Chapter Nineteen.
Eva Makes a Confession.
“Why may I not know the truth?” I asked the blanched and agitated woman before me. Her involuntary declaration that I had only returned to life by little short of a miracle was in itself clear proof that she was aware of the attempt made to assassinate me. I therefore determined to question her further and ascertain whether Boyd’s grave suspicion had any absolute foundation. “You know, Eva,” I went on, standing before her with my hand upon her shoulder in deep earnestness, “you know how strong is my affection; you know that you are all the world to me.”
Often during my many visits to that riverside house, so cool and peaceful after the busy turmoil in which fate compelled me to earn my bread, I had spoken of my love for her, and now in my desperation I told her that I could not leave the woman whom I had so long worshipped in the ideal, whom I had instantly recognised as being the embodiment of that ideal, of whose presence I could not endure to be deprived even in thought.
She stood silent, with her back to the table, looking into my eyes while I told her these things. A ray of sunlight tipped her auburn hair with gold. Sometimes she would seem to yield to a kind of bliss as she listened to my avowal; to forget all else than ourselves and my words. At others a look of anguish would suddenly cloud her features, and once she shuddered, pressing her hands to her eyes, saying—
“Frank, you must not! Spare me this. I cannot bear it! Indeed I can’t.”
Sometimes, in the days that had passed, when I had spoken of my love, joy and pain would succeed each other on her face; indeed, often they would be present at the same moment. From the look of complete abandonment to happiness that sometimes, though never for long, shone on her features when we had idled up that shady, picturesque backwater, where the kingfishers nested, I felt that she loved me, and that eventually that love would gain the victory. Thus, continually, I tried to elicit an expression of her feelings in words. Sweet to me as was the confession of her looks, I sought also a confession of speech.
Alas! however, she seemed determined to give me no single word of encouragement.
“But why,” I asked, as she stood there with bent head, her hand toying nervously with her rings, “why is it that when I speak of what most occupies my heart you become silent or sorrowful?”