Chapter XXXVIII: Love’s Defeat

Clara opened the parlor door and walked in, expecting to find the minister, but instead of that she found herself face to face with Edward Lane. She had prepared herself to meet the man who had doubtless come to rebuke her, but this new apparition struck her dumb. She could not draw her mind from the subject that possessed it, and stood looking vacantly at the young man as if seeing nothing at all.

“May I come in?” he said, humbly enough. “May I come in for a few moments, Clara?”

She stepped back mechanically and allowed him to enter. In the same dumb apathy she closed the door and sat down in the nearest chair.

“You are ill, suffering,” he said quickly.

Her lips framed a denial, but she could not speak it aloud, her throat was so dry and parched.

“Oh, Clara, Clara! cannot you receive me more kindly? I did not come to annoy you with unwelcome importunity. It is the first duty of an honorable man to protect the woman he loves. I have come to shield you; to fight your battles with my own father if that becomes necessary.”

“Battles! I have no battles,” answered Clara. “Those who have nothing to struggle for need not fight.”

“Still, Clara, you and your reputation are dear to me.”

“Thank you,” said the girl, with vague gentleness. “You were always kind to me. I realise it fully. If you are friendly now, and have some painful thing to say, speak out quickly; don’t hesitate; tell what you have to say. I can bear another blow very well.”

He sighed heavily.

“I have come too late,” he said. “I see you have already heard that which shocked me beyond anything I can express.”

It was incomprehensible, almost beyond belief, but even in that hour of supreme agony, maddened with pain, the old pride flashed up amid the conflict in this girl’s mind.

“Did you come here to complete your father’s work?” she said coldly. “He will not hesitate to use this visit in his efforts to crush me.”

“I come here to humble myself again; to ask—to entreat—that you will give me a right to defend you. It is in consequence of my own rash indiscretion that this cruel odium has been cast upon your name. Be my wife at once. Who shall dare to lift a voice against the woman I marry?”

“Did you think that I would be crushed and humbled? That you could say what you pleased? I am neither the one nor the other. Some hearts can neither bend nor break. God help me! mine is one. If I would not accept such offers when all hands were uplifted against you, is it possible that I shall seek refuge from slander in your generosity?”

“I only remembered that I loved you dearly, and that you were suffering for my sake,” said the young man, with deep feeling. “This unpleasant news reached me in New York, and I came at once.”

“Thinking that I would escape unmerited disgrace through a marriage which would ruin you. No, no, Mr. Lane, I am not so selfish as that.”

“Selfish! Oh, Clara! would it be selfishness to reward a love like mine?”

“Do not ask me. I am in no condition to reason. This chaos of slander has just been revealed to me. There is a fever of resistance in my brain that makes me dizzy. It is noble—it is wonderfully good in you, this visit—this offer, I mean. There may come a time when I can be grateful, but not while this agony is so new. I think just now that my brain is not entirely right.”

There was truth in this remark. It would have taken very little more to have turned her brain completely. She was in a state which required the most tender watchfulness. Instead of that, she was compelled to suppress the indignation that burned in her heart, put by the dizzy rush that stirred in her brain as if innumerable wheels had been working there, and meet the world with calmness.

Lane regarded her with infinite tenderness. To him her firmness was marvellous; but looking in her eyes, where fever both of mind and body smouldered, he saw it was rather a species of insanity than any effort of courage or self-control that nerved her.

He had come to that house spite of everything, burning to avenge the girl’s wrongs, ready to sacrifice himself in her behalf, and perhaps hoping that in her great distress she might learn to value his love. But he saw that she was speaking the truth. For once her splendid physique had succumbed to the mind. Her veins were hot with fever; her mind reeling under the force of a great shock.

Still the young man hesitated to leave her. At times she became restless and drew back from him like a caged leopardess ready to spring upon her keeper. She was not soothed by anything that he said, but forgot his presence, and half the time was unconscious when he spoke. She had been pale as death when he entered the room; but now the whiteness left her cheek; a vivid crimson burned there instead, and her eyes seemed full of sheet lightning. Still, about her mouth a dead, sickly paleness lingered, which increased the strange expression of her face.

Lane felt how useless it was to plead or reason with her in that state; still his feelings were too strong for entire suppression.

She knew that he urged his plea again—asked her to become his wife. She could only put the subject indifferently by: it really appeared of no importance then. But he would be heard. He could not relinquish his last hope without making every possible effort.

“You cannot stay here,” he said.

She stirred slightly.

“Why not?” she asked, coming out of her apathy again.

“You would suffer everything.”

“I have already suffered as much as any woman can. The rest amounts to nothing. I cannot sit here,” she said, rising suddenly.

Cold chills crept over her; lights danced before her eyes; the objects around faded into the distance. Still she preserved her consciousness.

“Please to go away; I have something to do,” she said, with pathetic entreaty.

“I want to talk to you. I wish to help you.”

“I need no help. Do go away.”

He tried to reason with her; she silenced him with still more pressing entreaties.

“I must go to my grandmother,” she said. “Leave me, I entreat.”

Lane went out of the house greatly disturbed, but more hopeful than he had been for months. In her semi-consciousness she had not wholly rejected him, at any rate with the decision of former times.

Clara became more calm after she was left alone. The tender interest which Lane had expressed, the desire that she should become his wife under all the surrounding disadvantages, made an impression even on her disturbed mind. The delicate feelings of her womanhood came back, stirring her heart to gratitude and her pride to honorable self-defence. She would not sit down and rest content with a stain on her name.

While moving about the room she saw a letter lying on the little table where her desk always stood. She took it up and examined the writing with a sort of dread, for everything she touched seemed like the work of an enemy to her then. This feeling was deepened when she recognized the writing of Bertha Canfield.

At first she cast it from her with a shudder of foreboding. Then she snatched it up, tore the envelope in twain, and holding the enclosure away as one deals with an enemy, read it through.

This was the spirit of the letter:

“MY OWN DEAREST CLARA:

“We promised each other at school that no great event should happen in
the life of one that its secret should not at once be given the other.
You seemed strange to me—cold and almost severe—the last time I met
you, after we unfortunately missed each other at the falls; why, it is
in vain for me to attempt conjecturing. You never met me so icily
before, and I hope you never will again. It makes the tears come into
my eyes when I think of it, for no one ever loved a school-mate better
than I loved and still love you, and I will not believe that any
serious ill feeling has arisen between us, though you left me so
abruptly, and have not sent line or message to me since.

“At any rate, darling Clara, I have a promise to redeem and news to
give which I trust will be pleasant to you as it brings happiness for
me.

“Clara, I am engaged to be married. This will amaze you, but not half
so much as it surprises me. How a man so superior, so wonderfully
handsome, so completely and overwhelmingly my superior, could ever
have taken a fancy to me will forever remain a mystery. You have read
his books, and I think he told me that you had met in some way. If so
you can understand the marvel of his choice when it falls on me.

“Ah, Clara, this man is a lover indeed! My imagination, wild as it is,
never reached his level. But you will smile. I dare not, even to
myself, say all that I think of him; it would seem so much like
worship.

“Send me your congratulations, dear, and let them be such as I can
read to him. This reminds me that the sweetest hours of these early
love-days are those in which he reads to me his own grand thoughts.
Indeed, Clara, I am afraid that this is adoration rather than the love
other girls talk of.

“I remember how you questioned me once about Waldon. It was that day
when you were so cross. I did not understand myself then; but even so
early as that time love must have been sleeping in my heart. He teases
me by saying that while I lay insensible my head was on his bosom, and
his lips defrauded mine of a first kiss. I wonder if this is so. I
never dreamed of it; but now it seems to me if I were dying his kiss
would bring me back from heaven.

“His engagement ring flashes on my finger as I write, Clara. In a few
minutes he will be here.

“Do write to me, dear, and believe me always

“Your faithful friend, BERTHA.”