CHAPTER XIV. IN HER SELFLESS MOOD
Eric noticed a change in Kilmeny at their next meeting--a change thattroubled him. She seemed aloof, abstracted, almost ill at ease. When heproposed an excursion to the orchard he thought she was reluctant to go.The days that followed convinced him of the change. Something had comebetween them. Kilmeny seemed as far away from him as if she had intruth, like her namesake of the ballad, sojourned for seven years in theland "where the rain never fell and the wind never blew," and had comeback washed clean from all the affections of earth.
Eric had a bad week of it; but he determined to put an end to it byplain speaking. One evening in the orchard he told her of his love.
It was an evening in August, with wheat fields ripening to theirharvestry--a soft violet night made for love, with the distant murmur ofan unquiet sea on a rocky shore sounding through it. Kilmeny was sittingon the old bench where he had first seen her. She had been playing forhim, but her music did not please her and she laid aside the violin witha little frown.
It might be that she was afraid to play--afraid that her new emotionsmight escape her and reveal themselves in music. It was difficultto prevent this, so long had she been accustomed to pour out all herfeelings in harmony. The necessity for restraint irked her and made ofher bow a clumsy thing which no longer obeyed her wishes. More than everat that instant did she long for speech--speech that would conceal andprotect where dangerous silence might betray.
In a low voice that trembled with earnestness Eric told her that heloved her--that he had loved her from the first time he had seen herin that old orchard. He spoke humbly but not fearfully, for he believedthat she loved him, and he had little expectation of any rebuff.
"Kilmeny, will you be my wife?" he asked finally, taking her hands inhis.
Kilmeny had listened with averted face. At first she had blushedpainfully but now she had grown very pale. When he had finished speakingand 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 Iloved you. Don't you care for me?" Eric said, putting his arm about herand trying to draw her to him. But she shook her head sorrowfully, andwrote with compressed lips,
"Yes, I do love you, but I will never marry you, because I cannotspeak."
"Oh, Kilmeny," said Eric smiling, for he believed his victory won, "thatdoesn't make any difference to me--you know it doesn't, sweetest. If youlove me that is enough."
But Kilmeny only shook her head again. There was a very determined lookon her pale face. She wrote,
"No, it is not enough. It would be doing you a great wrong to marry youwhen I cannot speak, and I will not do it because I love you too much todo anything that would harm you. Your world would think you had donea very foolish thing and it would be right. I have thought it all overmany times since something Aunt Janet said made me understand, and Iknow I am doing right. I am sorry I did not understand sooner, beforeyou had learned to care so much."
"Kilmeny, darling, you have taken a very absurd fancy into that dearblack head of yours. Don't you know that you will make me miserablyunhappy 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 youwill see that I was right. I shall be very unhappy, too, but that isbetter than spoiling your life. Do not plead or coax because I shall notchange 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 anddistracted earnestness, as he began to realize that Kilmeny meant whatshe said. It was all in vain. Kilmeny grew paler and paler, and her eyesrevealed how keenly she was suffering. She did not even try to arguewith him, but only listened patiently and sadly, and shook her head. Saywhat he would, entreat and implore as he might, he could not move herresolution a hairs-breadth.
Yet he did not despair; he could not believe that she would adhere tosuch a resolution; he felt sure that her love for him would eventuallyconquer, and he went home not unhappily after all. He did not understandthat it was the very intensity of her love which gave her the strengthto resist his pleading, where a more shallow affection might haveyielded. It held her back unflinchingly from doing him what she believedto be a wrong.