Portia Part 46

"Do not let us discuss this subject any more," says Fabian; though he speaks quickly one can hear the keen anguish in his tone. "Why could I not give her my friendship? Is it her fault that she cannot believe?"

"You would defend her!"

"I would be just. Is she the _only_ one who feels distrust, who only half credits my version of the miserable story? Here, in this very house, are there none who hesitate between faith and unfaith? You have faith in me, and Roger had."

"Oh, yes, yes, _yes_!" cries she, suddenly. "_He_ had faith in you, _he_ loved you." Without a word of warning she breaks again into a very tempest of tears, and sobs bitterly.

"I would you could have loved him," says Fabian, in a low tone, but she will not listen.

"Go on," she says, vehemently, "you were saying something about the people in this house."

"That, probably, after you and Roger, I have d.i.c.ky on my side,"

continues Fabian, obediently, a still deeper grief within his haggard eyes, "and, of course, Christopher and Mark Gore; but does Julia quite understand me? or Stephen Gower! Forgive me, dearest, for this last."

"Don't speak to me like that," entreats she, mournfully; "what is Stephen--what is anyone to me in comparison with you. Yet I will vouch for Stephen. But what is it you say of Julia--surely--"

"Yes--no doubt," impatiently. "But is her mind really satisfied? If to-morrow my innocence were shown up incontrovertibly to all the world, she would say triumphantly, 'I told you so.' And if my guilt were established, she would say just as triumphantly, 'I told you so,' in the very same tone."

"You wrong her, I think. She has lived with you in this house off and on for many months, and few have so mean a heart as Portia."

Someone, who a minute ago opened the door very gently, and is now standing irresolute upon the threshold, turns very pale at this last speech and lays her hand upon her heart, as though fearing, though longing, to go forward.

"Perhaps I _do_ wrong Julia," says Fabian, indifferently. "It hardly matters. But you must not wrong Portia. Our suspicions, as our likes and dislikes, are not under our control; now, for example, there is old Slyme; he hates me, as all the world can see, yet he would swear to my innocence to-morrow."

"How do you know that?"

"I _do_ know it; by instinct, I suppose; I am one of those unhappy people who can see through their neighbors. In spite of the hatred he entertains for me (why I know not) his eyes betray the fact that he thinks me guiltless of the crime imputed to me. So you see, vulgar prejudice has nothing to do with it, and Portia is not to be censured because she can not take me on trust."

"Oh, Fabian! how can you still love one who--"

"My dear, love and I are not to be named together, you forget that. I must live my life apart. You can only pray that my misery may be of short duration. But I would have you forgive Portia," he says, gently--nay, as her name falls from his lips, a certain tenderness characterises both his face and tone--"if only for _my_ sake."

At this, the silent figure in the doorway draws her breath, painfully, and catches hold of the lintel as though to steady herself. Her lips tremble, a momentary fear that she may be going to faint terrifies her; then a voice, cold and uncompromising falling on her ears, restores her to something like composure.

"Do not ask me that, anything but that;" it is Dulce who is speaking. "I cannot."

At this, the girl standing in the doorway, as though unable to endure more, comes slowly forward, and advances until she is within the full glare of the lamplight. It is Portia. She is deadly pale; and her black robes clinging round her render the pallor of her face even more ghastly. She has raised one hand, and is trifling nervously with the string of pearls that always lies round her white throat; she does not look at Fabian, not even for one instant does she permit her eyes to seek his, but lets them rest on Dulce, sadly, reproachfully.

"Why can you not forgive me?" she says; "is not your revenge complete?

You have, indeed, kept your word. Now that I am sad at heart, why will you not try to forgive?"

"Yes--forgive." It is Fabian who says this; he lays his hand upon Dulce's arm, and regards her earnestly.

"_You_ ask me to forgive--_you_! You would have me be kind to this traitress!" returns she, pa.s.sionately, glancing back at Portia, over her shoulder, with angry eyes. "Do you forgive her yourself?"

"I am beyond the pale of forgiveness so far as he is concerned," says Portia, slowly. "It is to you I appeal. I have loved you well, that should count for something. As for your brother, I understand--I know that he will never forgive and never forget!"

"You are right," says Fabian, addressing her for the first time, yet without letting his glance meet hers, "I shall _never forget_!"

A sob rises in Portia's throat; there is a terrible sadness in his tone, the more terrible because of the stern restraint he has laid upon himself.

"Go to her," he says to Dulce, and the girl who has never disobeyed a wish of his in all her life goes up to Portia and lays her hand in hers.

Palm to palm, slender hands clasped close together, they move toward the door; Dulce, with bent head, trying to stay the mournful tears that are falling silently, one by one, down her cheeks; Portia, with head erect, but with an anguish in her lovely eyes sadder than any tears.

Just as she reaches the door she turns her head, and, with a pa.s.sionate eagerness that will not be repressed, looks at Fabian. Their eyes meet.

He makes a step toward her; he has forgotten everything but that he loves her, and that she--dearest but most agonizing of certainties--loves him, and that she is near him, searching, as it were, into his very soul; then remembrance comes to him, and, with a smothered groan, he turns from her, and, leaning his arms on the chimney-piece, buries his face in them.

Portia, to check the sob that rises in her throat, tightens her clasp on Dulce's hand and draws the girl quickly from the room. Perhaps, too, she seeks to hide his grief from other eyes than hers. The unwonted sharpness of her pressure, however, rouses Dulce from her sad thoughts, and as they reach the corridor outside she stops short, and glances half resentfully, half with a question on her face, at Portia.

The extreme pain and grief she sees in Portia's eyes awakens her to the truth; she draws her breath a little quickly and lays her hand impulsively upon her cousin's bare white arm.

"You suffer too--you!" she says, in a whisper full of surprise; "Oh, Portia! is it that you love him?"

"Has it taken you so long to discover that," says Portia, reproachfully, who has grown somewhat reckless because of the misery of the past few hours. The self-contained, proud girl is gone; a woman sick at heart, to whom the best good of this world is as naught, has taken her place.

There is so much genuine pain in her voice that Dulce is touched; she forgets all, condones all; to see a fellow-creature in pain is terrible to this hot-blooded little shrew. The anger and disdain die out of her eyes, and coming even closer to Portia, she looks long and earnestly at her beautiful face.

"Oh, that you could believe in him," she says, at last, the expression of her desire coming from her in the form of a sigh.

"If I could, I should be too deeply blessed. Yet is it that I do not believe, or that I dread the world's disbelief? That is the sting. To know that a stain lies on the man I love, to know that others distrust him, and will _forever_ pa.s.s him by on the other side. That is the horror. Dulce, I am ign.o.ble, I fear many things; the future terrifies me; but yet, as I am so wretched, dear, _dear_ Dulce, take me back into your heart!"

She bursts into tears. They are so strange to her and have been so long denied, that by their very vehemence they frighten Dulce. She takes Portia in her arms, and clings to her; and, pressing her lips to her cheek, whispers to her fondly that she is forgiven, and that from her soul she pities her. Thus peace is restored between these two.

CHAPTER XX.

"Time tries the troth in everything."

--THOMAS TUSSER.

THE voice comes to her distinctly across the sward, browned by Winter's frown, and over the evergreens that sway and rustle behind her back.

"Shall I answer?" says Dulce to herself, half uncertainly; and then she hesitates, and then belies the old adage because she is not lost, but decides on maintaining a discreet silence. "If he comes," she tells herself, "he will only talk, _talk_, TALK! and, at his best, he is tiresome; and then he worries so that really life becomes a burden with him near. And the day, though cold, is bright and frosty and delicious, and all it should be at Christmas time, and when one is wrapped in furs one doesn't feel the cold," and she really means to enjoy herself with her book, and now--

"Dulce!" comes the voice again, only nearer this time, and even more pathetic in its anxiety, and Dulce moves uneasily. Perhaps, after all, she ought to answer. Has she not promised many things. Shall she answer or not, or--

This time her hesitation avails her nothing; a step can be heard dangerously close, and then a figure comes up to her very back, and peers through the thick hedge of evergreens, and finally Stephen makes his way through them and stands before her.

He is flushed and half angry. He is uncertain how to translate the extreme unconcern with which she hails him. _Did_ she hear him call, or did she not? That is the question. And Stephen very properly feels that more than the fate of a nation depends upon the solution of this mystery.

"Oh! here you are at last," he says, in a distinctly aggrieved tone. "I have been calling you for the last hour. Didn't you hear me?"

When one has been straining one's lungs in a vain endeavor to be heard by a beloved object, one naturally magnifies five minutes into an hour.

Dulce stares at him in a bewildered fashion. Her manner, indeed, considering all things, is perfect.