“Glencora, do not speak like that. Do not try to make me think that anything could tempt you to be false to your vows.”
“Tempt me to be false! Why, child, it has been all false throughout. I never loved him. How can you talk in that way, when you know that I never loved him? They browbeat me and frightened me till I did as I was told;—and now;—what am I now?”
“You are his honest wife. Glencora, listen to me.” And Alice took hold of her arm.
“No,” she said, “no; I am not honest. By law I am his wife; but the laws are liars! I am not his wife. I will not say the thing that I am. When I went to him at the altar, I knew that I did not love the man that was to be my husband. But him—Burgo—I love him with all my heart and soul. I could stoop at his feet and clean his shoes for him, and think it no disgrace!”
“Oh, Cora, my friend, do not say such words as those! Remember what you owe your husband and yourself, and come away.”
“I do know what I owe him, and I will pay it him. Alice, if I had a child I think I would be true to him. Think! I know I would;—though I had no hour of happiness left to me in my life. But what now is the only honest thing that I can do? Why, leave him;—so leave him that he may have another wife and be the father of a child. What injury shall I do him by leaving him? He does not love me; you know yourself that he does not love me.”
“I know that he does.”
“Alice, that is untrue. He does not; and you have seen clearly that it is so. It may be that he can love no woman. But another woman would give him a son, and he would be happy. I tell you that every day and every night—every hour of every day and of every night—I am thinking of the man I love. I have nothing else to think of. I have no occupation—no friends—no one to whom I care to say a word. But I am always talking to Burgo in my thoughts; and he listens to me. I dream that his arm is round me—”
“Oh, Glencora!”
“Well!—Do you begrudge me that I should tell you the truth? You have said that you would be my friend, and you must bear the burden of my friendship. And now—this is what I want to tell you.—Immediately after Christmas, we are to go to Monkshade, and he will be there. Lady Monk is his aunt.”
“You must not go. No power should take you there.”
“That is easily said, child; but all the same I must go. I told Mr. Palliser that he would be there, and he said it did not signify. He actually said that it did not signify. I wonder whether he understands what it is for people to love each other;—whether he has ever thought about it.”
“You must tell him plainly that you will not go.”
“I did. I told him plainly as words could tell him. ‘Glencora,’ he said—and you know the way he looks when he means to be lord and master, and put on the very husband indeed—‘This is an annoyance which you must bear and overcome. It suits me that we should go to Monkshade, and it does not suit me that there should be anyone whom you are afraid to meet.’ Could I tell him that he would lose his wife if I did go? Could I threaten him that I would throw myself into Burgo’s arms if that opportunity were given to me? You are very wise, and very prudent. What would you have had me say?”
“I would have you now tell him everything, rather than go to that house.”
“Alice, look here. I know what I am, and what I am like to become. I loathe myself, and I loathe the thing that I am thinking of. I could have clung to the outside of a man’s body, to his very trappings, and loved him ten times better than myself!—ay, even though he had ill-treated me—if I had been allowed to choose a husband for myself. Burgo would have spent my money—all that it would have been possible for me to give him. But there would have been something left, and I think that by that time I could have won even him to care for me. But with that man—! Alice you are very wise. What am I to do?”
Alice had no doubt as to what her cousin should do. She should be true to her marriage-vow, whether that vow when made were true or false. She should be true to it as far as truth would now carry her. And in order that she might be true, she should tell her husband as much as might be necessary to induce him to spare her the threatened visit to Monkshade. All that she said to Lady Glencora, as they walked slowly across the chapel. But Lady Glencora was more occupied with her own thoughts than with her friend’s advice. “Here’s Jeffrey!” she said. “What an unconscionable time we have kept him!”
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “And I shouldn’t have come to you now, only that I thought I should find you both freezing into marble.”
“We are not such cold-blooded creatures as that—are we, Alice?” said Lady Glencora. “And now we’ll go round the outside; only we must not stay long, or we shall frighten those two delicious old duennas, Mrs. Marsham and Mr. Bott.”
These last words were said as it were in a whisper to Alice; but they were so whispered that there was no real attempt to keep them from the ears of Mr. Jeffrey Palliser. Glencora, Alice thought, should not have allowed the
