"Who?" My lips found the question, but no sound came.
"Walter Butler! O God! that I have done this thing!"
In the dreadful silence I heard her choking back the cry that strangled her. And after a while she found her voice again: "I was a child—a vain, silly thing of moods and romance, ignorant of men, innocent of the world, flattered by the mystery with which he cloaked his passion, awed, fascinated by this first melancholy lover who had wrung from me through pity, through vanity, through a vague fear of him, perhaps, a promise of secret betrothal."
She lifted her head and set her chin on one clinched hand, yet never looked at me:
"Sir Frederick was abed; I all alone in the great arms-gallery, nose to the diamond window-panes, and looking out at the moon—and waiting for him. Suddenly I saw him there below.... Heaven is witness I meant no harm nor dreamed of any. He was not alone. My heart and my affections were stirred to warmth—I sailing from Canada and friends next day at dawn—and I went down to the terrace and out among the trees where he stood, his companion moving off among the trees. I had come only to bid him the farewell I had promised, Carus—I never dreamed of what he meant to do."
She cleared her hair from her brow.
"I—I swear to you, Carus, that never has Walter Butler so much as laid the weight of his little finger on my person! Yet he swayed me there—using that spell of melancholy, clothed in romance—and—I know not how it was—or how I listened, or how consented—it is scarce more than a dreadful dream—the trees in the moonlight, his voice so gentle, so pitiful, trembling, beseeching—and he had brought a clergyman"—again her hands covered her eyes—"and, ere I was aware of it, frightened, stunned in the storm of his passion, he had his way with me. The clergyman stood between us, saying words that bound me. I heard them, I was mute, I shrank from the ring, yet suffered it—for even as he ringed me he touched me not with his hand. Oh, if he had, I think the spell had broken!"
Again her tears welled up, falling silently; and presently the strength returned to her voice, and she went on:
"From the first moment that I saw you, Carus, I understood what love might be. From the very first I closed my ears to the quick cry of caution. I saw you meet coquetry unmoved, I knew the poison of my first passion was in me, stealing through every vein; and every moment with you was the more hopeless for me. I played a hundred rôles—you smiled indifference on all. A mad desire to please you grew with your amused impatience of me. Curiosity turned to jealousy. I longed for your affection as I never longed for anything on earth—or heaven. I had never had a lover to love before. O Carus, I had never loved, and love crazed me! Day after day I wondered if I had been fashioned to inspire love in such a man as you. I was bewildered by my passion and your coldness; yet had I not been utterly mad I must have known the awful end of such a flame once kindled. But could I inspire love? Could you love me? That was all in the world I cared about—thinking nothing of the end, knowing all hope was dead for me, and nothing in life unless you loved me. O Carus, if I have inspired one brief moment of tenderness in you, deal mercifully with the sin! Guilty as I am, false as I am, I can not add a lie and say that I am sorry that you love me, that for one blessed moment you said you loved me. Now it is ended. I can not be your wife. I am too mean, too poor a thing for hate. Deal with me gently, Carus, lest your wrath strike me dead here at the altar of outraged Love!"
I rose to my feet, feeling blindly for support, and rested against the great carved columns of the bed. A cold rage froze me, searching every vein with icy numbness that left me like a senseless thing. That passed; I roused, breathing quietly and deeply, and looked about, furtive, lest the familiar world around had changed to ashes, too.