For the sound of a footstep in the vestibule was unmistakable. He had come after all. But so late, so late! No, she could not be gracious at once; he must be made to feel how deeply he had offended; he must sue humbly, very humbly, for pardon. The servant’s step sounded in the hall on the way towards the front door.
“I am in here, Matthew,” she called. “In the library. Tell him I am in here.”
She cast a quick glance at herself in the mirror close at hand, touched her hair with rapid fingers, smoothed the agitation from her forehead, and sat down in a deep chair near the fireplace, opening a book, turning her back towards the door.
She heard him come in, but did not move. Even as he crossed the floor she kept her head turned away. The footsteps paused near at hand. There was a moment’s silence. Then slowly Laura, laying down her book, turned and faced him.
“With many very, very happy returns of the day,” said Sheldon Corthell, as he held towards her a cluster of deep-blue violets.
Laura sprang to her feet, a hand upon her cheek, her eyes wide and flashing.
“You?” was all she had breath to utter. “You?”
The artist smiled as he laid the flowers upon the table. “I am going away again tomorrow,” he said, “for always, I think. Have I startled you? I only came to say goodbye—and to wish you a happy birthday.”
“Oh you remembered!” she cried. “You remembered! I might have known you would.”
But the revulsion had been too great. She had been wrong after all. Jadwin had forgotten. Emotions to which she could put no name swelled in her heart and rose in a quick, gasping sob to her throat. The tears sprang to her eyes. Old impulses, forgotten impetuosities whipped her on.
“Oh, you remembered, you remembered!” she cried again, holding out both her hands.
He caught them in his own.
“Remembered!” he echoed. “I have never forgotten.”
“No, no,” she replied, shaking her head, winking back the tears. “You don’t understand. I spoke before I thought. You don’t understand.”
“I do, believe me, I do,” he exclaimed. “I understand you better than you understand yourself.”
Laura’s answer was a cry.
“Oh, then, why did you ever leave me—you who did understand me? Why did you leave me only because I told you to go? Why didn’t you make me love you then? Why didn’t you make me understand myself?” She clasped her hands tight together upon her breast; her words, torn by her sobs, came all but incoherent from behind her shut teeth. “No, no!” she exclaimed, as he made towards her. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch me! It is too late.”
“It is not too late. Listen—listen to me.”
“Oh, why weren’t you a man, strong enough to know a woman’s weakness? You can only torture me now. Ah, I hate you! I hate you!”
“You love me! I tell you, you love me!” he cried, passionately, and before she was aware of it she was in his arms, his lips were against her lips, were on her shoulders, her neck.
“You love me!” he cried. “You love me! I defy you to say you do not.”
“Oh, make me love you, then,” she answered. “Make me believe that you do love me.”
“Don’t you know,” he cried, “don’t you know how I have loved you? Oh, from the very first! My love has been my life, has been my death, my one joy, and my one bitterness. It has always been you, dearest, year after year, hour after hour. And now I’ve found you again. And now I shall never, never let you go.”
“No, no! Ah, don’t, don’t!” she begged. “I implore you. I am weak, weak. Just a word, and I would forget everything.”
“And I do speak that word, and your own heart answers me in spite of you, and you will forget—forget everything of unhappiness in your life—”
“Please, please,” she entreated, breathlessly. Then, taking the leap: “Ah, I love you, I love you!”
“—Forget all your unhappiness,” he went on, holding her close to him. “Forget the one great mistake we both made. Forget everything, everything, everything but that we love each other.”
“Don’t let me think, then,” she cried. “Don’t let me think. Make me forget everything, every little hour, every little moment that has passed before this day. Oh, if I remembered once, I would kill you, kill you with my hands! I don’t know what I am saying,” she moaned, “I don’t know what I am saying. I am mad, I think. Yes—I—it must be that.” She pulled back from him, looking into his face with wide-opened eyes.
“What have I said, what have we done, what are you here for?”
“To take you away,” he answered, gently, holding her in his arms, looking down into her eyes. “To take you far away with me. To give my whole life to making you forget that you were ever unhappy.”
“And you will never leave me alone—never once?”
“Never, never once.”
She drew back from him, looking about the room with unseeing eyes, her fingers plucking and tearing at the lace of her dress; her voice was faint and small, like the voice of a little child.
“I—I am afraid to be alone. Oh, I must never be alone again so long as I shall live. I think I should die.”
“And you never shall be; never again. Ah, this is my birthday, too, sweetheart. I am born again tonight.”
Laura clung to his arm; it was as though she were in the dark, surrounded by the vague terrors of her girlhood. “And you will always love me, love me, love me?” she whispered. “Sheldon, Sheldon, love me always, always, with all your heart and soul and strength.”
Tears stood in Corthell’s eyes as he answered:
“God forgive whoever—whatever has brought you to this pass,” he said.
And, as if it were a realisation of his thought, there suddenly came to the ears of both the roll of wheels upon the asphalt under
