it is a lie—you have told me a lie—confess that it is a lie!”

“I cannot, even though you should make your fingers meet upon my arm!”

He almost flung her away from him. He had grasped her by the wrist. He covered his face with his hands. She looked at her wrist—the red marks over the white flesh.

“I'll not believe it!” he cried suddenly. “Agnes, Agnes; you will confess that it is a falsehood?”

“Alas! Alas!” she cried,

“I'll not believe it. Proofs—where are your proofs?”

“This is the letter which she brought to me from her mother—the letter written by her mother on her deathbed.”

She unlocked an escritoire, and took out a letter. He glanced at it, and gave a cry of agony.

“O God—my God! And I cursed him—I cursed him and every one belonging to him!”

He threw himself into a chair and bowed his head down to his hands.

“I prayed that evil might fall upon all that pertained to him,” he cried. “My prayer has been heard. The curse has fallen!”

“Is there any tragedy in life like the answering of a prayer? I prayed for your safe return, and—you returned.”

She spoke without bitterness. There was no bitterness in her heart at that moment.

There was a long pause before he looked up.

“And you—you—knowing all—avowed us to be together—you did not keep us apart. You brought this misery upon us!”

“I thought you were safe from such a fate; it was only when we were at the Court that I learned that you loved her; even then I believed that she loved another man. When I said those words of warning to you a week ago, what was your reply tome? 'Do not make me wish that I had never seen you.' Those were your words.”

“And what shall my words be now?”

A little thrill went through her. She turned upon him.

“You wish you had never seen me?” she said, her voice tremulous with emotion. “But if that is your wish, what do you think is mine? Nine years—my God!—nine years out of a woman's life! Ruin—you have made my life a ruin! Was there ever such truth as mine? Was there ever such falsehood as yours? Do you remember nothing of the past? Do you remember nothing of the words which you spoke in my hearing in this very room nearly nine years ago? 'I will be true to you for ever—I shall make a name that will in some degree be worthy of you.' Those were your words as we parted. Not a tear would I shed until you had gone away, though my tears were choking me. But then—then—oh, my God! what then? What voice is there that can tell a man of the agony of a constant woman? The days, the months, the years of that terrible constancy! nights of terror when I saw you lying dead among the wild places of that unknown world—nights when a passion of tears followed a passion ot prayer for your safety! Oh, the agony of those long years that robbed me of my youth—that scarred my face with lines of care! Well, they came to an end, my prayer was answered, you returned in safety; but instead of having some pity for the woman who had wasted her life in waiting for you, you flung me aside with scarcely a word, and now you reproach me—you reproach me! Give me back those years of my life that you robbed me of—give me back my youth that I wasted upon you—give me back the tears that I shed for you—and then I will listen to your reproaches.”

“I deserve your worst reproaches,” said he, his head still bowed down. “I deserve the worst, and you have not spared me.”

“Ah, I have spared you,” she said. “I might have allowed you to marry the daughter of that man, and to find out the terrible truth afterwards.”

“It is just that I should suffer; but she—she—my beloved—is it just that she should suffer?”

He had risen and was walking to and fro with clasped hands.

“Alas! alas! Her judgment comes from you. It was you yourself who repeated those dreadful words—'unto the third and fourth generation.'”

“She is guiltless—she shall never know of her father's crime.”

He had stopped in the centre of the room and was looking toward the door.

“She shall not hear of it from me,” said Agnes. “She shall at least be spared that pain, in addition to the pain of parting from you.”

“She shall be spared ever, that,” said he in a low voice.

“What?”

“I cannot part from her It is too late now.”

“You do not mean that”—

“I mean that I shall marry her.”

A cry came from Agnes before he had quite spoken.

“Ah, you will not be so pitiless,” she said. “You will not do her that injustice. You will not wreck her life, too.”

“I will marry her,” said he doggedly.

“You will marry her to make her happy for a month—happy in a fool's paradise—happy till you begin to think that the face beside you may be the same as the face that watched your brother lying in his blood—that the hand which you caress—Oh, Claude, cannot you see that every day, every hour, she could not but feel that you are nursing a secret that separates you more completely from her than if an ocean were between you? Can you hope to keep that secret from her? Do you know nothing of woman? Claude, she will read your secret in a month.”

“God help me, I will marry her and let the worst come upon us!”

“You shall not do her this injustice if I can help it.”

“You cannot help it.”

“I will tell her that she is the daughter of Carton Standish; and then, if she chooses to marry you, she will do so with her eyes open.”

She went to the door.

“No—no; not that—not that,” he cried.

She opened the door and called the girl's name. He threw himself once more down on a chair and bowed his head.

The answering voice of Clare was heard, and then the sound of her feet on the oak floor of the passage.

“You will come here for a few moments, Clare,” said Agnes, and the girl entered the room.

He kept his face bowed down almost to his knees, as he cried:

“No, no; don't tell her that. Take her away; I cannot look at her. Take her away; tell her anything but that.”

Clare gasped. She caught the arm which Agnes held out to her.

“Clare,” said Agnes, “you must nerve yourself for the worst. Mr. Westwood wishes to be released from his engagement to you. He has heard something; that is to say, he has come to the conclusion that—that he must leave this country without delay—in short, to-morrow he sets out for Africa once more.”

“That is not true!” cried Clare. “I can hear the false ring in your words. Claude—Claude, you do not mean”—

“Take her away—take her away! I cannot look at her. I see him—him in the room.”

The girl gave a start, and looked from the one to the other. She straightened herself and the expression on her face was one of defiance.

“Very well,” she said. “Yes, it is very well.”

She gave a long sigh, then a gasp. Her face became deathly white. She did not fall. Agnes had caught her in her arms.