“I told you I should come,” he said, with his ordinary sweet smile. “I told you that I should follow you, and here I am.”
He took her hand, and held it, pressing it warmly. She hardly knew with what words first to address him, or how to get her hand back from him.
“I am very glad to see you—as an old friend,” she said; “but I hope—”
“Well;—you hope what?”
“I hope you have had some better cause for travelling than a desire to see me?”
“No, dearest; no. I have had no better cause, and, indeed, none other. I have come on purpose to see you; and had Mr. Palliser taken you off to Asia or Africa, I think I should have felt myself compelled to follow him. You know why I follow you?”
“Hardly,” said she—not finding at the moment any other word that she could say.
“Because I love you. You see what a plainspoken John Bull I am, and how I come to the point at once. I want you to be my wife; and they say that perseverance is the best way when a man has such a want as that.”
“You ought not to want it,” she said, whispering the words as though she were unable to speak them out loud.
“But I do, you see. And why should I not want it?”
“I am not fit to be your wife.”
“I am the best judge of that, Alice. You have to make up your mind whether I am fit to be your husband.”
“You would be disgraced if you were to take me, after all that has passed;—after what I have done. What would other men say of you when they knew the story?”
“Other men, I hope, would be just enough to say, that when I had made up my mind, I was tolerably constant in keeping to it. I do not think they could say much worse of me than that.”
“They would say that you had been jilted, and had forgiven the jilt.”
“As far as the forgiveness goes, they would tell the truth. But, indeed, Alice, I don’t very much care what men do say of me.”
“But I care, Mr. Grey;—and though you may forgive me, I cannot forgive myself. Indeed I know now, as I have known all along, that I am not fit to be your wife. I am not good enough. And I have done that which makes me feel that I have no right to marry anyone.” These words she said, jerking out the different sentences almost in convulsions; and when she had come to the end of them, the tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I have thought about it, and I will not. I will not. After what has passed, I know that it will be better—more seemly, that I should remain as I am.”
Soon after that she left him, not, however, till she had told him that she would meet him again at dinner, and had begged him to treat her simply as a friend. “In spite of everything, I hope that we may always be friends—dear friends,” she said.
“I hope we may,” he answered;—“the very dearest.” And then he left her.
In the afternoon he again encountered Mr. Palliser, and having thought over the matter since his interview with Alice, he resolved to tell his whole story to his new acquaintance—not in order that he might ask for counsel from him, for in this matter he wanted no man’s advice—but that he might get some assistance. So the two men walked off together, up the banks of the clear-flowing Reuss, and Mr. Palliser felt the comfort of having a companion.
“I have always liked her,” said Mr. Palliser, “though, to tell the truth, I have twice been very angry with her.”
“I have never been angry with her,” said the lover.
“And my anger was in both instances unjust. You may imagine how great is my confidence in her, when I have thought she was the best companion my wife could have for a long journey, taken under circumstances that were—that were—; but I need not trouble you with that.”
So great had been the desolation of Mr. Palliser’s life since his banishment from London that he almost felt tempted to tell the story of his troubles to this absolute stranger. But he bethought himself of the blood of the Pallisers, and refrained. There are comforts which royalty may never enjoy, and luxuries in which such men as Plantagenet Palliser may not permit themselves to indulge.
“About her and her character I have no doubt in the world,” said Grey. “In all that she has done I think that I have seen her motives; and though I have not approved of them, I have always known them to be pure and unselfish. She has done nothing that I did not forgive as soon as it was done. Had she married that man, I should have forgiven her even that—though I should have known that all her future life was destroyed, and much of mine also. I think I can make her happy if she will marry me, but she must first be taught to forgive herself. Living as she is with you, and with your wife, she may, perhaps, just now be more under your influence and your wife’s than she can possibly be under mine.” Whereupon, Mr. Palliser promised that he would do what he could. “I think she loves me,” said Mr. Grey.
Mr. Palliser said that he was sure she did, though what ground he had for such assurance I am quite unable to surmise. He was probably desirous of saying the most civil thing which occurred to him.
The little dinner-party that evening was pleasant enough, and nothing more was said about love. Lady Glencora talked nonsense to Mr. Grey, and Mr. Palliser contradicted all the nonsense which his wife talked. But this was all done in such a way that the evening passed away pleasantly. It was tacitly
