Peregrine's Progress Part 86

"Go back to London."

"Then I will accompany you."

"Impossible; you're weak as a confounded rabbit!"

"I'm stronger than I look; I've walked regularly in the garden these last three days. However, if you go to London, I go too."

"Well, and if so--what could you do?"

"Remind you that a gentleman must endure unflinchingly and suffer with unshaken fort.i.tude."

"Ha, would you preach at me?"

"Day and night, if necessary."

"Would you, begad!"

"I would! Indeed I would make myself a pestilential nuisance to help my friend."

"Friend!" he repeated. "Oh, curse and confound it, Perry, if I wasn't such a miserable, hopeless dog, I should be proud of such friends.h.i.+p--I am proud of it and always shall be--but here our companions.h.i.+p ends. There's but one course for me, and I intend to ride to the devil--alone!"

It was at this moment that the door opened and I rose to my feet, trembling, as Diana stepped into the room. She was clad for riding and her close-fitting habit served only to accentuate the voluptuous beauty of her form, yet her eyes seemed maidenly and untroubled, wide-opened and serenely steadfast as of old, and this of itself stirred within me a sullen resentment as she stood looking at me, a little pale, very wistful, yet radiant in her beauty; and when she spoke her voice was untroubled as her look.

"Mr. Vere-Manville, I beg you will leave us awhile!"

Even as she spoke, Anthony bowed, strode to the door and was gone before I could stay him.

"Peregrine?"

One word, softly uttered, yet in it a world of pleading--reproach and troubled wonderment, insomuch that, remembering that accursed black-bodied chaise, the ring and gossamer veil, my sullen resentment waxed to bitter anger, the whole thing seemed so utterly nauseous.

Evening was falling and from one of the trees in the orchard a blackbird was calling to his mate, soft and sweetly plaintive, and never, to the end of my days, may I hear such without recalling all the agony of this hour.

We stood very silent, looking upon each other, while the blackbird piped in the orchard below; and now I trembled no more, for my anger was pa.s.sed and in its stead was a cold and purposeful determination.

"Are you better, Peregrine?" she questioned at last. "More yourself?"

"Thank you, yes."

When next she spoke her voice faltered a little, though her glance never wavered.

"Peregrine, why--why did you--drive me away? Why refuse to see me?"

"To avoid a painful scene."

"But what should cause a painful scene--between us, Peregrine? Oh, my dear, what is it--what has changed you? Is it your illness?"

"Let us suppose so."

"Have you no--no other explanation to offer me?" she questioned wistfully and stood waiting my answer, drawing her riding gauntlet a little nervously through her ungloved hand, on the slender finger of which I saw the scarabaeus ring. "Is there, O Peregrine, is there no other explanation?"

"None!" said I savagely, my eyes on that accursed ring. "None!"

"Peregrine--dear," she questioned humbly, "have you learned to--to love one more--more worthy than I in my absence?"

"G.o.d forbid!" I answered. "Love has become for me a thing abhorred and utterly detestable."

"Then G.o.d help me," said she in strange, pa.s.sionless voice, "for without your love I shall be desolate!"

"But you are so beautiful--so very beautiful you will never lack for comfort, you could find scores of n.o.ble suitors to-morrow eager and willing. So why talk of desolation?"

Now at this she shrank a little, staring at me with a dawning horror in her eyes.

"Peregrine," she whispered, "O Peregrine, can this indeed be you? My loved Peregrine, my gentleman that was so chivalrous and gentle once, and now to hurt me so wilfully--so bitterly!"

"I am two years older, and--a little wiser, perhaps."

"Two years!" she repeated dully. "Two years I should never have left you--it was wrong! And yet--can two years work so great a change in any one? Ah, no, no--this cannot be you--so cold--so hard and cruel!

Oh, if we might but have those two years back again when you were your own dear self and I your loving gipsy girl with no ambition but to be worthy of--just you! O Peregrine, is your love for me truly dead--so soon?"

As thus she spoke, all pleading, pa.s.sionate entreaty, she came towards me with both arms outstretched, her eyes abrim with tears; but, frowning at her ungloved hand, I started back so hurriedly that she stopped and looked at me as if I had struck her; then she shrank away, her proud head drooped, her arms fell and she covered her face. "Then it is true!" she gasped, "all--dreadfully true." And upon the silence stole the sweetly plaintive notes of the blackbird calling, calling from the orchard below.

And as she stood thus, bowed and shaken with her grief, I kept my gaze ever upon that betraying scarabaeus ring. Suddenly she raised her head and I saw her tearless but very pale.

"Yes, you are changed," said she, in that strange, pa.s.sionless tone, "quite changed; your eyes are cold, your face cruel and hard and yet--O dear G.o.d!" she cried, "O dear G.o.d, I cannot believe your love is truly dead--how can I? O dear, dear Peregrine, tell me you do love me still--if only just a little--oh, be merciful, dear--!"

And now indeed she was weeping but, blinded by her tears, choked by her sobs, she yet reached out her arms to me in mute appeal; and it seemed that somehow her tears were blinding me also, her pa.s.sionate sobs shaking me, for I stood in a mist, groping for the support of my chair-back; indistinctly I heard a voice speak that I knew was mine.

"So you still wear the scarab ring--I've seen it before. But where is your veil with the gold stars? I did love you once--wors.h.i.+pped--reverenced your maidenly purity--your brave truthfulness but--that love is dead--crushed--crushed beneath red wheels, and I would to G.o.d I were dead with it. No--if you please, don't touch me--by your leave I will sit--and beg you to excuse me.

I--would be alone."

"Ah, Peregrine--beloved, you are crying too!"

"Indeed yes. I grieve that I am not dead."

"But why--why would you be dead, my own?"

"Because--O Diana--I cannot help but--love you after all. And now, pray go--I beseech you, leave me ere the devil break loose and I speak the unforgivable thing ... Go, I entreat!"

With some such hysterical words as these and blinded by a gush of weak, unmanly tears, I sent her from me, unheeding alike her piteous entreaties and the clasp of her imploring hands. When she was gone I sank into my chair and suffered my tears to flow unchecked, while the blackbird voiced the agony of loss and disillusionment.

CHAPTER VIII