"Now you must listen very carefully and try to understand. I suppose I must have been in love with him in a passionate kind of way, he was so very handsome and gay and full of charm—Well, I decided to go away with him for three days—I decided deliberately, not so much from love as because I wanted to understand life, and to know the nature of men, and the point of view of an aristocrat."
The Duke's face became ashen white and his hand turned icy cold, but he did not speak. So with a little break in her voice, Katherine went on:
"—Well, we went to Paris on the Saturday and came back on the Monday night; by that time I knew all the passionate side of love; he aroused all those instincts in me which I once told you about—but he never touched my soul—that slept until you came.—I never meant to stay with him or remain his mistress; it was for experience, and that was all—and we parted at Charing Cross Station, and he went to Wales to his family to shoot, and I went home. I wrote to him and told him that I would not see him again. Then I made up my mind that I would leave Livingstone & Devereux's, and begin my next rise in the world. Oh! you do not know how ignorant I was then! But I never lost sight of the goal I meant to win, to win by knowing how to fill the position desired. I had vast dreams even in those early days. I was fortunate to obtain the situation of Lady Garribardine's secretary, and on leaving the house after being engaged, I met Lord Algy by chance in the park. He was very much upset and unhappy at my determination never to see him again—and he asked me to marry him. I refused, of course, because I knew even then that he only attracted one side of me, and also I was not educated enough at that time to have been able to carry off the position with success. I explained everything to him, and made him promise to try and be a fine soldier—he was being sent to Egypt for his extravagance, and so we parted, and I have never spoken to him since. My goal now was definitely fixed; I meant to educate myself to be able to take the highest position to be obtained in England some day. I used to long for Algy sometimes, but only every now and then, when some scent or sound brought him back to me; that is why I said such love is unbalanced and animal—the memory of it is always aroused by something of the senses. Then, after I went to Lady Garribardine, Mr. Strobridge came upon the scene, and his great cultivation inspired me, and presently we became friends. I deliberately encouraged his friendship so as to polish my own brain. I knew he was in love with me, so this may have been wrong, but since he was weak enough to allow himself to feel in that way for me knowing he was married, he must pay the price in pain, not I. He has always been a loyal friend after the beginning, when he lost his head one night and made a great scene. My determination never wavered; it was in every way to improve myself, always to be perfectly true and finally to obtain the height of my ambition. Things went on in this way for a year and a half, Lady Garribardine always helping me and encouraging my education until we became deep and intimate friends. But the goal never seemed to come in view until I went to the House of Lords that day and saw you and heard you speak. In a lightning flash the object of all my striving seemed revealed to me, and I began to lay my plans, but with some unusual excitement, because something in you had aroused an emotion in my heart, the meaning of which I could not then determine. That night I went to the theatre with my sister and there saw in the stalls Lord Algy, returned from Egypt, I suppose, on leave. The sight of him moved me, I felt cold and sick, but I realised once for all that my feeling for him had been only physical, and was passing away.
"I had arranged with Mr. Strobridge to have the dinner, and to let me meet you, not as the secretary, because I knew that your unconscious prejudice would be insurmountable then. And I thought that if you liked me that night, afterwards the prejudice might not be so deep when you did know my real position.—You will remember what followed, but the second part of the story begins with the afternoon you came into the schoolroom. Until then I had never had a backward thought or regret or worry about Lord Algy. I was only glad to have had the experience, that was all. But after I had told you of my life and parentage, you bent down and kissed my hand. And from that moment doubts began to trouble me. You had started the awakening of my soul. And as love grew and grew, so the blackness of the shadow increased. I knew that if I deceived you I should only draw unhappiness and never respect myself. Where love is there can be no deceit—and so at last even before I went to Valfreyne I put all thoughts of you from me. Although each day you seemed to grow more dear—until I knew that you meant everything to me and were my wild and passionate desire—I saw that my position in life held you back, and I was almost glad that it should be so—because I knew that if you should really love me, and conquer your prejudice against my class, it would come to this, that I must tell you the truth and that it would part us forever. And I have tried to prevent you from telling me of your love, I have tried to restrain my own for you, but now I am left defenceless—I love you, but I realise that what I did in the past the world could never forgive, and so I must pay the price of my own action, and say an eternal farewell."
Her voice died away in a sob, and she did not then look at the Duke's face; his hand had grown nerveless in its clasp and she drew hers away from him, and rose slowly to her feet. The awful moment was over, the story was done—she had been true to herself and had lost her love—and now she must have courage to behave with dignity and go back to the house.
But she must just look at him once more, her dearly loved one! He sat there in an attitude of utter dejection, his face buried in his hands.—For long aching moments Katherine watched him, but she did not speak and life and hope and purpose died out of her, drowned in overwhelming grief.
Then after this horrible silence the blood seemed to creep back to the Duke's heart, and reaction set in. He began gradually to think. His level judgment, his faculty for analyzing things, reasserted themselves, and enabled him to view the whole subject in right perspective, and a re-awakening to happiness slowly filled him.
He looked up to Katherine at last as she stood there leaning against a pillar of the balustrade, and he read no humiliation or shame or contrition in her great eyes, but only a deep sorrow and tenderness and love.
And suddenly he realised the splendour of her courage, the glorious force of character which had enabled her to jeopardize—nay, indeed, relinquish, love and high estate and ambition, rather than be false to herself.
For she need not have told him anything of her story. That fact was the great proof of her truth. He had asked no questions about her past. She had made no dramatic virtue of necessity, she had done this thing that she might not soil her own soul with deceit.