Footsteps of Fate Part 18

"I did?"

"Yes; you clutched me by the wrists."

He felt utterly miserable, in spite of having found her again, and he covered the line of the scar with little kisses.

She laughed quietly.

"It is a bracelet!" she said lightly.

V.

Presently, however, he started up.

"Eva," he began, suddenly recollecting himself, "How--why--?"

"What is it?" she said, laughing, but a little exhausted after her strange fear of the fancied thunder.

"Those letters. Why did William?--what could they matter to William? Not mere curiosity to see what was in them?"

"He would not have s.n.a.t.c.hed that last one so roughly from Kate, if that had been all. No, no--"

"Then you think he had some interest?"

"I do."

"But what? Why should he care whether I wrote to you or no?"

"Perhaps he was acting for--"

"Well?"

"For some one else."

"But for whom? What concern could my letters be of anybody's. What advantage could it be to any one to hinder your getting them?"

She sat up and looked at him for some time without speaking, dreading the question she must ask.

"Can you really think of no one?" she said.

"No."

"Did no one know that you had written?"

"No one but Bertie."

"Ah! Only Bertie," said she, with emphasis.

"But Bertie--no! Surely?" he asked her, indignant at so preposterous a suspicion.

"Perhaps," she whispered, almost inaudibly. "Perhaps Bertie."

"Eva! Impossible. Why? How?"

She sank back into her former att.i.tude, her head on his breast, trembling still from the impression of the thunder she had heard. And she went on:

"I know nothing; I only think. I have thought it over day after day for two years; and I have begun to find a great deal that seems mysterious in what had never before been puzzling, but, indeed, sympathetic to me--in Bertie. You know we often used to talk together, and sometimes alone. You were a little jealous sometimes, but you had not the smallest reason for it, for there never was any thing to make you so; we were like a brother and sister. We often talked of you.--Well, afterwards I remembered those talks, and it struck me that Bertie--"

"Yes? That Bertie--"

"That he did not speak of you as a true friend should. I am not sure.

While he was talking it never occurred to me, for Bertie had a tone, and a way of saying things. I always fancied then that he meant well by us both, and that he really cared for us, but that he was afraid of something happening--some evil, some catastrophe, if we were married, He seemed to think that we ought not to marry. When afterwards I thought over what he had said that was always the impression. He really seemed to think that we--that we ought never to be married."

She closed her eyes, worn out by this effort to solve the enigmas of the past, and she took his hand and stroked it as she held it in her own. He too tried to look into that labyrinth of the past, but he could discern nothing. His memory carried him back to their last days in London; and he did recall something: he recollected Van Maeren's stern tone when he, Westhove, had said he should call at the Rhodes'; he remembered Bertie's urgent haste to get out of London and wander about the world. Could Bertie--? Had Bertie any interest?--But he could not discern it, in the simplicity of his unpractical, heedlessly liberal friendship, which had never taken any account of expenses, always sharing what he had with his companion because he had plenty, and the other had nothing; he could not see it, since he had never thought of such a possibility in his strange indifference to everything that approached money matters--an indifference so complete as to const.i.tute a mental deficiency, as another man is indifferent to all that concerns politics, or art, or what not--matters which he held so cheap, and understood so little and could only shake his head over it, as over an _Abracadabra_. He looked, but saw not.

"You see, I fancied afterwards that Bertie had been opposed to our marrying," Eva repeated dreamily; and then, bewildered by the mystery which life had woven about her, she went on: "Tell me, Frank, what was there in him? What was he, who was he? Why would you never tell me anything about him? For I discovered that too, later, during those two years when I thought out so many things."

He looked at her in dismay. Bitter self-reproach came upon him for never having told her that Bertie was poor, penniless, and dependent on his friend's bounty. Why was it he had never told her? Was it out of a sense of shame at being himself so careless, so foolishly weak about a concern in which others were so cautious and prudent? So foolishly weak--careless to imbecility. And still he looked at her in dismay.

Then a suspicion of the truth flashed across his mind like the zigzag glimmer of distant lightning, and he shrank from its lurid gleam.

"Eva," he said, "I will go to Bertie--"

"To Bertie?" she shrieked. "Is he here?"

"Yes."

"He! here! Oh, I had never thought of that. I fancied he was away, far away--dead perhaps. I did not care what had become of him. Great G.o.d!

Here! Frank, I implore you, Frank, leave him; do not go near him."

"But, Eva, I must ask him."

"No, Frank--oh Frank, for G.o.d's sake do not go. I am afraid--afraid. Do not go."

He soothed her gently with a soft, sad smile which just lifted his yellow moustache; with grave fondness in his honest eyes; he soothed and petted her very gently, to rea.s.sure her.

"Do not be afraid, my darling. I will be quite calm. But still I must ask, don't you see? Wait for me here; I will return in the evening."

"Can you really be calm? Oh, you had better not go--"

"I promise you I will be quite calm; quite cool." And he embraced her fondly, closely, with pa.s.sionate fervour.

"Then you are mine once more?" he asked.

She threw her arms round his neck, and kissed his lips, his eyes, his face.