Kitabı oku: «Not Without Thorns», sayfa 8
Volume One – Chapter Eight.
On the Brink
I love snow, and all the forms
Of the radiant frost;
I love waves and winds and storms,
Everything almost
Which is nature’s, and may be
Untainted by man’s misery.
Shelley.
Of the many times the sisters had walked to Ayclough they had never had a lovelier day for their ramble than the one on which they set off with Frank Thurston and the young Dalrymples, to skate on the Pool. It was February, early February, and the Frost spirit, who had been late of coming this year, seemed inclined to make up for the delay by paying a pretty long visit now he had really got as far down south from his own home as Wareshire. He had greatly disappointed his special friends, the school-boys of the community, by not spending Christmas with them, as in the good old days, we are told, was his invariable custom, and the last two Saturdays Arthur and Bob Dalrymple had hardly consented to eat any dinner, so eager were they to make the most of their friend’s company on these precious holiday afternoons.
“We expect Captain Chancellor to come with us, Frank,” said Sydney, as the little party were setting off from Mr Laurence’s door. “He said he would join us at the Brook Bridge at half-past one. He passes that way coming to our house, you know. He dined with us last night, and when he heard where we were going to-day, he said he would like to come too.”
“All right,” said Frank. “I expect some one too. I persuaded Gerald to promise to come. He never gives himself any play now at all. Ever since he came back from India he has been working far too hard. I don’t think he is looking well either. He’s not half the man he was before he went to India. Ah, there he comes! You girls must make a great deal of him to-day, for I want to coax him to give himself more relaxation.”
Eugenia and Sydney were very ready to do as Frank wished, and when Gerald came up to them he was most graciously received. It was quite true that he was not looking well. Eugenia noticed it very distinctly; he was looking much less well even than on his first return, and her heart smote her for the scanty thought she had of late bestowed on her old friend.
“I am so very glad you can come with us to-day, Gerald,” she said. “It is like old times, isn’t it?”
“Like, but very different,” he thought to himself, but aloud he answered cheerfully, and in spite of himself his spirits began to rise. It was like old times to have Eugenia walking beside him, her sweet bright face looking up in his, no one to dispute his claim upon her for the time. But his visions were soon dispelled. A new expression stole into her eyes, a soft flush crept over her face even while he watched it, and following the direction of her gaze to discover the cause of the change, Mr Thurston saw – Captain Chancellor coming forward quickly in their direction.
The two men had never met since the evening of Gerald’s return. They had eyed each other with covert suspicion then; they eyed each other with a scarcely more cordial feeling now. A slight, an almost imperceptibly slight, shade, it seemed to Gerald, came over Captain Chancellor’s handsome face when he recognised Eugenia’s companion. And he was not mistaken.
“What can that fellow be turning up again for?” Beauchamp was saying to himself. “I thought he was comfortably over head and ears in business. I don’t fancy him somehow. I wish to goodness he were back in India!”
But notwithstanding this unexpressed hostility, outwardly, as was his habit, Captain Chancellor made himself very agreeable. He seemed to take special pains to be civil and cordial in his manner to Mr Thurston, and Frank felt a little annoyed at Gerald’s somewhat ungracious reception of his friendly overtures.
“What a pleasant fellow Chancellor is, really,” observed Frank to Sydney. “Poor old Gerald hasn’t improved in his manners with being in India, I’m afraid. I don’t think he can be well. He is so surly and stiff sometimes now, and he never used to be.”
“Poor old Gerald” was only human after all. He was feeling very cross and bitter just now. His one ewe-lamb of a happy afternoon had been stolen from him. He could not all at once respond with careless cordiality to David’s civil speeches, but walked on beside Eugenia in grave and moody silence.
Eugenia could not make him out. How could he – how could any one – feel cross or sad on such an exquisite day? She herself was so happy. Everything was so beautiful, she could hardly help singing and dancing as she went along. They were out of Wareborough and its suburbs by now. The feeling, to dwellers in towns so ever-fresh and exhilarating, of “being in the country” was beginning to come over them. The lane along which they were walking was pleasant even at this season – pleasanter, in a sense, than in spring or summer; for though some hardy primroses, some few dog-roses and honeysuckles, were brave enough still, year after year, to show their welcome faces along the banks, it seemed to cost them an effort. They hardly looked at home beside the dingy hedges and smoke-dulled grass. But to-day the fields wore their “silver thatch;” “icy feathers fledged” the hedges; there was no fault to be found with either, in this bright winter clothing. The lane was hardly distinguishable from a real country lane.
“How beautiful it is! Did you ever see a more exquisite day?” exclaimed Eugenia, looking up to the clear green-blue sky through the delicate tracery of the bare branches of the trees. “One could imagine oneself miles and miles away from any town.”
She had been walking a few steps in front of the others. As she spoke, she stopped for a moment, and turned round facing them. How pretty she looked! To Gerald it seemed she had never looked lovelier than standing there, in her thick dark-grey cloth dress, with her favourite bit of bright colour – a scarlet knot at her throat this time – reflecting its warmth and brilliance in her eager, upturned face.
“It is a lovely day!” said Sydney; “but, Eugenia, you used to dislike winter so – even bright frosty days you used to say were ghastly and mocking, and all sorts of disagreeable things.”
“I don’t like winter at all,” answered Eugenia, falling back into her place, and walking on beside the others. “But to-day is hardly like winter. There is a living feeling in the air, cold though it is – a sort of slight stir and rustle even among the bare boughs.”
”‘The spring comes slowly up the way,’” said Gerald. “It’s very slowly, though. Of course we are only at the beginning of February; still, I know the feeling you mean, Eugenia. I have often fancied I could distinguish a sort of soft expectancy about this time of year.”
Captain Chancellor happened to be a little way behind them. Either Gerald imagined him out of ear-shot, or for the moment had forgotten him altogether.
“Yes,” said Eugenia; “that’s just it. It is the lifelessness of winter I dislike. And a bright still winter’s day has light without warmth – an idea that certainly is very ghastly to me. I like life, and movement, and warmth. Almost the loveliest summer sensation to me is that sort of soft, happy bustle that seems to go on among the birds and the flowers and the insects – all the dear creatures. Ah, how beautiful summer is!” She stopped for an instant; then, recurring to her former train of thought, she went on. “Doesn’t the idea of a ‘crystal sea’ seem rather repulsive to you, Gerald? I think it would be quite frightful. Fancy a motionless ocean!”
Beauchamp, and Frank, and the Dalrymple boys were close beside them now. Beauchamp had walked on faster since he saw Eugenia talking with apparent interest to the curate’s brother. Her last remark was overheard.
“It would be jolly nice to skate upon!” said Bob Dalrymple.
Eugenia broke into clear, merry laughter.
“I’m afraid you’ll not find any skates there, Bob,” she said to the boy; and then they both laughed again, as if she had said something immensely funny.
“It takes very little water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish;” it takes very little wit to satisfy a child’s appreciative powers. Bob was only twelve, and Eugenia was apt to grow very like a child herself when in high spirits. Mr Thurston smiled at their merriment; and though Sydney, in Frank’s presence, always trembled a little when she saw Eugenia verging on one of the reckless moods, charming enough when “a great many people” were not there, in the present case she could not help smiling too. Only Captain Chancellor looked annoyed. There were certain things that greatly offended his taste. He could not endure to hear a woman discuss religion or politics, he could not endure to hear a woman say anything funny, and then laugh at it. And of all conceivable subjects to joke upon, he most objected to joking on “religious subjects;” he thought it “bad style.” As Frank had said, Captain Chancellor was, or at any rate considered himself, “a good churchman,” of the class to whom it is not given to discriminate between the spirit and the letter. He hated Dissenters and Radicals – so far, that is to say, as he considered such beings worthy of attention at all. He was not the sort of man to whom it occurred readily, that to the best of rules there may be exceptions. More than once Roma herself had fallen under the ban of his disapproval, both as regarded the subjects she chose for discussion, and her remarks thereupon. But then Roma was a very different person; besides which, in her own set, she had established a name for a certain amount of originality, and this made her to some extent a privileged person.
Mr Thurston, happening to glance in Captain Chancellor’s direction, saw, and rightly interpreted, the expression of his face. First, he felt amused, then a little indignant. What right had this man to approve or disapprove of whatever Eugenia chose to say or do? Lastly, an undefinable instinct urged him to turn the conversation, without appearing to do so, for happy Eugenia was walking on merrily, in unconsciousness of any cloud in her vicinity.
“I think, Miss Laurence,” said Gerald, “you have got a little confusion in your head between the ‘crystal sea’ of the Bible and Dante’s ‘sea of ice,’ haven’t you? One does get the queerest confused associations sometimes, especially of things one has first heard of in childhood, and I know your literary taste when you were a small person in pinafores was rather omnivorous, wasn’t it?”
Eugenia laughed and confessed it was true. Beauchamp did not seem edified by the conversation.
“Yes, Eugenia,” said Frank, “you have taken up a wrong idea altogether. The words ‘glass’ and ‘crystal’ are only used to give the idea of purity, not motionlessness or lifelessness. Why, don’t you remember the ‘water of life’ being described as ‘pure as crystal’ in another place? You shouldn’t begin criticising scriptural expressions unless you have studied the subject – no one should.”
His tone was slightly dictatorial and decidedly clerical. Eugenia’s face flushed; she looked up with a somewhat haughty answer on her lips, but to her amazement, and that of every one else, Captain Chancellor said, suddenly, addressing Frank, —
“I quite agree with you, Thurston.” Eugenia’s face changed from pink to crimson. Gerald, watching her anxiously, thought he had never seen the expression of any face change so quickly, but she walked on quietly without speaking. “If she would but see in time,” thought Gerald; “if she would but see in time! He worthy of her! he understand her! As well expect a blacksmith to make a watch, or – or – ” He could think of no comparison sufficiently forcible to suit his indignant frame of mind.
By this time they had emerged from the lane on to the high road. They were within a mile of their destination, and the skaters waxed impatient.
“We shall not have a long afternoon,” said the curate. “Suppose, Bob, you and Arthur and I push on? We shall walk a good deal quicker than the ladies. Will you and Chancellor follow at your leisure with Sydney and Eugenia, Gerald? I want the boys to have a good afternoon. You don’t mind, Sydney?”
So it was agreed. The four left behind naturally fell into pairs; Mr Thurston and Sydney in front, Eugenia and Captain Chancellor some little way in the rear.
Rather to Beauchamp’s surprise, for he fancied his uncalled-for remark – in reality greatly the result of the ill-tempered mood he had felt coming over him ever since he saw that the elder Thurston made one of the party – had offended her, Eugenia seemed by no means averse to this two-and-two arrangement. He felt uncomfortable and annoyed. It was the very first time he was conscious of having appeared to this girl in even ever so slightly unfavourable a light, and he felt anxious to destroy the unpleasant impression; he was not likely to see much more of her, and he hated any one to remember him with any disagreeable association. But how to begin the smoothing-over process he felt rather at a loss. To his surprise, Eugenia herself helped him.
“Captain Chancellor,” she said, suddenly, speaking faster than usual, as if to force back some hesitation, “I want to tell you I think Frank Thurston was right in what he said just now, and you were right to agree with him. I do speak at random, sometimes; and I shouldn’t have encouraged Bob to joke as I did. Of course, any one else could see there was no irreverence in my mind; but a child might not, and one can’t be too careful with children. I think I quite understand your disliking it, and I am so sorry.”
She looked up in his face with a deprecating humility, a sweet softness in her brown eyes that he had never seen in them before. Never had he thought her so charming. He did not attend to the exact meaning of her words, most certainly no anxiety as to the nature of the impressions left on the infant mind of Master Bob had troubled him; he was conscious only of an inference of apology in what she said, and of acknowledgment of his superior judgment that was very agreeable to him and very becoming to her. The “I am so sorry” at the end was quite delicious. “Dear little thing,” he said to himself, “it would not be difficult to mould her into one’s own pattern.” And aloud, he said, with the half deferential tenderness so curiously attractive to very young girls, —
“You are too good, Miss Laurence; a great deal too good. I have certainly rather strong feelings – prejudices, if you like – on some subjects, but I really feel it is more than good of you not to have resented my inexcusable expression of them.”
“Don’t say that,” she remonstrated, gently; “I do not feel it so at all. When any one finds fault with me, on the contrary, I feel that it must – that they must – ” she hesitated.
“That it must arise from no common interest in you?” he suggested. “And can you ever have doubted my feeling such, Miss Laurence? No one, I suppose, is quite perfection; but surely you must know that to me you appear so near it that a word or a tone which I should never notice in another woman, from you acquires importance.”
The words were dreadfully commonplace, but spoken in his peculiarly sweet, low voice, with his deep, expressive eyes looking unutterable things into hers, to Eugenia they sounded most “apt and gracious.” Nor was Beauchamp, for the time being, insincere. He really felt what he said. As he looked at this young creature, so sweet, so very pretty, so ready to believe in himself as the embodiment of every manly grace and excellence, a strange, altogether unprecedented rash, of feeling came over him. If he could but throw all to the winds – prospects and position and future and all – and clasp her in his arms and call her his darling, his “one woman in the world,” and carry her off there and then to some beautiful, impossible castle in the air, where there was no “society,” no growing old, no anybody or anything but each other!
It was but a moment’s passing, insane, altogether ridiculous dream, and Beauchamp soon recovered himself, and Eugenia little suspected the cause of his sudden silence, for she was in a sweet dream of her own, the same in which for many days now she had been living, and from which she would not be very easily roused. Each day, each hour, almost, it was gaining more hold upon her; every circumstance, every trifling incident, seemed to bring her more and more under its influence; no shadow of misgiving had as yet dimmed its beauty and glowing perfection.
Yet she was a girl to whom such a description of her enchantment as that suggested by the vulgar words “madly in love” was altogether and essentially inapplicable. We want a word surely to describe this higher, yet passionate love – the love of a pure, enthusiastic, undisciplined nature, dreaming that it has found its ideal, that the days of “gods and godlike men” are not yet over, to whom in such a belief all self-sacrifice, all self-surrender, would be possible, to whom the destruction of its ideal would risk the destruction of all faith beside.
They walked on in silence for a little; then, by a slight quickening of their pace, Beauchamp managed to overtake Mr Thurston and Sydney, who were only a few steps before them, and for the next half mile the four kept together. It was better so, Beauchamp said to himself, for he was beginning to feel a little less confident in his own ability to draw back in time; his recent sensations had startled him considerably, and Roma’s warning persisted in recurring most uncomfortably to his mind. Looking back over the wide range of his so-called “love affairs,” he could not hit upon any which on his side had threatened “to go so far.” Roma herself, with all her attractions, had never roused in him a similar storm. He was as determined as ever to win her in spite of all opposition, but he owned to himself that by the time he met her again at Winsley, he might safely boast that his allegiance had been more sharply tested than even she had had any idea of.
Some way further along the road they came to the sharp turn known as Ayclough Bend. Here, a lane to the right led up the hill to the farm, the high road to the left pursuing its course to twenty-miles-off Bridgenorth.
“This is our way,” said Mr Thurston, turning as he spoke in the direction of the lane, but both the girls had come to a stand beside a large stone lying at the side of the road.
“This is the Bride’s stone,” said Sydney, in an explanatory tone.
“Ah, yes, to be sure. Poor bride,” said Gerald, coming back again.
“Who is the bride? Why do you call this her stone?” inquired Captain Chancellor of Eugenia.
She gravely related the story. Even to this day it had a curious fascination for her. “It was on this stone he was thrown when the coach upset. And it is here, they say, she is still to be seen sometimes,” she said with a slight shudder. “Is it not a sad story?” she added, looking up with such pity in her eyes, that Beauchamp half fancied there were tears not far off. He didn’t feel inclined to laugh at her, he was in a rather unusual mood to-day. Still less, however, was he inclined that Gerald or Sydney should have the benefit of his rare fit of genuine sentimentality. So he answered carelessly —
“Very sad, if true, which I should feel inclined to doubt. I have heard the same story at other places. Besides, if it were true, pity would be wasted on the lady. No doubt she married again very speedily if she was so lovely and charming.”
Gerald hardly stayed to hear him finish the sentence. He walked on quickly, followed by Sydney, and both looked at each other as they heard Eugenia’s voice answering her companion brightly and happily as usual.
“She is bewitched,” said Gerald, abruptly, and Sydney by her silence seemed to agree with him. “Just the sort of thing that would have put her out for the day, if Frank had said it to tease her.”
They had not seen the expression in Beauchamp’s eyes which belied his careless words, giving her, even about this trifle, a feeling that his confidence, his deeper feelings, were reserved for her alone.
“Yes,” said Sydney, with a sigh. “But, Gerald, I have come to see that there is nothing to be done. I tried once or twice to speak to Eugenia, some time ago, but it was no use. It only risked my losing her confidence altogether. Besides, what could I say? I know nothing against Captain Chancellor. I cannot even say I suspect anything; and I by no means dislike him. As an ordinary acquaintance I should like him very much.”
“You disliked him at first,” objected Gerald.
“No, not exactly,” said Sydney, thoughtfully. “I was only rather afraid of liking him too readily. I doubted him before I ever saw him, from what Eugenia told me of him; I doubted, I mean to say, his being the sort of person I should have chosen for her. But that sounds very presumptuous. Sisters don’t marry to please each other.”
“No,” said Gerald, with a slight laugh. “In that case Frank’s chance might not have been so good.”
“But Eugenia respects Frank, though they are always sparring with each other. She trusts him too. Ah, there is just the difference,” exclaimed Sydney, eagerly. “I don’t feel as if I could trust Captain Chancellor with Eugenia. I don’t suppose he will beat her or ill-use her,” she went on smiling half sadly. “I think he is kind-hearted and easy tempered, and a good enough sort of a man in many ways. But he won’t understand her, and that sort of misery would be worse to her than any.”
“But it would have been a great chance if she had married any one thoroughly congenial and suitable. Very few people do,” said Gerald, thinking to himself if there might not in the future be disappointment in store even for the earnest, unselfish girl beside him, good sterling fellow though Frank was.
“I know that,” answered Sydney, and then for a minute or two she remained silent. “Perhaps, Gerald,” she went on, “to put it quite fairly, a good deal of our anxiety arises from Eugenia’s side. I mean it is her own character that makes me afraid. I don’t think I should have misgivings about any other girl’s happiness if I heard she was going to marry Captain Chancellor. I don’t know that I should have been afraid for myself even, (though it sounds an odd thing to say, and I certainly couldn’t fancy myself caring for him). You see, Gerald, I expect so much less. With Eugenia it is always all or nothing.”
“Yes, I understand,” answered Gerald. “It is a question if such a nature can escape intense suffering, though I had fancied – but it’s no use thinking of that. There are some kinds of suffering which, it seems to me, would be ruinous to Eugenia, which she could not pass through without leaving the best of herself in the furnace. That is my worst fear, Sydney. I have never attempted to put it in words before. I could not have done so to any one but yourself.”
“But we can’t tell, Gerald,” said Sydney, timidly. “We can’t tell how what seems the worst training may turn out the best. We can’t believe that in the end it will not all have been the best, even our own mistakes.”
“The end is a very long way off,” said Gerald, gloomily, “and it is sad work for lookers-on sometimes. Of course, I know what you mean, Sydney, and one must at bottom believe it; but still one constantly sees what look very like fatal mistakes, and it is very seldom given to us on this side of the gate to see that good came out of the bad after all.”
Sydney did not answer. After awhile Mr Thurston spoke again, this time with evident hesitation.
“I am afraid you may be angry with me for what I am going to say, Sydney,” he began, “but I think I should say it. All your fears seem to point one way. I mean to the unlikelihood of Captain Chancellor’s satisfying Eugenia – suiting her – but have you never doubted him in any other way?”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Sydney in vague alarm.
“Can’t you understand? It’s a horrid thing to say,” said Gerald impatiently. “Are you quite sure he is in earnest? May he not be only what is called amusing himself – flirting, or trifling, or any of those detestable expressions?”
Sydney grew crimson.
“No, Gerald,” she said, with immense indignation in her voice. “I certainly never for an instant supposed him capable of such baseness. I am surprised at you, Gerald. It is well you never hinted at anything of this kind before – or perhaps it is a pity you did not. I am exceedingly sorry I ever discussed the matter with you at all.”
“You are unjust and unreasonable, Sydney, and unkind too,” exclaimed Gerald, with a good deal of wounded feeling. “Don’t you see how painful it is to me to suggest such a thing to you, who know what you do about me? But I am in earnest, Sydney. It is well you, at least, should be prepared for such a possibility. You cannot suppose that I have any selfish motive in suggesting it. You don’t think that, selfishly speaking, I should wish it to turn out so? If Captain Chancellor disappeared to-day, and was never heard of again, that would do me no good. How could it?”
“I didn’t think you had any selfish motive,” answered Sydney, gently. “I only thought that – that – naturally perhaps you saw him worse than he is.”
“Frank has said the same,” replied Mr Thurston, in a but half mollified tone.
“Frank!” repeated Sydney, “Frank! Oh, no, Gerald! He likes Captain Chancellor; he thinks well of him.”
“Well, I didn’t say he disliked him. He, only looking at the thing in a careless, superficial, way, does not seem to think any blame could be attached to this man if – oh, how I hate these vulgar expressions! – if he simply does go away without, as it is called, ‘coming to the point’ at all. Frank cannot see that he pays Eugenia any particular attentions. He only thinks her very likely to deceive herself in this sort of thing.” Sydney looked dreadfully startled. If Frank thought so, must there not be some ground for this new anxiety? But if so, how despicably false Captain Chancellor must be! How false and how hatefully worldly-wise to have thus, as it were, screened himself beforehand by securing Frank’s favourable opinion! For that he had not deliberately set himself to gain Eugenia’s affections from the first, Sydney could not for an instant allow. What on Eugenia would be the effect of the discovery of such treachery, poor Sydney dared not allow herself to imagine. But no, it could not be. After all, no man could be so coldblooded, so selfish, so wicked, as to crush the happiness out of a fair young life for the sake of a few weeks’ amusement. Sydney had read of such things, but was loth to believe in them. Gerald’s troubles had made him morbidly suspicious. Frank had spoken hastily, and, after all, Frank was far from being in a position to judge. So she endeavoured to reassure herself, and fancied she had done so.
She was unusually quiet, however, for the rest of the afternoon. The others – Frank and the boys, Eugenia and Captain Chancellor, that is to say – were in the highest spirits. Only Sydney and Mr Thurston seemed uninfluenced by the fresh keen air, the exhilarating amusement.
“I thought your sister could skate too – at least, that she was learning, like you,” said Beauchamp to Eugenia, who was just beginning to feel a little at home on the ice. “Doesn’t she like it?”
“She skates better than I, a good deal,” replied the girl. “I don’t know what has come over her this afternoon. She looks so tired and out of spirits!” And as she spoke, she looked anxiously in Sydney’s direction.
Captain Chancellor noticed the quick change of expression that came over her face. Five minutes before, he had thought nothing could be lovelier than Eugenia, laughing and merry; now it seemed to him this tenderly anxious expression showed the sweetness of her eyes to greater advantage. What a fascinating face the child had! – never two minutes the same, and each change bringing out some new beauty. He stood watching her, till he almost forgot where he was. She turned suddenly, and caught his gaze; blushed a little, and looked away again. Something in his face puzzled her – a perplexed, uneasy look, that she had never seen there before. Suddenly Bob Dalrymple wheeled up to where they were standing, and came to a halt.
“What a brilliant colour that ribbon of yours is, Miss Laurence!” said Captain Chancellor, abruptly. “Is scarlet your favourite colour? You generally have some of it about you.”
“Only in winter,” answered Eugenia, lightly. “In summer I can’t bear it. My tastes change altogether with the seasons.”
“So if you come back next summer, you’d better look out,” said Bob, addressing Captain Chancellor, and grinning maliciously. “She won’t like you then. It’s a good thing you’re going before the weather changes.” And so saying, he skimmed off again.
“What does he mean?” exclaimed Eugenia, not disguising the shock the boy’s words had given her. “You are not going away, Captain Chancellor?”
There was an unconscious entreaty in her voice, that gave Beauchamp a sudden thrill of pain and self-reproach.
“Not just yet, I hope. But my plans are a little – are not quite decided at present,” he answered, confusedly. Then, notwithstanding his resolutions, the look in Eugenia’s face tempted him to say more.
“You must know, Miss Laurence, how painful, how unendurable it will be to me to leave Wareborough,” he said, in a low, hurried voice.
“Will you not come back again?” she asked, very quietly, striving hard to force back the intense eagerness with which she awaited his reply.
“I hope so. I earnestly hope I may be able to do so,” he answered; and for the time the hope was sincere. “But I am not my own master. I can’t explain all I mean. I am hampered in every direction. But some day, perhaps – No, it is no use – ”
He stopped.
Eugenia stood beside him without speaking. He glanced half timidly at her face. Its expression puzzled him. It was getting late now; the rest of the party had taken off their skates, and were coming towards them across the pond, prepared evidently for the walk home. Beauchamp felt desperate. He might not have another opportunity of saying what he now felt he must say.
