“I know,” continued Knight, with an indescribable drag of manner and intonation—“I know I am absurdly scrupulous about you—that I want you too exclusively mine. In your past before you knew me—from your very cradle—I wanted to think you had been mine. I would make you mine by main force. Elfride,” he went on vehemently, “I can’t help this jealousy over you! It is my nature, and must be so, and I hate the fact that you have been caressed before: yes, hate it!”
She drew a long deep breath, which was half a sob. Knight’s face was hard, and he never looked at her at all, still fixing his gaze far out to sea, which the sun had now resigned to the shade. In high places it is not long from sunset to night, dusk being in a measure banished, and though only evening where they sat, it had been twilight in the valleys for half an hour. Upon the dull expanse of sea there gradually intensified itself into existence the gleam of a distant lightship.
“When that lover first kissed you, Elfride was it in such a place as this?”
“Yes, it was.”
“You don’t tell me anything but what I wring out of you. Why is that? Why have you suppressed all mention of this when casual confidences of mine should have suggested confidence in return? On board the Juliet, why were you so secret? It seems like being made a fool of, Elfride, to think that, when I was teaching you how desirable it was that we should have no secrets from each other, you were assenting in words, but in act contradicting me. Confidence would have been so much more promising for our happiness. If you had had confidence in me, and told me willingly, I should—be different. But you suppress everything, and I shall question you. Did you live at Endelstow at that time?”
“Yes,” she said faintly.
“Where were you when he first kissed you?”
“Sitting in this seat.”
“Ah, I thought so!” said Knight, rising and facing her.
“And that accounts for everything—the exclamation which you explained deceitfully, and all! Forgive the harsh word, Elfride—forgive it.” He smiled a surface smile as he continued: “What a poor mortal I am to play second fiddle in everything and to be deluded by fibs!”
“Oh, don’t say it; don’t, Harry!”
“Where did he kiss you besides here?”
“Sitting on—a tomb in the—churchyard—and other places,” she answered with slow recklessness.
“Never mind, never mind,” he exclaimed, on seeing her tears and perturbation. “I don’t want to grieve you. I don’t care.”
But Knight did care.
“It makes no difference, you know,” he continued, seeing she did not reply.
“I feel cold,” said Elfride. “Shall we go home?”
“Yes; it is late in the year to sit long out of doors: we ought to be off this ledge before it gets too dark to let us see our footing. I daresay the horse is impatient.”
Knight spoke the merest commonplace to her now. He had hoped to the last moment that she would have volunteered the whole story of her first attachment. It grew more and more distasteful to him that she should have a secret of this nature. Such entire confidence as he had pictured as about to exist between himself and the innocent young wife who had known no lover’s tones save his—was this its beginning? He lifted her upon the horse, and they went along constrainedly. The poison of suspicion was doing its work well.
An incident occurred on this homeward journey which was long remembered by both, as adding shade to shadow. Knight could not keep from his mind the words of Adam’s reproach to Eve in Paradise Lost, and at last whispered them to himself—
“Fool’d and beguiled: by him thou, I by thee!”
“What did you say?” Elfride inquired timorously.
“It was only a quotation.”
They had now dropped into a hollow, and the church tower made its appearance against the pale evening sky, its lower part being hidden by some intervening trees. Elfride, being denied an answer, was looking at the tower and trying to think of some contrasting quotation she might use to regain his tenderness. After a little thought she said in winning tones—
“ ‘Thou hast been my hope, and a strong tower for me against the enemy.’ ”
They passed on. A few minutes later three or four birds were seen to fly out of the tower.
“The strong tower moves,” said Knight, with surprise.
A corner of the square mass swayed forward, sank, and vanished. A loud rumble followed, and a cloud of dust arose where all had previously been so clear.
“The church restorers have done it!” said Elfride.
At this minute Mr. Swancourt was seen approaching them. He came up with a bustling demeanour, apparently much engrossed by some business in hand.
“We have got the tower down!” he exclaimed. “It came rather quicker than we intended it should. The first idea was to take it down stone by stone, you know. In doing this the crack widened considerably, and it was not believed safe for the men to stand upon the walls any longer. Then we decided to undermine it, and three men set to work at the weakest corner this afternoon. They had left off for the evening, intending to give the final blow tomorrow morning, and had been home about half an hour, when down it came. A very successful job—a very fine job indeed. But he was a tough old fellow in spite of the crack.” Here Mr. Swancourt wiped from his face the perspiration his excitement had caused him.
“Poor old tower!” said Elfride.
“Yes, I am sorry for it,” said Knight. “It
