Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/576

558 Clementina bowed. "Yes," she said, in slow, distinct voice, "I wish to speak to you, Miss Arthur."

Something in her voice made the lady start and flush violently. "Would you say your business?" she exclaimed, more nervously than before, and moving restlessly.

"It is soon said," replied Clementina. "Will you tell me. Miss Arthur, what secret is between you and Mrs. Kinniside? I am Mrs. Kinniside's daughter, but you do not remember me; I was only a school-girl when we lived at Oakingdean; but it is absolutely necessary that I know what it is."

Miss Arthur shrieked, and covered her face with her hands. "That name! that name!" she cried, or rather groaned. "What right have you to torture me by saying it before me!"

"I did not know that it was torture to you," said Clementina, still with the same steady voice and strained calmness, for she neither wept, nor trembled, nor faltered in any way; only her eyes grew hard and fixed, and a bright flush mounted into her pallid cheeks, and burnt like fire upon them. "You must tell me, Miss Arthur," she then went on to say, after a short silence, broken only by that lady's convulsive sobs. "See, I am engaged—indeed, just going to be married—to a gentleman who has no suspicion that any secret whatever is connected with our family. My mother, who might have told him all, and who ought, has told him nothing; that I am sure of; and I can tell him nothing, for I do not know what it is; and, Miss Arthur, I cannot marry any one in this ignorance of what is, perhaps, something terrible, something disgraceful, and what may some day be disclosed to the ruin of all peace, and honor, and happiness for the future. I cannot, Miss Arthur! I must not!" She spoke quietly, but her voice, as she went on, deepened out of all natural sound, and became harsh, and grating, and discordant.

"Your mother should tell you," sobbed Miss Arthur, wringing her hands. "It is for her to do so, not for me."

"She will not," answered Clementina; "and her will is like iron—nothing can move her when she has once made up her mind."

"I cannot speak of the subject," said Miss Arthur, half raising her face. "You do not know what you ask; you do not know what agony you are giving me and preparing for yourself!"

"For the agony I give you I am sorry," answered Clementina, inflexibly; "for what is to come to myself, that I must brave. Anything! anything! rather than marrying in this darkness, and bringing heaven only knows what sorrow upon an innocent man that I love."

For the first time that terrible voice of hers—terrible in its monotony and harsh, hard steadiness—faltered, and her fixed and glittering eyes grew soft and suffused. But it was only for a moment; the frightful fever possessing her burnt out all the softer emotions, and left no room for anything save despair and dread.

"It is not right!" shuddered Miss Arthur. "Your mother should not suffer it!"

"Nor should you," said Clementina. "I see no distinction between you; you are both deceiving me and Sir James; and if it is wrong in my mother. Miss Arthur, it is just as wrong in you."

A moment, and the lady paused; then she went up to the girl, laid her hand lightly on her shoulder, and whispered something, something brief, and low, and terrible.