Although, as time went on, Mavis became used to her griefs, and although she got pleasure from the opulent, cultured atmosphere with which she was surrounded, she was neither physically nor spiritually happy. It was not that the mutual love existing between herself and Harold abated one jot; neither was it that she had lost overmuch of her old joyousness in nature and life. But there were two voids in her being (one of which she knew could never be filled) which were the cause of her distress. A woman of strong domestic instincts, she would have loved nothing better than to have had one or two children. Owing to her changed circumstances, maternity would not be associated with the acute discomforts which she had once experienced. Whenever she heard of a woman of her acquaintance having a baby, her face would change, her heart would be charged with a consuming envy. Illustrations of children's garments in the advertisement columns of women's journals caused her to turn the page quickly. Whenever little ones visited her, she would often, particularly if the guest were a boy, furtively hug him to her heart. Once or twice, on these occasions, she caught Windebank's eye, when she wondered if he understood her longing.
Her other hunger was for things of the spirit. She was as one adrift upon a sea of doubt; many havens noticed her signals of distress, but, despite the arrant display of their attractions, she could not find one that promised anchorage to which she could completely trust. Her old-time implicit faith in the existence of a Heavenly Father, who cared for the sparrows of life, had waned. Whenever the simple belief recurred to her, as it sometimes did, she would think of Mrs Gowler's, to shudder and put the thought of beneficent interference with the things of the world from her mind.
At the same time she could not forget that when there had seemed every prospect of her being lost in the mire of London, or in the slough of anguish following upon her boy's death, she had, as if by a miracle, escaped.
Now and again, she would find herself wondering if, after all, the barque of her life had been steered by a guiding Hand, which, although it had taken her over storm-tossed seas and stranded her on lone beaches, had brought her safely, if troubled by the wrack of the waters she had passed, into harbour.
Incapable of clear thought, she could arrive at no conclusion that satisfied her.
At last, she went to Windebank to see if he could help.
"What is one to do if one isn't altogether happy?" she asked.
"Who isn't happy?"
"I'm not altogether."
"You! But you've everything to make you."
"I know. But I'll try and explain."
"You needn't."
"Why? You don't know what troubles me."
"That's nothing to do with it. All troubles are alike in this respect, that the only thing to be done is to mend what's wrong. If you can't, you must make the best of it," he declared grimly.
After this rough-and-ready advice, Mavis felt that it would be futile to attempt a further explanation of her disquiet.
"Thanks; but it isn't so easy as it sounds," she said.
"Really!" he remarked, not without a suggestion of sarcasm in his exclamation.
About this time, Mavis saw a good deal of Perigal. He rented from her husband the farm that Harold had purchased soon after his marriage, and in which he had purposed living. Perigal had long since spent the ten thousand pounds he had inherited from his mother; he was now living on the four hundred a year his wife possessed. If anything, Mavis encouraged his frequent visits; his illuminating comments on men and things took her out of herself; also, if the truth be told, Mavis's heart held resentment against the man who had played so considerable a part in her life. Whenever Mavis was in London, the sight of a fallen woman always fed this dislike; she reflected that, but for the timely help she had enjoyed, she might have been driven to a like means of getting money if her child had been in want. Another thing that urged her against Perigal was that she constantly noticed how negligently many of the married women of her acquaintance interpreted their wifely duties, and, in most cases, to husbands who had dowered their mates with affection and worldly goods. She reflected that, by all the laws of justice, Perigal should have appreciated to the full the treasure of love and passion which she had poured out so lavishly at his feet.
Perigal, all unconscious of the way in which Mavis regarded him, went out of his way to pay her attention.
One summer afternoon, while Harold rested indoors, Mavis gave Perigal tea beneath the shade of a witch-elm on the lawn. She was looking particularly alluring; if she were at all doubtful of this fact, the admiration expressed in Perigal's eyes would have reassured her. They had been talking lightly, brightly, each in secret pursuing the bent of their own feelings for the other, when the spectre of Mavis's spiritual troublings blotted out the sunlight and the brilliant gladness of the summer afternoon. She was silent for awhile, presently to be aware that Perigal's eyes were fixed on her face. She looked towards him, at which he sighed deeply.
"Aren't you happy?" she asked.
"How can I be?"
"You've everything you want in life."
"Have I? Since when?"
"The day you married."
"Rot!"
"What do you mean?"
"I can tell you after all that" (here he caught Mavis's eye)—"after we've been such friends—as far as I'm concerned, my marriage has been a ghastly failure."
"You mustn't tell me that," declared Mavis, to whom the news brought a secret joy.
"I can surely tell you after—after we've been such dear friends. But we don't hit it off at all. I can't stick Vic at any price."
"Nonsense! She's pretty and charming. Everyone who knows her says the same."
"When they first know her; then they think no end of a lot of her; but after a time everyone's 'off' her, although they haven't spotted the reason."
"Have you?"
"Unfortunately, that's been my privilege. Vic has enough imagination to tell her to do the right thing and all that; but otherwise, she's utterly, constitutionally cold."
"Nonsense! She must have sympathy to 'do the right thing,' as you call it."
"Not necessarily. Hers comes from the imagination, as I told you; but her graceful tact chills one in no time. I might as well have married an icicle."
"I'm sorry," remarked Mavis, saying what was untrue.
"And then Vic has a conventional mind: it annoys me awfully. Conventions are the cosmetics of morality."
"Where did you read that?"
"And these conventions, that are the rudiments of what were once full-blooded necessities, are most practised by those who have the least call for their protection. Pity me."
"I do."
Perigal's eyes brightened.
"I'm unhappy too," said Mavis, after a pause.
"Not really?"
"I wondered if you would help me."
"Try me."
Perigal's eyes glittered, a manifestation which Mavis noticed.
"You know how you used to laugh at my belief in Providence."
"Is that how you want me to help?"
"If you will."
Perigal's face fell.
"Fire away," he said, as he lit a cigarette.
Mavis told him something of her perplexities.
"I want to see things clearly. I want to find out exactly where I am. Everything's so confusing and contradictory. I shan't be really happy till I know what I really and truly believe."
"How can I help you? You have to believe what you do believe."
"But why do I believe what I do believe?"
"Because you can't help yourself. Your present condition of mind is the result of all you have experienced in your existence acting upon the peculiar kind of intelligence with which your parents started you in life. Take my advice, don't worry about these things. If you look them squarely in the face, you only come to brutal conclusions. Life's a beastly struggle to live, and then, when subsistence is secured, to be happy. It's nature's doing; it sees to it that we're always sharpening our weapons."
Mavis did not speak for a few moments; when she did, it was to say:
"I can't understand how I escaped."
"From utter disaster?" he asked.
"Scarcely that."
"I hope not, indeed. But you were a fool not to write to me and let me have it for my selfishness. But I take it that at the worst you'd have written, when, of course, I should have done all I could."
"All?"
"Well—all I reasonably could."
"I wasn't thinking so much of that," said Mavis. "What I can't understand is why I've dropped into all this good fortune, even if it's at your expense."
"You owe it to the fact of your being your father's daughter and that he was friendly with the pater. Next, you must thank your personality; but the chief thing was that you are your father's daughter."
"And I often and often wished I'd been born a London shop-girl, so that I should never long for things that were then out of my reach. So there was really something in my birth after all."
"I should jolly well think there was. It's no end of an asset. But to go back to what we were talking about."
"About nature's designs to make us all fight for our own?"
"Yes. Look at yourself. You're now ever so much harder than you were."
"Are you surprised?" she asked vehemently, as she all but betrayed her hatred.
"It's really a good thing from your point of view. It's made you more fitted to take your own part in the struggle."
"Then, those who injured me were the strong preying on the weak?" she asked.
"It's the unalterable law of life. It's a disagreeable one, but it's true. It's the only way the predominance of the species is assured."
"I think I'll have a cigarette," said Mavis.
"One of mine?"
"One of my own, thanks."
"You're very unkind to me," said Perigal.
"In not taking your cigarette?"
"You ignore everything that's been between us. You look on me as heartless, callous; you don't make allowances."
"For what?"
"My cursed temperament. No one knows better than I what a snob I am at heart. When you were poor, I did not value you. Now—"
"Now?"
"Can you ask?"
A joy possessed Mavis's heart; she felt that her moment of triumph was near.
Perigal went on:
"Still, I deserve all I get, and that's so rare in life that it's something in the nature of an experience."
Mavis did not speak. She was hoping no one would come to interrupt them.
"There's one thing you might have told me about," he went on.
"What?"
Perigal dropped his eyes as he said:
"Someone who died."
Mavis's heart was pitiless.
"Why should I?"
"He was mine as much as yours. There are several things I want to know. And if it were the last word I utter, all that happened over that has 'hipped' me more than anything."
"I shall tell you nothing," declared Mavis.
"I've a right to know."
"No."
"Why not?"
"I tell you, no. You left me to fight alone; it was all so terrible, I daren't think of it more than I can help."
"But—"
"There are no 'buts,' no anything. I bore the sorrow alone, and I shall keep to myself all the tenderness that remains: nothing can ever alter it."
"You say that as if you hated me. Don't do that, little Mavis. I love you more than I do my mean selfish self."
"You love me!"
"I do now. I wanted you to know. Once or twice, I hoped—never mind what. But from the way you said what you said just now, I see it's utterly 'off.'"
"You never said anything truer. And do you know why?" she asked with flaming eye.
"Because I left you in the lurch?"
"Not altogether that, but because you were a coward, and, above all, a fool, in the first place. I know what I was. I see what other women are, and it makes me realise my value. I realise my value as, if you'd married me, I'd have faced death, anything with you. Pretty women with a few brains who'll stick to a man are rather scarce nowadays. But it wasn't good enough for you: you wouldn't take the risk. You've no—no stuffing. That is why, if you and I were left alone in the world together for the rest of our lives, I should never do anything but despise you."
Perigal's face went white. He bit his thin lips. Then he smiled as he said:
"Retributive justice."
"I'm sorry to be so candid. But it's what I've been thinking for months. I've only waited for an opportunity to say it."
"We've both scored," he said. "You can't take away what you've given, and that's a lot to be thankful for—but—but—"
"Well?"
"I'm dependent for my bread and butter on a woman who bores me to death, and have to look to a family for any odd jobs I may get—a family that, whatever they may do for me, I should always despise. That, and because I see what a fool I've been to lose you, is where you've scored."
As he strolled away, wondering how Mavis could be so indifferent to him after all that had happened, she did not trouble to glance after his retreating form.
Henceforth, Mavis was left much to herself. Perigal avoided her; whilst Windebank, about this time, to her annoyance, discontinued his frequent visits. Having so much time on her hands, Mavis returned to her old prepossessions about the why and wherefore of the varied happenings in her life.
Looking back, she found that her loving trust, her faith in her lover, her girlish innocence of the ways of sensual men had been chiefly responsible for her griefs; that it was indeed, as Perigal said, that she in her weakness had been preyed upon by the strong. Thus, it followed that girlish confidence in the loved one's word, the primal instinct of abnegation of self to the adored one, whole-hearted faith—all these characteristics (which were above price) of a loving heart were in the nature of a handicap in the struggle for happiness. It also followed that a girl thus equipped would be at a great disadvantage in rivalry with one who was cold, selfish, calculating. Mavis shuddered as she reached this conclusion.
Her introspections were interrupted by an event that, for the time, put all such thoughts from her mind.
One morning, upon going into Harold's room, she found that he did not recognise her. The local doctor, who usually attended him, was called in; he immediately asked for another opinion. This being obtained from London, the remedies the specialist prescribed proved so far beneficial that the patient dimly recovered the use of his senses, with the faint promise of further improvement if the medical instructions were obeyed to the letter. Then followed for Mavis long, scarcely endurable night watches, which were so protracted that often it seemed as if the hand of time had stopped, as if darkness for ever enshrouded the world. When, at last, day came, she would make an effort to snatch a few hours' sleep in order to fit her for the next night's attendance on the loved one. The shock of her husband's illness immediately increased her faith in Divine Providence. It was as if her powerlessness in the face of this new disaster were such that she relied on something more than human aid to give her help. Always, before she tried to sleep, she prayed long and fervently to the Most High that He would restore her beloved husband to comparative health; that He would interfere to arrest the fell disease with which he was afflicted. She prayed as a mother for a child, sick unto death. At the back of her mind she had formed a resolution that, if her prayer were answered, she would believe in God for the rest of her life with all her old-time fervour. She dared not voice this resolve to herself; she believed that, if she did so, it would be in the nature of a threat to the Almighty; also, she feared that, if her husband got worse, it would be consequently incumbent on her to lose the much needed faith in things not of this world. Thus, when Mavis knelt she poured out her heart in supplication. She was not only praying for her husband but for herself.
But Mavis's prayer was unheard. Her husband steadily got worse. One night, when the blackness of the sky seemed as a pall thrown over the corpse of her hopes, she took up a chance magazine, in which some verses, written to God by an author, for whose wide humanity Mavis had a great regard, attracted her.
The substance of these lines was a complaint of His pitiless disregard of the world's sorrow. One phrase particularly attracted her: it was "His unweeting way."
"That is it," thought Mavis. "That expresses exactly what I feel. There is, there must be, a God, but His ways are truly unweeting. He has seen so much pain that He has got used to it and grown callous."
One morning, when Mavis was leaving Harold, she was recalled by one of the nurses. He had signalled that he wished to see her again. Upon Mavis hastening to his side, he tried to speak, but could not. His eyes seemed to smile a last farewell till unconsciousness possessed him.
As before, Mavis called in the most expensive medical advice, which told her that nothing could be done. It appeared that Harold's spine had commenced to curve in such a manner that his lungs were seriously affected. It was only a question of months before the slight thread, by which his life hung, would be snapped. Mavis knew of many cases in which enfeebled lungs had been bolstered up for quite a long time by a change to suitable climates; she was eager to know if the same held good in her husband's case.
"Oh yes," said the great specialist. "There were parts of South Africa where the veld air was so rarefied that a patient with scarcely any lung at all might live for several years. But—"
"But what?" asked Mavis.
"If I may say so, he will never be other than what he now is. Would it be advisable to prolong—?"
The expression on Mavis's face stopped him short in the middle of his question.
"Of course, if you've decided to send him, it's quite another matter," he went on. "In that case, you cannot be too careful in seeing he has the most reliable attendants procurable."
Mavis hesitated the fraction of a second before replying:
"I should go with him."
It needed only that brief moment for Mavis to make up her mind. She would do her utmost to prolong her husband's life; she would accompany him wherever he went to obtain this end.
In making this last resolve, Mavis knew well the trials and discomforts to which she would expose herself. Her well-ordered days, her present existence, which seemed to run on oiled wheels, the friends and refinements with which she had surrounded herself, the more particularly appealed to her when contrasted with the lean years of her earlier life. Her days of want, joined to her natural inclinations, had created a hunger for the good things of the earth, which her present opulence had not yet stayed. She still held out her hands to grasp the beautiful, satisfying things which money, guided by a mind of some force and a natural refinement, can buy. Therefore, it was a considerable sacrifice for Mavis to give up the advantage she not only possessed, but keenly appreciated, to tend a man who was a physical and mental wreck, in a part of the world remote from civilising influences. But, together with her grief for the loss of her boy, there lived in her heart an immense and ineradicable remorse for having married her husband from motives of revenge against his family.
Harold's living faith in her goodness kept these regrets green; otherwise, the kindly hand of time would have rooted them from her heart.
"Do you believe?" Mavis had once asked of her husband on a day when she had been troubled by things of the spirit.
"In you," he had replied, which was all she could get from him on the subject.
His reply was typical of the whole-hearted reverence with which he regarded her.
Mavis believed that to tend her husband in the land where existence might prolong his life would be some atonement for the deception she had practised. When she got a further eminent medical opinion, which confirmed the previous doctor's diagnosis, she set about making preparations for the melancholy journey. These took her several times to London; they proved to be of a greater magnitude than she had believed to be possible.
When driving to a surgical appliance manufacturer on one of these visits, she saw an acquaintance of her old days playing outside a public house. It was Mr Baffy, the bass viol player, who was fiddling his instrument as helplessly as ever, while he stared before him with vacant eyes. Mavis stopped her cab, went up to his bent form and put a sovereign into his hand as she said:
"Do you remember me?"
The vacant manner in which his eyes stared into hers told Mavis that he had forgotten her.
When Mavis's friends learned of her resolution, they were unanimous in urging her to reconsider what they called her Quixotic fancy. Lady Ludlow was greatly concerned at losing her friend for an indefinite period; she pointed out the uselessness of the proceeding; she endeavoured to overwhelm Mavis's obstinacy in the matter with a torrent of argument. She may as well have talked to the Jersey cows which grazed about Mavis's house, for any impression she produced. After a while, Mavis's friends, seeing, that she was determined, went their several ways, leaving her to make her seemingly endless preparations in peace.
Alone among her friends, Windebank had not contributed to the appeals to Mavis with reference to her leaving England with her husband: for all this forbearing to express an opinion, he made himself useful to Mavis in the many preparations she was making for her departure and stay in South Africa. So ungrudgingly did he give his time and assistance, that Mavis undervalued his aid, taking it as a matter of course.
Three days before it was arranged that Mavis should leave Southampton with Harold, her resolution faltered. The prospect of leaving her home, which she had grown to love, increased its attractions a thousand-fold. The familiar objects about her, some of which she had purchased, had enabled her to sustain her manifold griefs. Cattle in the stables (many of which were her dear friends), with the passage of time had become part and parcel of her lot. A maimed wild duck, which she had saved from death, waited for her outside the front door, and followed her with delighted quacks when she walked in the gardens. All of these seemed to make their several appeals, as if beseeching her not to leave them to the care of alien hands. Her dearly loved Jill she was taking with her. Another deprivation that she would keenly feel would be the music her soul loved. Whenever she was assailed by her remorseless troubles in London, she would hasten, if it were possible, to either the handiest and best orchestral concert, or a pianoforte recital where Chopin was to be played. The loneliness, sorrowings, and longings of which the master makers of music (and particularly the consumptive Pole) were eloquent, found kinship with her own unquiet thoughts, and companionship is a notorious assuager of griefs.
Physical, and particularly mental illness, was hateful to her. If the truth be told, it was as much as she could do to overcome the repugnance with which her husband's presence often inspired her, despite the maternal instinct of which her love for Harold was, for the most part, composed. In going with him abroad, she was, in truth, atoning for any wrong she may have done him.
Two days later, Mavis occupied many hours in saying a last farewell to her home. It was one of the October days which she loved, when milk-white clouds sailed lazily across the hazy blue peculiar to the robust ripe age of the year. This time of year appealed to Mavis, because it seemed as if its mellow wisdom, born of experience, corresponded to a like period in the life of her worldly knowledge. The prize-bred Jersey cows grazed peacefully in the park grounds. Now and again, she would encounter an assiduous bee, which was taking advantage of the fineness of the day to pick up any odds and ends of honey which had been overlooked by his less painstaking brethren. Mavis, with heavy heart, visited stables, dairies, poultry-runs. These last were well at the back of the house; beyond them, the fields were tipped up at all angles; they sprawled over a hill as if each were anxious to see what was going on in the meadow beneath it. Followed by Jill and Sally, her lame duck, Mavis went to the first of the hill-fields, where geese, scarcely out of their adolescence, clamoured about her hands with their soothing, self-contented piping. Even the fierce old gander, which was the terror of stray children and timid maid-servants, deigned to notice her with a tolerant eye. Mavis sighed and went indoors.
Just before tea, she was standing at a window sorrowfully watching the sun's early retirement. The angle of the house prevented her from seeing her favourite cows, but she could hear the tearing sound their teeth made as they seized the grass.
She had seen nothing of her friends (even including Windebank) for the last few days. They had realised that she was not to be stopped from going on what they considered to be her mad enterprise, and had given her up as a bad job. No one seemed to care what became of her; it was as if she were deserted by the world. A sullen anger raged within her; she would not acknowledge to herself that much of it was due to Windebank's latent defection. She longed to get away and have done with it; the suspense of waiting till the morrow was becoming intolerable. As the servants were bringing in tea, Mavis could no longer bear the confinement of the house; she hurried past the two men to go out of the front door.
She walked at random, going anywhere so long as she obeyed the passion for movement which possessed her. Some way from the house, she chanced upon Windebank, who was standing under a tree.
"Why are you here?" she asked, as she stood before him.
"I was making up my mind."
"What about?"
"If I should see you again."
"You needn't. Do you hear? You needn't," she said passionately. He looked at her surprised. She went on:
"Everyone's forgotten me and doesn't care one bit what becomes of me. You're the worst of all."
"I?"
"You. They're honest and stay away. You, in your heart, don't wish to trouble to say good-bye, but you haven't the pluck to act up to your wishes. I hate you!"
"But, Mavis—"
"Don't call me that. You haven't the courage of your convictions. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I wish I'd never seen you. Be honest and go away and leave me."
"No!" cried Windebank, as he seized her arm.
"That's right! Strike me!" cried Mavis, reckless of what she said.
"I'm going to be honest at last and tell you something," he declared.
"More insults!"
"It is an insult this time, but all the same you'll hear it."
Mavis was a little awed by the resolution in his face and manner. He went on now a trifle hoarsely:
"Little Mavis, I love you more than I ever believed it possible for man to love woman. I've tried to forget you, but I want you more and more."
"How—how dare you!" she cried.
"Because I love you. And because I do, I've fought against seeing you; but as you've come to me and you're going away to-morrow, I must tell you."
Mavis was less resentful of his words; she resisted an inclination to tremble violently.
"Don't go," urged Windebank.
"Where?"
"Abroad. Don't go and leave me. I love you."
"How can you! Harold was your friend."
"My enemy. He took you from me when I was sure of you; my enemy, I tell you. Oh, little Mavis, let me make you happy. You can do no good going with him, so why not stay? I'd give my life to hold you in my arms, and I know I'd make you happy."
"You mustn't; you mustn't," murmured Mavis, as she strove to believe that his words and the grasp of his hand on her arm did not minister to the repressed, but, none the less ardent longings of her being.
"I must. I tell you I haven't been near a woman since I struck you again in Pimlico, and all for love of you. I've waited. Now, I'll get you."
Windebank placed his arms about her and kissed her lips, eyes, and hair many, many times. Then he held her at arm's length, while his eyes looked fixedly into hers.
A delicious inertia stole over Mavis's senses. He had only to kiss her again for her to fall helplessly into his arms.
Although she realised the enormity of his offence, something within her seemed to impel her to wind her arm about his neck and draw his lips to hers. Instead, she summoned all her resolution; striking him full in the face, she freed herself to run quickly from him. As she ran, she strove to hide from herself that, in her inmost heart, she was longing for him to overtake her, seize her about the body, and carry her off, as might some primeval man, to some lair of his own, where he would defend her with his life against any who might seek to disturb her peace.
But Windebank did not follow her. That night she sobbed herself to sleep. The next morning, Mavis left with Harold for Southampton.
Many months later, Mavis, clad in black, stood, with Jill at her side, on the deck of a ship that was rapidly steaming up Southampton water. Her eyes were fixed on the place where they told her she would land. The faint blurs on the landing pier gradually assumed human shape; one on which she fixed her eyes became suspiciously like Windebank. When she could no longer doubt that he was waiting to greet her, she went downstairs to her cabin, to pin a bright ribbon on her frock. When he joined her on the steamer, neither of them spoke for a few moments.
"I got your letter from—" he began.
"Don't say anything about it," she interrupted. "I know you're sorry, but I'd rather not talk of it."
Windebank turned his attentions to Jill, to say presently to Mavis:
"Are you staying here or going on?"
"I don't know. I think I'll stay a little. And you?"
"I'll stay too, if you've no objection."
"I should like it."
Windebank saw to the luggage and drove Mavis to the barrack-like South-Western Hotel; then, after seeing she had all she wanted, he went to his own hotel to dress for his solitary dinner. He had scarcely finished this meal when he was told that a lady wished to speak to him on the telephone. She proved to be Mavis, who said:
"If you've nothing better to do, come and take me out for some air."
The next few days, they were continually together, when they would mostly ramble by the old-world fortifications of the town. During all this time, neither of them made any mention of events in the past in which they were both concerned.
One evening, an unexpected shower of rain disappointed Windebank's expectation of seeing Mavis after dinner. He telephoned to her, saying that, after coming from a hot climate, she must not trust herself out in the wet.
He was cursing the weather and wondering how he would get through the evening without her, when a servant announced that a lady wished to see him. The next moment, Mavis entered his sitting-room. He noticed that she had changed her black frock for one of brighter hue.
"Why have you come?" he asked, when the servant had gone.
"To see you. Don't you want me?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then sit down and talk; or rather don't. I want to think."
"You could have done that better alone."
"I want to think," she repeated.
They sat for some time in silence, during which Windebank longed to take her in his arms and shower kisses on her lips.
Presently, when she got up to leave, she found so much to say that she continually put off going. At last, when they were standing near the door, Mavis put her face provokingly near his. He bent, meaning to kiss her hair, but instead his lips fell on hers.
To his surprise, Mavis covered his mouth with kisses. Windebank's eyes expressed astonishment, while his arm gripped her form.
"Forgive me; forgive me," she murmured.
"What for?" he gasped.
"I've been a brute, a beast, and you've never once complained."
"Dearest!"
"It's true enough; too true. All your life you've given me love, and all I've given you are doubts and misunderstandings. But I'll atone, I'll atone now. I'm yours to do what you will with, whenever you please, now, here, if you wish it. You needn't marry me; I won't bind you down; I only ask you to be kind to me for a little, I've suffered so much."
"You mean—you mean—"
"That you've loved me so long and so much that I can only reward you by giving you myself."
She opened her arms. He looked at her steadily for a while, till, with a great effort, he tore himself from her presence and left the room.
The next morning, Mavis received a letter from Windebank.
"My own dearest love," it ran, "don't think me a mug for leaving you last night as I did, but I love you so dearly that I want to get you for life and don't wish to run any risk of losing what I treasure most on earth. I am making arrangements so that we can get married at the very earliest date, which I believe is three days from now. And then—"
Mavis did not read any more just then.
"When and where you please," she scribbled on the first piece of paper she could find. Lady Ludlow's words occurred to her as she sent off her note by special messenger: "A woman is always safe with the man who loves her."
Three days later, Windebank and Mavis were made man and wife. For all Windebank's outward impassivity, Mavis noticed that, when he put the ring on her finger, his hand trembled so violently that he all but dropped it. Directly the wedding was over, Windebank and Mavis got into the former's motor, which was waiting outside the church.
"At last!" said Windebank, as he sat beside his wife.
"Where next?" asked Mavis.
"To get Jill and your things and then we'll get away."
"Where to? I hope it's right away, somewhere peaceful in the country."
"We'll go on till you come to a place you like."
They went west. They had lunched in high spirits at a wayside inn, which took Mavis's fancy, to continue travelling till the late afternoon, when the machine came to a dead stop.
"We'll have to camp in a ditch," said Mavis.
"How you'd curse me if we had to!" said her husband.
"It would be heaven with you," she declared.
Windebank reverently kissed her.
He saw that the car wanted spirit, which he learned could be bought at a village a short way ahead. Mavis and Jill accompanied Windebank to the general shop where petrol was sold.
"I can't let you out of my sight," she said, as they set out.
"Why not?"
"You might run off."
He laughed. By the time they reached the shop, Mavis had quite emerged from the sobriety of her demeanour to become an approximation to her old light-hearted self.
"That's how I love to see you," remarked Windebank.
When they entered the shop, Mavis' face fell.
"What's the matter?" he asked, all concern for his wife.
"Don't you smell paraffin?"
"What of it?"
"It takes me back to Pimlico—that night when we went shopping together—you bought me a shilling's worth."
"I wish someone would come; then we'd get out of it," remarked Windebank.
But his wife did not appear to listen; she was lost in thought. Then she clung desperately to his arm.
"What is it?" he asked tenderly.
"It's love I want; love. Nothing else matters. Love me: love me: love me. A little love will help me to forget."