“Care about you! Anyway, I care enough not to let you marry me even if you would. I think that to bring ruin and disgrace upon a man and all his family would be a poor way to show one’s love for him. You see, you have everything to lose. You are not like me who have nothing, not even a name. Care about you!” she went on, with a strange, almost unnatural energy—and her low, caressing voice seemed to thrill every fibre of his heart and leave them trembling, as harp-strings thrill and tremble beneath the hand of the player—“I wonder if there are any words in the world that could make you understand how much I care. Listen. When first I saw you yonder by the Abbey, a change crept over me; and when you lay there senseless in my arms, I became a new woman, as though I were born again—a woman whose mind I could not read, for it was different from my own. Afterwards I read it; it was when they thought that you were dying, and suddenly I learned that you would live. When I heard Miss Levinger cry out and saw her fall, then I read it, and knew that I also loved you. I should have gone; but I didn’t go, for I could not tear myself away from you. Oh! pity me, and do not think too hardly of me; for remember who and what I am—a woman who has never had any one to love, father or mother or sister or friend, and yet who desires love above everything. And now it had come to me at last; and that one love of mine made up for all that I had missed, and was greater and stronger in itself than the hundred different loves of happier girls can be. I loved you, and I loved you, and I love you. Yes, I wish you to know it before we part, and I hope that you will never quite forget it, for none will ever love you so much again as I have, and do, and shall do till I die. And now it is all done with, and of it there will remain nothing except some pain for you, and for me my memories and a broken heart. What is that you say again about marrying me? Have I not told you that you shall not do it? though I shall never forget that you have even thought of such a thing.”
“I say that I will marry you, Joan,” broke in Henry, in a hoarse voice. “Why should I spoil your life and mine for the sake of others?”
“No, no, you will not. Why should you spoil Emma Levinger’s life, and your sister’s, and your mother’s, and bring yourself to disgrace and ruin for the sake of a girl like me? No, you will not. You will bid me farewell, now and for ever.” And she held out her hand to him, while two great tears ran slowly down her face.
He saw the tears, and his heart melted, for they moved him more than all her words.
“My darling!” he whispered, drawing her towards him.
“Yes,” she answered: “kiss away my tears this once, that, remembering it, whatever befalls me, I may weep no more for ever.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE FIRSTFRUITS.
Some days had passed since this night of avowal when, very early one morning, Henry was awakened from sleep by the sound of wheels and of knocking at the inn door. A strange apprehension took hold of him, and he rose from his bed and limped to the window. Then he saw that the carriage which had arrived was the old Rosham shooting brake, a long plain vehicle with deal seats running down its length on either side, constructed to carry eight or nine sportsmen to and from the more distant beats. Knocking at the door was none other than Edward Milward, and Henry guessed at once that he must have come to fetch him.
“Well, perhaps it is as well,” he thought to himself grimly; then again his heart was filled with fear. What had happened? Why did Milward come thus, and at such an hour?
In another minute Edward had entered the room, followed by Mrs. Gillingwater.