CHAPTER XVI.

_UNEXPECTED VISITORS AT MIDDLETHORPE._

And in pleading for life's fair fulfilment, I plead For all that you miss and all that you need.

After this the days passed on in the little village by the sea somewhat slowly and lingeringly. Spring blushed into summer, the bright early freshness of grass and foliage deepened into summer's maturity, the gray ocean wore a mild blue appearance as it rolled in on the yellow sands, and began to reveal its depths to those who skimmed it in the boats--some bound on pleasure and some on business--that left the shore from time to time. Over the dim, vast distance Summer cast her misty veil, shutting in earth and sea with her soft halos and vapors, and to the yellow sands came women and children, vanguard of the great army that later in the season would swoop down upon this village and others of the same type.

Margaret was often there with a book in her hand or a piece of work, and her child by her side; but generally she was unoccupied, her hands listless, her eyes growing daily deeper and more weary. For the strain on heart and spirit was rapidly becoming more than her physical strength could bear. She was fading visibly, but there was no loving eye near to note how her step grew more languid and her white fingers thinner, and her beautiful face more worn and sad till its very beauty seemed to be passing away. One noted the change, however, and took full advantage of it.

Jane Rodgers was becoming a kind of household tyrant; not that she ever again attempted the management of Laura--_that_ would have aroused what little spirit Margaret still possessed; her tyranny was exhibited in other ways. She would do precisely what she chose, leaving everything else undone--would spend days visiting her friends under the plea of change being an absolute necessity, and leave Mrs. Grey, who could not afford extra help, to manage matters for herself in the house; she would even reply insolently at times to some simple request made by her lodger, for she saw her power. A kind of indifference to life and its comforts was creeping gradually over Margaret, a numbing sense of weakness, a languid desire for rest--only rest. In such a frame she could scarcely have roused herself to undertake the exertion of moving. She felt that between herself and her landlady matters were not so pleasant as they had formerly been, but Laura was happy, and for herself she cared very little. The _one_ great sorrow, like an open wound whose throbbing engrosses every sense, made her comparatively indifferent to the little pin-pricks of her daily life.

She had one joy in these dark days. It was in the clinging affection of her daughter. Since the day of her return Laura and her mother had been far more to one another than ever before. The child opened her heart to her mother, told of all her little dreams and fancies, and Margaret began to talk to the little one even about the long sealed-up subject; not indeed her trouble and its origin--that would have been impossible as yet--but about the vague hope toward which in her darkness her thoughts ever turned. She spoke to Laura about her father, drew from her the story of her recollections, and tried to awaken and nourish in her young heart a reverent love for the parent she might perhaps never see.

For sometimes when Margaret felt her strength failing, a sudden fear for Laura's future would take possession of her. If--if--God should take her too from the little one! But that was a possibility at which she dared not glance. To live as she was living, lonely, unloved, was bad enough, but through all its darkness was a gleam of something bright, the hope of a vague, dim to-come, that might possibly bring back her joy. To die was to shut even this out, and for ever; to pass away unforgiven, misunderstood, a stain on her fair fame.

Would not that be past endurance?

Margaret could not face the idea of death, but with the bitter consciousness that it might come she did her duty to her child, and, though painful at first, it became sweet after a time. She trained her to think of the father who seemed to have cast her off--to love his memory, to look forward to his return: then, in any case, if indeed he too were in the land of the living, Laura would have a refuge. She would not pass from her mother's care and tenderness to the protection of one of whom she knew nothing; her father would _be_ her father, the longed, the looked-for, and perhaps in after days (it was seldom Margaret had strength to carry her thoughts so far), when she would have long been cold, he might hear from the lips of his daughter the tale of her ever-faithful love.

It was one of those warm, languid June days. The very sea seemed lazy as ripple after ripple crept in sighing to the shore. There was a blue, hazy vapor on even the near horizon, and scarcely a breath of air was stirring.

Margaret and Laura had found an approach to shelter from the fierce midday sun far up on one of the sand-cliffs, under a stunted shrub. They were sitting there together, the little Laura rather stiller than usual.

She had been running about on the sands with some small friends picked up among the visitors, and the heat had tired her. She sat at her mother's feet, with her head buried in her lap to hide it from the sun.

"Mamma," she cried from her safe retreat, "I had _such_ fun just now."

Margaret's thoughts were far away. She recalled them to interest herself in her child's amusements: "Had you, darling? Who were you playing with?--those little children in blue frocks?"

"One of them's bigger than me, mamma," said Laura reprovingly. "You saw me _then_, but you didn't see the tall gentleman with a big dog, for we were far away along the sands. He made his dog go in the water for his stick, oh, ever so many times! and then--Mamma, are you listening?"

"Yes, dear; what then?"

"He took me up on his shoulder and carried me a long way."

Margaret smiled languidly: "He must have taken a fancy to my little girl."

"But wasn't it funny?" said Laura meditatively; then starting up suddenly in her eagerness: "Mamma, do you know what I thought when he was so kind?"

"No, darling, how can I?"

"I thought"--Laura's eyes were sparkling with excitement--"that perhaps it was papa come back."

Her eager voice roused Margaret from her languor. She rose from her improvised couch among the branches, and resting one hand on the child's shoulder said as quietly as she could, "What brought such an idea into your little head?"

"Why, mamma, don't you see? I always think papa will come like that; he'll want to surprise us and see if we remember him. This gentleman asked me about my papa, and if he lived here. And when I said no, but he was coming back, he looked at me so funnily; then, before he let me go, he kissed me--a big kiss, mamma, like my papa used to give me long ago, when he lived here."

Margaret's heart had been swelling as the little voice flowed on. She could never have told why the childish fancy took such a hold upon her mind, but so it was; with Laura, she could not help feeling that the gentleman took more than a common interest in her. Was it true, then? Had he come back to them? Was her trouble to end? for she did not fear her Maurice; one short half hour, face to face, would be sufficient for them both--sufficient to break the icy barrier that lay between them, and to make them one again.

"Laura," she said, still with that forced quiet in her voice, "try and tell me what the gentleman was like."

This was a difficult task for the little one. She looked up to the sky for inspiration. "He was tall, mamma," she said at last, "and I think--I think there was something funny about his eyes; but he looked kind, and I haven't seen anybody like him before. Of course I don't remember what papa was like. He had a great big dog--_so_ big" (she extended both her arms by way of illustration)--"with a curly black coat and brown eyes, and a tail that wagged so funnily."

The dog was evidently easier to describe than the gentleman. Perhaps Laura was not singular in finding it rather difficult to string together his merits and demerits, even physically considered. He had been a puzzle to more than one in his transit through the world.

Margaret smiled at her child's enthusiasm. She was not much clearer about the identity of the stranger than she had been before, but a longing came over her to unravel the little mystery. She was ready to ridicule her own folly for seeing any mystery in the matter. Probably the gentleman was only some stray visitor at Middlethorpe's small hotel who had been pleased with Laura's fair, childish beauty; and yet the feeling was there. She must find him out and satisfy herself that he _was_ a stranger.

"Run home, darling," she said to her little girl, "and tell Jane to give you your dinner; afterward sit quietly in the parlor with your new story-book; before tea-time I shall be at home."

Laura hesitated: "You won't go to London, mamma?"

"Certainly not, my little daughter; now run away like a good child."

There was no disputing this. Laura returned to the little cottage, and Margaret remained alone on the cliff. She was anxious to find out her daughter's friend, and thus put out of her mind at once the haunting thoughts that Laura's simple fancy had implanted there.

It could not be a difficult task; there were few gentlemen with big dogs at Middlethorpe, for the lords of creation had not begun to indulge in the luxury of seaside idleness. They had sent some of their womenkind before; themselves were still busy on the world's highways. The gentleman who had taken so kindly an interest in her little daughter would certainly be identified with ease.

With a view to his discovery Margaret looked below. The sands, so busy a few minutes before, were dull and silent, for the flocks of little ones, with their nurses and mammas, had gone in for the early dinner, a necessary part of seaside life, and Middlethorpe might have been perfectly empty.

It was the stillness of a summer noontide, strangely oppressive to a restless heart. This way and that Margaret looked, up and down the sands, across the sea; no gentleman or big dog was in sight, and with a little sigh she turned to look for the book that had been lying by her side, to while away in its company the hour of forced inaction.

She turned, and became suddenly conscious of the startling fact that she was not alone--that while she had been looking down at the sands and across over the sea she had been joined by an unlooked-for companion, and he must have been there some minutes, for he had found time to settle himself satisfactorily. He looked perfectly at his ease, very near her in a reclining posture, his elbows on the sands and his head in his hand; he was not looking at her. He seemed to be watching the feathery clouds that were passing over the blue depths above or counting the insects that flitted past unceasingly; but she, when she caught sight of him, was not so calm. Her face blanched suddenly; she covered it with her hands, and a low cry--it might be of anger, it might be of dismay--came from her quivering lips.

At the sound he turned his gaze in her direction, showing as he did so a broad square brow, deep-set eyes and a dark, strongly-lined face, its plainness only relieved by the mouth, which was full yet delicately formed, the lips soft and ripe as those of any woman. It was partially veiled by a dark moustache, contrasting rather strangely with his head, which was covered by a crop of short gray hair. He did not look an Englishman; indeed, there was something strange in his appearance which would have rendered the classification of his type a difficult matter to the most skilful physiognomist. Only one point seemed to be tolerably evident: he belonged to the ardent South rather than the cold North, for even at the moment of her discovery, when he was striving, with all the strength of a strong nature, to show nothing but cool indifference, his breath was coming quick and hot, his eyes were sparkling, his fine mouth was quivering with excitement, and in his voice there was an unmistakable quiver as he spoke after a few moments' silence, spent by her in averting her face from his gaze, by him in watching curiously her every movement: "Marguerite!"

A deep musical voice and a slightly foreign accent. It seemed to excite her. She trembled from head to foot, and tried to rise from her seat. He put out his hand to detain her. "Not yet," he said sternly. "I must know first what all this means."

She looked up wonderingly.

"Ah! you know well," he continued more rapidly, and his voice taking a firmer timbre. "Why have you hid yourself? Why have you fled to the outskirts of creation to avoid me? Why are you shocked, terrified, when in my tenderest voice I speak the dear name you used to love to hear from my lips? Have I grown so very monstrous, or do you wish to kill yourself with this savage loneliness that your English nation so dearly loves? Speak! speak!--or rather speak not at all. Let me sit here for ever and feast my eyes on the loveliness a woman's whim has hid from me so long. Marguerite! Marguerite! my white pearl, it will be difficult for you to hide from me again."

She had risen to her feet, the angry color coming and going on her fair face, but, crouching before her, he held her by the dress and refused to let her stir.

"Marguerite," he cried, bitter pain in his voice, "I know I speak folly; you are not one of _my_ warm race; you are a cold daughter of proud England. But see, love, I will be patient. Sit down again. I am not near you now; only," and his brow contracted into a frown so fierce that it might mean a menace, "I am here now, and I must and will be heard."

Margaret reseated herself, but her face grew pale with suppressed anger. "If it is the manner of your race to insult the unprotected," she said bitterly, "I must congratulate myself on the fact that I do _not_ belong to it."

His face kindled. "Spoken like yourself, _ma reine_," he said softly. "I kiss your hands. I am, what I have ever been, your devoted servitor."

"If so, Mr. L'Estrange," she said, slowly and distinctly, but as if speaking with some difficulty, "I must beg you to leave me at once."

He smiled--a smile that irradiated his face like sunshine: "I was rash, _ma belle_; sometimes obedience is an impossibility. But see! what are you afraid of? Look at me, devoted to you body and soul, your friend, ready to do you the smallest service; only asking this in return, that I may be permitted to stay where I can see you, can offer you kindly greeting from time to time--a common acquaintance, nothing more."

She would not look at him. Her eyes were fixed on a distant speck on the horizon--the sail of a ship or the long line of smoke from a passing steamer.

"You have forced yourself upon me," she said in a low, constrained voice; "you know your presence is distasteful, and you know why. But for you these years of what you are pleased to call savage loneliness would never have been."

He did not seem to hear her; he was carrying on a kind of soliloquy. "She is changed," he said, gazing at her still, "yes, and fading. The rich bloom in her cheek, the laughing sparkle in her eye, the fair roundness of form, it is passing--passing; but, _helas! mon Dieu!_ is she not fairer than ever in her pure, sad whiteness? Ah, Marguerite, my pearl! how could he ever have doubted you?"

Almost fiercely she answered, the fire of indignation giving back to her eyes the sparkle of the olden days: "And _you_ can ask that--you from whom all the misery came? _He_ knew what had passed between you and me before our marriage. _He_ trusted me, my life was blest; _you_ came between us and destroyed my happiness."

"Gently, gently, my fair Marguerite," he said, pleadingly; "you English are a justice-loving people. Is it not your law that allows what they call extenuating circumstances? That meeting between you and me need never have taken place. If you remember, I warned you. I received no answer. Silence gives consent. Was I less or more than human not to avail myself of it?"

It was true--too true. Margaret hid her face in her hands, and when she next spoke her voice was low and pleading: "Mr. L'Estrange, you are cruel. Yes--God forgive me!--I was to blame, and He has punished me sorely; but have pity on me--leave me here."

A smile played over his lips, but she could not see it; he drew nearer to her and touched the folds of her dress with a hand that was burning.

"It is time it should end," he said, trying to gaze into her hidden face, "It was all a mistake, a grand mistake. I should never have allowed it, only I wanted faith. I dared not drag _you_ into any uncertain future. Ah, my white pearl! who understands you so well as I? Do you remember--shall I, can I, ever forget?--those few blessed days? We were happy, Margaret--happy as children to whom the present is all; the future was not even named between us, for when a cloud, born of the North, your childhood's home, passed over your gentle mind, I was able to dispel it. Those moonlight excursions on the silver water of fair Venice--your friends were with us, yet we were alone, for the kindly darkness made us almost forget their presence; the serenades--ah! I see your memory is no worse than mine; the soft harmonies dying away in the far distance as we sat together in our gondola, our hands clasped, our souls rapt to ecstasy; the lessons in astronomy on those clear spring evenings when you and _notre chere fillette_ scanned in turns the deep, star-spangled sky; that day spent in exploring, Margaret--your pretty coquetry had vexed me, but the soft golden radiance of pictured glass, the sculptured marbles in that beautiful church, the Scalzi, soothed my soul and I was at rest, your softly gleaming eyes telling of your sympathy in my joy; the pictures, Margaret--our delight when we were able to trace the hand of the greatest masters, and pronounce, without guide or cicerone, on the authorship of one of our favorites,--yes, these were pleasures. I sometimes think that they were pleasures too pure, too high, for any but the gods, and in their jealousy they dashed the cup of bliss from our lips. But," his voice deepened; he drew so near to her that his hot, passionate breath fanned her cheek, "they have given us one more chance. Shall we be wise and seize it? Ah, _ma belle_! I see it passing. Happiness! think what that is; it is not often offered to the dull sons and daughters of humanity, and, Margaret, we have once rejected it."

He spoke, and gradually the bitterness seemed to pass from Margaret's face. There came into her eyes a lustrous shining to replace the fierce light with which she had greeted his first words; she even leant over toward him and allowed him to touch her pale face with his strong, nervous hand. For all was on his side for the moment. The strange, wellnigh overpowering fascination he possessed--memory, imagination, present loneliness and a certain bitter rising of indignation which the readiness of her husband's mistrust and desertion could not but cause her at times.

He saw his advantage. "It is not all forgotten, then, _ma bien-aimee_?" he whispered tenderly. "That past beautiful time is still there--there in the shrine of your pure heart. Tell me once for all, shall it return? _He_ has forsaken you, insulted you by his mistrust; you owe him no duty; and what is it that I ask of you? The restoration of your friendship--nothing more."

The voice was soft, thrilling, full of an unspeakable pathos, and at first as she heard her brain felt dizzy and a delicious languor seemed to steal over her senses. It would be so sweet to yield, to renew in her dull prime some of the fair joys of youth. Could she not accept his friendship, for that, after all, is an every-day matter? He knew her too well to presume.

And while she pondered, with a weakness utterly new to this fair, proud woman, he stood before her, looking down upon her fixedly. Her eyes fell before his. What met them? Nothing more novel than the Indian scarf she usually wore. It had dropped from her shoulders and was hanging on her arm.

A trifle at such a time, but do not life and its issues hang sometimes on a thread? The scarf recalled Margaret to herself, for it brought another past to her mind. It had been her husband's gift to her--presented on the occasion of the little Laura's birth--and as she glanced on it there came to her mind a host of gentle memories. _His_ words, _his_ looks, his pride in her, the glad confidence of his strong, young manhood,--she felt them once more around her like the pale ghosts of a happy time gone by for ever; but they had been real once, warm, living flesh and blood; and with their holy power they warded off the tempter's influence.

Her first feeling was of burning shame and penitence. Was she then so absolutely weak? Should it be possible for misery and loneliness even to degrade her, to take from her that in which, through all her misery, she had rejoiced--the proud consciousness of unshaken rectitude? For even to listen to this man's blandishments was infinite degradation, the dragging down of her white soul to the base level of his.

Thoughts like these rushed tumultuously into her mind as she looked down still upon her husband's gift; and suddenly she drew herself back shivering, as one might do who had been standing unconsciously close to the edge of a great abyss.

He did not understand her gesture. The soft look was still in his eyes, and he made a movement to take her in his arms. But the new strength of her soul, born of the agonizing penitence for that _one_ weak thought, seemed to have given to her the power she needed. She thrust out both her hands before her, pushing him back so rudely that he stumbled some steps down the sand-cliff; but he soon recovered his footing. With a look in which pleading and indignation were mingled he tried to approach her; she kept him off still.

"Leave me! leave me!" she cried "What have I said, what have I done, that you should look at me like this?" And then she covered her face with both hands. "My God! my God!" she moaned, piteously; "has even good forsaken me?"

Middlethorpe dinner-hour was over. The sun had passed its meridian height, the shadows of shrub and cliff were beginning to lengthen, and with the drawing on of evening came a moaning, sighing wind that ruffled the pale waters at their feet. It seemed an echo of Margaret's wail.

Her persecutor had turned from her; apparently he could control himself no longer. Taking a stone, he threw it far out into the sea: it was the angry gesture of a child whose will has been crossed. He walked a few steps along the path that skirted the cliff, but it seemed as if he could not go finally. He went back to where he had left her sitting mute and helpless.

"I thought you had gone," she said, flashing up at him a glance that was not pleasant to meet.

He looked down upon her with apparent calmness, though all his pulses were quivering with rage and disappointment: "I have not much more to say, _ma belle_, for I fear you are in earnest this time. What a fool I was to imagine for one moment that you possessed a heart! Go your own way, then; starve yourself of all happiness, die, for the sake of your husband, the man who has cast you off. But--you remember the old days; I was always something of a prophet, and my predictions came to pass--I tell you this: a trouble--one _I_ could have averted--is hanging over you still. You shake your head, you have suffered to the extent of suffering. Bah! in all hearts there is one assailable point. You are not superhuman, _ma reine_. It is possible that your husband, the man who loved you once, may be nearer than you dream, and thinking other thoughts than yours."

What could he mean? Margaret looked up wildly, for he was turning from her to the winding path that led down the sand-cliff to the sea. "Stay, stay!" she cried.

He looked round at her. "Madam," he said politely, with the bow of a courtier, "it is my turn to be obdurate. I would fain obey you--I cannot: your refusal of all friendly offices has sealed my lips, and time presses. Farewell! The humblest of all your devotees kisses your hands and wishes you joy."