'No, I think not,' she said with a wan smile, endeavouring to recollect the reason why she should cherish offence. Everything was so incredibly misty at times, so far away and indifferent. The days seemed to stretch on and on, like eternity. Three had not yet passed since the morning on which she opened that letter with its pitiless tidings. Yet the most remote epoch of her life seemed to be the days in which supreme happiness was neither a threat nor a vague possibility, but a secure possession. And now it was all over—all over, with nothing left but those recurring periods in which she was alive in every nerve to the horrible misery that had overtaken her—periods in which she seemed to see nothing but a ship that sailed on, night and day, bearing the only man she had ever loved, or could love, to his wife. The thought stung her so intolerably that she often rose up, seeking for relief in motion, as if a heavy physical load crushed her which she must endeavour to throw off.
Ritchie looked into her face with startled inquiry. What ailed her? Was it possible that the knowledge which Laurette said had partly come to the girl should give her so much pain? The thought touched him strongly. But he remembered Laurette's warning. He might interrupt her counsels and little incipient homilies roughly; but yet no one else could help him so much, nor tell so well what motives swayed Stella.
'I don't believe Melbourne agrees with you one bit,' he said, still holding her hand, which she left passively in his.
'No, perhaps not; and yet I don't want to go back to Fairacre.' They stood side by side in the bay-window, she looking out with heavy, tired eyes at the scrubby little trees and scantily-flowering rose-bushes that decorated the 'grounds' of Monico Lodge, but seeing nought of all that was around her.
'Where would you like to go, Stella?' said Ritchie slowly. His breath came fast, but some instinct warned him to keep down his rising joy.
'Oh, I don't know I where I would not see these woods and skies eternally—away to the far ends of the world.'
'Stella, let me take you wherever you would like to go. It's all I've got to live or care for.' He was looking eagerly into her face, and suddenly saw a gray paleness creeping over it. All became dim around her. She put her hands out like one groping in the dark. He passed his arm round her, and for a moment her head fell on his shoulder. Her face was like that of one dead, and its pallor terrified him. But she did not entirely lose consciousness.
'How dark it has grown!' she said in a faint whisper.
'It will soon be light again, Stella,' answered Ted, hardly knowing what he said. The profound sadness of her face, and her sudden, unaccountable weakness, smote him to the heart. 'Stella, has anything happened that hurts you? Is there anything in the world I can do for you?'
His voice trembled, and he tried to draw her nearer to him. This roused her, and sighing heavily once or twice, she disengaged herself, and sat on the seat that ran round the window. Ritchie's presence had recalled, with a paroxysm of acute agony, all that lay between now and their last parting. Such moments of overpowering pain were succeeded by hours that were passed rather than felt. The intolerable edge of suffering was gradually dulled—became for the time blunted. Apathy put a foil on grief, and robbed memory of its piercing barbs. In the reaction, Ted's familiar voice and unswerving devotion soothed, nay, even reassured her. Her stern, proud self-control had not broken down before anyone till now. And with her self-possession came the thought that he had claims on her. She had once consented to be his wife. But her heart had rebelled against a marriage without the quickening pulse of love and tender mutual sympathy. Now she knew that these were forever sealed against her. The glow and romance of youth were over. She had loved and lost. But the years could not be thrown aside like a stupid story. She had dreamed a dream of life, and it was over, but existence still remained to be got through.