She is crying now, not in any great sobs, but her eyes are wind-blown lakes of crystal tears whose tide overflows. She has fallen back on the one great comfort, the one pearl saved from the wrecked argosy.
"A man who could be cruel to you ought to be hanged!" he says, passionately, and her tears move him beyond description. "Floyd isn't cruel; he is simply cold, indifferent. Oh, my poor little girl, how can I comfort you?"
"You cannot comfort me," she says, drearily. "I read a long while ago, in the convent,—I think it was,—that it is not given to every one to be happy, that one can be upright and honest and pure, and do one's duty, but that happiness is a blessing of God that is given or withheld, and we must not waver on that account. Now let me go, and you must never again say any of these things to me."
She rises feebly, but he is still on the floor of the summer-house at her feet. Something about her awes him; he is vain and weak and fond of trying on emotions, he has little sense of present responsibility, but, as he has said, he does love her, and it is perhaps the best experience of his whole life. A weak or silly woman would have dragged him down in spite of his worldly common-sense, but she seems to stir the manliness within him. At this instant he could really lay down his life for her; it is the one supreme moment of his indolent, vacillating manhood.
"I have made you still more miserable," he cries, remorsefully. "Oh, what shall I do! Why is it that you may know a thing in secret all your life, and yet the moment you speak of it, it is all wrong? I oughtn't have said a word, and yet it doesn't really make anything different. See, I haven't so much as touched your hand; you are different from other women, you are like a pure little angel shut in a niche. And I mean to do whatever will make you happiest. If you would like me to marry Miss Murray——"
"Oh," she sighs with a great gasp, "don't marry any woman unless you love her!"
He rises then, though he still stands in the doorway. "Forgive me for being such a brute," he implores. "I shall never hurt or offend you again. I would give my right hand to see you happy. You must, you do believe this!"
"I believe it," she says, and they look into each other's eyes. A great crisis has come and gone, they both think, a lightning flash that has revealed so much, and then shut again in blackness. Could she have loved him? she wonders.
She walks slowly towards the house, and going to her room throws herself on the lounge, pressing her throbbing temple upon the pillow. All the wretchedness of her life seems to have culminated, the little doubts she has thrust out or tried to overlive. Somehow she appears to have worked a great and unwitting change in the Grandon family. Once, when Denise was in a discursive mood, she told Violet of Mr. Wilmarth's proposal of marriage. What if she had married him? Violet thinks now. Marcia talks about her "Vulcan" with a curious pride, and he certainly is indulgent. In that case Violet would have marred no lives.
A soft rustle comes up the stairs, and she knows who stands in the doorway.