A Crooked Path Part 85

"Yes, yes," De Burgh went on, impatiently, "I see you think me a brute for suspecting her capable of such a thing, but how was I to know she was different from others? It is too infernally provoking that such an affair should came to your notice! You are quite unable to judge fairly;" and he resumed his agitated walk. "I swear I am no worse than my neighbors. Ask any woman of the world, ask Mrs. Needham--they will tell you I am not an unpardonable sinner! I will do anything on earth for Rachel that you think right. Just remember her position and mine, it was not as if--It is impossible to explain to you, but there was no reason, had she been a little sensible, why such an episode should have spoiled her life! Lots of women--" he stopped, and with a muttered curse paused opposite her.

"And _could_ you have been her companion so long, without perceiving the strength and pride and tenderness of the woman who gave up all hoping to keep the love you no doubt ardently expressed? Ah! if you could have seen her as she was when I found her!"

"How was I to know she was staking her gold against my counters?"

returned De Burgh, obstinately, though a dark flush pa.s.sed over his face at Katherine's words.

"Lord de Burgh! I did not think you could be so cruel," cried Katherine, rising. "I will not speak to you any longer."

"Cruel!" he exclaimed, placing himself between her and the door. "How can I be just or generous, when this most unfortunate encounter has put me in such a hopeless position? Katherine, will you let this miserable mistake of the past rob me of my best hopes, my most ardently cherished desires----"

"It is but two or three years since you spoke in the same tone, possibly the same words, to Rachel! At least, knowing her as I do, I feel sure she would have yielded to no common amount of persuasion. She was mad, weak to a degree to listen to you; but she was alone, and love is so sweet."

"It is," cried De Burgh, pa.s.sionately. "Why will you turn from love as true, as intense as ever was offered to woman, merely because I let myself fall into an error but too common--"

"Is it not a mere accident of our respective positions that you happen to seek me as your _wife_?" said Katherine, a slight curl on her lip; "and how can I feel sure that in time you will not weary of me as you did of her?"

"The cases are utterly unlike. So long as the world lasts, men and women too will act as Rachel Trant and I did; Nature is too strong for social laws and religious maxims."

"And you said you had never done anything to be ashamed of?" she exclaimed, bitterly.

"Nor have I!" said De Burgh, stoutly, "if I were tried by the standard of our world. How can you know--how can you judge?"

"I do not judge, I have no right to judge," said Katherine, brokenly. "I only know that, when I saw your eyes meet Rachel's I felt a great gulf had suddenly opened between us, a gulf that cannot be bridged. I do not understand and cannot judge, as you say, and I am sorry for you too; but if life is to be this miserable shuffling of chances, this jumble of injustice, I would rather die than live. No, Lord de Burgh, I _will_ go."

"Good Heavens! Katherine, you are trembling; you can hardly stand. I am a brute to keep you; but I cannot help clutching my only chance of happiness. You are an angel! Dispose of me as you will; but in mercy give me some hope. I'll wait; I'll do anything."

"Oh, no, no. It is impossible. I am so fond of _her_; and you will find many to whom your past will be nothing; for me it is irrevocable. The world seems intolerable; let me go;" and she burst into such bitter sobs that her whole frame shook.

"I must not keep you now; but I shall _not_ give you up. I will write.

Oh, Katherine, you would not destroy me!" He seized and pa.s.sionately kissed her hand, which she tore from him, and fled from the room.

When Rachel Trant escaped from the presence of her dearest friend and her ex-lover, she could scarcely see or stand. Thankful not to meet anyone, she hastily left the house, and, somewhat revived by the air, she made her way to a secluded part of the Kensington Gardens. Here she found a seat, and, still palpitating with the shock she had sustained, strove to reduce the chaotic whirl of her thoughts to something like order.

She divined by instinct why De Burgh was at Mrs. Needham's. She knew, how she could not tell, that he was seeking Katherine as eagerly as he had sought herself; but with what a different object! The sight of De Burgh was as the thrust of a poisoned dagger through the delicate veins and articulations of her moral system. To see the dark face and sombre eyes she had loved so pa.s.sionately--had!--still loved!--was almost physical agony. It was as if some beloved form had been brought back from another world, but animated by a spirit that knew her not, regarded her not at all. Oh, the bitterness of such an estrangement, of this expulsion from the paradise of warmth and tenderness where she had been cherished for a while--a heavenly place which should know her no more.

"I brought it all upon myself," was the sentence of her strong stern sense. "Losing self-respect, what hold can any woman have upon a lover?--yet how many men are faithful even to death without the legal tie! I do not love him now, but how fondly, how intensely I loved the man I thought he was! Oh, fool, fool, fool, to believe that I could ever tighten my hold upon a man who had gained all he wished unconditionally!

I have deserved all--all."

Yet she had no hatred against the real De Burgh, neither had she any angelic desire to forgive him, or to do him good or convert him; what he was now, he would ever be. He might even make a fairly good husband. The episode of his connection with herself would in no way interfere with _his_ moral harmony. But he was not worthy of Katherine; no unbreakable tie would make him more constant; and, though his faithlessness could not touch her social position, he might crush her heart all the same.

Rachel was far too human, too pa.s.sionate, not to shrink with unutterable pain from the idea of this man's entrancing love being lavished on another, yet her true, devoted affection for her benefactress remained untouched. Katherine stood before everything. Rachel did not wish to injure De Burgh--her heart had simply grown strong, and she would not hesitate for a moment to save Katherine from trouble at any cost to him.

What then should she do?--continue to withhold the name of the man of whom she had so often spoken, or let Katherine know the whole truth and judge for herself? If she decided on the latter, it would break up her friends.h.i.+p with Katherine, and De Burgh would attribute her action to revenge. Should that deter her? No; so long as she was sure of herself, what were opinions to her? The one thing in life to which she clung now was Katherine's affection and esteem; for her she would sacrifice much, but she would not flatter her into a fool's paradise of trust and wedded love with De Burgh by concealing anything, neither would she counsel her against the desperate experiment, should she be inclined to risk it. He might be a very different man to a wife.

A certain amount of composure came to her with decision, though a second death seemed to have laid its icy hand upon her heart; she rose and made her way towards her own abode, determining to await a visit or some communication from Katherine before she touched the poisoned tract which lay between them.

Rachel had scarcely reached the Broad Walk when she was accosted by a little girl, who ran towards her, calling loudly,

"Miss Trant, Miss Trant, don't you know me?"

She was a slight, willowy creature with black eyes, profuse dark hair, and sallow complexion. Her dress was costly, though simple, and she was followed at a more sober pace by a lady-like but foreign-looking girl, apparently her governess.

"Well, Miss Liddell, are you taking a morning walk?" asked Rachel, as the child took her hand.

"I am going to see papa. I am to have dinner with him. He has a bad cold, and he sent for me."

"Then you must cheer him up, and tell him what you have been learning."

"I haven't learnt much yet; it is so tiresome."

"Come, Mademoiselle Marie, you must not tease Miss Trant," said the foreign-looking lady, whom Rachel recognized as one of the governesses who sometimes escorted George Liddell's daughter "to be tried on."

"She does not tease me," returned Rachel, who had rather taken a fancy to the child.

"Won't you come and see papa with me?" continued the little heiress. "I wish you would, and he will tell you to make me another pretty frock--I love pretty frocks."

"Not to-day; I must go home and make frocks for other people."

"Then I will bring him to see you--I will, I will; he does whatever I like. Good-bye," springing up to kiss her. "I may come and see you soon?"

"Whenever you like, my dear," said Rachel, feeling strangely comforted by the child's warm kisses; and they parted, going in different directions, to meet again soon.

Mrs. Needham had been sorely tried on that fatal day when De Burgh had suddenly departed, after a comparatively short interval, and Katherine had disappeared into the depths of her own room.

She had antic.i.p.ated entertaining the bridegroom-elect at luncheon, and had ordered lobster-cream and an _epigramme d'agneau a la Russe_ as suitable delicacies; she expected confidential consultation and delightful plans; she had even speculated on so managing that the double event:--Angela Bradley's marriage with Errington and Katherine's with Lord de Burgh,--might come off on the same day, even in the same church: that would be a culmination of excitement! Now some mysterious blight had fallen on all her schemes. What had happened? What could they have quarrelled about? Then when Katherine emerged from her refuge she was hopelessly mysterious; there was no penetrating the reserve in which she wrapped herself.

"There is no one in whom I should more readily confide than in you, dear Mrs. Needham, but a serious difference _has arisen_ between Lord de Burgh and myself, respecting which I cannot speak to _anyone_. I regret being obliged to keep it to myself, but I must."

"My dear, if you adopt that tone I have nothing more to say, but it is horribly provoking and disappointing. I am quite sure people began to expect it--that you would marry Lord de Burgh, I mean, and what a position you have thrown away. You can't expect a man like him to be a saint. There is no use trying men by our standard; in short, it's not much matter what standard we have, we must always come down a step or two if we mean to make both ends meet; but you see, when a man has money and right principles, he can atone for a lot."

Katherine gazed at her astonished. How was it that she had found the scent which led so near the real track?

"No money," she said, gravely, "could in any way affect the matters in dispute between Lord de Burgh and myself, so I will not speak any more on the subject. It has all been very painful, and the worst part is that I cannot tell you."

"Well, it must be bad," observed Mrs. Needham, in a complaining tone, "but I suppose I must just hold my tongue."

So Katherine was left in comparative peace. But it was a hard pa.s.sage to her; she could not shake off the sickening sense of wrong and sorrow, the painful consciousness of being humiliated which the revelation inflicted on her, the feeling that she was, in some inexplicable way, touched by the evil-doing of those who were so near her.

A slight cold, caught she knew not how, aggravated the fever induced by distress of mind, and next day Mrs. Needham thought her so unwell that she insisted on sending for the doctor, who condemned Katherine to her bed, a composing draught, and solitude.

The doctor, however, could not forbid letters, and Katherine's seclusion was much disturbed by a long, rambling, impa.s.sioned epistle from De Burgh, in which, though he promised not to intrude upon her at present, he refused to give up all hope, as he could not believe that she would always maintain her present exaggerated and unreasonable frame of mind--a letter that did him no good in Katherine's estimation. Then she tried to resume her work. But Mrs. Needham, returning from one of her "rapid acts" of inspection and negotiation in and out divers and sundry warehouses, dismissed her peremptorily to lie down on the sofa in the drawing-room, in reality to get her out of the way, as she was expecting a visit from Miss Payne, with whom she wanted a little private conversation.

"Can you throw any light on this mysterious quarrel between Katherine and Lord de Burgh?" she asked, abruptly, as soon as Miss Payne was seated in the study.

"Quarrel? have they quarrelled? I know nothing about it. When did they quarrel?"

"About three days ago. He came here to propose for her, I know he did, they were talking together for--oh!--barely a quarter-of-an-hour in the drawing-room, when I heard her fly up stairs, and he rushed away, slamming the door as if he would take the front of the house out.

Katherine has never been herself since. It is my firm belief she is strongly attached to him,--what do you think?"