Within the Precincts

by Mrs. Oliphant

Lottie raised her drooping shoulders, she threw back her head and looked at him, into the glowing face that was so close to her. Her heart had given one answering leap of excitement, but was not beating like his. At that moment, so tremendous to him, it was not passion, but reflection, that was in her eyes.

“Let me think—let us think,” she said. “Oh, Rollo! it is a great temptation. To go away, to be safe with you——”

“My darling, my own darling! you shall never have cause to fear, never to doubt me; my love will be as steady, as true——” So high had the excitement of suspense grown, that he had scarcely breath to get out the words.

“Do you think I doubt that?” she said, her voice sounding so calm, so soft to his excited ear. “That is not the question; there are so many other things to think of. If you will not think for yourself, I must think for you. Oh, Rollo, no! I don’t see how it could be. Listen to me; you are too eager, oh! thank you, dear Rollo, too fond of me, to take everything into consideration—but I must. Rollo! no, no; it would never do; how could it ever do, if you will only think? Supposing even that it did not matter for me, how could you marry your wife from any place but her home? It would not be creditable,” said Lottie, shaking her head with all the gentle superiority of reason, “it would not be right or becoming for you.”

His arm relaxed round her; he tried to say something, but it died away in his throat. For the moment the man was conscious of nothing but a positive pang of gratitude for a danger escaped; he was safe, but he scarcely dared breathe. Had she understood him as he meant her to understand him, what vengeance would have flashed upon him, what thunderbolt scathed him! But for very terror he would have shrunk and hid his face now in the trembling of the catastrophe escaped.

“More than that, even,” said Lottie, going on all unaware; “I have nothing, you know; and how could I take money—money to live upon—from you!—till I was married to you? No! it is impossible, impossible, Rollo. Oh! thank you, thank you a thousand times for having thought more of me than of anything else; but you see, don’t you see, how impossible it is? I will never forget,” said the girl softly, drawing a little closer to him who had fallen away from her in the strange tumult of failure—yet deliverance—which took all strength from him, “I will never forget that you were ready to forget everything that was reasonable, everything that was sensible, and even your own credit, for me!”

Another pause, but this time indescribable. In her bosom gratitude, tender love, and that sweet sense of calmer judgment, of reason less influenced by passion than it would be fitting or right for his to be, which a woman loves to feel within herself—her modest prerogative in the supreme moment; in his a tumult of love, disappointment, relief, horror of himself, anger and shame, and the thrill of a hairbreadth escape. He could not say a word; what he had done seemed incredible to him. The most tremendous denunciation would not have humbled him as did her unconsciousness. He had made her the most villainous proposal, and she had not even known what it meant; to her it had seemed all generosity, love, and honour. His arm dropped from around her, he had no force to hold her, and some inarticulate exclamation—he could not tell what—sounded hoarsely in utter confusion and shame in his throat.

“You are not angry?” she said, almost wooing him in her turn. “Rollo, it is not that I do not trust you, you know; who should I trust but you? If that were all, I would put my hand in yours; you should take me wherever you pleased. But then there are the other things to be considered. And, Rollo, don’t be angry,” she said, drawing his arm within hers, “I can bear anything now. After talking to you, after feeling your sympathy, I can bear anything. What do I care for a woman like that? Of course I knew,” said Lottie, with tears in her eyes, “that you did feel for me, that you thought of me, that you were always on my side. But one wants to have it said over again to make assurance sure. Now I can bear anything, now I can go home—though it is not much home—and wait, till you come and fetch me, Rollo, openly, in the light, in the day.”

Here, because she was so happy, Lottie put her hands up to her face and laid those hands upon his shoulder and cried there in such a heavenly folly of pain and blessedness as words could not describe. That he should not claim her at once, that was a pain to her; and to think of that strange, horrible house to which she must creep back, that was pain which no happiness could altogether drive out of her thoughts. But yet, how happy she was! What did it matter if for the moment her heart was often sore? A little while and all would be well; a little while and she would be delivered out of all these troubles. It was only a question of courage, of endurance, of fortitude, and patience; and Lottie had got back her inspiration, and felt herself capable of bearing anything, everything, with a stout heart. But Rollo had neither recovered his speech nor his self-possession; shame and anger were in his heart. He had not been found out, but the very awe of escape was mingled with intolerable anger; anger no doubt chiefly against himself, but also a little against her, though why he could not have said. The unconsciousness of her innocence, which had impressed him so deeply at first and confounded all his calculations, began to irritate him. How was it possible she did not understand? was there stupidity as well as innocence in it? Most people would have had no difficulty in understanding, it would have been as clear as noonday—or, rather, as clear as gaslight; as evident as any “intention” could be. He could not bear this superiority, this obtuseness of believing; it offended him, notwithstanding that he had made by it what he felt to be the greatest escape of his life.

They parted after this not with the same enthusiasm on Rollo’s part as that which existed on Lottie’s. She was chilled, too, thinking he was angry with her for not yielding to his desire; and this overcast her happiness, but not seriously. They stole down by the side of the Abbey, in the shadow—Lottie talking, Rollo silent. When they came within sight of the cloister gate and the line of the lodges opposite, Lottie withdrew her hand from his arm. The road looked empty and dark; but who could tell what spectator might suddenly appear? She took his rôle in the eagerness of her heart to make up to him for any vexation her refusal might have given. “Don’t come any further,” she whispered; “let us part here; someone might see us.” In her eagerness to make up to him for her own unkindness, she allowed the necessity for keeping that secret—though to think of it as a secret had wounded her before. Nevertheless, when he took her at her word and left her, Lottie, like the fanciful girl she was, felt a pang of disappointment and painfully realised her own desolateness, the dismal return all alone to the house out of which every quality of kindness had gone. Her heart sank, and with reluctant, lingering steps she came out of the Abbey shadow and began to cross the Dean’s Walk, her forlorn figure moving slowly against the white line of the road and the grey of the wintry sky.