On one occasion Noel rather urgently pressed the matter of being allowed to bring his mother and sisters to call. He did so in the hope that time might have somewhat modified Christine's feeling in the matter, but he found it absolutely unchanged and was obliged to withdraw his request.

As the days and weeks went by Noel became every day more restless and gloomy. He was unhappy if he stayed away from Christine, and yet to be in her presence merely as a friendly visitor was often galling and depressing to an almost intolerable degree. He scarcely ever saw her alone for a moment, and he had a certain conviction that while Mrs.

Murray did some gentle plotting to leave them _tete-a-tete_ Christine managed ingeniously to thwart her plans.

About this time he was compelled to go away for a week on a business expedition, and so, for more than that s.p.a.ce of time, he had not called at Mrs. Murray's. When he rang the door-bell on the evening of his return Harriet, who answered it, left him to find his way alone to the pretty sitting-room, warm and lighted and empty, as he thought. The next instant, however, his heart gave a bound, as he saw at its opposite end Christine, tall and slight and young and beautiful, standing, with her back turned, before a table against the wall, on which a large engraving rested.

It was heavily framed and he knew he had never seen it there before.

The fact was Mrs. Murray, who had a very romantic heart, had seen it in a shop-window and impulsively bought it, and it had just been sent home.

Noel, stepping with the utmost caution over the thick carpet, came near enough to look at the picture over Christine's shoulder. He knew it well. It was Frederick Leighton's "Wedded."

As the man and woman stood before it each was under the spell of that beautiful representation of abandonment to love--the deep and holy wedded love which is the G.o.d-given right of every man and woman who lives and feels.

Christine was utterly unconscious of his nearness as she bent toward it eagerly. He could see by the movement of her throat and shoulders that her breaths were coming thick and fast and her heart was beating hard. As for him the fact that he was near to her was the supreme consciousness of that moment to him, and all the meaning of this consciousness was in his voice, as he whispered her name:

"Christine!"

She started and turned. His eyes caught hers and held them. For a moment she found it impossible to release them from his compelling gaze. She was under the spell of the picture still. It had broken down the habitual barriers of restraint and self-control, and sent an exultant gleam into her heart, which her face reflected.

"Christine!" he said again in that thrilling whisper.

The sound of his voice recalled her. That strange, exalted look gave place to another, which was as if a withering blight had crossed her face, and she turned and looked at Noel. He met that look of desolation and anguish with firm, unflinching eyes.

"I love you," he whispered low, but clear.

"Then spare me," she whispered back.

"Once more, Christine," he said. They kept their places, a few feet apart, and neither moved a muscle except for the slight motion of their lips, from which the faint sounds came forth like ghostly whispers.

"Once more, Christine--answer me this. Do you love me?"

And again she answered:

"No."

The tone in which she said it was strong and steady in spite of its lowness, and the eyes confirmed it.

The suspense was over. With that strange recollectedness which human beings often have in the sharpest crises of their lives Noel suppressed the great sigh that had risen from his heart, and let the breath of it go forth from his parted lips, with careful pains to make no sound.

It was a relief to both that at this moment Mrs. Murray came into the room. They turned abruptly from the picture, and in the cordial greeting which the hostess bestowed upon her guest the moment's ordeal was successfully pa.s.sed. Not, however, without the watchful eyes of Mrs.

Murray having seen much, and conjectured far more. Whether her impulse in buying the picture had done good or harm she was puzzled to determine.

XV.

Noel, during the sleepless hours of the night which followed, looked the whole situation in the face and made his resolutions, strong and fast, for the future of Christine and himself. His love for her, which she had not forbidden and could not forbid, must be enough for him henceforth, and because all his soul desired her love in return she should not, for that reason, be deprived of his friendship. When he thought of loving any other woman, and being loved by her in return, and contrasted it with the mere right to love Christine and be near her, forever unloved, he felt himself rich beyond telling.

That evening, determined to put into effect at once this new resolution and conveying some hint of it to Christine, he went to Mrs. Murray's.

He rang the bell and entered the house with a strong sense of self-possession, which was only a very little disturbed when the maid again ushered him into the little drawing-room where he found Christine alone.

He could see that his coming was utterly unexpected. The lamp, by which she usually sat at work, was not lighted, and the gas in the hall cast only a dim light upon her here, but the fire lent its aid in lighting up the figure. She was lying on the lounge before the fire as he came in, but she rose to her feet at once, saying, in a voice whose slight ring of agitation disturbed a little farther yet his self-poised calm:

"Mrs. Murray has gone to see a neighbor whose daughter is very ill. They have just moved to the house and have no friends near, and she went to see what she could do. She will be back very soon. She did not think you would come to-night."

Noel heard the little strained sound in her voice, and fancied he saw also about her eyes a faint trace of recent tears; but the light was turned low and she stood with her back to it, as if to screen herself from his gaze. A great wave of tenderness possessed his heart. He felt sure he could trust himself to be tender and no more, as he said gently:

"Christine, have you been crying--here all alone in the darkness, with no one to comfort and help you to bear? The thought of it wrings my heart."

"Oh, it is nothing," she said, her voice, in spite of her, choking up.

"I sometimes get nervous--I am not used to being alone. It is over now.

I will get the lamp--"

But he stopped her. He made one step toward her and took both her hands in his.

"Wait," he said, in a controlled and quiet tone. In the silence that followed the word they could hear the little clock on the mantel ticking monotonously. Noel was trying hard, as they stood thus alone in the stillness and half-darkness, to gather up his suddenly-weakened forces, so that he might tell her, in the hope of giving her comfort, of the resolute purpose he had entered into. But in the moment which he gave himself to make this rally a sudden influence came over him from the contact of the cold hands he held in his. At first it was a subtle, faint, indefinite sensation, as of something strange and wonderful and far away, but coming nearer. The very breath of his soul seemed suspended, to listen and look as he waited. The clock ticked on, and they stood there motionless as statues. Suddenly a short, low sigh escaped Christine, and he felt her cold hands tremble. The swift consciousness that ran through Noel was like living ecstasy injected in his veins. He drew her two hands upward and crushed them against his breast.

"Christine," he said, "you love me."

She met his ardent, agitated gaze with direct, unflinching eyes.

"Yes," she said distinctly, "I love you," but with the exertion of all her power she shook herself free from his grasp, and sprang away from him to the farthest limit of the little room.

"Stop," she said, waving him back with her hand. "I have owned the truth, but I must speak to you--"

As well might Christine have tried to parley with a coming storm of wind. The chained spirit within Noel had been set free by the words, "Yes, I love you," that Christine had spoken, and his pa.s.sionate love must have its way. He followed her across the room, and with a gentle force, against which she was as helpless as a child, he compelled her to come into his arms, to put down her head against his shoulder and to rest on his her bounding heart. He held her so in a close, restrictive pressure, against which she soon ceased to struggle, but lay there still and unresisting.

"Now," he said gently, speaking the low word softly and clearly in her ear, "now, speak, and I will listen."

"I love you," she said brokenly.

Their full hearts throbbed together as he answered:

"That is enough."

"It is all--the utmost," she went on. "I can never marry you. When you loose me from your arms to-night it will be forever. Hold me close a little longer while I tell you."

Her voice was faint and uncertain; her frame was trembling; he could feel the whole weight of her body upon him, as he held her against his exultant heart, while the power that had come into him gave him a strength so mighty that he supported the sweet burden as if its weight were nothing.

"Go on," he murmured gently, in a secure and quiet tone, "I am listening."

"I only want to tell you, if I can, how much I love you. I want you to know it all, that the torment of having it unsaid may leave me."

Of her own will she raised her arms and put them about his neck, laying down her face on one of them, so that her lips were close against his ear.

"At the first," she said, "I liked and admired you because I saw you were good and n.o.ble. Then I trusted you, and made your truth my anchor in the awful seas of trouble I was tossed in. Then I came to reverence and almost worship you for the highness that is in you, and then, oh, then after my baby died and my other dreadful sorrow came, against my will, in spite of hard fighting and struggling and trying, I went a step higher yet and loved you, with a love that takes in all the rest--that is admiration, and trust, and reverence, and love in one. Oh," she said with a great sigh, "but it is all in vain! I cannot tell you--I cannot!

I say the utmost, and it seems pale and poor and miserably weak. You do not understand the love you have called into being in my poor, broken heart. I thought I should have the comfort of feeling I had told you. I feel only that I have failed! Oh, before we part, I want you to know how I love you--how the stress of it is bursting my heart--how the mightiness of it seems to expand my soul until it touches Heaven. Oh, if I could only ease my heart of its great weight of love by finding words to tell you."