Mrs. Kirkman, too, showed a sudden change of interest, and turned to the new subject with zeal and zest: “If you are really seeking a reconciliation with your husband——” she began; but this was more than Winnie could bear.
“I asked where Major Percival was to be found,” she said; “I was not discussing my own affairs: but Nelly will tell me. If that is all about Mary, I will go away.”
“I will go with you,” cried Emma: “only wait till I get my things. I knew she would be ill; and she must not think that we are going to forsake her now. As if it could make any difference to us that have known it for ever so long! Only wait till I get my things.”
“Poor Mary! she is not in a state of mind to be benefited by any visit,” said Mrs. Kirkman, solemnly. “If it were not for that, I would go.”
As for Winnie, she was trembling with impatience, eager to be free and to be gone, and yet not content to go until she had left a sting behind her, like a true woman. “How you all talk!” she cried; “as if your making any difference would matter. You can set it going, but all you can do will never stop it. Mary has gone to Will, whom you have made her enemy. Perhaps she has gone to ask her boy to save her honour; and you think she will mind about your making a difference, or about your visits—when it is a thing of life or death!”
And she went to the door all trembling, scarcely able to support herself, shivering with excitement and wild anticipation. Now she must see him—now it was her duty to go to him and ask him why—— She rushed away, forgetting even that she had not obtained the information she came to seek. She had been speaking of Mary, but it was not of Mary she was thinking. Mary went totally out of her mind as she hurried down the stairs. Now there was no longer any choice; she must go to him, must see him, must renew the interrupted but never-ended struggle. It filled her with an excitement which she could not subdue nor resist. Her heart beat so loud that she did not hear the sound of her own step on the stairs, but seemed somehow to be carried down by the air, which encircled her like a soft whirlwind; and she did not hear Nelly behind her calling her, to tell her where he lived. She had no recollection of that. She did not wait for any one to open the door for her, but rushed out, moved by her own purpose as by a supernatural influence; and but for the violent start he gave, it would have been into his arms she rushed as she stepped out from the Askells’ door.
This was how their meeting happened. Percival had been going there to ask some questions about the Cottage and its inmates, when his wife, with that look he knew so well, with all the coming storm in her eyes, and the breath of excitement quick on her parted lips—stepped out almost into his arms. He was fond of her, notwithstanding all their mutual sins; and their spirits rushed together, though in a different way from that rush which accompanies the meeting of the lips. They rushed together with a certain clang and spark; and the two stood facing each other in the street, defying, hating, struggling, feeling that they belonged to each other once more.
“I must speak with you,” said Winnie, in her haste; “take me somewhere that I may speak. Is this your revenge? I know what you have done. When everything is ended that you can do to me, you strike me through my friends.”
“If you choose to think so——” said Percival.
“If I choose to think so? What else can I think?” said the hot combatant; and she went on by his side with hasty steps and a passion and force which she had not felt in her since the day when she fled from him. She felt the new tide in her veins, the new strength in her heart. It was not the calm of union, it was the heat of conflict; but still, such as it was, it was her life. She went on with him, never looking or thinking where they were going, till they reached the rooms where he was living, and then, all by themselves, the husband and wife looked each other in the face.