Page:The Galaxy, Volume 6.djvu/70

58 What is it? You would not treat me so without great cause. You would not—dishonor yourself in my eyes.'

I am dishonored in my own eyes,' he said, huskily. 'I ought to have kept away from you. I was lonesome, and homesick, and wretched, and your sweet society comforted me. I was fool enough to think I could see you every day and not love you. And your sister told me about David Warren, and I thought—'

"He stopped, and with trembling haste pulled out something attached to a ribbon and worn inside his waistcoat. It was a locket containing a miniature upon ivory. He put it into my hand, and through a mist of tears I saw the face that came between my love and me.

"It was a fair girl with blue eyes, and smooth, brown hair, and red mouth meant for kisses; a girl trustful, and innocent, and loving; proud, and gentle, and sweet; a right womanly woman, one to sit in the blessed household corner with her children around her knees, to wear his name with graceful pride, to crown his table with her stately, matronly beauty, to comfort him in all wifely ways.

She is my cousin,' he said, 'Her father and mine arranged the marriage. It was not distasteful to me. I never rebelled against my bonds till I saw you.'

Does she love you?'

"A minute's silence, and then he said: 'I think she is fond of me, but—'

You will go back to her, Richard,' I interrupted, quite calmly.

Is it so easy for you to say that?' he said, in a tone of keen reproach. But he gave me one look, and then broke forth passionately: 'Forgive me. I know not whether it is most joy or pain to see you suffer. It is heaven to know that you love me. Penelope, is it an angel or a devil that speaks to me? It says that a promise made blindly is better broken than kept? that only to you can I be a true husband? that I should do Lucia a greater wrong to marry her than to leave her? My love, tell me what is right?'

"A hush as of the grave fell around us. Clearly as if I looked from above, I saw it all.

"Oh, the temptation was so strong! On the one hand, the safe bliss of love, the long shelter of his home. On the other—what? I was only seventeen. It is so hard to give up all one's hopes at seventeen. Need I? ought I? Surely, God meant him for me. What was a promise, compared to this mighty power that shook my soul? that made a strong man sob before me?

"But that girl! She would haunt me all my life. What was my sorrow more than hers? And how would it be with Richard? If I married him he would love me; he would make my life very sweet. But people submit to the inevitable. And our acquaintance had been so brief. If he went back to Lucia, the loss of me would wear out. Our love would seem like a dream, and, as the years went on, it would grow fainter and fainter in his memory. And nobody would have suffered greatly but me.

"So I had decided. Janet, Janet! to this day, I am not sure that I was right!"

Poor Aunt Pen. She rocked back and forth and sobbed with the vehemence of youth.

"So I said: 'You must shut your heart to that voice, Richard. Nay, it is your heart, and not conscience at all. Go to Lucia. May she love you so well that you will never miss me. And now, bid me good-by, and kiss me once,' for I thought Lucia would not grudge me so little. But he held me in his arms, and I had to wrench myself away and fly from his love, as if it were a lure of the