He suddenly stood still, and took me by the hand. He tried to look at me.
I kept my head down and my eyes on the ground. I was ashamed of my weakness and my want of spirit. I was determined not to look at him.
In the silence that followed he suddenly dropped on his knees at my feet, with a cry of despair that cut through me like a knife.
"Valeria! I am vile--I am false--I am unworthy of you. Don't believe a word of what I have been saying--lies, lies, cowardly, contemptible lies! You don't know what I have gone through; you don't know how I have been tortured. Oh, my darling, try not to despise me! I must have been beside myself when I spoke to you as I did. You looked hurt; you looked offended; I didn't know what to do. I wanted to spare you even a moment's pain--I wanted to hush it up, and have done with it. For God's sake don't ask me to tell you any more! My love! my angel! it's something between my mother and me; it's nothing that need disturb you; it's nothing to anybody now. I love you, I adore you; my whole heart and soul are yours. Be satisfied with that. Forget what has happened. You shall never see my mother again. We will leave this place to-morrow. We will go away in the yacht. Does it matter where we live, so long as we live for each other? Forgive and forget! Oh, Valeria, Valeria, forgive and forget!"Unutterable misery was in his face; unutterable misery was in his voice. Remember this. And remember that I loved him.
"It is easy to forgive," I said, sadly. "For your sake, Eustace, I will try to forget."I raised him gently as I spoke. He kissed my hands with the air of a man who was too humble to venture on any more familiar expression of his gratitude than that. The sense of embarrassment between us as we slowly walked on again was so unendurable that Iactually cast about in my mind for a subject of conversation, as if I had been in the company of a stranger! In mercy to _him_, Iasked him to tell me about the yacht.
He seized on the subject as a drowning man seizes on the hand that rescues him.
On that one poor little topic of the yacht he talked, talked, talked, as if his life depended upon his not being silent for an instant on the rest of the way back. To me it was dreadful to hear him. I could estimate what he was suffering by the violence which he--ordinarily a silent and thoughtful man--was now doing to his true nature, and to the prejudices and habits of his life.
With the greatest difficulty I preserved my self-control until we reached the door of our lodgings. There I was obliged to plead fatigue, and ask him to let me rest for a little while in the solitude of my own room.
"Shall we sail to-morrow?" he called after me suddenly, as Iascended the stairs.
Sail with him to the Mediterranean the next day? Pass weeks and weeks absolutely alone with him, in the narrow limits of a vessel, with his horrible secret parting us in sympathy further and further from each other day by day? I shuddered at the thought of it.
"To-morrow is rather a short notice," I said. "Will you give me a little longer time to prepare for the voyage?""Oh yes--take any time you like," he answered, not (as I thought)very willingly. "While you are resting--there are still one or two little things to be settled--I think I will go back to the yacht. Is there anything I can do for you, Valeria, before I go?""Nothing--thank you, Eustace."
He hastened away to the harbor. Was he afraid of his own thoughts, if he were left by himself in the house. Was the company of the sailing-master and the steward better than no company at all?
It was useless to ask. What did I know about him or his thoughts?
I locked myself into my room.