"Last autumn," he began, speaking to Mr. Granger, who might have been a judge uncertain as to the merits of the case, "I asked your daughter Beatrice to marry me."Beatrice gave a sigh, and collected her scattered energies. The storm had burst at last, and she must face it.
"I asked her to marry me, and she told me to wait a year. I have waited as long as I could, but I could not wait the whole year. I have prayed a great deal, and I am bidden to speak."Elizabeth made a gesture of impatience. She was a person of strong common sense, and this mixture of religion and eroticism disgusted her. She also know that the storm had burst, and that /she/ must face it.
"So I come to tell you that I love your daughter Beatrice, and want to make her my wife. I have never loved anybody else, but I have loved her for years; and I ask your consent.""Very flattering, very flattering, I am sure, especially in these hard times," said Mr. Granger apologetically, shaking his thin hair down over his forehead, and then rumpling it up again. "But you see, Mr.
Davies, you don't want to marry me" (here Beatrice smiled faintly)--"you want to marry my daughter, so you had better ask her direct--at least I suppose so."Elizabeth made a movement as though to speak, then changed her mind and listened.
"Beatrice," said Owen Davies, "you hear. I ask you to marry me."There was a pause. Beatrice, who had sat quite silent, was gathering up her strength to answer. Elizabeth, watching her from beneath her hand, thought that she read upon her face irresolution, softening into consent. What she really saw was but doubt as to the fittest and most certain manner of refusal. Like lightning it flashed into Elizabeth's mind that she must strike now, or hold her hand for ever. If once Beatrice spoke that fatal "yes," her revelations might be of no avail.
And Beatrice would speak it; she was sure she would. It was a golden road out of her troubles.
"Stop!" said Elizabeth in a shrill, hard voice. "Stop! I must speak;it is my duty as a Christian. I must tell the truth. I cannot allow an honest man to be deceived."There was an awful pause. Beatrice broke it. Now she saw all the truth, and knew what was at hand. She placed her hand upon her heart to still its beating.
"Oh, Elizabeth," she said, "in our dead mother's name----" and she stopped.
"Yes," answered her sister, "in our dead mother's name, which you have dishonoured, I will do it. Listen, Owen Davies, and father: Beatrice, who sits there"--and she pointed at her with her thin hand--"/Beatrice is a scarlet woman!/""I really don't understand," gasped Mr. Granger, while Owen looked round wildly, and Beatrice sunk her head upon her breast.
"Then I will explain," said Elizabeth, still pointing at her sister.
"She is Geoffrey Bingham's /mistress/. On the night of Whit-Sunday last she rose from bed and went into his room at one in the morning. Isaw her with my own eyes. Afterwards she was brought back to her bed in his arms--I saw it with my own eyes, and I heard him kiss her."(This was a piece of embroidery on Elizabeth's part.) "She is his lover, and has been in love with him for months. I tell you this, Owen Davies, because, though I cannot bear to bring disgrace upon our name and to defile my lips with such a tale, neither can I bear that you should marry a girl, believing her to be good, when she is what Beatrice is.""Then I wish to God that you had held your wicked tongue," said Mr.
Granger fiercely.
"No, father. I have a duty to perform, and I will perform it at any cost, and however much it pains me. You know that what I say is true.
You heard the noise on the night of Whit-Sunday, and got up to see what it was. You saw the white figure in the passage--it was Geoffrey Bingham with Beatrice in his arms. Ah! well may she hang her head. Let her deny if it she can. Let her deny that she loves him to her shame, and that she was alone in his room on that night."Then Beatrice rose and spoke. She was pale as death and more beautiful in her shame and her despair than ever she had been before; her glorious eyes shone, and there were deep black lines beneath them.
"My heart is my own," she said, "and I will make no answer to you about it. Think what you will. For the rest, it is not true. I am not what Elizabeth tells you that I am. I am /not/ Geoffrey Bingham's mistress. It is true that I was in his room that night, and it is true that he carried me back to my own. But it was in my sleep that I went there, not of my own free will. I awoke there, and fainted when Iwoke, and then at once he bore me back."
Elizabeth laughed shrill and loud--it sounded like the cackle of a fiend.
"In her sleep," she said; "oh, she went there in her sleep!""Yes, Elizabeth, in my sleep. You do not believe me, but it is true.
You do not wish to believe me. You wish to bring the sister whom you should love, who has never offended against you by act or word, to utter disgrace and ruin. In your cowardly spite you have written anonymous letters to Lady Honoria Bingham, to prevail upon her to strike the blow that should destroy her husband and myself, and when you fear that this has failed, you come forward and openly accuse us.
You do this in the name of Christian duty; in the name of love and charity, you believe the worst, and seek to ruin us. Shame on you, Elizabeth! shame on you! and may the same measure that you have meted out to me never be paid back to you. We are no longer sisters.
Whatever happens, I have done with you. Go your ways."Elizabeth shrank and quailed beneath her sister's scorn. Even her venomous hatred could not bear up against the flash of those royal eyes, and the majesty of that outraged innocence. She gasped and bit her lip till the blood started, but she said nothing.
Then Beatrice turned to her father, and spoke in another and a pleading voice, stretching out her arms towards him.
"Oh, father," she said, "at least tell me that /you/ believe me.
