Something in the suppressed passion of her tone tells Lord Sartoris that she too is in possession of the secret that for months has embittered his life. This discovery is horrible to him.
"Who has been cruel enough to make you wise on that subject?" he says, impulsively, and therefore unwisely.
Georgie turns upon him eyes brilliant with despair and grief. "So"—she says, vehemently—"it is the world's talk. You know it: it is, indeed, common property, this disgraceful story." Something within her chokes her words; she can say no more. Passion overcomes her, and want of hope, and grief too deep for expression. The gentle wells that nature supplies are dead within her; her eyes, hot and burning, conceal no water wherewith to cool the fever that consumes them.
"You are a stranger to me," she says, presently. "Yet to you I have laid bare my thoughts. You think, perhaps, I am one to parade my griefs, but it is not so; I would have you——"
"I believe you," he interrupts her hastily. He can hardly do otherwise, she is looking so little, so fragile, with her quivering lips, and her childish pleading eyes, and plaintive voice.
"Take courage," he says, softly: "you are young: good days may yet be in store for you; but with me it is different. I am on the verge of the grave,—am going down into it with no one to soothe or comfort my declining years. Dorian was my one thought: you can never know how I planned, and lived, and dreamed for him alone; and see how he has rewarded me! For youth there is a future, and in that thought alone lies hope; for age there is nothing but the flying present, and even that, for me, has lost its sweetness. I have staked my all, and—lost! surely, of we two, I should be the most miserable."
"Is that your belief?" says Mrs. Branscombe, mournfully. "Forgive me if I say I think you wrong. You have but a little time to endure your grief, I have my life, and perhaps"—pathetically—"it will be a long one. To know I must live under his roof, and feel myself indebted to him for everything I may want, for many years, is very bitter to me."
Sartoris is cut to the heart: that it should have gone so far that she should shrink from accepting anything at Dorian's hands, galls him sorely. And what a gentle tender boy he used to be, and how incapable of a dishonest thought or action! At least, something should be done for his wife,—this girl who has grown tired and saddened and out of all heart since her luckless marriage. He looks at her again keenly, and tells himself she is sweet enough to keep any man at her side, so dainty she shows in her simple linen gown, with its soft Quakerish frillings at the throat and wrists. A sudden thought at last strikes him.
"I am glad I have met you," he says, quietly. "By and by, perhaps, we shall learn to be good friends. In the mean time will you do me a small favor? will you come up to Hythe on Thursday at one o'clock?"
"If you want me to come," says Georgie, betraying through her eyes the intense surprise she feels at this request.