Agnes was too ill to appear at the Duchess of Pevensey's dinner that evening. Lord Reckage's melancholy, absent air during the entertainment, and his early withdrawal from the distinguished party, were referred, with sympathy, to the very proper distress he felt at Miss Carillon's tiresome indisposition. The time passed well enough for him—far better, in fact, than he had expected, for he was relieved from the strain of “dancing attendance” on his betrothed—a thing which he, even more than most men, found silly. In the chivalrous days of tournaments, troubadours and crusades this romantic exercise of seeming enslaved was, he held, justifiable, even interesting. But in modern life it had an appearance of over-emphasis.
Poor Agnes, however, could neither eat, nor sleep, nor rest. Her temples throbbed, her eyes ached; every nerve was a barbed wire; her soul was manacled by promises; she would not use her reason; the fever in her veins was not to be quelled, and the one agitating relief to her physical suffering was a constant perusal of David Rennes's letter. It was the first passionate love-letter she had ever received. Just as a river may stream peacefully through pastoral lands till it joins the sea and becomes one with that vast element of unrest, so the little flame of her girl's nature was absorbed at last into the great fire underlying all humanity. Was she in love? she asked herself. When she was with Rennes she became silent, incapable of conversation, of thought. All she asked was to be near him, to watch him, to hear him.
Was this love? Was it love to press his letter to her heart, to read it again and again, to keep it under her pillow at night? Was it love to think of him every moment of the day, to compare all others to him and find them wanting, to see his face always before her eyes? Was it love to know that if he called her, as he called her now, she would leave home, father, mother, friends, all things, all people, and follow him to the world's end, to the beginning of hell, or—further? At one-and-twenty such questions need no answer. They belong to the innocent rhetoric of youth which will cry out to June, “Are you fair?” and to the autumnal moon in mist, “Must there be rain?” Neither June nor the moon make reply, but youth has no doubts. The girl, weeping tears of joy over Rennes's perilous words, had but one clear regret in her mind—she could not see him for some hours. His declaration dispelled the terrible bitterness, scepticism, and indifference to all sentiment which had gradually permeated, during their acquaintance, her whole heart. Repulsed affection may turn to hatred in haughty, impatient souls. But in Agnes it produced a moral languor—a mental indolence—the feeling that no one was in earnest, and nothing ought to matter. The more this feeling deepened, the more attentively did she observe the mere outward etiquette of all that passes for seriousness, attending scrupulously to the minor obligations of existence and exhausting her courage in those petty matters which die with the day and yield no apparent fruit. How different now seemed the colourless, harsh fabric which she had mistaken for duty and wrapped—as a shroud—about her secret hopes! She had held every aspiration implying happiness as a “proverb of reproach”; she had endeavoured to believe that all poetry—except hymns—was false prophecy leading one to hard entanglements and grievous falls.
And what had been the impoverishment of her soul under this grim discipline? How could she tell the many thoughts which had travelled unquestioned over the highway of her heart during that process of disillusion? But all was changed now, and all that had been difficult, painful or obscure in the world seemed perfect with the inexhaustible glory of young passion. Rennes begged her to see him once more before he left England for some years. Would she meet him in Kensington Gardens? She had often walked there, under the old trees, with himself and Mrs. Rennes, and the place had become very dear, very familiar to her from these associations. At any other time, however, the idea of a clandestine meeting with David would have been intolerable. To go now was misery, yet she dared not stay away. The sunny morning mixed with her mood, which was one of determination to risk all in order to win all. Driven by a sense of her capabilities for endurance, she faced, with a kind of exultation, the possible disaster or remorse which might follow her action. Was there not a possible joy also? For ten days now she had been ill in body as well as mind; she had suffered a hard struggle. She knew now that she could not, could not, could not, no matter what happened, become the wife of Lord Reckage. The result of great self-delusion for so long a period was a condition of mind in which she was practically unable to distinguish between candour and disingenuousness. Any appearance of deceit—which she regarded as wrong in itself—always excited her scorn, but desperation now urged a step which might lead, she thought, to much good or much evil. That it could lead to more evil than a loveless marriage was not, however, to be feared. She started from the house with feverish cheeks, a beating pulse, and a new strange consciousness of power—power over herself, her fate, the world.
Rennes was waiting for her under the long avenue of trees by the Lancaster Gate walk. She had a tall, stately figure of that type immortalised by Du Maurier—indeed, she herself may be recognised in some of his famous society sketches about the year 1870. The clear, decisive features, the tender discerning expression, the poise of the head, were irresistibly attractive to all artists with a strong sense of grace—even artificial grace—as opposed to rude vigour or homeliness. She possessed naturally that almost unreal elegance which many painters—Frederick Walker, for instance—have been accused of inventing.
“This is very wrong of me,” she said, blushing as Rennes advanced, hat in hand, to meet her, “very wrong. I never do these things.”
“I said in my letter—right or wrong it matters not—what I thought. This is a thing which runs up into eternity, Agnes. It had to be. We needn't try to justify it.”
“I cannot—I dare not regard it as you do.”
“But you have come! Let me look at you!”
“Does it require much looking to see that I am really unhappy?”