You have entirely misunderstood me. I am grieved to distress you, but for your sake I must speak plainly. I am your friend always, Mr. Wardour. I can never be your wife."
He mechanically repeated the last words. He seemed to doubt whether he had heard her aright.
"You can never be my wife?"
"Never!"
"Why?"
There was no answer. She was incapable of telling him a falsehood. She was ashamed to tell him the truth.
He stooped over her, and suddenly possessed himself of her hand. Holding her hand firmly, he stooped a little lower; searching for the signs which might answer him in her face. His own face darkened slowly while he looked. He was beginning to suspect her; and he acknowledged it in his next words.
"Something has changed you toward me, Clara. Somebody has influenced you against me. Is it--you force me to ask the question--is it some other man?"
"You have no right to ask me that."
He went on without noticing what she had said to him.
"Has that other man come between you and me? I speak plainly on my side. Speak plainly on yours."
"I have spoken. I have nothing more to say."
There was a pause. She saw the warning light which told of the fire within him, growing brighter and brighter in his eyes. She felt his grasp strengthening on her hand. He appealed to her for the last time.
"Reflect," he said, "reflect before it is too late. Your silence will not serve you. If you persist in not answering me, I shall take your silence as a confession. Do you hear me?"
"I hear you."
"Clara Burnham! I am not to be trifled with. Clara Burnham! I insist on the truth. Are you false to me?"
She resented that searching question with a woman's keen sense of the insult that is implied in doubting her to her face.
"Mr. Wardour! you forget yourself when you call me to account in that way. I never encouraged you. I never gave you promise or pledge--"
He passionately interrupted her before she could say more.
"You have engaged yourself in my absence. Your words own it; your looks own it! You have engaged yourself to another man!"
"If I have engaged myself, what right have you to complain of it?" she answered firmly. "What right have you to control my actions--?"
The next words died away on her lips. He suddenly dropped her hand. A marked change appeared in the expression of his eyes--a change which told her of the terrible passions that she had let loose in him. She read, dimly read, something in his face which made her tremble--not for herself, but for Frank.
Little by little the dark color faded out of his face. His deep voice dropped suddenly to a low and quiet tone as he spoke the parting words.
"Say no more, Miss Burnham--you have said enough. I am answered; I am dismissed." He paused, and, stepping close up to her, laid his hand on her arm.
"The time may come," he said, "when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met."
He turned and left her.
A few minutes later, Mrs. Crayford, entering the conservatory, was met by one of the attendants at the ball. The man stopped as if he wished to speak to her.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am. Do you happen to have a smelling-bottle about you? There is a young lady in the conservatory who is taken faint."
Between the Scenes
The Landing Stage
Chapter 5.
The morning of the next day--the morning on which the ships were to sail--came bright and breezy. Mrs. Crayford, having arranged to follow her husband to the water-side, and see the last of him before he embarked, entered Clara's room on her way out of the house, anxious to hear how her young friend passed the night. To her astonishment she found Clara had risen, and was dressed, like herself, to go out.
"What does this mean, my dear? After what you suffered last night--after the shock of seeing that man--why don't you take my advice and rest in your bed?"
"I can't rest. I have not slept all night. Have you been out yet?"
"No."
"Have you seen or heard anything of Richard Wardour?"
"What an extraordinary question!"
"Answer my question! Don't trifle with me!"
"Compose yourself, Clara. I have neither seen nor heard anything of Richard Wardour. Take my word for it, he is far enough away by this time."
"No! He is here! He is near us! All night long the presentiment has pursued me--Frank and Richard Wardour will meet."
"My dear child! what are you thinking of? T hey are total strangers to each other."
"Something will happen to bring them together. I feel it! I know it! They will meet--there will be a mortal quarrel between them--and I shall be to blame. Oh, Lucy! why didn't I take your advice? Why was I mad enough to let Frank know that I loved him? Are you going to the landing-stage? I am all ready--I must go with you."
"You must not think of it, Clara. There will be crowding and confusion at the water-side. You are not strong enough to bear it. Wait--I won't be long away--wait till I come back."
"I must and will go with you! Crowd? He will be among the crowd! Confusion? In that confusion he will find his way to Frank! Don't ask me to wait. I shall go mad if I wait. I shall not know a moment's ease until I have seen Frank, with my own eyes, safe in the boat which takes him to his ship! You have got your bonnet on; what are we stopping here for? Come! or I shall go without you. Look at the clock; we have not a moment to lose!"
It was useless to contend with her. Mrs. Crayford yielded. The two women left the house together.
The landing-stage, as Mrs. Crayford had predicted, was thronged with spectators. Not only the relatives and friends of the Arctic voyagers, but strangers as well, had assembled in large numbers to see the ships sail. Clara's eyes wandered affrightedly hither and thither among the strange faces in the crowd; searching for the one face that she dreaded to see, and not finding it. So completely were her nerves unstrung, that she started with a cry of alarm on suddenly hearing Frank's voice behind her.
"The Sea-mew's boats are waiting," he said. "I must go, darling. How pale you are looking, Clara! Are you ill?"
She never answered. She questioned him with wild eyes and trembling lips.
"Has anything happened to you, Frank? anything out of the common?"
Frank laughed at the strange question.
"Anything out of the common?" he repeated. "Nothing that I know of, except sailing for the Arctic seas. That's out of the common, I suppose--isn't it?"
"Has anybody spoken to you since last night? Has any stranger followed you in the street?"
Frank turned in blank amazement to Mrs. Crayford.
"What on earth does she mean?"
Mrs. Crayford's lively invention supplied her with an answer on the spur of the moment.
"Do you believe in dreams, Frank? Of course you don't! Clara has been dreaming about you; and Clara is foolish enough to believe in dreams. That's all--it's not worth talking about. Hark! they are calling you. Say good-by, or you will be too late for the boat."
Frank took Clara's hand.