A Pair of Blue Eyes

‘Oh, nothing. Shall I resume the serious conversation I had with you last night? No, perhaps not; perhaps I had better not.’

‘Oh, I cannot tell! How wretched it all is! Ah, I wish you were your own dear self again, and had kissed me when I came up! Why didn’t you ask me for one? why don’t you now?’

‘Too free in manner by half,’ he heard murmur the voice within him.

‘It was that hateful conversation last night,’ she went on. ‘Oh, those words! Last night was a black night for me.’

‘Kiss! – I hate that word! Don’t talk of kissing, for God’s sake! I should think you might with advantage have shown tact enough to keep back that word “kiss,” considering those you have accepted.’

She became very pale, and a rigid and desolate charactery took possession of her face. That face was so delicate and tender in appearance now, that one could fancy the pressure of a finger upon it would cause a livid spot.

Knight walked on, and Elfride with him, silent and unopposing. He opened a gate, and they entered a path across a stubble-field.

‘Perhaps I intrude upon you?’ she said as he closed the gate. ‘Shall I go away?’

‘No. Listen to me, Elfride.’ Knight’s voice was low and unequal. ‘I have been honest with you: will you be so with me? If any – strange – connection has existed between yourself and a predecessor of mine, tell it now. It is better that I know it now, even though the knowledge should part us, than that I should discover it in time to come. And suspicions have been awakened in me. I think I will not say how, because I despise the means. A discovery of any mystery of your past would embitter our lives.’

Knight waited with a slow manner of calmness. His eyes were sad and imperative. They went farther along the path.

‘Will you forgive me if I tell you all?’ she exclaimed entreatingly.

‘I can’t promise; so much depends upon what you have to tell.’

Elfride could not endure the silence which followed.

‘Are you not going to love me?’ she burst out. ‘Harry, Harry, love me, and speak as usual! Do; I beseech you, Harry!’

‘Are you going to act fairly by me?’ said Knight, with rising anger; ‘or are you not? What have I done to you that I should be put off like this? Be caught like a bird in a springe; everything intended to be hidden from me! Why is it, Elfride? That’s what I ask you.’

In their agitation they had left the path, and were wandering among the wet and obstructive stubble, without knowing or heeding it.

‘What have I done?’ she faltered.

‘What? How can you ask what, when you know so well? You KNOW that I have designedly been kept in ignorance of something attaching to you, which, had I known of it, might have altered all my conduct; and yet you say, what?’

She drooped visibly, and made no answer.

‘Not that I believe in malicious letter-writers and whisperers; not I. I don’t know whether I do or don’t: upon my soul, I can’t tell. I know this: a religion was building itself upon you in my heart. I looked into your eyes, and thought I saw there truth and innocence as pure and perfect as ever embodied by God in the flesh of woman. Perfect truth is too much to expect, but ordinary truth I WILL HAVE or nothing at all. Just say, then; is the matter you keep back of the gravest importance, or is it not?’

‘I don’t understand all your meaning. If I have hidden anything from you, it has been because I loved you so, and I feared – feared – to lose you.’

‘Since you are not given to confidence, I want to ask you some plain questions. Have I your permission?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and there came over her face a weary resignation. ‘Say the harshest words you can; I will bear them!’

‘There is a scandal in the air concerning you, Elfride; and I cannot even combat it without knowing definitely what it is. It may not refer to you entirely, or even at all.’ Knight trifled in the very bitterness of his feeling. ‘In the time of the French Revolution, Pariseau, a ballet-master, was beheaded by mistake for Parisot, a captain of the King’s Guard. I wish there was another “E. Swancourt” in the neighbourhood. Look at this.’

He handed her the letter she had written and left on the table at Mrs. Jethway’s. She looked over it vacantly.

‘It is not so much as it seems!’ she pleaded. ‘It seems wickedly deceptive to look at now, but it had a much more natural origin than you think. My sole wish was not to endanger our love. O Harry! that was all my idea. It was not much harm.’

‘Yes, yes; but independently of the poor miserable creature’s remarks, it seems to imply – something wrong.’

‘What remarks?’

‘Those she wrote me – now torn to pieces. Elfride, DID you run away with a man you loved? – that was the damnable statement. Has such an accusation life in it – really, truly, Elfride?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Knight’s countenance sank. ‘To be married to him?’ came huskily from his lips.

‘Yes. Oh, forgive me! I had never seen you, Harry.’

‘To London?’

‘Yes; but I – ’

‘Answer my questions; say nothing else, Elfride Did you ever deliberately try to marry him in secret?’

‘No; not deliberately.’

‘But did you do it?’

A feeble red passed over her face.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And after that – did you – write to him as your husband; and did he address you as his wife?’

‘Listen, listen! It was – ’

‘Do answer me; only answer me!’

‘Then, yes, we did.’ Her lips shook; but it was with some little dignity that she continued: ‘I would gladly have told you; for I knew and know I had done wrong. But I dared not; I loved you too well. Oh, so well! You have been everything in the world to me – and you are now. Will you not forgive me?’

It is a melancholy thought, that men who at first will not allow the verdict of perfection they pronounce upon their sweethearts or wives to be disturbed by God’s own testimony to the contrary, will, once suspecting their purity, morally hang them upon evidence they would be ashamed to admit in judging a dog.

The reluctance to tell, which arose from Elfride’s simplicity in thinking herself so much more culpable than she really was, had been doing fatal work in Knight’s mind. The man of many ideas, now that his first dream of impossible things was over, vibrated too far in the contrary direction; and her every movement of feature – every tremor – every confused word – was taken as so much proof of her unworthiness.

‘Elfride, we must bid good-bye to compliment,’ said Knight: ‘we must do without politeness now. Look in my face, and as you believe in God above, tell me truly one thing more. Were you away alone with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you return home the same day on which you left it?’

‘No.’

The word fell like a bolt, and the very land and sky seemed to suffer. Knight turned aside. Meantime Elfride’s countenance wore a look indicating utter despair of being able to explain matters so that they would seem no more than they really were, – a despair which not only relinquishes the hope of direct explanation, but wearily gives up all collateral chances of extenuation.