“If I could sit down?” she murmured. Then he saw that the color had again left her cheeks.
There was an old wheelbarrow inside the door, half full of dead leaves. He swept it clear, and she sat down on the edge of it. He stood by her, puzzled, and at a loss.
Certainly he had played a trick on her, and he had been a little rough because he had felt her impulse to resist. But she must have known that he would kiss her sooner or later. And she was no child. Her convent days were not of yesterday. She was a woman. He did not understand it.
Alas, she did understand it. It was not her lover’s kisses, it was not his passion or his roughness that had shaken Mary. She was not a prude and she was a woman. That which had overwhelmed her was the knowledge, the certainty forced on her by his embrace, that she did not love him! That, however much she might have deluded herself a few weeks earlier, however far she might have let the lure of love mislead her, she did not love this man! And she was betrothed to him, she was promised to him, she was his! On her engagement to him, on her future with him had been based—a moment before—all her plans and all her hopes for the future.
No wonder that the color was struck from her face, that she was shaken to the depths of her being. For, indeed, she knew something more—that she had had her warning and had closed her eyes to it. That evening, when she had heard Basset’s step come through the hall, that moment when his presence had lifted the burden of suspense from her, should have made her wise. And for an instant the veil had been lifted, and she had been alarmed. But she reflected that the passing doubt was due to her lover’s absence and his coldness; and she had put the doubt from her. When Audley returned all would be well, she would feel as before. She was hipped and lonely and the other was kind to her—that was all!
Now she knew that that was not all. She did not love Audley and she did love some one else. And it was too late. She had misled herself, she had misled the man who loved her, she had misled that other whom she loved. And it was too late!
For a time that was short, yet seemed long to her companion, who stood watching her, she sat lost in thought and unconscious of his presence. At length he could bear it no longer. Pale cheeks and dull eyes had no charm for him! He had not come, he had not met her, for this.
“Come!” he said, “come, Mary, you will catch cold sitting there! One might suppose I was an ogre!”
She smiled wanly. “Oh no!” she said, “It is I—who am foolish. Please forgive me.”
“If you would like to go back?”