Once more Ronald accompanied the departing guest down stairs. He called Mr. Wallace’s clerk; he helped Mr. Wallace to mount into the geeg which awaited him. No master of a house could have been more attentive, more careful of his guest. He wrought the old gentleman up to such a pitch of exasperation that he almost swore—a thing which occurred to him only in the greatest emergencies; and that it was all he could do to prevent himself from using his whip upon the broad shoulders of the interloper who was thus speeding the parting guests. But the exigencies of the coach, which he had to get at Kinloch-Rugas at a certain hour, prevented much further delay. And Ronald stood and watched the departure of the angry man of business in the Kinloch-Rugas geeg with a sensation of relief. Was it relief? He was glad to get rid of him, no doubt, and of all the consternation and disapproval with which his appearance had been greeted. No one now had any right to say a word—the first and greatest ordeal was over. But yet there remained something behind which made Ronald’s nerves tingle; all that was outside had passed away. He had now to confront alone an antagonist still more alarming: his Lily, whom he loved in spite of every thing, whose image had filled this gray old place with sweetness, who had always, up to their last meeting, been sweet to him, sweeter than words could say—his first and only sweetheart, his love, his wife. Now all the strangers were gone the matter was between him and her alone. And Ronald, though he was so sensible and so strong, was, for the first time, afraid.
He came upstairs slowly, collecting himself for what was before him; not without a pause at the top to examine again that defective step, which he had so often remarked upon, which now must be seen to at once. He had accomplished all he had hoped. Sir Robert had not even kept him long waiting. Two years was not a very long time to wait; two years in comparison with the lifetime that lay before Lily and himself was nothing. They were young, and with this foundation of Sir Robert’s fortune every thing was at their feet: all that his profession could give, all its prizes and honors, all that was best in life—the ease of never having to think or scheme about money, the unspeakable freedom and exemption from petty cares which that insures. To do him justice, he did not think of the money itself. He thought that now, whether he was successful or unsuccessful, Lily was safe—that she would have no struggle to undergo, no discomfort—while, at the same time, he was very sure now that he would be successful, that every thing was possible to him. A modest fortune to begin with, enough to keep the wife and family comfortable, whatever happens, and to free him from every thought but how to make the best of himself and his powers—was not that the utmost that a man could desire, the best foundation? He went back to his Lily, saying all this to himself, but he could not get his heart up to the height of that elation which had possessed him when he had put on his weepers and his crape for Sir Robert. He had not quite recognized the drawbacks then. Half of them—oh, more than half of them—had been got over. There only remained Lily: Lily, his wife, who loved him, for whom he had in store the most delightful of surprises, to whom he could show now, fully and freely, without fear of any man, how much he loved her, whose future life he should care for in every detail, letting her feel the want of nothing; oh, far better than that—the possession of every thing that heart of woman could desire.
She was sitting as he had left her, in a large chair drawn out almost into the centre of the room—a sort of chair of state, where she, as the object of all sympathy, had been surrounded by her compassionate friends. It chilled him a little to see her there. She wanted that encirclement the ladies behind her, supporting her, the surrounding of sympathetic faces. Now that position meant only isolation, separation; it gave the aspect of one alone in the world. He went up to her, making a little use of this as a man skilled in taking advantage of every incident, and took her hand. “Lily, my darling, let me put you in another place. Here is the chair you used to sit in. Come, it will be more like yourself.”
“I am very well where I am,” she said.
There was the chair beside the fire where she had once been used to sit. How suggestive these dumb things, these mere articles of furniture, are when they have once taken the impress of our mortal moods and ways! It had been pushed by chance, by the movement of many people in the room, into the very position which Lily had occupied so often, with her lover, her husband, hanging over her or close beside her, in all the closeness of their first union, when the snow had built its dazzling drifts on every road, and shut them out from all the world. To both their minds there came for a moment the thought of that, the sensation of the chill fresh air, the white silence, the brilliance of the sun upon the sparkling crystals. But it was a hard and bitter frost that enveloped them now—black skies and earth alike, every sound ringing harshly through. Lily sat unmoving. She looked at him with what seemed a stern calm. She seemed to herself to have suffered all that could be suffered in so short a space of time, the shame of her story all laid bare—her story, which had so different an aspect now, no longer the story of a true, if foolish and imprudent, love, but of calculation, of fraud, of a long, bold, ably planned deception for the sake of money. Her neighbors did not, indeed, think so of her, or speak so of her, as they jogged along the frost-bound roads, talking of nothing but this strange incident; but she thought they were doing so, and her heart was seared and burned up with shame.
He drew a chair near to her and laid his hand upon hers. “Lily!” he said.
She did not move; the touch of his hand made her start, but did not affect her otherwise. “There is no need for that,” she said, somehow with an air as if she scorned even to withdraw her hand, which was so cold and irresponsive. She added with a long-drawn breath: “You can tell me what you want—now that you have got what you want. It is all that need be said between you and me.”
“Lily,” he said, lifting her hand, which was like a piece of ice, and holding it between his, “what I want is you. What is any thing I can get or wish for without you?”
She withdrew her hand with a little force. “All that,” she said, “is over and past. Why should so sensible a man as you are try to keep up what is ended, or to go on speaking a language which is—which has lost its meaning? You and I are not what we were; I at least am not what I was.”
“You are my wife, Lily.”