第81章 CHAPTER XVI LOVE AND LOSS(1)

All unaware that they had been seen and by no friendly eyes, Godfrey and Isobel remained embracing each other for quite a long while. At length she wrenched herself away and, sinking on to a chancel bench, motioned to him to seat himself beside her.

"Let us talk," she said in a new voice, a strange voice that was low and rich, such as he had never heard her use, "let us talk, my dear."

"What of?" he asked almost in a whisper as he took his place, and her hand, which he held against his beating heart. "My soul has been talking to yours for the last five minutes, or is it five seconds or five years? It does not seem to have anything more to say."

"Yet I think there is plenty to be said, Godfrey. Do you know that while we were kissing each other there some very queer ideas got hold of me, not only of the sort which might be expected in our case? You remember that Plantagenet lady who lies buried beneath where we were standing, she whose dress I once copied to wear at the ball when I came out."

"Don't speak of that," he interrupted, "for then you were kissing someone else."

"It is not true. I never kissed anyone else in that way, and I do not think I ever shall. I kissed a rose, that's all, and I gather that you have done as much and very likely a great deal more. But it is of the lady I am speaking, not of the ball. She seemed to come up from her grave and enter into me, and say something."

"Well, what did she say, Isobel?" he asked dreamily.

"That's it, I don't know, although she talked to me as one might to oneself. All I know is that it was of trouble and patience and great joy, and war and tragedy in which I must be intimately concerned, and --after the tragedy--of a most infinite rest and bliss."

"I expect she was telling you her own story, which seems to have ended well," he replied in the same dreamy fashion.

"Yes, I think so, but also that she meant that her story would be my story, copied you know, as I copied her dress. Of course it is all nonsense, just the influence of the place taking hold of me when overcome by other things, but at the time it seemed very real."

"So does a bad dream," said Godfrey, "but for all that it isn't real.

Still it is odd that everything important seems to happen to us within a few feet of that lady's dust, and I can't quite disbelieve in spirits and their power of impressing themselves upon us; I wish I could. The strange thing is that /you/ should put any faith in them."

"I don't, though I admit that my views about such matters are changing. You know I used to be sure that when we die everything is over with us. Now I think differently, why I cannot say."

Then the subject dropped, because really they were both wrapped in the great joy of a glorious hour and disinclined to dwell upon fancies about a woman who had died five hundred years ago, or on metaphysical speculations. Also the fear of what might follow upon that hour haunted them more vividly than any hovering ghost, if such there were.

"My dear," said Isobel, "I am sorry, but I must say it; I am sure that there will be trouble about this business."

"No doubt, Isobel; there always is trouble, at least where I am concerned; also one can't be happy without paying. But what does it matter so long as we stick to each other? Soon we shall both be of age and can do what we like."

"One always thinks that, Godfrey, and yet, somehow, one never can.

Free will is a fraud in that sense as in every other."

"I have something, as you know, enough with my pay to enable us to get on, even if you were disinherited, dear, though, of course, you could not live as you have been accustomed to do."

"Oh! don't talk to me of money," she said impatiently, "though for the matter of that, I have something, too, a little that comes to me from my mother. Money won't divide us, Godfrey."

"Then what will, Isobel?"

"Nothing in the long run," she answered with conviction, "not even death itself, since in a way we are one and part of each other and therefore cannot be separated for always, whatever happens for a while, as I am sure that something will happen which will make you leave me."

"I swear that I will never leave you, I will die with you first," he exclaimed, springing up.

"Such oaths have been made often and broken--before the dawn," she answered, smiling and shaking her head.

"I swear that I will always love you," he went on.

"Ah! now I believe you, dear!" she broke in again. "However badly you may behave, you will always love me because you must."

"Well, and will you always love me however badly I behave?"

"Of course," she answered simply, "because I must. Oh! whatever we may hear about each other, we may be quite certain that we still love each other--because we must--and all your heaven and hell cannot make any difference, no, not if they were both to join forces and try their best. But that does not mean that necessarily we shall marry each other, for I think that people who love like that rarely do marry, because, you see, they would be too happy, which something is always trying to prevent. It may mean, however," she added reflectively, "that we shall not marry anybody else, though even that might happen in your case--not in mine. Always remember, Godfrey, that I shall never marry anybody else, not even if you took three wives one after the other."

"Three wives!" gasped Godfrey.

"Yes, why not? It would be quite natural, wouldn't it, if you wouldn't marry me, and even proper. Only I should never take one--husband, I mean--not from any particular virtue, but just because I couldn't. You see, it would make me ill. And if I tried I should only run away."

"Oh! stop talking nonsense," said Godfrey, "when so soon you will have to go to see about those people," and he held out his arms.

She sank into them, and for a little while they forgot their doubts and fears.