The Mysterious Mr. Miller

The trance of passion passed. How long it lasted I cannot tell.

After a while, the cloud that had enveloped my senses seemed suddenly to lift; the sweet unconsciousness died away. I lifted my head and strained myself backward, still holding her, and yet I shivered as I stood.

I remembered.

She, with a quick vague fear awakening in her eyes, held herself from me.

“Why look at me like that?” she cried. “I – I cannot bear it. Let us part now – at once. I must return, or my absence will be known and I shall be questioned.”

I do not know what I said in answer. All madness of reproach that ever man’s tongue could frame left my lips in those blind cruel moments. All excuse for her; all goodness in her I forgot! Ah! God forgive me, I forgot! She had deceived me; that was all I knew, or cared to know.

In that mad moment all the pride in me, fanned by the wind of jealousy, flamed afresh, and burned up love. In that sudden passion of love and hate my brain had gone.

Yet she stood motionless, pale as death, and trembling, her eyes filled with the light of unshed tears.

I do not know what she said in response to my cruel bitter reproaches.

All I know is that I next became suddenly filled with shame. I knelt then before her, asking forgiveness, kissing her hands, her dress, her feet, pouring out to her in all the eager impetuousness of my nature the rapture, the woe, the sorrow, the shame and the remorse that turn by turn had taken possession of my heart.

“I love you, Ella!” I cried. “I love you and as I love am I jealous. Mine is no soulless vagary or mindless folly. You are mine – mine though you may be bound to this blackguard whose victim you have fallen. I am jealous of you, jealous of the wind that touches you, of the sun that shines upon you, of the air you breathe, of the earth you tread, for they are with you while I am not.”

Her head was bowed. She shut her ears to the pleading of my heart. She wrenched her hands from me, crying: —

“No, no, Godfrey! Enough – enough! Spare me this!”

And she struggled from my arms.

“My darling!” I cried, “I know! I know! Yet you cannot realise all that I suffer now that we are to part again and for ever. I hate that man. Ah! light of my eyes, when I think that you are to be his I – I would rather a thousand times see you lying cold and dead at my feet, for I would then know that at least you would be spared unhappiness.”

It seemed that she dared not trust herself to look on me. She flung back her head and eluded my embrace.

“My love!” I cried, “all life in me is yearning for your life; for the softness of silent kisses; for the warmth of clasped hands; for the gladness of summer hours beside the sea. Do you remember them? Do you remember the passion and peace of our mutual love that smiled at the sun, and knew that heaven held no fairer joys than those which were its own, at the mere magic of a single touch?”

“Yes, dear,” she sighed, “I remember – I remember everything. And you have a right to reproach me as you will,” she added very gently.

She was still unyielding; her burning eyes were now tearless, and she stood motionless.

“But you have forgiven me, my love?” I cried humbly. “I was mad to have uttered those words.”

“I have forgiven, Godfrey,” she answered. A heavy sigh ran through the words and made them barely audible.

“And you still love me?”

All the glow and eagerness and fervour or passion had died off her face; it grew cold and colourless and still, with the impenetrable stillness of a desperate woman’s face that masks all pain.

“Do you doubt I loved you – I?”

That reproach cut me to the quick. I was passionate with man’s passion; I was cruel with children’s cruelty.

My face, I felt, flushed crimson, then grew pale again. I shrank a little, as though she had struck me a blow, a blow that I could not return.

“Then – then why should we part?” I asked, as all my love for her welled up in my faint heart. “Why should we not defy this man and let him do his worst? At least we should be united in one sweet, sacred and perfect faith – our love.”

For a few moments she made no reply, but looked at me very long – very wistfully, with no passion in those dear eyes, only a despair that was so great that it chilled me into speechless terror.

“No, no,” she cried at last, covering her face with her white hands, as though in shame, and bursting into a flood of tears. “You do not know all – I pray that you, the man I love so fondly, may never know! If you knew you would hate me and curse my memory. Therefore take back those words, and forget me – yes, forget – for I am not fit to be your wife!”

Chapter Twenty Five

By the Tyrrhenian Waters

Ella was all mine – all mine! Mine all the glad fearless freedom of her life; mine all the sweet kisses, the rapturous tenderness, the priceless passion of her love; mine all! And I had lost them.

The grave had given her back for those brief hours, but she was, alas! dead to me.

I stood there as a man in a dream.

I, athirst for the sound of her sweet voice as dying men in deserts for the fountains of lost lands.

But all was silence, save the lark trilling his song high above me in the morning air.

I turned upon my heel, and went forward a changed man.

At the inn I made further inquiries regarding the tenant of the “Glen.”

The stout yellow-haired maid-of-all-work who brought me in my breakfast was a native of the village and inclined to be talkative. From her I learned that Mr Gordon-Wright had had the place about four years. He spent only about three months or so each summer there, going abroad each year for the winter. To the poor he was always very good; he was chairman of the Flower Show Committee, chairman of the Parish Council, and one of the school managers as well as a church-warden.

I smiled within myself at what the girl told me. He was evidently a popular man in Upper Wooton.

He had friends to stay with him sometimes, mostly men. Once or twice he had had foreign gentlemen among his visitors – gentlemen who had been in the post-office and could not speak English.

“My sister was ’ousemaid there till last Michaelmas,” she added. “So I’ve often been up to the ‘Glen’. When old Mrs Auker had it she used to ’ave us girls of the Friendly Society there to tea on the lawn.”

“I think that a friend of mine comes to visit Mr Gordon-Wright sometimes. His name is Miller. Do you remember him?”

“Mr Miller – a tall middle-aged gentleman. Of course, sir. ’E was here in the spring. I remember the name because ’e and Mr Wright gave a treat to the school children.”

“Was a lady with him – a young lady?”

“Yes, sir. His daughter, Miss Lucie.”

The girl knew little else, except, as she declared, Mr Gordon-Wright was a rich man and “a thorough gentleman.”

An hour later, while I was out in the yard of the inn watching Gibbs going round the car, we suddenly heard the whirr of an approaching motor, and down the street flashed the blue car which we had pursued so hotly on the previous day. It carried the same occupants, with the addition of one person – Mr Gordon-Wright.

The latter, in peaked cap and motor-coat, was driving, while behind were the two strangers, with Mr Murray and Ella.

The latter caught sight of me as she flashed past. Our eyes met for an instant, and then she was lost to me in a cloud of dust – lost for ever.