"Yes, that's strong. But you still speak of this? You still hope for such a thing of me, really?"
"But may I not? Only to be allowed to take you——"
"To Styria?" she repeated: "oh, Arthur, the colour of your eyes and mine don't match, you were not fashioned to be the father of a houseful of sons, they would all squint. Deus meus! doesn't the enthronisation of Archbishop Burton take place to-morrow, and will you not be going to Styria the day after, or the day after?"
"I do not know that," I said: "we are waiting for a letter from the authorities there."
"But if no letter comes? Will you not be going? Will you let Aubrey go alone?"
"I am far from certain that Aubrey is going! There are pits and perils——"
"He shall go," she said, "though they pierce my side, too, so that out of it gush blood mingled with tears; he will go of himself, because he should, and he shall go, because I will tell him to."
"I know that he will if he should," I answered; "but should he? What has Aubrey to do with the world's trouble? As for me, I tell you, Emily, that I care for nothing in the wide earth——"
"But care you must! Kitty-wren has come, the gripe's on," said she, "and if she hath a devil we must nourish a God in us, to match it. There is no escape, we are under orders, and care we must, go he shall, and you with him, though they crucify him and you, and though they fix every muscle of me to a different tree."
"But why did this bird come to us?" I thought then in my pity: "there was the world for her, and she came to Swandale"; and some despair in our friend's face seemed to say to me, "yes, she came to us, to me, to you, not to others, but to us: it stands recorded, two Gods are in it." Her face showed wannish in that twilight against her violet velvet and her furs, for the shades of night were gathering, and we looked aside through the window upon the darkling oblong of water in silence, since I could find nothing to answer her, nor any way out of the entanglement in which my feet seemed to be engaged; anon her large plush hat touched my face, anon she fingered the chords of the harp, while the bird on her shoulder twittered its song. At last I said to her: "let it be as you wish, Emily: but is a journey to Styria such a great matter? We will go, and we shall return. Nothing shall be strong enough to restrain me from returning, if you say that my ordeal shall then come to its conclusion."