‘Mr. Sharpe!’ she called. ‘Isaac!’
But the farmer’s broad back was already vanishing down the lane. Evidently her voice failed to reach him as he did not turn his head. Rosalie stood looking after him, without making further attempts to attract his attention, and then slowly returned to the house. Why should she call him back, after all—what need was there for her thus to disturb herself? Could she help writing the letter exactly as he wished; and how foolish were the qualms of conscience which the remembrance of certain phrases in it evoked. It was his letter, not hers: it was he who had insisted on stating that she wished Richard to return—she had never authorised him to do so. If Richard did come back she could not be blamed for it. If he did come back!
Again supporting her throbbing head with her hands, she tried to reason with herself, but the turmoil in heart and brain for a time forbade any consecutive train of ideas. During the long blank days which had passed since Richard’s departure, and often in the course of the weary, restless nights, this thought had constantly recurred to her with a never-failing stab:—He has gone—he will never come back!
And now, if he did come back—if he came back even for a little while! If she might just see him again, if it were only to be once or twice! At the mere suggestion she was conscious of a lifting of the load which had been crushing her. If he were made to know, through no fault of hers but rather against her will, that she did wish him to return—she who had let him go forth without a word to stay him—if he even guessed that she longed to see him—oh, it would be sweet to think he knew, that he would henceforth judge her less harshly, that he would realise how hard had been her struggle!
She raised her head, her lips parted in a smile, her eyes dreamily gazing at the strip of sunlit green outside her window. There he had stood; thence he had turned away so mournfully, and now he was to come back. To come back! Would he not read between the lines of the oddly composed missive—would not the very words have for him a deeper meaning than their guileless originator guessed at—would he not come flying to her side? In a few days—in little more than a few hours, perhaps, he would be with her; and then!
She gave a sudden gasp, and flung herself forward across the table. And then! In a moment the web of self-deception with which she had been endeavouring to cloak the situation was torn to shreds, and she saw the truth. A crisis was impending: it was folly to pretend that it would take her unawares, it was worse than folly to endeavour to shift the responsibility to poor unsuspicious Isaac. If Richard returned the struggle would have to be gone through again: it would be even harder than before, for she would have lured him back after he had broken from her. If thus sorely tempted and wrongfully encouraged he were to speak those words which she had seen so often trembling on his lips, what answer could she make? Could she look him in the face and affect unconsciousness, or—what did she mean to do? Did she mean to keep her plighted troth as an honest woman should, or did she mean to cast aside, for good and all, truth, and honour, and self-respect, and jilt the man who had been her faithful friend?
‘I want to do right,’ said Rosalie, with another gasping sigh. ‘I have never told a lie in my life; I won’t tell one now; I won’t act one either. If he comes back it will only be on false pretences; he must n’t be allowed to come back.’
She lay still for a moment, her arms extended, a kind of tremor passing every now and then over her frame. Presently she said again, half aloud:
‘I won’t be deceitful; I won’t break my word; but oh, how hard it is to do right! God help me.’
She straightened herself all at once, and pushed back the hair from her forehead; then, drawing the blotter towards her, wrote a hasty line on a sheet of paper—‘Do not come back, I implore you. R. F.’—thrust it into an envelope, and directed it to Richard. With little convulsive sobs at intervals she went upstairs, bathed her swollen eyes, and put on her hat.