第47章

"Ain't you ashamed to talk that way to a lady that's got to earn her living, when you go about with jewellery like that on you?...It ain't in my line, and I do it only as a favour...but if you're a mind to leave that brooch as a pledge, I don't say no....Yes, of course, you can get it back when you bring me my money...."On the way home, she felt an immense and unexpected quietude.It had been horrible to have to leave Harney's gift in the woman's hands, but even at that price the news she brought away had not been too dearly bought.She sat with half-closed eyes as the train rushed through the familiar landscape; and now the memories of her former journey, instead of flying before her like dead leaves, seemed to be ripening in her blood like sleeping grain.She would never again know what it was to feel herself alone.Everything seemed to have grown suddenly clear and simple.She no longer had any difficulty in picturing herself as Harney's wife now that she was the mother of his child;and compared to her sovereign right Annabel Balch's claim seemed no more than a girl's sentimental fancy.

That evening, at the gate of the red house, she found Ally waiting in the dusk."I was down at the post-office just as they were closing up, and Will Targatt said there was a letter for you, so I brought it."Ally held out the letter, looking at Charity with piercing sympathy.Since the scene of the torn blouse there had been a new and fearful admiration in the eyes she bent on her friend.

Charity snatched the letter with a laugh."Oh, thank you--good-night," she called out over her shoulder as she ran up the path.If she had lingered a moment she knew she would have had Ally at her heels.

She hurried upstairs and felt her way into her dark room.Her hands trembled as she groped for the matches and lit her candle, and the flap of the envelope was so closely stuck that she had to find her scissors and slit it open.At length she read:

DEAR CHARITY:

I have your letter, and it touches me more than I can say.Won't you trust me, in return, to do my best?

There are things it is hard to explain, much less to justify; but your generosity makes everything easier.

All I can do now is to thank you from my soul for understanding.Your telling me that you wanted me to do right has helped me beyond expression.If ever there is a hope of realizing what we dreamed of you will see me back on the instant; and I haven't yet lost that hope.

She read the letter with a rush; then she went over and over it, each time more slowly and painstakingly.It was so beautifully expressed that she found it almost as difficult to understand as the gentleman's explanation of the Bible pictures at Nettleton; but gradually she became aware that the gist of its meaning lay in the last few words."If ever there is a hope of realizing what we dreamed of..."But then he wasn't even sure of that? She understood now that every word and every reticence was an avowal of Annabel Balch's prior claim.It was true that he was engaged to her, and that he had not yet found a way of breaking his engagement.

As she read the letter over Charity understood what it must have cost him to write it.He was not trying to evade an importunate claim; he was honestly and contritely struggling between opposing duties.She did not even reproach him in her thoughts for having concealed from her that he was not free: she could not see anything more reprehensible in his conduct than in her own.From the first she had needed him more than he had wanted her, and the power that had swept them together had been as far beyond resistance as a great gale loosening the leaves of the forest....Only, there stood between them, fixed and upright in the general upheaval, the indestructible figure of Annabel Balch....

Face to face with his admission of the fact, she sat staring at the letter.A cold tremor ran over her, and the hard sobs struggled up into her throat and shook her from head to foot.For a while she was caught and tossed on great waves of anguish that left her hardly conscious of anything but the blind struggle against their assaults.Then, little by little, she began to relive, with a dreadful poignancy, each separate stage of her poor romance.Foolish things she had said came back to her, gay answers Harney had made, his first kiss in the darkness between the fireworks, their choosing the blue brooch together, the way he had teased her about the letters she had dropped in her flight from the evangelist.All these memories, and a thousand others, hummed through her brain till his nearness grew so vivid that she felt his fingers in her hair, and his warm breath on her cheek as he bent her head back like a flower.These things were hers; they had passed into her blood, and become a part of her, they were building the child in her womb; it was impossible to tear asunder strands of life so interwoven.

The conviction gradually strengthened her, and she began to form in her mind the first words of the letter she meant to write to Harney.She wanted to write it at once, and with feverish hands she began to rummage in her drawer for a sheet of letter paper.But there was none left; she must go downstairs to get it.

She had a superstitious feeling that the letter must be written on the instant, that setting down her secret in words would bring her reassurance and safety; and taking up her candle she went down to Mr.Royall's office.