第115章

I suppose,and it happens to few young people to be able to avoid all blandishments and attentions except from the one they afterwards marry.But I have peculiar weaknesses,Elfride;and because I have led a peculiar life,I must suffer for it,I suppose.I had hoped--well,what I had no right to hope in connection with you.You naturally granted your former lover the privileges you grant me.

A yescame from her like the last sad whisper of a breeze.

And he used to kiss you--of course he did.

Yes.

And perhaps you allowed him a more free manner in his love-making than I have shown in mine.

No,I did not.This was rather more alertly spoken.

But he adopted it without being allowed?

Yes.

How much I have made of you,Elfride,and how I have kept aloof!said Knight in deep and shaken tones.So many days and hours as I have hoped in you--I have feared to kiss you more than those two times.And he made no scruples to.

She crept closer to him and trembled as if with cold.Her dread that the whole story,with random additions,would become known to him,caused her manner to be so agitated that Knight was alarmed and perplexed into stillness.The actual innocence which made her think so fearfully of what,as the world goes,was not a great matter,magnified her apparent guilt.It may have said to Knight that a woman who was so flurried in the preliminaries must have a dreadful sequel to her tale.

I know,continued Knight,with an indescribable drag of manner and intonation,--I know I am absurdly scrupulous about you--that I want you too exclusively mine.In your past before you knew me--from your very cradle--I wanted to think you had been mine.I would make you mine by main force.Elfride,he went on vehemently,I cant help this jealousy over you!It is my nature,and must be so,and I HATE the fact that you have been caressed before:yes hate it!

She drew a long deep breath,which was half a sob.Knights face was hard,and he never looked at her at all,still fixing his gaze far out to sea,which the sun had now resigned to the shade.In high places it is not long from sunset to night,dusk being in a measure banished,and though only evening where they sat,it had been twilight in the valleys for half an hour.Upon the dull expanse of sea there gradually intensified itself into existence the gleam of a distant light-ship.

When that lover first kissed you,Elfride was it in such a place as this?

Yes,it was.

You dont tell me anything but what I wring out of you.Why is that?Why have you suppressed all mention of this when casual confidences of mine should have suggested confidence in return?On board the Juliet,why were you so secret?It seems like being made a fool of,Elfride,to think that,when I was teaching you how desirable it was that we should have no secrets from each other,you were assenting in words,but in act contradicting me.

Confidence would have been so much more promising for our happiness.If you had had confidence in me,and told me willingly,I should--be different.But you suppress everything,and I shall question you.Did you live at Endelstow at that time?

Yes,she said faintly.

Where were you when he first kissed you?

Sitting in this seat.

Ah,I thought so!said Knight,rising and facing her.

And that accounts for everything--the exclamation which you explained deceitfully,and all!Forgive the harsh word,Elfride--forgive it.He smiled a surface smile as he continued:What a poor mortal I am to play second fiddle in everything and to be deluded by fibs!

Oh,dont say it;dont,Harry!

Where did he kiss you besides here?

Sitting on--a tomb in the--churchyard--and other places,she answered with slow recklessness.

Never mind,never mind,he exclaimed,on seeing her tears and perturbation.I dont want to grieve you.I dont care.

But Knight did care.

It makes no difference,you know,he continued,seeing she did not reply.

I feel cold,said Elfride.Shall we go home?

Yes;it is late in the year to sit long out of doors:we ought to be off this ledge before it gets too dark to let us see our footing.I daresay the horse is impatient.