“It’s no use. You can’t live here. It would only mean—Dane! have you thought for a moment what it would really mean? Of course you will have to leave Chumley.”
“Is it ‘of course’?”
Her eyes rebuked him for his weakness.
“It would be wicked to stay. The Squire would never have you in his house if he knew, but he would not know, and he would keep worrying you to go... if you stayed away you would have to lie and pretend; if you went, it would be just the same—lies and pretence! And it would get worse, not better. There could be no happiness meeting each other like that. Only misery and deceit. Think of what it would be, and then of the other life, the life with me... Doing right... Comfort. Peace.”
The tears came now, and rolled down her cheeks. She looked very young, and pitiful, and appealing, with her hand stretched out towards him, the hand on which shone the ring he had given!
Dane took that hand and folded it between his own, he was touched into tenderness by the girl’s clinging devotion, and his conscience told him that she was right in her prophecies. He was one of the many Englishmen whose religion amounted to a determination to be straight in their dealings with their fellows. He knew himself to be guilty of many failings, but it had seemed inconceivable that he could ever stoop to double dealing, far less to the extremity of deceit involved in making love to the wife of a friend. Six months ago had such a case been presented to him he would have tolerated no excuse, no palliation, would have poured forth condemnation with relentless lips, but now... God knew his ideals were unchanged, God knew he wished to do the right, but he was no longer confident of his own strength. If in the future he found himself alone with Cassandra, and she looked at him as she had looked for that one breathless moment, if her hand clung again to his, as it had clung, what about honour then, what about loyalty to his friend, and fealty to the girl to whom he was engaged? By the beat in his heart, by the throb in his veins, he knew that such considerations would be but straws upon the wind, to be hurled aside by the rushing forces of nature. Despicable, base, unworthy it might be, but if that moment came, it would find Cassandra in his arms!
It came to this then, that there was only one course open to him as an honourable man, and that course was—flight! He must leave Chumley, put a barrier of distance between himself and his temptation, and start life afresh.
“I made you happy once.—I could do it again if we were alone.”
Teresa’s voice broke in upon his reverie, repeating her former argument in insistent tones. Her blue eyes were so wistful that it seemed cruel to point out the difference between then and now. Nevertheless it had to be done.
“I am afraid it would not be so easy. At that time I had no other thought. Now I know!”