Molly Bawn Part 78

"Nothing," she answers, quietly, with just a touch of scorn. "I should have thought I had said enough to convince any _man_. Now will you let me go home? You cannot want to keep me here after what I have said."

"I wonder you are not afraid of me," says Shadwell, who is absolutely beside himself with anger. "Do not put unlimited faith in my forbearance. A worm, you know, will turn. Do you think you can goad a man to desperation and leave him as cool as when you began? I confess I am not made of such stuff. Do you know you are in my power? What is to prevent my killing you here, now, this moment?"

He speaks slowly, as though his breath comes with difficulty, so much has anger overmastered him; yet her eyes have never fallen before his, and he knows, in spite of his words, he has not the smallest mastery over her, he has gained no triumph.

"I wish you were dead," he goes on, in a compressed tone, "and myself too. To be sure, that if you were not mine you would never be another's, has in it a sweetness that tempts me. They say extremes meet. I hardly know, now, where my love for you ends, or where my hatred begins."

His violence terrifies Molly.

"Philip, be generous," she says, laying her hand against his chest with a vain attempt to break from him; "and--and--try to be calm. Your eyes have madness in them. Even if you were to kill me, what good would it do you? And think of the afterward. Oh, what have I ever done to you that you should seek to--to--unnerve me like this?"

"'What have you done?' Shall I tell you? You have murdered me surely as though your knife had entered my heart. You have killed every good thought in me, every desire that might perhaps have had some element of n.o.bleness in it. I was bad enough before I met you, I dare say; but you have made me ten times worse."

"It is all false. I will not listen to you,"--covering her ears with her hands. But he takes them down again, gently but determinedly, and compels her to hear him.

"When you first came to Herst for your own amus.e.m.e.nt, to pa.s.s away the hours that perhaps hung a little heavily upon your hands, or to rouse a feeling of jealousy in the heart of Luttrell, or to prove the power you have over all men by the right of your fatal beauty, you played off upon me all the pretty airs and graces, all the sweet looks and tender words, that come so easy to you, never caring what torment I might have to endure when your dainty pastime had palled upon you. Day by day I was led to believe that I was more to you than those others who also waited on your words."

"That is false,--false. Your own vanity misled you."

"I was the one singled out to escort you here, to bear your messages there. Now and again you threw me flowers, not half so honeyed as your smiles. And when you had rendered me half mad--nay, I think wholly so--for love of you, and I asked you to be my wife, you asked me in return 'what I meant,' pretending an innocent ignorance of having done anything to encourage me."

"I do not think I have done all this," says Molly, with a little gasping sigh; "but if I have I regret it. I repent it. I pray your forgiveness."

"And I will grant it on one condition. Swear you will be my wife."

She does not answer. He is so vehement that she fears to provoke him further; yet nothing but a decided refusal can be given. She raises her head and regards him with a carefully-concealed shudder, and as she does so Luttrell's fair, beautiful face--even more true than beautiful, his eyes so blue and earnest, his firm but tender mouth--rises before her. She thinks of his devotion, his deep, honest love, and without thinking any further she says, "No," with much more decided emphasis than prudence would have permitted.

"'No!'" repeats he, furiously. "Do you still defy me? Are you then so faithful to the memory of the man who cast you off? Have you, perhaps, renewed your engagement with him? If I thought that,--if I was sure of that---- Speak, and say if it be so."

The strain is too great. Molly's brave heart fails her. She gives a little gasping cry, and with it her courage disappears. Raising her face in mute appeal to the bare trees, to the rus.h.i.+ng, comfortless wind, to the murky sky, she bursts into a storm of tears.

"Oh, if my brother were but alive," cries she, in pa.s.sionate protest, "you would not dare treat me like this! Oh, John, John, where are you?

It is I, your Molly Bawn. _Why_ are you silent?"

Her sobs fall upon the chilly air. Her tears drop through her fingers down upon the brown-tinged gra.s.s, upon a foolish frozen daisy that has outlived its fellows,--upon her companion's heart!

With a groan he comes to his senses, releases her, and, moving away, covers his face with his hands.

"Don't do that," he says. "Stop crying. What a brute I am! Molly, Molly, be silent, I desire you. I am punished enough already."

Hardly daring to believe herself free, and dreading a relapse on Philip's part, and being still a good deal over-strung and frightened, Miss Ma.s.sereene sobs on very successfully, while even at this moment secretly reproaching herself in that she did not pocket her pride half an hour ago, and give way to the tears that have had such a fortunate effect.

Just at this juncture, Luttrell, clearing a stile that separates him from them, appears upon the scene. His dismay on seeing Molly in tears almost obliterates the displeased amazement with which he regards Philip's unexpected appearance.

"Molly," he calls out to her, even from the distance, some undefined instinct telling him she will be glad of his presence. And Molly, hearing him, raises her head, and without a word or cry runs to him, and flings herself into the fond shelter of his arms.

As he holds her closely in his young, strong, ardent embrace, a great peace--a joy that is almost pain--comes to her. Had she still any lingering doubts of her love for him, this moment, in which he stands by her as a guardian, a protector, a true lover, would forever dispel them.

"You here," says Luttrell, addressing Philip with a frown, while his face flames, and then grows white as Shadwell's own, "and Miss Ma.s.sereene in tears! Explain----"

"Better leave explanation to another time," interrupts Philip, with insolent _hauteur_, his repentant mood having vanished with Luttrell's arrival, "and take Miss Ma.s.sereene home. She is tired."

So saying, he turns coolly on his heel, and walks away.

Luttrell makes an angry movement as though to follow him; but Molly with her arms restrains him.

"Do not leave me," she says, preparing to cry again directly if he shows any determination to have it out with Shadwell. "Stay with me. I feel so nervous and--and faint."

"Do you, darling?" Regarding her anxiously. "You do look pale. What was Shadwell saying to you? Why were you crying? If I thought he----"

"No, no,"--laying five hasty, convincing little fingers on his arm,--"nothing of the kind. Won't you believe me? He only reminded me of past days, and I was foolish, and--that was all."

"But what brought him at all?"

"To see me," says Molly, longing yet fearing to tell him of Philip's unpardonable behavior. "But do not let us talk of him. I cannot bear him. He makes me positively nervous. He is so dark, so vehement, so--uncanny!"

"The fellow isn't much of a fellow, certainly," says Luttrell, with charming explicitness.

For the mile that lies between them and home, they scarcely speak,--walking together, as children might, hand in hand, but in a silence unknown to our household pests.

"How quiet you are!" Molly says, at length awakening to the fact of her lover's dumbness. "What are you thinking about?"

"You, of course," he answers, with a rather joyless smile. "I have received my marching orders. I must join my regiment in Dublin next Sat.u.r.day."

"And this is Tuesday!" Aghast at the terrible news. "Oh, Teddy! Could they not have left us together for the few last days that remain to us?"

"It appears they could not," replies he, with a prolonged and audible sigh.

"I always said your colonel was a bear," says Miss Ma.s.sereene, vindictively.

"Well, but you see, he doesn't know how matters stand; he never heard of _you_," replies Luttrell, apologetically.

"Well, he ought to know; and even if he did, he would do it all the more. Oh, Teddy! dear Teddy!"--with a sudden change of tone, thoroughly appreciated by one individual at least,--"what shall I do without you?"

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

"When we two parted in silence and tears, Half broken-hearted, to sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek, and cold, colder thy kiss."

--Byron.

They have wandered down once more by the river-side where first he told her how he loved her. To-night, again the moon is s.h.i.+ning brightly, again the stream runs rippling by, but not, as then, with a joyous love-song; now it sounds sad as death, and "wild with all regret," as though mourning for the flowers--the sweet fond forget-me-nots--that used to grace its banks.

Their hands are clasped, his arm is round her; her head drooping, dejected (unlike the gay capricious Molly of a few months back), is leaning on his breast.