Chapter Thirty Two.

Chapter Thirty Two.On leaving Arnott’s room, when comforted by her presence he fell asleep and so freed her from the painful necessity of remaining beside him, Pamela returned swiftly to the waiting-room, where Dare was, and, entering, closed the door behind her, and stood leaning against it, with her hand on the knob, as though fearful that if she released it some one might intrude upon them, might perhaps induce her to return to the room from which, as soon as she had seen he slept, she had fled in cautious haste. Her face was flushed, her eyes were bright and hard, and her breath came with painful quickness, in short, spasmodic gasps.Dare looked at her in some concern, and advancing, stood close to her, and laid his hand upon her sleeve.“Don’t excite yourself,” he said. “Sit down, Pamela. There’s no hurry. Get a grip on yourself.”She laughed shrilly. And the next moment she was crying, holding to his arm, and weeping on his shoulder.“I’m a fool,” she sobbed, “a fool... I don’t know why I’m crying. Please, don’t take any notice of me. I’ll be all right in a minute.”“Oh! my dear,” she cried presently, raising her face, and looking up at him through tear-blurred eyes, “you can’t imagine... He’s an old man, and childish. He doesn’t seem to remember—anything. He was just glad to see me... And all the time I was only conscious of an eagerness, a horrible eagerness, to get away,—to run from the room. If it’s going to be like that always—”“It won’t,” he interposed quietly. “You’ve had a shock, I wish now I had persuaded you not to come. Sit down, Pamela. Shall I ask for anything for you?”“No,” she said, “I don’t want any one to come in here. I’m all unnerved. I don’t know how I am going through with this.”“Then don’t go through with it,” he said. “Chuck it. It’s not too late now.”He led her to a chair and put her into it.“What’s the use of making yourself miserable, like this?” he said.She looked at him in consternation, as he stood over her and made this astounding suggestion in the quiet ordinary tones of a man offering quite simple, commonplace advice. He met her gaze steadily.“You’ve tried,” he said. “It’s not your fault if the job is too big for your undertaking. I’ve felt all along that you didn’t appreciate fully the difficulty of the task. Give in, Pamela, and admit yourself beaten.”“Give innow?” she cried.“Why not?” he said.She leaned back in the chair, her face paling; and for a second or so neither spoke. Dare remained waiting with a certain confidence for her answer. It occurred to him that she knew herself to be beaten. All the fight was gone out of her. She had the air of a creature trapped and frantically seeking a way of escape. If he pointed the way in all probability she would take it.What decision she came to, or if she came to any decision, he had no means then of knowing. While he waited for her to speak the door of the room opened, and the matron appeared, and stood on the threshold, surveying the scene with manifest surprise. Dare glanced over his shoulder at her, but he did not move.“Mrs Arnott is feeling a little upset,” he said.She came forward quickly.“Shall I fetch anything?—water?”“I don’t think that is necessary,” he replied. And Pamela sat up with a quickly uttered protest.“It is nothing,” she said. “Just shock. I wasn’t prepared to see such a change. I’ve never seen any one ill,—really ill, like that, before. I’m all right now. It was stupid of me to be so foolish. But,” she looked at the matron piteously, with quivering lips, “he is so altered,” she said pathetically. “He is quite old.”The matron felt puzzled. In her long experience of sickness she had never known the patient’s appearance to be the chief concern of the relatives. She felt a little unsympathetic towards Mrs Arnott’s attitude.“An illness like Mr Arnott’s would change any one,” she answered. “The difference will be less marked as he gains strength. Your visit seems to have done him good already. He is sleeping quite quietly and comfortably.”“I am glad,” Pamela said simply.She rose and turned appealingly to Dare.“Shall we go now?”“If you are ready,” he said.The matron held the door open.“You are quite sure?” she asked, as she shook hands, and looked searchingly into the frightened blue eyes of this surprising visitor, “that you won’t have something before you leave?”“Quite sure, thank you,” Pamela summoned a wintry smile to her aid. “I am sorry to have given so much trouble,” she added. “I won’t be so foolish again.”The matron repudiated the suggestion of trouble, and inquired if she was to expect the visitor on the morrow. Pamela hesitated for a barely perceptible moment, during which Dare looked as though he would have suggested the wisdom of refraining from making a definite arrangement. He did not, however, speak; and Pamela answered reluctantly, after a pause:“To-morrow... Yes, I will come to-morrow.”Out in the open air again, driving bade to their hotel, Dare asked her why she had made the arrangement.“There wasn’t any need,” he said. “You might not feel up to it. Besides, there’s the point to be settled first. If you are going to draw back it has to be now.”“I can’t draw back,” she answered nervously... “I can’t.”“Can you go through with it?” he asked. “That’s the question. To draw back is quite ample. In my opinion, it is what you ought to do. Your heart isn’t in this, Pamela.”“No,” she admitted.She frowned faintly.“Before I came my one fear was that he would be difficult; now that I find him wanting me I’m holding back. It’s paltry of me. I think if I had come alone I should have found it easier.”“You mean,” he said, “that I am trying to influence you?”“Not trying... I mean that your presence influences me. It makes me hate the thought of living with him. There is no love in my heart for him—not any. When I saw him lying there so ill, so terribly altered, I didn’t want to go near him,—didn’t want to touch him. It was horrible. I had to force myself to touch him. That is how it will be, I suppose, always. It wasn’t the sight of him so much as that thought which so unnerved me. And that woman thinks me an unfeeling brute. Dear heaven! if she only knew!”“Look here!” he said. “I can’t stand this. If you feel all that about it you have no right to go on. It’s no fairer on him than on you. It’s no kindness to him.”“I am not acting from any motive of kindness towards him,” she answered. “I’m paying the debt—and making him pay—which we owe to the children we brought into the world. That is my only reason for going on with this. I can’t draw back. I wish I could—even now.”The motor stopped before the hotel entrance. Dare got out and helped her to descend.“I’m coming up to the balcony,” he said. “I want to talk.”Pamela went inside and passed up the stairs to her room. She took off her hat and gloves, and went out on to the balcony, and sat in the shade, waiting for him. He was not long in joining her. He drew a chair up close to hers and sat down.“Now,” he said, “we’ll dispose of this matter finally. My time is short. I intend to take the evening train to Johannesburg, unless, of course, you change your mind; and then—”“You’ll take the evening train, dear,” she said quietly.He glanced at her sharply.“You mean that?” he said. “That’s your final answer, Pamela?”“Yes; that’s my final answer.”“So be it,” he replied, and looked away again, out across the busy, sunny street.“It doesn’t alter anything,” he added presently, speaking in sharp, crisp tones that disguised whatever emotion swayed him at the moment. “Matters stand between us as they were. When you find life too hard, you’ll send for me. I shall be able to judge from the tone of your letters how things go with you. In the meantime—save for one occasion—we shall not meet again.”Pamela drew a deep breath, and for a time sat very still, her white face tense and miserable, her eyes staring blankly into space. In her mind, like a refrain, his words were repeating themselves again and again, conveying, somehow, little sense of meaning:“In the meantime—save for one occasion—we shall not meet again.”Abruptly their full significance broke upon her. She turned to him quickly.“What occasion?” she asked.Dare sat back in his seat, contemplating her gravely.“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “all the way coming up, and again this morning, about the girl—Blanche Maitland. We haven’t finished with her,” he added, noting Pamela’s startled look. “Of course if you had decided differently, that would have been a matter we need not have concerned ourselves with. As things are, however, we have got to put it beyond her power to do you any injury. There is only one way that I can see to prevent that. Your marriage must take place as soon as possible.”“But,” Pamela began, and paused dismayed... “I couldn’t bear—”“No,” he interposed quickly. “I know what you are feeling. We’ll manage it as secretly as possible. It may be necessary to move him from that place. I think it will be necessary. We’ll need to take the doctor into our confidence—to a certain extent. We’ll suppress the former marriage altogether, I think.”“Oh!” she said, and covered her eyes with her hand, and remained quiet.He watched her keenly.“If you leave it to me,” he said, “I think I can manage it so that you won’t find it very humiliating. Then, if the girl turns up, you are better prepared to face her. I fancy there won’t be much difficulty in squaring her. She isn’t out for revenge.”He leaned forward and laid a hand warmly upon hers.“Is it too much altogether to face, dear?” he asked. “I think it will be best for you... God knows, I don’t wish you to do it! I’d rather a thousand times you followed my suggestion. If you won’t do that, then the other course it seems to me is the only means of safeguarding your position. After all, it is merely hastening things a bit. You always intended legalising the marriage.”“Yes,” she said, and was silent, thinking. “I know you are right,” she added after reflection. “I’ll do whatever you think wise. But I feel that I ought not to let you undertake this too. I am fairly heavily in your debt already; and there is no return that I can make.”Dare smiled at her.“There is no question of debt or gratitude between us,” he replied. “I promised to see you through. I am going to do that. Afterwards...”The sound of the luncheon gong filled in the pause. Dare got up, without completing the sentence, and putting his hand within her arm walked with her through her room into the corridor.“I have to go out after lunch,” he said. Though he did not explain his reason for going, she felt that it was about her business. “I shall probably only get back in time to fetch my suit case, and say good-bye. I wonder—will you be on the balcony, so that I shall be able to find you?”“I’ll be there,” she answered, “in the same place, outside my room.”And so, with the imminent prospect of coming separation hanging over them, they went into luncheon together, and loitered over the meal, talking fragmentally, as people do who have discussed everything of vital interest and have come down to the bedrock of commonplace things.“You’ll wire me,” he said once, returning to the subject occupying both their minds, “if you find yourself in any doubt or difficulty? It’s nothing of a journey between this and Johannesburg.”She promised; and Dare, satisfied on this point, went on with his meal Pamela could not eat. She trifled with the food which the waiter put on her plate, and watched Dare, thinking of the many meals she would take in that room without him; thinking of the lonely hours she would spend, missing his companionship, missing him,—the lonely years, when the only link between them would be the chain of letters she had promised to interchange... those, and memory.The future loomed so bleak and empty that she was afraid to look forward. Always she pictured herself shrinking, shrinking ever from the pathetic sight of suffering,—from the shadow of the man that had been, and the duty that would tie her continually to his side. Pamela had yet to learn that there is no path, upon the fingerpost of which Duty is clearly inscribed, so difficult for the traveller’s reluctant steps but that beauty is to be met along the road, and peace waits at the finish.

On leaving Arnott’s room, when comforted by her presence he fell asleep and so freed her from the painful necessity of remaining beside him, Pamela returned swiftly to the waiting-room, where Dare was, and, entering, closed the door behind her, and stood leaning against it, with her hand on the knob, as though fearful that if she released it some one might intrude upon them, might perhaps induce her to return to the room from which, as soon as she had seen he slept, she had fled in cautious haste. Her face was flushed, her eyes were bright and hard, and her breath came with painful quickness, in short, spasmodic gasps.

Dare looked at her in some concern, and advancing, stood close to her, and laid his hand upon her sleeve.

“Don’t excite yourself,” he said. “Sit down, Pamela. There’s no hurry. Get a grip on yourself.”

She laughed shrilly. And the next moment she was crying, holding to his arm, and weeping on his shoulder.

“I’m a fool,” she sobbed, “a fool... I don’t know why I’m crying. Please, don’t take any notice of me. I’ll be all right in a minute.”

“Oh! my dear,” she cried presently, raising her face, and looking up at him through tear-blurred eyes, “you can’t imagine... He’s an old man, and childish. He doesn’t seem to remember—anything. He was just glad to see me... And all the time I was only conscious of an eagerness, a horrible eagerness, to get away,—to run from the room. If it’s going to be like that always—”

“It won’t,” he interposed quietly. “You’ve had a shock, I wish now I had persuaded you not to come. Sit down, Pamela. Shall I ask for anything for you?”

“No,” she said, “I don’t want any one to come in here. I’m all unnerved. I don’t know how I am going through with this.”

“Then don’t go through with it,” he said. “Chuck it. It’s not too late now.”

He led her to a chair and put her into it.

“What’s the use of making yourself miserable, like this?” he said.

She looked at him in consternation, as he stood over her and made this astounding suggestion in the quiet ordinary tones of a man offering quite simple, commonplace advice. He met her gaze steadily.

“You’ve tried,” he said. “It’s not your fault if the job is too big for your undertaking. I’ve felt all along that you didn’t appreciate fully the difficulty of the task. Give in, Pamela, and admit yourself beaten.”

“Give innow?” she cried.

“Why not?” he said.

She leaned back in the chair, her face paling; and for a second or so neither spoke. Dare remained waiting with a certain confidence for her answer. It occurred to him that she knew herself to be beaten. All the fight was gone out of her. She had the air of a creature trapped and frantically seeking a way of escape. If he pointed the way in all probability she would take it.

What decision she came to, or if she came to any decision, he had no means then of knowing. While he waited for her to speak the door of the room opened, and the matron appeared, and stood on the threshold, surveying the scene with manifest surprise. Dare glanced over his shoulder at her, but he did not move.

“Mrs Arnott is feeling a little upset,” he said.

She came forward quickly.

“Shall I fetch anything?—water?”

“I don’t think that is necessary,” he replied. And Pamela sat up with a quickly uttered protest.

“It is nothing,” she said. “Just shock. I wasn’t prepared to see such a change. I’ve never seen any one ill,—really ill, like that, before. I’m all right now. It was stupid of me to be so foolish. But,” she looked at the matron piteously, with quivering lips, “he is so altered,” she said pathetically. “He is quite old.”

The matron felt puzzled. In her long experience of sickness she had never known the patient’s appearance to be the chief concern of the relatives. She felt a little unsympathetic towards Mrs Arnott’s attitude.

“An illness like Mr Arnott’s would change any one,” she answered. “The difference will be less marked as he gains strength. Your visit seems to have done him good already. He is sleeping quite quietly and comfortably.”

“I am glad,” Pamela said simply.

She rose and turned appealingly to Dare.

“Shall we go now?”

“If you are ready,” he said.

The matron held the door open.

“You are quite sure?” she asked, as she shook hands, and looked searchingly into the frightened blue eyes of this surprising visitor, “that you won’t have something before you leave?”

“Quite sure, thank you,” Pamela summoned a wintry smile to her aid. “I am sorry to have given so much trouble,” she added. “I won’t be so foolish again.”

The matron repudiated the suggestion of trouble, and inquired if she was to expect the visitor on the morrow. Pamela hesitated for a barely perceptible moment, during which Dare looked as though he would have suggested the wisdom of refraining from making a definite arrangement. He did not, however, speak; and Pamela answered reluctantly, after a pause:

“To-morrow... Yes, I will come to-morrow.”

Out in the open air again, driving bade to their hotel, Dare asked her why she had made the arrangement.

“There wasn’t any need,” he said. “You might not feel up to it. Besides, there’s the point to be settled first. If you are going to draw back it has to be now.”

“I can’t draw back,” she answered nervously... “I can’t.”

“Can you go through with it?” he asked. “That’s the question. To draw back is quite ample. In my opinion, it is what you ought to do. Your heart isn’t in this, Pamela.”

“No,” she admitted.

She frowned faintly.

“Before I came my one fear was that he would be difficult; now that I find him wanting me I’m holding back. It’s paltry of me. I think if I had come alone I should have found it easier.”

“You mean,” he said, “that I am trying to influence you?”

“Not trying... I mean that your presence influences me. It makes me hate the thought of living with him. There is no love in my heart for him—not any. When I saw him lying there so ill, so terribly altered, I didn’t want to go near him,—didn’t want to touch him. It was horrible. I had to force myself to touch him. That is how it will be, I suppose, always. It wasn’t the sight of him so much as that thought which so unnerved me. And that woman thinks me an unfeeling brute. Dear heaven! if she only knew!”

“Look here!” he said. “I can’t stand this. If you feel all that about it you have no right to go on. It’s no fairer on him than on you. It’s no kindness to him.”

“I am not acting from any motive of kindness towards him,” she answered. “I’m paying the debt—and making him pay—which we owe to the children we brought into the world. That is my only reason for going on with this. I can’t draw back. I wish I could—even now.”

The motor stopped before the hotel entrance. Dare got out and helped her to descend.

“I’m coming up to the balcony,” he said. “I want to talk.”

Pamela went inside and passed up the stairs to her room. She took off her hat and gloves, and went out on to the balcony, and sat in the shade, waiting for him. He was not long in joining her. He drew a chair up close to hers and sat down.

“Now,” he said, “we’ll dispose of this matter finally. My time is short. I intend to take the evening train to Johannesburg, unless, of course, you change your mind; and then—”

“You’ll take the evening train, dear,” she said quietly.

He glanced at her sharply.

“You mean that?” he said. “That’s your final answer, Pamela?”

“Yes; that’s my final answer.”

“So be it,” he replied, and looked away again, out across the busy, sunny street.

“It doesn’t alter anything,” he added presently, speaking in sharp, crisp tones that disguised whatever emotion swayed him at the moment. “Matters stand between us as they were. When you find life too hard, you’ll send for me. I shall be able to judge from the tone of your letters how things go with you. In the meantime—save for one occasion—we shall not meet again.”

Pamela drew a deep breath, and for a time sat very still, her white face tense and miserable, her eyes staring blankly into space. In her mind, like a refrain, his words were repeating themselves again and again, conveying, somehow, little sense of meaning:

“In the meantime—save for one occasion—we shall not meet again.”

Abruptly their full significance broke upon her. She turned to him quickly.

“What occasion?” she asked.

Dare sat back in his seat, contemplating her gravely.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “all the way coming up, and again this morning, about the girl—Blanche Maitland. We haven’t finished with her,” he added, noting Pamela’s startled look. “Of course if you had decided differently, that would have been a matter we need not have concerned ourselves with. As things are, however, we have got to put it beyond her power to do you any injury. There is only one way that I can see to prevent that. Your marriage must take place as soon as possible.”

“But,” Pamela began, and paused dismayed... “I couldn’t bear—”

“No,” he interposed quickly. “I know what you are feeling. We’ll manage it as secretly as possible. It may be necessary to move him from that place. I think it will be necessary. We’ll need to take the doctor into our confidence—to a certain extent. We’ll suppress the former marriage altogether, I think.”

“Oh!” she said, and covered her eyes with her hand, and remained quiet.

He watched her keenly.

“If you leave it to me,” he said, “I think I can manage it so that you won’t find it very humiliating. Then, if the girl turns up, you are better prepared to face her. I fancy there won’t be much difficulty in squaring her. She isn’t out for revenge.”

He leaned forward and laid a hand warmly upon hers.

“Is it too much altogether to face, dear?” he asked. “I think it will be best for you... God knows, I don’t wish you to do it! I’d rather a thousand times you followed my suggestion. If you won’t do that, then the other course it seems to me is the only means of safeguarding your position. After all, it is merely hastening things a bit. You always intended legalising the marriage.”

“Yes,” she said, and was silent, thinking. “I know you are right,” she added after reflection. “I’ll do whatever you think wise. But I feel that I ought not to let you undertake this too. I am fairly heavily in your debt already; and there is no return that I can make.”

Dare smiled at her.

“There is no question of debt or gratitude between us,” he replied. “I promised to see you through. I am going to do that. Afterwards...”

The sound of the luncheon gong filled in the pause. Dare got up, without completing the sentence, and putting his hand within her arm walked with her through her room into the corridor.

“I have to go out after lunch,” he said. Though he did not explain his reason for going, she felt that it was about her business. “I shall probably only get back in time to fetch my suit case, and say good-bye. I wonder—will you be on the balcony, so that I shall be able to find you?”

“I’ll be there,” she answered, “in the same place, outside my room.”

And so, with the imminent prospect of coming separation hanging over them, they went into luncheon together, and loitered over the meal, talking fragmentally, as people do who have discussed everything of vital interest and have come down to the bedrock of commonplace things.

“You’ll wire me,” he said once, returning to the subject occupying both their minds, “if you find yourself in any doubt or difficulty? It’s nothing of a journey between this and Johannesburg.”

She promised; and Dare, satisfied on this point, went on with his meal Pamela could not eat. She trifled with the food which the waiter put on her plate, and watched Dare, thinking of the many meals she would take in that room without him; thinking of the lonely hours she would spend, missing his companionship, missing him,—the lonely years, when the only link between them would be the chain of letters she had promised to interchange... those, and memory.

The future loomed so bleak and empty that she was afraid to look forward. Always she pictured herself shrinking, shrinking ever from the pathetic sight of suffering,—from the shadow of the man that had been, and the duty that would tie her continually to his side. Pamela had yet to learn that there is no path, upon the fingerpost of which Duty is clearly inscribed, so difficult for the traveller’s reluctant steps but that beauty is to be met along the road, and peace waits at the finish.

Chapter Thirty Three.Many emotions stirred Pamela while she waited through the sunny warmth of the summer day for Dare’s return. The horror of the morning had passed. She was quite collected now, and able to dwell dispassionately on the changed life that confronted her.Dare had told her, and she had inclined to believe him, that only love mattered. Now, while she sat alone, thinking quietly, and reviewing all her past life as it stood in relation to the future, she realised that love is not the principal factor in life; it is merely a beautiful adornment, a quality which tends to gladden, and sometimes to ennoble, life; but it is not the base on which the structure is supported. Love is a separate emotion, a distinctly personal attribute. Of itself it is frankly selfish. Only when it teaches self-abnegation can it be termed a wholly beautiful thing. To sacrifice everything for love, is to lower love to a purely physical emotion; and love stripped of its spiritual element becomes an ephemeral passion, a thing of mean delights, an excitement, a quality shorn of all fineness and dragged down to the commonplace of physical necessity. That was the quality of the love she had known in her married life; and that was why to-day, when she needed the strength of love to support her, nothing of it remained but the gaunt spectre of a long dead passion.But to love warmly and intensely, in a quite human fashion—and to part! ... That was not easy. It made a greater demand on her fortitude than anything she had yet been faced with. But difficulties met courageously present the weapons for their own defeat. The power of conquest comes of the determination to conquer.When Dare returned, and came up to the balcony in search of her, he discovered her, as he believed, asleep. She was sitting so still, with closed eyes, and was so deeply plunged in thought that she did not hear him until he was close upon her. Then her eyelids flashed open abruptly, and a flush suffused the pallor of her cheeks.“I’ve only got a minute,” he said, pausing in front of her. “The taxi is waiting. Come inside, Pamela. We can’t part here.”She was seated outside the windows of her room, and she rose as he spoke and entered the room without answering him. He followed her quickly.“I’ve been seeing to things,” he said. “I’ll write you. There isn’t time to go into it now. But it will be all right. Don’t bother your head about anything until you hear from me.” He held her by the shoulders and looked steadily into her eyes. “It won’t be long before I’m back. But this is our real parting. This is the last time I shall hold you so,—the last time I shall kiss your lips... my dear!”She drew near to him. Her face as she lifted it to his was transfigured. Never had he seen it so beautiful, so gravely tender. A yearning light of love lit her eyes, made them melting and wondrously soft. For a moment they remained looking at one another. Then he gathered her close in his arms, crushed her to him, and kissed her mouth again and again.“We’re parting,” he muttered, drawing back his head, and staring at her without releasing her. “I don’t feel I can go somehow. I feel I’m a fool to go. Why don’t I stay and fight it out with you, Pamela? You little woman, the strength that is in you! You don’t answer. Your eyes just tell me I must go. Well, I am taking part of you away with me—and leaving the best of myself with you... We’ll go on... We’ll get used to it in time, I daresay. But it hurts, Pamela.”“Yes.” She touched his cheek softly with her hand. “These last few days,” she said, “they’re something to remember...”“Something,” he said, “yes.”“We’ve been very close,” she whispered. “Nothing—no bodily separation can alter that. The memory of your love will remain with me always. I’m glad we’ve talked of love, dear,—that we haven’t tried to hide things from each other.”“Oh! we’ve talked,” he said. “But talking...”He broke off, and caught her to him again. Then he held her a little way off, and scrutinised her long and earnestly.“I don’t understand,” he muttered...Suddenly his face softened. He bent his head and kissed her again quietly, and, releasing her, turned away.“Good-bye,” he said, a little abruptly, and opened the door of the room and stepped into the corridor.Pamela remained standing where he had left her, her arms hanging loosely at her sides, her face strained and curiously set; and in her eyes, glowing darkly in the white face, a shadowed look of suffering too deep for utterance or the relief of tears.When we stand at the parting of the ways how difficult seems the road, how bitter the moment of farewell. But sorrow is no longer enduring than any other emotion. We take our lives again, and go on.

Many emotions stirred Pamela while she waited through the sunny warmth of the summer day for Dare’s return. The horror of the morning had passed. She was quite collected now, and able to dwell dispassionately on the changed life that confronted her.

Dare had told her, and she had inclined to believe him, that only love mattered. Now, while she sat alone, thinking quietly, and reviewing all her past life as it stood in relation to the future, she realised that love is not the principal factor in life; it is merely a beautiful adornment, a quality which tends to gladden, and sometimes to ennoble, life; but it is not the base on which the structure is supported. Love is a separate emotion, a distinctly personal attribute. Of itself it is frankly selfish. Only when it teaches self-abnegation can it be termed a wholly beautiful thing. To sacrifice everything for love, is to lower love to a purely physical emotion; and love stripped of its spiritual element becomes an ephemeral passion, a thing of mean delights, an excitement, a quality shorn of all fineness and dragged down to the commonplace of physical necessity. That was the quality of the love she had known in her married life; and that was why to-day, when she needed the strength of love to support her, nothing of it remained but the gaunt spectre of a long dead passion.

But to love warmly and intensely, in a quite human fashion—and to part! ... That was not easy. It made a greater demand on her fortitude than anything she had yet been faced with. But difficulties met courageously present the weapons for their own defeat. The power of conquest comes of the determination to conquer.

When Dare returned, and came up to the balcony in search of her, he discovered her, as he believed, asleep. She was sitting so still, with closed eyes, and was so deeply plunged in thought that she did not hear him until he was close upon her. Then her eyelids flashed open abruptly, and a flush suffused the pallor of her cheeks.

“I’ve only got a minute,” he said, pausing in front of her. “The taxi is waiting. Come inside, Pamela. We can’t part here.”

She was seated outside the windows of her room, and she rose as he spoke and entered the room without answering him. He followed her quickly.

“I’ve been seeing to things,” he said. “I’ll write you. There isn’t time to go into it now. But it will be all right. Don’t bother your head about anything until you hear from me.” He held her by the shoulders and looked steadily into her eyes. “It won’t be long before I’m back. But this is our real parting. This is the last time I shall hold you so,—the last time I shall kiss your lips... my dear!”

She drew near to him. Her face as she lifted it to his was transfigured. Never had he seen it so beautiful, so gravely tender. A yearning light of love lit her eyes, made them melting and wondrously soft. For a moment they remained looking at one another. Then he gathered her close in his arms, crushed her to him, and kissed her mouth again and again.

“We’re parting,” he muttered, drawing back his head, and staring at her without releasing her. “I don’t feel I can go somehow. I feel I’m a fool to go. Why don’t I stay and fight it out with you, Pamela? You little woman, the strength that is in you! You don’t answer. Your eyes just tell me I must go. Well, I am taking part of you away with me—and leaving the best of myself with you... We’ll go on... We’ll get used to it in time, I daresay. But it hurts, Pamela.”

“Yes.” She touched his cheek softly with her hand. “These last few days,” she said, “they’re something to remember...”

“Something,” he said, “yes.”

“We’ve been very close,” she whispered. “Nothing—no bodily separation can alter that. The memory of your love will remain with me always. I’m glad we’ve talked of love, dear,—that we haven’t tried to hide things from each other.”

“Oh! we’ve talked,” he said. “But talking...”

He broke off, and caught her to him again. Then he held her a little way off, and scrutinised her long and earnestly.

“I don’t understand,” he muttered...

Suddenly his face softened. He bent his head and kissed her again quietly, and, releasing her, turned away.

“Good-bye,” he said, a little abruptly, and opened the door of the room and stepped into the corridor.

Pamela remained standing where he had left her, her arms hanging loosely at her sides, her face strained and curiously set; and in her eyes, glowing darkly in the white face, a shadowed look of suffering too deep for utterance or the relief of tears.

When we stand at the parting of the ways how difficult seems the road, how bitter the moment of farewell. But sorrow is no longer enduring than any other emotion. We take our lives again, and go on.

Chapter Thirty Four.Some years later Dare sat in his room before an untidy desk with a letter spread out before him among the litter of papers and things lying about. The letter was from Pamela, between whom and himself, since the occasion when he had been present at her marriage in Pretoria, these regular but infrequent communications formed the sole link.This letter in its quiet reflective tone differed from any other he had received from her. It breathed through every line of it a calm satisfaction, a resigned acceptance of the conditions of her life, that was in no wise morbid, that held, indeed, a note of hope, of quiet gladness even. Clearly for her the turbulent discontent was past. She had glided into some forgotten backwater, and discovered there beauties that lie unsuspected in these restful retreats of the mind.“I am thinking much of you to-day,” she wrote. “There is nothing unusual in that; but to-day my thoughts are more intent on you than at other times. Your friendship means so much to me. I doubt if any woman has ever received more unselfish service than I have had from you. It has been a tremendous help to me.“Life has been very difficult often since we parted,—it is difficult still at times; but each year brings some compensation. And in waiting on him, in caring for the straining thread of life,—it is straining very fine now,—I have learnt to understand him better, and to get back some of the old kindly feeling which I believed was dead. He is very dependent on me, and, despite the querulousness of ill health, truly grateful. I am so glad we acted as we did, my dear,—that we didn’t shirk. Plainly this is the work it was intended I should do. It is irksome to me no longer. And if in doing it I have lost my youth, and that which was infinitely more precious, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that the happiness we both relinquished remains a beautiful, untarnished memory, which for me, at least, lightens the burden of these weary years.“I am growing old now, dear. You would scarcely know me. My hair is turning grey. I looked in the glass to-day and saw many little lines in my face which used not to be there. What does it matter? The outward semblance of youth, like the restless fever of love, is something which remains with us only for a short while. But these things live on in our hearts, warm and glowing, like the fires on the hearth of winter when the glory of summer is gone. To me you will always seem as I knew you first, as you will ever remain in my thoughts—a king among men. I hope my son will grow up brave and strong, like yourself. In my children I renew my youth.”Dare rested his elbow on the desk, and supported his head on his hand, and fell to thinking. “The straining thread of life,—it is straining very fine now...” When, he wondered, with his gaze fixed on the closely written lines, would his summons come?The End.

Some years later Dare sat in his room before an untidy desk with a letter spread out before him among the litter of papers and things lying about. The letter was from Pamela, between whom and himself, since the occasion when he had been present at her marriage in Pretoria, these regular but infrequent communications formed the sole link.

This letter in its quiet reflective tone differed from any other he had received from her. It breathed through every line of it a calm satisfaction, a resigned acceptance of the conditions of her life, that was in no wise morbid, that held, indeed, a note of hope, of quiet gladness even. Clearly for her the turbulent discontent was past. She had glided into some forgotten backwater, and discovered there beauties that lie unsuspected in these restful retreats of the mind.

“I am thinking much of you to-day,” she wrote. “There is nothing unusual in that; but to-day my thoughts are more intent on you than at other times. Your friendship means so much to me. I doubt if any woman has ever received more unselfish service than I have had from you. It has been a tremendous help to me.“Life has been very difficult often since we parted,—it is difficult still at times; but each year brings some compensation. And in waiting on him, in caring for the straining thread of life,—it is straining very fine now,—I have learnt to understand him better, and to get back some of the old kindly feeling which I believed was dead. He is very dependent on me, and, despite the querulousness of ill health, truly grateful. I am so glad we acted as we did, my dear,—that we didn’t shirk. Plainly this is the work it was intended I should do. It is irksome to me no longer. And if in doing it I have lost my youth, and that which was infinitely more precious, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that the happiness we both relinquished remains a beautiful, untarnished memory, which for me, at least, lightens the burden of these weary years.“I am growing old now, dear. You would scarcely know me. My hair is turning grey. I looked in the glass to-day and saw many little lines in my face which used not to be there. What does it matter? The outward semblance of youth, like the restless fever of love, is something which remains with us only for a short while. But these things live on in our hearts, warm and glowing, like the fires on the hearth of winter when the glory of summer is gone. To me you will always seem as I knew you first, as you will ever remain in my thoughts—a king among men. I hope my son will grow up brave and strong, like yourself. In my children I renew my youth.”

“Life has been very difficult often since we parted,—it is difficult still at times; but each year brings some compensation. And in waiting on him, in caring for the straining thread of life,—it is straining very fine now,—I have learnt to understand him better, and to get back some of the old kindly feeling which I believed was dead. He is very dependent on me, and, despite the querulousness of ill health, truly grateful. I am so glad we acted as we did, my dear,—that we didn’t shirk. Plainly this is the work it was intended I should do. It is irksome to me no longer. And if in doing it I have lost my youth, and that which was infinitely more precious, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that the happiness we both relinquished remains a beautiful, untarnished memory, which for me, at least, lightens the burden of these weary years.

“I am growing old now, dear. You would scarcely know me. My hair is turning grey. I looked in the glass to-day and saw many little lines in my face which used not to be there. What does it matter? The outward semblance of youth, like the restless fever of love, is something which remains with us only for a short while. But these things live on in our hearts, warm and glowing, like the fires on the hearth of winter when the glory of summer is gone. To me you will always seem as I knew you first, as you will ever remain in my thoughts—a king among men. I hope my son will grow up brave and strong, like yourself. In my children I renew my youth.”

Dare rested his elbow on the desk, and supported his head on his hand, and fell to thinking. “The straining thread of life,—it is straining very fine now...” When, he wondered, with his gaze fixed on the closely written lines, would his summons come?

The End.

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