CHAPTER LVIII.

AFTER THE PROPOSAL.

He did not answer this; but his footsteps were still heard among the leaves that had fallen along the footpath, and she followed his retreating figure with eyes so full of anguish that I could not help pitying her.

When Lawrence could no longer be seen through the trees, she sunk to the rock, folded both her hands over her knees, and fairly moaned with pain. There was no weeping; but dry sobs broke from her lips like gushes of lava from a crater.

I remained still crouching at the foot of the hemlock, and sheltered completely by one of its wing-like branches. I was safe from detection, so steep was the descent that, without stepping to the very verge, there was no chance that any person could discover me. I had no compunction or question of honor to contend against. The contest going on in our household had become too serious for shrinking from anything that was not absolutely criminal in our defence. So bracing my foot against the ash, and sheltering my presence under the dusky hemlock, I too waited, determined not to move till that wretched woman left the ridge.

Mrs. Dennison was very restless, changing her position every moment, and starting up if the least sound reached her from the woods. As time wore on, she seemed to listen till the very breath upon her lips paused. The birds, that, as I have said before, were very tame on the ground, made her restive with their singing. She hated them, I am sure, for the sweet noise that prevented her hearing his footsteps.

I softly took out my watch and counted the time. He had not been absent more than fifteen minutes, when she sprang up, clenching both hands as if about to strike some one, and began to prowl up and down the path like a leopardess searching for her cubs. Now and then her voice broke through the foliage, and I could see her wringing her hands, or stamping her feet upon the dead leaves.

At last a footstep sounded from the woods; it was a man's step coming rapidly through the leaves. It had a hard sound, and I felt sure that the man was desperate. She evidently thought otherwise. Her arms fell helplessly down, and she crept back to the rock, white and still, but with her face turned away as if she would not let him see how anxious she was.

He came up to the rock from the woods, crossed the footpath with a single stride, and stood before her so stern, so bitterly incensed, that she shrunk away from his first glance, yet a flash of irresistible joy shot to the eyes with which she eagerly questioned him.

"Well!"

The lips from which this word came were almost smiling. Nature was strong in the woman, and, spite of her selfishness, she exulted over the ruin of her own plans.

"Well!" was the bitter response; "I have humiliated myself like a hound--proposed and am rejected."

The woman sprang toward him with both hands extended; but he stepped back, and she clasped them in an outgush of joy.

"Then it is over! Oh, heavens, how glad I am! this hour has been such torture! What would a whole life be? I should go mad. Let the property go--sweep the whole thing aside! How many poor people in the world are happy! In poverty or out of it, you and I will be all in all to each other!"

She was "pure womanly" then, notwithstanding her crafty nature and bad heart; there was something in her abandonment that made my blood thrill.

But Lawrence stepped back, and his face clouded.

She looked at him in amazement.

"What is this? Can wounded vanity affect you so much?"

"Wounded vanity, madam? Will you forever misunderstand me? How dare you consider me as an accomplice in your odious designs? If I have passed them by in silence, it was no sign that I approved or shared them."

These words were uttered with the force of terrible indignation. The woman to whom they were addressed stood confounded before the speaker, whom she had evidently, up to that moment, believed to be her lover.

"Lawrence--Lawrence! can this be real?" at last broke from her quivering lips.

While speaking, she laid her hand on his arm, but he pushed it off loathingly, as if a reptile had been creeping over him.

At this repulse, all the queenliness of her air fell away, and she seemed to shrink into a smaller person. The anguish so evident in her face appeared to touch his compassion; his features cleared themselves of stormy rage and hardened like marble. He took one of her hands in a firm grasp, and addressed her from that moment in a low, concentrated voice, that thrilled through one as nothing but true feeling can.

"Mrs. Dennison, this is the last time that you and I shall ever converse together."

The woman uttered a low cry, and seized his arm with her disengaged hand. He paused an instant, glanced calmly down at her hand, which clung trembling to his sleeve, and went on:--

"We met at a watering-place unknown to each other, people of the world, adventurers, if you will, and between us sprang up one of those flirtations which are so far removed from genuine affection that the two never exist together. We called it love--perhaps thought it so--for a brief time; for I confess to a sentiment regarding you which no ordinary person could have inspired."

The woman lifted her eyes at his softened voice, and with an expression that must have gone to his soul; never in my life had I seen so much gratitude in a glance.

"But this was not love!"

The white hand dropped away from his arm; he grasped the other tighter, as if to impress his words more forcibly on her.

"I never did love you, Mrs. Dennison. Such expressions as are admitted in society, without real meaning, I may have used, and you perhaps construed them into deeper significance than they possessed. I--"

Mrs. Dennison lifted her two hands with impatient deprecation.

"Enough, enough!" she said; "more words are useless; I comprehend you."

"And hold me blameless, I trust?"

"Blameless? Oh, yes!" There was bitter whiteness on her lips, and her eyes flashed fiercely.

The sneer relieved him. There had been something of compassion, even of regret, in his voice till then; but the curl of her lips drove all such feeling away.

"At least," he continued, promptly, "any blame that I might myself feel it just to assume, has been a thousand times overbalanced by your conduct, regarding one of the brightest and sweetest creatures that the sun ever shone upon."

The bitter sneer spread all over the woman's face, leaving it cold and white.

"You speak of Miss Lee?"

The voice in which she uttered these words was fearfully concentrated, and her agitation kept her still as a serpent before it springs.

"Yes, madam, I speak of the lady who once, at least, received me kindly; but who, yielding to your machinations, has just sent me from her presence forever, a rejected, desperate man, for I love her better than my own soul!"

A faint sound, sharp as a cry, deep as a grave, broke from the woman. Lawrence did not heed it, but turned away and left her, seemingly forgetful that it was a farewell. She followed him with her great, wild eyes, struggled with herself, and evidently strove to cry out; but her locked features refused to stir. The cold lips took a blue tinge, but gave no sound. She stood like Lot's wife, with all the vitality stricken from her limbs, listening to his footsteps as they died among the leaves. Then she uttered a low cry, sprang forward to follow him, and fell prone across the footpath.