Barchester Towers - Anthony Trollope (ebook reader below 3000 .txt) 📗

her eye, and do what she would, it fell on her cheek. When Mr. Arabin’s back was turned to her, she wiped it away; but another was soon coursing down her face in its place. They would come⁠—not a deluge of tears that would have betrayed her at once, but one by one, single monitors. Mr. Arabin did not observe her closely, and they passed unseen.

Mr. Arabin, thus pacing up and down the room, took four or five turns before he spoke another word, and Eleanor sat equally silent with her face bent over her book. She was afraid that her tears would get the better of her, and was preparing for an escape from the room, when Mr. Arabin in his walk stood opposite to her. He did not come close up but stood exactly on the spot to which his course brought him, and then, with his hands under his coattails, thus made his confession.

“Mrs. Bold,” said he, “I owe you retribution for a great offence of which I have been guilty towards you.” Eleanor’s heart beat so that she could not trust herself to say that he had never been guilty of any offence. So Mr. Arabin thus went on.

“I have thought much of it since, and I am now aware that I was wholly unwarranted in putting to you a question which I once asked you. It was indelicate on my part, and perhaps unmanly. No intimacy which may exist between myself and your connection, Dr. Grantly, could justify it. Nor could the acquaintance which existed between ourselves.” This word acquaintance struck cold on Eleanor’s heart. Was this to be her doom after all? “I therefore think it right to beg your pardon in a humble spirit, and I now do so.”

What was Eleanor to say to him? She could not say much because she was crying, and yet she must say something. She was most anxious to say that something graciously, kindly, and yet not in such a manner as to betray herself. She had never felt herself so much at a loss for words.

“Indeed, I took no offence, Mr. Arabin.”

“Oh, but you did! And had you not done so, you would not have been yourself. You were as right to be offended as I was wrong so to offend you. I have not forgiven myself, but I hope to hear that you forgive me.”

She was now past speaking calmly, though she still continued to hide her tears; and Mr. Arabin, after pausing a moment in vain for her reply, was walking off towards the door. She felt that she could not allow him to go unanswered without grievously sinning against all charity; so, rising from her seat, she gently touched his arm and said, “Oh, Mr. Arabin, do not go till I speak to you! I do forgive you. You know that I forgive you.”

He took the hand that had so gently touched his arm and then gazed into her face as if he would peruse there, as though written in a book, the whole future destiny of his life; as he did so, there was a sober, sad seriousness in his own countenance which Eleanor found herself unable to sustain. She could only look down upon the carpet, let her tears trickle as they would, and leave her hand within his.

It was but for a minute that they stood so, but the duration of that minute was sufficient to make it ever memorable to them both. Eleanor was sure now that she was loved. No words, be their eloquence what it might, could be more impressive than that eager, melancholy gaze.

Why did he look so into her eyes? Why did he not speak to her? Could it be that he looked for her to make the first sign?

And he, though he knew but little of women, even he knew that he was loved. He had only to ask, and it would be all his own, that inexpressible loveliness, those ever-speaking but yet now mute eyes, that feminine brightness and eager, loving spirit which had so attracted him since first he had encountered it at St. Ewold’s. It might, must, all be his own now. On no other supposition was it possible that she should allow her hand to remain thus clasped within his own. He had only to ask. Ah, but that was the difficulty. Did a minute suffice for all this? Nay, perhaps it might be more than a minute.

“Mrs. Bold⁠—” at last he said and then stopped himself.

If he could not speak, how was she to do so? He had called her by her name, the same name that any merest stranger would have used! She withdrew her hand from his and moved as though to return to her seat. “Eleanor!” he then said in his softest tone, as though the courage of a lover were as yet but half-assumed, as though he were still afraid of giving offence by the freedom which he took. She looked slowly, gently, almost piteously up into his face. There was at any rate no anger there to deter him.

“Eleanor!” he again exclaimed, and in a moment he had her clasped to his bosom. How this was done, whether the doing was with him or her, whether she had flown thither conquered by the tenderness of his voice, or he with a violence not likely to give offence had drawn her to his breast, neither of them knew; nor can I declare. There was now that sympathy between them which hardly admitted of individual motion. They were one and the same⁠—one flesh⁠—one spirit⁠—one life.

“Eleanor, my own Eleanor, my own, my wife!” She ventured to look up at him through her tears, and he, bowing his face down over hers, pressed his lips upon her brow⁠—his virgin lips, which, since a beard first grew upon his chin, had never yet tasted the luxury of a woman’s cheek.

She had been told that her yea must be yea, or her nay, nay, but she was called on for neither the