Another pause of silence ensued. Lady Muriel’s face was hard to read: she looked pleased, I thought, but also puzzled; and I felt curious to know whether her question had, as I began to suspect, some bearing on the breaking off of her engagement with Captain (now Major) Lindon.
“You have relieved me from a great fear,” she said; “but the thing is of course wrong, somehow. What texts would you quote, to prove it wrong?”
“Any that enforce the payment of debts. If A promises something to B, B has a claim upon A. And A’s sin, if he breaks his promise, seems to me more analogous to stealing than to lying.”
“It’s a new way of looking at it—to me,” she said; “but it seems a true way, also. However, I won’t deal in generalities, with an old friend like you! For we are old friends, somehow. Do you know, I think we began as old friends?” she said with a playfulness of tone that ill accorded with the tears that glistened in her eyes.
“Thank you very much for saying so,” I replied. “I like to think of you as an old friend,” (“—though you don’t look it!” would have been the almost necessary sequence, with any other lady; but she and I seemed to have long passed out of the time when compliments, or any such trivialities, were possible.)
Here the train paused at a station, where two or three passengers entered the carriage; so no more was said till we had reached our journey’s end.
On our arrival at Elveston, she readily adopted my suggestion that we should walk up together; so, as soon as our luggage had been duly taken charge of—hers by the servant who met her at the station, and mine by one of the porters—we set out together along the familiar lanes, now linked in my memory with so many delightful associations. Lady Muriel at once recommenced the conversation at the point where it had been interrupted.
“You knew of my engagement to my cousin Eric. Did you also hear—”
“Yes,” I interrupted, anxious to spare her the pain of giving any details. “I heard it had all come to an end.”
“I would like to tell you how it happened,” she said; “as that is the very point I want your advice about. I had long realised that we were not in sympathy in religious belief. His ideas of Christianity are very shadowy; and even as to the existence of a God he lives in a sort of dreamland. But it has not affected his life! I feel sure, now, that the most absolute Atheist may be leading, though walking blindfold, a pure and noble life. And if you knew half the good deeds—” she broke off suddenly, and turned away her head.
“I entirely agree with you,” I said. “And have we not our Saviour’s own promise that such a life shall surely lead to the light?”
“Yes, I know it,” she said in a broken voice, still keeping her head turned away. “And so I told him. He said he would believe, for my sake, if he could. And he wished, for my sake, he could see things as I did. But that is all wrong!” she went on passionately. “God cannot approve such low motives as that! Still it was not I that broke it off. I knew he loved me; and I had promised; and—”
“Then it was he that broke it off?”
“He released me unconditionally.” She faced me again now, having quite recovered her usual calmness of manner.
“Then what difficulty remains?”
“It is this, that I don’t believe he did it of his own free will. Now, supposing he did it against his will, merely to satisfy my scruples, would not his claim on me remain just as strong as ever? And would not my promise be as binding as ever? My father says ‘no’; but I can’t help fearing he is biased by his love for me. And I’ve asked no one else. I have many friends—friends for the bright sunny weather; not friends for the clouds and storms of life; not old friends like you!”
“Let me think a little,” I said: and for some minutes we walked on in silence, while, pained to the heart at seeing the bitter trial that had come upon this pure and gentle soul, I strove in vain to see my way through the tangled skein of conflicting motives.
“If she loves him truly,” (I seemed at last to grasp the clue to the problem) “is not that, for her, the voice of God? May she not hope that she is sent to him, even as Ananias was sent to Saul in his blindness, that he may receive his sight?” Once more I seemed to hear Arthur whispering “What knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband?” and I broke the silence with the words “If you still love him truly—”
“I do not!” she hastily interrupted. “At least—not in that way. I believe I loved him when I promised; but I was very young: it is hard to know. But, whatever the feeling was, it is dead now. The motive on his side is Love: on mine it is—Duty!”
Again there was a long silence. The whole skein of thought was tangled worse than ever. This time she broke the silence. “Don’t misunderstand me!” she said. “When I said my heart was not his, I did not mean it was anyone else’s! At present I feel bound to him; and, till I know I am absolutely free, in the sight of God, to love any other than him, I’ll never even think of anyone else—in that way, I mean. I would die sooner!” I had never imagined my gentle friend capable
