In the Roar of the Sea Part 27

Judith waited a moment, looking at him steadily out of her clear, glittering iridescent eyes, and said slowly, "I am not the girl to be obliged to stay where my common-sense and my heart say Stay not."

He folded his arms, lowered his chin on his breast, and strode up and down the room. Then, suddenly, he stood still opposite her and asked, in a threatening tone:

"Do you not like your room? Does that not please your humor?"

"It has been most kind of you to collect all my little bits of rubbish there. I feel how good you have been, how full of thought for me; but, for all that, I cannot stay."

"Why not?"

"I have said, on one account, because of Jamie."

He bit his lips--"I hate that boy."

"Then most certainly he cannot be here. He must be with those who love him."

"Then stay."

"I cannot--I will not. I have a will as well as you. My dear papa always said that my will was strong."

"You are the only person who has ever dared to resist me."

"That may be; I am daring--because you have been kind."

"Kind to you. Yes--to you only."

"It may be so, and because kind to me, and me only, I, and I only, presume to say No when you say Yes."

He came again to the fireplace and again leaned against the mantel-shelf. He was trembling with pa.s.sion.

"And what if I say that, if you go, I will turn old Dunes--I mean your aunt--out of the house?"

"You will not say it, Mr. Coppinger; you are too n.o.ble, too generous, to take a mean revenge."

"Oh! you allow there is some good in me?"

"I thankfully and cheerfully protest there is a great deal of good in you--and I would there were more."

"Come--stay here and teach me to be good--be my crutch; I will lean on you, and you shall help me along the right way."

"You are too great a weight, Mr. Coppinger," said she, smiling--but it was a frightened and a forced smile. "You would bend and break the little crutch."

He heaved a long breath. He was looking at her from under his hand and his bent brows.

"You are cruel--to deny me a chance. And what if I were to say that I am hungry, sick at heart, and faint. Would you turn your back and leave me?"

"No, a.s.suredly not."

"I am hungry."

She looked up at him, and was frightened by the glitter in his eyes.

"I am hungry for the sight of you, for the sound of your voice."

She did not say anything to this, but sat, with her hands on her lap, musing, uncertain how to deal with this man, so strange, impulsive, and yet so submissive to her, and even appealing to her pity.

"Mr. Coppinger, I have to think of and care for Jamie, and he takes up all my thoughts and engrosses all my time."

"Jamie, again!"

"So that I cannot feed and teach another orphan."

"Put off your departure--a week. Grant me that. Then you will have time to get quite strong, and also you will be able to see whether it is not possible for you to live here. Here is your aunt--it is natural and right that you should be with her. She has been made your guardian by your father. Do you not bow to his directions."

"Mr. Coppinger, I cannot stay here."

"I am at a disadvantage," he exclaimed. "Man always is when carrying on a contest with a woman. Stay--stay here and listen to me." He put out his hand and pressed her back into the chair, for she was about to rise. "Listen to what I say. You do not know--you cannot know--how near death you and I--yes, you and I were, chained together." His deep voice shook. "You and I were on the face of the cliff. There was but one little strip, the width of my hand"--he held out his palm before her--"and that was not secure. It was sliding away under my feet.

Below was death, certain death--a wretched death. I held you. That little chain tied us two--us two together. All your life and mine hung on was my broken arm and broken collar-bone. I held you to me with my right arm and the chain. I did not think we should live. I thought that together--chained together, I holding you--so we would die--so we would be found--and my only care, my only prayer was, if so, that so we might be washed to sea and sink together, I holding you and chained to you, and you to me. I prayed that we might never be found; for I thought if rude hands were laid on us that the chain would be unloosed, my arm unlocked from about you, and that we should be carried to separate graves. I could not endure that thought. Let us go down together--bound, clasped together--into the depths of the deep sea, and there rest. But it was not to be so. I carried you over that stage of infinite danger. An angel or a devil--I cannot say which--held me up. And then I swore that never in life should you be loosed from me, as I trusted that in death we should have remained bound together. See!" He put his hand to her head and drew a lock of her golden hair and wound it about his hand and arm. "You have me fast now--fast in a chain of gold--of gold infinitely precious to me--infinitely strong--and you will cast me off, who never thought to cast you off when tied to you with a chain of iron. What say you? Will you stand in safety on your cliff of pride and integrity and unloose the golden band and say, 'Go down--down. I know nothing in you to love. You are naught to me but a robber, a wrecker, a drunkard, a murderer--go down into h.e.l.l?'"

In his quivering excitement he acted the whole scene, unconscious that he was so doing, and the drops of agony stood on his brow and rolled--drip--drip--drip from it. Man does not weep; his tears exude more bitter than those that flow from the eyes, and they distil from his pores.

Judith was awed by the intensity of pa.s.sion in the man, but not changed in her purpose. His vehemence reacted on her, calming her, giving her determination to finish the scene decisively and finally.

"Mr. Coppinger," she said, looking up to him, who still held her by the hair wound about his hand and arm, "it is you who hold me in chains, not I you. And so I--your prisoner--must address a gaoler. Am I to speak in chains, or will you release me?"

He shook his head, and clenched his hand on the gold hair.

"Very well," said she, "so it must be; I, bound, plead my cause with you--at a disadvantage. This is what I must say at the risk of hurting you; and, Heaven be my witness, I would not wound one who has been so good to me--one to whom I owe my life, my power now to speak and entreat." She paused a minute to gain breath and strengthen herself for what she had to say.

"Mr. Coppinger--do you not yourself see that it is quite impossible that I should remain in this house--that I should have anything more to do with you? Consider how I have been brought up--what my thoughts have been. I have had, from earliest childhood, my dear papa's example and teachings, sinking into my heart till they have colored my very life-blood. My little world and your great one are quite different.

What I love and care for is folly to you, and your pursuits and pleasures are repugnant to me. You are an eagle--a bird of prey."

"A bird of prey," repeated Coppinger.

"And you soar and fight, and dive, and rend in your own element; whereas I am a little silver trout----"

"No"--he drew up his arm wound round with her hair--"No--a goldfish."

"Well, so be it; a goldfish swimming in my own crystal element, and happy in it. You would not take me out of it to gasp and die. Trust me, Captain Coppinger, I could not--even if I would--live in your world."

She put up her hands to his arm and drew some of the hair through his fingers, and unwound it from his sleeve. He made no resistance. He watched her, in a dream. He had heard every word she had said, and he knew that she spoke the truth. They belonged to different realms of thought and sensation. He could not breathe--he would stifle--in hers, and it was possible--it was certain--that she could not endure the strong, rough quality of his.

Her delicate fingers touched his hand, and sent a spasm to his heart.

She was drawing away another strand of hair, and untwisting it from about his arm, pa.s.sing the wavy, fire-gold from one hand to the other.

And as every strand was taken off, so went light and hope from him, and despair settled down on his dark spirit.

He was thinking whether it would not have been better to have thrown himself down when he had her in his arms, and bound to him by the chain.

Then he laughed.