I laid the newspaper slip on the table, in no very Christian frame of mind toward the persons concerned in producing it. Some reporter in search of news had evidently been prying about the grounds at Gleninch, and some busy-body in the neighborhood had in all probability sent the published paragraph to Eustace. Entirely at a loss what to do, I waited for my husband to speak. He did not keep me in suspense--he questioned me instantly.
"Do you understand what it means, Valeria?"
I answered honestly--I owned that I understood what it meant.
He waited again, as if he expected me to say more. I still kept the only refuge left to me--the refuge of silence.
"Am I to know no more than I know now?" he proceeded, after an interval. "Are you not bound to tell me what is going on in my own house?"
It is a common remark that people, if they can think at all, think quickly in emergencies. There was but one way out of the embarrassing position in which my husband's last words had placed me. My instincts showed me the way, I suppose. At any rate, I took it.
"You have promised to trust me," I began.
He admitted that he had promised.
"I must ask you, for your own sake, Eustace, to trust me for a little while longer. I will satisfy you, if you will only give me time."
His face darkened. "How much longer must I wait?" he asked.
I saw that the time had come for trying some stronger form of persuasion than words.
"Kiss me," I said, "before I tell you!"
He hesitated (so like a husband!). And I persisted (so like a wife!). There was no choice for him but to yield. Having given me my kiss (not over-graciously), he insisted once more on knowing how much longer I wanted him to wait.
"I want you to wait," I answered, "until our child is born."
He started. My condition took him by surprise. I gently pressed his hand, and gave him a look. He returned the look (warmly enough, this time, to satisfy me). "Say you consent," I whispered.
He consented.
So I put off the day of reckoning once more. So I gained time to consult again with Benjamin and Mr. Playmore.
While Eustace remained with me in the room, I was composed, and capable of talking to him. But when he left me, after a time, to think over what had passed between us, and to remember how kindly he had given way to me, my heart turned pityingly to those other wives (better women, some of them, than I am), whose husbands, under similar circumstances, would have spoken hard words to them--would perhaps even have acted more cruelly still. The contrast thus suggested between their fate and mine quite overcame me. What had I done to deserve my happiness? What had they done, poor souls, to deserve their misery? My nerves were overwrought, I dare says after reading the dreadful confession of Eustace's first wife. I burst out crying--and I was all the better for it afterward!