Chapter XIII: The Last Appeal

Robert Wodrow, on the afternoon referred to in our last chapter, was, we have said, engaged elsewhere than at the manse, and yet he was not very far away.

Incidents trivial at the time had now recurred with convincing and accumulating force to his feverish mind on one hand; on the other, he feared that he might have been too hasty in his condemnation, and too summary in his suspicions, in quitting the party at Craigmhor as he had done; yet where were these two all the time he had missed them, and what was the subject of their discourse while he had been lingering amid the gay groups in the sunshine, and was grotesquely tortured by the music of the band?

And the token he had prayed for had not been accorded! How he loathed the little world in which he lived; how he longed to eschew everyone there, and get far away from the Birks of Invermay, for to see Ellinor among these with another, and that other 'the slimy Sleath,' as he thought, would drive him mad.

To think of Ellinor--to meet and hang about her; to anticipate her every wish and want, so far as lay in his humble power, had been for years--in the intervals of his hard studies--the daily occupation of Robert Wodrow's life; and now all this was at an end; his 'occupation,' like Othello's, seemed gone.

Knowing that Mary was at the manse, he thought he would find Ellinor at home alone, and he was right, so he ventured near Birkwoodbrae to make a 'last appeal;' and yet even in this he had been, to a certain extent, interfered with by his rival.

The latter, well aware of the time when Mary Wellwood was generally abroad among her poor people, or otherwise employed, had sent his valet, John Gaiters--a well-trained rascal--with a beautiful bouquet and a perfumed note to Ellinor.

In the note he urged her by every means in her power to preserve secrecy close as the grave concerning the terms on which they were, lest his expectations might be destroyed, and with them her own; and then he pressed her to meet him at a certain point near the Linn on the May, at a given time, when he would tell her more.

This missive was curiously and most warily worded to be the production of one who professed to be such an ardent lover. It did not bear even his signature, but only his initials mysteriously twisted into a species of monogram. To one more worldly wise or less foolish than Ellinor, some doubts would have been inspired by its tenor alone, but she had none, and simply felt joy and tumult in her breast.

She clasped the golden locket round her neck, and with brightness spreading over her sweet face, contemplated herself in a hand mirror, while indulging in daydreams of her future as Lady Sleath, being driven in a splendid carriage to Buckingham Palace, or down St. James's Street, with bare shoulders in broad daylight, with a train some yards long and diamonds in profusion, to be presented at the drawing-room in the gloomy old palace of the Tudors, surrounded by handsome fellows in snowy uniforms, who murmured compliments about her beauty.

Had 'dear Redmond' not described to her, too, something of the life they would lead together? Returning from Tyburnian and Belgravian balls at 6 a.m., breakfasting at mid-day, and then going for 'a spin' in the Row, where cavaliers would surround her, or canter by her side and beg for waltzes at Lady A.'s and the Countess of B.'s. Then dress again for a flower _fête_ at the Botanical Gardens; for pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham (wherever that was--poor Ellinor had not the ghost of an idea!) Sunday at the Zoo, and a dinner at the 'Star and Garter,' or it might be at the 'Trafalgar' in Greenwich, which she supposed to be one of H.M. ships.

Suddenly, amid visions such as these, unheard or unannounced, Robert Wodrow stood before her, hat in hand, and in his eyes, keen and dark grey, a brooding light that boded evil to some one!

He was pale almost to ghastliness, and her eyes drooped, as if a weight oppressed their full white lids when they met his fixed gaze. However, he took her proffered hand mechanically, and then she tried to talk gaily, not knowing what she said; but the talk proved a miserable failure.

How he longed to take her in his arms once again; to kiss her glossy brown hair, her damask cheek, her rosy lips; to implore her to love him still and share his humble future! But no; it would be more cowardly to take any advantage then of any passing remorse she might feel; and better was it, perhaps, that she should marry this other man, if he really loved her, and forget--if she could--that there was such a poor fellow as Robert Wodrow in the secluded world she would leave behind her; and he said something of this to her in faltering accents, and for a time the heart of Ellinor faltered too--but for a time only.

The new vision was too bright to fade quickly away!

'I am eating my heart out with sorrow and uncertainty--I am sick of suspense, Ellinor,' he said, after a pause; 'our happy meetings, our walks, our talks, our plans for the future--are they all as nothing to you now, Ellinor?'

'That is it, Robert,' she said, making a prodigious effort to be calm and cool; 'you see, Robert, we have been so much together.'

'All our days, Ellinor!'

'Too much so--yes, all our days; so it never struck me that--that----'

'What, darling?'

'You cared for me in _that_ way.'

'Indeed! Your doubts come too late.'

'Or I might have learned to care too,' she said, with confusion.

'You did love me, and care for me too, before that fellow Sleath came among us,' said Robert, gloomily; for it seemed hard indeed that, after the happiness of their boyhood and girlhood, after all the budding hopes of riper years, under this man's new and hateful influence, she made light of him and his love--mocked him, it seemed, laughed at him for being so foolish to care for her 'in that way,' as she phrased it.

'Robert,' said she, after a pause, 'why be so angry about a little flirtation?'

She spoke deprecatingly, and her face wore a sickly smile.

'To flirt was never your wont, and I have read that the essence of flirting is that it is a stolen pleasure, the future results of which cannot be foreseen.'

'It would be tame between such old friends as you and I, Robert.'

'Tame indeed--and unnatural,' said he, huskily.

His eyes, which hitherto had been fixed upon her colourless face, now fell upon the ornament she was wearing--an ornament he had never seen before; and from its apparent value his heart too surely foreboded who the donor was; yet he disdained to refer to it, though he said, upbraidingly,

'Oh, Ellinor, how I have loved, and still love you, is known only to Heaven and myself; yet never again shall my hand touch yours; never again my arm go round you; never more shall my lips touch yours, though yearning--oh, God only knows how intensely--longing to do so once again--only once again!'

She evinced no sign of a truce in this position, and was devoutly hoping that Robert Wodrow would adopt some other _rôle_ than that of lover.

'Robert,' she said, nervously, 'are we not friends?'

'No.'

'Can we not be friends again?'

'_Friends!_ How can you ask me? It was, you well know, always understood,' he continued, making an effort to be calm, 'that when I could afford to marry, you, Ellinor, would be my wife. Why take all my love and give me back not an atom now?'

She accorded no answer.

'You have ceased to be true to me. I have known and felt it for weeks past,' he continued, 'and yet I cannot regain my freedom of heart.'

Her head was weary, but her heart was beating wildly and painfully; and Robert's eyes, as he surveyed her with all their sadness of expression, were expressive of the fondest love.

Never before had these two spoken or confronted each other with bitterness of heart until now, and each felt that for the other all was over, and that the tender past, 'the grace of a day that was dead,' would never come again.

'Robert, I have always hated the idea of being poor,' urged Ellinor, as if to extenuate herself, 'and with you, a young, struggling, country practitioner, supposing the summit of your ambition won, I should never be otherwise. Pardon me,' she added, recalling the Alnaschar visions his visit had interrupted, 'if I speak unkindly.'

'Say, rather, cruelly, and you will be nearer the truth, Ellinor Wellwood; yet I am sorry for you.'

'Be not so, Robert. I repeat that I would never be happy poor--now,' she added, involuntarily.

'You have made that discovery since this interloper came!'

She was silent, but her silence was assent, and he took it as such.

'Not happy even at dear old Birkwoodbrae or the home I meant to provide close by it?' he said, reproachfully.

'Be reasonable, Robert; happen what may, we can always be dear friends.'

'Friends--again!' he exclaimed, sternly; 'you and I, Ellinor?'

Then his manner changed, for the greatness of his love made him very humble, and he said,

'Do you know what you are doing--do you fully think of it even? You cannot love this man, Ellinor, whom, I suppose, you are going to marry, as you loved me.'

'Marriage, Robert!' said she, blushing deeply now; 'how fast your thoughts run.'

'How?'

'If that is to be, it is in the future, of course--but just now----'

She paused with some confusion, as she thought of the injunctions laid by Sleath upon her.

'You cannot love him?'

'Perhaps not quite exactly yet, Robert,' replied Ellinor, not knowing really what to say, and feeling some shame at the part she was acting; 'but think of his position, and the place he can give me--a poor, almost penniless, girl--in society.'

'And in that place you expect to be happy?'

'I shall have substantial grounds for happiness, and I think, Robert dear, you wish me well.'

'Heaven knows I do, though you are learning fast to forget. Search your heart, Ellinor,' he continued, piteously; 'think over our past, darling--of our mutually anticipated future, in which each seemed to see only the other. Against reason, hope, and all I hear I cannot forget, and hence I love you--love you still, Ellinor.'

He stretched out his hands to her, and his eyes grew very dim.

For a moment she was tempted to throw herself upon his loving breast, and there sob out her remorse and seek his forgiveness; but the demons of pride and ambition ruled her heart too strongly now, and she withheld or crushed the emotions of pity and generosity that so fleetly inspired her.

When that emotion came again they were far apart, and it came too late--too late!

How this last meeting _might_ have ended it is difficult to say; but Robert Wodrow, thinking it was useless to protract the agony he felt, pressed his tremulous lips to her right hand, and, without trusting himself to look again in her face, swiftly withdrew, and quitted the house.

Poor Robert! She was indeed sorry for him--sorry that the old friendly relations, as she strove to deem them now, should be broken up. 'They had been such chums'--Robert, more justly, deemed it 'lovers'--in the dear past time that would never--could never--come again!

Better a thousand times, if it was to be, that they parted now, and that it was over--all over and done with, thought Ellinor, after a time.

Amid all this there was a strange and conflicting--a mysterious foreboding in her mind, that by casting off the honest love of Robert Wodrow she might be entailing future misery on herself.

The last appeal had been made, and, though in vain, young Wodrow did not regret that he had made it, but he feared that Ellinor might be following a shadow and missing the substance. So true it is that 'the golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; that angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.'