"Do I surprise you?" she asked simply. "Perhaps love will bear any humiliation. Or perhaps I am only a poor weak creature. You don't know what a comfort it was to me to keep the few letters that I received from Philip. When I heard that he had gone away, I gave his letters the kiss that bade him good-by. That was the time, I think, when my poor bruised heart got used to the pain; I began to feel that there was one consolation still left for me—I might end in forgiving him. Why do I tell you all this? I think you must have bewitched me. Is this really the first time I have seen you?"
She put her little trembling hand into mine; I lifted it to my lips, and kissed it. Sorely was I tempted to own that I had pitied and loved her in her infancy. It was almost on my lips to say: "I remember you an easily-pleased little creature, amusing yourself with the broken toys which were once the playthings of my own children." I believe I should have said it, if I could have trusted myself to speak composedly to her. This was not to be done. Old as I was, versed as I was in the hard knowledge of how to keep the mask on in the hour of need, this was not to be done.
Still trying to understand that I was little better than a stranger to her, and still bent on finding the secret of the sympathy that united us, Eunice put a strange question to me.
"When you were young yourself," she said, "did you know what it was to love, and to be loved—and then to lose it all?"
It is not given to many men to marry the woman who has been the object of their first love. My early life had been darkened by a sad story; never confided to any living creature; banished resolutely from my own thoughts. For forty years past, that part of my buried self had lain quiet in its grave—and the chance touch of an innocent hand had raised the dead, and set us face to face again! Did I know what it was to love, and to be loved, and then to lose it all? "Too well, my child; too well!"
That was all I could say to her. In the last days of my life, I shrank from speaking of it. When I had first felt that calamity, and had felt it most keenly, I might have given an answer worthier of me, and worthier of her.
She dropped my hand, and sat by me in silence, thinking. Had I—without meaning it, God knows!—had I disappointed her?
"Did you expect me to tell my own sad story," I said, "as frankly and as trustfully as you have told yours?"
"Oh, don't think that! I know what an effort it was to you to answer me at all. Yes, indeed! I wonder whether I may ask something. The sorrow you have just told me of is not the only one—is it? You have had other troubles?"
"Many of them."
"There are times," she went on, "when one can't help thinking of one's own miserable self. I try to be cheerful, but those times come now and then."
She stopped, and looked at me with a pale fear confessing itself in her face.
"You know who Selina is?" she resumed. "My friend! The only friend I had, till you came here."
I guessed that she was speaking of the quaint, kindly little woman, whose ugly surname had been hitherto the only name known to me.
"Selina has, I daresay, told you that I have been ill," she continued, "and that I am staying in the country for the benefit of my health."
It was plain that she had something to say to me, far more important than this, and that she was dwelling on trifles to gain time and courage. Hoping to help her, I dwelt on trifles, too; asking commonplace questions about the part of the country in which she was staying. She answered absently—then, little by little, impatiently. The one poor proof of kindness that I could offer, now, was to say no more.
"Do you know what a strange creature I am?" she broke out. "Shall I make you angry with me? or shall I make you laugh at me? What I have shrunk from confessing to Selina—what I dare not confess to my father—I must, and will, confess to You."
There was a look of horror in her face that alarmed me. I drew her to me so that she could rest her head on my shoulder. My own agitation threatened to get the better of me. For the first time since I had seen this sweet girl, I found myself thinking of the blood that ran in her veins, and of the nature of the mother who had borne her.
"Did you notice how I behaved upstairs?" she said. "I mean when we left my father, and came out on the landing."
It was easily recollected; I begged her to go on.
"Before I went downstairs," she proceeded, "you saw me look and listen. Did you think I was afraid of meeting some person? and did you guess who it was I wanted to avoid?"
"I guessed that—and I understood you."
"No! You are not wicked enough to understand me. Will you do me a favor? I want you to look at me."
It was said seriously. She lifted her head for a moment, so that I could examine her face.
"Do you see anything," she asked, "which makes you fear that I am not in my right mind?"
"Good God! how can you ask such a horrible question?"
She laid her head back on my shoulder with a sad little sigh of resignation. "I ought to have known better," she said; "there is no such easy way out of it as that. Tell me—is there one kind of wickedness more deceitful than another? Can it be hid in a person for years together, and show itself when a time of suffering—no; I mean when a sense of injury comes? Did you ever see that, when you were master in the prison?"
I had seen it—and, after a moment's doubt, I said I had seen it.
"Did you pity those poor wretches?"
"Certainly! They deserved pity."
"I am one of them!" she said. "Pity me. If Helena looks at me—if Helena speaks to me—if I only see Helena by accident—do you know what she does? She tempts me! Tempts me to do dreadful things! Tempts me—" The poor child threw her arms round my neck, and whispered the next fatal words in my ear.
The mother! Prepared as I was for the accursed discovery, the horror of it shook me.
She left me, and started to her feet. The inherited energy showed itself in furious protest against the inherited evil. "What does it mean?" she cried. "I'll submit to anything. I'll bear my hard lot patiently, if you will only tell me what it means. Where does this horrid transformation of me out of myself come from? Look at my good father. In all this world there is no man so perfect as he is. And oh, how he has taught me! there isn't a single good thing that I have not learned from him since I was a little child. Did you ever hear him speak of my mother? You must have heard him. My mother was an angel. I could never be worthy of her at my best—but I have tried! I have tried! The wickedest girl in the world doesn't have worse thoughts than the thoughts that have come to me. Since when? Since Helena—oh, how can I call her by her name as if I still loved her? Since my sister—can she be my sister, I ask myself sometimes! Since my enemy—there's the word for her—since my enemy took Philip away from me. What does it mean? I have asked in my prayers—and have got no answer. I ask you. What does it mean? You must tell me! You shall tell me! What does it mean?"
Why did I not try to calm her? I had vainly tried to calm her—I who knew who her mother was, and what her mother had been.
At last, she had forced the sense of my duty on me. The simplest way of calming her was to put her back in the place by my side that she had left. It was useless to reason with her, it was impossible to answer her. I had my own idea of the one way in which I might charm Eunice back to her sweeter self.
"Let us talk of Philip," I said.
The fierce flush on her face softened, the swelling trouble of her bosom began to subside, as that dearly-loved name passed my lips! But there was some influence left in her which resisted me.
"No," she said; "we had better not talk of him."
"Why not?"
"I have lost all my courage. If you speak of Philip, you will make me cry."
I drew her nearer to me. If she had been my own child, I don't think I could have felt for her more truly than I felt at that moment. I only looked at her; I only said: