But his sentence was never completed, so much was he startled by what he saw in his friend’s face.
Captain Chancellor was deadly pale, paler by far than the girl whose pallor had attracted Major Thanet’s attention. An expression of extreme disquiet had replaced his ordinary air of comfortable well-bred nonchalance, and his voice sounded hoarse and abrupt when at last he spoke.
“There is a sheltered seat on there, I see, Thanet,” he said, pointing to a sort of arbour a little in front. “Do you mind my leaving you for a few minutes? I shall not be long, but—but—I must run back for a moment.”
“Certainly, certainly, by all means,” replied Major Thanet, good-naturedly, though feeling not a little curious. “One of the irresistible Beauchamp’s little ‘affaires,’ cropping up rather inconveniently, I fear, if what they say of his engagement to that very dark-eyed Miss Eyrecourt be true,” he said to himself; adding aloud, when Captain Chancellor had taken him at his word, and deposited him in the summerhouse, “Don’t hurry, my dear fellow, on my account. If the worst comes to the worst, I expect I can toddle back to the hotel with my stick.”
“Thank you. I shall not be long,” repeated Beauchamp, hardly knowing what Major Thanet had said, and setting off, as he spoke, at a rapid pace, in the direction of Eugenia’s seat.
But as he drew nearer to her, his steps slackened. After all, what had he to say to her? Was it not even possible he had been mistaken in her identity? And supposing it were she—that this fragile shadow were the blooming girl he had left, not without some misgiving and regret, only a few weeks ago—why should he suppose he was to blame for the change? She had never looked very strong; she might have had any ordinary illness, that had nothing to say to him or her possible feelings towards him. Girls, now-a-days, didn’t die of broken hearts; that sort of thing was all very well in novels and ballads, but was seldom come across in real life, and more than half-inclined to turn back again to his friend with some excuse for his eccentric behaviour, Captain Chancellor stopped short. But before he had time to decide what he should do, a faint, low cry, that seemed somehow to shape itself into the sound of his own name, arrested him. He was nearer the garden bench than he had imagined: in his hurry and confusion he had approached it by another path; a step or two in advance and Eugenia stood before him. She had recognised him after he had passed with Major Thanet the second time, had sat there in an indescribable conflict of emotions—of fear and self-distrust; of vague, unreasonable anticipation; of foolish, irrepressible delight in the knowledge of his near presence; of bitter, humiliating consciousness that such feelings were no longer lawful—that he was now the betrothed, possibly even the husband, of another woman.
“Why did I see him? What unhappy fate has brought him here—to revive it all—to begin again all my struggles—just when I was growing a little happier and more at peace?” she had been crying in her heart. And then her ears had caught the quickly—approaching footsteps—the firm, sharp tread which she told herself she could have known among a thousand, and she forgot everything; forgot all about Roma Eyrecourt and his sudden departure, her own misery, his apparent indifference; remembered only that at last—at last—she saw him again, stood within a few feet of the man she had been doing her utmost to banish for ever from her heart and thoughts. One glance, all the labour was in vain—all the painful task to begin over again at the very beginning!
He was the first to break silence. It would have been a farce to have done so with any ordinary conventional form of greeting; her agitation, as she stood there, pale as death, trembling from head to foot, grasping convulsively at the rough woodwork of the bench for support—her poor “Philosophie” lying on the ground at her feet—was too palpable to be ignored; to have attempted to do so would have been to insult her. And Beauchamp Chancellor was not the man to stab deliberately and in cold blood, however indifferent he might be to suffering which fell not within his sight. And just now, in full view of Eugenia’s altered features and pitiful agitation, all the latent manliness of his nature was aroused; for the time he almost forgot himself in the sudden rush of tenderness for the girl who, he could no longer doubt, had suffered sorely for his sake; whose guileless devotion contrasted not unpleasantly with the still fresh remembrance of Roma Eyrecourt’s scornful indifference. So it was in a tone of extreme and unconcealed anxiety that he spoke.
“You have been ill, Miss Laurence,” he exclaimed; “I can see that you have been dreadfully ill. Good heavens, and I not to know it! And I have startled you by coming upon you so unexpectedly. What can I do or say to make you forgive me.”
Eugenia was recovering herself a little by now; some consciousness of what was due to her own self-respect was returning to her; she made a hard fight to regain her self-possession.