Philip Winwood Part 21

"I'm sure you shouldn't blame me," said she. "You enabled me to learn how to endure your absence. You stayed away all these years. Naturally I've come to consider you as--"

"Nay, don't attempt to put me in the wrong. My heart is as warm to you as ever, in spite of the years of absence. Those years have made no change in me. Why should they have changed you, then? No--'tis not their fault if you are changed, nor mine neither. There is something wrong, I see. Be frank, dear, and tell me what it is. You need not be afraid of me--you know I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head. Oh, sweetheart, what has come between us? Tell me, I beg!"

"Why, nothing, of course--nothing but the gulf that time has widened.

That's all--sure 'tis enough."

"But 'tis more than that. Were that all, and I came back to you thus, a minute's presence would bridge that gulf. All the old feelings would rush back. Why, if I were but a mere acquaintance whom you had once known in a friendly way, you wouldn't have greeted me so coldly. There would have been cordiality, smiles, a warm clasp of the hand, questions about my health and doings, at least a curiosity as to how I had pa.s.sed the years. But you meet me, not merely with lack of warmth, but with positive coldness. Nay, you were shocked, startled, frightened! You turned white, and stood still as if you saw a spirit, or as if you were caught in some crime! Yes, 'twas for all the world like that! And what was't you said? It pa.s.sed me then, I was so amazed at my reception--so different from the one I had pictured all the way thither, all the weeks and months. What was't you said?"

"Some word of surprise, I suppose; something of no meaning."

"Nay, it had meaning, too. I felt that, though I put it aside for the time. Something about the night--ah, yes: 'to-night of all nights.'

And me of all men. Why so? Why to-night in particular? Why am I the most inconvenient visitor, and why _to-night_? Tell me that! Tell me--I have the right to know!"

"Nay, if you work yourself up into a fury so--"

"'Tis no senseless fury, madam! There's reason at the bottom of it, my lady! I must know, and I will know, what it is that my visit interferes with. You were not going out, I can see by your dress. Nor expecting company. Unless--no, it couldn't be that! You're not capable of that! You are my wife, you are Margaret Faringfield, William Faringfield's daughter. G.o.d forgive the mistrust--yet every husband with an imagination has tortured himself for an instant sometime with that thought, suppose his wife's heart _might_ stray? I've heard 'em confess the thought; and even I--but what a h.e.l.l it was for the moment it lasted! And how swiftly I put it from me, to dwell on your tenderness in the old days, your pride that has put you above the hopes of all men but me, the unworthy one you chose to reach down your hand to from your higher level!"

"So you have harboured _that_ suspicion, have you?" she cried, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes.

"No, no; harboured it never! Only let my perverse imagination 'light, for the s.p.a.ce of a breath, on the possibility, to my unutterable torment. All men's fancies play 'em such tricks now and then, to torture them and take down their vanity. Men would rest too easy in their security, were it not so."

"A man that suspects his wife, deserves to lose her allegiance," cried Margaret, with a kind of triumphant imputation of blame, which was her betrayal.

He gazed at her with the dawning horror of half-conviction.

"Then I have lost yours?" he asked, in a tone stricken with doubt and dread.

"I didn't say so," she replied, reddening.

"But your words imply that. You seemed to be justifying yourself by my suspicion. But there was no suspicion till now--nothing but a tormenting fancy of what I believed impossible. So you cannot excuse yourself that way."

"I'm not trying to excuse myself. There's nothing to excuse."

"I'm not sure of that! Your manner looks as if you realised having said too much--having betrayed yourself. Margaret, for G.o.d's sake, tell me 'tis not so! Tell me my fears are wrong! a.s.sure me I have not lost you--no, no, I won't even ask you. 'Tis not possible. I won't believe it of you--that you could be inconstant! Forgive me, dear--your strange manner has so upset me--but forgive me, I beg, and let me take you in my arms." He had risen to approach her.

"No, no! Don't. Don't touch me!" she cried, rising in turn, for resistance. She kept her mind fixed upon the expected rewards of her project, and so fortified herself against yielding.

"By heaven, I'll know what this means!" he cried. He looked wildly about the room, as if the explanation might somewhere there be found.

Her own glance went with his, as if there might indeed be some evidence, which she must either make s.h.i.+ft to conceal, or invent an innocent reason for its presence. Her eye rested an instant upon a book that lay on the table. Philip noted this, picked up the book, turned the cover, and read the name on the first leaf.

"'Charles Falconer.' Who is he?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'HE IS A--AN ACQUAINTANCE.'"]

"No matter," she said quickly, and made to s.n.a.t.c.h the book away. "He is a--an acquaintance. He is quartered in the house, in fact--a British officer."

"An acquaintance? But why do you turn red? Why look so confused? Why try to take the book away from me? Oh, my G.o.d, it is true! it is true!" He dropped the volume, sank back upon a chair, and regarded her with indescribable grief.

"Why," she blundered, "a gentleman may lend a lady a novel--"

"Oh, the lending is nothing! 'Twas your look and action when I read his name. 'Tis your look now, your look of guilt. Oh, to see that flush of discovered shame on _your_ face! You care for this man, I can see that!"

"Well, what if I do?"

"Then you confess it? Oh, can it be you that say this?--you that stand there with eyes that drop before mine for shame--nay, eyes that you raise with defiance! Brazen--oh, my G.o.d, my G.o.d, tell me 'tis all a mistake! Tell me I wrong you, dear; that you are still mine, my Margaret, my Madge--little Madge, that found me a home that day I came to New York; my pretty Madge, that cried when I was going to leave on Ned's account; that I loved the first moment I saw her, and--always--"

He broke down at this, and leaned forward upon the table, covering his face with his hands. When he next looked up, with haggard countenance, he saw her lips twitching and tears in her eyes.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, with a flash of hope, and half rose to go to her.

"No, no! Let me alone!" she cried, escaping narrowly from that surrender to her feelings which would have meant forfeiting the fruits of her long planning.

His mood changed.

"I'll not endure this," he cried, rising and pacing the floor. "You'll find I'm no such weakling, though I can weep for my wife when I lose her love. _He_ shall find it so, too! I understand now what you meant by 'to-night of all nights.' He was to meet you to-night. He's quartered in the house, you say. He was to slink up, no doubt, when all were out of the way--your father divines little of this, I'll warrant. Well, he may come--but he shall find _me_ waiting at my wife's door!"

"You'll wait in vain, then. He is very far from here to-night."

"I'll believe that when it's proven. I find 'tis well that I, 'of all men,' came here to-night."

"Nay, you're mistaken. You had been more like to find him to-night where you came from, than where you've come to."

How true it is that a woman may always be relied on to say a word too much--whether for the sake of a taunt, or the mere necessity of giving an apt answer, I presume not to decide.

"What can that mean?" said he, arrested by the peculiarity of her tone and look. "Find him where I came from? Why, that's our camp. What does he do there, 'to-night of all nights?' Explain yourself."

"Nothing at all. I spoke without thinking."

"The likelier to have spoken true, then! So your--acquaintance--might be found in our camp to-night? Charles Falconer, a British officer. I can't imagine--not as a spy, surely. Oho! is there some expedition?

Some attack, some midnight surprise? This requires looking into."

"I fear you will not find out much. And if you did, it would be too late for you to carry a warning."

"The expedition has too great a start of me--is that what you mean?

That's to be seen. I might beat Mr. Falconer in this, as he has beaten me--elsewhere. I know the Jersey roads better than I have known my wife's heart, perchance. What is this expedition?"

"Do you think I would tell you--if there were one?"

"I'm satisfied there is some such thing. But I doubt no warning of mine is needed, to defeat it. Our army is alert for these night attempts. We've had too many of 'em. If there be one afoot to-night, so much the worse for those engaged in it."

This irritated her; and she never used the skill to guard her speech, at her calmest; so she answered quickly:

"Not if it's helped by traitors in your camp!"

"What?--But how should you, a woman, know of such a matter?"

"You'll see, when the honours are distributed."

"This is very strange. You are in this officer's confidence, perhaps.