LEFT by ourselves, there was a moment of silence among us.Eustace spoke first.

"Are you able to walk back?" he said to me. "Or shall we go on toBroadstairs, and return to Ramsgate by the railway?"

He put those questions as composedly, so far as his manner wasconcerned, as if nothing remarkable had happened. But his eyesand his lips betrayed him. They told me that he was sufferingkeenly in secret. The extraordinary scene that had just passed,far from depriving me of the last remains of my courage, hadstrung up my nerves and restored my self-possession. I must havebeen more or less than woman if my self-respect had not beenwounded, if my curiosity had not been wrought to the highestpitch, by the extraordinary conduct of my husband's mother whenEustace presented me to her. What was the secret of her despisinghim, and pitying me? Where was the explanation of herincomprehensible apathy when my name was twice pronounced in herhearing? Why had she left us, as if the bare idea of remaining inour company was abhorrent to her? The foremost interest of mylife was now the interest of penetrating these mysteries. Walk? Iwas in such a fever of expectation that I felt as if I could havewalked to the world's end, if I could only keep my husband by myside, and question him on the way.

"I am quite recovered," I said. "Let us go back, as we came, onfoot."

Eustace glanced at the landlady. The landlady understood him.

"I won't intrude my company on you, sir," she said, sharply. "Ihave some business to do at Broadstairs, and, now I am so near, Imay as well go on. Good-morning, Mrs. Woodville."

She laid a marked emphasis on my name, and she added onesignificant look at parting, which (in the preoccupied state ofmy mind at that moment) I entirely failed to comprehend. Therewas neither time nor opportunity to ask her what she meant. Witha stiff little bow, addressed to Eustace, she left us as hismother had left us taking the way to Broadstairs, and walkingrapidly.

At last we were alone.

I lost no time in beginning my inquiries; I wasted no words inprefatory phrases. In the plainest terms I put the question tohim:

"What does your mother's conduct mean?"

Instead of answering, he burst into a fit of laughter--loud,coarse, hard laughter, so utterly unlike any sound I had ever yetheard issue from his lips, so strangely and shockingly foreign tohis character as _I_ understood it, that I stood still on thesands and openly remonstrated with him.

"Eustace! you are not like yourself," I said. You almost frightenme."

He took no notice. He seemed to be pursuing some pleasant trainof thought just started in his mind.

"So like my mother!" he exclaimed, with the air of a man who feltirresistibly diverted by some humorous idea of his own. "Tell meall about it, Valeria!"

"Tell _you_!" I repeated. "After what has happened, surely it isyour duty to enlighten _me_."

"You don't see the joke," he said.

"I not only fail to see the joke," I rejoined, "I see somethingin your mother's language and your mother's behavior whichjustifies me in asking you for a serious explanation."

"My dear Valeria, if you understood my mother as well as I do, aserious explanation of her conduct would be the last thing in theworld that you would expect from me. The idea of taking my motherseriously!" He burst out laughing again. "My darling, you don'tknow how you amuse me."

It was all forced: it was all unnatural. He, the most delicate,the most refined of men--a gentleman in the highest sense of theword--was coarse and loud and vulgar! My heart sank under asudden sense of misgiving which, with all my love for him, it wasimpossible to resist. In unutterable distress and alarm I askedmyself, "Is my husband beginning to deceive me? is he acting apart, and acting it badly, before we have been married a week?" Iset myself to win his confidence in a new way. He was evidentlydetermined to force his own point of view on me. I determined, onmy side, to accept his point of view.

"You tell me I don't understand your mother," I said, gently."Will you help me to understand her?"

"It is not easy to help you to understand a woman who doesn'tunderstand herself," he answered. "But I will try. The key to mypoor dear mother's character is, in one word--Eccentricity."

If he had picked out the most inappropriate word in the wholedictionary to describe the lady whom I had met on the beach,"Eccentricity" would have been that word. A child who had seenwhat I saw, who had heard what I heard would have discovered thathe was trifling--grossly, recklessly trifling--with the truth

"Bear in mind what I have said," he proceeded; "and if you wantto understand my mother, do what I asked you to do a minutesince--tell me all about it. How came you to speak to her, tobegin with?"

"Your mother told you, Eustace. I was walking just behind her,when she dropped a letter by accident--"

"No accident," he interposed. "The letter was dropped onpurpose."

"Impossible!" I exclaimed. "Why should your mother drop theletter on purpose?"

"Use the key to her character, my dear. Eccentricity! My mother'sodd way of making acquaintance with you."

"Making acquaintance with me? I have just told you that I waswalking behind her. She could not have known of the existence ofsuch a person as myself until I spoke to her first."

"So you suppose, Valeria."

"I am certain of it."

"Pardon me--you don't know my mother as I do."

I began to lose all patience with him.

"Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that your mother was out onthe sands to-day for the express purpose of making acquaintancewith Me?"

"I have not the slightest doubt of it," he answered, coolly.

"Why, she didn't even recognize my name!" I burst out. "Twiceover the landlady called me Mrs. Woodville in your mother'shearing, and twice over, I declare to you on my word of honor, itfailed to produce the slightest impression on her. She looked andacted as if she had never heard her own name before in her life."

"'Acted' is the right word," he said, just as composedly asbefore. "The women on the stage are not the only women who canact. My mother's object was to make herself thoroughly acquaintedwith you, and to throw you off your guard by speaking in thecharacter of a stranger. It is exactly like her to take thatroundabout way of satisfying her curiosity about adaughter-in-law she disapproves of . If I had not joined you whenI did, you would have been examined and cross-examined aboutyourself and about me, and you would innocently have answeredunder the impression that you were speaking to a chanceacquaintance. There is my mother all over! She is your enemy,remember--not your friend. She is not in search of your merits,but of your faults. And you wonder why no impression was producedon her when she heard you addressed by your name! Poor innocent!I can tell you this--you only discovered my mother in her owncharacter when I put an end to the mystification by presentingyou to each other. You saw how angry she was, and now you knowwhy."

I let him go on without saying a word. I listened--oh! with sucha heavy heart, with such a crushing sense of disenchantment anddespair! The idol of my worship, the companion, guide, protectorof my life--had he fallen so low? could he stoop to suchshameless prevarication as this?

Was there one word of truth in all that he had said to me? Yes!If I had not discovered his mother's portrait, it was certainlytrue that I should not have known, not even have vaguelysuspected, who she really was. Apart from this, the rest waslying, clumsy lying, which said one thing at least for him, thathe was not accustomed to falsehood and deceit. Good Heavens! ifmy husband was to be believed, his mother must have tracked us toLondon, tracked us to the church, tracked us to the railwaystation, tracked us to Ramsgate! To assert that she knew me bysight as the wife of Eustace, and that she had waited on thesands and dropped her letter for the express purpose of makingacquaintance with me, was also to assert every one of thesemonstrous probabilities to be facts that had actually happened!

I could say no more. I walked by his side in silence, feeling themiserable conviction that there was an abyss in the shape of afamily secret between my husband and me. In the spirit, if not inthe body, we were separated, after a married life of barely fourdays.

"Valeria," he asked, "have you nothing to say to me?"

"Nothing."

"Are you not satisfied with my explanation?"

I detected a slight tremor in his voice as he put that question.The tone was, for the first time since we had spoken together, atone that my experience associated with him in certain moods ofhis which I had already learned to know well. Among the hundredthousand mysterious influences which a man exercises over a womanwho loves him, I doubt if there is any more irresistible to herthan the influence of his voice. I am not one of those women whoshed tears on the smallest provocation: it is not in mytemperament, I suppose. But when I heard that little naturalchange in his tone my mind went back (I can't say why) to thehappy day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst outcrying.

He suddenly stood still, and took me by the hand. He tried tolook at me.

I kept my head down and my eyes on the ground. I was ashamed ofmy weakness and my want of spirit. I was determined not to lookat him.

In the silence that followed he suddenly dropped on his knees atmy feet, with a cry of despair that cut through me like a knife.

"Valeria! I am vile--I am false--I am unworthy of you. Don'tbelieve a word of what I have been saying--lies, lies, cowardly,contemptible lies! You don't know what I have gone through; youdon't know how I have been tortured. Oh, my darling, try not todespise me! I must have been beside myself when I spoke to you asI did. You looked hurt; you looked offended; I didn't know whatto do. I wanted to spare you even a moment's pain--I wanted tohush it up, and have done with it. For God's sake don't ask me totell you any more! My love! my angel! it's something between mymother and me; it's nothing that need disturb you; it's nothingto anybody now. I love you, I adore you; my whole heart and soulare yours. Be satisfied with that. Forget what has happened. Youshall never see my mother again. We will leave this placeto-morrow. We will go away in the yacht. Does it matter where welive, so long as we live for each other? Forgive and forget! Oh,Valeria, Valeria, forgive and forget!"

Unutterable misery was in his face; unutterable misery was in hisvoice. Remember this. And remember that I loved him.

"It is easy to forgive," I said, sadly. "For your sake, Eustace,I will try to forget."

I raised him gently as I spoke. He kissed my hands with the airof a man who was too humble to venture on any more familiarexpression of his gratitude than that. The sense of embarrassmentbetween us as we slowly walked on again was so unendurable that Iactually cast about in my mind for a subject of conversation, asif I had been in the company of a stranger! In mercy to _him_, Iasked him to tell me about the yacht.

He seized on the subject as a drowning man seizes on the handthat rescues him.

On that one poor little topic of the yacht he talked, talked,talked, as if his life depended upon his not being silent for aninstant on the rest of the way back. To me it was dreadful tohear him. I could estimate what he was suffering by the violencewhich he--ordinarily a silent and thoughtful man--was now doingto his true nature, and to the prejudices and habits of his life.With the greatest difficulty I preserved my self-control until wereached the door of our lodgings. There I was obliged to pleadfatigue, and ask him to let me rest for a little while in thesolitude of my own room.

"Shall we sail to-morrow?" he called after me suddenly, as Iascended the stairs.

Sail with him to the Mediterranean the next day? Pass weeks andweeks absolutely alone with him, in the narrow limits of avessel, with his horrible secret parting us in sympathy furtherand further from each other day by day? I shuddered at thethought of it.

"To-morrow is rather a short notice," I said. "Will you give me alittle longer time to prepare for the voyage?"

"Oh yes--take any time you like," he answered, not (as I thought)very willingly. "While you are resting--there are still one ortwo little things to be settled--I think I will go back to theyacht. Is there anything I can do for you, Valeria, before I go?"

"Nothing--thank you, Eustace."

He hastened away to the harbor. Was he afraid of his ownthoughts, if he were left by himself in the house. Was thecompany of the sailing-master and the steward better than nocompany at all?

It was useless to ask. What did I know about him or his thoughts?I locked myself into my room.