The Uttermost Farthing | Page 7

you have been to me all these years. Ever since we first knew one another, you have given me everything--everything in exchange for nothing."
And as he shook his head, she continued, "Yes, for nothing! For a long time I tried to persuade myself that this was not so--I tried to believe that you were as contented as I had taught myself to be. I first realised what a hindrance"--she hesitated for a moment, and then said the two words--"our friendship--must have proved to you four years ago,--when you might have gone to St. Petersburg."
As Vanderlyn allowed an exclamation of surprise to escape him, she went on, "Yes, Laurence, you have never known that I knew of that chance--of that offer. Adèle de Léra heard of it, and told me; she begged me then, oh! so earnestly, to give you up--to let you go."
"It was no business of hers," he muttered, "I never thought for a moment of accepting----"
"--But you would have done so if you had never known me, if we had not been friends?" She looked up at him, hoping, longing, for a quick word of denial.
But Vanderlyn said no such word. Instead, he fell manlike into the trap she had perhaps unwittingly laid for him.
"If I had never known you?" he repeated, "why, Peggy--dearest--my whole life would have been different if I had never known you! Do you really think that I should have been here in Paris, doing what I am now doing--or rather doing nothing--if we had never met?"
The honest, unmeditated answer made her wince, but she went on, as if she had not heard it--
"As you know, I did not take Adèle's advice, but I have never forgotten, Laurence, some of the things she said."
A look which crossed his face caused her to redden, and add hastily, "She's not given to speaking of you--of us; indeed she's not! She never again alluded to the matter; but the other day when I was persuading her,--she required a good deal of persuasion, Laurence--to consent to my plan, I reminded her of all she had said four years ago."
"And what was it that she did say four years ago?" asked Vanderlyn with a touch of angry curiosity; "as Madame de Léra is a Frenchwoman, and a pious Catholic, I presume she tried to make you believe that our friendship was wrong, and could only lead to one thing----" he stopped abruptly.
"No," said Peggy, quietly, "she did not think then that our friendship would lead to--to this; she thought in some ways better of me than I deserve. But she did tell me that I was taking a great responsibility on myself, and that if anything happened--for instance, if I died----" Vanderlyn again made a restless, almost a contemptuous movement--"I should have been the cause of your wasting the best years of your life; I should have broken and spoilt your career, and all--all for nothing."
"Nothing?" exclaimed Vanderlyn passionately. "Ah! Peggy, do not say that. You know, you must know, that our love--I will not call it friendship," he went on resolutely, "for this one week let no such false word be uttered between us--you must know, I say, that our love has been everything to me! Till I met you, my life was empty, miserable; since I met you it has been filled, satisfied, and that even if I have received what Madame de Léra dares to call--nothing!"
He spoke with a fervour, a conviction, which to the woman over whom he was now leaning brought exquisite solace. At last he was speaking as she had longed to hear him speak.
"You don't know," she whispered brokenly, "how happy you make me by saying this to-night, Laurence. I have sometimes wondered lately if you cared for me as much as you used to care?"
Vanderlyn's dark face contracted with pain; he was no Don Juan, learned in the byways of a woman's heart. Then, almost roughly, he caught her to him, and she, looking up, saw a strange glowing look come over his face--a look which was, even to her, an all-sufficing answer, for it told of the baffled longing, of the abnegation, and, even now, of the restraint and selflessness, of the man who loved her.
"Did you really think that, Peggy?" was all he said; then, more slowly, as the arms about her relaxed their hold, "Why, my dear, you've always been--you are--my life."
A sudden sob, a cry of joy broke from her. She sat up, and with a quick passionate movement flung herself on his breast; slowly she raised her face to his: "I love you," she whispered, "Laurence, I love you!"
His lips trembled for a moment on her closed eyelids, then sought and found her soft, quivering mouth. But even then Vanderlyn's love was reverent, restrained in its