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April's Lady: A Novel

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<h2>CHAPTER LII.</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> "My love has sworn with sealing kiss With me to live—to die; I have at last my nameless bliss— As I love, loved am I."</div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> There is a pause: it threatens to be an everlasting one, as Miss Kavanagh plainly doesn't know what to say. He can see this; what he cannot see is that she is afraid of her own voice. Those troublesome tears that all day have been so close to her seem closer than ever now. "Beauclerk came down to see you to-day," says he presently. This remark is so unexpected that it steadies her. "Yes," she says, calmly enough, but without raising the tell-tale eyes. "You expected him?" "No." Monosyllables alone seem possible to her. So great is her fear that she will give way and finally disgrace herself, that she forgets to resent the magisterial tone be has adopted. "He asked you to marry him, however?" There is something almost threatening in his tone now, as if he is defying her to deny his assertion. It overwhelms her. "Yes," she says again, and for the first time is struck by the wretched meagreness of her replies. "Well?" says Dysart, roughly. But this time not even the desolate monosyllable rewards the keenness of his examination. "Well?" says he again, going closer to her and resting his hand on the wooden rail against which she, too, was leaning. He is So close to her now that it is impossible to escape his scrutiny. "What am I to understand by that? Tell me how you have decided." Getting no answer to this either, he says, impatiently, "Tell me, Joyce." "I refused him," says she at last in a low tone, and in a dull sort of way, as if the matter is one of indifference to her. "Ah!" He draws a long breath. "It is true?" he says, laying his hand on hers as it lies on the top of the woodwork. "Quite true." "And yet—you have been crying?" "You can see that," says she, petulantly. "You have taken pains to see and to tell me of it. Do you think it is a pleasant thing to be told? Most people," glancing angrily toward him—"everyone, I think—makes it a point now-a-days not to see when one has been making a fool of oneself; but you seem to take a delight in torturing me." "Did it," says he bitterly, ignoring—perhaps not even hearing—her outburst. "Did it cost you so much to refuse him?" "It cost me nothing!" with a sudden effort, and a flash from her beautiful eyes. "Nothing?" "I have said so! Nothing at all. It was mere nervousness, and because—it reminded me of other things." "Did he see you cry?" asks Dysart, tightening unconsciously his grasp upon her hand. "No. He was gone a long time, quite a long time, before it occurred to me that I should like to cry. I," with a frugal smile, "indulged myself very freely then, as you have seen." Dysart draws a long breath of relief. It would have been intolerable to him that Beauclerk should have known of her tears. He would not have understood them. He would have taken possession of them, as it were. They would have merely helped to pamper his self-conceit and smooth down his ruffled pride. He would inevitably have placed such and such a construction on them, one entirely to his own glorification. "I shall leave you now with a lighter heart," says Felix presently—"now that I know you are not going to marry that fellow." "You are going, then?" says she, sharply, checking the monotonous little tattoo she has been playing on the bridge rail, as though suddenly smitten into stone. She had heard he was going, she had been told of it by several people, but somehow she had never believed it. It had never, come home to her until now. "Yes. We are under orders for India. We sail in about a month. I shall have to leave here almost immediately." "So soon?" says she, vaguely. She has begun that absurd tattoo again, but bridge, and restless little fingers, and sky and earth, and all things seem blotted out. He is going, really going, and for ever! How far is India away? "It is always rather hurried at last. For my part I am glad I am going." "Yes?" "Mrs. Monkton will—at least I am sure she will—let me have a line now and then to let me know how you—how you are all getting on. I was going to ask her about it this evening. You think she will be good enough?" "Barbara is always kind." "I suppose"—he hesitates, and then goes on with an effort—"I suppose it would be too much to ask of you——" "What?" "That you would sometimes write me a letter—however short." "I am a bad correspondent," says she, feeling as if she were choking. "Ah! I see. I should not have asked, of course. Yes, you are right. It was absurd my hoping for it." "When people choose to go away so far as that——" she is compelling herself to speak, but her voice sounds to herself a long way off. "They must hope to be forgotten. 'Out of sight out of mind,' I know. It is such an old proverb. Well——You are cold," says he suddenly, noting the pallor of the girl's face. "Whatever you were before, you are certainly chilled to the bone now. You look it. Come, this is no time of year to be lingering out of doors without a coat or hat." "I have this shawl," says she, pointing to the soft white, fleecy thing that covers her. "I distrust it. Come." "No," says she, faintly. "Go on; you give your message to Barbara. As for me, I shall be happier here." "Where I am not," says he, with a bitter laugh. "I suppose I ought to be accustomed to that thought now, but such is my conceit that it seems ever a fresh shock to me. Well, for all that," persuadingly, "come in. The evening is very cold. I shan't like to go away, leaving you behind me suffering from a bad cough or something of that kind. We have been friends, Joyce," with a rather sorry smile. "For the sake of the old friendship, don't send me adrift with such an anxiety upon my mind." "Would you really care?" says she. "Ah! That is the humor of it," says he. "In spite of all I should still really care. Come." He makes an effort to unclasp the small, pretty fingers that are grasping the rails so rigidly. At first they seem to resist his gentle pressure, and then they give way to him. She turns suddenly. "Felix,"—her voice is somewhat strained, somewhat harsh, not at all her own voice,—"do you still love me?" "You know that," returns he, sadly. If he has felt any surprise at the question he has not shown it. "No, no," says she, feverishly. "That you like me, that you are fond of me, perhaps, I can still believe. But is it the same with you that it used to be? Do you," with a little sob, "love me as well now as in those old days? Just the same! Not," going nearer to him, and laying her hand upon his breast, and raising agonized eyes of inquiry to his—"not one bit less?" "I love you a thousand times more," says he, very quietly, but with such intensity that it enters into her very soul. "Why?" He has laid his own hand over the small nervous one lying on his breast, and his face has grown very white. "Because I love you too!" She stops short here, and begins to tremble violently. With a little shamed, heartbroken gesture she tears her hand out of his and covers her face from his sight. "Say that again!" says he, hoarsely. He waits a moment, but when no word comes from her he deliberately drags away the sheltering hands and compels her to look at him. "Say it!" says he, in a tone that is now almost a command. "Oh! it is true—true!" cries she, vehemently. "I love you; I have loved you a long time, I think, but I didn't know it. Oh, Felix! Dear, dear Felix, forgive me!" "Forgive you!" says he, brokenly. "Ah! yes. And don't leave me. If you go away from me I shall die. There has been so much of it—a little more—and——" She breaks down. "My beloved!" says he in a faint, quick way. He is holding her to him now with all his might. She can feel the quick pulsations of his heart. Suddenly she slips her soft arms around his neck, and now with her head pressed against his shoulder, bursts into a storm of tears. It is a last shower. They are both silent for a long time, and then he, raising one of her hands, presses the palm against his lips. Looking up at him, she smiles, uncertainly but happily, a very rainbow of a smile, born of sunshine, and, raindrops gone, it seems to beautify her lips. But Felix, while acknowledging its charm, cannot smile back at her. It is all too strange, too new. He is afraid to believe. As yet there is something terrible to him in this happiness that has fallen into his life. "You mean it?" he asks, bending over her. "If to-morrow I were to wake and find all this an idle dream, how would it be with me then? Say you mean it!" "Am I not here?" says she, tremulously, making a slight but eloquent pressure on one of the arms that are round her. He bends his face to hers, and as he feels that first glad eager kiss returned—he knows! <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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