Her eyes fall beneath his. She moves silently away. What can she say to him?

It is with a sense of almost violent relief that she closes the door of her own room behind her, and knows herself to be at last alone.

CHAPTER XVII.

"And vain desires, and hopes dismayed, And fears that cast the earth in shade, My heart did fret."

Night is waning! Dies pater, Father of Day, is making rapid strides across the heavens, creating havoc as he goes. Diana faints! the stars grow pale, flinging, as they die, a last soft glimmer across the sky.

Now and again a first call from the birds startles the drowsy air. The wood dove's coo, melancholy sweet--the cheep-cheep of the robin--the hoa.r.s.e cry of the st.u.r.dy crow.

"A faint dawn breaks on yonder sedge, And broadens in that bed of weeds; A bright disk shows its radiant edge, All things bespeak the coming morn, Yet still it lingers."

As Lady Swansdown and Baltimore descend the stone steps that lead to the gardens beneath, only the swift rush of the tremulous breeze that stirs the branches betrays to them the fact that a new life is at hand.

"You are cold?" says Baltimore, noticing the quick shiver that runs through her.

"No: not cold. It was mere nervousness."

"I shouldn't have thought you nervous."

"Or fanciful?" adds she. "You judged me rightly, and yet--coming all at once from the garish lights within into this cool sweet darkness here, makes one feel in spite of oneself."

"In spite! Would you never willingly feel?"

"Would you?" demands she very slowly.

"Not willingly, I confess. But I have been made to feel, as you know.

And you?"

"Would you have a woman confess?" says she, half playfully. "That is taking an unfair advantage, is it not? See," pointing to a seat, "what a charming resting place! I will make one confession to you. I am tired."

"A meagre one! Beatrice," says he suddenly, "tell me this: are all women alike? Do none really feel? Is it all fancy--the mere idle emotion of a moment--the evanescent desire for sensation of one sort or another--of anger, love, grief, pain, that stirs you now and then? Are none of these things lasting with you, are they the mere strings on which you play from time to time, because the hours lie heavy on your hands? It seems to me----"

"It seems to me that you hardly know what you are saying," said Lady Swansdown quickly. "Do you think then that women do not feel, do not suffer as men never do? What wild thoughts torment your brain that you should put forward so senseless a question?--one that has been answered satisfactorily thousands of years ago. All the pain, the suffering of earth lies on the woman's shoulders; it has been so from the beginning--it shall be so to the end. On being thrust forth from their Eden, which suffered most do you suppose, Adam or Eve?"

"It is an old story," says he gloomily, "and why should you, of all people, back it up? You--who----"

"Better leave me out of the question."

"You!"

"I am outside your life, Baltimore," says she, laying her hand on the back of the seat beside her, and sinking into it. "Leave me there!"

"Would you bereave me of all things," says he, "even my friends? I thought--I believed, that you at least--understood me."

"Too well!" says she in a low tone. Her hands have met each other and are now clasped together in her lap in a grip that is almost hurtful.

Great heavens! if he only knew--could he then probe, and wound, and tempt!

"If you do----" begins he--then stops short, and pa.s.sing her, paces to and fro before her in the dying light of the moon. Lady Swansdown leaning back gazes at him with eyes too sad for tears--eyes "wild with all regret." Oh! if they two might but have met earlier. If this man--this man in all the world, had been given to her, as her allotment.

"Beatrice!" says he, stopping short before her, "were you ever in love?"

There is a dead silence. Lady Swansdown sinking still deeper into the arm of the chair, looks up at him with strange curious eyes. What does he mean? To her--to put such a question to her of all women! Is he deaf, blind, mad--or only cruel?

A sort of recklessness seizes upon her. Well, if he doesn't know, he shall know, though it be to the loss of her self-respect forever!

"Never," says she, leaning a little forward until the moonbeams gleam upon her snowy neck and arms. "Never--never--until----"

The pause is premeditated. It is eloquence itself! The light of heaven playing on her beautiful face betrays the pa.s.sion of it--the rich pallor! One hand resting on the back of the seat taps upon the iron work, the other is now in Baltimore's possession.

"Until now----?" suggests he boldly. He is leaning over her. She shakes her head. But in this negative there is only affirmation.

His hand tightens more closely upon hers. The long slender fingers yield to his pressure--nay more--return it; they twine round his.

"If I thought----" begins he in a low, stammering tone--he moves nearer to her, nearer still. Does she move toward him? There is a second's hesitation on his part, and then, his lips meet hers!

It is but a momentary touch, a thing of an instant, but it includes a whole world of meaning. Lady Swansdown has sprung to her feet, and is looking at him with eyes that seem to burn through the mystic darkness.

She is trembling in every limb. Her nostrils are dilated. Her haughty mouth is quivering, and there--are there honest, real tears in those mocking eyes?

Baltimore, too, has risen. His face is very white, very full of contrition. That he regrets his action toward her is unmistakable, but that there is a deeper contrition behind--a sense of self-loathing not to be appeased betrays itself in the anguish of his eyes. She had accused him of falsity, most falsely up to this, but now--now----His mind has wandered far away.

There is something so wild in his expression that Lady Swansdown loses sight of herself in the contemplation of it.

"What is it, Baltimore?" asks she, in a low, frightened tone. It rouses him.

"I have offended you beyond pardon," begins he, but more like one seeking for words to say than one afraid of using them. "I have angered you----"

"Do not mistake me," interrupts she quickly, almost fiercely. "I am not angry. I feel no anger--nothing--but that I am a traitor."

"And what am I?"

"Work out your own condemnation for yourself," says she, still with that feverish self-disdain upon her. "Don't ask me to help you. She was my friend, whatever she is now. She trusted me, believed in me. And after all----And you," turning pa.s.sionately, "you are doubly a traitor, you are a husband."

"In name!" doggedly. He has quite recovered himself now. Whatever torture his secret soul may impress upon him in the future, no one but he shall know.

"It doesn't matter. You belong to her, and she to you."

"That is what she doesn't think," bitterly.

"There is one thing only to be said, Baltimore," says she, after a slight pause. "This must never occur again. I like you, you know that.

I----" she breaks off abruptly, and suddenly gives way to a sort of mirthless laughter. "It is a farce!" she says. "Consider my feeling anything. And so virtuous a thing, too, as remorse! Well, as one lives, one learns. If I had seen the light for the first time in the middle of the dark ages, I should probably have ended my days as the prioress of a convent. As it is, I shouldn't wonder if I went in for hospital nursing presently. Pshaw!" angrily, "it is useless lamenting. Let me face the truth. I have acted abominably toward her so far, and the worst of it is"--with a candor that seems to scorch her--"I know if the chance be given me, I shall behave abominably toward her again. I shall leave to-morrow--the day after. One must invent a decent excuse."

"Pray don't leave on Lady Baltimore's account," says he slowly, "she would be the last to care about this. I am nothing to her."