第103章 Chapter 16 (3)

But Mrs Markland persisted. ‘‘l have had all sorts of teachers,'' she went on, ‘‘but the best of all, the most intelligent and the most attentive, w a Mr Hartright. If you ever take up your drawing again, do y him as a master. He is a young man -- modest and gentlemanlike -- I am sure you will like him.'' Think of those words being spoken to me publicly, in the presence of strangers -- strangers who had been invited to meet the bride and bridegroom! I did all I could to control myself -- I said nothing, and looked down close at the drawings. When I ventured to raise my head again, my eyes and my husband's eyes met, and I knew, by his look, that my face had betrayed me. ‘‘We will see about Mr Hartright,'' he said, looking at me all the time, ‘‘when we get back to England. I agree with you, Mrs Markland -- I think Lady Glyde is sure to like him.'' He laid an emphasis on the last words which made my cheeks burn, and set my heart beating as if it would stifle me. Nothing more was said. We came away early. He was silent in the carriage driving back to the hotel. He helped me out, and followed me upstairs as usual. But the moment we were in the drawing-room, he locked the door, pushed me down into a chair, and stood over me with his hands on my shoulders. ‘‘Ever since that morning when you made your audacious confession to me at Limmeridge,'' he said, ‘‘I have wanted to find out the man, and I found him in your face tonight. Your drawing-master was the man, and his name is Hartright. You shall repent it, and he shall repent it, to the last hour of your lives. Now go to bed and dream of him if you like, with the marks of my horsewhip on his shoulders.'' Whenever he is angry with me now he refers to what I acknowledged to him in your presence with a sneer or a threat. I have no power to prevent him from putting his own horrible construction on the confidence I placed in him.

I have no influence to make him believe me, or to keep him silent. You looked surprised today when you heard him tell me that I had made a virtue of necessity in marrying him. You will not be surprised again when you hear him repeat it, the next time he is out of temper -- Oh Marian! don't! don't! you hurt me!'

I had caught her in my arms, and the sting and torment of my remorse had closed them round her like a vice. Yes! my remorse. The white despair of Walter's face, when my cruel words struck him to the heart in the summer-house at Limmeridge, rose before me in mute, unendurable reproach. My hand had pointed the way which led the man my sister loved, step by step, far from his country and his friends. Between those two young hearts I had stood, to sunder them for ever, the one from the other, and his life and her life lay wasted before me alike in witness of the deed. I had done this, and done it for Sir Percival Glyde.

For Sir Percival Glyde.

I heard her speaking, and I knew by the tone of her voice that she was comforting me -- I, who deserved nothing but the reproach of her silence!

How long it was before I mastered the absorbing misery of my own thoughts, I cannot tell. I was first conscious that she was kissing me, and then my eyes seemed to wake on a sudden to their sense of outward things, and I knew that I was looking mechanically straight before me at the prospect of the lake.

‘It is late,' I heard her whisper. ‘It will be dark in the plantation.'

She shook my arm and repeated, ‘Marian! it will be dark in the plantation.'

‘Give me a minute longer,' I said -- ‘a minute, to get better in.'

I was afraid to trust myself to look at her yet, and I kept my eyes fixed on the view.

It was late. The dense brown line of trees in the sky had faded in the gathering darkness to the faint resemblance of a long wreath of smoke.

The mist over the lake below had stealthily enlarged, and advanced on us.

The silence was as breathless as ever, but the horror of it had gone, and the solemn mystery of its stillness was all that remained.

‘We are far from the house,' she whispered. ‘Let us go hack.'

She stopped suddenly, and turned her face from me towards the entrance of the boat-house.

‘Marian!' she said, trembling violently. ‘Do you see nothing? took!'

‘Where?'

‘Down there, below us.'

She pointed. My eyes followed her hand, and I saw it too.

A living figure was moving over the waste of heath in the distance.

It crossed our range of view from the boat-house, and passed darkly along the outer edge of the mist. It stopped far off, in front of us -- waited -- and passed on; moving slowly, with the white cloud of mist behind it and above it -- slowly, slowly, till it glided by the edge of the boat-house, and we saw it no more.

We were both unnerved by what had passed between us that evening. Some minutes elapsed before Laura would venture into the plantation, and before I could make up my mind to lead her back to the house.

‘Was it a man or a woman?' she asked in a whisper, as we moved at last into the dark dampness of the outer air.

‘I am not certain.'

‘Which do you think?'

‘It looked like a woman.'

‘I was afraid it was a man in a long cloak.'

‘It may be a man. In this dim light it is not possible to be certain.'

‘Wait, Marian! I'm frightened -- I don't see the path. Suppose the figure should follow us?'

‘Not at all likely, Laura. There is really nothing to be alarmed about.

The shores of the lake are not far from the village, and they are free to any one to walk on by day or night. It is only wonderful we have seen no living creature there before.'

We were now in the plantation. It was very dark -- so dark, that we found some difficulty in keeping the path. I gave Laura my arm, and we walked as fast as we could on our way back.

Before we were half-way through she stopped, and forced me to stop with her. She was listening.