“They have done it,” he said—“you must know that—when a higher claim came in.”
“Is there any higher claim? Every other is at our own choice, but this is nature. God made it. It cannot change. There may be other—other”—she faltered, her voice grew choked—“but only one mother,” she said.
“Other—other?” he cried. “What? To me there has been but one, as you know. I have put all my chances in one. God made it? Has not God made you and me one?—whom God has joined together—”
“Oh, Theo.” She got up and came towards him, holding out her hands. “One, to bear each other’s burdens, to help each other; not to go against nature, to abandon what is the first of duties. Theo! oh, help me; do not make it impossible, do not rend me in two! What can I say to you? Theo!” She tottered in her weakness; her limbs were not strong enough to support her. But Warrender made no forward step. He did not take the hands she held out to him. He had to be firm. It was now or never, he said to himself.
“If we are ever to live happily together the sacrifice must be made. I don’t want to hurt you, Frances. If I seem harsh, it is for our good, the good of both of us. Make up your mind. Can anyone doubt what is your first duty? It is to me. It is I that must settle what our life is to be. It is you who must yield and obey. Are you not my wife? Spare yourself farther pain, and me,” he went on, with all the absolute and cruel sincerity of youth. He made it up in his own mind that this was the right thing to do, and steeled himself to resist the appeal of her weakness, to see her flutter back to the hard bench, and drop down there, unsupported, unaided. It was for the best, it was for her good, to put things on a right footing at once and for always. After this, never a harsh word, never an opposition, more.
Her husband thus having her to himself, standing before her, magisterial, coldly setting down what her duty was, enforcing obedience—he who little more than a year ago—She wavered back to her bare seat alone, and sat there, looking up at him till his peroration came to an end. In these few minutes many things flew through Lady Markland’s thoughts—unspeakable offence, revolt against the unlovely duty presented to her, a sudden fierce indignation against him who had thus thrust himself into her life and claimed to command it. At that moment, after all the agitation he had made her suffer, and before the sacrifice he thus demanded of her, she could scarcely believe that she too had loved him, that she had been happy in his love. It seemed to her that he had forced himself upon her, taken advantage of her loneliness, compelled her to put herself in his power. It had been all adoration, boundless devotion, help, and service. And now it was command. Oh, had he but said this before! Had he bidden her then choose between her child and him, before—And as she looked at him a wild ridicule added itself to these other thoughts. To see him standing making his speech, thinking he could coerce like that a woman like herself, thinking in his youthfulness that he could sway any woman’s heart like that, and cut off the ties that vexed him, and settle everything for the good of both! Heaven! to see him lifting up his authoritative head, making his decision, expecting her to obey! Spare yourself, and me! That she should refuse did not enter into his mind. She might struggle for a time, but to what use? Spare yourself, and me! She could not help a faint smile, painful enough, bitter enough, curving her lips.
“You speak at your ease,” she cried, when his voice stopped. “It is easy to make up your mind for another. What if I should refuse—to obey, as you say? A wife’s obedience, since you appeal to that, is not like a servant’s obedience or a child’s. It must be within reason and within nature. Suppose that I should refuse.”
He had grown cool and calm in the force of his authority. The crimson flushed to his face and the fire to his eye at her words. “Refuse—and I have my alternative!” he cried. “I will never enter your house again nor interfere in your concerns more.”
Again they contemplated each other in a deadly pause, like antagonists before they close for the last struggle. Then Lady Markland spoke.
“Theo, I have done all that a woman could do to please you, and satisfy you—all, and more than all. I will not desert my little boy.”
“You prefer Geoff to me?”
“There is no preferring; it is altogether different. I will not give up my child.”
“Then you give up your husband?”
They looked at each other again—she deadly pale, he crimson with passion, both quivering with the strain of this struggle; her eyes mutely refusing to yield, accepting the alternative, though she said no more. And not another word was said. He turned on his heel, and walked back down the avenue, with quick, swinging steps, without ever turning his head. She watched him till he was out of sight, till he was out of hearing, till the gate swung behind him, and he was gone. She did not know how she was to get back to the house, over that long stretch of road, without anyone to help her, and thought with a sickening and failing of her heart of the long way. But in this great, sudden, unlooked-for revolution of
