Elster's Folly Part 73

"Maude," he said, speaking all the more gently for his recent outbreak, "you must be aware that you do not recover as quickly as we could wish--"

"I do not recover at all," she interrupted. "I don't want to recover."

"My dear, how can you talk so? There is nothing the matter with you but weakness, and that will soon be overcome if you exert yourself."

"No, it won't. I shall not leave home."

"Somewhere you must go, for the workmen are coming into the house; and for the next two months it will not be habitable."

"Who is bringing them in?" she asked, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

"You know it was decided long ago that the house should be done up this summer. It wants it badly enough. Torbay--"

"I will not go to Torbay, Lord Hartledon. If I am to be turned out of this house, I'll go to the other."

"What other?"

"Hartledon."

"Not to Hartledon," said he, quickly, for his dislike to the place had grown with time, and the word grated on his ear.

"Then I remain where I am."

"Maude," he resumed in quiet tones, "I will not urge you to try sea-air for my sake, because you do what you can to show me I am of little moment to you; but I will say try it for the sake of the children. Surely, they are dear to you!"

A subdued sound of pain broke from her lips, as if she could not bear to hear them named.

"It's of no use prolonging this discussion," she said. "An invalid's fancies may generally be trusted, and mine point to Hartledon--if I am to be disturbed at all. I should not so much mind going there."

A pause ensued. Lord Hartledon had taken her hand, and was mechanically turning round her wedding-ring, his thoughts far away; it hung sufficiently loosely now on the wasted finger. She lay back in her chair, looking on with apathy, too indifferent to withdraw her hand.

"Why did you put it on?" she asked, abruptly.

"Why indeed?" returned his lords.h.i.+p, deep in his abstraction. "What did you say, Maude?" he added, awaking in a flurry. "Put what on?"

"My wedding-ring."

"My dear! But about Hartledon--if you fancy that, and nowhere else, I suppose we must go there."

"You also?"

"Of course."

"Ah! when your wife's chord of life is loosening what model husbands you men become!" she uttered. "You have never gone to Hartledon with me; you have suffered me to be there alone, through a ridiculous reminiscence; but now that you are about to lose me you will go!"

"Why do you encourage these gloomy thoughts about yourself, Maude?" he asked, pa.s.sing over the Hartledon question. "One would think you wished to die."

"I do not know," she replied in tones of deliberation. "Of course, no one, at my age, can be tired of the world, and for some things I wish to live; but for others, I shall be glad to die."

"Maude! Maude! It is wrong to say this. You are not likely to die."

"I can't tell. All I say is, I shall be glad for some things, if I do."

"What is all this?" he exclaimed, after a bewildered pause. "Is there anything on your mind, Maude? Are you grieving after that little infant?"

"No," she answered, "not for him. I grieve for the two who remain."

Lord Hartledon looked at her. A dread, which he strove to throw from him, struggling to his conscience.

"I think you are deceived in my state of health. And if I object to going to the seaside, it is chiefly because I would not die in a strange place.

If I am to die, I should like to die at Hartledon."

His hair seemed to rise up in horror at the words. "Maude! have you any disease you are concealing from me?"

"Not any. But the belief has been upon me for some time that I should not get over this. You must have seen how I appear to be sinking."

"And with no disease upon you! I don't understand it."

"No particular physical disease."

"You are weak, dispirited--I cannot pursue these questions," he broke off. "Tell me in a word: is there any cause for this?"

"Yes."

Percival gathered up his breath. "What is it?"

"What is it!" her eyes ablaze with sudden light. "What has weighed _you_ down, not to the grave, for men are strong, but to terror, and shame, and sin? What secret is it, Lord Hartledon?"

His lips were whitening. "But it--even allowing that I have a secret--need not weigh you down."

"Not weigh me down!--to terror deeper than yours; to shame more abject?

Suppose I know the secret?"

"You cannot know it," he gasped. "It would have killed you."

"And what _has_ it done? Look at me."

"Oh, Maude!" he wailed, "what is it that you do, or do not know? How did you learn anything about it?"

"I learnt it through my own folly. I am sorry for it now. My knowing it can make the fact neither better nor worse; and perhaps I might have been spared the knowledge to the end."

"But what is it that you know?" he asked, rather wis.h.i.+ng at the moment he was dead himself.

"_All._"

"It is impossible."

"It is true."