"But what am I to do?" exclaimed Pauline. "I would rather not be left here alone!"
"I am afraid you must make up your mind to that. Poussette's horse is hardly fit to be driven. Let Father Rielle take him to the Manor House and then come back for you with one of the others."
This was agreed upon, the two men left at once and for the space of ten or fifteen minutes she was alone. At the end of that time she could hear footsteps on a rapid run, and soon Edmund Crabbe re-entered the barn. The cool air had invigorated him, and he flung off his cap and faced her.
"I could not leave you in that summary fashion, after so long," he said, "after so long, Pauline! Well—I have lived to be of some service to you—or so I think. Whether Platonic or not, you had better not encourage his reverence to that extent again, do you hear? A veritable Cassius of a man! And, by the way, you are looking very well just now, lady dear. I never saw you handsomer, Pauline!"
Miss Clairville's colour, already high, leaped more redly in her cheeks and she trembled; the ancient power that this man held over her, the ring of his rich English inflections, the revival of habit and association made her weak as water, so that she suddenly sat down and could find nothing to say. But Crabbe was quite at his ease, the encounter with Father Rielle had sharpened his wits and given him a restored opinion of himself, and in Pauline he saw a very handsome and attractive, warm-hearted and talented woman, still young and once very dear to him. The dormant affection in both was near the surface and Crabbe, knowing from her silence and downcast eyes how she felt, put some check on himself.
"Small use to either of us," he sighed, "to renew those passionate scenes of our youth! But I can still admire you and wish with all my heart—my heart you doubtless think black and altogether corrupt, Pauline—that you were for me to win afresh and wear openly this time, and that I might offer you a future unsullied. I suppose that your Methodist parson is after you, too, and that he will be the lucky one! He's handsome, d——n him—and steady as mountains; he does thy work, O Duty, and knows it not. I have little doubt but that flowers bend before him in their beds, that fragrance in his footing treads, and that the most ancient heavens——what's the rest of it? But you know, Pauline, you know you'll never be happy with him!"
Miss Clairville murmured something he did not catch, and it was a marvel to see how completely she lost her gay, assertive air, her dashing theatrical address in the presence of the guide.
"He's been at me several times about reforming. Well, if I did what would there be for me here? A big, long purse, Pauline, that's what I want—a big, long purse, my girl, and then you and I might leave this place and all these old harrowing associations. What about that Hawthorne business? Do you ever hear?"
"Sometimes," whispered Miss Clairville. "Antoine, as you may have noticed, acts for me. I give him the money, but I never go myself. I could not bear to see it—to see her—and it is not necessary."
"Poor girl!" said Crabbe, with much feeling. "It's hard on you, damned hard, I know. What's the matter? Oh—the swearing! I'm sorry, live too much by myself—forget myself. But Pauline, almost I think Father Rielle's advice will have to be followed. It would be a haven—a haven—better than the stage. If I could reform, could change my skin and lose my spots—but no! Even the fulminations of your latest admirer cannot work that miracle—I'm incorrigible! When I think of what I was, of what I might have been, and of what I am, despair seizes on me and then I'm only fit for—the bottle! There's no help for me, I'm afraid. Why, Pauline, this is Heaven's truth—I'm not perfectly sober now."