Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/490

482 don't think I should. However, there is no fear now Are you always to be doing me good, dear, and am I never to do you any?"

"You have done me good all my life," he says, heartily; "you have been the one flower to brighten my dull grey garden."

A bitter, bitter pain runs through my heart at his words; is it not hard for him, hard? There he is, free and young, loving me; here am I, free and young, living somebody else, who is not free to love me. Oh! why cannot I pluck that other love out of my heart, and putting my hand in his, make his imperfect, spoiled life a completed, happy one? And I cannot.

"Nell," he says, presently, "do you remember how I have always warned you against Mrs. Vasher—after she tried to make friends with you, I mean?"

"I remember."

"Well, she has been a worse enemy to you lately than she ever was before; and that is saying a good deal."

"How can she be that?" I ask, startled; "surely there is no other misfortune left for her to work me?"

"She has tried, Nell. If ever a woman put another in the way of temptation, Mrs. Vasher has tried to put you. Not an opportunity does she ever miss of bringing you and her husband together; over and over again I have watched her manoeuvres to have you alone, and smiled at the unconscious way in which you have foiled her—she has been acting a black and wicked part to you both, though neither of you knew it."

"Let me think," I say, slowly; "yes, I remember now. Rarely as I have been to The Towers, she has always contrived some excuse for sending us off together But what should she do it for—what object could she have had?"

"God knows! To take your good name, perhaps."

"Yes," I say, recalling her evil threat three months ago, that "she would have my good name, too." "But I can't believe it.