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All in a minute it boils over and puts out the little fire, and there is an end of it, and she asks what ought to be done. But now I am penitent, and have been scolded by Arthur. I will never, never do it any more. My aunt was right, sir." "I think you gave me more than life, Darthea, that day. And did you think I would take the parole?" "Never for a moment!" she cried, with flashing eyes.
To hurt you to hurt you of all the world! I had no right to ask you. "'Don't, she said, with a great sob, which seemed to break my heart. "'Darthea, I said 'Darthea, do not marry that man! He is cruel; he is hard; he does not love you as my Hugh loves you. "'Sir, she said, with such sudden dignity that I was overcome, and fell back a pace, 'I am promised; let that suffice.
The air was soft like summer, and, sweeter than birds overhead or the fragrant arbutus on the upland slopes, came Darthea in virgin white, and a great hat tied under her chin with long breadths of blue ribbon. My aunt walked with her from her coach, and close after them came a laughing throng of men and women, for the most part of the governor's set.
Then I heard a slow step on the stair, and the rustle of skirts, and here was Darthea, pale and grave, but more full in bud, and, I thought, more lovely in her maturing womanhood. She paused at the doorway, and made as it were to greet me with a formal curtsey, but then how like her it did seem! ran forward and gave me both her hands, saying: "You are welcome, Mr. Wynne. I am most glad to see you.
"Oh, Aunt Gainor, you have broken my heart!" "What did I say, Hugh?" said my aunt. I do truly think she did not know what she had said; and now she was off and I after her, knocking over Caesar and our belated candles, and out of doors after Darthea. I saw her join her a few yards away, and did wisely to hold back. I knew well the child-heart my aunt carried within that spacious bosom.
I must tell him, too, with such proof as neither her love nor his subtlety could gainsay. And when this hour came what then? If I killed him, and I meant to, what of Darthea? That would end my slender chance, and yet I knew myself so surely as to be certain that, when the hour came, no human consideration would be listened to for a moment. I could hate in those days, and I did.
My aunt would have none of them that winter, and her old Tory friends ceased to be seen at her house, save only Darthea, whilst continental uniforms and gentlemen of the Congress were made warmly welcome; but alas! among these was no match for her at piquet, and she felt that no one had sacrificed more for the country than had she.
In a few hours came the turnkey, quite captured by Darthea, and no doubt the richer for a good fee. He fetched a portmantle just come, and an order to put me in a room alone. I left Delaney with sorrow, but hoped for some way to help him.
A vast richness of human love and an urgent desire of rule lay underneath the life she showed the outer world of quadrille and dinners and gossip. When she hurt us, or, as Darthea said, broke her china in trying to wash it, she fell back on our love with a quite childlike astonishment that what was come out of affection should give rise to resentment.
That she had once loved him with the honest love of a strong nature I knew, and somewhat hated to remember; but this love was dead, and if the sorry ghost of it haunted her at times, I could not wonder. My aunt had once or twice mentioned him casually, and each time Darthea had flushed, and once had asked her never to speak of him again.