Seven o'clock.No need to wait for to-morrow. It is to be to-night. It is to be now.I shall write this short page to steady my nerves, to rally my wits, to cool my blood.Something is in the wind. Twenty minutes ago, when I told Susan that I should not need her again till dinner-time, she made pretence of tidying the room, as I was staring into the fire. She did not know that she was reflected in the glass.I saw her stand stock still and gaze at my face with the gaze of one who gazes for the last time. She could not have gazed at me more desperately, if there had been a hangman waiting at the door to take one of us away. Suddenly her cheeks shone with a drench of tears. She covered her face with her hands, and stumbled through the doorway.I was sick of scenes. And, with such an anguish as mine, I felt a contempt for Susan's mere ups and downs. So I pretended not to see or hear, and I didn't follow till ten minutes ago.Susan is not in the house.Georgette says she went out as soon as she came downstairs. She thinks Susan has only gone for a breath of sea air before dinner.It is outrageous, it is unendurable, it is wicked, it is cruel. They are meeting now.What note or what message did Susan leave this morning at the hotel? Not mine! I am a fool, a simpleton, I have less sense than a little child.I can guess the place. It will be on the beach between here and the beck. They are meeting now. He is holding her in his arms. She will be like potter's clay in his hands. His ardent masterfulness will flick aside her doubts and fears like grains of sand. Her wits will fly away from her like chaff before the wind. There will be no Susan there save a girlish form for him to hold, a burning face for him to kiss, and a childish voice to tell him about me and my letters. And to-morrow----Unendurable is the word. Endure it I will not. I refuse to be flouted, and disobeyed, and made a fool of, and shamed.Susan is my maid. I don't allow followers, whoever they may be. Or, rather, I allow them in honest daylight, and at times appointed. Not on the sly. Not in the dark.I am going out.Some time or other.I am glad I did not burn this book. It shall stand as my golden legend.The fire is still lively in the grate, and the two lamps are beaming softly. I don't know whether it is Friday night or Saturday morning. Saturday morning, I suppose. But no going to bed till all is written down.I stepped out of the Villa about a quarter past seven, and began crunching westward along the stones. Rage and hatred were in my heart. I almost understood those men and women who make haste on such errands as mine, grasping pistols or cold steel. The wind was in my face, but I bent into it and sped on. I was not cold. It made me glow to think how I would burst upon them, cover them with shame, fling them apart, humiliate them a thousand times more than they should ever humiliate me.But rage and hatred did not last. Under the lee of a great black boat drawn up on the shingle, I paused to take breath. It was warm and still in that little patch of shelter, out of the nipping bluster of the wind.While I was standing there, looking over the faintly gleaming water, a black mantle of cloud fell away from the moon. The sea became a far-spreading shimmer of silver. The little clouds sailed as curly and white as feathers from a great sea-bird's breast across the soft blue heaven. A single chime of the Bérigny church bell fell from the cliff--a single, silvery chime as if the moonlight had spoken.At that holy call, I was born again. Rage and hatred had been strong, but I had not rage enough or hatred enough to go on standing up stubbornly against all that graciousness and beauty. It melted my heart of stone; and I knew it for an impossibility that God should be otherwise than beautiful and good. For a moment, Ruddington and Susan receded from my mind. Or, rather, I thought of them only along with all the millions of happy lovers upon whom the same sweet moon was smiling. And I blessed them unaware.My mind came back to my errand. And then I fought the battle. Along the beach I could see the trees which shade the path; and, above the swish of the small waves, I could hear the beck humming loudly in its ravine. I was sure that they were there, under that green roof, close to that music, in this moonlight made for love. The thought burnt me like hot irons, and I could have cried aloud. Then the agony was over. I had resolved to let them be, to leave them alone with their happiness. Rage was tamed, hatred was changed to a sad, world-wide pity. But, as I turned wearily back to the clouded east, I ached and tingled all over like a beaten child.At the first crunch of my foot on the pebbles as I turned round, some one sprang towards me from the foot of the cliff.I cried out in terror.He faced me in the moonlight. We were only a step or two apart. It was Ruddington.We looked full at one another without speaking. And, as I looked, I knew that, though he could not be mine in this world, I must be his for ever and ever. Then the enormous whiteness of the cliff seemed to rock before my eyes, and the humming of the beck swelled to thunder in my ears. But he caught me before I fell."Susan!" he said softly in my ear. His voice was warmer and brighter than gold, as he repeated: "Susan!"I lay helpless in his arms. All strength had gone from me, just as it had gone when I half swooned in the sea. I could not struggle. I could only let myself sink more wholly against his heart, just as I had so willingly sunk down, down, down through the cool green water to the deep, strong peace of Death. But, though Death's caress had been sweet, it was sweeter to rest against the warm heart of Love.I don't know how long that perfect happiness endured before a stab of anguish pierced me through. It seemed an hour; it may have been a minute; perhaps it was less than half a second before full consciousness returned. Then a voice within me cried shame. I remembered that, although I had gazed at his face in the broad light of the moon, he had only seen mine in the shadow. Bitterest of all, it was not my name he had murmured in that voice brighter and warmer than gold. He had hailed Susan. I was a cheat, a changeling, lying shameless in Susan's place.I knew it. But, for a moment longer, I rested at peace in the soft nest of his arms. With all the grey years of the future to be lived through in loveless loneliness, I deliberately gave myself that one long moment. As if he knew that the warmth and sweetness of it must last me all my life long, he held me closer to his heart. I wished, then, that I could have died.Life, harsh Life, cried aloud. I called up some sudden strength and tore myself free."I am not Susan," I said.He gave the slightest cry, made the slightest retreat in the world. Then, before I knew, he enfolded me once more."No," he said proudly. "Not Susan. Suzanne--ma petite Suzanne. But I frightened her. She is trembling. Suzanne, forgive me! I must have been mad to leap out upon you like that. But how could she walk along the beach to-night and not expect me to be here?"I heard him vaguely. He was too strong for me. My will, my moral energy as well as my bodily strength, refused to return at my command. I could hardly open my eyes to look up at the mild moon, so like the cool, round sun which I had seen from under the water."Say you forgive me, Suzanne," he murmured. "You are angry with me for coming to France. How could I wait, Suzanne, when you had confessed that you love me?"I wrenched myself roughly free. With a frenzied effort of will, I rallied back all my allies of conventionality and of pride."You have made a mistake," I said curtly, stepping away two or three paces. "I am not Susan."This time he started violently. But he recovered himself in an instant and came towards me with outstretched hands. I sprang back."Susan," he said gravely, "don't jest. For heaven's sake, not now. This is some quaint fancy. You say you are not Susan, just as you said my infatuation was not love. Forgive me, Susan; but this isn't a time for subtleties. You love me; and you know I love you more than life. Don't refine or jest now. This moment of our first meeting is too great, too sacred. Let us be clear and simple, like the moon and the sea.""No!" I cried, as he advanced. "How dare you touch me again? It's all a mistake. No doubt, this is Lord Ruddington. You are speaking to Miss Langley."His arms dropped to his side, and he fell back as if I had struck him in the face. I steadied myself with one hand against the side of the boat. It was a long time before he spoke."Miss Langley!" he said at last, in tones as cold and dull as lead. "What can I say?" Then his voice quickened and brightened, and he cried: "No, Susan, you shall elude me no more!""Stand back, please," I said icily and decisively. "There has been enough of this. I understand you are to see Susan to-morrow, at eleven o'clock."Before I could move, he leapt to my side."Miss Langley," he said rapidly but firmly. "Miss Langley--if you are truly Miss Langley--if this isn't some ill-timed joke--hear me for one moment. Heaven knows I did not mean to insult you. But this is a terrible thing. I have laid on you one indignity; but I beg you to endure another. You have answered me from the shadow. I ask you--for heaven's sake I implore you--to show me your face one moment in the light."He had pressed so near that his shoulder touched mine. I leaned against the boat counting the cost. Had I the strength, to stand out sheer in the pitiless light and biting air? To watch his face--its lightning-flash of passionate eagerness, its following gloom of disenchantment and chagrin? To listen to his stammering apologies? To bestow pardons, revise arrangements? And, last of all, to stumble back over the stones alone--I, who had just known the support of his breast? Had I the strength? What if I should break down, as the light of love died out of his eyes, and weep bitterly? But there was no choice. My heart bled as I schooled myself once more to the haughtiness of artificial pride, and I said:"This is monstrous. But as you please."He made way for me with old-fashioned reverence as I stepped out into the moonshine. With all that was left of my shattered will, I strove to offer for his scrutiny a face hardened by haughtiness, lips curling with disdain, eyes alight with annoyance. But how could I hate him while I loved him? How could my eyes, that were so hungry, stab him? And how could my lips scorn him when they were aching to tell him all?The eager lightning flashed in his face. But I waited in vain for the dull thunder of despair, for the fall of the gloom. No, it was not lightning. With my heart standing still, I saw that the light abode in his eyes, that it waxed fuller and more radiant as he gazed intently into mine. But suddenly, he quenched it."One second more," he commanded abruptly, dryly, almost harshly. "Simply and literally, without any paradoxes or ruses whatever, are you Susan?""I am not Susan," I said, beginning to turn away."Simply, and literally and truly, you are indeed Miss Langley?""I am Miss Langley."Something chained me to the spot. I saw him go pale as death, and I heard him groan in anguish:"Then may God help us all!""What do you mean?" I demanded. We seemed to be so mysteriously one, that the strength which deserted him passed into me. "Are you not satisfied?" I added. "I must go."In a flash, he was master again. He flung himself across my path."No!" he cried. "You shall not go! Some meddling idiot has deceived me. There has been a horrible, an unspeakable mistake. Gertrude Langley, it was you I met in Derlingham. It was you I watched in Traxelby church. Gertrude Langley, it is you I love with my whole soul. It is you, it is you, it is you! I shall not let you go!"His words sang all round me like birds. My battle-worn, enfeebled spirit reeled under such bursts of music, such flashes of glory. I made one last agonizing effort to play the conventional part: to rebuke and repel him, to parade amazement, shame, and a dishonest show of anger. But he was too strong. He dominated me so, that I could not even pause to marvel at the miracle, or to ask myself if it could be true. I could only totter towards him in dumb, unconditional surrender, and burst into a torrent of thankful tears.This third time, he held me, not as he had held me before. Then, he had strained me to him like a lover; now, he supported me gravely, reverentially, as any man would support any woman who has half-fainted away. But, by swift degrees, he guessed the truth. He held me closer, he bent his lips to my ear, and he asked, with a grave wonder, in his voice of gold:"You do not mean ... this?""Yes," I whispered, with my eyes closed, "I mean ... this."For two or three seconds we were content to have it so. Then his clasp weakened. I knew what he meant, and I drew myself free."We forgot Susan," I said."Yes," he said slowly. "We forgot Susan."He stood beside me in silence, looking at the sea. Then, without warning, he broke out with terrible words of anger. Not to me. It was as though he arraigned the universe and shook his fist at the stars."A thousand curses!" he cried; "a thousand curses on their heads who have brought us all to this! It is not to be borne! It is a tangle of fiends. Great God! To be loved by the two best women on earth, and then, instead of happiness, to find it end in misery all round! It is the work of devils! It is not to be borne!"He remembered me at his side, and fought down his wrath. At last he turned to me an ashen face, and began:"There is much to say. Where will you sit down?""Nowhere," I answered. "No, do not touch me again. What there is to be said ... say."We stood an arm's-length apart on the stones, and he spoke:"Gertrude Langley," he said, "for five weeks I have loved you, and there is no woman in the world, save you, that I ever did love or ever shall. But, through a string of ghastly blunders hardly to be explained or even believed, I have loved you under another name, and amid wildly false notions of your station. Be hurt at nothing I shall say. I believed, on twofold testimony, that you were Susan, your maid. Do not be galled or insulted till you have heard me out.""You cannot insult me," I said. "Besides, I know all.""No!" he cried, "you do not know. You know that I have written Susan letters, that I have badgered her to marry me, that I have followed her to Sainte Véronique, and that I am to set eyes upon her to-morrow. But, listen. I will tell you what you do not know. You don't know that this poor girl has a heart of gold, a soul of fire, a mind that is a fountain of gems. Did you know that?""No," I said, "I did not."He mistook my ghost of a smile. It stung him."Miss Langley," he said, "we have been wrong; you, and I, and all who have been born, like you and me, to rank and wealth and leisure. Because the novels are nearly all written round such lives as ours, we think that the poor and the servile are without romance, without spirituality. We are not quite sure that they have minds and hearts and souls of their own. I say, we have been wrong. All Susan's few letters to me, save one, have been shy and hurried. But--though I say it in the ears of the only woman I can ever love--there isn't, there can't be in all the world, a nobler mind than this poor Susan's, a sweeter heart, a purer soul."I did not answer. His calmness left him."You don't see, you won't see, you can't see!" he cried. "Why will you make me put it into words? You are shutting your eyes to the tragedy of it all. Gertrude Langley, what would you have me do?"I was given some dim sense of the greatness of his soul. Almost mechanically, I replied:"I would have you do only what is right.""God bless you for that!" he murmured, and took my hand. "Only what is right! But, tell me, which is the right? I love you, and you love me. When and where you saw me, where and when and why and how your love for me began, I cannot guess. All that matters is ... you love me! Beautiful Gertrude, answer me. You love me and I love you ... but which way lies the right?""You mean," I said slowly, disengaging my hand, "that there is Susan?""Yes," he said gently. "There is Susan. Which way lies the right? For all I know, I shall find Susan ugly, and she is a lady's-maid. But the point is, I have forced her to love me, with such a love as I did not expect to find in this world. Do not smile, do not imagine I think myself handsome, or in the least adorable. But I have read her last letter fifty times, and I know, if I draw back, if I tell Susan of this cruel tangle, it will break her heart. No, do not interrupt me! In such a case, I know how hard it is for you to believe that I am not mad. Dearest, help me, for God's sake! It's hard enough, God knows!"I ought to have thrust in words boldly, refusing to be denied. I ought to have told him everything. But he silenced me with one gesture and finished."Yet after all," he said, "what is there to discuss or to decide? Haven't you told me already to do the right? And the right is ... to keep faith with Susan. Oh, I know, I know!" he cried out bitterly, "it will wound your heart, it will break mine. But, dearest, we have so much. We have books, we have friends, we have a hundred occupations. But this poor Susan--what has she? She has nothing, except love.""If she has love," I said, "and we have all else in the world beside; then Susan is rich and we are poor."He turned away. When he looked at me again, he said:"It is simply a choice which of us must be robbed of happiness, and burdened with life-long sorrow, and filled with bitterness. You and I are two, and Susan is one. They say minorities must suffer."He smiled a sad smile, and watched me narrowly. And, at the same moment, a coldness numbed my heart. While he had been extolling Susan, I had drunk in his words deliciously, biding my time to laugh out merrily and prick the shining bubble. But suddenly, all things stood out in a different light. I remembered my oath to Susan at Traxelby. I remembered that she had given up Gibson. I recalled, with anger, that at this very moment she was prowling about to catch some secret glimpse of her lover."Yes," he repeated. "Minorities suffer. It is the way of the world. I renounce Susan, and what does it amount to? A mere lady's-maid sees me break faith and drop her in favour of wealth and beauty. She loses her faith in God and man. Possibly, she even has the bad taste to go and die. Meanwhile I, having always had all I want, go and get a great deal more. Natural, isn't it?"He laughed a bitter laugh."Don't talk again like that," I said, as bitterly as he.He was silent while I thought my thoughts. I knew full well in the depths of my soul, that to suffer anything to thrust itself between him and me, would be a crime and a blasphemy. Yet I knew it might come to pass. If I told him all about Susan, all about Gibson, all about the letters, he would still have only my word for it that she did not love him in her own way. He would seek Susan to-morrow morning, as appointed, to hear Susan's own words. And, under the glamour of his presence, what might not Susan say?But light blazed through my brain. I had found the key. I must go back to the Villa. I must track Susan at all costs. I must tell her the whole story of Ruddington's mistake. Probably she had already come back.I turned to him and said:"Why be ironical and bitter? You have spoken truly. You have to do what is right."He seized both my hands. To him it was the end."Gertrude," he said, "for the first and last time, my own Gertrude ... so this is Good-bye! Our first meeting is our last. To-morrow ... after it is over ... I shall go straight away. To-morrow is hers. But to-night is ours. Beloved, this is not the end. There are more worlds than this one--this world which some one has cursed for us. For ever, I am all thine. But the waiting will be so long. Beloved, do not say that I may not bid thee Good-bye!"I restrained him gently, for my mind had clouded again with thronging fears."No," I said; "let us not make the future harder by any weakness in the present."He bowed his head and obeyed. When he looked up, he said quietly:"One practical point before I go. She will not ... I will not, ever be at Ruddington Towers. Traxelby is your old home. The Towers shall be shut up."My eyes filled with tears."Beloved," I said softly, "good-bye."I gave him my hand, and he held it to his lips. Then I broke from him and fled home.Georgette received me with a volley of outcries about the spoilt dinner."Where is Susan?" I asked."She is not come back," said Georgette, retreating towards the kitchen. And then I saw that Georgette was in the secret."Georgette," I said peremptorily in French, "I insist that you tell me this instant where Susan has gone."Her brow darkened. She looked at me defiantly, and tossed her head."Come," I commanded, with a rap on the table. "I insist. This moment.""Pardon, Madame," retorted Georgette with Republican spirit, "I am the servant of Madame Dupoirier and the friend of Susan."There was no time to argue. I shifted my ground, and coaxed."If you are the friend of Susan," I said, "you will answer at once. Something very important has happened. We must find her at once."Georgette hesitated suspiciously before she asked:"Is it about the milord from England, Madame--the milord with all the money?""Yes, yes, yes!" I said. "It is most important.""Then he may take his money back again," said Georgette with a fine flourish. "Susan, she will only marry for love. She has gone away.""Gone away?" I echoed, sinking down on a chair."Yes, Madame. Susan said, if she didn't run away, the milord would make her marry him.""Georgette," I cried, springing up, "I give you my word that the milord shall not mention marriage to Susan again. If you are her friend, tell me where to find her. I swear that I am thinking only of her good."Georgette was silent. The truth rushed in upon me. I said:"She has run away with Gibson?""Yes, Madame," said Georgette tranquilly, "with Monsieur Geebson.""Georgette!" I cried, "help me to find them, and I'll give you fifty francs. No, don't pout. If I can stop them, Susan and Gibson will be grateful to you as long as they live, on my word of honour."At last Georgette said: "Susan went out too soon for fear that Madame would stop her. She attends Monsieur Geebson at the bottom of the beck at half-past eight."I snatched a roll from the table and rushed out again to the beach. Bérigny clock struck eight. There would be six or seven minutes to spare.As I sped along, a sickening fear seized me. What if Ruddington and Susan, by another of the ghastly mishaps which kept dogging us all along, had run into one another on the beach?No. As I neared the big boat, I saw him standing there alone. He strode out to meet me eagerly and wonderingly."Why are you still here?" I asked."Where would you have me be?" he said. "I have always loved France. But henceforth, France will mean for me just these few square yards of shadow on the stones.""You must not brood," I answered. "You talk as if you are never to be happy any more.""In some other world," he said, smiling sadly, "I mean to be happy with You.""Some other world?" I said. "Who knows that God may not reward you soon in this?"He turned to me with a start; but I did not let him speak."Have you eaten?" I asked."Not yet.""How silly!" I said. "Nor have I. Come, eat bread with me. This wind shall be the salt."He took half the roll and smiled. But I could see that my high spirits first jarred on him, and then troubled him."You are not well," he said. "You are over-wrought. You are excited. Let me lead you home.""No," I said. "I have not felt so well for years. I must go; but not home. There is business to be done.""Where?" he asked, startled."Along the beach.""Then," he said firmly, "you do not go alone."I considered for a moment. Then I looked him full in the face."If I allow you to come," I said, "will you promise to disappear when you are told, and to come out when you are called, and not to speak till I give you leave?"He answered, "I promise."I did not disdain his arm. Whatever befell new, he was mine, all mine. The wind was in our faces, the moonbeams flashed on the water. Colour came to my cheeks, and the breeze ruffled the hair which had gone so long without Susan's brush and comb. As we stamped over the stones we might have been a boy and a girl escaping on a frolic.A few hundreds of yards from the beck we were able to climb the low slope, and to pad along mutely over the grass. At the first brambles we turned inland, and descended softly into the ravine. We pulled up behind a high bush."Hush!" I whispered. "Not a sound. Don't move or speak till I give the word."Through the thin autumn foliage, by the pale light of the moon, we could see a woman's figure across the beck. It was Susan, seated upon a modest bag.I did not explain to Ruddington. I did not even tell him who the woman was. Two or three minutes passed; and then the silver chime of Bérigny proclaimed half-past eight.Susan drew out her little handkerchief, and wiped away a tear. My heart went out to her. There was no Gibson; and I began to hope our task would be easy. But we heard a sudden sound of snapping branches and hurrying feet; and Gibson broke through into the light. Susan jumped up to meet him."Oh, Tom!" she wailed. "I began to think you wasn't coming."Ruddington touched my hand."Oughtn't we to go away from here?" he whispered."No!" I whispered back, shaking my fist. "We oughtn't.""I was out with a blooming car," explained Gibson. "Georgette brought your letter at half-past three, but I didn't get it till seven.""Thank goodness you wasn't away for the night!" exclaimed Susan fervently."Well, I'm here, anyway," said Gibson. "Not that I expect it's going to do me any good. You promised you'd settle me this week, on or off, one way or another. I suppose you've only brought me here to give me the chuck?"Susan did not reply."What've you got there?" asked Gibson with a jump. He had caught sight of Susan's bag."It's my things," said Susan. "Oh, Tom, I want you to take me away!""Take you away?" echoed Gibson, thunderstruck."Yes, yes, take me away! Now, this minute. Oh, Tom, don't say you won't!""But where can I take you to?" asked astounded Gibson."To Granpong.""Not me!" said Susan's gallant, with emphasis. "I suppose you think that at a caffy-resterong you can do anything? Don't make no mistake. They're the properest lot at Granpong that ever I struck in all my natural. Why, just to think of Madum opening the door, and me bringing in a young lady at midnight! Not me!""Oh, Tom, don't be such a beast!" moaned Susan. "The very idea! You know quite well, you do, that I'd never go to the same house. I'd die first. But, oh Tom, you must take me somewhere. We might go to the clergyman's wife.""They don't have no clergymen in France," said Gibson, with British scorn; "only priests. And priests don't have no wives. But look here. What do you want to be took away for? What's up?"Susan was silent."It's some tiff with the Missis," said Gibson derisively; "that's what it is. And I ain't going to be a party to it. Bet my feet the Missis is in the right. Fact is, this toff"--Gibson paused, and repeated the word with disdain--"this toff has given you swelled head. Not me! I ain't going to take sides against the Missis just for the sake of him. The old girl's always been too good to me."The undress grammar and off-duty vocabulary of my two model domestics opened my eyes wide and made my ears burn. As for Ruddington, he touched my hand again, and I saw that his face was full of pain. He had guessed that I was showing him Susan."We mustn't stay," he said."We must," I answered, stamping my foot on the grass. For Susan was speaking."No, Tom, no," she moaned; "not the Missis! It isn't a tiff with the Missis. Oh, it breaks my heart to think of it! To-night, just before I ran away, she was sitting looking at the fire. She looked that sad and lonely, I burst out crying; and if I hadn't run straight out of the house, I wouldn't have come at all. No, no, no! Not the Missis.""What the dooce is it, then?" asked Gibson."It's ... it's him!" blurted Susan, desperately."Him? Not ... not the toff?""Yes," groaned Susan, "the toff! He's coming. He wants to meet me, here.""Here? To-night?""No. To-morrow. Eleven o'clock. Oh, Tom, I can't bear it! Take me away!"Gibson emitted a long, low whistle. He took off his cap, crushed it up, and put it on again. Then he ducked for Susan's bag and dropped it down a few yards away, as if he wanted room. Last of all, he bent his head till he could look straight into Susan's eyes."Susie," he said slowly, "you don't say you're going to give him up?"He had dropped his vile pronunciation, and had strangely regained the simple dignity with which he had spoken to me at Traxelby."Not that you're going to give him up?" he repeated."Yes, yes, yes!" said Susan. "I don't want him! I won't have him! I can't bear him! Take me away!""And if I do," he asked intently, "can you bear me, Susie? Will you haveme?""Oh, Tom, of course I will!" she wailed, clinging to him with all her might. And, suddenly raising herself on tiptoe, she gave him a resounding rustic kiss.Behind our bush we recoiled a little, both from them and from one another."We will go," said Ruddington."We won't," I said, pinching his arm to keep him quiet. So we looked away while Gibson returned the kiss, not once, or twice, or thrice."Susie," demanded Gibson at last, "what is his name? Who is he?""His name," proclaimed Susan, after an effective delay, "is Lord Ruddington."Gibson let her fall from his embrace like a stone. He sprang back a man's length."Oh yes, of course," he said mockingly, when he had found his breath. "Lord Ruddington,aliasthe King of Spain, alias the Emperor of Russia! Of course!""Honour bright, it's true!" said Susan indignantly. "If it isn't, may I be struck down dead. His lordship fell over his head in love with me in Traxelby church.""Susie, this is true?" he demanded, striding up to her and speaking fiercely. "This is true?""Don't go on silly," said Susan.Gibson leaned against a tree and thought for some time. At last he straightened himself up, and said, in low excited tones:"Look here, Susie, this makes a difference. You don't think I'm going to help you miss a chance like that? Haven't I always said you're fit to be a duchess? No, Susie, it isn't good enough. D'ye think I'm going to let you throw yourself away on a poor thirty-bob-a-week devil like me?""Oh don't, Tom, don't!" she pleaded, clinging to him again. "Don't! or you'll make me change my mind.""There isn't a finer gentleman in all England nor Lord Ruddington," said Gibson."Oh don't!" wailed Susan again."What is the matter with him?" demanded Gibson. "It isn't his money. No, nor his horses. Perhaps it's his looks?""We'd better be going!" I whispered to Ruddington, behind our bush."No, no," protested Susan, "it isn't his looks. When I put him in that folding frame, facing Miss Langley, they looked lovely--just like Royalty. No, it isn't his looks. I could put up with that.""Then what is it you can't put up with?" asked Gibson searchingly.She scraped the ground with her foot, as she used to scrape the garden gravel, before she replied mysteriously:"Tom, he's so funny. He's all twists and turns. It'd be like being married to an eel. If he's the same as his letters, he'd make me all giddy. When I read them, everything seems to begin turning and turning round."Gibson snorted impatiently. "With a thousand pound a week," he said ironically, "you'll soon get used to that.""Tom, don't, don't!" she cried. "How can you be so cruel? If you cared about me as you said you did, you wouldn't let nobody have me but you--not if it was the Prince of Wales crawling on his bended knees."Gibson came more into the light. I could read in his face the bitterness of his heart."Susie," he said, "what's the use of talking? If I take you away to-night, you know you'll have to marry me, even if you change your mind before to-morrow morning. Unless there's some good reason why you won't marry Lord Ruddington, you'll repent of it when we're poor and when we've to work hard for a living. You'll throw it in my teeth, and we shall be worse'n a cat and a dog."I was amazed at Gibson's paltriness; amazed and angry. But not for long. All at once my groom drew himself up as grandly as a knight of romance, and demanded:"Susie, girl--isn't there a better reason?"My maid was his equal."Yes, Tom, yes," she cried passionately. "There's a better reason. Oh, Tom, I'm in love with you, and I always have been, though I've behaved like a little Beast. And I couldn't never be in love with Lord Ruddington if he was all made of gold. Take me away!""Why should I?" asked the radiant lover a minute afterwards, making a descent into the practical. "If it's a bargain, what's the good of running away from the Missis? We sha'n't find such a soft job or such a good old girl again in a hurry. If we run away, she won't have us back.""But he's coming to-morrow," interrupted Susan in a panic."A jolly good thing too!" declared Gibson. "If you're going to give him the push, the sooner the better. Let him come. Give him the straight tip. In fact, I'm not sure," added Gibson meditatively, "that he oughtn't to be made to part with a hundred pound for breach of promise. Cheer up, and let 'em all come!""No, no!" cried Susan, terror-stricken. "If I see him, he'll turn me round his little finger. I shall be too scared to say a word. I shall be just like a stuck pig. Besides, he'll ask me about the letters.""Letters?" echoed Gibson."Yes, the letters. Oh, Tom, I've been so wicked. When his first letter came to Traxelby, I copied the answer out of an old book.""You can go now ... if you want to!" I murmured to Ruddington, behind our bush. But he only plucked at my hand, and held it as in a vice, while he listened with all his ears. Susan talked on."That old book, with the covers off. But, when I showed it to Miss Langley, she said it didn't sound right, and she wrote out a lovely letter for me to copy, and----""Go ahead!" said Gibson."And--oh, Tom, I told a lie! I pretended I didn't know I was to copy it out. I thought his Lordship would make fun of my writing and give me up. So I posted it in ... in Miss Langley's writing.""Lord love us!" put in Gibson, in tones of awe."Yes. And Miss Langley was dreadfully angry. But when we'd begun, we had to go on I promised faithful that I would practise my writing; but I didn't play fair.""So the Missis has been helping him?" demanded Gibson with a blaze of wrath. "The Missis wanted you to have him?""No, no! The Missis asked me...""Asked what?""She asked ... oh, Tom, she asked if I cared for you! And I told a lie, and I said I didn't. Then she helped me. But she put it in all the letters that he must wait, and that he mustn't come after me, and that he mustn't persuade me, and that I wouldn't marry him unless I could be in love with him. No, no, Tom. The Missis has been splendid!""What's he come for, then, if you told him he mustn't?" Gibson asked, less angrily."I don't know. But Tom, Tom, don't wait here or we shall be caught. Say Yes or No. Will you take me away?"Gibson's answer came boldly;"Yes!"Later on, he added: "We will go back to England and be married at once.""I have thirty pounds," said practical Susan. "It's in Derlingham Post-office.""I've only got nineteen pounds seven and six," said Gibson glumly. "Mine's at Derlingham too. But what the dooce does it matter?" he burst out, snatching her to him and challenging Fate with ringing pride. "Susie girl, I've gotyou. You're the grandest girl God ever made. It's all a lot of rot about those letters. You're giving him up all for ... me! Susie girl, if I've to slave my head off to do it, I'll make you happy. If I don't, hell's too good for me. I'll go through water and fire. Let's be off. We'll tell Maddum all about it, and she'll tell us what to do. Where's the bag?"They turned and stooped to find it. In a twinkling, I broke through the bush, tripped over the stones, and stood on the other side of the beck."No," I cried. "You sha'n't go!"Susan screamed as if she had seen a ghost, and tumbled cowering against Gibson's broad chest. As for Gibson himself, after the first shock of astonishment, he opposed to me a fearless front."Asking pardon, Ma'am," he said respectfully but firmly. "She shall.""She sha'n't," I cried, more firmly still. "Susan, you shall not go.""Asking pardon, Ma'am," said Gibson again. "We are not slaves. We sha'n't never forget your kindness, Ma'am, and we don't hope to find the like again. But you are speaking to Susan's husband, Ma'am, which isn't the same as the groom. Susan's going with me.""Gibson," I said, "not so fast. You talk as if I am against you both. When have I ever done you wrong?""Done me wrong, Ma'am?" he said, harshly and with a darkening face. "Begging pardon, you've done me wrong this very day. You've broke your promise. He's coming tomorrow--and you didn't,----""I did," I said hastily. "It'll be at Grandpont in the morning. I posted it to-day. Gibson, you say Susan will marry you. Susan, is it true?""Yes, Miss," said Susan faintly. "It is true.""Then," I said, "why run away? Lord Ruddington is answered. Susan can't marry Gibson and Lord Ruddington too.""You mean fair, Ma'am," replied Gibson, "and you wish us well. But you are a young lady, Ma'am. Susan don't trust herself to meet him. And I don't neither.""Gibson, Susan," I asked, "what if I give you both my word that Lord Ruddington will not ask Susan to marry him, and that he will never write to her any more?""With due respects, Ma'am," Gibson answered, "don't pledge your word to any such thing. I say it again, Ma'am, you are a young lady. He's a man, and he's been about the world. If his Lordship's in love with Susan, and if he's come all the way to Sinn Verrynick to ask her, he won't be beat by the groom. You'll no more turn Lord Ruddington back to-morrow, Ma'am, than you'll turn me and Susan back to-night. Susan, let us go."I stepped forward to seize her, but he waved me aside."Susan!" I cried. "Gibson! Listen! Let Susan come to me for one minute. Something tremendous has happened to-night, and I am bound to let her know it. Susan, come here. When you have heard it, you shall go with Gibson or come home with me, just as you think best."Before he could restrain her, she slipped from his grasp and ran to my side. He followed. I threw my arm round her waist."If you please, Ma'am," said Gibson tensely, standing almost as close to me as Susan, "there's going to be no more secrets. What's right to be said at all can be said out loud."I considered. Then I spoke out clearly and loudly."Very well. Have it so. But it would have been easier for Susan to hear it alone. Susan, there has been some dreadful, horrible mistake. It was not you, Susan, whom Lord Ruddington saw at Derlingham and in Traxelby church. He was misinformed. He has never seen you in his life. He does not want to marry you."Susan stared at me, first, with a face as white as chalk. Then she reddened like a rose, and moaned like one wounded, with a choking moan."No, Miss Gertrude, no!" she pleaded in anguish, "Don't say it wasn't real. Don't say...""My poor Susan," I answered, "it wasn't real. But what does it matter? You have given him up for Gibson.""No," she cried, with a sudden burst of wild and terrible grief. "I didn't, I didn't, I didn't! He wasn't mine to give."I hesitated, wondering whether to tell her that Ruddington had indeed been hers to give, because he was willing to sacrifice himself to the end. But I decided not to try her poor wits any more."You are wrong, Susan," I said gently. "It's true he wasn't yours to give. But you believed he was. It is all the same. Gibson, she gave up money, and luxury, and a splendid name, all for you!""And, if you please, Ma'am," demanded Gibson, "how do we know all this is true? If it wasn't Susan he saw in Derlingham, who was it? If he didn't fall in love with Susan, who did he fall in love with? If he doesn't want to marry Susan, who is it that he does want to marry? No, Ma'am, I'm not taking any more risks. To-morrow, perhaps, we shall find it's Susan after all."I turned to beckon towards the high bush. But Ruddington was already over the stones, I saw him and held my tongue. He came so quietly, so masterfully, that I knew I had only to listen and look on."You are Susan?" he said kindly in her ear.Susan looked up and gave a piercing shriek."It's him, it's him!" she screamed."Don't be afraid, Susan," he said gently. "Miss Langley has told you that you have no more to fear. Some other day, you shall know all. To-night, let me just tell you, on my honour, that it was not my fault. If it had been my fault, I should never forgive myself for causing you all this worry and pain. Depend on me to do all I can to make you and Gibson happy. Tell me that you will try to forgive me.""Oh, sir!" panted Susan.--"I mean, Your Lordship! So it wasn't never me at all?""No. It was never you at all."She began to weep."Oh, Your Lordship!" she gasped. "Then ... who ... who ... who was it?"I caught my breath. Gibson bent forward to be sure that all was well. Ruddington drew my free arm through his and smiled.Susan stared at us with wide eyes."Oh, Miss Gertrude," she cried, with a great sob, "thank God!"Both her warm arms were round my neck. Her soft girlish breast pressed mine, and I could feel her true heart beating wildly with grief and joy. Holding her to me as a mother holds a weeping child, I felt strangely calm. I watched the moonlight dappling the ground under the tree. I heard the sounds of the night: the stirring leaves, the far-off plash of the waves, the soft croon of the wind, the swirl of the beck, and loudest of all, my true-hearted Susan's sobs."Yes," I said softly. "Susan ... Gibson ... thank God! For to-night He has been good to us all."Then I too became as a little child. I broke down and sobbed in Susan's warm embrace till a strong arm clasped me round and led me tenderly away.
Seven o'clock.
No need to wait for to-morrow. It is to be to-night. It is to be now.
I shall write this short page to steady my nerves, to rally my wits, to cool my blood.
Something is in the wind. Twenty minutes ago, when I told Susan that I should not need her again till dinner-time, she made pretence of tidying the room, as I was staring into the fire. She did not know that she was reflected in the glass.
I saw her stand stock still and gaze at my face with the gaze of one who gazes for the last time. She could not have gazed at me more desperately, if there had been a hangman waiting at the door to take one of us away. Suddenly her cheeks shone with a drench of tears. She covered her face with her hands, and stumbled through the doorway.
I was sick of scenes. And, with such an anguish as mine, I felt a contempt for Susan's mere ups and downs. So I pretended not to see or hear, and I didn't follow till ten minutes ago.
Susan is not in the house.
Georgette says she went out as soon as she came downstairs. She thinks Susan has only gone for a breath of sea air before dinner.
It is outrageous, it is unendurable, it is wicked, it is cruel. They are meeting now.
What note or what message did Susan leave this morning at the hotel? Not mine! I am a fool, a simpleton, I have less sense than a little child.
I can guess the place. It will be on the beach between here and the beck. They are meeting now. He is holding her in his arms. She will be like potter's clay in his hands. His ardent masterfulness will flick aside her doubts and fears like grains of sand. Her wits will fly away from her like chaff before the wind. There will be no Susan there save a girlish form for him to hold, a burning face for him to kiss, and a childish voice to tell him about me and my letters. And to-morrow----
Unendurable is the word. Endure it I will not. I refuse to be flouted, and disobeyed, and made a fool of, and shamed.
Susan is my maid. I don't allow followers, whoever they may be. Or, rather, I allow them in honest daylight, and at times appointed. Not on the sly. Not in the dark.
I am going out.
Some time or other.
I am glad I did not burn this book. It shall stand as my golden legend.
The fire is still lively in the grate, and the two lamps are beaming softly. I don't know whether it is Friday night or Saturday morning. Saturday morning, I suppose. But no going to bed till all is written down.
I stepped out of the Villa about a quarter past seven, and began crunching westward along the stones. Rage and hatred were in my heart. I almost understood those men and women who make haste on such errands as mine, grasping pistols or cold steel. The wind was in my face, but I bent into it and sped on. I was not cold. It made me glow to think how I would burst upon them, cover them with shame, fling them apart, humiliate them a thousand times more than they should ever humiliate me.
But rage and hatred did not last. Under the lee of a great black boat drawn up on the shingle, I paused to take breath. It was warm and still in that little patch of shelter, out of the nipping bluster of the wind.
While I was standing there, looking over the faintly gleaming water, a black mantle of cloud fell away from the moon. The sea became a far-spreading shimmer of silver. The little clouds sailed as curly and white as feathers from a great sea-bird's breast across the soft blue heaven. A single chime of the Bérigny church bell fell from the cliff--a single, silvery chime as if the moonlight had spoken.
At that holy call, I was born again. Rage and hatred had been strong, but I had not rage enough or hatred enough to go on standing up stubbornly against all that graciousness and beauty. It melted my heart of stone; and I knew it for an impossibility that God should be otherwise than beautiful and good. For a moment, Ruddington and Susan receded from my mind. Or, rather, I thought of them only along with all the millions of happy lovers upon whom the same sweet moon was smiling. And I blessed them unaware.
My mind came back to my errand. And then I fought the battle. Along the beach I could see the trees which shade the path; and, above the swish of the small waves, I could hear the beck humming loudly in its ravine. I was sure that they were there, under that green roof, close to that music, in this moonlight made for love. The thought burnt me like hot irons, and I could have cried aloud. Then the agony was over. I had resolved to let them be, to leave them alone with their happiness. Rage was tamed, hatred was changed to a sad, world-wide pity. But, as I turned wearily back to the clouded east, I ached and tingled all over like a beaten child.
At the first crunch of my foot on the pebbles as I turned round, some one sprang towards me from the foot of the cliff.
I cried out in terror.
He faced me in the moonlight. We were only a step or two apart. It was Ruddington.
We looked full at one another without speaking. And, as I looked, I knew that, though he could not be mine in this world, I must be his for ever and ever. Then the enormous whiteness of the cliff seemed to rock before my eyes, and the humming of the beck swelled to thunder in my ears. But he caught me before I fell.
"Susan!" he said softly in my ear. His voice was warmer and brighter than gold, as he repeated: "Susan!"
I lay helpless in his arms. All strength had gone from me, just as it had gone when I half swooned in the sea. I could not struggle. I could only let myself sink more wholly against his heart, just as I had so willingly sunk down, down, down through the cool green water to the deep, strong peace of Death. But, though Death's caress had been sweet, it was sweeter to rest against the warm heart of Love.
I don't know how long that perfect happiness endured before a stab of anguish pierced me through. It seemed an hour; it may have been a minute; perhaps it was less than half a second before full consciousness returned. Then a voice within me cried shame. I remembered that, although I had gazed at his face in the broad light of the moon, he had only seen mine in the shadow. Bitterest of all, it was not my name he had murmured in that voice brighter and warmer than gold. He had hailed Susan. I was a cheat, a changeling, lying shameless in Susan's place.
I knew it. But, for a moment longer, I rested at peace in the soft nest of his arms. With all the grey years of the future to be lived through in loveless loneliness, I deliberately gave myself that one long moment. As if he knew that the warmth and sweetness of it must last me all my life long, he held me closer to his heart. I wished, then, that I could have died.
Life, harsh Life, cried aloud. I called up some sudden strength and tore myself free.
"I am not Susan," I said.
He gave the slightest cry, made the slightest retreat in the world. Then, before I knew, he enfolded me once more.
"No," he said proudly. "Not Susan. Suzanne--ma petite Suzanne. But I frightened her. She is trembling. Suzanne, forgive me! I must have been mad to leap out upon you like that. But how could she walk along the beach to-night and not expect me to be here?"
I heard him vaguely. He was too strong for me. My will, my moral energy as well as my bodily strength, refused to return at my command. I could hardly open my eyes to look up at the mild moon, so like the cool, round sun which I had seen from under the water.
"Say you forgive me, Suzanne," he murmured. "You are angry with me for coming to France. How could I wait, Suzanne, when you had confessed that you love me?"
I wrenched myself roughly free. With a frenzied effort of will, I rallied back all my allies of conventionality and of pride.
"You have made a mistake," I said curtly, stepping away two or three paces. "I am not Susan."
This time he started violently. But he recovered himself in an instant and came towards me with outstretched hands. I sprang back.
"Susan," he said gravely, "don't jest. For heaven's sake, not now. This is some quaint fancy. You say you are not Susan, just as you said my infatuation was not love. Forgive me, Susan; but this isn't a time for subtleties. You love me; and you know I love you more than life. Don't refine or jest now. This moment of our first meeting is too great, too sacred. Let us be clear and simple, like the moon and the sea."
"No!" I cried, as he advanced. "How dare you touch me again? It's all a mistake. No doubt, this is Lord Ruddington. You are speaking to Miss Langley."
His arms dropped to his side, and he fell back as if I had struck him in the face. I steadied myself with one hand against the side of the boat. It was a long time before he spoke.
"Miss Langley!" he said at last, in tones as cold and dull as lead. "What can I say?" Then his voice quickened and brightened, and he cried: "No, Susan, you shall elude me no more!"
"Stand back, please," I said icily and decisively. "There has been enough of this. I understand you are to see Susan to-morrow, at eleven o'clock."
Before I could move, he leapt to my side.
"Miss Langley," he said rapidly but firmly. "Miss Langley--if you are truly Miss Langley--if this isn't some ill-timed joke--hear me for one moment. Heaven knows I did not mean to insult you. But this is a terrible thing. I have laid on you one indignity; but I beg you to endure another. You have answered me from the shadow. I ask you--for heaven's sake I implore you--to show me your face one moment in the light."
He had pressed so near that his shoulder touched mine. I leaned against the boat counting the cost. Had I the strength, to stand out sheer in the pitiless light and biting air? To watch his face--its lightning-flash of passionate eagerness, its following gloom of disenchantment and chagrin? To listen to his stammering apologies? To bestow pardons, revise arrangements? And, last of all, to stumble back over the stones alone--I, who had just known the support of his breast? Had I the strength? What if I should break down, as the light of love died out of his eyes, and weep bitterly? But there was no choice. My heart bled as I schooled myself once more to the haughtiness of artificial pride, and I said:
"This is monstrous. But as you please."
He made way for me with old-fashioned reverence as I stepped out into the moonshine. With all that was left of my shattered will, I strove to offer for his scrutiny a face hardened by haughtiness, lips curling with disdain, eyes alight with annoyance. But how could I hate him while I loved him? How could my eyes, that were so hungry, stab him? And how could my lips scorn him when they were aching to tell him all?
The eager lightning flashed in his face. But I waited in vain for the dull thunder of despair, for the fall of the gloom. No, it was not lightning. With my heart standing still, I saw that the light abode in his eyes, that it waxed fuller and more radiant as he gazed intently into mine. But suddenly, he quenched it.
"One second more," he commanded abruptly, dryly, almost harshly. "Simply and literally, without any paradoxes or ruses whatever, are you Susan?"
"I am not Susan," I said, beginning to turn away.
"Simply, and literally and truly, you are indeed Miss Langley?"
"I am Miss Langley."
Something chained me to the spot. I saw him go pale as death, and I heard him groan in anguish:
"Then may God help us all!"
"What do you mean?" I demanded. We seemed to be so mysteriously one, that the strength which deserted him passed into me. "Are you not satisfied?" I added. "I must go."
In a flash, he was master again. He flung himself across my path.
"No!" he cried. "You shall not go! Some meddling idiot has deceived me. There has been a horrible, an unspeakable mistake. Gertrude Langley, it was you I met in Derlingham. It was you I watched in Traxelby church. Gertrude Langley, it is you I love with my whole soul. It is you, it is you, it is you! I shall not let you go!"
His words sang all round me like birds. My battle-worn, enfeebled spirit reeled under such bursts of music, such flashes of glory. I made one last agonizing effort to play the conventional part: to rebuke and repel him, to parade amazement, shame, and a dishonest show of anger. But he was too strong. He dominated me so, that I could not even pause to marvel at the miracle, or to ask myself if it could be true. I could only totter towards him in dumb, unconditional surrender, and burst into a torrent of thankful tears.
This third time, he held me, not as he had held me before. Then, he had strained me to him like a lover; now, he supported me gravely, reverentially, as any man would support any woman who has half-fainted away. But, by swift degrees, he guessed the truth. He held me closer, he bent his lips to my ear, and he asked, with a grave wonder, in his voice of gold:
"You do not mean ... this?"
"Yes," I whispered, with my eyes closed, "I mean ... this."
For two or three seconds we were content to have it so. Then his clasp weakened. I knew what he meant, and I drew myself free.
"We forgot Susan," I said.
"Yes," he said slowly. "We forgot Susan."
He stood beside me in silence, looking at the sea. Then, without warning, he broke out with terrible words of anger. Not to me. It was as though he arraigned the universe and shook his fist at the stars.
"A thousand curses!" he cried; "a thousand curses on their heads who have brought us all to this! It is not to be borne! It is a tangle of fiends. Great God! To be loved by the two best women on earth, and then, instead of happiness, to find it end in misery all round! It is the work of devils! It is not to be borne!"
He remembered me at his side, and fought down his wrath. At last he turned to me an ashen face, and began:
"There is much to say. Where will you sit down?"
"Nowhere," I answered. "No, do not touch me again. What there is to be said ... say."
We stood an arm's-length apart on the stones, and he spoke:
"Gertrude Langley," he said, "for five weeks I have loved you, and there is no woman in the world, save you, that I ever did love or ever shall. But, through a string of ghastly blunders hardly to be explained or even believed, I have loved you under another name, and amid wildly false notions of your station. Be hurt at nothing I shall say. I believed, on twofold testimony, that you were Susan, your maid. Do not be galled or insulted till you have heard me out."
"You cannot insult me," I said. "Besides, I know all."
"No!" he cried, "you do not know. You know that I have written Susan letters, that I have badgered her to marry me, that I have followed her to Sainte Véronique, and that I am to set eyes upon her to-morrow. But, listen. I will tell you what you do not know. You don't know that this poor girl has a heart of gold, a soul of fire, a mind that is a fountain of gems. Did you know that?"
"No," I said, "I did not."
He mistook my ghost of a smile. It stung him.
"Miss Langley," he said, "we have been wrong; you, and I, and all who have been born, like you and me, to rank and wealth and leisure. Because the novels are nearly all written round such lives as ours, we think that the poor and the servile are without romance, without spirituality. We are not quite sure that they have minds and hearts and souls of their own. I say, we have been wrong. All Susan's few letters to me, save one, have been shy and hurried. But--though I say it in the ears of the only woman I can ever love--there isn't, there can't be in all the world, a nobler mind than this poor Susan's, a sweeter heart, a purer soul."
I did not answer. His calmness left him.
"You don't see, you won't see, you can't see!" he cried. "Why will you make me put it into words? You are shutting your eyes to the tragedy of it all. Gertrude Langley, what would you have me do?"
I was given some dim sense of the greatness of his soul. Almost mechanically, I replied:
"I would have you do only what is right."
"God bless you for that!" he murmured, and took my hand. "Only what is right! But, tell me, which is the right? I love you, and you love me. When and where you saw me, where and when and why and how your love for me began, I cannot guess. All that matters is ... you love me! Beautiful Gertrude, answer me. You love me and I love you ... but which way lies the right?"
"You mean," I said slowly, disengaging my hand, "that there is Susan?"
"Yes," he said gently. "There is Susan. Which way lies the right? For all I know, I shall find Susan ugly, and she is a lady's-maid. But the point is, I have forced her to love me, with such a love as I did not expect to find in this world. Do not smile, do not imagine I think myself handsome, or in the least adorable. But I have read her last letter fifty times, and I know, if I draw back, if I tell Susan of this cruel tangle, it will break her heart. No, do not interrupt me! In such a case, I know how hard it is for you to believe that I am not mad. Dearest, help me, for God's sake! It's hard enough, God knows!"
I ought to have thrust in words boldly, refusing to be denied. I ought to have told him everything. But he silenced me with one gesture and finished.
"Yet after all," he said, "what is there to discuss or to decide? Haven't you told me already to do the right? And the right is ... to keep faith with Susan. Oh, I know, I know!" he cried out bitterly, "it will wound your heart, it will break mine. But, dearest, we have so much. We have books, we have friends, we have a hundred occupations. But this poor Susan--what has she? She has nothing, except love."
"If she has love," I said, "and we have all else in the world beside; then Susan is rich and we are poor."
He turned away. When he looked at me again, he said:
"It is simply a choice which of us must be robbed of happiness, and burdened with life-long sorrow, and filled with bitterness. You and I are two, and Susan is one. They say minorities must suffer."
He smiled a sad smile, and watched me narrowly. And, at the same moment, a coldness numbed my heart. While he had been extolling Susan, I had drunk in his words deliciously, biding my time to laugh out merrily and prick the shining bubble. But suddenly, all things stood out in a different light. I remembered my oath to Susan at Traxelby. I remembered that she had given up Gibson. I recalled, with anger, that at this very moment she was prowling about to catch some secret glimpse of her lover.
"Yes," he repeated. "Minorities suffer. It is the way of the world. I renounce Susan, and what does it amount to? A mere lady's-maid sees me break faith and drop her in favour of wealth and beauty. She loses her faith in God and man. Possibly, she even has the bad taste to go and die. Meanwhile I, having always had all I want, go and get a great deal more. Natural, isn't it?"
He laughed a bitter laugh.
"Don't talk again like that," I said, as bitterly as he.
He was silent while I thought my thoughts. I knew full well in the depths of my soul, that to suffer anything to thrust itself between him and me, would be a crime and a blasphemy. Yet I knew it might come to pass. If I told him all about Susan, all about Gibson, all about the letters, he would still have only my word for it that she did not love him in her own way. He would seek Susan to-morrow morning, as appointed, to hear Susan's own words. And, under the glamour of his presence, what might not Susan say?
But light blazed through my brain. I had found the key. I must go back to the Villa. I must track Susan at all costs. I must tell her the whole story of Ruddington's mistake. Probably she had already come back.
I turned to him and said:
"Why be ironical and bitter? You have spoken truly. You have to do what is right."
He seized both my hands. To him it was the end.
"Gertrude," he said, "for the first and last time, my own Gertrude ... so this is Good-bye! Our first meeting is our last. To-morrow ... after it is over ... I shall go straight away. To-morrow is hers. But to-night is ours. Beloved, this is not the end. There are more worlds than this one--this world which some one has cursed for us. For ever, I am all thine. But the waiting will be so long. Beloved, do not say that I may not bid thee Good-bye!"
I restrained him gently, for my mind had clouded again with thronging fears.
"No," I said; "let us not make the future harder by any weakness in the present."
He bowed his head and obeyed. When he looked up, he said quietly:
"One practical point before I go. She will not ... I will not, ever be at Ruddington Towers. Traxelby is your old home. The Towers shall be shut up."
My eyes filled with tears.
"Beloved," I said softly, "good-bye."
I gave him my hand, and he held it to his lips. Then I broke from him and fled home.
Georgette received me with a volley of outcries about the spoilt dinner.
"Where is Susan?" I asked.
"She is not come back," said Georgette, retreating towards the kitchen. And then I saw that Georgette was in the secret.
"Georgette," I said peremptorily in French, "I insist that you tell me this instant where Susan has gone."
Her brow darkened. She looked at me defiantly, and tossed her head.
"Come," I commanded, with a rap on the table. "I insist. This moment."
"Pardon, Madame," retorted Georgette with Republican spirit, "I am the servant of Madame Dupoirier and the friend of Susan."
There was no time to argue. I shifted my ground, and coaxed.
"If you are the friend of Susan," I said, "you will answer at once. Something very important has happened. We must find her at once."
Georgette hesitated suspiciously before she asked:
"Is it about the milord from England, Madame--the milord with all the money?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" I said. "It is most important."
"Then he may take his money back again," said Georgette with a fine flourish. "Susan, she will only marry for love. She has gone away."
"Gone away?" I echoed, sinking down on a chair.
"Yes, Madame. Susan said, if she didn't run away, the milord would make her marry him."
"Georgette," I cried, springing up, "I give you my word that the milord shall not mention marriage to Susan again. If you are her friend, tell me where to find her. I swear that I am thinking only of her good."
Georgette was silent. The truth rushed in upon me. I said:
"She has run away with Gibson?"
"Yes, Madame," said Georgette tranquilly, "with Monsieur Geebson."
"Georgette!" I cried, "help me to find them, and I'll give you fifty francs. No, don't pout. If I can stop them, Susan and Gibson will be grateful to you as long as they live, on my word of honour."
At last Georgette said: "Susan went out too soon for fear that Madame would stop her. She attends Monsieur Geebson at the bottom of the beck at half-past eight."
I snatched a roll from the table and rushed out again to the beach. Bérigny clock struck eight. There would be six or seven minutes to spare.
As I sped along, a sickening fear seized me. What if Ruddington and Susan, by another of the ghastly mishaps which kept dogging us all along, had run into one another on the beach?
No. As I neared the big boat, I saw him standing there alone. He strode out to meet me eagerly and wonderingly.
"Why are you still here?" I asked.
"Where would you have me be?" he said. "I have always loved France. But henceforth, France will mean for me just these few square yards of shadow on the stones."
"You must not brood," I answered. "You talk as if you are never to be happy any more."
"In some other world," he said, smiling sadly, "I mean to be happy with You."
"Some other world?" I said. "Who knows that God may not reward you soon in this?"
He turned to me with a start; but I did not let him speak.
"Have you eaten?" I asked.
"Not yet."
"How silly!" I said. "Nor have I. Come, eat bread with me. This wind shall be the salt."
He took half the roll and smiled. But I could see that my high spirits first jarred on him, and then troubled him.
"You are not well," he said. "You are over-wrought. You are excited. Let me lead you home."
"No," I said. "I have not felt so well for years. I must go; but not home. There is business to be done."
"Where?" he asked, startled.
"Along the beach."
"Then," he said firmly, "you do not go alone."
I considered for a moment. Then I looked him full in the face.
"If I allow you to come," I said, "will you promise to disappear when you are told, and to come out when you are called, and not to speak till I give you leave?"
He answered, "I promise."
I did not disdain his arm. Whatever befell new, he was mine, all mine. The wind was in our faces, the moonbeams flashed on the water. Colour came to my cheeks, and the breeze ruffled the hair which had gone so long without Susan's brush and comb. As we stamped over the stones we might have been a boy and a girl escaping on a frolic.
A few hundreds of yards from the beck we were able to climb the low slope, and to pad along mutely over the grass. At the first brambles we turned inland, and descended softly into the ravine. We pulled up behind a high bush.
"Hush!" I whispered. "Not a sound. Don't move or speak till I give the word."
Through the thin autumn foliage, by the pale light of the moon, we could see a woman's figure across the beck. It was Susan, seated upon a modest bag.
I did not explain to Ruddington. I did not even tell him who the woman was. Two or three minutes passed; and then the silver chime of Bérigny proclaimed half-past eight.
Susan drew out her little handkerchief, and wiped away a tear. My heart went out to her. There was no Gibson; and I began to hope our task would be easy. But we heard a sudden sound of snapping branches and hurrying feet; and Gibson broke through into the light. Susan jumped up to meet him.
"Oh, Tom!" she wailed. "I began to think you wasn't coming."
Ruddington touched my hand.
"Oughtn't we to go away from here?" he whispered.
"No!" I whispered back, shaking my fist. "We oughtn't."
"I was out with a blooming car," explained Gibson. "Georgette brought your letter at half-past three, but I didn't get it till seven."
"Thank goodness you wasn't away for the night!" exclaimed Susan fervently.
"Well, I'm here, anyway," said Gibson. "Not that I expect it's going to do me any good. You promised you'd settle me this week, on or off, one way or another. I suppose you've only brought me here to give me the chuck?"
Susan did not reply.
"What've you got there?" asked Gibson with a jump. He had caught sight of Susan's bag.
"It's my things," said Susan. "Oh, Tom, I want you to take me away!"
"Take you away?" echoed Gibson, thunderstruck.
"Yes, yes, take me away! Now, this minute. Oh, Tom, don't say you won't!"
"But where can I take you to?" asked astounded Gibson.
"To Granpong."
"Not me!" said Susan's gallant, with emphasis. "I suppose you think that at a caffy-resterong you can do anything? Don't make no mistake. They're the properest lot at Granpong that ever I struck in all my natural. Why, just to think of Madum opening the door, and me bringing in a young lady at midnight! Not me!"
"Oh, Tom, don't be such a beast!" moaned Susan. "The very idea! You know quite well, you do, that I'd never go to the same house. I'd die first. But, oh Tom, you must take me somewhere. We might go to the clergyman's wife."
"They don't have no clergymen in France," said Gibson, with British scorn; "only priests. And priests don't have no wives. But look here. What do you want to be took away for? What's up?"
Susan was silent.
"It's some tiff with the Missis," said Gibson derisively; "that's what it is. And I ain't going to be a party to it. Bet my feet the Missis is in the right. Fact is, this toff"--Gibson paused, and repeated the word with disdain--"this toff has given you swelled head. Not me! I ain't going to take sides against the Missis just for the sake of him. The old girl's always been too good to me."
The undress grammar and off-duty vocabulary of my two model domestics opened my eyes wide and made my ears burn. As for Ruddington, he touched my hand again, and I saw that his face was full of pain. He had guessed that I was showing him Susan.
"We mustn't stay," he said.
"We must," I answered, stamping my foot on the grass. For Susan was speaking.
"No, Tom, no," she moaned; "not the Missis! It isn't a tiff with the Missis. Oh, it breaks my heart to think of it! To-night, just before I ran away, she was sitting looking at the fire. She looked that sad and lonely, I burst out crying; and if I hadn't run straight out of the house, I wouldn't have come at all. No, no, no! Not the Missis."
"What the dooce is it, then?" asked Gibson.
"It's ... it's him!" blurted Susan, desperately.
"Him? Not ... not the toff?"
"Yes," groaned Susan, "the toff! He's coming. He wants to meet me, here."
"Here? To-night?"
"No. To-morrow. Eleven o'clock. Oh, Tom, I can't bear it! Take me away!"
Gibson emitted a long, low whistle. He took off his cap, crushed it up, and put it on again. Then he ducked for Susan's bag and dropped it down a few yards away, as if he wanted room. Last of all, he bent his head till he could look straight into Susan's eyes.
"Susie," he said slowly, "you don't say you're going to give him up?"
He had dropped his vile pronunciation, and had strangely regained the simple dignity with which he had spoken to me at Traxelby.
"Not that you're going to give him up?" he repeated.
"Yes, yes, yes!" said Susan. "I don't want him! I won't have him! I can't bear him! Take me away!"
"And if I do," he asked intently, "can you bear me, Susie? Will you haveme?"
"Oh, Tom, of course I will!" she wailed, clinging to him with all her might. And, suddenly raising herself on tiptoe, she gave him a resounding rustic kiss.
Behind our bush we recoiled a little, both from them and from one another.
"We will go," said Ruddington.
"We won't," I said, pinching his arm to keep him quiet. So we looked away while Gibson returned the kiss, not once, or twice, or thrice.
"Susie," demanded Gibson at last, "what is his name? Who is he?"
"His name," proclaimed Susan, after an effective delay, "is Lord Ruddington."
Gibson let her fall from his embrace like a stone. He sprang back a man's length.
"Oh yes, of course," he said mockingly, when he had found his breath. "Lord Ruddington,aliasthe King of Spain, alias the Emperor of Russia! Of course!"
"Honour bright, it's true!" said Susan indignantly. "If it isn't, may I be struck down dead. His lordship fell over his head in love with me in Traxelby church."
"Susie, this is true?" he demanded, striding up to her and speaking fiercely. "This is true?"
"Don't go on silly," said Susan.
Gibson leaned against a tree and thought for some time. At last he straightened himself up, and said, in low excited tones:
"Look here, Susie, this makes a difference. You don't think I'm going to help you miss a chance like that? Haven't I always said you're fit to be a duchess? No, Susie, it isn't good enough. D'ye think I'm going to let you throw yourself away on a poor thirty-bob-a-week devil like me?"
"Oh don't, Tom, don't!" she pleaded, clinging to him again. "Don't! or you'll make me change my mind."
"There isn't a finer gentleman in all England nor Lord Ruddington," said Gibson.
"Oh don't!" wailed Susan again.
"What is the matter with him?" demanded Gibson. "It isn't his money. No, nor his horses. Perhaps it's his looks?"
"We'd better be going!" I whispered to Ruddington, behind our bush.
"No, no," protested Susan, "it isn't his looks. When I put him in that folding frame, facing Miss Langley, they looked lovely--just like Royalty. No, it isn't his looks. I could put up with that."
"Then what is it you can't put up with?" asked Gibson searchingly.
She scraped the ground with her foot, as she used to scrape the garden gravel, before she replied mysteriously:
"Tom, he's so funny. He's all twists and turns. It'd be like being married to an eel. If he's the same as his letters, he'd make me all giddy. When I read them, everything seems to begin turning and turning round."
Gibson snorted impatiently. "With a thousand pound a week," he said ironically, "you'll soon get used to that."
"Tom, don't, don't!" she cried. "How can you be so cruel? If you cared about me as you said you did, you wouldn't let nobody have me but you--not if it was the Prince of Wales crawling on his bended knees."
Gibson came more into the light. I could read in his face the bitterness of his heart.
"Susie," he said, "what's the use of talking? If I take you away to-night, you know you'll have to marry me, even if you change your mind before to-morrow morning. Unless there's some good reason why you won't marry Lord Ruddington, you'll repent of it when we're poor and when we've to work hard for a living. You'll throw it in my teeth, and we shall be worse'n a cat and a dog."
I was amazed at Gibson's paltriness; amazed and angry. But not for long. All at once my groom drew himself up as grandly as a knight of romance, and demanded:
"Susie, girl--isn't there a better reason?"
My maid was his equal.
"Yes, Tom, yes," she cried passionately. "There's a better reason. Oh, Tom, I'm in love with you, and I always have been, though I've behaved like a little Beast. And I couldn't never be in love with Lord Ruddington if he was all made of gold. Take me away!"
"Why should I?" asked the radiant lover a minute afterwards, making a descent into the practical. "If it's a bargain, what's the good of running away from the Missis? We sha'n't find such a soft job or such a good old girl again in a hurry. If we run away, she won't have us back."
"But he's coming to-morrow," interrupted Susan in a panic.
"A jolly good thing too!" declared Gibson. "If you're going to give him the push, the sooner the better. Let him come. Give him the straight tip. In fact, I'm not sure," added Gibson meditatively, "that he oughtn't to be made to part with a hundred pound for breach of promise. Cheer up, and let 'em all come!"
"No, no!" cried Susan, terror-stricken. "If I see him, he'll turn me round his little finger. I shall be too scared to say a word. I shall be just like a stuck pig. Besides, he'll ask me about the letters."
"Letters?" echoed Gibson.
"Yes, the letters. Oh, Tom, I've been so wicked. When his first letter came to Traxelby, I copied the answer out of an old book."
"You can go now ... if you want to!" I murmured to Ruddington, behind our bush. But he only plucked at my hand, and held it as in a vice, while he listened with all his ears. Susan talked on.
"That old book, with the covers off. But, when I showed it to Miss Langley, she said it didn't sound right, and she wrote out a lovely letter for me to copy, and----"
"Go ahead!" said Gibson.
"And--oh, Tom, I told a lie! I pretended I didn't know I was to copy it out. I thought his Lordship would make fun of my writing and give me up. So I posted it in ... in Miss Langley's writing."
"Lord love us!" put in Gibson, in tones of awe.
"Yes. And Miss Langley was dreadfully angry. But when we'd begun, we had to go on I promised faithful that I would practise my writing; but I didn't play fair."
"So the Missis has been helping him?" demanded Gibson with a blaze of wrath. "The Missis wanted you to have him?"
"No, no! The Missis asked me..."
"Asked what?"
"She asked ... oh, Tom, she asked if I cared for you! And I told a lie, and I said I didn't. Then she helped me. But she put it in all the letters that he must wait, and that he mustn't come after me, and that he mustn't persuade me, and that I wouldn't marry him unless I could be in love with him. No, no, Tom. The Missis has been splendid!"
"What's he come for, then, if you told him he mustn't?" Gibson asked, less angrily.
"I don't know. But Tom, Tom, don't wait here or we shall be caught. Say Yes or No. Will you take me away?"
Gibson's answer came boldly;
"Yes!"
Later on, he added: "We will go back to England and be married at once."
"I have thirty pounds," said practical Susan. "It's in Derlingham Post-office."
"I've only got nineteen pounds seven and six," said Gibson glumly. "Mine's at Derlingham too. But what the dooce does it matter?" he burst out, snatching her to him and challenging Fate with ringing pride. "Susie girl, I've gotyou. You're the grandest girl God ever made. It's all a lot of rot about those letters. You're giving him up all for ... me! Susie girl, if I've to slave my head off to do it, I'll make you happy. If I don't, hell's too good for me. I'll go through water and fire. Let's be off. We'll tell Maddum all about it, and she'll tell us what to do. Where's the bag?"
They turned and stooped to find it. In a twinkling, I broke through the bush, tripped over the stones, and stood on the other side of the beck.
"No," I cried. "You sha'n't go!"
Susan screamed as if she had seen a ghost, and tumbled cowering against Gibson's broad chest. As for Gibson himself, after the first shock of astonishment, he opposed to me a fearless front.
"Asking pardon, Ma'am," he said respectfully but firmly. "She shall."
"She sha'n't," I cried, more firmly still. "Susan, you shall not go."
"Asking pardon, Ma'am," said Gibson again. "We are not slaves. We sha'n't never forget your kindness, Ma'am, and we don't hope to find the like again. But you are speaking to Susan's husband, Ma'am, which isn't the same as the groom. Susan's going with me."
"Gibson," I said, "not so fast. You talk as if I am against you both. When have I ever done you wrong?"
"Done me wrong, Ma'am?" he said, harshly and with a darkening face. "Begging pardon, you've done me wrong this very day. You've broke your promise. He's coming tomorrow--and you didn't,----"
"I did," I said hastily. "It'll be at Grandpont in the morning. I posted it to-day. Gibson, you say Susan will marry you. Susan, is it true?"
"Yes, Miss," said Susan faintly. "It is true."
"Then," I said, "why run away? Lord Ruddington is answered. Susan can't marry Gibson and Lord Ruddington too."
"You mean fair, Ma'am," replied Gibson, "and you wish us well. But you are a young lady, Ma'am. Susan don't trust herself to meet him. And I don't neither."
"Gibson, Susan," I asked, "what if I give you both my word that Lord Ruddington will not ask Susan to marry him, and that he will never write to her any more?"
"With due respects, Ma'am," Gibson answered, "don't pledge your word to any such thing. I say it again, Ma'am, you are a young lady. He's a man, and he's been about the world. If his Lordship's in love with Susan, and if he's come all the way to Sinn Verrynick to ask her, he won't be beat by the groom. You'll no more turn Lord Ruddington back to-morrow, Ma'am, than you'll turn me and Susan back to-night. Susan, let us go."
I stepped forward to seize her, but he waved me aside.
"Susan!" I cried. "Gibson! Listen! Let Susan come to me for one minute. Something tremendous has happened to-night, and I am bound to let her know it. Susan, come here. When you have heard it, you shall go with Gibson or come home with me, just as you think best."
Before he could restrain her, she slipped from his grasp and ran to my side. He followed. I threw my arm round her waist.
"If you please, Ma'am," said Gibson tensely, standing almost as close to me as Susan, "there's going to be no more secrets. What's right to be said at all can be said out loud."
I considered. Then I spoke out clearly and loudly.
"Very well. Have it so. But it would have been easier for Susan to hear it alone. Susan, there has been some dreadful, horrible mistake. It was not you, Susan, whom Lord Ruddington saw at Derlingham and in Traxelby church. He was misinformed. He has never seen you in his life. He does not want to marry you."
Susan stared at me, first, with a face as white as chalk. Then she reddened like a rose, and moaned like one wounded, with a choking moan.
"No, Miss Gertrude, no!" she pleaded in anguish, "Don't say it wasn't real. Don't say..."
"My poor Susan," I answered, "it wasn't real. But what does it matter? You have given him up for Gibson."
"No," she cried, with a sudden burst of wild and terrible grief. "I didn't, I didn't, I didn't! He wasn't mine to give."
I hesitated, wondering whether to tell her that Ruddington had indeed been hers to give, because he was willing to sacrifice himself to the end. But I decided not to try her poor wits any more.
"You are wrong, Susan," I said gently. "It's true he wasn't yours to give. But you believed he was. It is all the same. Gibson, she gave up money, and luxury, and a splendid name, all for you!"
"And, if you please, Ma'am," demanded Gibson, "how do we know all this is true? If it wasn't Susan he saw in Derlingham, who was it? If he didn't fall in love with Susan, who did he fall in love with? If he doesn't want to marry Susan, who is it that he does want to marry? No, Ma'am, I'm not taking any more risks. To-morrow, perhaps, we shall find it's Susan after all."
I turned to beckon towards the high bush. But Ruddington was already over the stones, I saw him and held my tongue. He came so quietly, so masterfully, that I knew I had only to listen and look on.
"You are Susan?" he said kindly in her ear.
Susan looked up and gave a piercing shriek.
"It's him, it's him!" she screamed.
"Don't be afraid, Susan," he said gently. "Miss Langley has told you that you have no more to fear. Some other day, you shall know all. To-night, let me just tell you, on my honour, that it was not my fault. If it had been my fault, I should never forgive myself for causing you all this worry and pain. Depend on me to do all I can to make you and Gibson happy. Tell me that you will try to forgive me."
"Oh, sir!" panted Susan.--"I mean, Your Lordship! So it wasn't never me at all?"
"No. It was never you at all."
She began to weep.
"Oh, Your Lordship!" she gasped. "Then ... who ... who ... who was it?"
I caught my breath. Gibson bent forward to be sure that all was well. Ruddington drew my free arm through his and smiled.
Susan stared at us with wide eyes.
"Oh, Miss Gertrude," she cried, with a great sob, "thank God!"
Both her warm arms were round my neck. Her soft girlish breast pressed mine, and I could feel her true heart beating wildly with grief and joy. Holding her to me as a mother holds a weeping child, I felt strangely calm. I watched the moonlight dappling the ground under the tree. I heard the sounds of the night: the stirring leaves, the far-off plash of the waves, the soft croon of the wind, the swirl of the beck, and loudest of all, my true-hearted Susan's sobs.
"Yes," I said softly. "Susan ... Gibson ... thank God! For to-night He has been good to us all."
Then I too became as a little child. I broke down and sobbed in Susan's warm embrace till a strong arm clasped me round and led me tenderly away.