In the early morning, Joyce realised that she was both hungry and thirsty. Her lips were parched, her throat dry, nothing having passed them since early tea the previous afternoon, and she was at the lowest ebb of despondency and depression. Her surroundings helped to increase her misery, for the ground was a mixture of puddle and slush, and there seemed no chance of help anywhere. She seemed to have fallen into a deep crater, and but for a projection of roof that still held firm owing to a network of pipal roots, she would have been as drenched as the bricks and mortar with which she was surrounded.
To add to her alarm, she was all alone. Captain Dalton was nowhere to be seen.
Though he had behaved horribly the evening before, he had not troubled her since; the tramp of his feet as he paced up and down the circumscribed space that was left to them of the chamber, being the only evidence she had till she dropped off to sleep that she was not without company. But with the daylight he was gone, and feeling almost panic-stricken with ghostly fears and loneliness, she called aloud to him.
"Captain Dalton!"
"I'm here," his voice cheerily announced as he emerged from the inner room which had suffered an equal amount of damage. "See what the gods have sent you!" and he handed her a pipal-leaf cup, full of water to drink.
It was eagerly seized and gratefully drunk. "Where did you get it from?"
"That other room is full of branches torn from the roof when it fell in," he returned. "I discovered them by the light of a match and amused myself making cups out of the leaves by the light of a few more. They don't hold much, but I managed to set a good few to catch the rain drops as they fell, and that's better than nothing."
"Have you had any?" she asked politely.
"I was waiting for you, but I'll take a drink now." He retired and did not return till she called him again.
"I wish you would take your coat. You must be so chilled," she ventured. "The rug will do for me."
"Are you quite sure?" he asked and Joyce noticed that his hands were blue with cold. After putting on his coat he was about to retire again when she stopped him wistfully. "Please stay—I feel so frightened alone."
"I thought you preferred not to have me around," he said dropping down beside her.
For answer she wept into her arms as they rested on her knees.
"I was beastly, last night, wasn't I—poor little kid," he said in gentler tones than she had ever heard from him. "Can't you have it in your heart to forgive me?—just wipe it out as though it had never happened?"
"I can forgive you, but—I—could never wipe it out. I feel so degraded. It is like having an ugly stain on a page you had always wanted to keep clean."
Dalton studied her as something entirely new to his experience. "I have never in my life met anyone like you. It has been an eye-opener to a man like me. I didn't understand you all this time. I am just beginning to, now. Tell me frankly your idea."
"It is nothing extraordinary," she said drying her eyes. "It is only that I did not believe a gentleman could treat a decent married girl as you did me. I wanted to be like brother and sister, and I thought you understood. Anything else never entered my head as possible to self-respecting people."
"And I have spoilt all your pretty illusions!—let down my sex too, rather badly! What don't I deserve! It would relieve my feelings if you slanged me for all you are worth. Believe me, you have done no wrong. It is only that I see things crookedly, and am just what you called me, an 'unspeakable cad.' I should have respected your helplessness. Truly, I deserve to be shot."
"Ihavebeen very silly, I don't care what you say. But I never can remember I am grown up!" she said pathetically. "Honor told me that people would talk, but I did not believe they had any cause. Now I realise what they are thinking! and it breaks my heart. They will believe I am like Mrs. Fox. She does things that look bad, and people despise her. Now they will despise me."
"Never! they have only to look at you and hear you speak, to see what you are."
"Honor said it was not enough to be good but to avoid doing the things that make people think we are not. Now they are thinking perhaps that I flirt with you and let you kiss me!" Her face was suffused with crimson shame. Nothing was so horrible to contemplate as the fact that he had kissed her! She was stripped of self-respect forever.
Dalton might have been tempted to smile at her self-accusing attitude had it not been for her perfect sincerity. He felt overcome with contrition and longed to atone.
"You make me infinitely ashamed," he said humbly. "Perhaps if you knew what went towards making me such a brute-beast, you would feel just a little sorry for me and understand—even bring yourself to like me a little bit as you say you once did. I have never had a sister. It might have made a difference if I had." After a pause—"Some years ago there were two persons in whom I believed as—I believe—in God. One was a woman and the other, my dearest pal. He and I were like brothers. I would have trusted him with my life. I did more. I trusted him with my honour." A pause. "And he whom I trusted and loved, robbed me of all that made life dear to me, and of what I valued more than life. And the woman I loved and believed pure and true, conspired with him to betray my honour! I was their dupe. A blind confiding fool!"
"Oh!" was wrung sympathetically from Joyce.
"When I found out all I went mad, I think. I have been pretty mad—and bad—ever since; but at the time, if I could have laid hands on both I might have ended my career on the gallows. But Fate intervened. He was killed in a railway accident shortly afterwards, and a year later, she came whining to me for forgiveness."
"Did you forgive her?"
Dalton's eyes glowed with cruelty and an undying contempt. "Forgive her? Not if she had been dying! There are things impossible to forgive. She had killed my soul, destroyed my faith in human nature—which others, since, have not helped to restore!—turned me into a very devil, and without an incentive to live. Do you think I could forgive her? If I hated her then, I loathe the very memory of her now."
"Yet you tried your best to make me one of the same sort?" Joyce asked wonderingly.
"I did not believe, till you proved it to me, that women are of any other sort," he replied.
"You forget Honor Bright?"
"I never forget Honor Bright," he replied unexpectedly. "I have looked upon her as the exception that proves the rule."
"Your mother?" Joyce interposed gently.
"My father divorced her," he said harshly. "So you see I have had rather a bad education!"
"I am very sorry for you."
"You are?—that's good. Then there is hope for me."
"I am sorry that you should have such a contempt for women, owing to your unfortunate experience."
"I owe you an eternal debt of gratitude for teaching me what an egotistical jackass I have been."
"Tell me," she asked, suddenly waking up to their dust-laden condition, "am I covered with smuts and grime?"
Dalton surveyed her quizzically. "You are covered from head to foot, like a miller, with fine white dust."
"So are you!" and they laughed together for the first time since the calamity.
"Let's wash, there's a pool in the next room. Quite a respectable amount of clean water is collected about the floor."
He showed her the pool and left her to make her toilet while he explored their prison for some possibility of escape. Putting his hands to his mouth he sent forth stentorian cries for help with no result. Without a pick-axe to work with, he saw no chance of cutting a way through the tons of material that lay around them.
It was midday, when Joyce was feeling weak with hunger, and Dalton fighting a strong tendency to pessimism, that he heard Honor's "Coo-ee!" and replied.
"Thank God!—at last here's someone to the rescue!" he exclaimed, and Joyce burst into tears.
When Honor was able to locate the spot from which the answering voice proceeded, she contrived with difficulty to get near enough to the opening to hear what had happened. It was good to know, however terrible had been the experience of the pair, that both were unhurt, and that Joyce was bearing up wonderfully.
"I shall run back and get help at once, cheer up!" she called out.
"We don't, either of us, feel cheerful, I can assure you. It has been ghastly here all night," the doctor shouted back.
"But it is great to have found you! I am so thankful," and she sped to her bicycle and travelled at top speed to the Mission. Mr. Meek could provide the labour at a moment's notice for the work of digging out the imprisoned couple, and to him she went direct.
Immediately the Settlement hummed with activities; coolies swarmed to the spot with pickaxes and spades, crowbars and ropes, and as news flies from village to village with almost the rapidity of "wireless," hundreds of natives gathered at the scene to view operations, the women with infants astride one hip, and naked children swarming around. They camped on the ground chewingpanand parched rice, and chattered incessantly of the mysterious workings of Providence, the folly of humanity, and the decrees of Fate.
The bare-footed, semi-nude rescuers, climbed over the face of the ruins with complete disregard of life and limb, and with wary tread and light touch, began the work of removing thedébris.
In due course, the rescue was effected, and Joyce was assisted to climb out of the wrecked chamber to safety. Honor half-supported her to the car which Captain Dalton drove in silence to the Bara Koti. His eyes avoided Honor's and in manner he was quiet and constrained.
"So you never got the souvenir after all!" she said to Joyce when she had heard a disjointed account of the catastrophe.
"I should have hated to look at it again, if I had," was the hysterical reply. "I shan't want to pass this road again, or get a glimpse of that terrible place as long as I live. I hate India more than ever, and Ray must send me home at once. Otherwise, I shall live in dread of some other calamity befalling either Baby or me. Oh, Honor, persuade him to let me go!"
By the time she was put to bed she was suffering from nervous prostration. Meredith, who had returned from his fruitless search, looked like a man walking in his sleep. His wife had clung to his neck in passionate relief, but she had avoided his lips as she had never done before, and a sword seemed to have entered his heart.
"Oh, I am so glad to be back!" she kept repeating, with her babe pressed to her bosom.
"Memsahib habbing one great fright!" commiserated the ayah.
Silent and stunned, Meredith hovered about the room. He had uttered no word of reproach to his wife for her imprudence,—she had suffered enough, mentally and physically; but resentment was fierce within him towards the doctor. The impulse to walk round and horse-whip him for having had the impudence to lead his foolish, but adored girl-wife into such a scrape, was well-nigh unconquerable, and he refrained only for fear that scandalous tongues would give the unhappy event a sinister character.
"Kiss me, Sweet," he once whispered, leaning over her in passionate anxiety. He wanted to look deep into her eyes; not to see them fall away from his with a shrinking expression foreign to them.
Joyce offered her cheek.
"Your lips," he commanded.
But Joyce fell to weeping broken-heartedly. Meredith kissed her cheek with a pain at his heart, and turned away.
"Won't you tell me everything?" he asked another time, studying her intently. Normally, he imagined she would have babbled childishly of all her experiences, and have been insatiable in her demands for petting. Why did she seem crushed and silent as to details? Honor had said the shock would account for her shaken and hysterical state; but it did not explain her strange aloofness.
"You know it all," Joyce returned listlessly, the tears springing to her eyes at his first question as to the experience she had undergone.
"I know the barest outline—and that from Honor Bright. You wanted a particular stone for a souvenir, and in digging it out, the arch collapsed, which brought down a large bit of the roof and a lot more besides. What happened after that? How did you manage to spend the night? It must have been horrible!"
"Some day I may be able to talk about it, but not now," she cried with quivering lips. "It is cruel to question me now."
Meredith leaned back in despair. "I hope Dalton was properly careful of you?" he asked, devoured with jealousy.
"He gave me his coat and his rug, and made cups out of pipal leaves to catch the raindrops as they fell. We were so thirsty," she said monotonously.
"Rather a brainy idea!"
"Please don't recall all that to me. I don't want to think of it!" she cried; and that was all Meredith could learn of the events of that night.
The following day it was discovered that the doctor was suffering from a feverish chill and was confined to bed. By nightfall, it was reported by Jack who had been to visit him, that he was in a high fever, and that the Railway doctor had been called in by the Civil Hospital Assistant for a consultation.
The next day it was known that Captain Dalton was seriously ill with pneumonia; alocumarrived from headquarters, nurses were telegraphed for, and for some days his life hung in the balance.
Joyce, who still kept her bed with shaken nerves, incapable of interesting herself in her usual pursuits, was startled out of her lethargy at the news. "If he dies, it will be my fault," she cried. "Oh, Honor! I was so cold that he gave me his coat as well as the rug, and did without them himself till morning. He must have taken a chill, for he looked so bad in the dawn."
"He did what any other decent man would have done in his place."
"It was rather surprising of him, considering how fiercely we quarrelled!" and feeling the need of confession, she poured out the whole story of her shame into her friend's ears. "Even now I grow hot with humiliation when I think of it! I cannot understand why he did it, for it was not as if he had fallen in love! Only because he thought I was a—a—flirt, like others he had known."
Honor's face was very white as she listened, silent and stricken.
"I just had to tell you, dear, or the load of it on my mind would have killed me. I feel as if I were guilty of a crime against Ray; and, poor darling, he does not understand what is wrong!"
"Why don't you tell him and get it over? He loves you enough to make the telling easy. And if you love him enough, why, it can only end happily," said Honor with an effort.
"There would be a tragedy!—I dare not. Ray would kill him for having dared to insult me like that! You have no idea of what I have been through! Captain Dalton said I was asleep and needed awakening! I have awakened in right earnest and know that I have been a wicked fool. How I long to be loved and forgiven! Oh, Honor! when Ray looks at me so anxiously and lovingly, I just want to be allowed to cry my heart out in his arms and confess everything; but I simply cannot, with this dread of consequences. Nor can I make up to him with this wretched thing on my conscience! Why didn't I listen to you!"
"There is not much use in crying over spilt milk, is there? The best thing you can do is to bury it and be everything to your husband that he wishes. You must try to atone. If you love him——"
"I do! There is no other man in the world so much to me. I did not realise how much I cared till Captain Dalton made me, by his outrageous behaviour! I am not fit for Ray's love after knowing how I have lowered myself!"
"You will not mend matters by creating a misunderstanding between yourself and your husband. What is he to think if you continue to shrink from his caresses?"
"He will think I don't care at all, and that is so untrue!"
"Can't you see that, with your own hand, you are building up a barrier between you which will be difficult to pull down at will?"
"When I am able to tell him all about it, he will understand. At present I feel shamed and degraded. I feel myself a cheat! I, whom he believes a good and virtuous wife, have actually been kissed by a man who thought I was the sort to permit an intrigue! Don't you see, that if I behaved as though nothing wrong had happened, I would be putting myself on a par with Judas?"
Having wrought herself up to the point of hysteria, she was not to be reasoned with.
"How I wish I had never set foot in that dreadful place! It seems, after all, that the devil is really in possession of it, and that disaster overtakes people who enter there."
"Disaster invariably overtakes people who give the devil his chance," said Honor unable to resist a smile.
"I dare say you are right. I have been very foolish, for I had no idea of the sort of man I was growing so intimate with. But he was truly sorry, and tried afterwards in a hundred ways to show how he regretted his behaviour. Indeed, I think, on the whole, he received quite a good moral lesson for thinking most women are without any conscience," and Joyce proceeded to relate the sequel of her story, which involved that of the doctor's past.
"It is a most painful history," said Honor gravely.
"And he has never known home-life; his mother was a wicked woman, and was divorced!"
"How pitiful!"
"It quite accounts,—doesn't it?—for his badness?"
"I don't think he is at all bad," Honor said unexpectedly. "He's been badly hit and wants to hit back; that's about what it is. To him women are all alike"—
"Not you!—he said you were, to his mind, the 'exception that proves the rule.'" Joyce interrupted.
Honor coloured as she continued,—"And he has very little respect for the sex. He requires to meet with some good, wholesome examples to set him right, poor fellow!"
"He thinks the world of you, Honey!"
"Does he?" with an embarrassed laugh. "Then he takes a queer way of showing it."
"That was your fault. You turned him down over Elsie Meek's case, and he was too proud to plead for himself. But I have watched him, Honey, and there isn't a thing you say or do he misses, when you and he are in the same room."
"Your imagination!" Honor said uncomfortably. "You forget he has just been trying to make love to you!"
"True. But he has never beenin lovewith me. It was sheer devilment. Even I could tell that. Love is such a different thing. Ray loves me. There is no mistaking it, for it is in his eyes all the time, and proved in a thousand ways."
"Did Captain Dalton say much more about that girl who jilted him?" Honor asked with embarrassment. Joyce had failed to grasp the full significance of Dalton's unhappy experience, and Honor had accordingly derived a wrong impression.
"Only that he loathes her now. That she killed his soul!—which is absurd, seeing that the soul is immortal."
"It can therefore be resurrected."
How, and in which way, Honor had not the slightest idea, but her heart instead of recoiling from the sinner after all she had heard, warmed with sympathy towards him. She could not help a feeling of pity and tolerance for the unfortunate victim of deception who through disillusionment and wounded pride, had gone astray.
When Honor returned home, it was to hear that her mother had gone over to the doctor's bungalow to nurse the patient till professional nurses should arrive; and had left word that her daughter should follow her.
"We have to do our 'duty to our neighbour' no matter how much we may disapprove of him and as no one in the Station is capable of tending the sick with patience and intelligence, I must do it with your help."
So Honor superintended the making of beef-tea for the sick-room, fetched and carried, ran messages, and made herself generally useful, much to Tommy's disgust. It was hateful to him that a man so generally disliked as the Civil Surgeon, should be tenderly cared for by the women he had systematically slighted.
"I don't see it at all," he grumbled to Honor when he caught her on the road on her way home for dinner. "Surely his servants could do what is necessary till the nurses arrive?"
"The least little neglect might cost him his life, Tommy."
"It wouldn't be your fault. For weeks the fellow has not gone near your people."
"Would you have us punish him for that by letting him die of neglect?"
"It is no business of mine, of course."
Honor quite agreed with him, but softened her reproof with a demand for his help. "At any rate, it is everyone's duty to lend a helping hand in times of trouble. We want a message sent to the doctor-babuat the government dispensary, and it is a mercy I have met you." She gave him a list of the things required by the local Railway doctor who was in charge of the case, and Tommy cycled away, obliged to content himself with the joy of serving her whenever and wherever possible.
That evening, while Honor was left on guard at Dalton's bedside to see that he made no attempt in his delirium to rise, she experienced a sudden sinking of the heart in the thought that he might die.
He was very ill.... Pneumonia was one of the most deadly diseases. As yet there was no means of knowing how it would go with him. With gnawing anxiety she watched his flushed face and closed eyes and the rapid rise and fall of his chest. How strong and well-built he was! and yet he lay as weak and helpless as a child.
The thought that he might die was intolerable. It gave her a sense of wild protest, a desire to fight with all power of her mind and will against such a dire possibility. He must not die till he had recovered his faith in human nature, his belief in womanhood. If there were any truth in the New Philosophy he would not die if her determination could sustain him, and help him over the crisis.
"Honey...?" the sick man muttered. His eyes had unclosed and were looking full at her.
"Yes?" she replied, trembling from head to foot with startled surprise at hearing him speak her name.
"Have they let you come at last?" he asked in weak tones.
"They sent for me to help," she returned gently.
"Was it because I wanted you so much? My soul has been crying out for you. There is only one face I see in my dreams, and it is yours. You will not leave me?" he asked breathlessly.
"I will stay as long as they let me," she said kneeling at the bedside that she might not miss a syllable that fell from his lips.
"How did you know that I loved you all the time?"
"I did not know." Surely it was wrong for him to speak when he was so ill? yet she longed to hear more. Every word thrilled her through and through.
"Ever since that day—you remember?—when you came to me for help in your danger and suspense; when I saw into that brave, staunch heart of yours, and, for the first time, knew a true woman!" His face was alight with emotion. It was transformed.
"Oh, hush!—you must not talk."
"Yes. I am horribly ill," he panted. "It is ghastly being tucked up like this, unable to get up. But it is worth while if you will stay with me." A pause while he frowned, chasing a thought. "What was I saying? My mind is so confused."
"It does not matter, I understand."
He caught her hand and pressed it to his burning lips, then laid the cool palm against his rough, unshaven cheek.
"If I have longed for anything it is for this—to hold your hand—so—to feel that you'd care just a little bit whether I lived or died—nobody else does on this wide earth!"
"I care a very great deal," she said brokenly. "So much, that I beg of you not to talk. It must hurt."
"Every breath is pain. If I give a shout you must not mind. It is a relief sometimes. Pleurisy is devilish. They told you, I suppose, I have that as well? If I don't pull through——"
"Stop! You shall not say that. Youwillget well. I know it. I am sure of it," she said. "Try to rest and sleep."
"I shall try, if you say you love me."
"Iloveyou," Honor said with fervour. It did not matter to her that he might presently be rambling and forget all about her and his fevered dreams of her. It was the truth that she loved him, and she spoke from her heart.
He did not seem to hear her, for, already his thoughts wandered. "I keep thinking and dreaming the wildest things and get horribly mixed," he said frowning and puzzled. "Was I buried for days and nights in the ruins—with someone? then how is it I am here?"
"You were buried for one night with Mrs. Meredith, and you were both rescued in the morning."
His eyes contracted suddenly. "A pretty little creature—dear little thing!—brainless, but beautiful. One could be almost fond of her if she did not bore one to tears!" He turned painfully on his side and Honor placed a pillow under his shoulders. "Ah, that's easier!—thanks, nurse," he said mechanically. "Tears?... What about tears? Ah, Mrs. Meredith's tears. She cried almost as much as the rain, poor kid! and we were nearly washed out—like 'Alice,'" and he laughed huskily, forgetful that he was again in possession of Honor's hand which he held in a vice. "I am a damned fool to have tried it on with her. Beastly low-down trick," he muttered almost inaudibly. "'You unspeakable cad!' she said, and, by God! I deserved it. I should have known that she was not the sort to play that rotten game. Ah, well! it is only another item on the debit side of the ledger!" His eyes closed and he drifted into unconsciousness. Honor's hand slipped from his hold and she rose to her knees, choked with grief and longing. Oh, for the right to nurse him tenderly! "Oh, God! give him to me!" she cried in frenzied prayer.
Dalton did not recognise her again after that, and the next morning Mrs. Bright handed over the case to the nurses from Calcutta.
When Joyce made her final plea to be sent home to her people without waiting for the spring, it met with little opposition. Meredith had come to the point of almost welcoming a break in the impossible deadlock at which his domestic life had arrived. His beloved one's nerves had broken down from one cause and another, and she was drifting into the habits of a confirmed invalid. If he did not let her go, he would, perhaps, have to stand aside and watch her increasing intimacy with the doctor whom he could not challenge without creating a disgusting scandal; which would make life in Bengal intolerable for himself as well as for her. So he agreed to her departure with the child in the hope that "absence would make her heart grow fonder," and that she would come back to him, restored, when the cold season returned and made life in India not only tolerable, but pleasant.
Hurried arrangements were put through, a passage secured, and Joyce roused herself to bid her friends a formal farewell.
At the Brights', only Honor was at home, her mother having driven to the bazaar for muslin to make new curtains. Christmas was approaching and a general "spring cleaning" was in full swing in order that everything should look fresh for the season.
"It is the greatest day in the year, and even the natives expect us to honour it. Our festival, you know," Honor explained.
"It always looks so odd to have to celebrate Christmas with a warm sun shining and all the trees in full leaf!" said Joyce. "That is why it never feels Christmas to me. I miss the home aspect,—frost and snow, and landscapes bleak and bare."
"The advantage lies with us. We can calculate on the weather with confidence, and it is so much more comfortable to feel warm. And then everything looks so bright!"
"I am glad you like it since you have to stay. I hate India more than ever."
Honor looked earnestly at her, and wonderingly. "Isn't it rather a wrench to you to leave your husband?" Joyce had grown so apathetic and cold.
For answer her friend broke down completely, and wept as though her heart would break. "We seem to be drifting apart. Oh, Honey, I love him so!"
"Then why go?"
"I must. I want to think things over and recover by myself. I am trying to forget all about that night in the ruins, and hoping for time to put things to rights. Perhaps I shall return quite soon. Perhaps, if the doctor is transferred, I shall find courage to write and tell Ray all aboutit. I am all nerves, sometimes I believe I am ill, for I can't sleep well and have all sorts of horrid dreams about cholera, and snakes, and Baby dying of convulsions! So, you see, a change is what I most need; and I am so homesick for Mother and Kitty! I cry at a word. I start at every sound, and if Baby should fall ill, it would be the last straw."
"But what is to happen when you are away, if, while you are here you feel you are drifting apart?"
"When I am away, he will forget my silly ways and remember only that I am his wife and how much he loves me. Hedoeslove me, nothing can alter that; but lately I have held aloof from him for reasons I have explained to you, and he is hurt. You may not understand how desperately mean I feel, and how unfit to kiss him and receive his kisses after what has happened. For the life of me I could not keep it up without telling him all. And how could I, when Captain Dalton is convalescent and my husband will have to meet him when he is able to get about again? Already he is talking of going round to chat with him. You see, he does not know!"
Honor was deeply perplexed. "Of course, you must do as you please, but in your place, I would tell him everything, and as he knows how dearly you love him, and only him, he will, I am certain, give up all desire for revenge. At a push, he might ask for a transfer."
Joyce shuddered. "I'd rather leave things to time. Later on, I can tell him all about it, and, perhaps, by then, Captain Dalton will have been transferred. Don't you love me, Honey?"
"Of course I love you."
Joyce flung her arms round Honor's neck and kissed her warmly. "You were looking so cold and disapproving! Take care of Ray for me, will you? and write often to me about him. I shall miss him terribly," and she sobbed unrestrainedly.
When Meredith saw her safely to Bombay, preparatory to her embarkation, he allowed himself to show something of the grief he felt at having to give up for an indefinite time what he most valued on earth. In the seclusion of their room at the hotel, he held her close in his arms and devoured her flower-like face with eyes of hungry passion.
"So, not content with holding yourself aloof from me, you are leaving me to shift for myself, the best way I can!" he said grimly.
Joyce's lips quivered piteously and she hid her face in his shirt-front.
"Has it never occurred to you," he said, "that a man parted too long from his wife, might get used to doing without her altogether?"
Two arms clung closer in protest. "But never you!" she replied with confidence.
"Even I," he said cruelly. He wanted to hurt her since she had walked over him, metaphorically, with hobnailed boots. "India is a land of many temptations."
"But you love me!"
"God knows I do. But I am only a very ordinary human man whose wife prefers to live away from him in a distant land."
"Ray, you are saying that only to be cruel!"
"Because I am beginning to think you have no very real love for me."
"I love you, and no one else!"
"I have seen very little evidence of love, as I understand it. A great many things count with you above me. The child comes first! God knows that I have idolised you. Perhaps this is my punishment! but I worshipped you, and today you are deliberately straining the cord that binds us together. The strands will presently be so weak that they will snap altogether. Then all the splicing afterwards will never restore it to its original strength. It will be a patched-up thing—its perfection gone. Remember, a big breach between husband and wife may be mended—but never again is there restored what has been lost!" He lifted her chin and kissed her cold lips roughly. "When do you mean to return? Can't you suggest an idea of the time?"
"Whenever you can get leave to fetch me," she answered with sobbing breath.
"I swear to God I will not do so!" he broke out. "You may stay as long as you choose. I shall then understand how much I count with you. I refuse to drag back an unwilling wife."
"Oh, Ray! Don't talk like that! Won't you believe that I love you?"
"I would sell my soul to believe it ... to bank all my faith on it!"
"It is true!"
"Prove it now."
"How can I?"
"Let me cancel the passage, and come back with me."
Her face fell. "I could not do that after all the arrangements have been made. Mother will be so disappointed—besides, people will think me mad!"
Meredith released her and turned away, a fury of jealousy at his heart. "Ever since that night at the ruins you have become a changed being. I tried not to think so, but, by God! you have forced me to. One might almost imagine you are running away from Captain Dalton. Is there anything between you?" he asked coming back to face her, white and shaken.
Joyce burst into tears. "I don't understand what you are accusing me of!" she sobbed, panic-stricken.
"Are you in love with that man?"
This was something tangible and Joyce was roused to an outburst of honest indignation. "No!—no! A thousand times, no! How dare you think so! How dare you imply I am lying? I have said I love you, but I shall hate you if you hurt me so!"
Meredith's face lightened as he swung about the room. "It all comes back to the same thing in the end. It is good-bye, maybe, for years!"
Early the next morning, he saw his wife on board with the child and ayah, and then returned to his duties at Muktiarbad, a lonely and heavy-hearted man.
Captain Dalton recovered, was granted sick leave by the Government, and disappeared from the District for a sea trip to Ceylon.
Tommy mentioned the fact to Honor having just learned it from him on the platform of the railway station where he was awaiting the Calcutta express, surrounded with baggage and with servants in attendance. He was looking like a ghost and was in the vilest of tempers; not even having the grace to shake hands on saying good-bye!
Honor turned aside that the boy might not see the disappointment in her face. Her heart was wrung with pain. Not once had Captain Dalton made an effort to see her.
Her father had smoked a cigar with the invalid one evening when he was allowed to sit up on a lounge in his own sitting-room, and had been asked to convey thanks and gratitude to Mrs. Bright for her many kindnesses to the patient in his illness; but there had been no reference to "Miss Bright"; nor did he give any sign that he remembered what had passed between them at his bedside, the one and only time that he had seemed to recognise her and had spoken unforgettable words.
It was cruel; it was humiliating!
Honor had been trying by degrees to teach herself to believe that he had spoken under the influence of delirium. Perhaps he had been thinking of someone else outside her knowledge? But she could not forget how sanely he had recalled the time he had treated her for snake-bite. His words were burned into her brain as with fire—"When you came to me for help in your danger and suspense; when I saw into that brave, staunch heart of yours, and, for the first time, knew a true woman!"
There was no delirium in that!
What did it all mean? If he really loved her, why did he not want her as she wanted him? Why did he treat her with such indifference and wound her to the heart?
There was no answer to her questioning. Captain Dalton was, as always, unaccountable, and Honor lifted her head proudly, and determined to think no more of him. She gave herself up to the arrangements for a happy Christmas, and, for the next week, was the busiest person at Muktiarbad.
Tommy, claiming assistance from his chum, Jack, was ready to draw up a programme for a gala week. There would have to be polo, tennis, and golf tournaments if the residents entered into the spirit of enjoyment and were sporting enough to fill the Station with guests.
"Who do you suppose will care to come to a dead-and-alive hole like this?" Jack remarked, throwing cold water, to begin with, on his friend's enthusiasms. "It will be a waste of energy especially when they are having a race meeting at Hazrigunge!"
"Even this dead-and-alive hole might be made entertaining if we put our shoulders to the wheel."
"There are not enough of us. You might count the doctor out—he's away. Meredith is no good. His wife's left him for the present and he lives in the jungles with a gun. With half-a-dozen men, one girl, and a host of Mrs. Grundies, you are brave if you think you can manage to engineer a good time. Take my advice, old son, and leave people to spend their time as they please. After all, Christmas is a time for the kiddies; not old stagers like you and me."
Jack's spirits were conspicuously below par, and there had been signs and symptoms of boredom, reminiscent of Bobby Smart whenever he had been seen in company with Mrs. Fox.
"Can't you work up some little interest?" Tommy asked impatiently. "It's beastly selfish of you, to say the least of it."
"I might spend Christmas in town."
"I might have known that. I heard something last night about Mrs. Fox having an invitation to spend Christmas with friends in Calcutta," was the pointed rejoinder.
"Pity you did not think of it before."
"Chuck it, Jack!" said Tommy earnestly, putting a hand affectionately on his friend's shoulder.
"I wish to God I could," was the gloomy reply. "It's so easy to get into trouble, but so devilishly difficult to get out of it again, decently."
"I'd do it indecently, if it comes to that! You think it's 'playing the game' to keep on with an affair of that sort? It's a damned low-down sort of game, anyhow, with no rules to keep; so chuck it before worse happens."
Jack lighted a cigarette deliberately and made no reply. His good-looking, young face was looking lean and thoughtful; he had suddenly changed from boyish youth toblasémiddle age; the elasticity of his nature was gone; his laugh was rarely heard, and he seemed to keep out of the way of his friends. Even Tommy had ceased to share his confidence. There was a rumour that the Collector had spoken to him like a father and was seriously thinking of having him transferred—a suggestion which had been made by his wife, prompted by Honor. But transfers were not effected in a twinkling, and Jack still remained at Mrs. Fox's beck and call, took her out in his side car, and was often missing of an evening when it was expected of him to turn up at a special gathering of his friends.
In desperation Tommy confided to Honor that Christmas was going to be as dull as Good Friday, as there would be nothing doing. And Honor not to be beaten, collected subscriptions, sent out invitations, and threw herself heartily into the task of organizing a good time.
In the end, Christmas week at Muktiarbad was a season of mild amusement and effortless good-fellowship. A few guests arrived to assist in making merry, and there was no discordant note to jar the harmony of the gatherings.
Jack arrived at the crisis of his life, on Christmas Eve, in Calcutta, when he felt that the invisible bonds threatening to enslave him were suddenly tightened, rendering his escape well-nigh impossible.
He had taken a box at the theatre, from which he and Mrs. Fox watched the "Bandmann Troupe" in their latest success.
"What a mercy we are not staying at the same hotel, Jack," said Mrs. Fox. "It did feel rotten at first, but as it turns out, it will be all for the best, old thing. I have extraordinary news for you."
"You have?—out with it!" he said absently. She had so often surprises on him which generally ended in some new suggestion of intrigue, that he was both unmoved and incurious.
"First tell me how fond you are of me. You haven't said much about it since we came to town."
"We haven't been so very much alone, have we?"
"No, worse luck! but there is no reason why you should not make up for it whenever we are together. You must have heaps of quite charming things to say? In fact, you do love me tremendously, Jack, don't you?" she coaxed.
"I thought I had proved it sufficiently," he said colouring with annoyance while he tried to look amiable.
"You are a darling—like your silly old name which I adore! What a topping world this is! You don't know how much you have altered everything for me. I feel such a kid, and everyone tells me I might be in my teens!" she said with a pitiable attempt to be kittenish.
Jack turned away, sickened by her vain folly, and frowned involuntarily. What an outrageous ass he had been! However, some day he would break away from his chains; only, he must do it decently. Let her down gently, so to speak, as she was so damned dependent on his passion, which had long since died a natural death.
Mrs. Fox snuggled her hand into his. "Say something nice, my Beauty Boy," she wheedled.
Jack squirmed inwardly; nevertheless, to oblige her he admired her gown and called up the ghost of the smile which had once been his special charm.
"How lovely it would be if you and I were husband and wife, Jack?—sitting here, together, in the eyes of all the world?"
"Lovely," echoed Jack, dutifully.
"You would never fail me, dearest, would you? Say, supposing I were, by some miracle, free?"
Knowing that she was securely bound, Jack felt safe in assuring her that he would never dream of failing her. It was his belief that this, and other vows he had unthinkingly made, were impossible of fulfilment in their circumstances.
"What a boy it is!—always so shy of letting himself go. Look at me. I want to see if your eyes are speaking the truth. There is something of importance I have to tell you relating to our two selves and the future."
Jack obeyed, curious and not a little anxious because of the half-suppressed note of excitement she could not keep out of her voice. The shaded lights of the theatre were not too dim to show the fine lines at the corners of her mouth and the obvious effort to supply by art what nature had failed to perpetuate. But the egotism of a woman grown used to her power to charm, dies hard.
Jack's eyes fell nervously before the questioning in hers.
"Tell me, don't you believe we could be very happy together?"
"Why should you doubt me?" he said evasively.
"I don't doubt you, but I want the joy of hearing you say so. To me it is so wonderful,—what is about to happen,—that I am afraid I shall wake up and find it is all a dream!" she said fatuously, gazing with adoration at Jack's fine physique and boyish, handsome face. "You have often feared possibilities, and said you would stand by me if anything went wrong between Barry and myself."
Jack remembered having often said much that had made him hotly uncomfortable to recall afterwards.
"Didn't you, Jack, dear?"
"Of course," he said desperately. "What else do you suppose, unless I am a howling cad?"
"I know you are not, that is why I simply adore you. You are so true, so sincere! My beau ideal of manhood!—--"
"Well, it is like this. Barry has come to the conclusion that it isn't fair to either of us to keep dragging at our chains when we have long ceased to care for each other, so he wrote, yesterday, to tell me that he would put no obstacle in my way if I wished to divorce him. There is someone he is keen on and whom he will marry in due course. I can do the same. He has heard about you—just rumour—but as a woman is always the one to suffer most in a suit for divorce he has most generously suggested that the initiative should come from me. Rather decent of him, what?"
"Tremendously decent," said Jack his heart becoming like lead in his breast. For a moment the lights of the theatre swam; he felt deadly sick and cold, and failed to take in the sense of what she continued to say. In the midst of his mental upheaval the lights mercifully went down and the curtain up, so that much of his emotion passed unnoticed.
"Why Jack!—think of it, we shall be able to marry after it is all finished!—only a few months to wait!"
"Yes," said he with dry lips.
"Try to look as if you are glad!" she teased. "You know you are crazy with delight. It is what we were longing for. Be a little responsive, old dear," she said, giving his hand a squeeze.
Jack returned the pressure, feeling like a trapped creature with no hope of escape. Marriage with Mrs. Barrington Fox had never at any time entered into his calculations. He was too young, to begin with, and certainly did not wish to be tied down to the woman who had played upon his untried passions.
Waves of self-disgust and dread seemed to overwhelm him.
He sat on for the next few minutes seeing nothing, hearing nothing, saying nothing, while he anathematised himself mentally as every kind of a fool, Barrington Fox as a contemptible blackguard, and the woman beside him as something unspeakable. He could not deny his own culpability; but he had felt all along that a nature like his was as wax in such unscrupulous and experienced hands.
He had been weak—yes, damnably weak! that was about the sum and total of it. And he would have to spend the rest of his life in paying for it!
What would the mater say? He thought of her first; the proud and handsome dame who had placed all her hopes on her eldest son—who thought no one good enough to be his wife.
His pater?—and the girls?
He had never associated them in his thoughts with Mrs. Fox, nor dreamed of their meeting even as acquaintances. The contrast was too glaring.
His career?
Well!—the Government did not approve discreditable marriages; but, on the other hand, it did not actively interfere with a Service man's private affairs. A good officer might make his way in spite of an unfortunate marriage. There were worse instances in the "Indian Civil" than his. But he was certain, at any rate, he would be socially done for!
Gradually he had come to realise that all the stories concerning Mrs. Fox must have been true, and that she had been tolerated by society purely on account of her husband—and he was now proved no better than she!
Be that as it may, he saw no way out of his dilemma save by dishonouring his written and spoken word. One was as good as the other and he felt himself hopelessly snared. The lady would have to become his wife, and he would spend the rest of his life dominated by her personality, fettered by her jealous suspicions, and suffering in a thousand other ways, as men suffer, who rashly marry women several years older than themselves.
Mrs. Fox laughed merrily at the comic situation in the performance to give Jack time to recover himself, but her eyes gleamed anxiously.
She was sufficiently woman of the world and quick-witted enough to comprehend the shock to Jack and his consequent stupefaction. But he was young enough for his nature to be played upon, and she was determined not to lose her advantage. She banked all her hopes on his sense of honour, and continued to thank her stars that her luck was "set fair."
Honor lived in dread of Captain Dalton's return to the Station.
Did he remember anything of what had passed between them in the hour which she had spent at his bedside? Or had he completely forgotten the episode and her confession? She would have been glad to think he had forgotten, for she had brought herself to believe that he had been labouring under the influence of delusions. If it were true that he loved her, his manner would have been very different in the days preceding his illness. True, she had been aloof; but men in love are not usually balked by such trifles as had stood in his way.
No. He had been dreaming.
His fever-stricken brain had been wandering among unrealities, and her face had filled the imagination of the moment. Facts and fancies had intermingled, till they had misled him in his delirium into believing that it was she he loved.
The truth was, she argued to herself, that he loved nobody. It was certain that a woman by her treachery and double dealing had killed his better nature, or drugged it; and his capacity for love and trust had gone. If it were not so, he would have loved Joyce who was beautiful and winning, and have respected her because of her ingenuous innocence. It was a thousand pities that such a strong character had been tricked and perverted!
And now that there was no one to monopolise his leisure moments, it was to be hoped that he would, on his return, confine himself to his music and the treatise he was at work upon. It would be a relief, Honor felt, if he would only continue to keep out of her way; otherwise, life would be intolerable. It was the acme of humiliation to have discovered herself in love with a man who had no need of her whatever! and the sooner she could find something to do outside the District, either in a hospital or in connection with some charitable organisation, the better it would be for her peace of mind and self-respect.
However, when she broached the subject of work away from home, her parents would hear nothing of it.
"Our only child, and not to live with us!" Mrs. Bright exclaimed, horrified. "What is the use of having a daughter if we are to let her leave us—except to be married?"
"I shall never marry. I have no vocation in that line, so should lead some sort of useful life."
"And isn't your life useful? What should I do alone when your father is in camp? If either of us was ill, whom do you think we would look to, but you? Surely, Honey, you are not bored with your own home?"
"Never, Mother dear! I am too happy with you and Dad. But most girls do something now-a-days. It is only that I feel it such a waste of energy to stay at home doing nothing but please myself."
"You have your duty to us, and your 'duty to your neighbour'."
"Which latter consists of meeting him collectively at the Club, helping to amuse him with tennis and golf, and listening to a lot of scandal!"
"My dear! since when have you turned cynical? You are, I am sure, a great comfort to Mrs. Meek; and the families of our servants simply worship you."
"For converting my cast-off garments to their use in winter. My old navy skirt has certainly made an excellent pair of pyjamas for Kareem's young hopeful, and the sweeper's youngster looks like nothing on earth in bloomers and my old golf jersey!"
"Thesaice, too, is delighted with those jackets you turned out from my old red flannel petticoat. The twins are as snug in them as a pair of kittens," laughed Mrs. Bright.
"I want to hear no more of that rot about your wanting work while I am above ground," said Mr. Bright, looking up from his newspaper and regarding his daughter severely. "It will be time enough to let you go when some fellow comes along and wants to carry you off; but to let you go and tinker at other people's jobs is not at all to my liking when you have a home and duties to perform with regard to it."
And that was the end of all argument. Not having a combative nature, nor a taste for debate, Honor adjourned to the store cupboard and gave Kareem the stores for the day.
"Please be obdurate in the matter of theghi[17], Honey," was her mother's parting injunction. "He would swim in it if you allowed him. Twochattaksfor curry are ample. The dear rascal is not above saving the surplus, if he gets it, and selling it back to me."
"Memsahib's orders" admitted of no palava, and Kareem who was faithful unto death, but not above commercial dishonesty, submitted to the mandate with the air of a martyr. "Whatever I am told, that will I do; but if the food is not to the sahib's liking, I have nothing to say." Having expressed his views on the matter of his restrictions he withdrew with his tray full of stores, a bearded, black-browed ruffian in appearance, clad in a jacket and loin-cloth, but of a character capable of the highest self-sacrifice and devotion.
It was still early enough after her morning's duties were over, for a tramp along the Panipara Jhil for snipe, the sport Honor most enjoyed and at which she was gradually becoming proficient. She would be all alone, that bright January day, as Tommy, her faithful and devoted lover, was prevented by his duties from waiting on her.
Jack, too, was at work down at the Courts,—not that he was likely to offer his escort in these days of his unhappy bondage to Mrs. Fox; but Honor's thoughts strayed persistently to him with anxious concern. He had returned from Calcutta after Christmas looking jaded and depressed. Tommy had been unable to make anything of him till, one day, his attention was caught by a paragraph in theStatesmanconcerning an application for a dissolution of marriage from her husband, on the usual grounds, by Mrs. Barrington Fox.
"Good God! a walkover for her!" he exclaimed in consternation. Being full of concern for Jack, he forthwith proceeded with the news to Miss Bright, and they lamented together in bitterness over the young man's impending ruin. "She has played her cards like a sharper, and I have no doubt that that old idiot, Jack, is done for," Tommy observed.
"But why should he marry her?" Honor protested. "Two wrongs don't make a right."
"He feels, I suppose, in honour bound to marry her."
"In honour bound to punish himself by rewarding her dishonesty?"
"He shared it."
"Hers was the greater sin. She tempted him. Think of her age and his, her experience of life and his!—I don't see it!"
"Men have a special code of honour, it seems."
"Tommy, it is a case of kidnapping. Jack's only a foolish, weak boy, deserving of punishment, but it isn't fair that the punishment should be life-long!"
"He is pretty sick of himself, I can vouch for that."
Jack's undoing was a source of depression to Honor Bright, and the question of how to save him was with her continually.
It was a cold day with a pleasant warmth in the sunshine as Honor swung along the roads on foot, her gun under her arm, and a bag of cartridges slung from her shoulder. She was dressed in a Norfolk jacket and short skirt of tweed, with top boots as a protection from snakes, and her free and graceful carriage was a beautiful thing to see. So thought the doctor as he watched her from behind a pillar in his bungalow verandah.
He had returned by the last train the previous night a few days before he was expected, and, as yet, no one besides his servants and thelocumknew of it.
When Honor had passed he began making hasty preparations to go out. His shot gun was taken down from a rack, examined, cleaned, and oiled afresh; cartridges were dropped into his pocket; thick boots suitable to muddy places were pulled on, accompanied by much impatience and a few swear words.
Would he have the motor? Yes—no! The motor could be taken by a mechanic to a certain point by the Panipara Jhil and left there for his convenience.
In the meantime, Honor tramped through the fields taking all the short cuts she knew, and was soon on the fringe of the grass in complete enjoyment of the wildness of the scene and its solitude. The slanting rays of the morning sun filtering through the trees, cast checkered lights upon the lilies and weeds that floated on the water. Little islands dotted the surface, covered with rushes and date palms, the wild plum, and thebabul—all growing thickly together. The air was full of the odour of decaying vegetation and the noise of jungle fowl, teal, and duck. The latter could be seen fluttering their pinions among the lotus flowers, and bobbing about on the surface of the water, thoroughly at home in their native element; occasionally a flock would rise and settle again not far from the same spot, vigilant with the instinct of approaching danger. In the far distance, Panipara village could be seen, its dark, thatched roofs seeming to fringe thejhilat its farther verge.
Honor filled the breach of her light gun with a couple of No. 8 cartridges, and warily skirted the brink. In places the pools were so shallow that a man might have waded knee deep from island to island; but the soft mud was treacherous, and flat-bottomed canoes were generally hired at Panipara by sportsmen who went duck-shooting. As Honor was after snipe, she kept to the banks and picked her way fearlessly along the tangled paths, her high boots a protection from thorns and snakes.
Birds sang lustily in the trees; the throaty trill of the tufted bulbul sounding inexpressibly sweet,—the thyial, too, like a glorified canary, made music for her by the way.
For nearly an hour Honor wandered over the marshy ground of both banks, often imagining she heard footsteps and rustlings among the long grass that screened the view. The sounds ceased when she paused to listen, so she concluded that her imagination had played her false. At length, just as she was beginning to despair of success, a couple of snipe rose like a flash from almost under her feet, and were gone before she could raise her gun to her shoulder. Immediately she was startled by the sound of a shot fired somewhere in her neighbourhood! She had no idea that any one else was out shooting that morning. She looked around. Beyond a thin veil of smoke hanging over the water, there was nothing to be seen.
Who could it be, but a nativeshikari?—for there were a few in the District licensed to carry firearms, who supplied the residents of the Station with birds for their tables. Satisfied with her theory, she pressed on a little farther and was rewarded by another chance at a snipe. As the bird headed for a clump of bushes, she fired, and simultaneously with her shot there came an involuntary cry—a sharp exclamation of pain, and for a second she was rooted to the spot, forgetting everything but the fear that someone at hand had been hit.
Dropping her gun in the grass, she ran forward in dismay, brushed aside the screen of weeds and jungle, and came face to face with Captain Dalton leaning against the trunk of a tree, holding his wrist.
"Oh!—have I hurt you?" she cried in an intensity of alarm rather than of surprise at finding him there, when she believed him at least some hundreds of miles away.
Dalton never looked at her, nor replied, but releasing his wrist, allowed the blood to drip to the ground from a trivial wound. A stray shot from the many in the cartridge had scratched the skin upon a vein, and the occasion was serving him well.
But out of all proportion to the injury was his pallor and the emotion that swept his face and held him quivering and tongue-tied.
"What can I do?" Honor cried in her distress. The sight of blood was enough to rend her tender heart; and to know that it had been shed by an act of hers, shook her to the foundations of her being.
Dalton produced a handkerchief in silence and passing it to her, allowed her to bandage the wound as well as she could. He was concerned only with watching the beautiful, sunburnt fingers that moved tremblingly to aid him, or the sympathetic face that bent over the task.
When the bandage was completed, their eyes met, and the same moment Honor was in his arms, clasped close to his breast while he murmured his adoration.
"I love you!—my God! how I love you! and I want you so! Oh, my precious little girl!—my Honey—my love!"
Honor asked no questions, but welcomed, with a sob of joy, the gift of love that flooded her heart to overflowing. She clung to his neck with loving abandonment and yielded her lips to his generously. With her great nature, she could do nothing by halves, so gave of her love with no grudging hand.
"Since when have you loved me, my Sweet?" he asked in tones that were music to her ears.
"From the moment you kissed my hand and called me 'brave'!"
"And yet you plunged that dagger in my heart when you said in my hearing—'I have no interest in Captain Dalton'?"
Honor recalled her conversation with Joyce and blushed. "It was not true!" she confessed.
"I deserved it—and more!" he said humbly with suffering in his eyes.
"And when didyoubegin to—care?" she asked shyly.
"From the moment I looked into your eyes at my bungalow, and saw heroism, truth, and purity."
It was sweet hearing, though she was convinced that he exaggerated her qualities. "Why then did you hide it so long?"
"I was fighting the biggest fight of my life."
"And have you won?"
"Won?" he laughed harshly. "No. I have lost, but it's worth it," kissing her defiantly. "Can you guess how much I love you? When I was ill I used to dream of you. I even thought you came to me and said you loved me!"
"I did. I was beside you, but you were delirious with fever, and I was sure afterwards that what you said meant nothing."
"You were there? I often wondered about it, but dared not ask for fear of disillusionment. The dream was so dear!"
"And when you recovered, you never tried to see me!"
"I was fighting my big fight which I have lost," he returned recklessly.
"So I tried to teach myself to forget."
"And you couldn't?"
"Oh, no. It was too late!" she sighed happily.
"Blessed fidelity! and now you confess that you love me. Say it!"
"I love you!" A few minutes passed in silence while he demonstrated his transports of delight in true lover fashion.
"When you were angry with me over Elsie Meek's case, I went mad and did a succession of hideous things. How can you love such a monster?"
Honor drew his face closer and laid her cheek to his.
"I hated everybody—I even tried to hate you, but it was impossible. I resented the happiness of other men. I tried my best to break up a man's home after partaking of his hospitality. Do you care to kiss me now?"
Honor kissed him tenderly. "I watched it all with such suffering!"
"You did? God forgive me! Did you know that it is not to my credit that Mrs. Meredith is an honest woman today?"
"I know all about it."
"She told you? I might have known it! Women like Joyce Meredith talk. But she is a good little woman. As for me!—I am unfit to kiss your boot. Even now, I am the greatest blackguard unhung,—the meanest coward, for I cannot bring myself to renounce my heart's desire!" He held her from him and looked into her face with haggard eyes. "Send me away! Say you will have nothing to do with me!—I shall then trouble you no more."
With a happy laugh Honor flung herself on his breast. "Send you away?—now?" The thing was clearly impossible. And why should she? However wickedly he had behaved in the past it mattered nothing to her, for the present was hers and all the future. What a glorious prospect!
"You haven't the foggiest idea what a scoundrel I am!"
"Then I must have a special leaning towards scoundrels!" she replied, her face hidden on his shoulder.
"God knows the biggest thing in my life is my love for you," he said brokenly. "My dream-girl! If I lose you, I lose everything. You will not fail me, Honey?" he asked solemnly. "If all the world should wish to part us, you will still hold to me?"
"I could not change. Whatever happens, I shall always love you, even if all the world were against you."
He was not satisfied. For many minutes he held her to his heart, covering her face with passionate, lingering kisses.
"And all this while we are forgetting that your wrist is hurt!" she exclaimed.
"Damn my wrist! Look at me. Your eyes cannot lie!"
Honor lifted her eyes, clear and sweet to his, full of the love and loyalty she felt, and saw an unutterable sadness in the depths of his soul. He should have been rejoicing, yet he was like a man burdened with a great remorse.
"Say, 'Brian, I am yours till death.'"
Honor repeated the words gravely.
He continued: "'I swear that, when you are ready to take me away, I will go with you, and none shall hold me back.' Say that."
Honor said it faithfully. "I don't care if we have the quietest of weddings," she added, "so long as it is in a church."
After a pregnant pause, he said tentatively, "Mr. Meek, I dare say, could tie the knot."
"When may I tell Mother?"
"Will she keep it to herself?"
"She will tell Father, of course."
"Can't we have our happiness all to ourselves for a little while?"
Honor thought she could understand his deep sensitiveness of criticism and questions—he was so unlike all the other men she knew—and consented. Moreover, she loved him and wanted to please him. There was no wrong in keeping secret what concerned themselves so closely, till he was ready to make it public. Her own dear mother, from whom she had kept nothing in her life, would be the first to understand and appreciate her motive, as she was the most sympathetic woman in the world, and wanted nothing so much as her child's happiness.
"I will do exactly as you wish, dear," she said, glad to offer an early proof of her great affection.
Dalton kissed her rapturously, in unceasing wonderment at her condescension in loving one so utterly unworthy. He seemed unable to grasp the truth, and kept asking her repeatedly for assurances.
The heat of the sun's rays now penetrating their shadowed retreat and striking down upon her bared head, awakened Honor to a sense of time and the realisation that it was midday.
"When shall I hold you in my arms again?" he asked before finally releasing her.
"The question is, where?—if it is to be kept a secret between us, only?" she asked wistfully, compunction already pulling at her conscience. Secrecy savoured of intrigue, and all things underhand were abominable to her.
"I am so glad my bungalow is so near to yours—only the two gardens and a hedge between! I might almost signal to you to meet me somewhere?" he said hesitatingly as though expecting a rebuke.