LOVE AND HATRED
MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PART ONE
[Pg 7]
LOVE AND HATRED
PART ONE
CHAPTER I
OH, but this is terrible——"
Laura Pavely did not raise her voice, but therewas trembling pain, as well as an almost increduloussurprise, in the way she uttered the five words whichmay mean so much—or so little.
The man whose sudden, bare avowal of love haddrawn from her that low, protesting cry, was standingjust within the door of the little summer-house,and he was looking away from her, straight over thebeautiful autumnal view of wood and water spreadout before him.
He was telling himself that five minutes ago—nay,was it as long as five minutes?—they had been sohappy! And yet, stop—he had not been happy. Evenso he cursed himself for having shattered the fragile,to him the already long perished, fabric, of what sheno doubt called their "friendship."
It was she—it always is the woman—who, quite unwittingly,had provoked the words which now couldnever be unsaid. She had not been thinking at all[Pg 8]of him when she did so—she had spoken out of herheart, the heart which some secret, sure instinct badehim believe capable of depths of feeling, whichhe hoped, with a fierce hope, no man had yetplumbed....
What had provoked his avowal had been the mostinnocent, in a sense the most beautiful, feeling ofwhich a woman is capable—love for her child.
"The doctor says Alice ought to have a change, thatshe ought to go to the sea, for a little while. I askedGodfrey if I might take her, but he said he didn'tthink it necessary." She had added musingly, "It'sodd, for he really is devoted to the child."
They had been walking slowly, sauntering side byside, very close to one another, for the path was onlya narrow track among the trees, towards the summerhousewhere they were now—she sitting and he standing.
He had answered in what, if she had been less absorbedin herself and her own concerns, she mighthave realised was a dangerously still voice: "I think Ican persuade Godfrey to let her go. Apart from thechild altogether, you ought to have a change." Andthen—then she had said, rather listlessly, not at allbitterly, "Oh, it doesn't matter about me!"
Such a simple phrase, embodying an obvious truth,yet they had forced from him the words: "I think itdoes matter about you, Laura. At least I know itmatters a good deal to me, for, as of course you knowby now, I love you."
And if his voice had re