"Good evening," she said serenely, not knowing him, and supposing him to be a parishioner.
Egbert returned the words hastily, and, in standing aside to let her pass, looked clearly into her eyes and pale face, as if there never had been a time at which he would have done anything on earth for her sake.
She knew him, and started, uttering a weak exclamation. When he reached the door he turned his head, and saw that she was irresolutely holding up her hand, as if to beckon to him to come back.
"One word, since I have met you," she said in unequal, half-whispered tones. "I have felt that I was one-sided in my haste on the day you called to see me in London. I misunderstood you."
Egbert could at least out-do her in self-control, and, astonished that she should have spoken, he answered in a yet colder tone, —
"I am sorry for that; very sorry, madam."
"And you excuse it?"
"Of course I do, readily. And I hope you, too, will pardon my intrusion on that day, and understand the — circumstances."
"Yes, yes. Especially as I am most to blame for those indiscreet proceedings in our early lives which led to it."
"Certainly you were not most to blame."
"How can you say that?" she answered with a slight laugh, "when you know nothing of what my motives and feelings were?"
"I know well enough to judge, for I was the elder. Let me just recall some points in your own history at that time."
"No."
"Will you not hear a word?"
"I cannot. … Are you writing another book?"
"I am doing nothing. I am idling at Monk's Hut."
"Indeed!" she said, slightly surprised. "Well, you will always have my good wishes, whatever you may do. If any of my relatives can ever help you —"
"Thank you, madam, very much. I think, however, that I can help myself."
She was silent, looking upon the floor; and Egbert spoke again, successfully hiding the feelings of his heart under a light and untrue tone. "Miss Allenville, you know that I loved you devotedly for many years, and that that love was the starting-point of all my ambition. My sense of it makes this meeting rather awkward. But men survive almost anything. I have proved it. Their love is strong while it lasts, but it soon withers at sight of a new face. I congratulate you on your coming marriage. Perhaps I may marry some day, too."
"I hope you will find some one worth your love. I am sorry I ever — inconvenienced you as I did. But one hardly knows at that age —"
"Don't think of it for a moment — I really entreat you not to think of that." What prompted the cruelty of his succeeding words he never could afterwards understand. "It was a hard matter at first for me to forget you, certainly; but perhaps I was helped in my wish by the strong prejudice I originally had against your class and family. I have fixed my mind firmly upon the differences between us, and my youthful fancy is pretty fairly overcome. Those old silly days of devotion were pretty enough, but the devotion was entirely unpractical, as you have seen, of course."
"Yes, I have seen it," she faltered.
"It was scarcely of a sort which survives accident and division, and is strengthened by disaster."
"Well, perhaps not, perhaps not. You can scarcely care much now whether it was or not; or, indeed, care anything about me or my happiness."
"I do care."
"How much? As you do for that of any other wretched human being?"
"Wretched? No!"
"I will tell you — I must tell you! "she said with rapid utterance. "This is my secret, this. I don't love the man I am going to marry; but I have agreed to be his wife to satisfy my friends. Say you don't hate me for what I have told. I could not bear that you should not know!"
"Hate you? Oh, Geraldine!"
A hair's breadth further, and they would both have broken down.
"Not a word more. Now you know my unhappy state, and I shall die content."
"But, darling — my Geraldine!"
"It is too late. Good-night — goodbye!" She spoke in a hurried voice, almost like a low cry, and rushed away.
Here was a revelation. Egbert moved along to the door,. and up the path, in a condition in which his mind caused his very body to ache. He gazed vacantly through the railings of the lawn, which came close to the churchyard; but she was gone. He still moved mechanically on. A little further and he was overtaken by the parish clerk, who, addressing a few words to him, soon recognized his voice.
