The Hoyden by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (best value ebook reader TXT) 📖

leads to----"

"To?" says the girl, shrinking, yet leaning forward.

"To the devil--to the Divorce Court!" says Rylton, with increasing violence. "Do you think I did not see you and him just now--you--_in his arms!_ Look here!"

He seizes her arm. There is a quick, sudden movement, and she is once again free. Such a little, fragile creature! She seems to have grown a woman during this encounter, and to be now tall to him, and strong and imperious.

"Don't!" says she, in a curious tone, so low as to be almost unheard, yet clear to him. "Don't come near me. _Don't!_ What do you accuse me of?"

"You know right well. Do you think the whole world--_our_ world, at all events--has not seen how it has been with you and----"

He cannot go on. He pauses, looking at her. He had meant to spare her feelings; but, to his surprise, she meets his gaze fully, and says, "Well?" in a questioning way.

At this his rage bursts forth.

"Are you _quite_ shameless that you talk to me like this?" cries he. "Are you mad?" As he speaks, his fingers tighten on a piece of paper--evidently a letter--that he is holding in his right hand. "You _must_ know that I saw you with him to-night--you--in his arms--_you_----"

Tita turns upon him.

"It is you who are mad," says she. She goes quite close to him. "He was going. He was bidding me good-bye." She pauses; her breath comes heavily, but she goes on: "He was bidding me good-bye, and--he told me he loved me----"

Rylton flings her from him.

"Do you pretend that was the first time?"

"The first--the _first?"_ cries Tita passionately. "Do you think--do you _dare_ to think that----"

"I refuse to tell you what I think. There is one thing more, however, to be said; you shall give up all further intercourse with your cousin."

Now, Tita had decided, during her late interview with Tom, that she would never willingly see him again; but here and thus to be _ordered_ to do her own desire is more than she can bear.

"No, I shall not do that," says she.

"You _shall,"_ says Rylton, whose temper is now beyond his control.

"I shall _not."_ Tita is standing back from him, her small flower-like head uplifted, her eyes on fire. "Oh, coward!" cries she. "You do right to speak to me like this--to me, who have no one to help me."

"You--you!" interrupts he. "Where is Hescott, then?"

His voice, his tone, his whole air, is one great insult.

Tita stands for one moment like a marble thing transfixed; then:

"Tom is not _here,"_ says she slowly, contemptuously, and with great meaning. "If he were---- In the meantime, I am in your power, so far that I must listen to you. There is no one to help me. I haven't a living soul in the wide world to stand by me, and you know it."

Here the door is thrown open, and Margaret comes in, pale, uneasy. By a mere chance she had left her room to place a letter for the early post in the box in the corridor outside, and had then seen Hescott going down the corridor (unconscious of Rylton coming up behind him)--had seen the latter's rather rough impelling of Tita into her bedroom, and---- And afraid of consequences, she had at last smothered her dreadful repugnance to interfering with other people's business, and had gone swiftly to Tita's door. Even then she was on the point of giving up--of being false to her principles--when Tita's voice, a little high, a little strained, had frightened her. It had been followed by an angry answer from Rylton. Margaret opened the door and went in.

Tita is standing with her back to a small table, her hands behind her, resting upon it, steadying her. She is facing Rylton, and every one of her small beautiful features breathes defiance--a defiance which seems to madden Rylton. His face is terribly white, and he has caught his under lip with his teeth--a bad sign with him.

"Maurice, it is not her fault. Tita, forgive me! I heard--I saw--I feared something." The gentle Margaret seems all broken up, and very agitated. After a pause, as if to draw her breath--a pause not interrupted, so great is the amazement of the two belligerents before her et her so sudden appearance--she addresses herself solely to Sir Maurice. "She had been with me," she begins. "It was the merest chance her leaving me just then; she was going to her own room."

But Tita cuts he short.

"I forbid you, Margaret!" cries she violently. "Be silent! I tell you I will not have myself either excused or explained. Do not arrange a defence for me. I will not be defended."

"Let me explain, my dearest--_do_ let me explain," entreats Margaret earnestly. "It is for your good."

"It is not; and even if it were, I should not allow it. Besides, there is nothing to explain. I was only bidding good-bye to Tom!" She pauses, and tears spring to her eyes--tears half angry, half remorseful. "Oh, _poor_ Tom!" cries she. _"He_ loves me!" Her breast rises and falls rapidly, and, after a struggle with herself, she bursts out crying. "He was my _one_ friend, I think! And I was so unkind to him! I told him I should never ask him here again! I was abominable to him! And all for nothing--nothing at all. Only because he said he--_loved_ _me!"_

She is sobbing passionately now.

"Tita," says Rylton; he takes a step towards her.

"As for you," cries she wildly, putting up her hands as if to keep him far from her, "I wish I had been born a _beggar._ Then," slowly, and in a voice vibrating with scorn--"then I should not have been chosen by _you!"_

The cut goes home. For a second Rylton winces, then his fingers close even more tightly over the paper he is holding, and a cynical smile crosses his lips.

"You believe much in money," says he.

"I have reason to do so," coldly. The strange smile on his lips has caught her attention, and has killed the more vehement form of her passion. "It induced you to marry me! Your mother told me so!"

"Did she?" He is smiling still. "Well, all that is at an end." Something in his voice makes Margaret look quickly at him, and he flings the letter he has been crushing in his hand to her. "Read that!" says he.

Margaret catches it, opens it hurriedly, and reads. Her face grows very pale. She looks up.

"You got it?"

"By the night mail, two hours ago."

"What is it?" demands Tita imperiously.

She had taken no notice of his giving the letter to Margaret; but now she is sure that some mystery lies in it--a mystery that has something to do with her.

Margaret regards her piteously.

"My dear--I----"

She breaks down, and looks now at Rylton as if reproaching him for having cast this task upon her shoulders. Rylton shakes his head.

"From you--it will be kinder," says he.

_"What_ is it?" asks Tita again, taking a step towards Margaret, and holding out her hand for the letter.

"Your money!" falters Margaret nervously.

"Yes--yes!"

_ "It is all gone!"_

"Gone?"

"All! There is nothing left," says Margaret, pale as ashes.

"Gone!" Tita repeats the word once or twice, as a child might, trying to learn a new syllable; she seems a little stunned. Then suddenly her whole face grows bright; it wakes into a new life as it were. "Is it _all_ gone?" asks she.

"Yes, my dearest girl, I am afraid so. But you must not be unhappy, Tita; I----"

"Oh, _unhappy!"_ cries the girl, in a high clear tone, one full of fresh, sweet courage and delight. She walks straight up to Rylton. _"Now I can leave you!"_ says she.

If she had been planning a revenge, she could hardly have arranged it better. Rylton looks back at her. He is silent, but she reads the disturbance of his soul in his firmly shut mouth, and the little, quick, flittering frown that draws his brows together in momentary rapidity. He had thought many things of her, but that she should hail with rapture the ruin that seemed to give her a chance of escape from him--_that_ thought had not been his.

In a moment, however, he has pulled himself together. He tells himself he sees at once the right course to pursue. In other words, he has decided on conquering her.

"You shall certainly not do that," says he icily.

"I shall, however." She almost laughs as she steps back from him, and up to Margaret. There is an air about her as though she had snapped her pretty fingers in his face. "Now you must help me to gain my living," cries she gaily. "'A child of the people' (I quote your mother again)," smiling at Rylton, "I will go back to the people."

"It is not quite so bad as that," says Margaret, who has been studying the fatal letter with a view of tearing _some_ good out of it. "It seems that when these speculations that your uncle made with your money all failed--and these failures have been going on for years--that still he tried to keep up his credit with you by--by sacrificing all his own money, and----"

"Poor old Uncle George," says the girl softly. For the first time she seems sorry for the misfortune that has fallen on her house. "Perhaps I can go to him, and help him. I dare say, now he is down in the world, he might be a little kinder to me."

"Impossible, Tita. He has gone abroad," says Margaret, who, as she tells herself miserably, is developing into a determined liar!

Uncle George, so runs the letter, has committed suicide. Truly he has gone abroad with a vengeance, and no man knoweth whither.

Tita sighs. It is, to tell truth, a sigh of relief. Uncle George had not been palatable to her.

"Well, I can earn something."

"You need not that," says Margaret. "It seems there is from two to three hundred a year left to you that cannot be disputed. It should be sufficient to----"

"I can live on _half_ that!" cries Tita eagerly.

"You shall live with me," says Rylton, breaking in with cold anger. "You are my wife. You shall not leave me."

Tita makes a little gesture.

"Why waste time over it?" says she. "I shall leave you as soon as ever I can. To-morrow. I am afraid it is too late to-night. I should have gone any way, after what you said to me just now----"

"After what _he_ said to you, you mean!" bursts in Rylton violently, losing all control over his temper. "You were going with him----"

_"Maurice!"_ Margaret has stepped between them. "How _dare_ you speak to her like that?" says she, her calm, kind face transfigured. "I hope to see you ashamed of yourself to-morrow. Be quiet, Tita. _I_ will look after you." She turns again hurriedly to Rylton, who is looking very white and breathing heavily, with his eyes immovably fixed on Tita. "She will come with me--to my house to-morrow," says Margaret. "You will, Tita?"

"Oh yes, to you!" cries Tita, running to her, and flinging herself into her arms. "You are the only one who--of _his_ family"--with a baleful glance at Rylton over her