"I—I couldn't go to The Place," says Tita. A shudder shakes her frame. "It was there I first heard—— It was there your mother told me of——"
"I know—I know; and I don't ask you to go there. I think I told you
I had bought a new place. Come there with me."
"Why do you want me to go with you," asks she, lifting her mournful eyes to his, "when you know I do not love you?"
"Yes; I know that." He pauses. "I ask you for many reasons, and not all selfish ones. I ask you for your own sake more than all. The world is cruel, Tita, to a woman who deliberately lives away from her husband; and, besides——"
"I don't care about the world."
"We all care about the world sooner or later, and, besides, you who have been accustomed to money all your life cannot find your present income sufficient for you, and Margaret may marry."
"Oh yes! Yes; I think so." For the first time she shows some animation. "I hope so. You saw them talking together to-day?"
"I did." There is a slight pause, and then: "You are glad for Margaret. You wish everyone"—reproachfully—"to be happy except me."
She shakes her head.
"Give me a kind word before I go," says Rylton earnestly.
"What can I say?"
"Say that you will think of what I have been urging."
"One must think," says she, in a rather refractory tone.
"You promise, then?"
"Yes; I shall think."
"Until to-morrow, then," says he, holding out his hand.
"To-morrow?"
She looks troubled.
"Yes; to-morrow. Don't forbid me to come to-morrow."
He presses her hand.
The troubled look still rests upon her face as she turns away from him, having bidden him good-bye. The last memory of her he takes away with him is of a little slender figure standing at the window, with her hands clasped behind her back. She does not look back at him.
* * * * *
"Well?" says Margaret, coming into the room half an hour later. "Why, what a little snowflake you are! Come up to the fire and warm those white cheeks. Was it Maurice made you look like that? I shall scold him. What did he say to you?"
"He wants me to go back to him."
"Yes?" anxiously.
"Well—— That's all."
"But you, dearest?"
"Oh, I can't bear to think of it!" cries Tita, in a miserable tone.
At this Margaret feels hope dying within her. Beyond question she has again refused to be reconciled to him. Margaret is so fond of the girl that it goes to her very heart to see her thus wilfully (as she believes) throwing away her best chance of happiness in this world.
"Tita, have you well considered what you are doing? A woman separated from her husband, no matter how free from blame she may be, is always regarded with coldness by——"
"Oh, yes! I know," impatiently. "He has been saying all that."
"And, after all, what has Maurice done that you should be so hard with him? Many a man has loved another woman before his marriage. That old story——"
"It isn't that," says Tita suddenly. "It is"—she lays her hands on Margaret's shoulders, and regards her earnestly and with agitation—"it is that I fear myself."
"You fear"—uncertainly—"that you don't love him?"
"Pshaw!" says Tita, letting her go, and rising to her feet, as though to sit still is impossible to her. "What a speech from you to me—you, who know all! Love him! I am sure about that, at all events. I know I don't."
"Are you so sure?"
"Positive—positive!"
"What? Not even one doubt?"
"Not one."
"What is your fear, then?" asks Margaret.
"That even if I went back to him, took up my old position, asked his guests to our house, and so on, that sooner or later I should quarrel with him a second time, and then this dreadful work would have to be done all over again."
"That would rest in your own hands. Of course, it is a risk, if, indeed, you mean what you say, Tita"—watching her closely—"that you do not care for Maurice. But"—anxiously—"at all events, you do not care for anyone else?"
"No—no—no" petulantly—"why should I? I think all men more trouble than they are worth."
"If that is so, and you are heart-whole, I think it your positive duty to live with your husband," says Margaret, with decision. "How can you hesitate, Tita? Are the vows you uttered at the altar nothing to you? Many a woman lives with a bad husband through conscientious motives, and——"
"I don't believe it," says Tita, who is evidently in one of her most wayward moods. "They go on living with their horrid husbands because they are afraid of what people will say about them. You know you said something about it yourself just now, and so did—he; something about the world being disagreeable to any woman, however good, who is separated from the man she married."
Margaret gives up the argument.
"Well," says she, smiling, "at all events, Maurice isn't a horrid husband."
"You say that because he isn't yours," with a shrug.
"Come back here, you bad child," says Margaret, laughing now, "and listen to me for a little while longer. You know, Tita, darling, that I have your interest, and yours only, at heart. Promise me you will at least think of what Maurice proposes."
"Oh, I've promised him that," says Tita, frowning.
"You have?" cries Margaret. "Oh, you good girl! Come! that's right. And so you parted not altogether at war? How glad I am! And he—he was glad, too. He"—anxiously—"he said——"
"He said he was coming again to-morrow," with apparent disgust.
"To get your answer?"
"Oh, I suppose so! I don't know, I'm sure," with such a sharp gesture as proves to Margaret her patience has come to an end. "Let us forget it—put it from us—while we can." She laughs nervously. "You see what a temper I have! He will repent his bargain, I think—if I do consent. Come, let us talk of something else, Meg—of you."
"Of me?"
"What better subject? Tell me what Colonel Neilson was saying to you in that window this evening," pointing to the one farthest off.
"Nothing—nothing at all. He is so stupid," says Margaret, blushing crimson. "He really never sees me without proposing all over again, as if there was any good in it."
"And what did you say this time?"
Margaret grows confused.
"Really, dearest, I was so taken up thinking of you and Maurice," says she, with a first (and most flagrant) attempt at dissimulation, "that I believe I forgot to—to—say anything."
Tita gives way to a burst of irrepressible laughter.
"I like that," says she. "Well, at all events, by your own showing, you didn't say no."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
HOW TITA RECEIVES A BASKET OF FLOWERS AND AN ENTREATY; AND HOW SHE CEASES TO FIGHT AGAINST HER DESTINY.
It is quite early, barely eleven o'clock, and a most lovely morning. Tita and Margaret, who have just settled down in the latter's boudoir, presumably to write their letters, but actually to have a little gossip, are checked by the entrance of a servant, who brings something to Tita and lays it on the table beside her.
"With Sir Maurice Rylton's compliments," says the servant.
"What is it?" says Tita, when he has gone, with the air of one who instinctively knows, but would prefer to go on guessing about it.
"Not dynamite, assuredly," says Margaret. "What a delightful basket!"
"What can be inside it?"
"The best way to find that out is to open it," says Margaret, with abominable briskness. "Shall I cut these pretty ribbons, or will you?"
"No, don't cut them," says Tita quickly.
She draws the basket towards her, and slowly and with care unties the true lover's knot of pale blue ribbon that fastens it.
"Flowers, I expect," says Margaret.
"But tied up like this?"
"That is because there is a letter inside it."
"You seem to know all about it," says Tita, at which Margaret grows a little red, and wishes, like the parrot, that she had not spoken.
"Yes; it is flowers," says Tita.
"Such flowers!" cries Margaret. And, indeed, it is a rare basketful of Nature's sweetest gifts that lies before them. Delicate reds, and waxen whites, and the tender greens of the waving fern. "How beautiful!" exclaims Margaret.
Tita has said nothing. But now she puts out her hand.
"What is that?" says she.
"Why, the letter," says Margaret, forgetting her late discomfiture in the excitement of this new discovery.
Tita draws it forth reluctantly. It is tied to a little plant—a tiny plant of pale forget-me-not.
"What can he have to write about?" says she. "Perhaps it is to say he is not coming to-day; let us hope so. But what does this plant mean?"
She opens the envelope with disdainful fingers. It does not, however, contain a letter, after all. It is only a verse scribbled on a card:
"If you will touch, and take, and pardon,
What I can give;
Take this, a flower, into your garden,
And bid it live."
Neither of them speaks for a moment.
"It is a pretty message," says Margaret at last.
"Yes."
Tita's face is turned aside. Her hand is still resting on the table, the verse and the little plant within it.
"He will be coming soon," says Margaret again.
"Yes, I know."
"You will be kind to him, dearest?"
"That—I don't know."
"Oh! I think you do," says Margaret; "I think you must see that he——"
"Let me think it out, Meg," says Tita, turning a very pale face to hers. "When he comes tell him I am in the small drawing-room."
She kisses Margaret and leaves the room. The basket of flowers, too, she has left behind her. But Margaret can see that she has taken with her the tiny plant of forget-me-not.
* * * * * *
He comes quickly towards her, holding out his hand.
"Margaret said I should find you here," says he. Hope, mingled with great fear, is in his glance. He holds the hand she gives him. "Have you kept your promise?" he asks her. "Have you thought of it?"
"I am tired of thinking," says she, with a long sigh.
"And your decision?"
"Oh! it shall be as you wish," cries she, dragging her hand out of his, and walking backwards from him till she reaches the wall, where she stays, leaning against it as if glad of its support, and glancing at him from under her long lashes. "You shall have your own way. You have always had it. You will have it to the end, I suppose."
"You consent, then!" exclaims her.
"Ah! That is all you think of. To save appearances! You"—her breath coming quickly—"you care nothing for what I am feeling——"
"Don't wrong me like that," says Rylton, interrupting her. "If you could read my heart you would know that it is of you alone I think. For you I have thought out everything. You shall be your own mistress—— I shall not interfere with you in any way. I ask you to be my wife, so far as entertaining our guests goes, and the arranging of the household, and that—— No more! You shall be free as air. Do you think that I do not know I have sinned towards you?" He breaks off in some agitation, and then goes on. "I tell you I shall not for one moment even question a wish of yours."
"I should not like that," says Tita sadly. "That would keep me as I was: always an outsider; a stranger; a guest in my own house."
Rylton walks to the window and back again. A stranger! Had she felt like a stranger in her own house? It hurts him terribly.
"It was I who should have been the stranger," says he. "It was all yours—and yet—did I really make you so unhappy?"
There is something so cruel in his own condemnation of himself that
Tita's heart melts.
"It is all over," says she. "It is at an end. If"—with a sad, strange little glance at him—"we must come together again, let us not begin the new life with recriminations. Perhaps I have been hard to you—Margaret says I have—and if so——" Tears rise in her eyes and choke her utterance. She turns aside from him, and drums with her fingers on the table near her. "I thought those flowers so pretty," says she.
"I didn't know what to send," returns he, in a voice as low as her own.
"I liked them."
"Did you?" He looks at her. "And yet you are not wearing one of them—not even a bud. I said to myself, when I was coming here, that if you wore one I should take hope from it."
"Flowers die," says she, with her eyes upon the ground.
"Cut flowers. But I sent you a little plant."
"Forget-me-not would not live in town."
"But we shall not live in town. You have promised to come to the country with me," says he quickly. "And even if this plant dies, another can grow—a new one. I told you that I bought a place. It—it is in the same county as Oakdean."
"Ah! Oakdean!" A pathetic look grows within her large eyes. She turns aside. "I dread the country now that my old house is gone—— I——" Suddenly she gives way, and bursts into a storm of tears. "Everything seems gone!" cries she. "But if I must seek a new home let me go to it at once. Don't let me think about it. Take me there as soon as ever you can."
"To-morrow," says Rylton, "if you wish."
"Yes, yes," feverishly, "to-morrow."
She is sobbing bitterly.
"Tita," says Rylton, who is now very pale, "if it costs you so much, I give up my plan. Stay with Margaret—stay where you like, only let me provide for you."
"No, I shall go with you," says Tita, making a violent effort to suppress her sobs. "It is arranged, I tell you. Only let me go at once. I cannot stand the thinking of it day by day."
"To-morrow, then, by the evening train; will that suit you?"
"Yes."
"I shall call for you here?"
"Yes."
"Remember our compact. You shall be as free as air."
"I know."
He goes to her, and, taking her head between his hands, kisses her forehead. He would have liked to take her in his arms and kiss her with all his heart, but something forbids him.
"Good-bye, Tita."
"Good-bye."
He has his hand upon her shoulder now.
"Do you know you have never once called me by my name," says he.
"Have I not?" mournfully.
"Not once; and if we are to be friends—friends, at least—you might——" He pauses, but no answer comes. "Well, good-bye," says he again.
He is half-way across the room when she says: "Good-bye, Maurice," in a faint tone, like a child repeating a lesson.
The sorrow in Rylton's heart is deeper as he leaves the house.
CHAPTER XXIX.
HOW A JOURNEY IS BEGUN AS THE DAY DIES DOWN; AND HOW THAT JOURNEY ENDS; AND HOW A GREAT SECRET IS DISCOVERED—THE SECRET OF TITA'S HEART.
The parting between Margaret and Tita had taken a long time. There had been many admonitions from the former, and entreaties from the latter, principally about Margaret's coming to see her as soon as possible. These precious moments had been broken in upon by Colonel Neilson, who had sent up word by one of the servants that he asked a few minutes' conversation with Miss Knollys.
Those minutes had grown into a quarter of an hour, and then Margaret had come back looking decidedly guilty, but rather inclined to a tearful mirth.
"You needn't speak," said Tita, with a pretence at contempt. "You didn't say 'No' on Sunday, and you have said 'Yes' to-day. It is quite simple."
"Well, it is all your fault," Margaret had returned, sinking into a chair, and beginning to laugh rather shamefacedly. "If you had stayed with me it never would have happened. But you have shown me how delightful companionship is, and having shown it, you basely desert me. And now—I feel so lonely that——"
"That?"
"I have broken through all my vows, and said——"
"Yes?"
"Yes!"
"You must both come down and stay with me as soon as ever you can," said Tita, giving her a tender hug.
* * * * * *
The long sweet summer evening is growing into night as the train draws up at the old station that Tita knows so well. She looks out of the window, her heart in her eyes, taking in all the old signs—the guard fussy as ever—Evans the porter (she nods to him through eyes filled with tears)—the glimpse of the church spire over the top of the station-house—the little damp patch in the roof of the booking-office.
She almost starts, so deep is her reverie, as Rylton lays a hand upon her shoulder.
"Come," says he, smiling.
"Why——" begins she, surprised. She sees he has her travelling-bag in his hand, and that he wants to pass her to open the window.
"This is our station," says he.
"This?"
"Yes. I think I told you the new place I had bought was in this county."
"Yes. I know, but so near——"
Rylton has opened the door, and is calling to a porter. Evan comes up.
"Welcome home, my lady," says he, touching his cap to Tita, who gives him a little nod in return, whilst feeling that her heart is breaking.
"Home!" She feels as if she hates poor Evans, and yet of course he had meant nothing. No doubt he thought she was coming back to Oakdean. Dear, dear Oakdean, now lost to her for ever!
A carriage is waiting for them, and Rylton, putting her into it, goes away to see to their luggage. Tita, sitting drearily within, her heart sad with recollections of the past, is suddenly struck by a sound that comes to her through the shut windows of the carriage. She opens the one nearest to her and listens.
It is only a poor vagrant on the pavement without, singing for a penny or two. But the song goes to her very heart:
"It's hame, and its hame—hame fain wad I be,
O! hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree."
A sob rises in her throat. So near to her own dear home, and yet so far. She finds her purse, and hastily flings half a crown to the poor wretch outside, who never guesses why she got so large a dole.
And now Rylton returns. He gets in. The carriage drives away through the well-remembered town, over the old bridge, and into the sweetness of the sleeping country.
Already the stars are out. Through the warm bank of dying sunset over there a pale little dot is glimmering. Steel-gray are the heavens, fast deepening into darkest blue, and over the hills, far, far away, the faint suggestion of a "young May moon" is growing. A last faint twittering of birds is in the air, and now it ceases, and darkness falls and grows, and shadows fill the land and hide the edges of the moors, and blacken the sides of the walls as they drive past them.
Tita is always peering out of the window. At a sudden turn in the road she draws back as if hurt.
"This is the turn to Oakdean!" says she sharply.
"Yes; we are going this road."
"It must be near, then, this new place—quite near?"
"It is near."
She looks at him for a moment, her face fraught with great grief.
"Oh, how could you?" says she. "How could you have bought a place so close to it?"
She leans back into her corner, and it is his misery at this moment that he cannot know whether she is crying or not. Presently she starts forward again.
"Why, we are going down the road!" cries she. "We shall go past the gates!" She waits as if for an answer, but he makes her none. "Oh, you should have told me," says she faintly.
He puts out his hand and takes hers. She does not repulse him, and he holds it in a close clasp. Is there some magnetic influence at work that tells her all the truth—that betrays to her his secret? She turns suddenly and looks at him, but he refuses to meet her glance. He can feel that she is trembling violently. Her hand is still in his, and her eyes are fixed intently on the open window near her.
And now they are nearing Oakdean. She can see the pillars of the gates. A little cry escapes her. And now, now they are at the gate—soon they will be past——
But what is this? The coachman has drawn up! They stop! The groom springs down—someone from the lodge rushes quickly out. The gates are flung wide. The horses dash down the avenue!
* * * * *
Presently they draw up at the hall door—the door of Oakdean!
Rylton, getting out, takes her in his arms, and places her on the first step of the stones that lead to the hall.
Not one word has passed between them since that last reproach of hers.
And now they have reached the library. It is brilliantly lit. Tita, flinging off her wraps in a mechanical sort of way, looks round her. Nothing is changed—nothing! It is home. Home really—home as it always had been!
She is pale as a little ghost! Though she has looked at the room, she has not once looked at him! And, with a sort of feeling that he has made a bid for her favour, Rylton makes no attempt to go to her or say a word.
She is so silent, so calm, that doubts arise within him as to the success of his experiment—for experiment it must be called. He had bought in the old house expressly to please her the moment he was in a position to do so; had bought it, indeed, when she was showing a most settled determination to have nothing to do with him—directly after her refusal to accept a competence at his hands.
And now, how will it be? Her eyes are wandering round the room, noting each dear familiar object; at last they come to Rylton.
He is looking back at her—a little sad, a little hopeless. Their eyes meet.
Then all at once she gives way. She runs to him, and flings herself into his open arms.
"To do this for me! This!" cries she.
She clings to him. Her voice dies away.
She is lying on his breast. He can feel her heart beating against his. His arms tighten round her.
"Tita, you love me!" whispers he, in a low tone, passionately.
She feels so small a thing in his embrace—a mere child of fourteen might be a bigger thing than she is. The knowledge that she has grown very thin during their estrangement goes to his heart like a knife. Oh, dear little, darling girl!
"You must love me—you must," says he, holding her to him, as if he could never let her go. "Try to love me, Tita."
Slowly, very slowly, she stirs within his arms. She looks up at him. It is such a strange look. It transfigures the beautiful little face, making it even more beautiful than it was before. But Maurice, who is hanging on it, to whom it means life or death, does not dare translate the expression. It seems to him that she is going into all that intolerable past and reading his very soul. God grant she may read it aright!
The strain grows too terrible; he breaks it.
"My darling, speak!" entreats he.
She wakes as if from a dream.
"Oh, I love you—I do love you!" cries she. She lays her hands against his breast, and leans back from him. "I have loved you always, I think; but now I know it. Oh, Maurice, love me too, and not her—not her!"
* * * * *
It is half an hour later. He has induced her to eat something; and at her request has eaten something himself—as a fact, being both young, they were both extremely hungry, and are now feeling infinitely better.
"I want a fresh handkerchief," says Tita, looking up at him shyly, but with a smile that shows all her pretty teeth. "See how you have made me cry!" She holds up the little damp rag that she has been using since her arrival. "Give me one out of my bag."
Opening her bag to get the handkerchief desired, something else falls to the floor—a small thing. He picks it up.
"Why, what is this?" says he.
"Oh, it is my—— Give it to me. It is my forget-me-not," says she, colouring hotly.
A pause.
"The little plant I sent?" asks he softly.
"Yes," in a lovely, shamefaced way.
"You kept that?"
"To plant it here."
"Because——"
"Oh, you know."
"Tell me again."
"Because I love you."
She throws her arms around his neck, and their lips meet.
THE END.
PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.
Obvious typographical errors silently corrected by the transcriber: