The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot [rocket ebook reader txt] 📗

been friendly a year. We have met and walked together often. He has lent me books.”

“Is that all?” said Tom, looking straight at her with his frown.

Maggie paused a moment; then, determined to make an end of Tom’s right to accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily:

“No, not quite all. On Saturday he told me that he loved me. I didn’t think of it before then; I had only thought of him as an old friend.”

“And you encouraged him?” said Tom, with an expression of disgust.

“I told him that I loved him too.”

Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and frowning, with his hands in his pockets. At last he looked up and said coldly⁠—

“Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to take⁠—either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my father’s Bible, that you will never have another meeting or speak another word in private with Philip Wakem, or you refuse, and I tell my father everything; and this month, when by my exertions he might be made happy once more, you will cause him the blow of knowing that you are a disobedient, deceitful daughter, who throws away her own respectability by clandestine meetings with the son of a man that has helped to ruin her father. Choose!” Tom ended with cold decision, going up to the large Bible, drawing it forward, and opening it at the flyleaf, where the writing was.

It was a crushing alternative to Maggie.

“Tom,” she said, urged out of pride into pleading, “don’t ask me that. I will promise you to give up all intercourse with Philip, if you will let me see him once, or even only write to him and explain everything⁠—to give it up as long as it would ever cause any pain to my father. I feel something for Philip too. He is not happy.”

“I don’t wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have said exactly what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my mother should come in.”

“If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to me as if I laid my hand on the Bible. I don’t require that to bind me.”

“Do what I require,” said Tom. “I can’t trust you, Maggie. There is no consistency in you. Put your hand on this Bible, and say, ‘I renounce all private speech and intercourse with Philip Wakem from this time forth.’ Else you will bring shame on us all, and grief on my father; and what is the use of my exerting myself and giving up everything else for the sake of paying my father’s debts, if you are to bring madness and vexation on him, just when he might be easy and hold up his head once more?”

“Oh, Tom, will the debts be paid soon?” said Maggie, clasping her hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her wretchedness.

“If things turn out as I expect,” said Tom. “But,” he added, his voice trembling with indignation, “while I have been contriving and working that my father may have some peace of mind before he dies⁠—working for the respectability of our family⁠—you have done all you can to destroy both.”

Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind ceased to contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable, and in her self-blame she justified her brother.

“Tom,” she said in a low voice, “it was wrong of me; but I was so lonely, and I was sorry for Philip. And I think enmity and hatred are wicked.”

“Nonsense!” said Tom. “Your duty was clear enough. Say no more; but promise, in the words I told you.”

“I must speak to Philip once more.”

“You will go with me now and speak to him.”

“I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again without your knowledge. That is the only thing I will say. I will put my hand on the Bible if you like.”

“Say it, then.”

Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the promise. Tom closed the book, and said, “Now let us go.”

Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Maggie was suffering in anticipation of what Philip was about to suffer, and dreading the galling words that would fall on him from Tom’s lips; but she felt it was in vain to attempt anything but submission. Tom had his terrible clutch on her conscience and her deepest dread; she writhed under the demonstrable truth of the character he had given to her conduct, and yet her whole soul rebelled against it as unfair from its incompleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his indignation diverted toward Philip. He did not know how much of an old boyish repulsion and of mere personal pride and animosity was concerned in the bitter severity of the words by which he meant to do the duty of a son and a brother. Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he would have had nothing to do with them.

Maggie’s only hope was that something might, for the first time, have prevented Philip from coming. Then there would be delay⁠—then she might get Tom’s permission to write to him. Her heart beat with double violence when they got under the Scotch firs. It was the last moment of suspense, she thought; Philip always met her soon after she got beyond them. But they passed across the more open green space, and entered the narrow bushy path by the mound. Another turning, and they came so close upon him that both Tom and Philip stopped suddenly within a yard of each other. There was a moment’s silence, in which Philip darted a look of inquiry at Maggie’s face. He saw an answer there, in the pale, parted lips, and the terrified tension of