PAGE 7
A Strayed Allegiance
by
A sigh that was almost a moan broke from Esterbrook Elliott’s lips.
“You must not go away, Magdalen. You must stay here–with me!”
“You forget yourself,” she said proudly. “How dare you speak to me so? Have you forgotten Miss Lesley? Or are you a traitor to us both?”
Esterbrook made no answer. He bowed his pale, miserable face before her, self-condemned.
The breast of the bay sparkled with its countless gems like the breast of a fair woman. The shores were purple and amethystine in the distance. Far out, bluish, phantom-like sails clustered against the pallid horizon. The dory danced like a feather over the ripples. They were close under the shadow of Chapel Point.
* * * * *
Marian Lesley waited in vain for her lover that afternoon. When he came at last in the odorous dusk of the June night she met him on the acacia-shadowed verandah with cold sweetness. Perhaps some subtle woman-instinct whispered to her where and how he had spent the afternoon, for she offered him no kiss, nor did she ask him why he had failed to come sooner.
His eyes lingered on her in the dim light, taking in every detail of her sweet womanly refinement and loveliness, and with difficulty he choked back a groan. Again he asked himself what madness had come over him, and again for an answer rose up the vision of Magdalen Crawford’s face as he had seen it that day, crimsoning beneath his gaze.
It was late when he left. Marian watched him out of sight, standing under the acacias. She shivered as with a sudden chill. “I feel as I think Vashti must have felt,” she murmured aloud, “when, discrowned and unqueened, she crept out of the gates of Shushan to hide her broken heart. I wonder if Esther has already usurped my sceptre. Has that girl at the Cove, with her pale, priestess-like face and mysterious eyes, stolen his heart from me? Perhaps not, for it may never have been mine. I know that Esterbrook Elliott will be true to the letter of his vows to me, no matter what it may cost him. But I want no pallid shadow of the love that belongs to another. The hour of abdication is at hand, I fear. And what will be left for throneless Vashti then?”
Esterbrook Elliott, walking home through the mocking calm of the night, fought a hard battle with himself.
He was face to face with the truth at last–the bitter knowledge that he had never loved Marian Lesley, save with a fond, brotherly affection, and that he did love Magdalen Crawford with a passion that threatened to sweep before it every vestige of his honour and loyalty.
He had seen her but three times–and his throbbing heart lay in the hollow of her cold white hand.
He shut his eyes and groaned. What madness. What unutterable folly! He was not free–he was bound to another by every cord of honour and self-respect. And, even were he free, Magdalen Crawford would be no fit wife for him–in the eyes of the world, at least. A girl from the Cove–a girl with little education and no social standing–aye! but he loved her.
He groaned again and again in his misery. Afar down the slope the bay waters lay like an inky strip and the distant, murmurous plaint of the sea came out of the stillness of the night; the lights at the Cove glimmered faintly.
In the week that followed he went to the Cove every day. Sometimes he did not see Magdalen; at other times he did. But at the end of the week he had conquered in the bitter, heart-crushing struggle with himself. If he had weakly given way to the first mad sweep of a new passion, the strength of his manhood reasserted itself at last. Faltering and wavering were over, though there was passionate pain in his voice when he said at last, “I am not coming back again, Magdalen.”