Stories by English Authors: Orient

V >> Various >> Stories by English Authors: Orient


She paused, and Broomhurst rose and began to pace the little hillside
path at the edge of which they were seated.

Presently he came back to her.

"Kathleen, let me take care of you," he implored, stooping toward her.
"We have only ourselves to consider in this matter. Will you come to me
at once?"

She shook her head sadly.

Broomhurst set his teeth, and the lines round his mouth deepened. He
threw himself down beside her on the heather.

"Dear," he urged, still gently, though his voice showed he was
controlling himself with an effort, "you are morbid about this. You
have been alone too much; you are ill. Let me take care of you; I _can_,
Kathleen,--and I love you. Nothing but morbid fancy makes you imagine
you are in any way responsible for--Drayton's death. You can't bring him
back to life, and--"

"No," she sighed, drearily, "and if I could, nothing would be altered.
Though I am mad with self-reproach, I feel _that_--it was all so
inevitable. If he were alive and well before me this instant, my feeling
toward him wouldn't have changed. If he spoke to me he would say 'my
dear'--and I should _loathe_ him. Oh, I know! It is _that_ that makes it
so awful."

"But if you acknowledge it," Broomhurst struck in, eagerly, "will you
wreck both of our lives for the sake of vain regrets? Kathleen, you
never will."

He waited breathlessly for her answer.

"I won't wreck both our lives by marrying again without love on my
side," she replied, firmly.

"I will take the risk," he said. "You _have_ loved me; you will love
me again. You are crushed and dazed now with brooding over this--this
trouble, but--"

"But I will not allow you to take the risk," Kathleen answered. "What
sort of woman should I be to be willing again to live with a man I
don't love? I have come to know that there are things one owes to _one's
self_. Self-respect is one of them. I don't know how it has come to be
so, but all my old feeling for you has _gone_. It is as though it had
burned itself out. I will not offer gray ashes to any man."

Broomhurst, looking up at her pale, set face, knew that her words were
final, and turned his own aside with a groan.

"Ah," cried Kathleen, with a little break in her voice, "_don't!_ Go
away, and be happy and strong, and all that I loved in you. I am so
sorry--so sorry to hurt you. I--" her voice faltered miserably; "I--I
only bring trouble to people."

There was a long pause.

"Did you never think that there is a terrible vein of irony running
through the ordering of this world?" she said, presently. "It is a
mistake to think our prayers are not answered--they are. In due time we
get our heart's desire--when we have ceased to care for it."

"I haven't yet got mine," Broomhurst answered, doggedly, "and I shall
never cease to care for it."

She smiled a little, with infinite sadness.

"Listen, Kathleen," he said. They had both risen, and he stood before
her, looking down at her. "I will go now, but in a year's time I shall
come back. I will not give you up. You shall love me yet."

"Perhaps--I don't think so," she answered, wearily.

Broomhurst looked at her trembling lips a moment in silence; then he
stooped and kissed both her hands instead.

"I will wait till you tell me you love me," he said.

She stood watching him out of sight. He did not look back, and she
turned with swimming eyes to the gray sea and the transient gleams of
sunlight that swept like tender smiles across its face.