And then--and then--there was the picture in front of her of Josiah and
the "second honeymoon."
Thus while she sat there gazing at the man she passionately loved
playing polo, she was silently suffering all the anguish of which a
woman's heart is capable.
The only possible way was to part from Hector forever--to say the last
good-bye before she should go, like a sheep, to the slaughter.
When she was once more the wife of Josiah she could never look upon his
face again.
And if Hector had known the prospect that awaited her at Bessington
Hall, it would have driven him--already mad--to frenzy.
The day wore on, and still Theodora's fears kept her from allowing a
tête-à-tête when he dismounted and joined them for tea.
But fate had determined otherwise. And as the soft evening came several
of the party walked down by the river--which ran on the western side
below the rose-gardens and the wood of firs--to see Barbara's many
breeds of ducks and water-fowl.
Then Hector's determination to be alone with her conquered for the time.
Theodora found herself strolling with him in a path of meeting willows,
with a summer-house at the end, by the water's bank.
They were quite separated from the others by now. They, with affairs of
their own to pursue, had spread in different directions.
And it was evening, and warm, and June.
There was a strange, weird silence between them, and both their hearts
were beating to suffocation--hers with the thought of the anguish of
parting forever, his with the exaltation of the picture of parting no
more.
They came to the little summer-house, and there they sat down and
surveyed the scene. The evening lights were all opalescent on the water,
there was peace in the air and brilliant fresh green on the trees, and
soft and liquid rose the nightingale's note. So at last Hector broke the
silence.
"Darling," he said, "I love you--I love you so utterly this cannot go
on. I must have you for my own--" and then, as she gasped, he continued
in a torrent of passionate words.
He told her of his infinite love for her; of the happiness he would fill
her life with; of his plan that they should go away together when she
should leave Beechleigh; of the joy of their days; of the tender care he
would take of her; and every and each sentence ended with a passionate
avowal of his love and devotion.
Then a terrible temptation seized Theodora. She had never even dreamed
of this ending to the situation; and it would mean no second honeymoon
of loathsome hours, but a glorious fulfilment of all possible joy.