“What has she been telling you?” said Jack. “She has been telling you that I would deceive you; that I was not to be trusted. It is because she does not know me, Pamela. You know me better. I never thought of any thing either,” he added, driven to simplicity by the force of his emotions, “except that I could not do without you, and that I was very happy. And Pamela, whatever it may cost, I can’t live without you now.”
“But you must,” said Pamela: “if you could but hear what mamma says! She never said you would deceive me. What she said was, that we must not have our own way. It may break our hearts, but we must give up. It appears life is like that,” said Pamela, with a deep sigh. “If you like any thing very much, you must give it up.”
“I am ready to give up every thing else,” said Jack, carried on by the tide, and forgetting all his reason; “but I will not give you up. My little darling, you are not to cry—I did not know I was so fond of you till that day. I didn’t even know it till now,” cried the young man. “You mustn’t turn away from me, Pamela—give me your hand; and whatever happens to us, we two will stand by each other all our lives.”
“Ah, no,” said Pamela, drawing away her hand; and then she laid the same hand which she had refused to give him on his shoulder and looked up into his face. “I like you to say it all,” she went on—“I do—it is no use making believe when we are just going to part. I shall remember every word you say. I shall always be able to think that when I was young I had some one to say these things to me. If your father were to come now, I should not be afraid of him; I should just tell him how it was. I am glad of every word that I can treasure up. Mamma said I was not to see you again; but I said if we were to meet we had a right to speak to each other. I never thought I should have seen you to-night. I shouldn’t mind saying to your father himself that we had a right to speak. If we should both live long and grow old, and never meet for years and years, don’t you think we shall still know each other in heaven?”
As for poor Jack, he was driven wild by this, by the sadness of her sweet eyes, by the soft tenderness of her voice, by the virginal simplicity and sincerity which breathed out of her. Pamela stood by him with the consciousness that it was the supreme moment of her existence. She might have been going to die; such was the feeling in her heart. She was going to die out of all the sweet hopes, all the dawning joys of her youth; she was going out into that black desert of life where the law was that if you liked any thing very much you must give it up. But before she went she had a right to open her heart, to hear him disclose his. Had it been possible that their love should have come to any thing, Pamela would have been shy and shamefaced; but that was not possible. But a minute was theirs, and the dark world gaped around to swallow them up from each other. Therefore the words flowed in a flood to Pamela’s lips. She had so many things to say to him—she wanted to tell him so much; and there was but this minute to include all. But her very composure—her tender solemnity—the pure little white martyr that she was, giving up what she most loved, gave to Jack a wilder thrill, a more headlong impulse. He grasped her two hands, he put his arm round her in a sudden passion. It seemed to him that he had no patience with her or any thing—that he must seize upon her and carry her away.
“Pamela,” he cried, hoarsely, “it is of no use talking—you and I are not going to part like this. I don’t know any thing about heaven, and I don’t want to know—not just now. We are not going to part, I tell you. Your mother may say what she likes, but she can’t be so cruel as to take you from a man who loves you and can take care of you—and I will take care of you, by heaven! Nobody shall ever come between us. A fellow may think and think when he doesn’t know his own mind: and it’s easy for a girl like you to talk of the last time. I tell you it is not the last time—it is the first time. I don’t care a straw for any thing else in the world—not in comparison with you. Pamela, don’t cry; we are going to be together all our life.”
“You say so because you have not thought about it,” said Pamela, with an ineffable smile; “and I have been thinking of it ever so long—ever so much. No; but I don’t say you are to go away, not yet. I want to have you as long as I can; I want to tell you so many things—every thing I have in my heart.”
“And I will hear nothing,” said Jack—“nothing except that you and I belong to each other. That’s what you have got to say. Hush, child! do you think I am a child like you? Pamela, look here—I don’t know when it is to be, nor how it is to be, but you are going to be my wife.”
“Oh, no, no,” said Pamela, shrinking from him, growing red and growing pale in the shock of this new suggestion. If this was how it was to be, her frankness, her sad openness, became a kind of crime. She had suffered his embrace before, prayed him to speak to her, thought it right to take full advantage of the last indulgence accorded to them; and now the tables were turned upon her. She shrank away from him, and stood apart in the obscure twilight. There had not been a blush on her cheek while she opened her innocent young heart to him in the solemnity of the supposed farewell, but now she was overwhelmed with sudden shame.
“I say yes, yes, yes,” said Jack vehemently, and he seized upon the hands that she had clasped together by way of safeguard. He seized upon them with a kind of violence appropriating what was his own. His mind had been made up and his fate decided in that half hour. He had been full of doubts up to this moment; but now he had found out that without Pamela it was not worth while to live—that Pamela was slipping through his fingers, ready to escape out of his reach; and after that there was no longer any possibility of a compromise. He had become utterly indifferent to what was going on around as he came to this point. He had turned his back on the road, and could not tell who was coming or going. And thus it was that the sudden intrusion which occurred to them was entirely unexpected, and took them both by surprise. All of a sudden, while neither was looking, a substantial figure was suddenly thrust in between them. It was Mrs. Swayne, who had been at Dewsbury and was going home. She did not put them aside with her hands, but she pushed her large person completely between the lovers, thrusting one to one side and the other to the other. With one of her arms she caught Pamela’s dress, holding her fast, and with the other she pushed Jack away. She was flushed with walking and haste, for she had seen the two figures a long way off, and had divined what sort of meeting it was; and the sight of her fiery countenance between them startled the two so completely that they fell back on either side and gazed at her aghast, without saying a word. Pamela, startled and overcome, hid her face in her hands, while Jack made a sudden step back, and got very hot and furious, but for the moment found himself incapable of speech.