Carità

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE SUPREME MOMENT.

‘Oh, I do not require to be sent home!’ Agnes said, with a sudden flush of fright. To go home was far from being what she desired. Indeed, she did not quite like to leave the House and the girls’ procession even for one day. The pale little girl who was her companion was excited and noisy with joy; but as she took her seat in a corner of a second-class carriage Agnes felt less exhilarated than depressed, though there was a curious jumble of feelings in her mind. The motion was pleasant, the fresh air—after the languid breezes of London—revived and refreshed the country-born girl. Ah! green fields still looked just so, the birds sang as of old, only there was something in the breeze and the sunshine and the birds which she never had known before—something—which suggested a want, a void, and yet a hope. She would not say to herself what that void was, but yet felt that it was strange, looking out from the window of the carriage, not to see one face which she always saw when she looked out. Very strange—and yet, when she reminded herself, so much more strange would it have been had she seen it. It was quite early when they started; the fresh morning lights, still so soft in their early brightness, caught the dews lying still here and there in the corners. The child prattled on for an hour or so, then got tired, and leaned her head against Agnes, and went to sleep. Agnes was glad. It saved her from the necessity of answering, and allowed her to plunge into all the sweet enchantment of dreams. There is a time in most lives when one’s own thoughts are more entertaining, more absorbing, than the highest fiction, and when poetry is nothing to the vague glory of musing which envelopes the young soul like an atmosphere of its own. This was what Agnes had come to now. She supposed she was thinking, but she was no more thinking than the pale child, whose soft little sickly cheek leant up against her shoulder with such confiding ease. The child slept, being sick and weakly; the girl dreamed, being young, and feeling the sweetness of life to her very fingertips. There was nobody to disturb them, nothing but the wind of their rapid going, the rush of motion, the vision of green fields and trees flitting past, the clouds in the sky sailing over them. In such circumstances even a dusty railway journey grows poetical. The black poke bonnet and the conventual cloak did not make it less so, though, alas! they made those thoughts, when she suddenly woke up to a consciousness of them, very guilty and dreadful to Agnes. But for this morning at least, once in a way, she had escaped from the duties of life, and the soft haze which crept over her seemed more allowable during this interval in which it was evident she could do nothing else. She had her duty with her in the shape of the little invalid by her side, to whom Providence had sent this soothing medicine of sleep: then was not Agnes free? Something as subduing as sleep itself, and more sweet than dreams, brought a film over her soft eyes. It was only a second-class carriage on a dusty railway, but one wonders if in any human paradise ever dreamt by poets there could be anything more sweet.

In the same train there was another traveller by no means sharing in this soft trance of enchantment. Oswald, you may be sure, was travelling first-class. His morning dress had all the easy perfection which belongs to an English gentleman’s morning toilette; he was the very impersonation of that simple luxury which pleases our insular vanity, which costs the utmost possible with the least possible show. And he was delighted with his adventure, with his own cleverness in bringing this adventure to so prosperous a point, with the chance of seeing Agnes and having her to himself; but anxious, and turning over a hundred plans in his mind as to how he was to manage it all.

Limpet Bay was a very small place on the banks of the Thames, just where the river becomes sea, and had to be reached by a branch from a junction whence trains only went at very awkward hours. This was why it had been necessary to start so early. The question was where and how he was to show himself, so as not to alarm too much the shy object of his pursuit, and at the same time to take full advantage of this propitious moment. Oswald’s mind was busy with this subject all the way to the junction. He had no time for the dreams which wrapped Agnes in a delicious stillness of thought; he had to debate this important question with himself. If he showed at once, she might think it right to shut herself up in the Sanatorium until the time came for her return. Even if she did so he had still all the chances of the journey in his favour, but these were limited, and subject to interruption; whereas, if he kept concealed, who could doubt that Agnes would stray out upon the sands, or to the little pier, or about the low rocks on the beach to taste the salt breezes coming strong and cheery over the sea? He resolved at last to deny himself, and trust to this after certainty, notwithstanding that the temptations to premature self-discovery were strong. Fortunately the carriages in which they were seated went through, and there was no change made at the junction, which must have betrayed him; and there he sat, his heart beating, his mind exhilarated and in lively action, pleased with himself and his plans and his prospects, as well as delighted with the thought of so soon meeting her. It was an emotion altogether different from that of Agnes—less poetical, less spiritual, less entrancing. He knew what he wanted, and would in all probability get it; but what she wanted was that vague infinite which no soul ever gets, in this universe at least. To him the moments when he should have met her, when he should have persuaded her into saying anything or everything that a shy maiden could say, when he should carry her off triumphantly and marry her, and make her his own, were all quite distinct, and better than this moment, when he held himself in leash—waiting and impatient; but to her would any moment ever be equal to that hour of dreams? Thus they swept along, each alone, characteristically occupied, making progress, conscious or unconscious, out of the sweet preface and overture of existence into life.

It came about as Oswald had foreseen. The day was one of the loveliest days of early June, the foliage still fresh in its spring livery, the earth still downy in soft green of the springing corn and softer velvet of the grass; the daisies and buttercups, simplest of delights, were still a wonder to behold, the wild roses sweet on all the hedgerows, lighting up the country with delicate flushes of colour. Then as they neared the sea came the greyer greenness of the downs, soft undulations, yellow stretches of sand, surrounded by the blue glory of the salt water, broken and cheerful with white wavelets, not big enough to trouble anything save in elvish mischief, the nearest approach to laughter that is in nature. The red roofs of the village, the fishing-boats, even the half-built chaos of a Marine Parade, by means of which Limpet Bay meant to tempt visitors one day or other, were beautiful to Oswald as they approached, and wove themselves like a picture into Agnes’s fancies. Her little charge woke, and was clamorous with pleasure. Was that the sea? were those the sands where Emmy went to play? were these brown things rocks? Her questions were innumerable. A Sister of the same order, a mild-eyed woman, made half-beautiful by the close white cap and collar, which threw up the healthful tints of her face, met them, and conducted them to the Sanatorium, or Convalescent-home of the sisterhood, which rose, with its peaked roofs, in the semi-ecclesiastical cottage-Gothic which Anglicanism has appropriated to itself, a little apart from the village. Oswald, watching anxiously from his window, kept himself out of sight till the little party had gone with their boxes and baskets. He was the only first-class passenger who had come that day, or for many days, to Limpet Bay, and the population, so much as there was, received him with excitement. It seemed possible that he might be going to stay, and what a success for the place to have a gentleman—a gentleman!—so early in the year. Two or three loungers volunteered to show him the inn, others to carry his things, though he had nothing to carry, others to guide him to the port. A bourgeois family might be more profitable in the long run, but it is not so exciting to the imagination as a gentleman—a real gentleman, generally supposed to be a creature to whom money is absolutely indifferent, and whose pockets are full for everybody’s benefit. He shook them all off, however, and went through the village to the sands, where he sat down under a rock to wait. There was nobody there, not even little Emmy and her convalescent companions, nothing but a boat or two on the shore, a fisher-boy or so, half in half out of the water. And the little waves leaped and laughed and gurgled, and the big ones rolled softly in with their long hus—sh on the warm sands. Scenery there was none to speak of—a blue sea, a blue sky, the one flecked with wavelets, the other with cloudlets; a brownish-yellow slope of sand, a grey-green shoulder of velvety mossy down, a few low fantastic rocks, a rude brown-red fishing coble; yet with what a sense of beauty and pleasantness those nothings filled the mind! mere air and sunshine and summer sounds, and simplest life—nothing more.

Oswald sat and waited, not very patiently, behind the bit of rock. Sometimes he forgot himself for a moment, and mused almost like Agnes, but with thoughts more active. If he could but get her into one of those boats and take her out upon the blue silence of the sea, where no one could interfere with him, no one interrupt his love-tale, not even her own scruples! Now the decisive moment of his life (he said to himself) was at hand. Never again would he have such an opportunity—everything must be settled to-day. It was the last day of this sweet clandestine romance which pleased his fancy so much more than serious wooing. After this it would be necessary to descend to the precautions of ordinary life, to see her family, to ask the consent of her father and mother, to arrange horrible business, and fall into the groove like ordinary men. But to-day! was there not anything wild, adventurous, out of the usual jog-trot, that they could do to-day? Her dress was the chief thing that restrained Oswald. He could have carried off a girl in the habiliments of ordinary life, could have persuaded her into a boating expedition (he thought), in defiance of all the conventional rules of society; but a girl in a convent dress, a girl in a close cap and poke bonnet! She only looked the fairer for that rim of solid white which made the warm tints of her complexion tell so powerfully; but the cap was a visible sign of separation from the world which daunted the boldness of the youth. Nevertheless the laughing brightness of the water and the tempting nearness of the boat made Oswald restless. He called the owner to him, who was stolidly lounging about, from time to time looking at his property, and hired it, then sent for a little basket of provisions from the inn, enough for luncheon. Was it possible that he might be able to beguile her to go out with him? He went back to his rock, and sat, with his heart beating, to wait.

Before long a little band of the small convalescents came trooping on to the sands. Oswald felt that he was lost if he was discovered by these small women, or at least by Emmy, who was among them, and he stole round to the other side of his rock, hiding himself till they passed on. There was a little donkey-chair, with two who were still invalids, tenderly driven along the smooth sands by the mild-eyed Sister whom he had seen receiving Agnes at the railway. They went on, passing him to a further point, where shells and seaweed were to be found; and the voices and laughter of the children sounded sweetly from that distance upon the fresh breeze from the sea. If they had been nearer he would not have found them so musical. Finally there appeared a solitary figure in black robes, intercepting the light. She was gazing at the sea, so that Oswald could not see her face. It seemed to him that he knew her step though it was noiseless; that no one could mistake her; but still it was not absolutely certain it was she. She came along slowly, her footsteps altogether undirected by her eyes, which were fixed on the sea. It was not the maiden meditation of the poet. Her eyes were with her heart, and that was far away. She had kept behind, happily, while the Sister took out her little band, and now came alone, moving softly over the long stretch of beach, now and then stopping to look at the sea. It was during one of these pauses that Oswald rose from his place of partial concealment, and went along the sands to meet her. His steps were inaudible upon that soft footing, and it was impossible to say what influence it was which made Agnes turn round suddenly and meet him straight, face to face. The start she gave made every line of her figure, all shrouded in the black cloak, tremble. She uttered a little cry unawares, and put up her hands in alarm and wonder. You would have said he was the last person in the world whom she expected to see; and yet she had done nothing but think of him every step of the way as she came along; and the last person she wished to see—though even the thought of him, which accompanied her wherever she went, made the world a changed place to Agnes. But to be thinking of an individual whom you believe to be far off, and entirely separated from you, and then to turn round and see him at your elbow, is startling, even when the sentiment is less intense than that which was in the girl’s mind.

‘You are surprised to see me,’ he said, hastening to her side.

‘Yes,’ she said; ‘very much surprised.’ Then trying to regain her composure, ‘I did not know—it is a coincidence—this is such a very quiet place——’

‘Very quiet, and how lovely! I have been sitting under that rock’ (Agnes turned round to look at it) ‘waiting for you.’

‘Waiting—for me!’

‘Why should I make believe,’ said Oswald; ‘or why should you wonder? What should I come here for but to see you? to watch over you at a distance, and—I confess it, though it may seem selfish—to speak to you when I could find an opportunity——’

‘Indeed, indeed!’ she said, clasping her hands, ‘you ought not—you must not! I have said so before.’

‘Do you think it likely,’ said Oswald, with fine seriousness, ‘that I should have followed you like your shadow for so long, and leave off all at once, without explanation, without reason? Agnes, here we are safe and quite out of the reach of interruption. Here you may listen to me without shocking—yourself, or anyone. Hear me first. The poorest beggar in the street you will give a hearing to, why not to me? Let me tell you everything. Let me ask you what I must ask—let me know my fate.’

‘Mr. Meredith,’ she said, speaking very low and quickly, ‘these are not words to be used to me. I—I do not know you——’

‘Not know me!’ he repeated with ingenuous wonder.

‘I mean—of course I have seen you a great many times. Of course I—but I ought not to know you,’ she went on, with a little vehemence. ‘I have—nothing to do with you.’

‘How unkind, how unkind you are!’

This reproach silenced her. She gave him a hasty look, with a sudden, half-supplicating movement of her hands.

‘When a man loves a woman,’ said Oswald, with anxious art, ‘they are almost always strangers to each other. Do you blame him if he takes every means to introduce himself, to try to get her to know him, to believe in him, to reply to him? You are not at home; not in circumstances to allow this. What could I do? I would have brought my mother; but I told you what happened to us, and the trouble my mother is in. And, besides, pardon me if I had a hope that you, who were not a common girl like others, would understand me, would let me speak without all the vulgar preliminaries——. We are not like two nobodies, two butterflies of whom no one knows anything,’ he said, with a vague flourish of trumpets.

Agnes made him no reply; she was without words. Indeed, she was a little overawed by this explanation—‘not like two nobodies, of whom no one knows anything.’ Who was he? what had he done to lift him to the rank of those whom other people knew?

‘At all events,’ he said, after a pause, ‘will you not give me my chance now? We are here, with no one to say a word, nobody to interfere with us, no one to think we are doing wrong. Let me have my chance now. If you condemn me I promise to go away, I shall have no heart to trouble you longer,’ he said, in a pathetic tone, which made poor Agnes tremble. Had she the heart to condemn him? Oh, how little he knew! She yielded, saying to herself that it was the shortest way; that anything else would be foolish; and gave her consent, without looking at him, with a grave little movement of her head. He led her to the rock where he had been sitting waiting for her, and where she now followed him without a word. How their hearts were beating, both of them, though all was so still! She sat down on the smooth rock, he half kneeling on the sand by her side. The soft summer air surrounded them; the sea, dropping out of its morning smiles, fell into a hush of listening, and stilled everything about that the tale might not be disturbed. ‘Hus—sh,’ said the soft, long waves as the tide stole in. A few soft clouds flitted over the sun, softening his mid-day radiance: the hush of noon fell upon earth and sea. And there Agnes sat, throned in that momentary judgment-seat of her womanhood, with his fate, as he said, in her hands. The words had a deeper meaning than Oswald thought of. The fate of other lives hung on that decision—of her own more than of his. But neither of them thought of that. Would she accept him? it was incredible that she could refuse him. This was the real conviction in his heart; and yet he trembled too.

Neither of them knew how long they sat there, while Agnes on her throne listened—trembling, blushing, weeping, hiding soft gleams of sympathetic looks, keeping back kindred confessions that stole to her own lips. She heard the story of Oswald’s love. It did not lose in the telling, and yet it was true. Though his poetry was not of a very elevated kind, as the reader knows, it gave him a command of words, it gave him skill enough to know how that story should be told. He paused for no instant reply, but went through the record from beginning to end. Never had the girl heard such a tale. Romance, even in books, was little known to her; she had been brought up upon matters of fact; and lo, here was a romance of her own, poetry living and breathing, stealing the very heart out of Agnes’s bosom. She resisted as long as she could, hiding her tears, hiding the quivering of her mouth, keeping her eyes down that no chance look might betray her, marshalling all her forces to do battle against this subtle influence. After all, those forces were not great; devotion to her work—but, alas, for weeks past the insidious foe had been undermining her walls, whispering of other duties more natural, more gracious, pointing out all the defects in that work to eyes which could not refuse to see them: regard for the prejudices of conventional life, the want of proper introduction, &c., a formidable horror to the girl’s inexperienced mind, and yet with no real force in it, for had not she, too, broken the bonds of society? Eventually the strength ebbed away from her as she listened. Last of all her routed forces took refuge in the last yet frailest citadel of all—her dress. It was that, too, that Oswald had thought of. In the absence of all real objections to this mutual understanding, this little barrier of chiffons erected itself. How could she in that garb of self-sacrifice choose personal happiness, her own way, and all the brightnesses instead of all the sadnesses of existence? This thought gave her a little temporary strength.

‘Agnes,’ he said, with agitation, ‘those wretched children are coming back again. I must go away unless you will acknowledge and receive me. Agnes! think; can all this go for nothing, all this chapter in our lives? Can it end and be as if it had not been! Oh, look at me! Speak to me! Don’t say no with your voice. I will not believe it. Let me see your face——’

She turned to him slowly, her mouth quivering, flashes of flying colour going and coming, her eyelids—which she could not lift—heavy with tears, every line in her face moving and eloquent with feeling. ‘What can I say?’—her voice was so low and hurried that he had to bend forward to hear her—‘in this place, in this dress. Is it right? Oh, why should you ask me? What can I say——?’

‘Look at me, Agnes!’

With an effort, as if she could not help it, she slowly lifted her eyes. There were two great tears in them, oceans of unspeakable meaning, veiling yet magnifying the truth below. One moment and then she covered her face with her hands. There was no more to say.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE HAND OF FATE.

The afternoon was still, softer, brighter, warmer than the morning; the wind went down, and turned into the softest puff of a caressing breeze; the white caps of the waves melted away into a delicious ripple which crisped without agitating the broad blue sunny surface of the water. Overhead a few flitting specks of white cloud sailed softly by like motes upon the unfathomable blue in which one lost one’s self when one looked up. What a day it was! and what a strange dream of happiness to be floating there, between one blue and the other, suspended in that liquid world of air between the two, with soft blessedness of motion, and delicious tinkle of sound, and caressing of the air and of the sun! It was not too warm nor too bright, nor too anything, for the two who were afloat upon that summer sea. Their boat glided along as it pleased, with a little white sail to catch the little air that was blowing; and kind fortune watched over the voyage to see that no harm came—kind fortune, or some of the younger angels who watch over true lovers—for the captain of the little craft gave but small attention to the helm. Fortunately, the sea was broad, and they were out of the way of the many vessels issuing from the Thames, the sight of which as they floated downward, with white sails wooing the breeze, or even with fussy paddlewheels or creaking screw which defied it, added, as far as sight could add, a certain additional charm to the blessedness of these two. They were like emblemes of the race afloat upon that soft brightness at the edge of ocean, tempting the wind should it rise, tempting the waves should any storm-caprice seize them to toss the unwary dreamers into peril—but heeding nothing, taking the sweet calm and the delight of peaceful nature for granted, and making everything subsidiary to their happiness. Never had the young man known such a soft climax of happiness; never had the young girl received out of the stepdame hands of Life, so bare and spare to her hitherto, anything at all resembling this hour. It was the first taste of the elixir and cordial which makes the fainting live, and transforms all heaven and earth to the young. Happiness! we can all live without it, and most of us manage to do so very fairly; but when it comes, what a change it makes! Agnes had never known that penetrating, exquisite touch from heaven, which transcends all vulgar things. Since she had been a child, happy without knowing why, the conditions of life had not been sweet to her—flat and dreary and dull, and without fellowship, had been most of those youthful days which are so much longer than days ever are afterwards. But now! the flat preface had surely been designed by heaven on purpose to throw up into fuller loveliness this day of days. Had anyone ever been so happy before? with the sun and the sea, and the soft air, and nature, tender mother, all smiling, caressing, helping, as if there was any need to help! as if the chief fact of all was not enough to make the dullest skies and greyest space resplendent. Agnes felt herself the spoiled child of heaven. She looked up into the wonderful blue above, tears coming to her eyes and thanks into her heart. Was it not the hand of God that had turned all her life into joy and brightness—what else? when she had not been serving Him as she ought. But that was heaven’s celestial way; and oh with what fervour of grateful love, with what devotion and tender zeal of thanksgiving would not she serve Him now! ‘Yes!’ she said, when Oswald displayed before her his pictures of happiness, and told where he would take her, how they should live, with what beautiful surroundings, amid what pleasures and sweetness and delight. ‘Yes!’ It was all a dream of impossible blessedness sure to come true; ‘but we must still think of the poor,’ she said, looking at him with those sweetest tears in her eyes. He called her all kinds of heavenly names in the admiration of his young love—‘Angel,’ as all lovers call all beloveds; and both of them felt a touch of tender goodness in them in addition to every other blessedness. Yes! they would think of the poor; they would help all who wanted help; they would be tender, very tender, of the unhappy. Were there, indeed, still unhappy people in the world? with what awe of reverent pity these two thought of them, would have succoured them, served them on their knees! This thought served to give a kind of consecration to their own height of visionary joy.

And yet there was one little thing that disturbed them both, which was no less and no more than the cap and poke bonnet which Agnes wore. She took them off as they floated along, and threw a white handkerchief over her head, which made her look more like a Perugino than ever; and then Oswald produced out of his pocket a letter-case which he was in the habit of carrying about with him, full of verses and scraps of composition, and read to her the lines which he had gone over so often:

With what a glow of happy yet subdued brightness the fair face was illuminated as he read! Agnes, who never had written a line, had a far more poetical mind than he had, who span them by the mile. Some mysterious tide seemed to rise in her veins as the words fell on her ears. It was all poetry—the situation, the scene, the voice, the wonderful incredible joy that had come to her beyond all expectation. She sat as in a dream, but it was a dream that was true; and the sunshiny sea stretched round them, and the soft air caressed them, and the soft ripples of water tinkled against the boat with silvery delicious sound, and the sky, unfathomable, awful, yet lovely, stretched over them. They were alone, absolutely free from all interruption, and the charmed hours flew. Oswald had provisioned the boat as he could, while she went to say good-by to her little charge, and to announce her intention of returning early to town. Agnes had eluded the kind Sisters, making a guilty pretence of having no time to see them. It was wrong, and a sense of guilt was in her heart; but the temptation was so great. He was her betrothed; there was no real wrong in these few sweet hours together; and he had pleaded so anxiously, and would have been so unhappy, so much disappointed had she refused him. So nature won the day, as nature does so often, and this was the result. They ate a celestial meal together, biscuits and a little wine, which even in the happiness of the moment Oswald recognised as bad. They had floated out to the horn of the bay, and there lay moving softly with the gentle lapping of the water, wishing for no more—too happy in the moment to desire any change.

At last, however, the sunset became too apparent, attracting their notice with its low lines of gold that came into their very eyes, low as they were upon the surface of the sea. Agnes had no watch, and Oswald would not look at his. ‘There is plenty of time,’ he said; ‘we shall get our train, too soon; let us have as much of this as we can;’ and Agnes assented timidly. ‘So long as we make sure of our train.’ ‘Perhaps there may never be such a day again,’ she added softly, under her breath.

‘Better days,’ darling—hundreds of them,’ he said, and then looking at her, began to repeat softly poetry which was very different from his own:—

The words hushed them, their pulses being toned to all manner of fantasies. The poetry was more real than the evening, and the evening more real than anything in earth besides. And thus time glided, and the water rippled, and the sun went down, and the evening melted away.

‘I am afraid we must get in now,’ he said, with a start, waking up. The long summer evening had just begun to wane, the first shadow coming into it from the east. Still all was bright, a high festival of colour where the sunset had been, over the glowing sea towards the west; but from the land the first chill of grey was already afloat, that told the approach of night. There was very little wind, but that was dead against their return, and so when Oswald took to the oars was the tide, which swept him round the horn of the bay with a special force of suction which he was not acquainted with. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘don’t look frightened; we’ll let ourselves drift past with the tide, and then run into the next little place. It is always a stopping train, and don’t you remember we passed all those villages coming down?’

‘But we did not stop,’ cried Agnes, dismayed.

‘The last train stops everywhere,’ said the young man; ‘you are not cold? Put your cloak round you; and ah, yes, the bonnet must go on again. I shall always love the bonnet. Yes, you shall keep one in your wardrobe, always; there is nothing like it. “The holy time is quiet as a nun——”’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘please do not think of anything but to get back; if we should miss our train——’

‘Is not this worth even missing a train?’ he said, still looking at her. He was rowing indeed, and at last the boat was making way; but what did he care? He was too happy to think about a train. But then, heaven help her, what was to become of her if this train was missed? Her face grew pale, then crimson, with the terrible thought.

‘Oh, please, please! do not delay; yes, it has been delightful; but my train! What should I do? What would they say? Oh, for heaven’s sake—for pity’s sake!’

‘If you said for love’s sake—for your sake, Agnes——’

‘Ah, I do!’ she said, clasping her hands; and he looked at her smiling, with eyes she could scarcely meet. He rowed, it is true—yes, rowed at last with a little energy; but still smiled and talked, and would not see the anxiety that began to devour her. What was it to him? But to her! She looked at him with beseeching eyes.

‘Yes, darling,’ he said, ‘yes, sweet; yes, my own!’ and laughed and looked, and made her face glow with his tender eyes. It was like throwing sugar-plums at someone who was drowning. But Agnes was too much in love herself to be able to realise that this was not the best way of loving. It was very sweet, though it was almost cruel. How quickly the dusk seemed to steal on! The colour faded away bit by bit from the sky, the blue went out of the water, the wind grew a little chill—or was it only anxiety and terror that made her chill? She began to forget everything: what had happened, and even him, in her anxiety to get to the shore. Her brain began to swim. What would become of her? what would they say? Oswald was half affronted at last by her anxiety and silence, and swept along with long vigorous strokes that vindicated his character as an oarsman. Agnes sprang from the boat, almost neglecting his offered hand, when at last it grated upon the beach.

‘I will run to the station,’ she cried, stumbling over the shingle, her heart beating, and dread in her soul. The train! the train! that was all she thought of; and oh, what would be thought of her? what had she been doing? She rushed along through the darkness, scarcely seeing where she went. Oswald had to stay behind, fuming, to settle about the boat, and engage someone to take it back. He overtook her only as she got to the station. A train was there just ready to start, about which he received rather unsatisfactory information: but she had seated herself in the dark corner of a second-class carriage before he got up to her. After a moment’s pause he seated himself by her side. It was better, perhaps, at least, to get as far on as they could—to get out of the village, which was quite near enough to the Convalescent Home to permit of gossip reaching that place; and by this time Oswald was as self-reproachful as could be desired. He went and sat down beside her, penitent. It was no trouble to him to take the blame on himself at any time, and Oswald, who had been subject to much mild blame all his life, though he had never done anything very wicked, knew that to take it upon yourself was to disarm your adversaries. He adopted this facile and touching method of self-defence.

‘What a brute I am!’ he said; ‘can you ever forgive me? to have risked your comfort, my darling, for pleasure to myself!’

‘Oh no,’ she said, putting her hand timidly into his, which was held out for it. It seemed clear at once to Agnes that it was her fault.

‘But yes,’ he said. ‘I ought to have been more thoughtful. Ah, forgive me, dearest! think what the temptation was. I have never had you to myself before. The day was too sweet to end; I was too happy; but I should have thought of you.’

There was in this a subtle suggestion that she on her side had not been so happy—the delicatest shade of reproach—which Agnes could not bear.

‘Oh, do not say so,’ she said, ‘as if I had not been—happy too.’ And then they were both silent, clasping each other’s hands. ‘And we have not missed it after all,’ she added a moment after, with a quaver in her voice.

Oswald kept silence with a horrible misgiving. He knew, though she did not, that this was not the train she thought, and for once he was sincerely shocked and alarmed by the position he found himself in. All the way along, as the carriage rolled through the darkening twilight at a pace which seemed slow and tedious to travellers accustomed to express speed, he was trying to turn over in his mind the best thing to do, looking at her returning confidence and ease with a sense of guilt and horrible anticipations. What was to be done? There was a hope that a train which must pass the junction might be stopped by signal if this lumbering little branch would only push on its feeble engine fast enough. But if not—— The perspiration came to his forehead in great drops. He had never before in his life been so confronted by the results of his own foolishness. He ought to have attended to all the symptoms of the waning afternoon; he ought to have listened to her appeal; he ought to have thought of something else than the pleasure of the moment, and a little lengthening out of the delightful day. Heretofore some happy chapter of accidents had always delivered Oswald from the penalty of his misdoings, or at the worst it had only been himself whom he had injured. But now the creature dearest to him in the world—the one whom he had chosen out of the world—was she to suffer for his foolishness? All that was manly in him was roused by the emergency. It may be supposed he was not a very entertaining companion during the long three-quarters of an hour which it took them to reach the junction. It was almost dark, the soft dark of a summer night, when they were landed upon the desolate little platform, the sole travellers. One or two languid porters about were evidently waiting with impatience till this last disturber of their repose was cleared away. The day, which had been so deliciously fresh and sweet on the water, had been very hot inland, and the world in general was languid and anxious to be quite still and at rest.

‘Wait here till I go and inquire,’ he said, depositing Agnes upon a seat. To be so far on her journey quieted her. She ceased to be anxious, supposing that the arrival of the other train was a simple matter of a few minutes’ delay, and her mind floated back to the wonderful day just over, and to all the changes it would make in her life. She must tell Sister Mary Jane at once, who might shake her head perhaps, but who would be pleased, Agnes thought, having long since assured her that she had no ‘vocation.’ And she must go home to the Rectory, and make all known there, where, Agnes felt, there would be no great objection to parting with her, though her heart recoiled a little before all the questions, of what she thought a ‘worldly’ description, that would be asked. She thought, as girls of a romantic turn often do, that all the fuss of marriage would be odious, and wished she could steal away quietly, and see nobody till all was over. How sweet that would be, she thought! without any ‘fuss,’ without the congratulations, the visits, the curiosity, the discussions about dress—all the vulgarities of the time. She sat in the corner where Oswald had placed her, running over all this prospect in her mind, at ease, though her heart was beating still with all that had just been, and all that must so soon be—for she must tell the Sisters to-night, and to-morrow probably she would have to go home. Thus Agnes mused, not sorry to rest, but wondering a little why Oswald was so long away, and why there were no preparations for the train.

He came up to her in another minute so pale that even through the dark and dimness the girl was startled. ‘Is there an accident?’ she cried. He seized her hand, and drawing it through his arm, led her away hastily beyond the gaze of the porters. ‘Oh, my darling!’ he cried, ‘oh, Agnes, what will you say to me? It is my fault, and what can I do to mend it? The train has gone.’

She gave a frightened cry, and drew her arm from his: then looked wildly up and down the lines of iron way, clasping her hands with a look first of disbelief, then of despair, that went to his heart. ‘Is it true? It cannot be true. Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do?’ she cried.

And then, indeed, the whole horror of the position burst upon Oswald. A young woman—a young lady—in her peculiar dress remarked by everybody—left alone with him at a railway junction, night falling, no one to help them within reach, and no possibility, till the morning, of going either one way or the other, back to the Sisters at Limpet Bay, or to the House in London, or to her own home where explanations could be made. It was nothing for him—that and a hundred escapades much worse than that would be forgiven to Oswald. But for her, what calamity worse than death, what horror of evil-speaking, was involved! He was more to be pitied than she was at the moment, for he saw all that was to be feared with a clearer vision than hers, and felt that it was all his doing. His Perugino, his angel, his bride, his (all, in one word) Agnes—to be thus exposed to the world’s jeers by him! The moment was bad enough for her, realising as she did the painful interview at the House, and more still, the scolding and suspicions of her mother, to whom all must be told in her turn; and not knowing what she could do for the moment, save sit there all through the night until the first morning train should come. But it was harder upon him, who was more acquainted with the ignoble part of the world than Agnes, and knew what people might say. She went away from him, trembling and crying, and sitting down once more on the rude bench, covered her face with her hands. What was she to do? As for Oswald, though it was (as he had just said a hundred times over) the happiest day of his life, this was perhaps the most terrible moment; for the question, what he was to do, was almost more difficult than for Agnes, since all the guilt was his.

At last he went to her and stood by her, grown timid, touching her shoulder softly with his hand. ‘Let me speak to you,’ he said. ‘Agnes—see, we are both in the same trouble, and I worse than you, for it is my fault. Darling, look here, you are going to marry me, anyhow, sooner or later. Why should not it be sooner, Agnes? Let me take you down to the inn and settle you comfortably—well, as comfortably as can be in this terrible scrape we have got into,’ he went on, his heart lightening a little as he saw that she listened to him, and encouraged even by the shake of her head at his suggestion, which she was too bewildered to understand at first. ‘Hush, dearest; hear me out. Then I will go up to town, and—get a licence.’

‘No, no, no,’ she said once more, covering her face with her hands.

‘Think a moment, darling. That is how it would end, anyhow. Well, it might be banns,’ said Oswald, gradually coming to the surface again, feeling his heart rise and a furtive smile come to his lips. ‘Think, only. In a week or two, in a month or two, this is what would happen, with nothing but fuss, and bother, and separation, and ceremony between. Agnes! oh, I know you are not just a girl like so many, that care for these foolish things, that like a fine wedding and all the folly of it. I will take you to the woman of the inn, and put you in her care—and I will bring my mother if you please——’

‘No, no,’ she cried. ‘Your mother! Oh, she must not hear, must not see me like this.’

‘But it is all my fault. Agnes, the licence is far the shortest way. We will go quietly up to town and be married, and then what can anyone say to us? They may say we have been silly. For my part, I think it is the wisest, by far the most sensible thing that anyone could do,’ said Oswald, getting up and up to his natural level of lightheartedness. Agnes seemed to feel her own heart sinking lower and lower as he spoke; but what was she to do?

‘There’s an inn in the village, sir, that is clean and respectable,’ said the station master, coming up. ‘And I’m sorry to disturb you, and sorry for what’s happened, but you can’t keep the lady sitting out here; and the night’s getting a bit chilly, for the dew is heavy after such a day. And we’re going to shut up,’ the man added, becoming imperative, as it were, in this postscript. Oswald asked when the first train stopped in the morning, while Agnes rose and stood by, her whole frame throbbing and thrilling. She whose life had been so calm and still, with never a shock or startling incident in it, no emergencies to call out her judgment, how was she to know now how to act in this terrible crisis which had come unexpected, without a moment’s preparation, into her life?

CHAPTER XL.

TWO—PARTED.

This early summer had been a time of little pleasure to any one in the Square. Everything had seemed to go wrong from the day Miss Cherry went dolefully away, crying with wonder and disappointment to think that her darling should have been so unkind to her, and her brother fallen so completely out of her influence. Very hopefully she had come, prepared to do her duty, and sure at least of Cara’s sweet society and comfort—but as she drove away from the door Miss Cherry felt that this society was over for ever. She had trusted in ‘the child’ from Cara’s earliest days—and now the child shut up her heart, and would not, even after all she had seen with her own eyes, confide in her. She saw now how it was going to be. James would marry ‘that woman,’ which was the bitter name by which gentle Miss Cherry, so full of kindly charity, had been driven by suspicion to call Mrs. Meredith—and Cara would fall away from her own relations, and estrangement and doubt would take the place of affection. Oh, that we had never seen them! Miss Cherry said to herself, meaning the Meredith family generally—that ‘elderly siren’ who had bewitched James, and that harum-scarum son who had persuaded Cara to bind herself to him without telling her nearest relations. For Edward Miss Cherry had a certain kindness. He had been very kind—he had behaved as young men used to do (she thought), as was becoming and respectful—and he too had been disappointed and wounded by the strange secresy of the young pair, who had no motive to make them so desirous of concealing their engagement; why should they conceal it? This was the most provoking, the most exasperating feature of all; there was no reason for concealment—the parents on either side would have been willing enough—no one would have thrown any obstacles in their way. Why had they made a mystery of it? And James?—Miss Cherry went down to the country with a sad heart. But it pained her infinitely to answer those questions which Miss Charity insisted upon having replies to. She could censure them herself in the recesses of her own bosom—but to hear others find fault with them was more than Miss Cherry could bear.

‘You see I have got well without you,’ Miss Charity said. ‘I hope you have done as well for James and his daughter, Cherry, as nature, without any assistance, has done for me.’

‘Oh, they are very well, thank you,’ said Miss Cherry, with a tremor. ‘Cara has a headache sometimes; but all girls have headaches—and as for James, he is in perfect health.’

‘I was not thinking of his health. Is all safe about the other matter?’

‘You know, her husband died,’ said Miss Cherry, somewhat dreamily.

‘What has that to do with it? A woman without a husband has just as much need to be circumspect as a woman with one. What are you insinuating, Cherry? I don’t understand you to-day?’

‘Why should I insinuate—and what can I say? James was going away, because he could not make up his mind to give up going to her; but now—he means to stay.’

‘So that is it!’ said Miss Charity. She was not quite decorous in all her ways, but took the privilege of her age, and often shocked her more scrupulous niece. She uttered a sound which was not unlike a low whistle of mingled astonishment and amusement. ‘So that is what it is! These men with broken hearts are incroyable, Cherry. And will she have him, I wonder?’

‘Have him?’ Miss Cherry echoed, with something which from her gentle lips was like scorn. She was over severe in this case as naturally as in other cases she was over-charitable. ‘She had not seen her husband for I don’t know how many years—there cannot be any very great grief on his account. And James goes there—every night.’

‘Ah! but I wonder if they’ll care to marry,’ said the old lady—‘that’s different—I should think they would prefer not to marry——’

‘Aunt Charity! James may be weak but he is not wicked. He would not do such a thing——’

‘You are a little old maid, and you don’t know anything about it,’ cried Miss Charity, peremptorily. She was an old maid herself, to speak by the book—but she thought she did understand. Miss Cherry said nothing of her other trouble. She went and got her knitting meekly, and settled down in the old way as if she had never left the Hill. Well! it was home, and this was her natural life—but when her old aunt, who was now quite strong again, went briskly out to the garden to look after the flowers and her gardener, Miss Cherry let her hands fall into her lap, and felt the stillness penetrate to her soul. The troubles of the Square, the commotions and displeasures, Cara who would not open her heart—saucy Oswald who smiled in her face and defied her—poor Edward with his disappointment, and even James, who according to all appearance was going to marry again;—how angry she had been with them! how she had felt their different faults, crying to herself bitterly over them—and yet how she missed them! That was life—this—this was home—which was quite a different thing. It was very wicked of her, very ungrateful to God who had given her such a lovely house, such a good kind aunt, nobody to trouble or disturb her; very ungrateful, very wicked. Had she not everything that heart could desire? and peace and quiet to enjoy it. Miss Cherry acknowledged all this—and cried. How still it was! nothing moving, nothing happening—and yet, ungrateful woman, to be so well off and not to appreciate it! What could she wish for more?—indeed, Mrs. Burchell thought that she had a great deal too much, and that it was sinful for an unmarried woman without a family to be so well off as Miss Cherry was.

Meantime Cara, left alone in the Square, fell into all the melancholy of her beginning. Oswald still came to see her from time to time in the morning, confiding to her all the steps of his progress, and receiving sometimes her sympathy, sometimes reproof, sometimes what they both called ‘advice.’ Though she had very good cause to be angry with him, yet it was very difficult to be angry with Oswald—for though he was so self-regarding, he was too light-hearted to be stigmatised with the harsher quality of selfishness. It came to the same thing often, but yet the name seemed too harsh. And he was Cara’s only friend. She had not had time to form many acquaintanceships, and she was too shy to go by herself to return the calls, or even to accept the invitations of the people she did know. How was she to go anywhere? Her father took no interest, asked no questions—and Mrs. Meredith was no longer the confidant of everything that happened, to arrange all for her. Therefore she refused the invitations, and shrank more and more into her corner. Between her and Mrs. Meredith a great gulf had risen. Who had caused it or what had caused it no one could tell—but there it lay, separating them, causing embarrassment when they met, and driving them daily further and further apart. Mrs. Meredith was angry with Cara as Miss Cherry was. She saw no sense, no meaning, in the concealment which she too believed in; and it had done a positive wrong to Edward, who never, she felt sure, would have permitted himself to go so far had the position been definitely settled. Edward had resumed his work with greater energy than ever. He was going forward now for his final examination, after which very little interval was left. His mother could not think of it without tears. One of her two boys was thus lost to her—the half of her fortune so to speak, and more than the half, for Edward had gradually assumed all the kindly offices which Oswald had been too much self-occupied to undertake—and it was all Cara’s fault. Thus they blamed each other, not saying a word except in their own hearts—as women will do, I suppose, till the end of time. Mrs. Meredith would have allowed, had you pressed her, that Oswald too was wrong; but in her heart she never thought of his fault, only of Cara’s. It was Cara who had done it—a little frankness on her part, natural confidence in one who was to be her mother, and who was so willing (Mrs. Meredith said to herself with genuine feeling) to accept that office, and care for the child and her comforts; how much evil might have been avoided had Cara possessed this quality, so winning in young people! Then Oswald would have been drawn closer to, instead of separated as he now seemed, from his family—then Edward would have checked himself in time, and his thoughts would have travelled in some other direction. All Cara’s fault! With a real ache in her heart at the thought of the mischief done, this was what the elder woman thought. So that when Cara withdrew, wounded, and sad, and angry at the position in which she found herself, Mrs. Meredith made no effort to call her from her retirement. She was full of many reflections and questions of her own—and surely it was the part of the children to inform her of everything, to seek her consent, to conciliate her, not hers to do all this to them.

As for Edward he went no more to the house in which he had spent so many happy hours. Looking back at them now, how happy they seemed! No cloud seemed to have been on his sky when he sat there by the light of Cara’s lamp, reading to her, seeing her through all his reading, feeling the charm of her presence. In reality they had been full of very mingled pleasure, and often the bitterness involved had overbalanced the sweetness; but he did not remember that now that they were past—they seemed to have been all happiness, a happiness lost for ever. He made up for the loss, which seemed to have impoverished his whole life, by work. Fortunately he had lost ground which had to be recovered now, if he was to carry out his original intention about India—and he gave himself up to this with something like passion. All the evening through, in those hours which he used to spend with Cara, he worked, deadening himself, stupefying himself with this like a narcotic, exciting his brain to take the part of a counter-irritant against his heart. Now and then, if the poor young fellow paused for a moment, a sudden softness would steal over him, a recollection of the room next door with Miss Cherry counting her stitches on the other side of the fire—and the soft rose-reflection on Cara’s white dress. How could he defend himself against these remembrances? All at once, while his eyes were fixed on his book, this scene would come before him, and lines of exasperating verse would tingle through him—reminding him of Elaine, and how she ‘loved him with that love that was her doom.’ Thus some malicious spirit played upon the boy—