She seemed to speak with ever-increasing difficulty, and her hand went up suddenly to her throat. It was obvious that this self-imposed disclosure of the truth was taking her strength to its uttermost limit.
“I had better tell you the whole story—from the beginning,” she said, at last, haltingly, and, after a moment's hesitation, she resumed in the hard, expressionless voice of intense effort.
“Before Maurice went out to India, he and I were engaged to be married. On my part, it would have been only a marriage of convenience, for I was not in love with him, although I had always been fond of him in a cousinly way. There was another man whom I loved—the man I afterwards married, Geoffrey Lovell—” for an instant her eyes glowed with a sudden radiance of remembrance—“and he and I became secretly engaged, in spite of the fact that I had already promised to marry Maurice. I expect you think that was unforgivable of me,” she seemed to search the intent faces of her little audience as though challenging the verdict she might read therein; “but there was some excuse. I was very young, and at the time I promised myself to Maurice I did not know that Geoffrey cared for me. And then—when I knew—I hadn't the courage to break with Maurice. He and Geoffrey were both going out to India—they were in the same regiment—and I kept hoping that something might happen which would make it easier for me. Maurice might meet and be attracted by some other woman. . . . I hoped he would.”
She fell silent for a moment, then, gathering her remaining strength together, as it seemed, she went on relentlessly—
“Something did happen. Maurice was cashiered from the Army, and I had a legitimate reason for terminating the engagement between us. . . . Then, just as I thought I was free, he came to tell me his case would be reopened; there was an eye-witness who could prove his innocence, a private in his own regiment. I never knew who the man was”—she turned slightly at the sound of a sudden brusque movement from Miles Herrick, then, as he volunteered no remark, continued—“but it appeared he had been badly wounded and had only learned the verdict of the court-martial after his recovery. He had then written to Maurice, telling him that he was in a position to prove that it was not he, but Geoffrey Lovell who had been guilty of cowardice. When I understood this, and realized what it must mean, I confessed to Maurice that Geoffrey was the man I loved, and I begged and implored him to take the blame—to let the verdict of the court-marital stand. It was a horrible thing to do—I know that . . . but think what it meant to me! It meant the honour and welfare of the man I loved, as opposed to the honour and welfare of a man for whom I cared comparatively little. Maurice was not easy to move, but I made him understand that, whatever happened now, I should never marry him—that I should sink or swim with Geoffrey, and at last he consented to do the thing I asked. He accepted the blame and went away—to the Colonies, I believe. Afterwards, as you all know, he returned to England and lived at Far End under the name of Garth Trent.”
Such was the tale Elisabeth unfolded, and the hushed listeners, keyed up by its tragic drama, could visualize for themselves the scene of that last piteous interview between Elisabeth and the man who had loved her to his own utter undoing.
She was still a very lovely woman, and it was easy to realize how well-nigh bewilderingly beautiful she must have been in her youth, easy to imagine how Garth—or Maurice Kennedy, as he must henceforth be recognized—worshipping her with a boy's headlong passion, had agreed to let the judgment of the Court remain unchallenged and to shoulder the burden of another man's sin.
Probably he felt that, since he had lost her, nothing else mattered, and, with the reckless chivalry of youth, he never stopped to count the cost. He only knew that the woman he loved, whose beauty pierced him to the very soul, so that his vision was blurred by the sheer loveliness of her, demanded her happiness at his hands and that he must give it to her.
“I suppose you think there was no excuse for what I did,” Elisabeth concluded, with something of appeal in her voice. “But I did not realize, then, quite all that I was taking from Maurice. I think that much must be granted me. . . . But I make no excuse for what I did afterwards. There is none. I did it deliberately. Maurice had won the woman Tim wanted, and I hoped that if he were utterly discredited, Sara would refuse to marry him, and thus the way would be open to Tim. So I made public the story of the court-martial which had sentenced Maurice. Had it not been for that, I should have held my peace for ever about his having been cashiered. I—I owed him that much.” She was silent a moment. Presently she raised her head and spoke in harsh, wrung accents. “But I've been punished! God saw to that. What do you think it has meant to me to know that my husband—the man I worshipped—had been once a coward? It's true the world never knew it . . . but I knew it.”
The agony of pride wounded in its most sacred place, the suffering of love that despises what it loves, yet cannot cease from loving, rang in her voice, and her haunted eyes—the eyes which had guarded their secret so invincibly—seemed to plead for comfort, for understanding.