Sylvia's Lovers

But Sylvia laid her hand on Kinraid's arm, and assumed to herself

the right of speech. Philip did not know her voice, it was so

changed.

'Philip,' she said, 'this is Kinraid come back again to wed me. He

is alive; he has niver been dead, only taken by t' press-gang. And

he says yo' saw it, and knew it all t' time. Speak, was it so?' Philip knew not what to say, whither to turn, under what refuge of

words or acts to shelter.

Sylvia's influence was keeping Kinraid silent, but he was rapidly

passing beyond it.

'Speak!' he cried, loosening himself from Sylvia's light grasp, and

coming towards Philip, with a threatening gesture. 'Did I not bid

you tell her how it was? Did I not bid you say how I would be

faithful to her, and she was to be faithful to me? Oh! you damned

scoundrel! have you kept it from her all that time, and let her

think me dead, or false? Take that!' His closed fist was up to strike the man, who hung his head with

bitterest shame and miserable self-reproach; but Sylvia came swift

between the blow and its victim.

'Charley, thou shan't strike him,' she said. 'He is a damned

scoundrel' (this was said in the hardest, quietest tone) 'but he is

my husband.' 'Oh! thou false heart!' exclaimed Kinraid, turning sharp on her. 'If

ever I trusted woman, I trusted you, Sylvia Robson.' He made as though throwing her from him, with a gesture of contempt

that stung her to life.

'Oh, Charley!' she cried, springing to him, 'dunnot cut me to the

quick; have pity on me, though he had none. I did so love thee; it

was my very heart-strings as gave way when they told me thou was

drowned--feyther, and th' Corneys, and all, iverybody. Thy hat and

t' bit o' ribbon I gave thee were found drenched and dripping wi'

sea-water; and I went mourning for thee all the day long--dunnot

turn away from me; only hearken this once, and then kill me dead,

and I'll bless yo',--and have niver been mysel' since; niver ceased

to feel t' sun grow dark and th' air chill and dreary when I thought

on t' time when thou was alive. I did, my Charley, my own love! And

I thought thou was dead for iver, and I wished I were lying beside

thee. Oh, Charley! Philip, theere, where he stands, could tell yo'

this was true. Philip, wasn't it so?' 'Would God I were dead!' moaned forth the unhappy, guilty man. But

she had turned to Kinraid, and was speaking again to him, and

neither of them heard or heeded him--they were drawing closer and

closer together--she, with her cheeks and eyes aflame, talking

eagerly.