The Hoyden Part 92

"Won't you speak to me?" says Rylton at last.

He goes to her, and so stands that she is forced to let him see her face--a face beautiful, but pale and unkind, and with the eyes so steadfastly lowered. And yet he

"Knows they must be there, Sweet eyes behind those lashes fair, That will not raise their rim."

"I _have_ spoken," says t.i.ta.

"When?"

"I said, 'How d'ye do' to you."

"Nonsense" says he; and then, "I don't believe you said even so much. You gave me your hand, that was all; and that you gave reluctantly."

"Well, I can't help it," slowly. "Remember what I told you that last day."

"I don't want to remember anything," says he earnestly. "I want to start afresh--from this hour. And yet--there _is_ one thing I must recall. You said--that last day--there was no love between us--that," slowly, "was not true. There is love on one side, at all events. t.i.ta"--taking a step towards her--"I----"

She makes a sudden, wild gesture, throwing out her hands as if to ward off something.

_"Don't!"_ cries she in a stifled voice. "Don't say it!"

"I must! I _will!"_ says Rylton pa.s.sionately. "I love you!" There is a dead silence, and in it he says again, "I love you!"

For a moment t.i.ta looks as if she were going to faint; then the light returns to her eyes, the colour to her face.

"First her, then me," says she.

"Will you never forgive that?" asks he. "And it was _before_ I saw you. When I did see you--t.i.ta, do try to believe this much, at all events, that after our marriage I was true to you. I think now, that from the first moment I saw you I loved you. But I did not know it, and----"

"That is not all," says t.i.ta in a low tone.

"I know--about Hescott. I beg your pardon about that. I was mad, I think; but the madness arose out of jealousy. I could not bear to think you were happy with him, _un_happy with me. If I had loved another, would I have cared with _whom_ you were happy?"

"I don't know," says t.i.ta.

There is something so forlorn in the sad little answer--something so forlorn in her whole att.i.tude, indeed--the droop of her head, the sorrowful clasping of her small hands before her--that Rylton's heart burns within him.

"Be just--be just to me," cries he; "give me a chance. I confess I married you for your money. But now that accursed money is all gone (for which I thank heaven), and our positions are reversed. The money now is mine, and I come to you, and fling it at your feet, and implore you from my very soul to forgive me, and take me back."

She still remains silent, and her silence cuts him to the heart.

"What can I say? What can I do to move you?" exclaims he, in a low tone, but one that trembles. "Is your heart dead to me? Have I killed any hope that might have been mine? Is it too late in the day to call myself your lover?"

At this she lifts her hands and covers her face. All at once he knows that she is crying. He goes to her quickly, and lays his arm round her shoulder.

"Let me begin again," says he. "Trust me once more. I know well, t.i.ta, that you do not love me yet, but perhaps in time you will forgive me, and take me to your heart. I am sorry, darling, for every angry word I have ever said to you, but in every one of those angry words there was love for you, and you alone. I thought only of you, only I did not know it. t.i.ta, say you will begin life again with me."

"I--I _couldn't_ go to The Place," says t.i.ta. 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, t.i.ta, 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?"