LITMIR.BIZ

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Edward, she had thought only of herself and him. Owen — her name — position — future — had been as if they did not exist.

      ‘I won’t give way and become a disgrace to you, at any rate,’ she said.

      ‘Besides, your duty to society, and those about you, requires that you should live with (at any rate) all the appearance of a good wife, and try to love your husband.’

      ‘Yes — my duty to society,’ she murmured. ‘But ah, Owen, it is difficult to adjust our outer and inner life with perfect honesty to all! Though it may be right to care more for the benefit of the many than for the indulgence of your own single self, when you consider that the many, and duty to them, only exist to you through your own existence, what can be said? What do our own acquaintances care about us? Not much. I think of mine. Mine will now (do they learn all the wicked frailty of my heart in this affair) look at me, smile sickly, and condemn me. And perhaps, far in time to come, when I am dead and gone, some other’s accent, or some other’s song, or thought, like an old one of mine, will carry them back to what I used to say, and hurt their hearts a little that they blamed me so soon. And they will pause just for an instant, and give a sigh to me, and think, “Poor girl!” believing they do great justice to my memory by this. But they will never, never realize that it was my single opportunity of existence, as well as of doing my duty, which they are regarding; they will not feel that what to them is but a thought, easily held in those two words of pity, “Poor girl!” was a whole life to me; as full of hours, minutes, and peculiar minutes, of hopes and dreads, smiles, whisperings, tears, as theirs: that it was my world, what is to them their world, and they in that life of mine, however much I cared for them, only as the thought I seem to them to be. Nobody can enter into another’s nature truly, that’s what is so grievous.’

      ‘Well, it cannot be helped,’ said Owen.

      ‘But we must not stay here,’ she continued, starting up and going. ‘We shall be missed. I’ll do my best, Owen — I will, indeed.’

      It had been decided that on account of the wretched state of the roads, the newly-married pair should not drive to the station till the latest hour in the afternoon at which they could get a train to take them to Southampton (their destination that night) by a reasonable time in the evening. They intended the next morning to cross to Havre, and thence to Paris — a place Cytherea had never visited — for their wedding tour.

      The afternoon drew on. The packing was done. Cytherea was so restless that she could stay still nowhere. Miss Aldclyffe, who, though she took little part in the day’s proceedings, was, as it were, instinctively conscious of all their movements, put down her charge’s agitation for once as the natural result of the novel event, and Manston himself was as indulgent as could be wished.

      At length Cytherea wandered alone into the conservatory. When in it, she thought she would run across to the hot-house in the outer garden, having in her heart a whimsical desire that she should also like to take a last look at the familiar flowers and luxuriant leaves collected there. She pulled on a pair of overshoes, and thither she went. Not a soul was in or around the place. The gardener was making merry on Manston’s and her account.

      The happiness that a generous spirit derives from the belief that it exists in others is often greater than the primary happiness itself. The gardener thought ‘How happy they are!’ and the thought made him happier than they.

      Coming out of the forcing-house again, she was on the point of returning indoors, when a feeling that these moments of solitude would be her last of freedom induced her to prolong them a little, and she stood still, unheeding the wintry aspect of the curly-leaved plants, the straw-covered beds, and the bare fruit-trees around her. The garden, no part of which was visible from the house, sloped down to a narrow river at the foot, dividing it from the meadows without.

      A man was lingering along the public path on the other side of the river; she fancied she knew the form. Her resolutions, taken in the presence of Owen, did not fail her now. She hoped and prayed that it might not be one who had stolen her heart away, and still kept it. Why should he have reappeared at all, when he had declared that he went out of her sight for ever?

      She hastily hid herself, in the lowest corner of the garden close to the river. A large dead tree, thickly robed in ivy, had been considerably depressed by its icy load of the morning, and hung low over the stream, which here ran slow and deep. The tree screened her from the eyes of any passer on the other side.

      She waited timidly, and her timidity increased. She would not allow herself to see him — she would hear him pass, and then look to see if it had been Edward.

      But, before she heard anything, she became aware of an object reflected in the water from under the tree which hung over the river in such a way that, though hiding the actual path, and objects upon it, it permitted their reflected images to pass beneath its boughs. The reflected form was that of the man she had seen further off, but being inverted, she could not definitely characterize him.

      He was looking at the upper windows of the House — at hers — was it Edward, indeed? If so, he was probably thinking he would like to say one parting word. He came closer, gazed into the stream, and walked very slowly. She was almost certain that it was Edward. She kept more safely hidden. Conscience told her that she ought not to see him. But she suddenly asked herself a question: ‘Can it be possible that he sees my reflected image, as I see his? Of course he does!’

      He was looking at her in the water.

      She could not help herself now. She stepped forward just as he emerged from the other side of the tree and appeared erect before her. It was Edward Springrove — till the inverted vision met his eye, dreaming no more of seeing his Cytherea there than of seeing the dead themselves.

      ‘Cytherea!’

      ‘Mr. Springrove,’ she returned, in a low voice, across the stream.

      He was the first to speak again.

      ‘Since we have met, I want to tell you something, before we become quite as strangers to each other.’

      ‘No — not now — I did not mean to speak — it is not right, Edward.’ She spoke hurriedly and turned away from him, beating the air with her hand.

      ‘Not one common word of explanation?’ he implored. ‘Don’t think I am bad enough to try to lead you astray. Well, go — it is better.’

      Their eyes met again. She was nearly choked. O, how she longed — and dreaded — to hear his explanation!

      ‘What is it?’ she said desperately.

      ‘It is that I did not come to the church this morning in order to distress you: I did not, Cytherea. It was to try to speak to you before you were — married.’

      He stepped closer, and went on, ‘You know what has taken place? Surely you do? — my cousin is married, and I am free.’

      ‘Married — and not to you?’ Cytherea faltered, in a weak whisper.

      ‘Yes, she was married yesterday! A rich man had appeared, and she jilted me. She said she never would have jilted a stranger, but that by jilting me, she only exercised the right everybody has of snubbing their own relations. But that’s nothing now. I came to you to ask once more if. . . . But I was too late.’

      ‘But, Edward, what’s that, what’s that!’ she cried, in an agony of reproach. ‘Why did you leave me to return to her? Why did you write me that cruel, cruel letter that nearly killed me!’

      ‘Cytherea! Why, you had grown to love — like — Mr. Manston, and how could you be anything to me — or care for me? Surely I acted naturally?’

      ‘O no — never! I loved you — only you — not him — always you! — till lately. . . . I try to love him now.’

      ‘But that can’t be correct! Miss Aldclyffe told me that you wanted to hear no more of me — proved it to me!’ said Edward.

      ‘Never! she couldn’t.’

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