her promised visits to pay to her aunt Glegg, and it was natural that she should give her mother more than usual of her companionship in these last weeks, especially as there were preparations to be thought of for Tom's housekeeping. But Lucy would hear of no pretext for her remaining away in the evenings; she must always come from aunt Glegg's before dinner, — 'else what shall I have of you?' said Lucy, with a tearful pout that could not be resisted.
And Mr. Stephen Guest had unaccountably taken to dining at Mr. Deane's as often as possible, instead of avoiding that, as he used to do. At first he began his mornings with a resolution that he would not dine there, not even go in the evening, till Maggie was away. He had even devised a plan of starting off on a journey in this agreeable June weather; the headaches which he had constantly been alleging as a ground for stupidity and silence were a sufficient ostensible motive. But the journey was not taken, and by the fourth morning no distinct resolution was formed about the evenings; they were only foreseen as times when Maggie would still be present for a little while, — when one more touch, one more glance, might be snatched. For why not? There was nothing to conceal between them; they knew, they had confessed their love, and they had renounced each other; they were going to part. Honor and conscience were going to divide them; Maggie, with that appeal from her inmost soul, had decided it; but surely they might cast a lingering look at each other across the gulf, before they turned away never to look again till that strange light had forever faded out of their eyes.
Maggie, all this time, moved about with a quiescence and even torpor of manner, so contrasted with her usual fitful brightness and ardor, that Lucy would have had to seek some other cause for such a change, if she had not been convinced that the position in which Maggie stood between Philip and her brother, and the prospect of her self-imposed wearisome banishment, were quite enough to account for a large amount of depression. But under this torpor there was a fierce battle of emotions, such as Maggie in all her life of struggle had never known or foreboded; it seemed to her as if all the worst evil in her had lain in ambush till now, and had suddenly started up full-armed, with hideous, overpowering strength! There were moments in which a cruel selfishness seemed to be getting possession of her; why should not Lucy, why should not Philip, suffer? She had had to suffer through many years of her life; and who had renounced anything for her? And when something like that fulness of existence — love, wealth, ease, refinement, all that her nature craved — was brought within her reach, why was she to forego it, that another might have it, — another, who perhaps needed it less? But amidst all this new passionate tumult there were the old voices making themselves heard with rising power, till, from time to time, the tumult seemed quelled. Was that existence which tempted her the full existence she dreamed? Where, then, would be all the memories of early striving; all the deep pity for another's pain, which had been nurtured in her through years of affection and hardship; all the divine presentiment of something higher than mere personal enjoyment, which had made the sacredness of life? She might as well hope to enjoy walking by maiming her feet, as hope to enjoy an existence in which she set out by maiming the faith and sympathy that were the best organs of her soul. And then, if pain were so hard to her, what was it to others? 'Ah, God! preserve me from inflicting — give me strength to bear it.' How had she sunk into this struggle with a temptation that she would once have thought herself as secure from as from deliberate crime? When was that first hateful moment in which she had been conscious of a feeling that clashed with her truth, affection, and gratitude, and had not shaken it from her with horror, as if it had been a loathsome thing? And yet, since this strange, sweet, subduing influence did not, should not, conquer her, — since it was to remain simply her own suffering, — her mind was meeting Stephen's in that thought of his, that they might still snatch moments of mute confession before the parting came. For was not he suffering too? She saw it daily — saw it in the sickened look of fatigue with which, as soon as he was not compelled to exert himself, he relapsed into indifference toward everything but the possibility of watching her. Could she refuse sometimes to answer that beseeching look which she felt to be following her like a low murmur of love and pain? She refused it less and less, till at last the evening for them both was sometimes made of a moment's mutual gaze; they thought of it till it came, and when it had come, they thought of nothing else.
One other thing Stephen seemed now and then to care for, and that was to sing; it was a way of speaking to Maggie. Perhaps he was not distinctly conscious that he was impelled to it by a secret longing — running counter to all his self-confessed resolves — to deepen the hold he had on her. Watch your own speech, and notice how it is guided by your less conscious purposes, and you will understand that contradiction in Stephen.
Philip Wakem was a less frequent visitor, but he came occasionally in the evening, and it happened that he was there when Lucy said, as they sat out on the lawn, near sunset,–
'Now Maggie's tale of visits to aunt Glegg is completed, I mean that we shall go out boating every day until she goes. She has not had half enough boating because of these tiresome visits, and she likes it better than anything. Don't you, Maggie?'
'Better than any sort of locomotion, I hope you mean,' said Philip, smiling at Maggie, who was lolling backward in a low garden-chair; 'else she will be selling her soul to that ghostly boatman who haunts the Floss, only for the sake of being drifted in a boat forever.'
'Should you like to be her boatman?' said Lucy. 'Because, if you would, you can come with us and take an oar. If the Floss were but a quiet lake instead of a river, we should be independent of any gentleman, for Maggie can row splendidly. As it is, we are reduced to ask services of knights and squires, who do not seem to offer them with great alacrity.'
She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was sauntering up and down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto,–
'The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine.'
He took no notice, but still kept aloof; he had done so frequently during Philip's recent visits.
'You don't seem inclined for boating,' said Lucy, when he came to sit down by her on the bench. 'Doesn't rowing suit you now?'
'Oh, I hate a large party in a boat,' he said, almost irritably. 'I'll come when you have no one else.'
Lucy colored, fearing that Philip would be hurt; it was quite a new thing for Stephen to speak in that way; but he had certainly not been well of late. Philip colored too, but less from a feeling of personal offence than from a vague suspicion that Stephen's moodiness had some relation to Maggie, who had started up from her chair as he spoke, and had walked toward the hedge of laurels to look at the descending sunlight on the river.
'As Miss Deane didn't know she was excluding others by inviting me,' said Philip, 'I am bound to resign.'
'No, indeed, you shall not,' said Lucy, much vexed. 'I particularly wish for your company to-morrow. The tide will suit at half-past ten; it will be a delicious time for a couple of hours to row to Luckreth and walk back, before the sun gets too hot. And how can you object to four people in a boat?' she added, looking at Stephen.
'I don't object to the people, but the number,' said Stephen, who had recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his rudeness. 'If I voted for a fourth at all, of course it would be you, Phil. But we won't divide the pleasure of escorting the ladies; we'll take it alternately. I'll go the next day.'
This incident had the effect of drawing Philip's attention with freshened solicitude toward Stephen and Maggie; but when they re-entered the house, music was proposed, and Mrs. Tulliver and Mr. Deane being occupied with cribbage, Maggie sat apart near the table where the books and work were placed, doing nothing, however, but listening abstractedly to the music. Stephen presently turned to a duet which he insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing; he had often done the same thing before; but this evening Philip thought he divined some double intention in every word and look of Stephen's, and watched him keenly, angry with himself all the while for this clinging suspicion. For had not Maggie virtually denied any ground for his doubts on her side? And she was truth itself; it was impossible not to believe her word and glance when they had last spoken together in the garden. Stephen might be strongly fascinated by her (what was more natural?), but Philip felt himself rather base for intruding on what must be his friend's painful secret. Still he watched. Stephen, moving away from the piano, sauntered slowly toward the table near which Maggie sat, and turned over the newspapers, apparently in mere idleness. Then he seated himself with his back to the piano, dragging a newspaper under his elbow, and thrusting his hand through his hair, as if he had been attracted by some bit of local news in the 'Laceham Courier.' He was in reality looking at Maggie who had not taken the slightest notice of his approach. She had always additional strength of resistance when Philip was present, just as we can restrain our speech better in a spot that we feel to be hallowed. But at last she heard the word 'dearest' uttered in the softest tone of pained entreaty, like that of a patient who asks for something that ought to have been given without asking. She had never heard that word since the moments in the lane at Basset, when it had come from Stephen again and again, almost as involuntarily as if it had been an
