Chapter XXIV
“If You Love Me, Leave Me”
Till the flames of amber and copper along the Gaspereau Ridge hadtemperately diminished to a lucidity of pale violet, I waited andwatched. Then all at once the commotion in my bosom came to an icy stop.
A light, white form descended from the ridge to the ford. I needed notthe black lace shawl about the head and shoulders to tell me it was she,before a feature or a line could be distinguished. The blood at everytingling finger-tip thrilled the announcement of her coming.
I grasped desperately at all I had planned to say—now slipping from me.I felt that she was intrenched in a fixed resolve; and I felt that notmy life alone,—ready to become a very small matter,—but hers, her truelife, depended upon my breaking that resolve. Yet how was I to conquerher, I who at sight of her was at her feet? I knew—with that innerknowledge by which I know God is—that she, the whitest of women,intended unwittingly a sin against her body in wedding a manunloved—that she, in my eyes the wisest, most clear-visioned of women,contemplated a folly beyond words. But how could I so far escape myreverence for her as to convict her of this folly and this sin?
But now all my thoughts, words, pleas, sprayed into air. She came—and Istepped into her path, whispering:
“Yvonne!”
She was almost within reach of my hand, had I stretched it out,—but Idared not touch her. She gave the faintest cry. Taken at so sudden adisadvantage, she had not time to mask herself, and her great eyes toldfor one heart-beat what I knew her lips would have denied. Her fingerslocked and unlocked where they caught the black mantilla across herbosom. She stood for an instant motionless; then glanced back up thehill with a desperate fear.
“They will see you!” she half sobbed. “You will be caught and throwninto prison. Oh, hide yourself, hide at once!”
“Not without you,” I interrupted.
“Then with me!” she cried pantingly, and led the way, almost running,back of the willow, down a thread of a path, to a hidden place behind abend of the stream. Glancing back at the last moment, I saw a squad ofsoldiers coming over the hill.
As soon as she felt that I was safely out of sight and earshot, sheturned and faced me with a sudden swift anger.
“Why have you done this? Why have you forced me to this?” she cried.
“Because I love you,” said I slowly. “Because”—
She drew herself up.
“You do not know,” said she, “what I have promised to Monsieur Anderson.I have promised to redeem my word to him when he can show you to me safeand well.”
I laughed with sheer joy.
“He shall wait long then,” said I. “Sooner than he should claim theguerdon I will fall upon my sword, though my will is, rather, to livefor you, beloved.”
“Had the soldiers seen you and taken you,” said she, in her eagernessforgetting her disguise, “he would have been able to claim me to-morrow.They may yet take you. Oh, go, go at once!”
“They shall not take me. Now that I know you love me, Yvonne,—for youhave betrayed it,—my life is, next to yours, the most precious thing tome in the world. I go at once to Quebec to settle my affairs and preparea home for you. Then I will come,—it will be but in a month or two, whenthis trouble is overpast,—and I will take you away.”
Her face, all her form, drooped with a sort of weariness, as if her willhad been too long taxed.
“You will find me the wife of George Anderson,” she said faintly.
It was as if I had been struck upon the temples. My mouth opened, andshut again without words. First rage, then amazement, then despair, ranthrough me in hot surges.
“But—your promise—not till he could show me to you,” I managed tostammer.
“I gave it in good faith,” she said simply. “I can no longer hold himoff by it, for I have seen you safe and well.”
“I am _not_ safe, as you may soon see,” said I fiercely, “and not longshall I be well, as you will learn.” Then, perceiving that this was asorry kind of threat, and little manly, I made haste to amend it.
“No, no,” I cried, “forget that! But stick to the letter of yourpromises, I beseech you. Why push to go back of that? Unless,” I added,with bitterness, “you want the excuse!”
She shuddered, and forgot to resent the brutality.
“Go!” she pleaded. “Save yourself—for my sake—Paul!” And her voicebroke.
“That you may wed with the clearer conscience!” I went on, merciless inmy pain.
She crouched down, a drear and pitiful figure, on the slope of sod, andwept silently, her hands over her eyes. I looked at her helplessly. Iwanted to throw myself at her feet. Then the right thing seemed that Ishould gather her up into my arms—but I dared not touch her. At last Isaid, doubtfully:
“But—you love me!”
No answer.
“You do love me, Yvonne?”
She lifted her face, and with a childish bravery dashed off the tears,first with one hand, then the other. She looked me straight in the eyes.
“I do _not_,” said she, daring the lie. “But you—you disturb me!”
This astonishing remark did not shake my confidence, but it threw me outof my argument. I shifted ground.
“You do _not_ love him!” I exclaimed, lamely enough.
“I respect him!” said she, cool now, and controlling the situation. Ifelt that I had lost my one moment of advantage—the moment when I shouldhave taken her into my arms. Not timidity, but reverence, had balked me.My heart turned, as it were, in my breast, with a hot, dumb fury—atmyself.
“The respect that cannot breed love for a lover will soon breedcontempt,” said I, holding myself hard to mere reasoning.
She ignored this idle answer. She arose and came close up to me.
“Paul,” she said, scarcely above a whisper, “_will_ you save yourselffor my sake? If I say—if I say that I do love you a little—that if it_could_ have been different—been you—I should have been—oh, glad,glad!—then will you go, for my sake?”
“No, no indeed!” shouted the heart within me at this confession. Butwith hope came cunning. I temporized.
“And if I go, for your sake,” I asked, “when do you propose to becomethe wife of the Englishman?”
“Not for a long time, I will promise you,” said she earnestly. “Not fora year—no, not for two years, if you like. Oh,”—with a catch in hervoice,—“not till I can feel differently about you, Paul!” And she hungher head at the admission.
“Dear,” I said, “most dear and wonderful, can you not even now see howmonstrous it would be if I should seem, for a moment, to relinquish youto another? Soul and body must tell you you are mine, as I am yours. Butyour eyes are shut. You are a maid, and you do not realize what it isthat I would save you from. It is your very whiteness blinds you, sothat you do not see the intolerableness of what they would thrust uponyou. For you it would be a sin. You do not see it—but you would see it,awaking to the truth when it was too late. From the horror of thatawakening I must save you. I must”—
But she did not see; though her brain must have comprehended, her bodydid not; and therefore there could be no real comprehension of a matterso vital. She brushed aside my passionate argument, and came close up tome.
“Paul, dear,” she said, “I think I know the beauty of sacrifice. I amsure I know what is right. You cannot shake me. I know what must be inthe end. But if you will go and save yourself, I promise that the endshall be far off—so that he may grow angry, and perhaps even set mefree, as I have almost asked him to do. But now this is good-by, dear.You shall go. You will not disobey me. But you may say good-by to me.And as once you kissed my feet (they have been proud ever since),so—though it is a sin, I know—you may kiss my lips, just once,—and go.”
How little she knew what she was doing! Even as she spoke she was in myarms. The next moment she was trembling violently, and then she stroveto tear herself away. But I
was inexorable, and folded her close for yetan instant longer, till she was still. I raised my head and pushed her alittle away, holding her by both arms that I might see her face.
“Oh,” she gasped, “you are cruel! I did not mean that you should kiss meso—so hard.”
“My—wife!” I whispered irrelevantly.
“Let me go, sir,” she said, with her old imperious air, trying to removeherself from my grasp upon her arms. But I did not think it necessary toobey her. Then her face saddened in a way that made me afraid.
“You have done wrong, Paul,” she said heavily. “I meant you should justtouch me and go. You took unmanly advantage. Alas! I fear I have a badheart. I cannot be so angry as I ought. But I am resolved. You know,now, that I love you; that no other can ever have my _love_. But thatknowledge is the end of all between us, even of the friendship whichmight, one day, have comforted me. Go, I command you, if you would nothave me an unhappy woman forever!”
She wrenched herself free. Then, seeing me, as she thought, hesitate foran answer, she added firmly:
“I love you! But I love honour more, and obedience to the right, and myplighted word. Go!”
“I will _not_ go, my beloved, till you swear to tell the Englishmanto-morrow that you love me and intend to be my wife.”
“Listen,” she said. “If you do not go at once, I promise you that I willbe George Anderson’s wife to-morrow.”
I stared at her dumbly. Was it conceivable that she should mean suchmadness? Her eyes were fathomlessly sorrowful, her mouth was set. Howwas I to decide?
But fortune elected to save me the decision. A sharp voice came from thebank above—
“I arrest you, in the king’s name!”
We glanced up. There stood a squad of red-coats, a spruce young officerat their head.
A Sister to Evangeline Page 25