ZOE was the first to speak, or rather to gasp. "Why do you come here?""Because _you_ are here."
"And how dare you come where I am?--now your falsehood is found out and flung into my very face!""I have never been false to you. At this moment I suffer for my fidelity."_"You_ suffer? I am glad of it. How?"
"In many ways: but they are all light, compared with my fear of losing your love.""I will listen to no idle words," said Zoe sternly. "A lady claimed you before my face; why did you not stand firm like a man, and say, 'You have no claim on me now; I have a right to love another, and I do?' Why did you fly?--because you were guilty.""No," said he, doggedly. "Surprised and confounded, but not guilty. Fool!
idiot! that I was. I lost my head entirely. Yes, it is hopeless. You _must_ despise me. You have a right to despise me.""Don't tell me," said Zoe: "you never lose your head. You are always self-possessed and artful. Would to Heaven I had never seen you!" She was violent.
He gave her time. "Zoe," said he, after a while, "if I had not lost my head, should I have ill-treated a lady and nearly killed her?""Ah!" said Zoe, sharply, "that is what you have been suffering from--remorse. And well you may. You ought to go back to her, and ask her pardon on your knees. Indeed, it is all you have left to do now.""I know I ought."
"Then do what you ought. Good-by."
"I cannot. I hate her."
"What, because you have broken her heart, and nearly killed her?""No; but because she has come between me and the only woman I ever really loved, or ever can.""She would not have done that if you had not given her the right. I see her now; she looked justice, and you looked guilt. Words are idle, when Ican see her face before me still. No woman could look like that who was in the wrong. But you--guilt made you a coward: you were false to her and false to me; and so you ran away from us both. You would have talked either of us over, alone; but we were together: so you ran away. You have found me alone now, so you are brave again; but it is too late. I am undeceived. I decline to rob Mademoiselle Klosking of her lover; so good-by."And this time she was really going, but he stopped her. "At least don't go with a falsehood on your lips," said he, coldly.
"A falsehood!--Me!"
"Yes, it is a falsehood. How can you pretend I left that lady for you, when you know my connection with her had entirely ceased ten months before I ever saw your face?"This staggered Zoe a moment; so did the heat and sense of injustice he threw into his voice.
"I forgot that," said she, *****ly. Then, recovering herself, "You may have parted with her; but it does not follow that she consented. Fickle men desert constant women. It is done every day.""You are mistaken again," said he. "When I first saw you, I had ceased to think of Mademoiselle Klosking; but it was not so when I first left her.
I did not desert her. I tore myself from her. I had a great affection for her.""You dare to tell me that. Well, at all events, it is the truth. Why did you leave her, then?""Out of self-respect. I was poor, she was rich and admired. Men sent her bouquets and bracelets, and flattered her behind the scenes, and I was lowered in my own eyes: so I left her. I was unhappy for a time; but Ihad my pride to support me, and the wound was healed long before I knew what it was to love, really to love."There was nothing here that Zoe could contradict. She kept silence, and was mystified.
Then she attacked him on another quarter. "Have you written to her since you behaved like a ruffian to her?""No. And I never will, come what may. It is wicked of me; but I hate her.
I am compelled to esteem her. But I hate her."Zoe could quite understand that; but in spite of that she said, "Of course you do. Men always hate those they have used ill. Why did you not write to _me?_ Had a mind to be impartial, I suppose?""I had reason to believe it would have been intercepted.""For shame! Vizard is incapable of such a thing.""Ah, you don't know how he is changed. He looks on me as a mad dog.
Consider, Zoe: do, pray, take the real key to it all. He is in love with Mademoiselle Klosking, madly in love with her: and I have been so unfortunate as to injure her--nearly to kill her. I dare say he thinks it is on your account he hates me; but men deceive themselves. It is for _her_ he hates me""Oh!"
"Ay. Think for a moment, and you will see it is. _You_ are not in his confidence. I am sure he has never told _you_ that he ordered his keepers to shoot me down if I came about the house at night.""Oh no, no!" cried Zoe.
"Do you know he has raised the country against me, and has warrants out against me for forgery, because I was taken in by a rogue who gave me bills with sham names on them, and I got Vizard to cash them? As soon as we found out how I had been tricked, my uncle and I offered at once to pay him back his money. But no! he prefers to keep the bills as a weapon."Zoe began to be puzzled a little. But she said, "You have been a long time discovering all these grievances. Why have you held no communication all this time?""Because you were inaccessible. Does not your own heart tell you that Ihave been all these weeks trying to communicate, and unable? Why, I came three times under your window at night, and you never, never would look out.""I did look out ever so often."
"If I had been you, I should have looked ten thousand times. I only left off coming when I heard the keepers were ordered to shoot me down. Not that I should have cared much, for I am desperate. But I had just sense enough left to see that, if my dead body had been brought bleeding into your hall some night, none of you would ever have been happy again. Your eyes would have been opened, all of you. Well, Zoe, you left Vizard Court; that I learned: but it was only this morning I could find out where you were gone: and you see I am here--with a price upon my head.
Please read Vizard's advertisements."
She took them and read them. A hot flush mounted to her cheek.