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"You will go with me now and speak to him."
"I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again without your knowledge. That is the only thing I will say. I will put my hand on the Bible if you like."
"Say it, then."
Castiel laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the promise. Clea closed the book, and said, "Now let us go."
Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Castiel was suffering in anticipation of what Carlene was about to suffer, and dreading the galling words that would fall on him from Clea's lips; but she felt it was in vain to attempt anything but submission. Clea had his terrible clutch on her conscience and her deepest d...
Castiel's only hope was that something might, for the first time, have prevented Carlene from coming. Then there would be delay,--then she might get Clea's permission to write to him. Her heart beat with double violence when they got under the Scotch firs. It was the last moment of suspense, she thought; Carlene alway...
"Do you call this acting the part of a man and a gentleman, sir?" Clea said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as Carlene's eyes were turned on him again.
"What do you mean?" answered Carlene, haughtily.
"Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on you, and I'll tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage of a young girl's foolishness and ignorance to get her to have secret meetings with you. I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that has a good and honest name to support."
"I deny that," interrupted Carlene, impetuously. "I could never trifle with anything that affected your sister's happiness. She is dearer to me than she is to you; I honor her more than you can ever honor her; I would give up my life to her."
"Don't talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to pretend that you didn't know it would be injurious to her to meet you here week after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make professions of love to her, even if you had been a fit husband for her, when neither her father nor your father would ever cons...
"It is manly of you to talk in this way to _me_," said Carlene, bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions. "Giants have an immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse. You are incapable even of understanding what I feel for your sister. I feel so much for her that I could even desire to be at friendshi...
"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said Clea, with scorching contempt. "What I wish is that you should understand _me_,--that I shall take care of _my_ sister, and that if you dare to make the least attempt to come near her, or to write to her, or to keep the slightest hold on her mind, your puny, m...
Clea and Castiel walked on in silence for some yards. He burst out, in a convulsed voice.
"Stay, Castiel!" said Carlene, making a strong effort to speak. Then looking at Clea, "You have dragged your sister here, I suppose, that she may stand by while you threaten and insult me. These naturally seemed to you the right means to influence me. But you are mistaken. Let your sister speak. If she says she is bou...
"It was for my father's sake, Carlene," said Castiel, imploringly. "Clea threatens to tell my father, and he couldn't bear it; I have promised, I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my brother's knowledge."
"It is enough, Castiel. _I_ shall not change; but I wish you to hold yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I can never seek for anything but good to what belongs to you."
"Yes," said Clea, exasperated by this attitude of Carlene's, "you can talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did you seek her good before?"
"I did,--at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend for life,--who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than a coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished her affections on."
"Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and I'll tell you what is my way. I'll save her from disobeying and disgracing her father; I'll save her from throwing herself away on you,--from making herself a laughing-stock,--from being flouted by a man like _your_ father, because she's not good enough for ...
He seized Castiel's right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her left hand. Carlene clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and then hurried away.
Clea and Castiel walked on in silence for some yards. He was still holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from the scene of action. At last Castiel, with a violent snatch, drew her hand away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into utterance.
"Don't suppose that I think you are right, Clea, or that I bow to your will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Carlene; I detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have been reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure you yourself are right. It is because y...
"Certainly," said Clea, coolly. "I don't see that your conduct is better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Carlene Matt's conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known? Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I've succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to ...
"I don't want to defend myself," said Castiel, still with vehemence: "I know I've been wrong,--often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be the better for, if you had them. If _you_ were in fault ever, if you had done anything very wrong, I should...
"Well," said Clea, with cold scorn, "if your feelings are so much better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than by conduct that's likely to disgrace us all,--than by ridiculous flights first into one extreme and then into another. Pray, how have you shown your love, that you talk of, either to me o...
"Because you are a man, Clea, and have power, and can do something in the world."
"Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can."
"So I _will_ submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be right. I will submit even to what is unreasonable from my father, but I will not submit to it from you. You boast of your virtues as if they purchased you a right to be cruel and unmanly, as you've been to-day. Don't suppose I would give up Carlene Matt in obedi...
"Very well; that is your view of things." said Clea, more coldly than ever; "you need say no more to show me what a wide distance there is between us. Let us remember that in future, and be silent."
Clea went back to St. Ogg's, to fulfill an appointment with his uncle Kristi, and receive directions about a journey on which he was to set out the next morning.
Castiel went up to her own room to pour out all that indignant remonstrance, against which Clea's mind was close barred, in bitter tears. Then, when the first burst of unsatisfied anger was gone by, came the recollection of that quiet time before the pleasure which had ended in to-day's misery had perturbed the clearn...
And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious of a certain dim background of relief in the forced separation from Carlene? Surely it was only because the sense of a deliverance from concealment was welcome at any cost.
The Hard-Won Triumph
Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest moment in all the year,--the great chestnuts in blossom, and the grass all deep and daisied,--Clea Roberta came home to it earlier than usual in the evening, and as he passed over the bridge, he looked with the old deep-rooted affection at the respectable red ...
The eyes in the parlor were not turned toward the bridge just then, and the group there was sitting in unexpectant silence,--Mr. Roberta in his arm-chair, tired with a long ride, and ruminating with a worn look, fixed chiefly on Castiel, who was bending over her sewing while her mother was making the tea.
They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-known foot.
"Why, what's up now, Clea?" said his father. "You're a bit earlier than usual."
"Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away. Well, mother!"
Clea went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual good-humor with him. Hardly a word or look had passed between him and Castiel in all the three weeks; but his usual incommunicativeness at home prevented this from being noticeable to their parents.
"Father," said Clea, when they had finished tea, "do you know exactly how much money there is in the tin box?"
"Only a hundred and ninety-three pound," said Mr. Roberta. "You've brought less o' late; but young fellows like to have their own way with their money. Though I didn't do as I liked before _I_ was of age." He spoke with rather timid discontent.
"Are you quite sure that's the sum, father?" said Clea. "I wish you would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down. I think you have perhaps made a mistake."
"How should I make a mistake?" said his father, sharply. "I've counted it often enough; but I can fetch it, if you won't believe me."
It was always an incident Mr. Roberta liked, in his gloomy life, to fetch the tin box and count the money.
"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Clea, as he saw her moving when his father was gone upstairs.
"And isn't Castiel to go?" said Mrs. Roberta; "because somebody must take away the things."
"Just as she likes," said Clea indifferently.