“My letters never reached him, his letters never reached me,” she proceeded; “and though I knew, though I was confident there had been treachery somewhere, still I could not go on writing when I got no reply. A woman cannot force herself on a man,” said Miss Derno, with a slight return of the light, easy manner which Phemie had so much admired in former days. “Even if she believes he wants her, it is a difficult matter for her to press so valuable a possession on his acceptance—I could not, at all events. How was I to know the falsehoods he was told concerning me, and unknowing, I argued, ‘If he wants me he will come back for me; he will come back some day.’ And he has come back,” she finished, “to find me the wreck you see.”
“Was Major Morrice then——?” began Phemie.
“He was my first love and my last,” said the dying woman, and the tears came into her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as she spoke. “I could have married often,” she went on. “I say it in no spirit of idle vanity, but merely to show that I did not remain faithful, as many a woman does, simply because she has had no chance of being otherwise than faithful—I could have married often, I could have married well, as the world talks about such things, but the love of my youth was the love of my life, and I could take no second love into my heart for ever. He has never been in England since we were parted till now. He would not have come back yet, only that his father is dead, and there were many things requiring his presence. He returned at the same time as Basil Stondon; they were fellow-passengers in the steamer, and they landed together at Southampton. From Basil he heard I was not married, that I had always remained true, and he came to me here—came to pray me at last to be his wife. Think of it—think after the years of waiting, and to have to die and leave him.”
She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed aloud, while Phemie said, gently—
“And can nothing——”
“Nothing can save me,” added Miss Derno, completing her friend’s sentence, “and I am not going to fight against the unconquerable—I am not going to try to avert the inevitable. Nothing worse can come to me than the look I saw on Gordon Morrice’s face when we first met. My fate was reflected there as in a glass. He has learned to disguise his thoughts since that—to speak hopefully of the future, but I know—I know——”
And she turned her head towards the window, and looked out at the groups standing on the Parade, at the young girls walking up and down, squired by attentive cavaliers. Her life had been full like theirs once—full of bliss and joy and happiness—full as the tide at its highest; but now the waves were ebbing, ebbing, leaving the sands of time, receding from the green shores of earth, rolling back—slowly, surely—into the depths of the mysterious sea.
CHAPTER VI.
THE LAST ENEMY.
It did not require any very great amount of pressing to induce Miss Derno to exchange her lodgings in Robertson Terrace for rooms at Roundwood. She was ready enough to make the attempt, at all events, for there is something in human nature which rebels at the idea of dying among strangers, and paying extra rent for a death.
“I shall only be a burden and a trouble to you,” she said, in answer to Phemie, “only be a nuisance in your house—you had better leave me where I am.” But still her eyes belied her lips; they looked wistfully at Mrs. Stondon, while she replied—