“Oh, Lilian! It can’t be—that you are—that—you are—married?” he gasped, and his brow was livid as he hang upon her answer.
“No,” she replied, “I am not—that,” and again she shuddered.
For a moment the other did not speak, but his face would have made a study passing curious as he analysed the position. In the midst of the shock his coolness seemed to have come back to him in a sudden and dangerous degree.
“Listen, now, Lilian,” he said. “You are under a promise to some one—a rash, hasty promise. That much I might almost have seen for myself. I don’t care whether it was made in Heaven or in hell; but you are going to annul it, and to annul it in favour of me. For it was a rash promise, and if you keep it you will be doing evil that good may come of it. Your own creed would tell you that much, and would forbid it, too.”
“You don’t care for this man, whoever he is,” went on Claverton, having paused for her reply, but none came, “and he doesn’t care for you, or he would never have allowed you to throw yourself on the world’s tender mercies as he has done,” and his voice grew hard at the thought. “You don’t care for him, and you do—for—me,” he said, in a desperation which rose far above conventionalities of speech.
Again she made no reply, so he continued; but now his tones were very soft and pleading.
“Yes, you do for me, darling. I could see it. Haven’t I seen your sweet face light up at my approach? Haven’t I noticed the softening in that exquisite voice when you turned to me? You remember when I came back that time we went after the stolen oxen,” (referring to an episode which had involved a three days’ absence from Seringa Vale). “You were so glad to see me, then, sweetest. There was no mistaking the speech of those divine eyes of yours. There’s no conceit in my saying this, because love sometimes begets love, and have not I poured out the whole of mine at your feet? And I should be a fool not to see that you had been happy when with me. Oh, my darling, I cannot lose you. We cannot part. Only think of it! How can we? What will life be worth? Lilian, I won’t live without you. Only give me your future, your past shall never trouble you in your future’s sunshine. This wretched promise, it is nothing. It was made unthinkingly; you must retract it. You dare not wreck two lives for the sake of keeping a rash promise. You cannot, you dare not?”
He was terribly in earnest. There was something heartrending in the wild and, as it were, clinging tones of his entreaty, as he saw the prize slipping from his grasp just as he had thought to win it. He had played a bold stake, but it was his last, and the game must be boldly played if it was to be won.
To Lilian the moment was awful. She looked up at the dark, pleading face bent over her, drank in every tone of the strong, earnest voice. It was maddening, delirious. Ah! what happiness might be hers! She would yield. Then came the recollection of another face, another voice none the less pleading, a promise given, spoken low in a darkened chamber and at the side of a deathbed, but spoken in all pure faith and trust, a promise which was to hold good to the end of time, come weal, come woe. A promise—and such a promise—was sacred. She might tear out her own heart in keeping it, but it must be kept. Oh, God! this was indeed awful. Would she be able to bear up much longer, or would she die? And in her ears kept ringing his voice—his loving, earnest, firm voice—firm now, though at times so terribly shaken. “You dare not wreck two lives for the sake of keeping a rash promise.” And the picture he had drawn for her! Oh, no; the price to be paid was to be counted in tears of blood, but a promise is sacred to the end of time.
“Only think of the future, Lilian,” he whispered, entreatingly. “The future, the bright future. Always sunny like this,” glancing at the surroundings. “An earnest of our lives. Yours and mine.”