‘Yes, James,’ she said, eagerly, her eyes lighting up, her cheeks flaming with the red of excitement; ‘I am glad you see it like that; one might go further perhaps—when from any reason life was a burden; when one was useless, hopeless, unhappy——’
‘Stop a little; we are going too fast,’ he said, with a smile, so entirely did the argument beguile him. ‘No one is justified in treating unhappiness like a mortal disease; unhappiness may pass away—does pass away, we all know, even when it seems worst. I cannot allow that; neither would I let people judge which lives were useless, their own or other people’s; but illness which was beyond the possibility of cure might be different; therefore, if the patient wished it, his wish, I think, should be law—— Annie, my darling! what is this? what do you mean?’
She had suddenly risen from where she was sitting near him, and thrown herself half at his feet, halt into his arms.
‘Only this,’ she said; ‘promise me—promise me, James! if this should ever happen to me—if you had the assurance, not only from me, but from—the people who know—that I had a terrible complaint, that I could never get better; promise that you would put me out of my pain, James. Promise that you would give me something to deliver me. You would not stand by and see me going down, down into the valley of death, into misery and weariness and constant pain, and, O God! loathsomeness, James!’
She buried her head in his breast, clinging to him with a grasp which was almost fierce; her very fingers which held him, appealing strenuously, forcing a consent from him. What could he say? He was too much distressed and horrified to know how to shape his answer. Fond words, caresses, soothings of every kind were all in vain for use at such a moment. ‘Far be it from you, my darling; far be it from you,’ he cried. ‘You! oh, how can you let your imagination cheat you so, my love! Nothing like this is going to happen, my Annie, my best, my dearest—— ’
‘Ah!’ she cried; ‘but if it were not imagination!—promise me, James.’
Whether she did eventually wring this wild promise from him he never knew. He would have said anything to calm her, and finally he succeeded; and having once more cleared her bosom of this perilous stuff, she regained her gaiety, her courage and spirits, and they set off as cheerful as any pair of honeymoon travellers need wish to be. But after she had left him and gone to her room pacified and comforted that night, you may fancy what sort of a half hour that poor man had as he closed the windows, which had still been left open, and put out the lamps, as was his practice, for they were considerate people and did not keep their servants out of bed. He stepped out on the balcony and looked up at the moon, which was shedding her stream of silver light as impartially upon the London housetops as if those white roofs had been forest trees. How still it seemed, every one asleep or going to rest, for it was late—a few lights glimmering in high windows, a sensation of soft repose in the very air! God help this silent, sleeping earth, upon which, even in her sleep, dark evils were creeping! Was someone perhaps dying somewhere even at that serene moment, in the sweet and tranquil stillness? His heart contracted with a great pang. In the midst of life we are in death. Why had those haunting, terrible words come into his ears?
CHAPTER III.
HONEYMOONING.
The real honeymoon is not always a delightful moment. This, which sounds like heresy to the romantic, and blasphemy to the young, is a fact which a great many people acknowledge readily enough when they have got beyond the stage at which it sounds like an offence to the wife or to the husband who is supposed to have made that period rapturous. The new pair have not the easy acquaintance with each other which makes the happiness of close companionship; perhaps they have not that sympathy with each other’s tastes which is almost a better practical tie than simple love. They are half afraid of each other; they are making discoveries every day of new points in each other’s characters, delightful or undelightful as may be, which bewilder their first confidence of union; and the more mind and feeling there is between them, the more likely is this to be the case. The shallow and superficial ‘get on’ better than those who have a great deal of excellence or tender depth of sentiment to be found out. But after the pair have come to full acquaintance, after they have learned each other from A B C up to the most difficult chapter; after the intercourse of ordinary life has borne its fruit; there is nothing in the world so delightful as the honeymooning which has passed by many years the legitimate period of the honeymoon. Sometimes one sees respectable fathers and mothers enjoying it, who have sent off their children to the orthodox honeymoon, and only then feel with a surprised pleasure how sweet it is to have their own solitude à deux; to be left to themselves for a serene and happy moment; to feel themselves dearer and nearer than they ever were before. There is something infinitely touching and tender in this honeymooning of the old. James Beresford and his wife, however, were not of these. They were still young, and of all the pleasures they had there was none equal to this close and unbroken companionship. They knew each other so well, and all their mutual tastes, that they scarcely required to put their intercourse into words; and yet how they would talk—about everything, about nothing, as if they had just met after a long absence, and had thoughts to exchange on every subject. This is a paradox; but we are not bound to explain paradoxes which are of the very essence of life, and the most attractive things in it. It had been the habit of these two to go everywhere together. Mrs. Beresford had not the prejudices of an English female Philistine. She went where her husband wanted to go, fearing nothing, and trotted about with him high and low, through picture galleries and old churches, to studios, even behind the scenes of the operas, and through the smoke clouds of big ateliers. Nothing came amiss to her with him by her side. It is almost the only way in which a woman can enjoy the freedom of movement, the easy locomotion of a man. Mrs. Beresford went away quite cheerfully, as we have said. She forgot or put away her mysterious terrors. She addressed herself to all the ordinary enjoyments which she knew so well. ‘We shall never be so free again,’ she said, half laughing, half with a remote infinitesimal pang. ‘We shall have to go to the correct places and do the right things when Cara is with us.’ ‘We must give up bric-a-brac,’ she said afterwards. ‘Cara must not grow up acquainted with all those dusty back premises; her pretty frocks would be spoiled and her infantine sincerity. If she had heard you bargaining, James, for that Buen Retiro cup! Saying it is naught, it is naught, and then bragging of the treasure you had found as soon as it was out of the dealer’s hands.’