"All these three urged the same thing--the desirability of your marrying Owen Davies."Beatrice's face grew quite pale, her lips twitched and her grey eyes flashed angrily.
"Really," she said, "and have /you/ any advice to give on the subject, Mr. Bingham?""Yes, Beatrice, I have. I have thought it over, and I think that--forgive me again--that if you can bring yourself to it, perhaps you had better marry him. He is not such a bad sort of man, and he is well off."They had been walking rapidly, and now they were reaching the spot known as the "Amphitheatre," that same spot where Owen Davies had proposed to Beatrice some seven months before.
Beatrice passed round the projecting edge of rock, and walked some way towards the flat slab of stone in the centre before she answered.
While she did so a great and bitter anger filled her heart. She saw, or thought she saw, it all. Geoffrey wished to be rid of her. He had discerned an element of danger in their intimacy, and was anxious to make that intimacy impossible by pushing her into a hateful marriage.
Suddenly she turned and faced him--turned like a thing at bay. The last red rays of the sunset struck upon her lovely face made more lovely still by its stamp of haughty anger: they lay upon her heaving breast. Full in the eyes she looked him with those wide angry eyes of hers--never before had he seen her so imperial a mien. Her dignity and the power of her presence literally awed him, for at times Beatrice's beauty was of that royal stamp which when it hides a heart, is a compelling force, conquering and born to conquer.
"Does it not strike you, Mr. Bingham," she said quietly, "that you are taking a very great liberty? Does it not strike you that no man who is not a relation has any right to speak to a woman as you have spoken to me?--that, in short, you have been guilty of what in most people would be an impertinence? What right have you to dictate to me as to whom Ishould or should not marry? Surely of all things in the world that is my own affair."Geoffrey coloured to the eyes. As would have been the case with most men of his class, he felt her accusation of having taken a liberty, of having presumed upon an intimacy, more keenly than any which she could have brought against him.
"Forgive me," he said humbly. "I can only assure you that I had no such intention. I only spoke--ill-judgedly, I fear--because--because Ifelt driven to it."
Beatrice took no notice of his words, but went on in the same cold voice.
"What right have you to speak of my affairs with Mr. Davies, with an old boatman, or even with my father? Had I wished you to do so Ishould have asked you. By what authority do you constitute yourself an intermediary for the purpose of bringing about a marriage which you are so good as to consider would be to my pecuniary interest? Do you not know that such a matter is one which the woman concerned, the woman whose happiness and self-respect are at stake, alone can judge of? I have nothing more to say except this. I said just now that you had been guilty of what would in most people be an impertinence. Well, I will add something. In this case, Mr. Bingham, there are circumstances which make it--a cruel insult!"She stopped speaking, then suddenly, without the slightest warning, burst into passionate weeping. As she did so, the first rush of the storm passed over them, winnowing the air as with a thousand eagles'
wings, and was lost on the moaning depths beyond.
The light went out of the sky. Now Geoffrey could only see the faint outlines of her weeping face. One moment he hesitated and one only;then Nature prevailed against him, for the next she was in his arms.
Beatrice scarcely resisted him. Her energies seemed to fail her, or perhaps she had spent them in her bitter words. Her head fell upon his shoulder, and there she sobbed her fill. Presently she lifted it and their lips met in a first long kiss. It was finished; this was the end of it--and thus did Geoffrey prosper Owen Davies's suit.
"Oh, you are cruel, cruel!" he whispered in her ear. "You must have known I loved you, Beatrice, that I spoke against myself because Ithought it to be my duty. You must have known that, to my sin and sorrow, I have always loved you, that you have never been an hour from my mind, that I have longed to see your face like a sick man for the light. Tell me, did you not know it, Beatrice?""How should I know?" she answered very softly; "I could only guess, and if indeed you love me how could you wish me to marry another man?
I thought that you had learned my weakness and took this way to reproach me. Oh, Geoffrey, what have we done? What is there between you and me--except our love?""It would have been better if we had been drowned together at the first," he said heavily.
"No, no," she answered, "for then we never should have loved one another. Better first to love, and then to die!""Do not speak so," he said; "let us sit here and be happy for a little while to-night, and leave trouble till to-morrow."And, where on a bygone day Beatrice had tarried with another wooer, side by side they sat upon the great stone and talked such talk as lovers use.
Above them moaned the rising gale, though sheltered as they were by cliffs its breath scarcely stirred their hair. In front of them the long waves boomed upon the beach, while far out to sea the crescent moon, draped in angry light, seemed to ride the waters like a boat.
And were they alone with their great bliss, or did they only dream?
Nay, they were alone with love and lovers' joys, and all the truth was told, and all their doubts were done. Now there was an end of hopes and fears; now reason fell and Love usurped his throne, and at that royal coming Heaven threw wide her gates. Oh, Sweetest and most dear!
Oh, Dearest and most sweet! Oh, to have lived to find this happy hour --oh, in this hour to die!
