He would speak. He would tell her the truth. After that
she would forget him. They were sitting under a tree that screened them
off from the rest of the garden. He could see well enough that she was
trembling with nervousness; that delight, fear, expectation were blended
in the beautiful eyes she turned towards him; and, lest suddenly he
should yield to that mad longing to catch her to his heart, he began to
speak hurriedly--abruptly.
But Virginia scarcely hears him. Her lips are burning to ask him that
one question, and, not heeding what he is saying, she turns and in a
tremulous voice that vibrates to his very soul, she says:
"Why have you kept away from us all this time?"
Why? And Vansittart catches his breath. Then the gyves of his strong
will give way as the withes fell from Samson.
"I will tell you," he says. "I love you so horribly, that it is pain
and anguish to me to be with you, for then I feel that when I leave you
I am ready to die of longing and misery."
"Well?" she utters in a very low voice, bending her eyes on the ground.
It is only one little word, but it speaks such volumes! "Why should you
leave me?" it says. "Is it not my case, too? What need you more than
speak!"
"You have heard," he goes on, not daring to look at her, "that I have
forsworn marriage. Marriage," passionately, "kills love, and I would
rather, ten times over, suffer what I have suffered--and God knows that
is not a little!--than a day should come when, having known such divine
happiness as I _should_ know were you mine, we should grow cold and
weary; when our passions should turn to indifference, to disappointment
and heart-burnings, and end, perhaps, in our cherishing feelings of
vindictive spite and bitterness against each other, and in my thinking
every woman pleasanter and fairer than you, end in your believing me to
be the greatest brute under heaven!"
"Oh!" utters Virginia, as she raises her eyes to his face with a look of
pained wonder.
Pages:
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160