CHAPTER XXIII.
HOW MARIAN FIGHTS FOR MASTERY; AND HOW THE BATTLE GOES; AND HOW CHANCE BEFRIENDS THE ENEMY.
"Tita! You wrong her!" says he. "Why speak of her? You should not; you always disliked her."
"True." She is silent for a moment, looking down into the silent garden. Then she lifts her head, and gazes straight at him. "You know why I disliked her. You must! You—you only. Some instinct from the very first warned me against her. I knew. I knew she would rob me of all that life had left me. I knew"—with a quick, long sob—"she would take you from me!"
Rylton, who has been leaning on the railings beside her, raises himself, and stands staring at her, a terrible anguish in his eyes.
"Marian—think," says he hoarsely.
"Oh, why did you marry her?" cries she, smiting her hands together as if half distracted. "There was always so much time—time!"
"There was none."
"There is always time!" She is silent for a moment, and then, with an increase of passion in her tone, repeats her question: "Why did you marry her?"
"You—to ask me that!" exclaims he fiercely.
"It was not like you," says she, interrupting him in a measure, as though unable to keep back the words, the accusations, that are rushing to her lips. "I have known you so long—so long. Ah! I thought I knew you. I believed you faithful. I believed you many things. But, at all events"—with a sad and desolate reproach—"I never believed you fond of money."
"Marian!" She has laid her hand upon his arm, and now he flings it from him. "That you should accuse me! Money! What was money to me in comparison with your love? But you—you——"
He does not go on: it is so hard to condemn her. He is looking at her in the tender light with eyes that seek to read her heart, and he is very pale. She can see that, in spite of the warm, pink glow of the lamps behind them.
"Well—and I?" questions she, with deep agitation.
How handsome he is! how lovable! Oh for the good sweet past she has so madly flung aside!
"You refused me," says he slowly, "you, on whom my soul was set."
"For your own good," in a stifled voice.
"Don't repeat that wretched formula," exclaims he vehemently. "It means nothing. It was not for my good. It was for my damnation, I think. You see how things are going."
He stops abruptly here, as if thinking of something, and she knows and resents the knowledge that his mind has gone back to Tita—resents it, though his thought has been condemnatory of his wife. Why can't he forget her altogether?
"Yes I meant it for your good," says she, in a whisper.
Her heart is beating wildly.
"You refused me," persists he, in a dull tone. "That is all I remember. You refused me—how many times?"
She turns away from him.
"Once too often, at all events," replies she, in a low, wretched voice.
She makes a movement as if to go back to the lighted rooms beyond, but he catches her and compels her to stay with him.
"What do you mean?" demands he sternly. "To say that to me—and now—now, when it is too late."
"Too late, indeed!" echoes she.
Her voice sounds like the voice of one dying. She covers her face with her hands. He knows that she is crying. Very gently he takes down one of the hands and holds it between both his own, and presses it to his lips. How dear she has always been to him! He realizes in this moment how dear she still is.
"Marian, have pity on me," says he hoarsely. "I have suffered a great deal. And your tears——"
"My tears! They will avail me nothing," says she bitterly. "When you have forsaken me, what is left?"
"Have I forsaken you?" He pauses, as if to control the agitation that is threatening to overcome him. "When all I cared for was lost to me," he goes on presently, his eyes upon the ground, "when you had told me that marriage between us was impossible, then one thing remained, and one only—ambition. The old place had been ours for two centuries—it had its claim on me. If love was not to be my portion, I felt I might as well do all I could for the old name—the old place."
"And your wife? Was that honourable towards her?" She smiles, but her smile is a sneer. "After all, she would not care," says she. "She carried her point! She has compelled you to raise her from the mud to the sky!"
Rylton draws back suddenly. All at once recollection comes to him. His wife! Yes, Tita is his wife, and honour binds him to her. He drops Mrs. Bethune's hand.
"I have been quite honourable," says he coldly. "I arranged matters with her. She knows—she is content to know—that——"
"What?" Mrs. Bethune has felt the change in his manner ever since she mentioned Tita's name. "That you once loved me!"
"No," frowning, "I have not told her that."
"Ah!" cries she, with a sort of passionate relief, "I thank you for that, even though your love for me may now be dead. I thank you for that; and as for your wife, what is she to you?"
"She is my wife!" returns he gloomily. "I shall remember that—always!"
"Ah! she will make you remember it," cries Marian, with a queer laugh. "I warn you of that!"
"You warn me!"
"Yes—yes." She throws out her arms in the moonlight, and laughs again, with a great but cruel delight. "You will see. You don't care for her, she doesn't care for you, and you will see——"
"Marian, take care! I can hear nothing said against my wife, even by you."
"You prefer to hear it, then, from others?" says Mrs. Bethune, leaning back against the railings that overlook the gardens beneath, with a strange smile upon her lips.
"I prefer to believe that there is nothing to hear"—haughtily.
"You can prefer what you like," says she, with a sudden burst of rage; "but hear you shall!"
She takes a step nearer him.
"I shall not," says Rylton firmly, if gently. "She is my wife. I have made her that! I shall remember it."
"And she," says Marian furiously, "what does she remember? You may forget all old ties, if you will; but she—does she forget?"
"Forget what?"
Mrs. Bethune laughs softly, sweetly, wildly.
"Are you blind? Are you mad? Can you see nothing?" cries she, her soft, musical voice now a little harsh and strained. "That cousin—have you seen nothing there?"
"You are alluding to Hescott?"
"Yes—to him, and—Tita!"
"Tita?" His brow darkens. "What are you going to say of her?"
"What you"—deliberately—"do not dare to say, although you know it—that she is absolutely depraved!"
"Depraved!"
"There—stand back!" She laughs, a strange laugh. She has shaken herself free from him. "Fancy your taking it like that!" says she. She is laughing still, but panting; the pressure of his hands on her arms is still fresh. "And have you not seen for yourself, then? Is it not open to all the world to see? Is no one talking but me? Why, her flirtation with her cousin is common talk."
"Depraved, you said!" He has recovered out of that first wild passion of his, and is now gazing at her with a certain degree of composure. "Depraved! I will not have that word used. She is young—thoughtless—foolish, if you will, but not depraved!"
"You can delude yourself just as long as you like," returns she, shrugging her shoulders, "but, all the same, I warn you. I——"
She stops suddenly; voices and steps, coming nearer, check her words. She draws a little away from Rylton, and, lifting her fan, waves it indolently to and fro. The voice belongs to Minnie Hescott, who, with her partner, has come out to the balcony, and now moves down the steps to the lighted gardens below. Mrs. Bethune would have been glad at the thought that Miss Hescott had not seen her; but there had been one moment when she knew the girl's eyes had penetrated through the dusk where she stood, and had known her.
Not that it mattered much. The Hescott girl was of little consequence at any time. Yet sharp, too! Perhaps, after all, she is of consequence. She has gone, however—and it is a mere question whether she had seen her with Sir Maurice or not. Of course, the girl would be on her brother's side, and if the brother is really in love with that little silly fool—and if a divorce was to be thought of—the girl might make herself troublesome.
Mrs. Bethune, leaning over the railings lost in such thoughts, suddenly sees something. She raises herself, and peers more keenly into the soft light below. Yes—yes, surely!
But Minnie Hescott, who has gone down the steps into the garden, has seen something too—that fair, fierce face leaning over the balcony! The eyes are following Tita and her brother, Tom Hescott.