Chapter XIII

“We twain have met like ships upon the sea,
Who hold an hour’s converse, so short, so sweet,
One little hour, and then away they speed
On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam,
To meet no more.”

_The Life Drama._

Leicester heard from Mrs. Osborne the next morning. She gave a message from Violet, simply begging to see Leicester on the afternoon of the following day; and always kind and gentle, added from herself that she was sure he had suffered much anxiety on their account, and that she had felt for him.

Unable to bear the torture of his sisters’ looks during the next thirty hours of uncertainty, Leicester wished them good-bye, with an intimation that he should sleep out of town; and having calmed and strengthened himself by those hours of solitary reflection, proceeded at the appointed time to the house in Park Lane. He had thought much on Rachel’s words, and was resolved if an opening was given, to act upon them. It did, as he had expressed it to her, break his heart to be the one to cause his sisters poverty or loss; but in his silent reflections he felt there might be a pride of duty--to be vanquished like all other kinds of pride--and he submitted himself to the necessity laid upon him.

He was shown into the drawing-room, and very quickly Violet came to him there. At the very first glance, he saw how much she was changed. Some countenances, especially when the features themselves are finely formed, look as lovely or even lovelier in dejection and melancholy; but it was not so with Violet. Her features had been so animated by the light, and warmth, and good-will within, that they seemed to have lost even the beauty of their form now that that inner light was darkened. Their softness and smoothness seemed to be hardened into a stern composure, and her dark blue eyes, which once, without metaphor, did shine like stars, were now as dull and heavy as a stormy cloud.

Leicester saw the change in the very first glance, and, unable to argue on its cause, seeing only the change which a few days’ sorrow had made, was about to spring forward--all self forgotten, all the strife between love and duty to his sisters forgotten--to spring forward, lost in one feeling of love and compassion for her, when a second gaze arrested him. That second gaze revealed not the change only, but a something _in_ the change that awed and chilled him; he paused, while the spring of love welled slowly backwards into the recesses of his heart.

They met calmly, coldly, and silently; and with a slight movement Violet directed him to a chair. He sat down and said nothing. He saw the expected moment was come. He was nothing to her; and he would not, by one forward word or movement, lay a claim upon her, or add to the troubled passions of her mind.

It might have been but one minute. It seemed to him ten before she spoke. Her lips parted twice before any sound was heard, and when she did speak, it was hurriedly.

“There has been such a change, Mr. Leicester, as I never contemplated; and in that change everything, all relations and engagements of life are changed. It is well to face the truth at once.”

It was what he had expected. The engagement between them was dissolved. He knew it; he had known it from the glance of her eye and the touch of her hand; but he could not speak. He heard it in silence, only steadfastly gazing at her, to hear all her will.

She had expected a word; perhaps in her innermost heart, in the unconscious mysteries of the mind, had expected a denial, and more hurriedly and passionately she went on:

“It is right to look things in the face. I am no longer what I was. My hopes in life are changed; my duties are changed. I cannot be a wife now; I must be a daughter, and a daughter only. Life has become very dark, but I think if I am _free_,” and she drew a deep breath, as if shaking herself from a chain that galled her, “I shall be strong enough to bear it.” She stopped again, and a second time sighed a sigh, of relief rather than of sorrow.

Leicester spoke at last. “All your will shall be done,” he said, in a low but steady voice. “We are free. Henceforward we travel on alone.”

There was a something in the tone of his voice which made Violet’s heart ache and throb, and then die; a something that faintly told the love he bore her, the love and sympathy she was rejecting; but though the voice spoke, the words were unimpassioned and cold. She offered freedom, and it was accepted without one effort to bind her. Her proud spirit felt it, and at the bidding of her proud spirit the fluttering heart was stilled.

“He does not want a poor wife,” she inwardly said, with a kind of passionate coldness, and she became strong again at the thought.

They were free, and they sat opposite to each other free; free and cold and silent.

“You, have suffered much, and are much changed,” at last Leicester gravely said.

Proud tears flashed in her eyes, and she said bitterly,

“We are badly taught. If we were taught in youth that human life is subject to change like this, we should not set our hearts on any earthly thing. I shall do so no more.”

“You are young,” he said, “to live and have no heart in the world. I shall wish you better things.”

Her heart ached again. There was no passion in his calm voice, but it touched some chord which for the moment seemed to strain almost to breaking.

She shook her head, but said nothing.

There was a pause, and then Leicester began in the same tone, and pursuing the same train of thought:

“When the violence of the shock is over, you will wake up as in a new life, and I know you well enough to be sure that you will give, and therefore find happiness, as you have hitherto done....”

“I shall have no power to give,” she interrupted, in the bitter passionate tone in which she had last spoken; “the spring is dry.”

“Oh! Violet,” he said, unconsciously calling her by the name which for many months had made a ceaseless strain of music in his heart, “are your thoughts so poor as to think money alone can bless? You have still yourself, and the good heart God has given you. I shall hear of you,” he continued, after another moment’s pause, “I know I shall, the friend, the comforter, the help of many! When the eye sees it will bless you, when the ear hears it will leap for joy.”

Softer tears trembled in Violet’s eyes. She shook her head, but it was more gently; and there was a passing away of pride, for the moment at least, when she said,

“Why do you say ‘hear?’ We shall still be friends.”

“No, Violet,” he said, with a grave and melancholy dignity, “I cannot be a friend. We part; henceforward we travel on alone. Some men might bear to be friends, to live by the ashes of a fire that is gone out; but I cannot. We are free, and we must part.”

Violet sat paralysed in heart and soul. Vaguely, dimly, she saw in the far future the blank, if a blank _can_ be seen, she felt the aching void, if a void _can_ be felt, which the loss of his love would make; in the long vista of future years she saw, dimly indeed, yet saw it still, the cravings and longings of her heart for a something which she was wilfully casting away; but she saw and felt, and was dumb. She had done the deed, she had set him free, and, suffer as she might, she would not ask again the love she had rejected.

There was another long pause, and then Leicester slowly rose.

“What must be, should be quickly done,” he said, approaching her. “I will not distress you with many words of parting. God bless you! and in His good time make you happy again. Farewell!”

He took her hand; looked into her startled and troubled eyes; calmly and gently, yet with impulsive movement, pressed his lips on her cheek, and had left the room before she recovered from the amazed and bewildered trance into which his sudden rising had cast her.

She could then have shrieked his name to call on him to return, but the iron hand of pride and the stronger hand of a woman’s nature bound her to her seat, and kept her still.

So they parted; and a silent barrier of days, and months, and years grew up between those who, but an hour before, had been bound for life to each other; a barrier caused not by circumstances of God’s sending, not by the chances of human life, but by the pride of two hearts.