"Giving boxing lessons," said Dacre.
The rest of the ride was made in silence. They went down through a valley naturally fertile. None of the large older houses seemed to be occupied, but were falling into waste. Early in the afternoon they drew up at Chichester Cathedral, among the ruins of which they were to lunch. The grooms took the horses off to an inn in the little village near by, and Jawkins's man proceeded to unpack the hampers.
For some reason, Miss Windsor avoided Geoffrey. The Duchess and Sir John sat silently beside one another; Ripon was left to Mrs. Carey. It was a pretty picnic; but the party did not seem to enjoy it very much. From the Chichester ruin the roof has quite disappeared, but the pointed arches of the nave still stand; and these and the flying buttresses of the choir make a half inclosure of the place, into which the sunlight breaks and slants like broken bars of music through the soft greensward. Here you may lose yourself among the arches and pillars, the broken altars, the overturned fonts, and the old tombs and marble tablets speaking of dead worthies long forgotten. And if you lose yourself with the right person, your loss may be (as these same epitaphs read) her eternal gain.
Geoffrey wandered in here with Mrs. Carey. He had been trying to find Miss Windsor; but he met the other first. He could not treat her rudely, perhaps he did not wish to; but to his speech she answered but in monosyllables or not at all. Finally they sat down on the grass, leaning on an old stone pillar overthrown in a corner, half sheltered by what had been an altar in the old days, before the church was disestablished. Geoffrey did not speak for some time, and when he looked at her he saw that she was crying. Great tears were in her eyes, and as he bent down they seemed tenfold even their usual depth.
"Mrs. Carey! Eleanor!" he cried in despair, "what can be so wrong with you! Pray tell me—please tell me—" She made no answer; her hand was cold and unresisting as he raised it with the soft white arm from the grass; the sleeve fell back, and the setting sunlight showed each little vein in her transparent skin. "Pray, tell me!" Geoffrey went on, and then, more softly, "You know I have never forgotten you!"
Her breast was rising and falling with her weeping; but only a single sigh escaped her lips. At his words a deep sob seemed to break from a full heart; half rising, on an elbow, she placed her hand on Geoffrey's shoulder and drew his head in the bend of her wrist down close to her as she lay. Her lips almost brushed his cheek as she poured into his ear a torrent of words. "I am so miserable! so miserable!" was all he could distinguish. Then she arose, sitting upright.
"Geoffrey Ripon, my life is a lie—a mean, unbroken lie. You know why I married Carey—he could give me position, éclat, fashion—fashion, which is all we moderns prize, who have killed our nobles and banished honor from the dictionary. I sold myself to him and I have queened it, there in London, among the lucky gamblers and the demagogues and the foreign millionaires. All that this world—all that the world can give I have had, Geoffrey Ripon. And I tell you that there is nothing but love, love, love. It is these things that are the lie, Geoffrey—not love and truth and honesty. Oh, forgive me, Geoffrey, but I do so crave for love alone."
Ripon looked at her, speechless. As she spoke the glorious lips had a curl that was above the earth, and the eyes a glory that was beyond it; and the grand lines of her figure formed and melted and new formed again as she leaned, restless, upon the fallen stone. She threw her arm about his neck, and drew him down to her.
"Geoffrey, did you ever love me? You never could have loved me, when you left me so. See, the broken sixpence you gave me. I have still got it. I have always kept it." And she tore her collar open, and showed him the broken silver, hanging on a ribbon of her hair about her neck. "Oh, Geoffrey, you never knew that I loved you so! See—" and she drew out the coin and ribbon, and placed it, still warm from her bosom, in his hand. "Geoffrey, I care for nothing but love—this world is a wreck, a sham, a ruin—all is gone—all is gone but love—dear love—"
She drew him closer to her breast. For a moment Geoffrey looked into her marvellous eyes. Then a faint shadow passed across them, and looking aside he thought he saw Miss Windsor, alone, passing one of the arches.