The Ordeal of Elizabeth Part 41

_Chapter XL_

"Don't you think," said Gerard, "that I have waited long enough?"

It was five months later. The mellow afternoon sunlight pierced the foliage, which, interlacing, formed an arch overhead. Wild roses grew in profusion along the roadside. Beyond, the fields were thickly strewn with b.u.t.tercups and daisies. The air was fragrant with the scent of honeysuckle.

Elizabeth wore a white gown; the hands carelessly clasped before her were filled with June roses. So far, she matched the day and the season. But her head drooped languidly, like a wilting flower, the country air had brought no color to her cheeks. Lines of suffering still lingered about her mouth. The eyes which were cast down, almost hidden by their long lashes, held a latent shadow in their depths.

The man by her side, who had just come up from town, noted all this with a keen anxiety.

"Don't you think," he repeated, with an impatience the greater for what her looks conveyed, "don't you think that I have waited long enough?"

A quiver crossed her face, but she did not look up. "It's not my fault that you have--waited," she murmured.

The man made a rueful gesture. "Oh, you need not tell me that," he said. "If you had had your way, you would have sent me--back to South Africa, I believe." He broke off with a bitter laugh. As if in spite of herself, a smile flickered beneath her drooping lids.

"Not quite so far, perhaps." The words sounded with a demure accent.

But in an instant the smile vanished, her lip quivered, she looked up at him with a tremulous earnestness. "Ah, can't you understand," she cried, "why I want you to go? Haven't I brought you trouble enough? Do you think that now"--she paused and caught her breath--"now that all this disgrace has come upon me," she went on with an effort, "do you think I would burden you with it?"

"Disgrace!"--He flushed hotly.--"I don't know why there should be disgrace," he said, "when every one knows now--even those idiots who doubted you--how baseless the whole miserable accusation was."

"People don't reason." She sighed wearily. "There will always be a cloud over me--I feel it even here. People at The Mills stare at me, the Neighborhood"--she smiled painfully--"the Neighborhood feels that I have brought upon it eternal discredit. Ah, you can't blame them"--as Gerard muttered under his breath an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "It will be the same in town--everywhere. People will always remember that I was horribly talked about, that I have been in prison. For myself"--her lip trembled--"I'm hardened, but for you"--

"For me"--he put out his hand and took hers determinedly into his strong grasp--"for me it is inevitable that, whatever troubles you have, I must share them."

There was silence for a moment. They stood facing each other, the only actors in the peaceful country scene; the man strong, determined, his eyes aglow with the fire of mastery; the woman pale, drooping, exhausted, yet still with some power in her weakness, that opposed itself to his strength. She put out her hand at last in a gesture of entreaty. "Ah, don't let us go all over this again," she pleaded.

"Don't make it so hard for me. It's hard enough"--The words seemed to escape her unawares.

"Ah!" A gleam of triumph crossed his face. "It is hard, then?"

"Most things are hard."--She spoke with recovered firmness.--"Life is hard, but one must--bear it. At least I'll try to bear it--alone. The only amends I can make to you"--she clasped her hands suddenly in a pa.s.sionate gesture of renunciation--"the only atonement is to efface myself, to sink out of your life as if I had never--been in it." She paused, her breath came in convulsive gasps, but still she faced him resolute, the look in her eyes with which some penitent of the early church might have welcomed lifelong immolation. "To efface myself,"

she repeated, dwelling upon the words as if they held some painful satisfaction, "to sink out of your life--it is the only atonement I can make."

"You can't make it." Gerard's words rang out clearly. He took her hands again resolutely in his. "You can't efface yourself," he said.

"It's beyond your power." A smile flickered across his face, his eyes looked into hers with an imperious tenderness, before which they fell abashed. "Do you know," he said, "why I went off in that idiotic fas.h.i.+on into the wilds, tried to cut myself off from the world? I was bitter, angry--I wanted to forget you; I thought, if there were nothing to remind me of you, I might. And then day and night I thought of you, day and night your face haunted me.... Ah, Elizabeth"--his voice broke--"ask me to do anything except--forget you."

There was again silence. Elizabeth's lips parted, her breath fluttered, a warm, lovely color flooded her face. He thought she had yielded. But almost instantly the color faded, she drew her hands from his grasp and shrank away, as if under the weight of some painful memory. "And,--and that deception," she gasped out. "What has happened to change that? You said--don't you remember?--that you could never"--her voice quivered--"never trust me again." She lifted her head suddenly, she looked him firmly, steadily, in the face, with eyes that seemed the index to her soul. "I did deceive you," she said.

"Nothing can change that fact. Why should you trust me now?"

"Ah, it would be hard on most of us"--the words sprung impetuously to his lips--"if there were no forgiveness, if strict justice were always meted out." He put out his hand in a pa.s.sionate gesture, a rush of feeling thrilled his voice. "Elizabeth," he cried, "don't bring up words which I said that night in anger, which I have repented--G.o.d knows!--ever since. You had done an heroic thing in telling me the truth at last, just when it was hardest--I--brute that I was--could only think of my own misery. But let the past go--it shall not ruin our lives any longer." He put his arm around her and drew her towards him. He felt her heart beat, her pulses throb; his voice took on a deeper note of tenderness. "The future is ours, and love is ours--my darling, does anything else matter?"

The argument may not have been a wise one, but it has gained more victories than all the logic in the world. Elizabeth, weary of struggling, resigned herself to her defeat....

Later she looked up, gave a little, fluttering sigh, and her eyes sought his with a wistful sweetness. "Dear, I'm not worth it," she murmured, "but I will try--oh, I will try so hard." ... Gerard, smiling, cut the sentence short.

They walked on homeward through the fragrant lanes, in which they two seemed the only wanderers. The Misses Van Vorst, sitting by the drawing-room windows, saw them come with a little thrill of anxiety.

Miss Joanna dropped a st.i.tch in her knitting, and Miss Cornelia's thin, silvery curls fluttered, as if stirred by some intangible wave of sympathy.

Elizabeth crossed the flower-studded lawn and came towards them, her white skirts swaying about her in the gentle summer wind. She held her head erect, her color was brilliant, her eyes l.u.s.trous. The setting sun shone on her hair and lit it up into a vivid glory. Elizabeth's aunts stole a glance at her, at the look on Gerard's face. Then their eyes met and they smiled softly at each other through a mist of tears.