第67章 A KNIGHT(9)

"I could not sleep that night.To lie near her with those thoughts in my brain was impossible! I made an excuse, and sat up with some papers.The hardest thing in life is to see a thing coming and be able to do nothing to prevent it.What could I do? Have you noticed how people may become utter strangers without a word? It only needs a thought....The very next day she said: 'I want to go to Lucy's.'

'Alone?' 'Yes.' I had made up my mind by then that she must do just as she wished.Perhaps I acted wrongly; I do not know what one ought to do in such a case; but before she went I said to her: 'Eilie, what is it?' 'I don't know,' she answered; and I kissed her--that was all....A month passed; I wrote to her nearly every day, and I had short letters from her, telling me very little of herself.Dalton was a torture to me, for I could not tell him; he had a conviction that she was going to become a mother.'Ah, Brune!' he said, 'my poor wife was just like that.' Life, sir, is a somewhat ironical affair...! He--I find it hard to speak his name--came to the school two or three times a week.I used to think I saw a change, a purpose growing up through his recklessness; there seemed a violence in him as if he chafed against my blade.I had a kind of joy in feeling Ihad the mastery, and could toss the iron out of his hand any minute like a straw.I was ashamed, and yet I gloried in it.Jealousy is a low thing, sir--a low, base thing! When he asked me where my wife was, I told him; I was too proud to hide it.Soon after that he came no more to the school.

"One morning, when I could bear it no longer, I wrote, and said I was coming down.I would not force myself on her, but I asked her to meet me in the orchard of the old house we called the Convent.Iasked her to be there at four o'clock.It has always been my, belief that a man must neither beg anything of a woman, nor force anything from her.Women are generous--they will give you what they can.Isealed my letter, and posted it myself.All the way down I kept on saying to myself, 'She must come--surely she will come!'

VII

"I was in high spirits, but the next moment trembled like a man with ague.I reached the orchard before my time.She was not there.You know what it is like to wait? I stood still and listened; I went to the point whence I could see farthest; I said to myself, 'A watched pot never boils; if I don't look for her she will come.' I walked up and down with my eyes on the ground.The sickness of it! A hundred times I took out my watch....Perhaps it was fast, perhaps hers was slow--I can't tell you a thousandth part of my hopes and fears.

There was a spring of water, in one corner.I sat beside it, and thought of the last time I had been there--and something seemed to burst in me.It was five o'clock before I lost all hope; there comes a time when you're glad that hope is dead, it means rest.'That's over,' you say, 'now I can act.' But what was I to do? I lay down with my face to the ground; when one's in trouble, it's the only thing that helps--something to press against and cling to that can't give way.I lay there for two hours, knowing all the time that Ishould play the coward.At seven o'clock I left the orchard and went towards the inn; I had broken my word, but I felt happy....I should see her--and, sir, nothing--nothing seemed to matter beside that.

Tor was in the garden snipping at his roses.He came up, and I could see that he couldn't look me in the face.'Where's my wife?' I said.

He answered, 'Let's get Lucy.' I ran indoors.Lucy met me with two letters; the first--my own--unopened; and the second, this:

"'I have left you.You were good to me, but now--it is no use.

EILIE.'"

"She told me that a boy had brought a letter for my wife the day before, from a young gentleman in a boat.When Lucy delivered it she asked, 'Who is he, Miss Eilie? What will Mr.Brune say?' My wife looked at her angrily, but gave her no answer--and all that day she never spoke.In the evening she was gone, leaving this note on the bed....Lucy cried as if her heart would break.I took her by the shoulders and put her from the room; I couldn't bear the noise.Isat down and tried to think.While I was sitting there Tor came in with a letter.It was written on the notepaper of an inn twelve miles up the river: these were the words.