CHAPTER 14
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WakingWHEN Maggie was goo sleep, Stephen, weary too with his unaced amount of rowing and with the intense inward life of the last twelve hours, but too restless to sleep, walked and lounged about the deck, with his cigar, far on into midnight, not seeing the dark water - hardly scious there were stars - living only in the near and distant future. At last fatigue quered restlessness, and he rolled himself up in a piece of tarpauling on the deear Maggies feet. She had fallen asleep before nine, and had been sleeping for six hours before the fai hint of a midsummer daybreak was disible. She awoke from that vivid dreaming which makes the margin of our deeper rest. She was in a boat on the wide water with Stephen, and ihering darkness something like a star appeared, that grew and grew till they saw it was the Virgied in St Oggs boat, and it came nearer and ill they saw the Virgin was Lud the boatman hilip - no, not Philip, but her brother, who rowed past without looking at her; and she rose to stretch out her arms and call to him, and their own boat turned over with the movement and they began to sink, till with one spasm of dread she seemed to awake and find she was a child again in the parlour at evening twilight, and Tom was not really angry. From the soothed sense of that false waking she passed to the real waking, to the plash of water against the vessel, and the sound of a footstep on the deck, and the awful starlit sky. There was a moment of utter bewilderment before her mind could get disentangled from the fused web of dreams; but soon the whole terrible truth urged itself upon her. Stephen was not by her now: she was aloh her own memory and her own dread. The irrevocable wrong that must blot her life had been itted - she had brought sorrow into the lives of others - into the lives that were knit up with hers by trust and love. The feeling of a few short weeks had hurried her into the sins her nature had most recoiled from - breach of faith and cruel selfishness; she had rent the ties that had given meaning to duty, and had made herself an outlawed soul with no guide but the wayward choice of her own passion. And where would that lead her? - where had it led her now? She had said she would rather die than fall into that temptation. She felt it now - now that the sequences of such a fall had e before the outward act was pleted. There was at least this fruit from all her years of striving after the highest a - that her soul, though betrayed, beguiled, ensnared, could never deliberately sent to a choice of the lower. And a choice of what? O God - not a choice of joy - but of scious cruel<big></big>ty and hardness; for could she ever cease to see before her Lud Philip with their murdered trust and hopes? Her life with Stephen could have no saess: she must for ever sink and wander vaguely, driven by uain impulse; for she had let go the clue of life - that clue whi the far off years her young need had clutched sly. She had renounced all delights then, before she khem, before they had e within her reach: Philip had been right wheold her that she knew nothing of renunciation: she had thought it was quiet ecstasy; she saw it face to faow - that sad patient living strength which holds the clue of life, and saw that the thorns were for ever pressing on its brow. That yesterday which could never be revoked - if she could exge it now for ah of inward silent endurance she would have bowed beh that cross with a sense of rest.
Daybreak came and the reddeniern light while her past life was grasping her in this way, with that tightening clutch whies in the last moments of possible rescue. She could see Stephen now lying on the deck still fast asleep, and with the sight of him there came a wave of anguish that found its way in a long-suppressed sob. The worst bitterness of parting - the thought that urged the sharpest inward cry for help was the pain it must give to him. But surmounting everything was the horror at her own possible failure, the dread lest her sce should be benumbed again and not rise to energy till it was too late. - Too late! It was too late now, not to have caused misery - too late for everything, perhaps, but to rush away from the last act of baseness - the tasting of joys that were wrung from crushed hearts.
The sun was rising now, and Maggie started up with the sehat a day of resistance was beginning for her. Her eyelashes were still wet with tears, as, with her shawl over her head, she sat looking at the slowly-rounding sun. Something roused Stephen too, and, getting up from his hard bed, he came to sit beside her. The sharp instinct of anxious love saw something to give him alarm in the very first glance. He had a h dread of some resistan Maggies nature that he would be uo overe. He had the uneasy scioushat he had robbed her of perfect freedom yesterday: there was too muative honour in him, for him not to feel that if her will should recoil, his duct would have been odious, and she would have a right to reproach him.
But Maggie did not feel that right: she was too scious of fatal weakness in herself - too full of the tenderhat es with the foreseen need for inflig a wound. She let him take her hand when he came to sit down beside her, and smiled at him - only with rather a sad glance: she could say nothing to pain him till the moment of possible parting was nearer. And so they drank their cup of coffee together, and walked about the deck, and heard the captains assurahat they should be in at Mudport by five oclock, each with an inward burthen - but in him it was an undefined fear, which he trusted to the ing hours to dissipate - i was a definite resolve on which she was trying silently to tighten her hold. Stephen was tinually, through the m, expressing his ay at the fatigue and disfort she was suffering, and alluded to landing and to the ge of motion and repose she would have in a carriage, wanting to assure himself more pletely by pre-supposing that everything would be as he had arra. For a long while Maggie tented herself with assuring him that she had had a good nights rest, and that she didnt mind about being on the vessel - it was not like being on the open sea - it was only a little less pleasant than being in a boat on the Floss. But a suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes, and Stephen became more and more uneasy as the day advanced, uhe sehat Maggie had entirely lost her passiveness. He longed, but did not dare, to speak of their marriage - of where they would go after it, and the steps he would take to inform his father, and the rest, of what had happened. He loo assure himself of a tacit assent from her. But each time he looked at her, he gathered a stronger dread of the new, quiet sadness with which she met his eyes. And they were more and more silent.
`Here we are in sight of Mudport, he said, at last. `Now, dearest, he added, turning towards her with a look that was half beseeg, `the worst part of your fatigue is over. On the land we and swiftness. In another hour and a half we shall be in a chaise together - and that will seem rest to you after this.
Maggie felt it was time to speak - it would only be unkind now to assent by silence. She spoke in the lowest tone, as he had done, but with distinct decision.
`We shall not be together - we shall have parted.
The blood rushed to Stephens face.
`We shall not, he said. `Ill die first.
It was as he had dreaded - there was a struggle ing. But her of them dared to say another word, till the boat was let down, and they were taken to the landing place. Here there was a cluster of gazers and passengers awaiting the departure of the steamboat to St Oggs. Maggie had a dim sense, when she had landed, and Stephen was hurrying her along on his arm, that some one had advaowards her from that cluster as if he were ing to speak to her. But she was hurried along, and was indifferent to everything but the ing trial.
A puided them to the inn and postinghouse, and Stephen gave the order for the chaise as they passed through the yard. Maggie took no notice of this, and only said, `Ask them to show us into a room where we sit down.
When they entered, Maggie did not sit down, and Stephen, whose face had a desperate determination in it, was about t the bell, when she said, in a firm voice,
`Im not going, we must part here.
`Maggie, he said, turning round towards her, and speaking iones of a man who feels a process of torture beginning, `Do you mean to kill me? What is the use of it now? The whole thing is done.
`No, it is not done, said Maggie - `Too much is done - more than we ever remove the trace of. But I will go no farther. Dont try to prevail with me again. I couldnt choose yesterday.
What was he to do? He dared not go near her - her anger might leap out, and make a new barrier. He walked backwards and forwards in maddening perplexity.
`Maggie, he said, at last, pausing before her, and speaking in a tone of impl wretess, `Have some pity - hear me - five me for what I did yesterday. - I will obey you now - I will do nothing without your full sent. But dont blight our lives for ever by a rash perversity that answer no good purpose to any ohat only create new evils. Sit down, dearest - wait - think what yoing to do. Dont treat me as if you couldnt trust me.
He had chosen the most effective appeal; but Maggies will was fixed unswervingly on the ing wrench. She had made up her mind to suffer.
`We must not wait, she said, in a low but distinct voice. `We must part at once.
`art, Maggie, said Stephen, more impetuously. `I t bear it. What is the use of inflig that misery ohe blow - whatever it may have been - has been struow. Will it help any one else that you should drive me mad?
`I will not begin any future, even for you, said Maggie, tremulously, `with a deliberate sent to what ought not to have been. What I told you at Basset I feel now: - I would rather have died than fall into this temptation. It would have beeer if arted for ever then. But we must part now.
`We will not part, Stephen burst out, instinctively plag his back against the door - fetting everything he had said a few moments before. `I will not e. You<dfn>.９9ｌｉｂ.</dfn>ll make me desperate - I shant know what I do.
Maggie trembled. She felt that the parting could not be effected suddenly. She must rely on a sloeal to Stepheer self - she must be prepared for a harder task than that of rushing away while resolution was fresh. She sat down. Stephen, watg her with that look of desperation which had e over him like a lurid light, approached slowly from the door, seated himself close beside her and grasped her hand. Her heart beat like the heart of a frightened bird; but this direct opposition helped her - she felt her determination growing stronger.
`Remember what you felt weeks ago, she began, with beseeg earness - `remember what we both felt - that we owed ourselves to others, and must quer every ination which could make us false to that debt. We have failed to keep our resolutions - but the wrong remains the same.
`No, it does not remain the same, said Stephen. `roved that it was impossible to keep our resolutions. roved that the feeling which draws us towards each other is to to be overe. That natural law surmounts every other, - we t help what it clashes with.
`It is not so, Stephen - Im quite sure that is wrong. I have tried to think it again and again - but I see, if we judged in that way, there would be a warrant for all treachery and cruelty - we should justify breaking the most sacred ties that ever be formed oh. If the past is not to bind us, where duty lie? We should have no law but the ination of the moment.
`But there are ties that t be kept by mere resolution, said Stephen, starting up and walking about again. `What is outward faithfulness? Would they have thanked us for anything so hollow as stancy without love?
Maggie did not answer immediately. She was undergoing an inward as well as an outward test. At last she said, with a passionate assertion of her vi as much against herself as against him,
`That seems right - at first - but when I look further, Im sure it is nht. Faithfulness and stancy mean something else besides doing what is easiest and pleasao ourselves. They mean renoung whatever is opposed to the reliahers have in us - whatever would cause misery to those whom the course of our lives has made depe on us. If we - if I had beeer, nobler - those claims would have been sly present with me, I should have felt them pressing on my heart so tinually, just as they do now in the moments when my sce is awake - that the opposite feeling would never have grown in me, as it has done - it would have been que once - I should have prayed for help so early - I should have rushed away, as we rush from hideous danger. I feel no excuse for myself - none - I should never have failed towards Lud Philip as I have done, if I had not been week and selfish and hard - able to think of their pain without a pain to myself that would have destroyed all temptation. O, what is Lucy feeling now? - She believed in me - she loved me - she was so good to me - think of her...
Maggies voice was getting choked as she uttered these last words.
`I t think of her, said Stephen, stamping as if with pain. `I think of nothing but you. Maggie, you demand of a man what is impossible. I felt that once - but I t go back to it now. And where is the use of your thinking of it, except to torture me? You t save them from pain now - you only tear yourself from me, and make my life worthless to me. And even if we could go bad both fulfil agements - if that were possible now - it would be hateful - horrible to think of your ever being Philips wife - of your ever being the wife of a man you didnt love. We have both been rescued from a mistake.
A deep flush came gies face, and she couldnt speak. Stephen saw this. He sat down again, taking her hand in his and looking at her with passioreaty.
`Maggie! Dearest! If you love me, you are mine. Who have so great a claim on you as I have? My life is bound up in your love. There is nothing in the past that annul ht to each other - it is the first time we have either of us loved with our whole heart and soul.
Maggie was still silent for a little while - looking down. Stephen was in a flutter of new hope - he was going to triumph. But she raised her eyes a his with a glahat was filled with the anguish ret - not with yielding.
`No - not with my whole heart and soul, Stephen, she said, with timid resolution, `I have never seo it with my whole mind. There are memories, and affes, and longing after perfect goodness, that have such a strong hold ohey would never quit me for long - they would e bad be pain to me - repentance. I couldnt live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful siween myself and God. I have caused sorrow already - I know - I feel it - but I have never deliberately seo it - I have never said, "They shall suffer, that I may have joy." It has never been my will to marry you - if you were to win sent from the momentary triumph of my feeling for you, you would not have my whole soul. If I could wake back again into the time before yesterday, I would choose to be true to my calmer affes and live without the joy of love.
Stephen loosed her hand and, rising impatiently, walked up and down the room in suppres<u>..</u>sed rage.
`Good God! he burst out, at last, `what a miserable thing a womans love is to a mans. I could it crimes for you - and you baland choose in that way. But you dont love me - if you had a tithe of the feeling for me that I have for you, - it would be impossible to you to think for a moment of sacrifig me. But it weighs nothing with you that you are robbing me of my lifes happiness.
Maggie pressed her fiogether almost vulsively as she held them clasped on her lap. A great terror on her - as if she were ever and anon seeing where she stood by great flashes of lightning, and then again stretched forth her hands in the darkness.
`No - I dont sacrifice you - I couldnt sacrifice you, she said, as soon as she could speak again, `but I t believe in a good for you, that I feel - that we both feel is <var>.</var>a wrong towards others. We t choose happiness either for ourselves or for another - we t tell where that will lie. We only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in the present moment or whether we will renouhat for the sake of obeying the divine voice within us - for the sake of being true to all the motives that sanctify our lives. I know that belief is hard - it has slipped away from me again and again; but I have felt that if I let it go for ever, I should have no light through the darkness of this life.
`But Maggie, said Stepheing himself by her again, `Is it possible you dohat what happened yesterday has altered the whole position of things? What infatuation is it - what obstinate prepossession that blinds you to that? It is too late to say what we might have done or what we ought to have done. Admitting the very worst view of what has been do is a fact we must a now - our position is altered - the right course is no longer what it was before. We must accept our own as and start afresh from them. Suppose we had been married yesterday? It is nearly the same thing. The effe others would not have been different. It would only have made this differeo ourselves - Stephen added bitterly, `that you might have aowledged then, that your tie to me was strohan to others.
Again a deep flush came gies face, and she was silent. Stephen thought again that he was beginning to prevail - he had never yet believed that he should not prevail: there are possibilities whiinds shrink from too pletely for us to fear them.
`Dearest, he said, in his deepest, teone, leaning towards her and putting his arm round her, `you are mine now - the world believes it - duty must spring out of that now - in a few hours you will be legally mine. And those who had claims on us will submit - they will see that there was a force which declared against their claims. A kiss - dearest - it is so long since--
Maggies eyes opened wide ierrified look at the face that was close to hers, and she started up - pale again.
`O I t do it she said, in a voice almost of agony - `Stephen - dont ask me - dont urge me. - I t argue any longer - I dont know what is wise - but my heart will not let me do it. I see - I feel their trouble now: it is as if it were branded on my mind. - I have suffered and have no oo pity me - and now I have made others suffer. It would never leave me - it would embitter your love to me - I do care for Philip - in a different way - I remember all we said to each other - I know how he thought of me as the one promise of his life. He was given to me that I might make his lot less hard - and I have forsaken him. And Lucy - she has been deceived - she who trusted me more than any one. I arry you - I ot take a good for myself that has been wrung out of their misery. - It is not the force that ought to rule us - this that we feel for each other - it would rend me away from all that my past life has made dear and holy to me. I t set out on a fresh life, and fet that - I must go back to it, and g to it, - else I shall feel as if there were nothing firm beh my feet.
`Good God, Maggie! said Stephen, rising too and grasping her arm, `You rave. How you go back without marrying me? You dont know what will be said, dearest. You see nothing as it really is.
`Yes, I do. But they will believe me - I will fess everything - Lucy will believe me - she will five you. And - and - O, some good will e by ging to the right. Dear - dear Stephen - let me go! - dont drag me into deeper remorse. My whole soul has never sented - it does not sent now.
Stephe go her arm, and sank ba his chair, half stunned by despairing rage. He was silent a few moments, not looking at her - while her eyes were turowards him yearningly, in alarm at this sudden ge. At last he said, still without looking at her,
`Go, then - leave me - dont torture me any longer - I t bear it.
Involuntarily she leaowards him and put out her hand to touch his. But he shrank from it as if it had been burning iron, and said again,
`Leave me.
Maggie was not scious of a decision as she turned away from that gloomy averted face - and walked out of the room: it was like an automatic a that fulfils a fotten iion. What came after? A sense of stairs desded as if in a dream - of flagstones - of a chaise and horses standing - then a street, and a turning into aree? where a stage-coach was standing, taking in passengers - and the darting thought that that coach would take her aerhaps towards home. But she could ask nothi: she only got into the coach.
Home - where her mother and brother were - Philip - Lucy - the se of her very cares and trials - was the haven towards which her mind tended - the sanctuary where sacred relics lay - where she would be rescued from more falling. The thought of Stephen was like a horrible throbbing pain which yet, as such pains do, seemed te all other thoughts into activity. But amohoughts, what others would say and think of her duct was hardly present. Love and deep pity and remorseful anguish left no room for that.
The coach was takio York - farther away from home, but she did not learn that until she was set down in the old city at midnight. It was no matter: she could sleep there, and start home the day. She had her purse in her pocket, with all her money in it - a bank-note and a sn: she had kept it in her pocket from fetfulness, after going out to make purchases the day before yesterday.
Did she lie down in the gloomy bedroom of the old inn that night with her will bent unwaveringly oh of pe sacrifice? - The great struggles of life are not so easy as that - the great problems of life are not so clear. - In the darkness of that night she saw Stephens face turowards her in passionate, reproachful misery - She lived through again all the tremulous delights of his preseh her that made existen easy floating in a stream of joy instead of a quiet resolved endurand effort: - the love she had renounced came back upon her with a cruel charm - she felt herself opening her arms to receive it once more and then it seemed to slip away and fade and vanish, leaving only the dying sound of a deep, thrilling voice that said, `Gone - for ever gone.
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