‘You may say it was deceiving to let him think I cared for him, but that was never what I intended. He said at first, it was enough for him to care for me. Oh, but that is nothing, nothing!’ cried Joyce suddenly, ‘that is only the beginning. Though I cannot keep my word to him, I need not break it,—that would have been easy. It is far, far worse what is to come.’
Miss Marsham took Joyce’s hands into hers. She was lost in amazement, and felt herself swimming, floating wildly, at sea, among things altogether strange and incomprehensible. She could not reply, but there is always sympathy in a pressure of the hands.
‘There was nothing wrong in meeting another man that was my father’s friend, that was my dear lady’s son,’ said Joyce, very low; ‘how was I to know that he and me would see each other different from—common folk? How was I to know that they had made it up for him to be the love of—of another girl? And now here I stand,’ she cried, rising up holding out her hands in piteous explanation, ‘pledged to one, and caring nothing for him, harming another that but for me would do what was meant for him, would do—would do well—with a lady bred like himself, born like himself, not one that had been abandoned like me. Tell me what you would do if you were me! The lady comes and asks me—she has no right. She says that I know trouble and sorrow, but Greta never a disappointment, never a thing that was not happy—and that she’ll break her heart; and nobody cares for mine. And she says I should keep my word, though she was the first to say he was not the one for me. And oh, what am I to do—what am I to do?’
Joyce sank down again upon the seat, and covered her face with her hands.
‘Oh, my poor Joyce—my dear Joyce!’ Miss Marsham cried.
Her head was not very clear at any time—it was apt to get confused with a very small matter. And Joyce’s story was confusion worse confounded to the anxious hearer. Even what she thought to be her knowledge of the circumstances deepened Miss Marsham’s bewilderment. She knew of the man to whom Joyce was engaged, from whom all the information came; but the after episode—half told, hurried over, which Joyce had no mind to explain fully, which she addressed to the oracle—was as a veil thrown over poor Miss Marsham’s understanding. She knew none of these people; the name of Greta brought no enlightenment to her, nor did she know who the lady was, nor who the man was who was mixed up inextricably in this strange imbroglio. She drew Joyce’s hands from her face, and laid that hidden face upon her own kind breast, kneeling down to caress and to soothe the poor girl in her trouble. But what to say or what to do Miss Marsham knew not. She did not understand the delicate case upon which her advice was required. And the oracle was mute. There was no response to give. ‘Oh, my poor child, my dear child, my poor dear love!’ Miss Marsham cried.
After a minute Joyce raised her head and looked at her friend in whom she trusted. She was very pale, her eyes were wet with tears, and looked large and liquid in caves of trouble,—her mouth quivered a little, like the mouth of a child when its passion-fit is over, and there was a pathetic little break in her voice. ‘Tell me,’ she said, with a look that searched the very soul, ‘tell me what you would do—if you were me.’
‘Oh, my pretty Joyce—my poor dear!’
‘Tell me,’ the girl said, ‘would you break her heart and wound him, all for yourself? Would you break your word and your pledge that you gave when you were poor, all for yourself? as if you had to be happy whatever happened—you! And what right had you to be happy, any more than Greta—or Greta more than you?’
The question, heaven knows, was vague enough—but the oracle was no longer mute. The pilgrim at the shrine had touched the true chord, and at last the priestess spoke. She had a moment of that ecstasy, of that semi-trance of mingled reluctance and eagerness, which makes those pause who have the response of the unseen to give forth to feeble men. Her gentle eyes lit up, then dimmed again; a brightness came over her faded face, giving it a momentary gleam of eternal youth, then disappeared. She trembled a little as she held the votary to her breast.