Still kneeling, with Madge's head nestling on her shoulder, Madelon began to sing a little half-gay, half-melancholy French romance of many verses. The tune seemed to grow more and more plaintive as it went on, a pathetic, monotonous chant, rising and falling. Before it was ended, Madge's hold had relaxed, her eyes were closed—she was sound asleep for the night. Madelon rose gently, kissed the honest, rosy, freckled face; and then, as if drawn by some invincible attraction, went back to the window.
Yes; they were still there, those two, not walking up and down now, but standing under the big tree at the end of the lawn still talking, as she could see by their gestures. "Ah, how happy they are!" thinks our Madelon again, forgetting the scene of the afternoon, her doubts, her half-formed suspicions—how happy they must be, Monsieur Horace, who loves Maria, Maria who is loved by Monsieur Horace, whilst she—why, it is she who loves Monsieur Horace, who has loved him since he rescued her, a little child, from loneliness and despair— she, who for all these years has had but one thought, Monsieur Horace, one object, Monsieur Horace, and who sees herself now shut out from such a bright, gleaming paradise, into such shivering outer darkness. Ah, she loved him—she loved him—she owned it to herself now, with a sudden burst of passion—and he was going away; he had no thought of her; his path in life lay along one road, and hers along another—a road how blank, how dreary, wrapped in what grey, unswerving mists.
"Ah, why must I live? Oh! that I could die—if I could only die!" cries the poor child passionately in her thoughts, stretching out her hands in her young impatience of life and suffering. "I love him—is it wrong? How can I help it? I loved him before I knew what it meant, I never knew till——"
She stopped suddenly, with a blush that seemed to set her cheeks all a-flame—she had never known till half-an-hour ago, when she had looked up and met his eyes for that one moment. Ah! why had he looked at her so? And she—oh, merciful heavens! had she betrayed herself? At the very thought Madelon started as if she had been stung. She turned from the window, she covered her face with her hands, and escaping swiftly, she fled to her own room, and throwing herself on the bed, buried her face in the pillow, to wrestle through her poor little tragedy of love, and self-consciousness, and despair.
And while Madelon is crying her heart out upstairs, this is what has been going on below. There had been an uncomfortable pause in the sitting-room after her swift retreat; Mrs. Vavasour neither moved nor spoke, Maria knitted diligently, and Graham stood gloomily staring down on the music-stool where Madelon had sat and sung, and looked up at him with that sudden gleam in her eyes, till, rousing himself, he walked through the open window, into the garden, across the lawn, to the shrubbery. He stood leaning over the little gate at the end of the path, looking over the broad moonlit field, where the scattered bushes cast strange fantastic shadows, and for the first time he admitted to himself that he had made a great, a terrible mistake in life, and he hated himself for the admission. What indeed were faith, and loyalty, and honour worth, if they could not keep him true to the girl whose love he had won five years ago, and to whom he was a thousand times pledged by every loving promise, every word of affection that had once passed between them? And yet, was this Maria to whom he had come back, this Maria so cold and indifferent, so alien from him in tastes, ideas, sympathies, was she indeed the very woman who had once won his heart, whom he had chosen as his life-long companion? How had it all been? He looked back into the past, to the first days after his return from the Crimea, when, wounded and helpless, worn out with toil and fever, he had come back to be tended by Englishwomen in an English home. A vision rose before him of a blooming girl with blue ribbons that matched blue eyes, who came and went about him softly through the long spring and summer days, arranging his cushions, fetching his books, and reading to him by the hour in gentle, unvarying tones. Yes, he understood well enough how it had all come to pass; but those days had gone by, and the Maria who had brightened them, was not she gone also? or rather, had she ever existed except in the eyes that had invested the kind girl-nurse with every perfection? And now what remained? Graham groaned as he bowed his head upon his crossed arms, and suddenly another vision flitted before him—a pale face, a slender form, a pair of brown eyes that seemed to grow out of the twilight, and look at him with a child's affection, a woman's passion—Graham was no boy, to be tossed about on the tempestuous waves of a first love; he had long held that there were things in life, to which love and courtship, marrying and giving in marriage, might be looked upon as quite subordinate—and yet he felt, at that moment, as if life itself would be a cheap exchange for one touch of the small hand that had clung so confidingly to his, years ago, for one more look into the eyes that had met his, scarcely ten minutes since.
Such a mood could not long endure in a man of Graham's stamp and habit of mind; and in a moment he had roused himself, and begun to walk slowly back towards the house. What he might feel could have no practical bearing on the matter one way or another, and feeling might therefore as well be put out of sight. He was bound to Maria by every tie of honour, and he was no man to break those ties—if she were disposed to hold by them. But was she indeed? Graham had not been blind to what had been going on round him during the last few weeks, and he felt that some explanation with Maria was due. Well, there should be an explanation, and if he found that she was still willing to hold to their engagement—why, then they would be married.
He went up to Maria, sitting at the window.
"It is very warm in-doors," he said; "suppose you come and take a turn in the garden."
"As you like," she answered; "I don't find it particularly warm;" but she laid down her work at once, and joined him in the garden.
They took two or three turns up and down the lawn in silence, till at last Graham, trying to speak cheerfully, said, "I had a letter this morning, Maria, that I want to consult you about, as it concerns you as well as me."