Yes, she did know; he knew she did by the glance she gave him back, and laying his head upon the table, he neither moved nor spoke until a footstep glided to his side, and a soft hand pressed his burning brow, while a voice, whose tones drifted him far, far back to the sea of darkness and doubt where he had so long been bravely buffetting the billows, whispered to him,
"Arthur, I DO know, or rather believe you love me. You would not tell me an untruth, but I do not understand why it should make you so unhappy."
He did not answer her at once, but retained within his own the little hand which trembled for a moment like an imprisoned bird and then grew warm and full of vigorous life just as Edith was, standing there before him. What should he do? What could he do? Surely, never so dark an hour had gathered round him, or one so fraught with peril. Like lightning his mind took in once more the whole matter as it was. Griswold was dead. On his grave the autumn leaves were falling and the nightly vigils by that grave had been of no avail. Nina could never comprehend, the written proof was burned, Richard had forgotten, there was nothing in the way save his CONSCIENCE and that would not be silent. Loudly it whispered to the anguished man that happiness could not be secured by trampling on Nina's rights; that remorse would mix itself with every joy and at the last would drive him mad.
"You mistake me, I cannot," he began to say, but Edith did not heed it, for a sound without had caught her ear, telling her that Richard had unexpectedly returned, and Victor was coming for her.
There was an expression of impatience on Edith's face, as to Victor's summons she replied, "Yes, yes, in a moment;" but Arthur breathed more freely as, rising to his feet, he said, "I cannot now say all I wish to say, but meet me, to-morrow at this hour in the Deering Woods, near the spot where the mill brook falls over those old stones. You know the place. We went there once with— NINA."
He wrung her hand, pitying her more than he did himself, for he knew how little she suspected the true nature of what he intended to tell her.
"God help us both, me to do right, and her to bear it," was his mental prayer, as he left her at the door of the room where Richard was waiting for her.
There were good and bad angels lugging at Arthur's heart as he hastened across the fields where the night was falling, darker, gloomier, than ever it fell before. Would it be a deadly sin to marry Edith Hastings? Would Nina be wronged if he did? were questions which the bad spirits kept whispering in his ear, and each time that he listened to these questionings, he drifted further and farther away from the right, until by the time his home was reached he hardly knew himself what his intentions were.
Very bright were the lights shining in the windows of his home, and the fire blazed cheerfully in the library, where Nina, pale and fair as a white pond lily, had ordered the supper table to be set, because she thought it would please him, and where, with her golden curls tucked behind her ears, and a huge white apron on, she knelt before the glowing coals, making the nicely-buttered toast he liked so well. Turning toward him her childish face as he came in, she said,
"See—Nina's a nice little housekeeper. Wouldn't it be famous if we could live alone, you and I?"