"With many very, very happy returns of the day," said Sheldon Corthell, as he held towards her a cluster of deep-blue violets.
Laura sprang to her feet, a hand upon her cheek, her eyes wide and flashing.
"You?" was all she had breath to utter."You?"The artist smiled as he laid the flowers upon the table."I am going away again to-morrow," he said, "for always, I think.Have I startled you? I only came to say good-by--and to wish you a happy birthday.""Oh you remembered!" she cried."_You_ remembered! Imight have known you would."
But the revulsion had been too great.She had been wrong after all.Jadwin had forgotten.Emotions to which she could put no name swelled in her heart and rose in a quick, gasping sob to her throat.The tears sprang to her eyes.Old impulses, forgotten impetuosities whipped her on.
"Oh, you remembered, you remembered!" she cried again, holding out both her hands.
He caught them in his own.
"Remembered!" he echoed."I have never forgotten.""No, no," she replied, shaking her head, winking back the tears."You don't understand.I spoke before Ithought.You don't understand."
"I do, believe me, I do," he exclaimed."I understand you better than you understand yourself."Laura's answer was a cry.
"Oh, then, why did you ever leave me--you who did understand me? Why did you leave me only because I told you to go? Why didn't you make me love you then? Why didn't you make me understand myself?" She clasped her hands tight together upon her breast; her words, torn by her sobs, came all but incoherent from behind her shut teeth."No, no!" she exclaimed, as he made towards her."Don't touch me, don't touch me! It is too late.""It is not too late.Listen--listen to me.""Oh, why weren't you a man, strong enough to know a woman's weakness? You can only torture me now.Ah, Ihate you! I hate you!"
"You love me! I tell you, you love me!" he cried, passionately, and before she was aware of it she was in his arms, his lips were against her lips, were on her shoulders, her neck.
"You love me!" he cried."You love me! I defy you to say you do not.""Oh, _make_ me love you, then," she answered."_Make_me believe that you do love me."
"Don't you know," he cried, "don't you know how I have loved you? Oh, from the very first! My love has been my life, has been my death, my one joy, and my one bitterness.It has always been you, dearest, year after year, hour after hour.And now I've found you again.And now I shall never, never let you go.""No, no! Ah, don't, don't!" she begged."I implore you.I am weak, weak.Just a word, and I would forget everything.""And I do speak that word, and your own heart answers me in spite of you, and you will forget--forget everything of unhappiness in your life----""Please, please," she entreated, breathlessly.Then, taking the leap: "Ah, I love you, I love you!""--Forget all your unhappiness," he went on, holding her close to him."Forget the one great mistake we both made.Forget everything, everything, everything but that we love each other.""Don't let me think, then," she cried."Don't let me think.Make me forget everything, every little hour, every little moment that has passed before this day.
Oh, if I remembered once, I would kill you, kill you with my hands! I don't know what I am saying," she moaned, "I don't know what I am saying.I am mad, Ithink.Yes--I--it must be that." She pulled back from him, looking into his face with wide-opened eyes.
"What have I said, what have we done, what are you here for?""To take you away," he answered, gently, holding her in his arms, looking down into her eyes."To take you far away with me.To give my whole life to making you forget that you were ever unhappy.""And you will never leave me alone--never once?""Never, never once."
She drew back from him, looking about the room with unseeing eyes, her fingers plucking and tearing at the lace of her dress; her voice was faint and small, like the voice of a little child.
"I--I am afraid to be alone.Oh, I must never be alone again so long as I shall live.I think I should die.""And you never shall be; never again.Ah, this is my birthday, too, sweetheart.I am born again to-night."Laura clung to his arm; it was as though she were in the dark, surrounded by the vague terrors of her girlhood."And you will always love me, love me, love me?" she whispered."Sheldon, Sheldon, love me always, always, with all your heart and soul and strength."Tears stood in Corthell's eyes as he answered:
"God forgive whoever--whatever has brought you to this pass," he said.
And, as if it were a realisation of his thought, there suddenly came to the ears of both the roll of wheels upon the asphalt under the carriage porch and the trampling of iron-shod hoofs.
"Is that your husband?" Corthell's quick eye took in Laura's disarranged coiffure, one black lock low upon her neck, the roses at her shoulder crushed and broken, and the bright spot on either cheek.
"Is that your husband?"
"My husband--I don't know." She looked up at him with unseeing eyes."Where is my husband? I have no husband._You are letting me remember,_" she cried, in terror."You are letting me remember.Ah, no, no, you don't love me! I hate you!"Quickly he bent and kissed her.
"I will come for you to-morrow evening," he said."You will be ready then to go with me?""Ready then? Yes, yes, to go with you anywhere."He stood still a moment, listening.Somewhere a door closed.He heard the hoofs upon the asphalt again.
"Good-by," he whispered."God bless you! Good-by till to-morrow night." And with the words he was gone.The front door of the house closed quietly.
Had he come back again? Laura turned in her place on the long divan at the sound of a heavy tread by the door of the library.
Then an uncertain hand drew the heavy curtain aside.
Jadwin, her husband, stood before her, his eyes sunken deep in his head, his face dead white, his hand shaking.He stood for a long instant in the middle of the room, looking at her.Then at last his lips moved:
"Old girl....Honey."
