In vain she strove to find words to tell him her perplexity. How could she accept this gift from his hands, believing as she did that the child at home was longing to make friends with him? How should she return and look her friend in the face, saying, “I have stolen your lover”?
“Embrance, be patient with me,” Joan had said. “Embrance, don’t give me up.”
Then she turned and put her hand into Horace’s. Her fingers were cold as ice, but they did not tremble. “I can’t; don’t ask me,” she cried under her breath.
He strode by her side in silence. An empty cab came rattling round the corner. “Stop it,” whispered Embrance. He obeyed her, opened the door, and told the man where to drive. He lifted his hat, standing on one side, and waiting for the cab to drive off. At last she raised her eyes to his. “Forgive me,” she whispered; “do forgive me. God bless you, Horace.”
He turned away without a word. What should he say more than he had said? She could not love him. There was nothing more to be done. She was no coquette to say “No” when she meant “Yes.” Fate was hard on him. The one woman in the whole world whom he longed to call his wife had rejected his love. He must bear his grief as best he could.
Embrance sank back into a dark corner of the cab, shuddering as she recalled his look of misery. She had none of the spirit of a heroine or a martyr to support her; she had tried, struggling against her own self, to act uprightly by one friend; suppose that her very love of honesty had caused her to be cruel to another? Now that it was all too late, she longed to have the last five minutes over again. No, a thousand times, no! Let her only get home and have time to think, and she would leave off being sorry. Whether rightly or wrongly, she had done what seemed honest and fair; she would not reproach herself, and he would soon get over it. “Men forget sooner than women,” she reflected, falling back on one of her aunt’s numerous truisms. Then she almost laughed in scorn at her own insincerity. “You don’t believe it; you know he loves you, and your ridiculous behaviour will make him think worse of all womanhood from this day forth.” “Oh! I hope not. I hope not!” she sobbed aloud, with her head against the cushion of the cab.
The sound of her own voice roused her to the consciousness that she was getting very near home; she sat up, dried her eyes and smoothed her hair. It would not do to alarm Joan; what had happened this afternoon must be kept a secret from her at all events. She had her own latch-key. She opened the door and stole upstairs. The landlady and her daughter were chatting in the back parlour, but Embrance did not want to exchange civilities with them just now. Outside her own door she paused for a moment, then opened it, saying: “Well, Joan, are you waiting for your tea?”
There was no answer. The lamp was lighted, the tablecloth was laid, but Joan was not there. Her chair was in a corner by the window; there were no signs of her drawing or scraps of millinery about.
“Joan!” cried Embrance, nervously. “Where are you?”
No answer. She ran to the door of the next room and looked in; all was dark and silent. “I suppose it is not so late as I thought,” she said to herself. “She will be in soon, I daresay.”