"Of course I shall care, Ernest."
"Say that a little differently, then I shall be satisfied. Put your arms round my neck; kiss me, if only once, you never have kissed me yet, say, 'I love you, Ernest'; come, my dear one, comfort me a little!"
Her heart was on fire, it throbbed and struggled like a bound creature. She looked sadly, even tenderly at her lover, but she could not break the thrall of careless impassiveness that bound her, as streams are bound in ice. Medway wearied himself with entreaty. She trembled to its passion, but remained inarticulate. He was at first disappointed, then astonished, then, weary with his own emotion, wounded and sorrowful. He rose, put on his hat and gloves, and prepared to leave her. It was like the nailing of the coffin lid over a sensitive form; but still that strange, insuperable apathy was not broken.
"Good-bye, Maria! My life, my love, good-bye! and if forever, still——Maria! Maria!" and those two last words were not only speech, they were a cry from a heart hurt beyond hoping, a cry full of despairing affection. The door closed to them, and its clash broke the icy bounds of that soul stupor which had held her like a spell.
"Ernest! Ernest!" she called passionately, but he was beyond hearing, and ere she reached the parlor door, she heard the entrance door clash in the same fatal, final manner. Yet, walking as if in some evil dream she reached it, and with a great effort threw it wide open. Her lover was just beyond the garden gate. Would he not turn his head? Oh, would he not look round and see her! No. He caught no sound of her sorrowful entreaty; he cast no backward glance to the distracted girl, who reached the outer gate, only to see his tall, soldierly figure blend itself with the misty night shadows, and then vanish entirely.
Never, never in all her life had Maria been so wretched. In the Bradley affair, she had at least the consciousness that it was not her doing; she was the victim of circumstances she could not control; but this cup of sorrow she had stubbornly mixed for herself. And that was the smallest part of her remorse; she had made the man who loved her so dearly, drink of it also. And it had all happened in such a tragically short time. Oh, to call back the last hour! only five minutes of it, that she might see again the handsome face that had never turned to her except with love and tender kindness! Alas, alas, there is no return to our lost Edens! Whatever gardens of pleasure we may find in the future, our past Edens are closed. The cherubim are at the gate, and the flaming sword.
She went despairingly to her room, and sat for two bitter hours speechless, astonished at her own folly and wilfulness. She could blame no one. Destiny in this case had used only the weapons she herself put into her hand. She did not complain, nor even weep, her grief found no passage to her eyes, it sank inward and seemed for the first hour or two to drown her heart in a dismal, sullen stillness, which made her feel the most forlorn and abandoned of creatures.
But even in these dark hours she was trying the wings that should take her out of them. As she sat musing the inner woman returned to the post she had so criminally deserted, and at once began to suggest remedies. "Nothing is desperate," she whispered; "in every loss, but the loss of death, there is room for hope; write a letter, Neil will take it, he may yet be detained."
She took out pen and paper, and wrote the words Medway had begged her to say; wrote, indeed, far more than the one tender "yes" he had asked for. Then she sealed the letter and sat with it in her hand, waiting for Neil. He was so late that she thought he must have reached his room unheard, and toward midnight she tip-toed along the corridor to his door. There was no light, no sound, and when she knocked, no response. Anxiously she resumed her watch, and soon after twelve o'clock heard him enter the house. She went noiselessly down stairs to meet him. "Neil," she said, "can you find Ernest? Oh, if you can, you must carry this letter to him! Neil, it is the very greatest favor I can ever ask of you. Do not speak, if you are going to refuse me."
"My dear Maria, I know not where to find Lord Medway. He ought to have been at the dinner given to Colonel Gordon, and he was not there."