The Crime and the Criminal Part 36

"Your thoughts; are they worth a penny too?"

"Can you not guess them?"

"That is not an answer to my question."

"I have not your gift of prescience. I cannot tell if they are worth a penny to you. To me they are worth more pennies than I am ever likely to possess."

"You place a high value on your own thoughts."

"Shall I tell you what they are?"

"If you like. Though, is it worth the trouble, if you are sure that I can guess?"

"Give me leave to tell you them."

"I give you leave."

"I was thinking what fallible creatures we men are."

"Is that all? Surely that is not worth a penny, even to you."

"Because so small a thing may change all our lives."

"Not worth a penny yet."

"Have you bewitched me?"

"I cannot tell."

"I believe you have."

"You are not bewitched so easily."

"As you say, I am not so easily bewitched. That makes it still more strange."

"I await the penny's worth."

"Will you forgive me, Miss Jardine?"

"For what?"

The words trembled on my lips. And yet, without a struggle, I could not utter them. As I looked into the water, all at once my eyes seemed blinded by its glare.

"For loving you."

She was still. I did not dare to turn to look upon her face, for fear of what there might be there to see.

"You have your methods, Mr. Townsend."

"In what sense, Miss Jardine?"

"I await the penny's worth."

On a sudden a great shame came over me; a sense of overwhelming horror.

I sank on my knee. I hid my face in my hands on the basin's edge.

"G.o.d help me!"

The cry was wrung from me by something which, for the moment, was stronger than I.

"Hush!"

The word was whispered. Then she, too, was still.

"Begin again." The words seemed to come to me like the words which we hear in a dream. "What is done, is done. You cannot put it behind you altogether. But it is done. It is not yet to do. And, because it is done, therefore, you need not do it again, in the time which is to come. If you have strength--and you have strength, Mr. Townsend--play the man."

I had never thought that any one would have had to bid me play the man.

But she had to bid me then. She laid her hand upon my shoulder. Beneath her touch a shudder went all over me. Then I looked up at her.

"You are not for such as I am."

"But you are for such as I am."

I held my breath. I knew not what to do or say. I stared in front of me, not understanding what it was I saw.

"What is it that you say?"

"Are you so deaf? All in an instant have you become so dull? Come, I will do the wooing, since you are afraid to woo me." That ever I should have been told by a woman that I was afraid to woo her! "If you but love me half as I love you, you will fill the world with the fame of the great deeds which you will do for love of me, and leave behind a name which men never shall let die."

"Dora! Dora! My Dora!"

"Well, if I am your's----"

"If? Is it only if?"

"Will you be mine?"

"Body, soul, and spirit. I do believe you have bewitched me. I am going mad for the love of you!"

"I am content."

"Is this a dream of ecstasy from which there will soon be waking?"

"I would that you might wake to something soon."

"What's that?"

"To the fact that I am here."