"Doing all that God doth ask of me," he exclaimed with sudden vehemence, whilst a tone of bitterness, which she could not understand, rang through his usually clear and fresh voice. "Nay, little snowdrop, therein you wrong divine justice—if indeed there be one. Dear heart, were I from this time forth to shed drop by drop all the blood of my veins, were I to give my life inch by inch, my flesh piece by piece to secure your happiness, even then I would not be doing all that God would ask of me."
He had turned from her and while he spoke he paced up and down the narrow room like some untamed creature fretful of its cage; then he broke into a laugh—not the merry laugh which she had so oft heard ringing through the house, but a harsh outburst of passionate sarcasm, which had an undercurrent in it of deep and hidden sorrow. Rose Marie felt a wealth of pity surging in her heart, when she heard that mirthless laugh. Yet was it not passing strange that she, an humble tradesman's daughter, with no knowledge of that great world in which lived my lord, that she should thus dare to pity this noble, high-born and rich English gentleman? But she could not combat the feeling and her innocent blue eyes watching his restless movements, and that troubled look on his face, were filled with the tears of womanly compassion.
She looked divinely pretty thus, sitting at the harpsichord, one delicate hand idly resting on the ivory keys, from which almost unconsciously she had just evoked one sweet and melancholy chord from out the soul of the old instrument, like a long-drawn-out sigh of unspoken sorrow. Her young bosom rose and fell beneath the folds of the primly folded kerchief, and her upturned face showed the white column of her throat round which nestled a string of pearls, large and translucent—his bridal gift to her.
He paused beside her, and in his expressive face the signs of a great inward combat became strangely visible. Then he knelt down, close to her, and with a curious gesture half masterful and half appealing he took both her hands and imprisoned them in his own. He looked straight into those tear-dimmed eyes, with a questioning look that seemed to probe the very depths of her soul.
"My lord you are troubled," she said gently.
"Ay, little snowdrop," he replied, "deeply troubled at sight of the exquisite purity which speaks to me with such mute eloquence from out the depths of your blue eyes. How dare I, miserable wretch, drag you from out that secluded garden of innocence wherein you have grown to such perfect beauty. How dare I with impious hand guide you toward that great outer world which lies so far beyond the glorious land of your girlish dreams? It is a world, dear heart, wherein great monsters dwell, pollution, sin and evil and that canker of corruption which will inevitably mar the calyx of the snowdrop and cause her white petals to droop at its touch."
"I have no fear of that great world, my lord," she rejoined simply, "since I will enter it in your company."
"No, no, you must not talk like that, dear heart," he said with strange persistence, "you must not trust me so. What do you know of me or of my life? You so young, so pure, so exquisite, and I—"
He paused and pushing her hands away with a rough, impetuous movement he jumped to his feet and once more resumed his restless wanderings up and down the room.
"Have you ever wandered, little one, in the forests round Cluny," he asked with one of those sudden transitions in voice and manner which puzzled her so, "and paused beside that pool which the country folk about there call the Lake of Sighs? Yes, I see from your telltale eyes that you do remember it. Well then, you must oft have seen it lying silent and stagnant beneath the shades of the overhanging willows, whilst on its smooth, dark surface water lilies as white as snowdrops rear their stately heads in June. You should see these in the spring tall and majestic, with graceful upright stems and fragrant, wide-open buds, which seem to invite with a kind of cold aloofness the rough caresses and kisses of the bee. Tall and majestic like you, dear heart, pure and coldly innocent like your soul—the spring, coy and cool, smiles and passes by, leaving those lilies to face the scorching breath of awakened summer. Have you stood beside the Lake of Sighs, little one, when dying a summer draws out her last sigh of agony? When rank weeds and poisonous plants begin to grow apace from out the slimy ooze which encircles the pool, and throw out sinewy, death-dealing arms along its peaceful surface? Then noisome trails of slugs and grime skim the once pure waters of the pond and rank growths of coarse weeds cover the slender stems of the lilies, and drag them down, down until the stately flowers, weighted with mud-scattering rain bend their proud heads to the mire, the while in their slimy hovels, loathsome toads croak their chorus in unison. The world to which I must take you, little snowdrop, is just such another pool, you the lily and I the weed—and men and women the loud-voiced croakers who are always ready to proclaim triumphantly the pollution of a work of God."