Vera Nevill Part 27

Vera was taking off her veil mechanically; when he could see her face, he perceived that she was very white.

"Never mind," she said, with a faint smile; "there is no real harm done.

It is unfortunate, that is all. The train stops at Tripton. I can get out there and walk home."

"Five miles! and it is I who have got you into this sc.r.a.pe! What a confounded fool I was to make you get into the carriage! I ought to have remembered how late it was. How are you to walk all that way?"

"Pray don't reproach yourself, Maurice; I shall not mind the walk a bit.

I shall have to confess my escapade to Marion, and tell her why I am late for breakfast--that is all; as it is, I can, at all events, finish what I wanted to say to you."

And then she was silent, looking away from him out of the further window.

The train, gradually accelerating its pace, sped quickly on through the fog-blotted landscape. Hills, villages, church spires, all that made the country familiar, were hidden in the mist; only here and there, in the nearer hedge-rows, an occasional tree stood out bleak and black against the white veil beyond like a sentinel alone on a limitless plain.

Absolute silence--only the train rushing on faster and faster through the white, wet world without.

Then, at last, it was Maurice, not Vera, that spoke.

"I blame myself bitterly for this, Vera," he said in a low, pained voice.

"Had it not been for my foolish, unthinking words to you yesterday, you would not have been tempted to do this rash act of kindness. I spoke to you in a way that I had no right to speak, believing that my words would make no impression upon you beyond the fact of showing you that it was impossible for me to stay for your wedding. I never dreamt that your kindly interest in me would lead you to waste another thought upon me.

I did not know how good and pitying your nature is, nor give you credit for so much generosity."

She turned round to him sharply and suddenly. "What are you saying?" she cried, with a harsh pain in her voice. "What words are you using to me?

_Kindness, pity, generosity_!--have they any place here between you and me?"

There was a moment in which neither of them spoke, only their eyes met, and the secret that was hidden in their souls lay suddenly revealed to each of them.

In another instant Vera had sunk upon her knees before him.

"While you live," she cried, pa.s.sionately, lifting her beautiful dark eyes, that were filled with a new light and a new glory, to his--"while you live I will never be another man's wife!"

And there was no other word spoken. Only a shower of close, hot kisses upon her lips, and two strong arms that drew her nearer and tighter to the beating heart against which she rested, for he was only human after all.

Oh, swift and divine moment of joy, that comes but once in a man's life, when he holds the woman he loves for the first time to his heart! Once, and once only, he tastes of heaven and forgets life itself in the short and delirious draught. What envious deity shall grudge him those moments of rapture, all too sweet, and, alas! all too short!

To Vera and Maurice, locked in each other's arms, time had no sh.o.r.e, and life was not. It might have been ten seconds, it might have been an eternity--they could not have told--no pang entered that serene haven where their souls were lapped in perfect happiness; no serpent entered into Eden; no harsh note struck upon their enchanted ears, nor jarring sight upon their sun-dazzled vision. Where in that moment was the duty and the honour that was a part of the man's very self? What to Vera was the rich marriage and the life of affluence, and all the glitter and tinsel which it had been her soul's desire to attain? She remembered it not; like a house of cards, it had fallen shattered to the ground.

They loved, and they were together. There was neither duty, nor faith, nor this world's wisdom between them; nothing but that great joy which on earth has no equal, and which Heaven itself cannot exceed.

But brief are the moments whilst joy, with bated breath and folded wings, pauses on his flight; too soon, alas! is the divine elixir dashed away from our lingering lips.

Already, for Maurice and for Vera, it is over, and they have awakened to earth once more.

It is the man who is the first to remember. "Good G.o.d, Vera!" he cries, pushing her back from him, "what terrible misfortune is this? Can it be true that you must suffer too, that you love me?"

"Why not?" she answered, looking at him; happy still, but troubled too; for already for her also Paradise is over. "Is it so hard to believe? And yet many women must have loved you. But I--I have never loved before.

Listen, Maurice: when I accepted your brother, I liked him, I thought I could be very happy with him; and--and--do not think ill of me--I wanted so much to be rich; it was so miserable being poor and dependent, and I knew life so well, and how hard the struggle is for those who are poor.

I was so determined I would do well for myself; and he was good, and I liked him."

At the mention of the brother, whom he had wronged, Maurice hid his face in his hands and groaned aloud.

She laid her hand softly upon his knee; she had half raised herself upon the seat by his side, and her head, from which her hat had fallen, pillowed itself with a natural caressing action against his shoulder.

At the soft touch he shivered.

"It was dreadful, was it not? But then, I am not perfect, and I liked the idea of being rich, and I had never loved--I did not even know what it meant. And then I met you--long ago your photograph had arrested my fancy; and do you remember that evening at Shadonake when I first saw you?"

Could he ever forget one single detail of that meeting?

"You stood at the foot of the staircase, waiting, and I came down softly behind you. You did not see me till I was close to you, and then you turned, and you took my hands, and you looked and looked at me till my eyes could no longer meet yours. There came a vague trouble into my heart; I had never felt anything like it before. Maurice, from that instant I must have loved you."

"For G.o.d's sake, Vera!" he cried out wildly, as though the gentle words gave him positive pain, "do not speak of it. Do you not see the abyss which lies between us--which must part us for ever?"

"Loving you, I will never marry your brother!" she answered, earnestly.

"And I will never rob my brother of his bride. Darling, darling, do not tempt me too far, or G.o.d knows what I may say and do! To reach you, love, would be to dip my hands in dishonour and basest treachery. Not even for you can I do this vile thing. Kiss me once more, sweet, and let me go out of your life for ever; believe me, it is better so; best for us both. In time you will forget, you will be happy. He will be good to you, and you will be glad that you were not tempted to betray him."

"You do not know what you ask of me," she cried, lifting her face, all wet with tears, to his. "Leave me, if you will--go your way--forget me--it is all the same to me; henceforth there is no other man on earth to me but you. I will never swear vows at G.o.d's altar that I cannot keep, or commit the frightful sin of marrying one man whilst I know that I love another. Yes, yes; I know it is a horrible, dreadful misfortune. Have I sought it, or gone out of my way to find it? Have I not struggled to keep it away from me? striven to blind my eyes to it and to go on as I was, and never to acknowledge it to myself? Do I not love wealth above all things; do I not know that he is rich, and you poor? And yet I cannot help loving you!"

He took her clasped, trembling hands within his own, and held them tightly. In that moment the woman was weak, and the man was her master.

"Listen," he said. "Yes, you are right, I am poor; but that is not all.

Vera, for Heaven's sake, reflect, and pause before you wreck your whole life. I cannot marry you--not only because I am poor, but also, alas!

because I am bound to another woman."

"Helen Romer!" she murmured, faintly; "and you love _her_?" A sick, cold misery rushed into her heart. She strove to withdraw her hands from his; but he only held them the tighter.

"No; by the G.o.d above us, I love you, and only you," he answered her, almost roughly; "but I am bound to her. I cannot afford to marry her--we have neither of us any money; but I am bound all the same. Only one thing can set me free; if, in five years, we are, neither of us, better off than now, she has told me that I may go free. Under no other conditions can I ever marry any one else. That is my secret, Vera. At any moment she can claim me, and for five years I must wait for her."

"Then I will wait for you five years too," she cried, pa.s.sionately. "Is my love less strong, less constant, than hers, do you think? Can I not wait patiently too?" She wound her arms about his neck, and drew his face down to hers.

"Five years," she murmured; "it is but a small slice out of one's life after all; and when it is over, it seems such a little s.p.a.ce to look back upon. Dearest, some day we shall remember how miserable, and yet how happy too, we have been this morning; and we shall smile, as we remember it all, out of the fulness of our content."

How was he to gainsay so sweet a prophet? Already the train was slackening, and the moment when they must part drew near. The beautiful head lay upon his breast; the deep, shadowy eyes, which love for the first time had softened into the perfection of their own loveliness, mirrored themselves in his; the flower-shaped, trembling lips were close up to his. How could he resist their gentle pleading? There was no time for more words, for more struggles between love and duty.

"So be it, then," he murmured, and caught her in one last, pa.s.sionate embrace to his heart.

Five minutes later a tall young lady, deeply veiled as when she had entered the train, got out of it and walked swiftly away from Tripton station down the hill towards the high road. So absorbed was she in her own reflections that she utterly failed to notice another figure, also female and also veiled, who, preceding her through the mist, went on swiftly before her down the road. Nor did she pay the slightest attention to the fact until a turn in the road brought her suddenly face to face with two persons who stood deep in conversation under the shelter of the tall, misty hedge-row.

As Vera approached these two persons sprang apart with a guilty suddenness, and revealed to her astonished eyes--Beatrice Miller and Mr.

Herbert Pryme.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN UNLUCKY LOVE-LETTER.

Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid, Some banished lover, or some captive maid.