Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 57

"Yes," said Nell, forgetting her own misery in sympathy for him.

He looked at her quickly.

"You have noticed it?"

Nell inclined her head.

"I have lived in the house--I have seen----" she faltered.

He nodded once or twice.

"Yes; I suppose that you could not help seeing that there has been a--a gulf between us; that we are not as other, happier, husbands and wives."

He sighed, and pa.s.sed his hand across his brow wearily.

"But we are not the only couple who, living in the same house, are asunder. I am not the only man who has to endure, secretly and with a smiling face, the fact that his wife does not care for him."

Nell raised her head, and the color came to her pale face.

"You are wrong--wrong!" she said, in a low voice, but eagerly.

"Wrong? I beg your pardon?" he said gravely.

"It is all a terrible mistake," said Nell. "She does care for you. Oh, yes, yes! It is you who have been blind; it is your fault. It is hers, too; but you are the man, and it is your place to speak--to tell her that you love her----"

He reddened as he turned to her with a curious eagerness and surprise.

"I don't understand you," he said, with a shake in his voice. "Do you mean me to infer that--that I have been under a delusion in thinking that my wife----"

Nell rose and stretched out her hands with a gesture of infinite weariness.

"Oh, how blind you are!" she said, almost impatiently. "You think that she does not care for you, and she thinks that of you, and you are both in love with each other."

His face glowed, and a strange brightness--the glow of hope--shone in his eyes.

"Take care!" he said huskily. "You--you use words lightly, perhaps unthinkingly----"

Nell laughed, with a kind of weary irritation.

"I am telling you the truth; I am trying to open your eyes," she said.

"She loves you."

"Why--why do you think so? Have you ever heard her address a word to me that had a note of tenderness in it?"

"Have you ever addressed such a word to her?" retorted Nell.

He started, and gazed at her confusedly.

"You have always treated her as if she were a mere acquaintance, some one who was of no consequence to you. Oh, yes, you have been polite, kind, in a way, but not in a way a woman wants. I am only a girl, but--but"--she thought again of Drake, of her own love story, and her lips trembled--"but I have seen enough of the world to know that there is nothing which will hurt and harden a woman more than the 'kindness'

with which you have treated her. I think--I don't know, but I think if I cared for a man, I would rather that he should beat me than treat me as if I were just a mere acquaintance whom he was bound to treat politely.

And did you think that it was she who was to show her heart? No; a woman would rather die than do that. It is the man who must speak, who must tell her, ask her for her love. And you haven't, have you, Lord Wolfer?"

He put his hand to his brow and bit his lips.

"G.o.d forgive me!" he murmured. Then he looked at her steadily. "Yes, you have opened my eyes! Heaven grant that I may see this thing as you see it! Heaven grant it! My dear"--his voice shook with his grat.i.tude--"where--where did you learn this wisdom, this knowledge of the human heart?"

Nell drew a long breath painfully, and her gray eyes grew dark.

"It isn't wisdom," she said wearily. "Any schoolgirl knows as much, would see what I have seen--though a man might not. You have been too busy, too taken up with politics--politics!--and she--she has tried to forget her troubles in lecturing, and meetings and committees. And all the while her heart was aching with longing, with longing for just one word from you."

The earl turned his head aside.

"Ah! if you doubt it still, go to her!" said Nell. "Go and ask her!"

"I will," he said, raising his head, his eyes glowing. "I will go."

He moved to the door, then stopped and came back to her; he had forgotten her, forgotten the tragic scene in which he had just taken part.

"I beg your pardon! Forgive me! It was ungrateful of me to forget your trouble, my dear!"

Nell made a gesture of indifference.

"It does not matter," she said dully. "I--I will go."

"Go?" he said.

"Yes. I will go--leave the house at once. I could not stay."

She looked round as if the walls were closing in on her.

Wolfer knit his brows perplexedly.

"I--I do not like the idea of your going. Where will you go?"

"Home," she said; and the word struck across her heart and almost sent the tears to her eyes.

He went to the window and came back again.

"If--if you think it best," he said doubtfully. "I know that--that it must be painful to you to remain here, that the a.s.sociations of this house----"

"Yes--yes," said Nell, almost impatiently.

"I need not say--indeed, I know that I need not--that no word of--of what has occurred this morning will ever pa.s.s my lips," he said in a low voice.

Nell looked up swiftly.

"Yes. Promise me, promise me on your honor that you will not tell Lady Wolfer!" she said.

"I promise," said the earl solemnly.