and determinedly to her feet. “No! I tell you that you must not love me. Rather hate me – curse me for the evil I have already wrought – detest my name as that of one whose sin is unpardonable, whose contact is deadly, and at whose touch all that is good and honest and just withers and passes away. You do not know me, you cannot know me, or you would not kiss my hand,” she cried, with a strange glint in her eyes as she held forth her small, white palm. “You love me!” she added, panting, with a hoarse, harsh laugh. “Say rather that you hold me in eternal loathing.”
“All this puzzles me,” I cried, standing stone still. “You revile yourself, but if you have sinned surely there is atonement? Your past cannot have been so ugly as you would make me believe.”
“My past concerns none but myself,” she said quickly, as if indignant that I should have mentioned an unwelcome subject. “It is the future that I anticipate with dread, a future in which you appear determined to sacrifice yourself as victim.”
“I cannot be a victim if you love me in return, Aline,” I said calmly.
“I – love you?” She laughed in a strange, half-amused way. “What would you have? Would you have me caress you and yet wreck your future; kiss you, and yet at the same moment exert upon you that baneful power which must inevitably sap your life and render you as capable as myself of doing evil to your fellow-men? Ah! you do not know what you say, or you would never suggest that I, of all women, should love you.”
I gazed at her open-mouthed in amazement. Such a speech from the lips of one so young, so beautiful, so altogether ingenuous, was absolutely without parallel.
“I cannot help myself. I love you all the same, Aline,” I faltered.
“Yes, I know,” she replied quickly, with that same strange light in her eyes which I had only noticed once before. At that instant they seemed to flash with a vengeful fire, but in a second the strange glance she gave me had been succeeded by that calm, wistful look which when we had first met had so impressed me.
The idea that she was not quite responsible for her strange speeches I scouted. She was as sane as myself, thoughtful, quick of perception, yet possessing a mysteriousness of manner which was intensely puzzling. This extraordinary declaration of hers seemed as though she anticipated that some terrible catastrophe would befall me, and that now the influence of her beauty was upon me, and I loved her, the spell would drag me to the depths of despair.
“A woman knows in an instant by her natural intuition when she is loved,” she continued, speaking slowly and with emphasis. “Well, if you choose to throw all your happiness to the winds, then you are, of course, at liberty to do so. Yet, if you think that I can ever reciprocate your love you have formed an entirely wrong estimate of my character. One whose mission it is to work evil cannot love. I can hate – and hate well – but affection knows no place in my heart.”
“That’s a terrible self-denunciation,” I said. “Have you never loved, then?”
“Love comes always once to a woman, as it does to a man,” she replied. “Yes, I loved once.”
“And it was an unfortunate attachment?”
She nodded.
“As unfortunate as yours is,” she said, hoarsely.
“But cannot I take your lover’s place?” I bent and whispered passionately. “Will you not let me love you? I will do so with all my heart, with all my soul.”
She raised her fine eyes to mine, and after a moment’s pause, added —
“I am entirely in your hands. You say you love me now – you love me because you consider my beauty greater than that of other women; because I have fascinated you.” And sighing she slowly sank into her chair again. Then she added, “You wish me to be yours, but that I can never be. I can be your friend, but recollect I can never love you – never!” Then, putting forth her white hand she took mine, and looking into my face with a sweet, imploring expression, she went on —
“Think well of what I have said. Reflect upon my words. Surely it is best to end our friendship when you know how impossible it is for me to love you in return.”
“Then you will not allow me to take the place in your heart that your lost lover once occupied?” I said, with deep disappointment.
“It is impossible!” she answered, shaking her head gravely. “The love which comes to each of us once in a lifetime is like no other. If doomed to misfortune, it can never be replaced. None can fill the breach in a wounded heart.”
“That is only too true,” I was compelled to admit. “Yet I cannot relinquish you, Aline, because I love you.”
“You are infatuated – like other men have been,” she said, with a faint, pitying smile. “Holding you in esteem as I do, I regret it.”
“Why?”
“This is but the second time we have met, and you know nothing of my character,” she pointed out. “Your love is, therefore, mere admiration.”
I shook my head. Her argument was unconvincing.
“Well,” she went on, “I only desire that you should release me from this bond of friendship formed by your kindness to me the other night. It would be better for you, better for me, if we parted this evening never to again meet.”
“That’s impossible. I must see you from time to time, even though you may endeavour to put me from you. I do not fear this mysterious evil which you prophesy, because loving you as firmly as I do, no harm can befall me.”
“Ah, no!” she cried. “Do not say that. Think that the evil in the world is far stronger than the good; that sin is in the ascendency, and that the honest and upright are in the minority. Remember that no man is infallible, and that ill-fortune always strikes those who are least prepared to withstand the shock.”
I remained silent. She spoke so earnestly, and with such heartfelt concern for my welfare, that I was half-convinced of her sincerity of purpose. The calmness of her words and her dignity of bearing was utterly mystifying. Outwardly she was a mere girl, timid, unused to the world and its ways, honest-eyed and open-faced; yet her words were those of a woman who had had a long and bitter experience of loves and hatreds, and to whom a lover was no new experience. Beneath these strange declarations there was, I felt certain, some hidden meaning, but its nature I utterly failed to grasp.
I was young, impetuous, madly in love with this mysterious, beautiful woman who had come so suddenly into my otherwise happy, irresponsible life, and I had made my declaration of affection without counting the cost.
“I care not what evil may fall upon me,” I said boldly, holding her hand in tightening grip. “I have heard you, and have decided that I will love you, Aline.”
Again I raised her hand, and in silence she allowed me to kiss her fingers, without seeking to withdraw them.
She only sighed. I thought there was a passing look of pity in her eyes for a single moment, but could not decide whether it had really been there or whether it was merely imaginary.
“Then, if that is your decision, so let it be!” she murmured hoarsely.
And we were silent for a long time.
I looked into her beautiful eyes in admiration, for was I not now her lover? Was not Aline Cloud my beloved?
The
