“And may I not know this secret of yours, Eva?” I asked sympathetically, for I saw by her manner how she was suffering a torture of the soul.
“My secret!” she cried, glaring at me suddenly as one brought to bay, a strange, hunted look in those clear blue eyes. “My secret! Why”—and she laughed a hollow, artificial laugh, as one hysterical—“why, how absurd you are, Mr Urwin! Whatever made you suspect me of having secrets?”
Chapter Fifteen.
The Near Beyond.
The remainder of our pull to Riverdene was accomplished in comparative silence. Crushed, hopeless and despairing, I bent to the oars mechanically, with the feeling that in all else my interest was dead, save in the woman I so dearly loved, who, lounging back among her cushions, sighed now and then, her face very grave and agitated.
I spoke at last, urging her to reconsider her decision, but she only responded with a single word, a word which destroyed all my fondest hopes—
“Impossible.”
In that bright hour when the broad bosom of the Thames sent back the reflection of the summer sun, when the sky was clear as that in Italy, when all the world seemed rejoicing, and the gay laughter wafted over the water from the launches, boats and punts gliding past us, we alone had heavy hearts. Overwhelmed by this bitter disappointment and sorrow, the laughter jarred upon my ears. I tried to shut it out, and with my teeth set rowed with all my might against the stream until, skirting the shady wood, we rounded the bend of the stream and suddenly drew up at the landing-steps of Riverdene.