"Have a glass of wine before you go."
"Oh, dear, no. I think I'll go back through the squire's fields, and out on the road at the white gate. The path is quite dry now."
"I dare say it is," said Mrs Dale.
"Lily, I wonder whether you would come as far as that with me." As the request was made Mrs Dale looked at her daughter almost beseechingly. "Do, pray do," said he; "it is a beautiful day for walking."
The path proposed lay right across the field into which Lily had taken Crosbie when she made her offer to let him off from his engagement. Could it be possible that she should ever walk there again with another lover? "No, John," she said; "not to-day, I think. I am almost tired, and I had rather not go out."
"It would do you good," said Mrs Dale.
"I don't want to be done good to, mamma. Besides, I should have to come back by myself."
"I'll come back with you," said Johnny.
"Oh, yes; and then I should have to go again with you. But, John, really I don't wish to walk to-day." Whereupon John Eames again put down his hat.
"Lily," said he; and then he stopped. Mrs Dale walked away to the window, turning her back upon her daughter and visitor. "Lily, I have come over here on purpose to speak to you. Indeed, I have come down from London only that I might see you."
"Have you, John?"
"Yes, I have. You know well all that I have got to tell you. I loved you before he ever saw you; and now that he has gone, I love you better than I ever did. Dear Lily!" and he put out his hand to her.
"No, John; no," she answered.
"Must it be always no?"
"Always no to that. How can it be otherwise? You would not have me marry you while I love another!"
"But he is gone. He has taken another wife."
"I cannot change myself because he is changed. If you are kind to me you will let that be enough."
"But you are so unkind to me!"
"No, no; oh, I would wish to be so kind to you! John, here; take my hand. It is the hand of a friend who loves you, and will always love you. Dear John, I will do anything,—everything for you but that."
"There is only one thing," said he, still holding her by the hand, but with his face turned from her.
"Nay; do not say so. Are you worse off than I am? I could not have that one thing, and I was nearer to my heart's longings than you have ever been. I cannot have that one thing; but I know that there are other things, and I will not allow myself to be broken-hearted."
"You are stronger than I am," he said.
"Not stronger, but more certain. Make yourself as sure as I am, and you, too, will be strong. Is it not so, mamma?"
"I wish it could be otherwise;—I wish it could be otherwise! If you can give him any hope—"
"Mamma!"
"Tell me that I may come again,—in a year," he pleaded.
"I cannot tell you so. You may not come again,—not in this way. Do you remember what I told you before, in the garden; that I loved him better than all the world besides? It is still the same. I still love him better than all the world. How, then, can I give you any hope?"
"But it will not be so for ever, Lily."
"For ever! Why should he not be mine as well as hers when that for ever comes? John, if you understand what it is to love, you will say nothing more of it. I have spoken to you more openly about this than I have ever done to anybody, even to mamma, because I have wished to make you understand my feelings. I should be disgraced in my own eyes if I admitted the love of another man, after—after—. It is to me almost as though I had married him. I am not blaming him, remember. These things are different with a man."
She had not dropped his hand, and as she made her last speech was sitting in her old chair with her eyes fixed upon the ground. She spoke in a low voice, slowly, almost with difficulty; but still the words came very clearly, with a clear, distinct voice which caused them to be remembered with accuracy, both by Eames and Mrs Dale. To him it seemed to be impossible that he should continue his suit after such a declaration. To Mrs Dale they were terrible words, speaking of a perpetual widowhood, and telling of an amount of suffering greater even than that which she had anticipated. It was true that Lily had never said so much to her as she had now said to John Eames, or had attempted to make so clear an exposition of her own feelings. "I should be disgraced in my own eyes if I admitted the love of another man!" They were terrible words, but very easy to be understood. Mrs Dale had felt, from the first, that Eames was coming too soon, that the earl and the squire together were making an effort to cure the wound too quickly after its infliction; that time should have been given to her girl to recover. But now the attempt had been made, and words had been forced from Lily's lips, the speaking of which would never be forgotten by herself.
"I knew that it would be so," said John.
"Ah, yes; you know it, because your heart understands my heart. And you will not be angry with me, and say naughty, cruel words, as you did once before. We will think of each other, John, and pray for each other; and will always love one another. When we do meet let us be glad to see each other. No other friend shall ever be dearer to me than you are. You are so true and honest! When you marry I will tell your wife what an infinite blessing God has given her."
"You shall never do that."
"Yes, I will. I understand what you mean; but yet I will."
"Good-bye, Mrs Dale," he said.
"Good-bye, John. If it could have been otherwise with her, you should have had all my best wishes in the matter. I would have loved you dearly as my son; and I will love you now." Then she put up her lips and kissed his face.
"And so will I love you," said Lily, giving him her hand again. He looked longingly into her face as though he had thought it possible that she also might kiss him: then he pressed her hand to his lips, and without speaking any further farewell, took up his hat and left the room.
"Poor fellow!" said Mrs Dale.
"They should not have let him come," said Lily. "But they don't understand. They think that I have lost a toy, and they mean to be good-natured, and to give me another." Very shortly after that Lily went away by herself, and sat alone for hours; and when she joined her mother again at tea-time, nothing further was said of John Eames's visit.
He made his way out by the front door, and through the churchyard, and in this way on to the field through which he had asked Lily to walk with him. He hardly began to think of what had passed till he had left the squire's house behind him. As he made his way through the tombstones he paused and read one, as though it interested him. He stood a moment under the tower looking up at the clock, and then pulled out his own watch, as though to verify the one by the other. He made, unconsciously, a struggle to drive away from his thoughts the facts of the late scene, and for some five or ten minutes he succeeded. He said to himself a word or two about Sir Raffle and his letters, and laughed inwardly as he remembered the figure of Rafferty bringing in the knight's shoes. He had gone some half mile upon his way before he ventured to stand still and tell himself that he had failed in the great object of his life.
Yes; he had failed: and he acknowledged to himself, with bitter reproaches, that he had failed, now and for ever. He told himself that he had obtruded upon her in her sorrow with an unmannerly love, and rebuked himself as having been not only foolish but ungenerous. His friend the earl had been wont, in his waggish way, to call him the conquering hero, and had so talked him out of his common sense as to have made him almost think that he would be successful in his suit. Now, as he told himself that any such success must have been impossible, he almost hated the earl for having brought him to this condition. A conquering hero, indeed! How should he manage to sneak back among them all at the Manor House, crestfallen and abject in his misery? Everybody knew the errand on which he had gone, and everybody must know of his failure. How could he have been such a fool as to undertake such a task under the eyes of so many lookers-on? Was it not the case that he had so fondly expected success, as to think only of his triumph in returning, and not of his more probable disgrace? He had allowed others to make a fool of him, and had so made a fool of himself that now all hope and happiness were over for him. How could he escape at once out of the country, back to London? How could he get away without saying a word further to any one? That was the thought that at first occupied his mind.