“i am not fit!”

of a sudden, she turned her head and glanced full in my eyes. her thoughts were, like mine, of the past—of those glad and gracious days.

i stood still for a moment, and catching her hands kissed them; my own were burning.

we went on by the curving course outside the wood quite silent, for the gloom of the future had settled upon us.

the past! those days when my ella was altogether mine! i loved to linger on those blissful days, for they were lighted with the sweetest sunlight of my life. never since, for me, had flowers blossomed, and fruits ripened, and waters murmured, and grasshoppers sung, and waves beat joyous music as in the spring and summer of that wondrous time.

to rise when all the world was flushed with the soft pink of the earliest dawn, and to go hand in hand with her through the breast-high corn with scarlet poppies clasping the gliding feet; to see the purple wraith of rain haunting the silvery fairness of the hills; to watch the shadows chase the sun rays over the wide-open mysterious sea; to feel the living light of the cloudless day beat us with a million pulses amid the hum of life all around; to go out into the lustre of the summer’s night; to breathe the air soft as the first kisses of our own new-found love, and rich as wine with the strong odours of a world of flowers. these had in those never-to-be-forgotten days been her joys and mine, joys at once of the senses and the soul.

i loved her so—god knows! and yet almost i hated her. she had, on that night in bayswater, deceived me! she had deceived me!

this was the iron in my soul. it is an error so common. women lie to men—and men to women for the matter of that—out of mistaken tenderness or ill-judged compassion, or that curious fear of recrimination from which the firmest courage is not exempt. a woman deceives a man with untruth, not because she is base, but because she fears to hurt him with the truth; fears his reproaches; fears a painful scene, and even when he is quite worthless she is reluctant to wound his weakness. it is an error so common in this everyday life of ours: an error that is fatal always.

had she been quite frank with me on that night when we had parted we might not have found ourselves fettered as we now were—she held to a man who was clearly an adventurer and a blackguard to boot.

yet how could i reproach her for what was a great and complete self-sacrifice. no. she had done what was, perhaps, strictly her duty, even though both our lives had been wrecked in consequence.

“my love!” i murmured passionately, as with a cry i caught her in my arms, and held her close to me, as a man will hold some dear dead thing. and was she not, alas! now dead to me?

our lips met again, but she was still silent. how many moments went i do not know; as there are years in which a man does not live a moment, so there are moments in which one lives a lifetime.

her soft blue eyes closed beneath my kisses, my sense grew faint, the world became dark, all light and life shut out from me—all dark. but it was the sweet warm darkness, as though of the balmy night in june; and even then i know i prayed, prayed to him that she might still be mine.

the trance of passion passed. how long it lasted i cannot tell.

after a while, the cloud that had enveloped my senses seemed suddenly to lift; the sweet unconsciousness died away. i lifted my head and strained myself backward, still holding her, and yet i shivered as i stood.

i remembered.

she, with a quick vague fear awakening in her eyes, held herself from me.

“why look at me like that?” she cried. “i—i cannot bear it. let us part now—at once. i must return, or my absence will be known and i shall be questioned.”

i do not know what i said in answer. all madness of reproach that ever man’s tongue could frame left my lips in those blind cruel moments. all excuse for her; all goodness in her i forgot! ah! god forgive me, i forgot! she had deceived me; that was all i knew, or cared to know.

in that mad moment all the pride in me, fanned by the wind of jealousy, flamed afresh, and burned up love. in that sudden passion of love and hate my brain had gone.

yet she stood motionless, pale as death, and trembling, her eyes filled with the light of unshed tears.

i do not know what she said in response to my cruel bitter reproaches.

all i know is that i next became suddenly filled with shame. i knelt then before her, asking forgiveness, kissing her hands, her dress, her feet, pouring out to her in all the eager impetuousness of my nature the rapture, the woe, the sorrow, the shame and the remorse that turn by turn had taken possession of my heart.

“i love you, ella!” i cried. “i love you and as i love am i jealous. mine is no soulless vagary or mindless folly. you are mine—mine though you may be bound to this blackguard whose victim you have fallen. i am jealous of you, jealous of the wind that touches you, of the sun that shines upon you, of the air you breathe, of the earth you tread, for they are with you while i am not.”

her head was bowed. she shut her ears to the pleading of my heart. she wrenched her hands from me, crying:—

“no, no, godfrey! enough—enough! spare me this!”

and she struggled from my arms.

“my darling!” i cried, “i know! i know! yet you cannot realise all that i suffer now that we are to part again and for ever. i hate that man. ah! light of my eyes, when i think that you are to be his i—i would rather a thousand times see you lying cold and dead at my feet, for i would then know that at least you would be spared unhappiness.”

it seemed that she dared not trust herself to look on me. she flung back her head and eluded my embrace.

“my love!” i cried, “all life in me is yearning for your life; for the softness of silent kisses; for the warmth of clasped hands; for the gladness of summer hours beside the sea. do you remember them? do you remember the passion and peace of our mutual love that smiled at the sun, and knew that heaven held no fairer joys than those which were its own, at the mere magic of a single touch?”

“yes, dear,” she sighed, “i remember—i remember everything. and you have a right to reproach me as you will,” she added very gently.

she was still unyielding; her burning eyes were now tearless, and she stood motionless.

“but you have forgiven me, my love?” i cried humbly. “i was mad to have uttered those words.”

“i have forgiven, godfrey,” she answered. a heavy sigh ran through the words and made them barely audible.

“and you still love me?”

all the glow and eagerness and fervour or passion had died off her face; it grew cold and colourless and still, with the impenetrable stillness of a desperate woman’s face that masks all pain.

“do you doubt i loved you—i?”

that reproach cut me to the quick. i was passionate with man’s passion; i was cruel with children’s cruelty.

my face, i felt, flushed crimson, then grew pale again. i shrank a little, as though she had struck me a blow, a blow that i could not return.

“then—then why should we part?” i asked, as all my love for her welled up in my faint heart. “why should we not defy this man and let him do his worst? at least we should be united in one sweet, sacred and perfect faith—our love.”

for a few moments she made no reply, but looked at me very long—very wistfully, with no passion in those dear eyes, only a despair that was so great that it chilled me into speechless terror.

“no, no,” she cried at last, covering her face with her white hands, as though in shame, and bursting into a flood of tears. “you do not know all—i pray that you, the man i love so fondly, may never know! if you knew you would hate me and curse my memory. therefore take back those words, and forget me—yes, forget—for i am not fit to be your wife!”