“I should prefer that. One of the keepers or servants might see us in the park, and I don’t wish our love to be vulgarized —”
“Oh! I hadn’t thought of that! How horrid! I’ll go back this minute. You stay here until I’ve had time to get inside. I’ll write to-morrow. If you follow me, I shall never believe that you love me —”
Even while she spoke she was flitting through the grove with every appearance of an alarm she did not feel at all. Nigel ran after her.
“I’ll not follow if you will swear to meet me to-morrow morning—on the cliffs three miles north from here.”
“Yes. Yes. I swear it.” And she fled into the broad moonlight beyond the trees, while Nigel flung himself on the turf and gnashed his teeth.
Julia, when she reached the upper corridor, almost ran into the duke, but he was near-sighted, used to mice, and she cowered behind an armored knight unsuspected. When she finally closed her own door behind her, she found that all inclination to sleep had fled and that she was more excited than while the immediate centre of a love storm. She sat by the window for hours, thinking hard, and feeling several years older. Quite honest once more, now that she was safe behind a locked door, she examined her new problem on every side. It was quite possible, she confessed, that if she had loved Nigel, even a bit, she might have consented to his program, for youth has its rights; she had not been consulted in her marriage, she was more or less a prisoner, with no prospect of even youthful companionship, and the idea of being a duchess did not interest her at all. Of the meaning of sin she had but the vaguest idea.
But of loyalty and honor she had a very distinct idea. Instinct and reason told her that she never would love Nigel; otherwise, with every provocation, she must have loved him long since. Therefore would it be unfair to play with him. She would far rather be married to him than to France, for he was young and clever and charming, but even were she free now, she would not marry him. Therefore was it her duty to dismiss and cure him as quickly as possible, not ruin his youth by keeping him dangling, after what she knew to be the habit of many women. Also, for the first time, she felt really drawn to her husband, so unconscious of her naughty adventure. After all, she was his, he adored her, and he deserved every reparation in her power. Who could tell?—she might love him. Love appeared to be in the nature of a mighty river at spring flood; no doubt it ingulfed everything in its way. She had leaped to one side to-night, but her husband—yes, it was conceivable that she might stand still and await the flood without making faces.
She felt extremely satisfied and virtuous as she lit her candle and wrote a kind but uncompromising letter to Nigel, taking back her promise to meet him on the morrow, and warning him that if he wrote to her she should give his letters to her husband. It was not in her to do anything of the sort, but she had the gift of a fine straightforward forcible style, and her letter so enraged Nigel that he left England as quickly as steam could take him, cursing her and all women.
So ended their first chapter.