“Don’t laugh at me,” Honor said plaintively. “You can have no idea how hard it is to live with John’s mother. Nothing I do is right, and—and,” in a lower voice, “I know she sets him against me. She has written to tell me that I must go home to-day; but my father says I am to lay our not going upon him, so here I shall stay! I know I shall be in a dreadful scrape, and that it is only a case of putting off, and—”
“But why only a case of putting off, as you call it? My darling Honor—forgive me; the words slipt out unawares—you know I would not offend you willingly; but the best as well as the worst men are liable to mistakes. Only tell me why you, so young, so beautiful, so formed for the enjoyment of everything that is bright and happy, should be condemned to pass your days in such an existence as the one you describe at the Paddocks? It has always seemed to me,” he went on, leaning towards her, and looking with eyes of eager passion into her face—“it has always seemed to me an act of the most miserable folly for people—married people—who do not suit, remaining together: both would often be equally glad to part, to go their respective ways, to live another and a more congenial life; and yet from some foolish unreasoning scruple, from fear of what the world would say, or from want of courage to take the first step, they go on through all their lives, making each other’s existence a burden, ‘when both might separately have been as happy’ as we are any of us fated to be in this ill-managed world of ours, where happiness is so rare a thing.”
Honor glanced at him with rather a puzzled look in her blue eyes. Strange as it may seem, she did not even now comprehend his meaning. That he was advising her to leave her home was too plain to be mistaken, but that there was to be sin—sin, that is to say, greater than that which she could not but feel would be incurred by deserting her husband and her duties—never occurred to this poor foolish child of nature. But although she did not comprehend, and could not fathom, the depths of her false friend’s guilt, yet her womanly instinct led her to evade the responding to his suggestion. His last words also, and the tone of sadness in which they were spoken, riveted her attention, and, catching almost gladly at an excuse for changing the conversation, she said sympathisingly,
“What do you mean by ill-managed? Surely you can have no reason to think this world an unhappy one! If there exists one person in it who ought to be happy, it is you—you and your wife,” she added, with a little sigh which again misled her companion into a blind and senseless belief in his own power over her affections. “You have everything, it seems to me, that human beings can hope for or desire—youth and health and riches, living where you like, and always seeing and enjoying the beautiful things that money can buy; and then going abroad, seeing foreign countries, and—and—”
“And what? Tell me some more of my privileges, my delights; make me contented, if you can, with my lot. At present it seems dark enough, God knows; and if—but I am a fool, and worse, to talk to you of these things; only, if I thought that you—you, who are an angel of purity and love and peace—would sometimes think of me with pity, why, it would give me courage, Honor, would make me feel that I have still something to live for, something to bind me to an existence which I have begun to loathe!”
Honor listened to this outpouring of real or fancied sorrows like one who is not sure whether she dreams or is awake.
“Mr. Vavasour!” she exclaimed, “what can you mean? At your age, with a young wife who loves you, and with” (blushing slightly) “the hope of the dear little child that will so soon be born, it seems so wonderful to hear you talk in this way! What is it?” warming with pity as she watched the young worn face prematurely marked with lines of care—“would you like to tell me?—I am very safe. I have no one” (sadly) “to confide in; and you have just said that my sympathy would be a comfort to you.”
She laid her little ungloved hand—she had taken off her gauntlet to caress the arched neck of the pretty thoroughbred screw she rode—upon her companion’s arm as she spoke, and so fully occupied was she with her object (namely, that of inducing Arthur to trust her with his sorrows), that she was scarcely conscious of the warmth with which he, pressing his hand upon the caressing fingers, mutely accepted the tribute of her sympathy.
“Ah, then,” she said—the slight soupçon of a brogue, as was often the case when she was eager or excited, making itself apparent—“ah, then, you will remember I am your friend, and say what it is that lies so heavy on your heart?”
For a moment he looked at her doubtingly; and then, as though the words broke from him as in his own despite, he said in a low husky tone: