“Always. If I want anything, you are sure to have it ready. If ever I have a misgiving about anything, you are sure to be there to dispel it and reassure me. In fact, I can’t walk a yard but you are spreading metaphorical carpets before my feet. And yet—Oh, Arthur, why did we ever meet?”
She turned away from him, standing with hands clasped before her, and her eyes fixed on the ground.
“Why did we ever meet?” he repeated, again drawing her to him and bending down to whisper in her ear, a low, quick, passionate whisper. “Because you and I were made for each other. Because we were brought together here, both of us, from the other side of the world on purpose for each other. Darling, that was the first thought that flashed through me the very moment I saw you that first day. All of me before that, was a different self; I hardly recognise it, now. You remember that night by the water—it was the hardest blow I ever had, that that little hand dealt me. But I wouldn’t take it as final, I wouldn’t give it up, and now I’ve served my apprenticeship fairly well, haven’t I? What you’ve just said tells me that, even if nothing else did.”
There was a frightened, despairing look in her eyes; her lips moved as if she were trying to speak, but the words would not come, and she made as if she would draw away from him.
“Lilian—sweetest—life of my life! Don’t look so frightened, darling,” he cried, in a tone of thrilling tenderness. “Remember what you have just told me, and for God’s sake don’t look so frightened. Tell me now that you are going to give me the care of your whole life—your sweet, love-diffusing life. Tell me this: Haven’t I fairly established a claim to it? Look at the sunshine around. That shall be an earnest of your life, if you give it to me. My darling—my more than Heaven—only say you will.”
He paused, hanging breathlessly on the reply. Again she struggled to speak. The tension was fearful. Would she faint or die? Then he bent his ear yet lower to catch two words hoarsely whispered:
“I—cannot!”
And then again the black bolt of despair shot through Claverton’s heart. This was the last throw of the dice, the last chance, and he felt it was. Hitherto he had been almost confident in his hopefulness, now the cup was dashed to the ground. Thus they stood for a space, neither speaking. To Lilian it seemed as if the hour of her death had come, and with her own hand she must drive home the weapon—down, down to her very heart. The stray sunbeams crept along the ground beneath the old pear-tree, insects hummed, and a bird twittered in the radiant light without, and all told of calm and peace, and the very air seemed like a glow from Heaven. With that mysterious instinct which stamps upon the mind the veriest trifles at the time of some momentous crisis, she marked the efforts of two large black ants who were carrying the dead body of a cricket up the trunk of the tree; and to the end of her days she would remember the persevering attempts of the laborious insects as they dragged their burden, regardless of check or stumble, over the rough bark of the old espalier. It seemed to her that hours had passed instead of moments. Then he spoke, but his voice had lost its confident, hopeful ring. “Don’t say that. Say you can, and you will!” She tried to lift her head, to speak firmly, but the attempt was a failure.
“I cannot,” she repeated. “Forget me—hate me, if you will,” and she shuddered; but he clasped her closer to him. “I can be nothing to you. I am bound—tied—bound firmly. Nothing can release me—nothing!”
A look so stony and awful came into Claverton’s face that, had she seen it, she would inevitably have fainted away then and there.