CHAPTER XXIV.
To postpone the self-sacrifice of an enthusiast for weeks, or even for days, is the hardest of all tests, and a trial almost beyond the power of flesh and blood. Upheld by religious fervour, the human soul may be equal to this or any other test; but in lesser matters, and specially in those self-sacrifices prompted by generosity, which to the youthful hero or heroine seem at the first glance so inevitable, so indispensable, things which no noble mind would shrink from, the process of waiting is a terrible ordeal.
He, or still more, she, who would have given life itself, happiness, anything, everything that is most prized in existence, with a light heart, and the most perfect conviction at the moment, becomes, as the days go by, the victim of a hundred chilling doubts and questions. Her courage, like that of Bob Acres, oozes out at her finger-ends. She is brought to the bar of a thousand suppressed, yet never extinguished, reasonings.
Is it right to feign love even for her lover’s sake?—is it right to do another so great an injury as to delude him into the thought that he is making you happy, while, in reality, you are sacrificing all happiness for him? Is it right——? but these questions are so manifold and endless that it is vain to enumerate them.
Effie had been the victim of this painful process for three long lingering weeks. She had little, very little, to support her in her determination. The papers had been full of the great bankruptcy, of details of Dirom’s escape, and of the valuable papers and securities which had disappeared with him: and with a shiver Effie had understood that the scene she had seen unawares through the window had meant far more than even her sense of mystery and secrecy in it could have helped her to divine.
The incidents of that wonderful night—the arguments of the mother and sisters, who had declared that the proposed expedition would be nothing but an embarrassment to Fred—her return ashamed and miserable in the carriage into which they had thrust her—had been fatal to the fervour of the enthusiasm which had made her at first capable of anything. Looking back upon it now, it was with an overwhelming shame that she recognized the folly of that first idea. Effie had grown half-a-dozen years older in a single night. She imagined what might have happened had she carried out that wild intention, with one of those scathing and burning blushes which seem to scorch the very soul. She imagined Fred’s look of wonder, his uneasiness, perhaps his anger at her folly which placed him in so embarrassing a position.
Effie felt that, had she seen those feelings in his eyes even for a moment, she would have died of shame. He had written to her, warmly thanking her for her “sympathy,” for her “generous feeling,” for the telegram (of which she knew nothing) which had been so consolatory to him, for the “unselfishness,” the “beautiful, brave thought” she had for a moment entertained of coming to him, of standing by him.
“Thank you, dearest, for this lovely quixotism,” he had said; “it was like my Effie,” as if it had been a mere impulse of girlish tenderness, and not the terrible sacrifice of a life which she had intended it to be. This letter had been overwhelming to Effie, notwithstanding, or perhaps by reason of, its thanks and praises. He had, it was clear, no insight into her mind, no real knowledge of her at all. He had never divined anything, never seen below the surface.
If she had done what she intended, if she had indeed gone to him, he living as he was! Effie felt as if she must sink into the ground when she realized this possibility. And as she did so, her heart failed her, her courage, her strength oozed away: and there was no one to whom she could speak. Doris and Phyllis came to see her now and then, but there was no encouragement in them. They were going abroad; they had ceased to make any reference to that independent action on their own part which was to have followed disaster to the firm. There was indeed in their conversation no account made of any downfall; their calculations about their travels were all made on the ground of wealth. And Fred had taken refuge in his studio they said—he was going to be an artist, as he had always wished: he was going to devote himself to art: they said this with a significance which Effie in her simplicity did not catch, for she was not aware that devotion to Art interfered with the other arrangements of life. And this was all. She had no encouragement on that side, and her resolution, her courage, her strength of purpose, her self-devotion oozed away.
Strangely enough, the only moral support she had was from Ronald, who met her with that preternaturally grave face, and asked for Fred, whom he had never asked for before, and said something inarticulate which Effie understood, to the effect that he for one would never put difficulties in her way. What did he mean? No one could have explained it—not even himself: and yet Effie knew. Ronald had the insight which Fred, with those foolish praises of her generosity and her quixotism, did not possess.