“Very well, then,” Will replied, making up his mind at once. “We must act accordingly. If that’s the case, the best thing I can do is to go out and telegraph to the management, without delay, that Signora Casalmonte is seriously indisposed, and won’t be able to appear in Carmen this evening.”
“To go out!” Linnet cried, clutching his arm in dismay. “Oh, dear Will, don’t do that! Don’t leave me for a moment. Suppose Andreas were to come, and to find me here alone? What on earth could I do? What on earth could I say to him?”
Will stroked her cheek once more, that beautiful soft cheek that he loved so dearly, as he answered in a grave and very serious tone, “Now, Linnet, you must be brave; and, above all, you must be practical. This is a crisis in our lives. A great deal depends upon it. If you love me, you must do as I advise you in this emergency. You have done quite right to come away from Andreas—instantly, the very moment you discovered this letter—the very moment he offered you such unmanly violence. In that, you were true woman. You’re in the right now, and if you behave circumspectly, all the world will admit it; all the world will say so. But you mustn’t stop here one second longer than is absolutely necessary. You must spend the night with some friend whom we know, some lady of position and unblemished reputation; and the world must think you went straight from your husband’s roof to hers, when all these things happened.”
Linnet drew back, all aghast. “What, go from you!” she cried: “this first night of our love. O Will, dear Will! Go, go right away from you!”
“Yes,” Will answered firmly. “For the moment, the one thing needful is to find such a shelter for you. If you took refuge in a hotel or private lodging to-night, people would whisper and hint—you know what they would hint; we must stop their hateful whisperings! Now, darling, you mustn’t say no; you must act as I advise. I’m going out at once to find that lady. I shall ask my sister first—she’s a clergyman’s wife, and nothing looks so well as a clergyman’s wife in England. But if she objects, I must try some other woman. You’re agitated to-night, and I should be doing you a gross wrong if I took advantage now of your love and your agitation. Though it isn’t you and myself I’m thinking of at all; you and I know, you and I understand one another. Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment; it isn’t that that I trouble for—it’s the hateful prying eyes and lying tongues of other people. For myself, darling, my creed is quite other than your priests’; I hold that, here to-night, you are mine, and I am yours; God and Nature have joined us, by the witness of our own hearts”; his voice sank solemnly, “and whom God hath joined together,” he added, in a very grave tone, “let not man put asunder.” He paused and hesitated. “But, for to-night,” he went on, “we must make some temporary arrangement; to-morrow and afterwards, we may settle for the future with one another at our leisure. When you look at it more calmly, dearest, you may change your mind about the matter of the divorce; till then, we must be cautious, and, in any case, we must take care to give the wicked world no handle against you.”
Linnet clutched him tight still. “But if you go,” she cried, all eagerness, “you won’t leave me; I may go with you.”
Her voice was so pleading, it cut Will to the quick to be obliged to refuse her. He leant over her tenderly. “My Linnet,” he cried, caressing her with one strong hand as he spoke, “I’d give worlds to be able to say yes; I can’t bear to say no to you. But for your own dear sake, once more, I must, I must. I can’t possibly let you go with me. Just consider this; how foolish it would be for me to let you be seen with me, to-night, on foot or in a cab, in the streets of London. All the world would say—with truth—you’d run away from your husband, and rushed straight into the arms of your lover. You and I know you’ve done perfectly right in that. But the world—the world would never know it. We must never let them have the chance of saying what, after their kind, we feel sure they would say about it.”
He rose from his chair. She clung to him, passionately. “Oh, take me with you, Will!” she cried, in a perfect fever of love. “Suppose Andreas was to come! Suppose he was to try and carry me off by force against my will! Oh, take me, take me with you!—don’t leave me here, alone, to Andreas!”
Sadly against his wish, Will disengaged her arms and untwined her fingers. He did it very tenderly but with perfect firmness. “No, darling,” he said, in a quiet tone of command; “let go! I must leave you here alone; it’s imperative. And it’s wisest so; it’s right; it’s the best thing to do for you. You are mine in future—you were always mine—and we shall have plenty of time to love one another as we will, hereafter. But to-night I must see you suffer no harm by this first false step of yours. My servant knows your husband well. He shall wait in the hall; and, if Andreas comes, deny us both to him. Your maid can come up here with you. I’ll take care no evil happens to you in any way in my absence. Trust me, trust me for this, Linnet; you needn’t be afraid of me.”
With a sudden change of front, Linnet held up her face to him. “I can always trust you, dear Will,” she cried. “I have always trusted you. All these long, long years I’ve known and seen how you yearned for one kiss—and would never take it. All these long, long years, I’ve known how you hungered and thirsted for my love—and kept down your own heart, letting only your eyes tell me a little—a very little—while your lips kept silence. The other men asked me many things, and asked me often—you know a singer’s life, what it is, and what rich people think of us, that they have but to offer us gold, and we will yield them anything. I never gave to one of them what I was keeping for you, my darling; I said to myself, ‘I am Andreas’s by the sacrament of the Church; but Will’s, Will’s, Will’s, by my own heart, and by the law of my nature!’ I trusted you then; I’ll trust you always. Good-bye, dear heart; go quick: come back again quick to me!”