ZOE was the first to speak, or rather to gasp. “Why do you come here?”
“Because you are here.”
“And how dare you come where I am?—now your falsehood is found out and flung into my very face!”
“I have never been false to you. At this moment I suffer for my fidelity.”
“You suffer? I am glad of it. How?”
“In many ways: but they are all light, compared with my fear of losing your love.”
“I will listen to no idle words,” said Zoe sternly. “A lady claimed you before my face; why did you not stand firm like a man, and say, 'You have no claim on me now; I have a right to love another, and I do?' Why did you fly?—because you were guilty.”
“No,” said he, doggedly. “Surprised and confounded, but not guilty. Fool! idiot! that I was. I lost my head entirely. Yes, it is hopeless. You must despise me. You have a right to despise me.”
“Don't tell me,” said Zoe: “you never lose your head. You are always self-possessed and artful. Would to Heaven I had never seen you!” She was violent.
He gave her time. “Zoe,” said he, after a while, “if I had not lost my head, should I have ill-treated a lady and nearly killed her?”
“Ah!” said Zoe, sharply, “that is what you have been suffering from—remorse. And well you may. You ought to go back to her, and ask her pardon on your knees. Indeed, it is all you have left to do now.”
“I know I ought.”
“Then do what you ought. Good-by.”
“I cannot. I hate her.”
“What, because you have broken her heart, and nearly killed her?”
“No; but because she has come between me and the only woman I ever really loved, or ever can.”
“She would not have done that if you had not given her the right. I see her now; she looked justice, and you looked guilt. Words are idle, when I can see her face before me still. No woman could look like that who was in the wrong. But you—guilt made you a coward: you were false to her and false to me; and so you ran away from us both. You would have talked either of us over, alone; but we were together: so you ran away. You have found me alone now, so you are brave again; but it is too late. I am undeceived. I decline to rob Mademoiselle Klosking of her lover; so good-by.”
And this time she was really going, but he stopped her. “At least don't go with a falsehood on your lips,” said he, coldly.
“A falsehood!—Me!”
“Yes, it is a falsehood. How can you pretend I left that lady for you, when you know my connection with her had entirely ceased ten months before I ever saw your face?”
This staggered Zoe a moment; so did the heat and sense of injustice he threw into his voice.
“I forgot that,” said she, naively. Then, recovering herself, “You may have parted with her; but it does not follow that she consented. Fickle men desert constant women. It is done every day.”
“You are mistaken again,” said he. “When I first saw you, I had ceased to think of Mademoiselle Klosking; but it was not so when I first left her. I did not desert her. I tore myself from her. I had a great affection for her.”
“You dare to tell me that. Well, at all events, it is the truth. Why did you leave her, then?”
“Out of self-respect. I was poor, she was rich and admired. Men sent her bouquets and bracelets, and flattered her behind the scenes, and I was lowered in my own eyes: so I left her. I was unhappy for a time; but I had my pride to support me, and the wound was healed long before I knew what it was to love, really to love.”
There was nothing here that Zoe could contradict. She kept silence, and was mystified.
Then she attacked him on another quarter. “Have you written to her since you behaved like a ruffian to her?”
“No. And I never will, come what may. It is wicked of me; but I hate her. I am compelled to esteem her. But I hate her.”
Zoe could quite understand that; but in spite of that she said, “Of course you do. Men always hate those they have used ill. Why did you not write to me? Had a mind to be impartial, I suppose?”
“I had reason to believe it would have been intercepted.”
“For shame! Vizard is incapable of such a thing.”
“Ah, you don't know how he is changed. He looks on me as a mad dog. Consider, Zoe: do, pray, take the real key to it all. He is in love with Mademoiselle Klosking, madly in love with her: and I have been so unfortunate as to injure her—nearly to kill her. I dare say he thinks it is on your account he hates me; but men deceive themselves. It is for her he hates me.”
“Oh!”
“Ay. Think for a moment, and you will see it is. You are not in his confidence. I am sure he has never told you that he ordered his keepers to shoot me down if I came about the house at night.”
“Oh no, no!” cried Zoe.
“Do you know he has raised the country against me, and has warrants out against me for forgery, because I was taken in by a rogue who gave me bills with sham names on them, and I got Vizard to cash them? As soon as we found out how I had been tricked, my uncle and I offered at once to pay him back his money. But no! he prefers to keep the bills as a weapon.”
Zoe began to be puzzled a little. But she said, “You have been a long time discovering all these grievances. Why have you held no communication all this time?”
“Because you were inaccessible. Does not your own heart tell you that I have been all these weeks trying to communicate, and unable? Why, I came three times under your window at night, and you never, never would look out.”
“I did look out ever so often.”
“If I had been you, I should have looked ten thousand times. I only left off coming when I heard the keepers were ordered to shoot me down. Not that I should have cared much, for I am desperate. But I had just sense enough left to see that, if my dead body had been brought bleeding into your hall some night, none of you would ever have been happy again. Your eyes would have been opened, all of you. Well, Zoe, you left Vizard Court; that I learned: but it was only this morning I could find out where you were gone: and you see I am here—with a price upon my head. Please read Vizard's advertisements.”
She took them and read them. A hot flush mounted to her cheek.
“You see,” said he, “I am to be imprisoned if I set my foot in Barfordshire. Well, it will be false imprisonment, and Mademoiselle Klosking's lover will smart for it. At all events, I shall take no orders but from you. You have been deceived by appearances. I shall do all I can to undeceive you, and if I cannot, there will be no need to imprison me for a deceit of which I was the victim, nor to shoot me like a dog for loving you. I will take my broken heart quietly away, and leave Barfordshire, and England, and the world, for aught I care.”
Then he cried: and that made her cry directly.
“Ah!” she sighed, “we are unfortunate. Appearances are so deceitful. I see I have judged too hastily, and listened too little to my own heart, that always made excuses. But it is too late now.”
“Why too late?”
“It is.”
“But why?”
“It all looked so ugly, and you were silent. We are unfortunate. My brother would never let us marry; and, besides—Oh, why did you not come before?”
“I might as well say, Why did you not look out of your window? You could have done it without risking your life, as I did. Or why did you not advertise. You might have invited an explanation from 'E. S.,' under cover to so-and-so.”
“Ladies never think of such things. You know that very well.”
“Oh, I don't complain; but I do say that those who love should not be ready to reproach; they should put a generous construction. You might have known, and you ought to have known, that I was struggling to find you, and torn with anguish at my impotence.”
“No, no. I am so young and inexperienced, and all my friends against you. It is they who have parted us.”
“How can they part us, if you love me still as I love you?”
“Because for the last fortnight I have not loved you, but hated you, and doubted you, and thought my only chance of happiness was to imitate your indifference: and while I was thinking so, another person has come forward; one whom I have always esteemed: and now, in my pity and despair, I have given him hopes.” She hid her burning face in her hands.
“I see; you are false to me, and therefore you have suspected me of being false to you.”
At that she raised her head high directly. “Edward, you are unjust. Look in my face, and you may see what I have suffered before I could bring myself to condemn you.”
“What! your paleness, that dark rim under your lovely eyes—am I the cause?”
“Indeed you are. But I forgive you. You are sadly pale and worn too. Oh, how unfortunate we are!”
“Do not cry, dearest,” said he. “Do not despair. Be calm, and let me know the worst. I will not reproach you, though you have reproached me. I love you as no woman can love. Come, tell me.”
“Then the truth is, Lord Uxmoor has renewed his attention to me.”
“Ah!”
“He has been here every day.”
Severne groaned.
“Aunt Maitland was on his side, and spoke so kindly to me, and he saved my life from a furious bull. He is brave, noble, good, and he loves me. I have committed myself. I cannot draw back with honor.”
“But from me you can, because I am poor and hated, and have no title. If you are committed to him, you are engaged to me.”
“I am; so now I can go neither way. If I had poison, I would take it this moment, and end all.”
“For God's sake, don't talk so. I am sure you exaggerate. You cannot, in those few days, have pledged your faith to another. Let me see your finger. Ah! there's my ring on it still: bless you, my own darling Zoe—bless you;” and he covered her hand with kisses, and bedewed it with his ever-ready tears.
The girl began to melt, and all power to ooze out of her, mind and body. She sighed deeply and said, “What can I do—I don't say with honor and credit, but with decency. What can I do?”
“Tell me, first, what you have said to him that you consider so compromising.”
Zoe, with many sighs, replied: “I believe—I said—I was unhappy. And so I was. And I owned—that I admired—and esteemed him. And so I do. And then of course he wanted more, and I could not give more; and he asked might he try and make me love him; and—I said—I am afraid I said—he might, if he could.”
“And a very proper answer, too.”
“Ah! but I said he might come every day. It is idle to deceive ourselves: I have encouraged his addresses. I can do nothing now with credit but die, or go into a convent.”
“When did you say this?”
“This very day.”
“Then he has never acted on it.”
“No, but he will. He will be here tomorrow for certain.”
“Then your course is plain. You must choose to-night between him and me. You must dismiss him by letter, or me upon this spot. I have not much fortune to offer you, and no coronet; but I love you, and you have seen me reject a lovely and accomplished woman, whom I esteem as much as you do this lord. Reject him? Why, you have seen me fling her away from me like a dog sooner than leave you in a moment's doubt of my love: if you cannot write a civil note declining an earl for me, your love in not worthy of mine, and I will begone with my love. I will not take it to Mademoiselle Klosking, though I esteem her as you do this lord; but, at all events, I will take it away from you, and leave you my curse instead, for a false, fickle girl that could not wait one little month, but must fall, with her engaged ring on her finger, into another man's arms. Oh, Zoe! Zoe! who could have believed this of you?”
“Don't reproach me. I won't bear it,” she cried, wildly.
“I hope not to have to reproach you,” said he, firmly; “I cannot conceive your hesitating.”
“I am worn out. Love has been too great a torment. Oh, if I could find peace!”
Again her tears flowed.
He put on a sympathizing air. “You shall have peace. Dismiss him as I tell you, and he will trouble you no more; shake hands with me, and say you prefer him, and I will trouble you no more. But with two lovers, peace is out of the question, and so is self-respect. I know I could not vacillate between you and Mademoiselle Klosking or any other woman.”
“Ah, Edward, if I do this, you ought to love me very dearly.”
“I shall. Better than ever—if possible.”
“And never make me jealous again.”
“I never shall, dearest. Our troubles are over.”
“Edward, I have been very unhappy. I could not bear these doubts again.”
“You shall never be unhappy again.”
“I must do what you require, I suppose. That is how it always ends. Oh dear! oh dear!”
“Zoe, it must be done. You know it must.”
“I warn you I shall do it as kindly as I can.”
“Of course you will. You ought to.”
“I must go in now. I feel very cold.”
“How soon to-morrow will you meet me here?”
“When you please,” said she, languidly.
“At ten o'clock?”
“Yes.”
Then there was a tender parting, and Zoe went slowly in. She went to her own room, just to think it all over alone. She caught sight of her face in the glass. Her cheeks had regained color, and her eyes were bright as stars. She stopped and looked at herself. “There now,” said she, “and I seem to myself to live again. I was mad to think I could ever love any man but him. He is my darling, my idol.”
There was no late dinner at Somerville Villa. Indeed, ladies, left to themselves, seldom dine late. Nature is strong in them, and they are hungriest when the sun is high. At seven o'clock Zoe Vizard was seated at her desk trying to write to Lord Uxmoor. She sighed, she moaned, she began, and dropped the pen and hid her face. She became almost wild; and in that state she at last dashed off what follows:
“DEAR LORD UXMOOR—For pity's sake, forgive the mad words I said to you today. It is impossible. I can do no more than admire and esteem you. My heart is gone from me forever. Pray forgive me, though I do not deserve it; and never see me nor look at me again. I ask pardon for my vacillation. It has been disgraceful; but it has ended, and I was under a great error, which I cannot explain to you, when I led you to believe I had a heart to give you. My eyes are opened. Our paths lie asunder. Pray, pray forgive me, if it is possible. I will never forgive myself, nor cease to bless and revere you, whom I have used so ill.