第244章

We've nothing to do with all that; we're quite out of it; we look at things as they are.You took the great step in coming away; the next is nothing; it's the natural one.I swear, as I stand here, that a woman deliberately made to suffer is-justified in anything in life-in going down into the streets if that will help her! I know how you suffer, and that's why I'm here.We can do absolutely as we please; to whom under the sun do we owe anything? What is it that holds us, what is it that has the smallest right to interfere in such a question as this? Such a question is between ourselves-and to say that is to settle it! Were we born to rot in our misery-were we born to be afraid? I never knew you afraid! If you'll only trust me, how little you will be disappointed! The world's all before us-and the world's very big.I know something about that."Isabel gave a long murmur, like a creature in pain; it was as if he were pressing something that hurt her."The world's very small,"she said at random; she had an immense desire to appear to resist.She said it at random, to hear herself say something; but it was not what she meant.The world, in truth, had never seemed so large; it seemed to open out, all round her, to take the form of a mighty sea, where she floated in fathomless waters.She had wanted help, and here was help; it had come in a rushing torrent.I know not whether she believed everything he said; but she believed just then that to let him take her in his arms would be the next best thing to her dying.This belief, for a moment, was a kind of rapture, in which she felt herself sink and sink.In the movement she seemed to beat with her feet, in order to catch herself, to feel something to rest on.

"Ah, be mine as I'm yours!" she heard her companion cry.He had suddenly given up argument, and his voice seemed to come, harsh and terrible, through a confusion of vaguer sounds.

This however, of course, was but a subjective fact, as the metaphysicians say; the confusion, the noise of waters, all the rest of it, were in her own swimming head.In an instant she became aware of this."Do me the greatest kindness of all," she panted."Ibeseech you to go away!"

"Ah, don't say that.Don't kill me!" he cried.

She clasped her hands; her eyes were streaming with tears."As you love me, as you pity me, leave me alone!"He glared at her a moment through the dusk, and the next instant she felt his arms about her and his lips on her own lips.His kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed; and it was extraordinarily as if, while she took it, she felt each thing in his hard manhood that had least pleased her, each aggressive fact of his face, his figure, his presence, justified of its intense identity and made one with this act of possession.So had she heard of those wrecked and under water following a train of images before they sink.But when darkness returned she was free.

She never looked about her; she only darted from the spot.There were lights in the windows of the house; they shone far across the lawn.In an extraordinarily short time-for the distance was considerable-he had moved through the darkness (for she saw nothing)and reached the door.Here only she paused.She looked all about her; she listened a little; then she put her hand on the latch.She had not known where to turn; but she knew now.There was a very straight path.

Two days afterwards Caspar Goodwood knocked at the door of the house in Wimpole Street in which Henrietta Stackpole occupied furnished lodgings.He had hardly removed his hand from the knocker when the door was opened and Miss Stackpole herself stood before him.She had on her hat and jacket; she was on the point of going out."Oh, good-morning," he said, "I was in hopes I should find Mrs.Osmond."Henrietta kept him waiting a moment for her reply; but there was a good deal of expression about Miss Stackpole even when she was silent.

"Pray what led you to suppose she was here?""I went down to Gardencourt this morning, and the servant told me she had come to London.He believed she was to come to you."Again Miss Stackpole held him-with an intention of perfect kindness-in suspense."She came here yesterday, and spent the night.

But this morning she started for Rome."

Caspar Goodwood was not looking at her; his eyes were fastened on the doorstep."Oh, she started-?" he stammered.And without finishing his phrase or looking up he stiffly averted himself.But he couldn't otherwise move.

Henrietta had come out, closing the door behind her, and now she put out her hand and grasped his arm."Look here, Mr.Goodwood," she said;"just you wait!"

On which he looked up at her-but only to guess, from her face, with a revulsion, that she simply meant he was young.She stood shining at him with that cheap comfort, and it added, on the spot, thirty years to his life.She walked him away with her, however, as if she had given him now the key to patience.

THE END