CHAPTER XIV. IN HER SELFLESS MOOD
Eric noticed a change in Kilmeny at their next meeting--a change
that troubled him. She seemed aloof, abstracted, almost ill at
ease. When he proposed an excursion to the orchard he thought
she was reluctant to go. The days that followed convinced him of
the change. Something had come between them. Kilmeny seemed as
far away from him as if she had in truth, like her namesake of
the ballad, sojourned for seven years in the land "where the rain
never fell and the wind never blew," and had come back washed
clean from all the affections of earth.
Eric had a bad week of it; but he determined to put an end to it
by plain speaking. One evening in the orchard he told her of his
love.
It was an evening in August, with wheat fields ripening to their
harvestry--a soft violet night made for love, with the distant
murmur of an unquiet sea on a rocky shore sounding through it.
Kilmeny was sitting on the old bench where he had first seen her.
She had been playing for him, but her music did not please her
and she laid aside the violin with a little frown.
It might be that she was afraid to play--afraid that her new
emotions might escape her and reveal themselves in music. It was
difficult to prevent this, so long had she been accustomed to
pour out all her feelings in harmony. The necessity for
restraint irked her and made of her bow a clumsy thing which no
longer obeyed her wishes. More than ever at that instant did she
long for speech--speech that would conceal and protect where
dangerous silence might betray.
In a low voice that trembled with earnestness Eric told her that
he loved her--that he had loved her from the first time he had
seen her in that old orchard. He spoke humbly but not fearfully,
for he believed that she loved him, and he had little expectation
of any rebuff.
"Kilmeny, will you be my wife?" he asked finally, taking her
hands in his.
Kilmeny had listened with averted face. At first she had blushed
painfully but now she had grown very pale. When he had finished
speaking and was waiting for her answer, she suddenly pulled her
hands away, and, putting them over her face, burst into tears and
noiseless sobs.
"Kilmeny, dearest, have I alarmed you? Surely you knew before
that I loved you. Don't you care for me?" Eric said, putting
his arm about her and trying to draw her to him. But she shook
her head sorrowfully, and wrote with compressed lips,
"Yes, I do love you, but I will never marry you, because I cannot
speak."
"Oh, Kilmeny," said Eric smiling, for he believed his victory
won, "that doesn't make any difference to me--you know it
doesn't, sweetest. If you love me that is enough."
But Kilmeny only shook her head again. There was a very
determined look on her pale face. She wrote,
"No, it is not enough. It would be doing you a great wrong to
marry you when I cannot speak, and I will not do it because I
love you too much to do anything that would harm you. Your world
would think you had done a very foolish thing and it would be
right. I have thought it all over many times since something
Aunt Janet said made me understand, and I know I am doing right.
I am sorry I did not understand sooner, before you had learned to
care so much."
"Kilmeny, darling, you have taken a very absurd fancy into that
dear black head of yours. Don't you know that you will make me
miserably unhappy all my life if you will not be my wife?"
"No, you think so now; and I know you will feel very badly for a
time. Then you will go away and after awhile you will forget me;
and then you will see that I was right. I shall be very unhappy,
too, but that is better than spoiling your life. Do not plead or
coax because I shall not change my mind."
Eric did plead and coax, however--at first patiently and
smilingly, as one might argue with a dear foolish child; then
with vehement and distracted earnestness, as he began to realize
that Kilmeny meant what she said. It was all in vain. Kilmeny
grew paler and paler, and her eyes revealed how keenly she was
suffering. She did not even try to argue with him, but only
listened patiently and sadly, and shook her head. Say what he
would, entreat and implore as he might, he could not move her
resolution a hairs-breadth.
Yet he did not despair; he could not believe that she would
adhere to such a resolution; he felt sure that her love for him
would eventually conquer, and he went home not unhappily after
all. He did not understand that it was the very intensity of her
love which gave her the strength to resist his pleading, where a
more shallow affection might have yielded. It held her back
unflinchingly from doing him what she believed to be a wrong.
