Through four mortal hours they plodded on, a strange procession of muffled figures, leaving in their wake a dark, contorted track, as though some wounded thing had writhed its way upward through the frozen snow.
And by one o'clock the crest was in sight! "The gods favour those who go forward!" Chundra Sen had spoken truth. Another half hour would see them through the worst; and Lenox—scarcely able to believe in his good fortune—urged The Rat to renewed exertion, and shouted to his men to hurry on.
But the gods are nothing if not capricious; and the 'advanced guard,' reaching the summit, found no promised land spread out below them, but a mass of blue-black cloud, heavy with snow, surging up the valley, with the rush of a tidal wave and the breath of an iceberg, blotting out creation as it came; till it shrouded the little band of men—'unconquering, yet unconquered'—in a sinister twilight, cold as Death's own self.
There was nothing to be said or done. They simply stood still, and waited for the end:—the Asiatics with the phlegm of fatalism; Lenox with the stillness of despair.
"Checkmate," he muttered grimly. "Two hours of this will about finish us off."
In two seconds his moustache was frozen to his face; his limbs numbed, so that movement became imperative. Mechanically he dismounted, stamped his feet, and beat his arms across his chest as the others were doing; a proceeding about as effective as thimblefuls of water flung on a fire. For every moment the iron clutch of frost tightened and penetrated; even, it seemed, to the life-blood in his veins. But through its deadening influence the thought of Quita struck like a knife-thrust. "God help her!" his heart cried out in bitter rebellion against his own helplessness to shield her from pain. "It will hit her hard. But she has grit;—and her art. She will live it down."
For five awful minutes the darkness held; and the men waited;—free yet helpless, like castaways on an open sea. Yet no snow fell.
Suddenly Lenox was aware of Brutus rubbing against his leg, plainly demanding what was wrong. He stooped and caressed the ugly head of his eight years' companion and friend. "Rough luck on you, old chap. You never asked to come."
For answer Brutus licked his woollen glove. And as he straightened himself, Chundra Sen came up and saluted.
"Captain Sahib, it is strange. No snow falls; and the darkness moves—moves. May be it is not the storm itself; but a cloud that will pass."
"I doubt it, Havildar," Lenox answered, smiling at the characteristic suggestion. Yet his eyes, half-blinded with snow-glare, peered anxiously southward, and detected a change; a faint hint of transparency, as though light were struggling through.
The Gurkha detected it also.
"Hazúr, behold!—The cloudwillpass." His teeth flashed out exultant. "A good tale is not to be bought with cowries; and we shall tell this one in India before many weeks be out."
Chundra Sen was right. With astonishing swiftness the twilight paled from grey to white; a streak of spectral sunlight quivered through, like life creeping back into the face of death; and the cloud rolled harmlessly over into the Yarkhun valley behind them.
It was but a herald of the great battalion that billowed up an hour later, enveloping glacier, peak, and crag, and sealing up the pass for seven months to come.
But by then, they were clattering recklessly down the slope, helter-skelter, like a pack of children let out of school; slithering over fissured glacier and moraine, sending loose boulders flying from rock to rock; the Gurkhas shouting and laughing, the Kashmiri coolies breaking into weird snatches of song. Even The Rat lost his sober little head, and in scuttling over a glacier slope sat suddenly down upon his tail, dog fashion, landing Lenox on his feet, and sliding away from under him, to the vociferous delight of every one but himself. Only the two Pathans and the Scot accepted reprieve as imperturbably as they had accepted sentence of death; suggesting by their silence, in the midst of excitement, the large reserves of strength common to the natures of both.
Before five they had sighted the willows and poplars of Darkót; and by sunset they were encamped outside the village, walled in with a rugged amphitheatre of granite and limestone cliffs. Here they found the man in charge of the welcome caravan of supplies and heavy baggage, taking his ease, a little puzzled, yet in no wise troubled at the Sahib's delay.
Lenox, broken with fatigue, relief, and incipient illness, realised, as he sank into his camp chair, that throughout the past week he had kept himself going by pure force of will. And his record was a fair one, even as Frontier records go:—incessant marching in wet clothes, on a minimum of food, culminating in ten hours of severe exposure and the acutest anxiety he had ever known. And over and above all such incidentals of the day's work,—achievement, in full measure, of that which he had set out to do; not merely in respect of his mission, but in respect of that hidden struggle and victory, 'that weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount.' For he knew now that by the God-given power of sheer, unwearied resistance he had vanquished an evil the most insidious and alluring that can assail a man; knew that he had put the accursed thing under his feet; and he meant to keep it there.
But the struggle, combined with hardship and privation, had left its mark on him. The protests of Nature had been disregarded; and now she took her revenge in the sledge-hammer fashion that is hers.
By next morning the man's skin was like hot parchment, his limbs rigid with pain, his brain verging on delirium; and before evening it was clear that rheumatic fever had him in its relentless grip.
The Gurkhas and Zyarulla were in despair. Chundra Sen, goaded by responsibility for the safety of his officer, set out, straightway, by double marches for Srinagar, determined to cover the distance in ten days; while the Pathan, commanding acharpoy[1] from the headman of the village, remained to exorcise the 'fever devil' with the rude skill and limitless patience of his kind.
But he reaped small reward for his pains. Racked with rheumatism and burnt up with fever, Lenox had almost reached the end of his tether; and through the awful hours of delirium, Zyarulla could only crouch, helpless, by the bedside; listening, listening to the hoarse, hurried mutterings, of which he could understand nothing beyond the frequent recurrence of the Mem-sahib's name.
Each day life flickered more uncertainly in the great gaunt frame; and on the morning when Chundra Sen, with a dapper little doctor, set his face towards Darkót, Zyarulla, kneeling beside his unheeding master, bowed his head upon his hands.
"It is the will of God," he muttered. But the formula carried no conviction to his heart, that whispered rather: "It is the work of Sheitan, the accursed."
[1] String-bed.
"Why was the pause prolonged, but that singing should issue thence?Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized!"—Browning.
Quita Lenox lay back in a long low chair, lost in thought, her hands clasped behind her head, the folds of her dull-blue tea-gown trailing on the carpet. A cushion of darker blue threw into stronger relief the brighter tints of her hair; and at her throat three rough lumps of Tibetan turquoise—recently sent by Lenox—hung on a fine gold chain. His last letter, full of the discovery of his Pass, lay open on her knee,—read and re-read till its contents were stamped upon her brain; and it seemed to her high time that a fresh one came to take its place. But the days slipped by—uneventful days, in which the long chair played a definite part—and no envelope in his hand-writing came to cheer her.
Yet she was far removed from unhappiness. Her increasing pride in him, and in his achievement, prevented that. Only there were moments when the inner vision was too vivid; moments between sleep and waking when pictures trooped unbidden through the corridors of her brain; when neither sleep nor effort of will could shield her from that awful visualisation of the dreaded thing, which is the artist's penalty in the day of trouble. At such times, the fear that he might slip out of her life without knowledge of the great fact, that no amount of repetition can minimise, nor custom stale; without knowledge that through his long love and constancy she had attained to the 'greatest creative art of all,' had almost dragged her out of bed at midnight to begin the letter that should carry the word to him amid the sublimity of his glaciers and eternal silences. But always something stronger than fear had restrained her; so that the weeks had dropped away one by one, like faded petals, and the secret that was to be the crowning glory of their new life together still lay hidden in her heart.
The cheerful round of festivities common to an Indian Hill season had passed her by; and she was content to have it so. Between her canvas and her unpractised needle, between the companionship of Michael, and of the Desmonds—while they were 'up'—her days had gone softly, yet pleasantly and profitably in more respects than one. For it is in the pauses between times of activity and stress that the still small voice of God speaks most clearly to the soul; that power is generated and garnered against the hidden things that shall be. It is in the pauses that we can, as it were, stand back a space from our own corner of the picture we are so zealously making or marring, and catch an illuminating glimpse of the proportions of the whole.
Thus it had been with Quita Lenox. In these four months of seeming inactivity, the large, underlying forces of life had been silently at work in her, touching the impressionable spirit of her to 'fine issues' that the sure years would reveal. Nor had her time of quiet been lacking in immediate results. A completed picture stood to her credit; and a drawer full of surprising achievements in the way of needlecraft; achievements so pathetically small that at times the sight of them brought tears to her eyes.
But this afternoon neither brush nor needle tempted her. In spirit she was with her husband, trying by concentration of thought to bridge the space between. But always her thoughts ended in one cry: If only—if only—he could get back in time!
Michael Maurice had stayed on at the Crow's Nest, possibly from laziness, possibly for other reasons; and its little studio-drawing-room was as attractive, as untidy, and as eloquent of Quita's personality as it had been sixteen months ago. It was late August now; and a week's break in the rains had given the drenched hills and those who dwelt upon them a foretaste of that elixir of light and air which makes September the crowning month of the Himalayan year. And to Quita it gave promise that her days of waiting were numbered. In a week she would follow the Desmonds to Dera Ishmael, and remain with them, at their urgent invitation, till her husband's return. The friendly smile of the sun after days of downpour and restless mist lifted her to renewed hope that in spite of the mountains he would surely reach her in time.
From the open door a stream of afternoon light barred the room with gold. Passing across her prostrate figure, it fell full upon her easel, and upon the picture in which she had tried to express her own solution of the artist's eternal problem—Art or Love. It had been begun as a subject-picture, inspired by the impassioned cry of Aurora Leigh: "Oh, Art, my Art! Thou art much; but Love is more!" Then because her taste leaned always to the actual, and because the picture was to be a present for her husband, the woman's figure had grown into a portrait of herself; a thing so living, so eloquent of her new appealing charm, that even Michael's critical spirit had been roused to enthusiasm. He had one quarrel only with her achievement, namely, that it was not to be his own!
In detail, the picture was simplicity itself. Merely the woman beside her easel, turning eagerly away from it as if at the sound of a footstep; every line and curve of her athrill with expectancy, her eyes luminous with the dawn of a new truth, a new ecstasy of heart and spirit; while at her feet her palette lay broken in a dozen pieces, and her canvas had fallen, unheeded, to the ground. An open doorway behind her revealed a glimpse of sunlit verandah, trellis-work and honeysuckle; revealed also an unmistakable length of shadow,—the head and shoulders of the man whose large, lonely personality had so taken possession of her, as to transform her whole vision of life. And below the canvas, on the gilding of the frame, were graven the words: 'Love is more.'
For all her delight in this last work of her hands, there were days when the sight of it pricked her to an anguish of impatience, shadowed always by the darker anguish of fear lest the ecstasy she had so vividly portrayed should be snatched untasted from out her grasp; lest the footstep her heart hungered for should never come back into her life. But she fought resolutely against such black moods, for Michael's sake no less than her own. His joy in getting her back had done much to soften the pang of separation; and now, while she lay waiting and dreaming,—too lazy to pour out tea till he came—it was his footstep that put her dreams to flight.
He had been out on the Kajiar road 'taking notes,' and he flourished a sketch-book at her by way of greeting.
"Tea,chérie?Ah, c'est bien. I am thirsty!"
She flung out her left hand and took possession of the book.
"Pour it out yourself, there's a dear; and mine too."
"Voilà donc! What laziness!"
"Energetic people are privileged to be lazy—sometimes."
He laughed, and obeyed her, setting a cup and plate within reach.
"You seem to have been making the most of your privilege. Have you done anything while I was out?"
"But yes. I have been possessing my soul in quietness; and—I have been talking to Eldred."
He passed a caressing hand over her hair.
"Pauvre petite! How much of that do you really believe?"
"Don't ask uncomfortable questions! At least it helps a little when I feel I can't wait any longer, and—I am almost sure it helps him too. I shall find that out when—ifhe gets back."
"Let 'ifs' alone,ma belle. They are gadflies of the devil's breeding. That great Scotchman of yours would work his way back to you, if he had to go through hell to do it.Moi, je le sais."
She flushed softly; and her eyes looked beyond his through the open doorway, rapt and shining.
"Youdobelieve in him now, Michel," she said. "And you forgive him?He has made me so supremely happy."
Michael shook his head.
"Was I ever an altruist,petite soeur? If the man had not made you happy, I should never have rested till I had you back again. As it is—" he shrugged his shoulders with an expressive turn of the hands—"one is glad—for your sake; and one makes the best of an empty house. But,mon Dieu! itisempty without you, Quita! You have light and fire in you;—now, more than ever. You have temperament. You inspire a man. Your absence actually affects the quality of my work. Absurd; but true! And as for my affairs—nom de Dieu, the money slips away like water, but the bills never get paid! You saw how it was when you came. And in one little week you go again, with a light heart; while I return,faute de mieux, to my 'wallowing in the mire!'"
"Mon pauvre Michel!" she said softly. "What a tragedy! You make me wish I was twins!"
But a smile gleamed through her tenderness; for, while she loved him dearly, she knew every turn and phase of his character; knew that the picture of desolation, so feelingly drawn, was seen for the moment through the magnifying lens of self-pity. Yet her concern for him was genuine, deep-rooted, a habit dating from the days of pinafores and broken toys. To keep Michael happy had, for long, been the chief part of her religion: the least of his troubles, real or imaginary, still had the ancient entry to her heart; and now she leaned impulsively towards him, elbows on knees, her chin in her hands, her eyes resting in his.
"It is not true that I leave you lightly,mon cher; nor that I love you less because I have given myself to another—body and soul. Indeed, I think the very bigness of my feeling for him has made love go deeper with me in all directions, has opened my eyes to see that to love means no less than changing the axis on which one's whole nature revolves. There's the stumbling-block with us artists. We rebel by instinct against anything that threatens to encroach upon our cherishedego; and excuse ourselves on the plea that it would undermine our art. But that is not true;—oh, believe me it's not."
Michael's shoulders went up again, and he smiled indulgently. But behind the smile lurked a shadow of gravity unusual in him. He had been aware of hidden changes in her, but this was his first glimpse into the depths.
"Possibly not,chérie—for a woman," he admitted grudgingly. "But for a man——"
"Yes, even for a man, dear ignoramus!" she broke in eagerly, setting her two hands upon his knees. "Love may fill more of a woman's horizon; but it goes deeper with men,—of the right sort, even if they are artists! Look at Browning.Heknew. A big brain may set you on a pinnacle, Michel; but a big love keeps you human, sets your pulses beating in tune with all the hidden harmonies of the world."
A hot wave of shyness checked her. She withdrew her hands hastily, and sat upright.
"Tiens! But I am preaching! A new vice,n'est ce pas?"
"New enough to be interesting, . . and forgivable! What's your text?"
"Need you ask? The first remark ever made upon the subject: 'It is not good that the man should be alone.'"
A dull flush showed under Michael's sallow akin.
"C'est à dire, il faut se ranger!" he said with an embarrassed laugh. "Well . . . find me a woman who understands and inspires me like yourself, and it is possible,—I do not say probable,—that I may yet fulfil the whole duty of man. If one could only suggest a five years' contract . . !"
"Michel! You are incorrigible; and I have preached in vain! Besides, it is not a wife of my sort you need, I thought you found that out last year; and . . . I think so still. If not, why have you stayed on here? And why did you make that exquisite pastel of her portrait?"
Michael's eyes seemed to demand an answer from the accusing picture; and there was an instant of silence.
"I stayed on here," he said at length, "chiefly because, lacking you, I seem to lack initiative; and I painted that . . well, as a memento of my best bit of work, and of a dream, more delectable than most . . . while it lasted; but none the less . . a dream."
"Yet you have seen a good deal of her this season, one way and another."
"Yes. In spite of the Button Quail!"
"And it would hurt you it she were to marry another man?"
Michael frowned. "Thereisno other man, since Malcolm went home."
"Is there any man at all, I wonder?"
Michael rose abruptly, and going over to Elsie's portrait stood before it, his hands clasped behind him.
"I have wondered also," he said on a rare note of gravity. "But you women are enigmas; even the simplest of you."
"Ask her, Michel; ask her. Wondering is waste of time: and time is life. People so often forget that."
Maurice did not answer. But Quita was well content: for she saw how Elsie's violet-blue eyes were holding him, drawing him irresistibly back to the old allegiance. Yet, had she known it, Elsie's eyes had less to do with the matter than her own stimulating personality. The subtle development in her had not been without its effect on him. He saw her transfigured by the exquisite, self-effacing passion of the woman; and found himself envying the man; though the eloquence of her appeal had, as usual, fired his imagination rather than his heart.
Suddenly he swung round upon her, his face alight.
"Parbleu, Quita, but you are right! You always are. And as there's no time like now, I'll ask her to-day . . I have scarcely seen her this last fortnight. But that shall be atoned for . . later. Give me your blessing,ma belle!"
Half-seriously, half in joke, he knelt beside her chair. But the entrance of the kitmutgar with a note brought him swiftly to his feet.
"Talk of an angel! It is herself," he exclaimed as he broke the seal."My demure little Puritan meets me half-way after all!"
He scanned the first page at a glance, then, with a sound between a laugh and a curse, crumpled up the paper in his hand.
"Mon Dieu. . a pretty bit of comedy!"
"What is it now,mon cher?" Quita asked anxiously, guessing his answer.
"It is Malcolm; no less. He reaps the reward of constancy; like the good boy in a Sunday-school book! And she . .eh bien, she is quite certain I shall be delighted to hear of her great good fortune. Very charming! Very correct!"
"And you, Michel . .you?"
He shrugged his shoulders, and tossed the note into the fender.
"Comme ça! It seems I am a negligible quantity. Possibly have been all along. The notion does not comfort a man's natural vanity. But on the whole . ." he paused; smiling at the concern in Quita's eyes, "on the whole,petite soeur. . . I am profoundly relieved! I should have proposed . . yes; and enjoyed a few weeks of Elysium. But it is certain I should never have delivered myself permanently into the hands of a woman! After that, it u useless to ask for your blessing,n'est ce pas?"
"Quite useless!"
But the hands stretched out to him belied her words; and as he knelt beside her once more, she set them upon his shoulders and kissed his forehead.
"This time I give you up for good, Michel!" she said, smiling. "At least I have done my level best for you; so my conscience is clear. But it is written that 'no man may redeem his brother'; and I might have known that Providence was not likely to make an exception in favour of a woman!"
"Is it perhaps a step towards redemption if, on your account, I give up playing with thefeu sacréof the heart, and confine myself to the only form of it that the gods appear to have granted me?"
"Dieu vous garde," she whispered, and kissed him again.
"I have my lesson; understandThe worth of flesh and blood at last."—Browning.
"Oh, Theo—it is too cruel. Too terrible! What on earth is one to tell her?"
"Anything but the truth," Desmond answered decisively, his gaze reverting to the telegram in his hand. It was from the Resident of Kashmir; bald and brief, yet full of grim possibilities.
"Captain Lenox dangerously ill at Darkót. Rheumatic fever. Doctor sent out. Will wire further news. Writing."
Desmond read and re-read the words mechanically, an anxious frown between his brows. Then, looking up again, he encountered his wife's eyes, heavy with tears; and his arm enfolded her on the instant.
"Bear up, my darling, like the plucky woman you are," he commanded gently, his lips against her cheek. "It's not the worst. By God's mercy we may get him back yet. You must keep on upholding her a little longer; that's all. I know it has been a strain for you,—this last fortnight; so soon after your own affair too."
For they themselves had been enriched by a new life, a new link in the chain that bound them—a bright-haired daughter not yet four months old.
Honor did not answer at once; but leaned upon him, choking back her sobs, soothed by the magnetism of his hand and voice, that seemed always to leave things better than they found them.
When her tears were under control, she drew herself up, brushing them from her cheeks and lashes.
"Yes, it has been a strain," she admitted. "And I did so hope this had brought news I could give her, at last. You don't see her as I do, Theo, lying there day after day, so frail and white and patient. Quita patient! Can you picture it? I quite long for a flash of her old perversity. She has almost left off speaking of him. But the eternal question in her eyes haunts me; and I feel half ashamed of my golden time with you, when I see her going through it alone, poor darling; her natural joy in the child shadowed and broken by the anxiety and longing that are eating her heart out, and holding her back from health. Is there nothing I can tell her, that would be truth, yet not all the truth?"
Desmond knitted his brows again, pondering.
"Go to her now," he said. "Tell her we've heard by wire that he is safely over the Darkót, but he may be delayed in getting on to Kashmir, and we hope for more news within the week. If she asks to see the wire, say you're sorry, but I tore it up."
He did so on the spot, dropping the shreds of paper reflectively among the smouldering logs upon the hearth; while Honor hurried to the sick-room, with her fragment of news: the room in which Lenox had almost died of cholera, and in which Quita's ring had been restored to her finger sixteen months before.
She lay in it now, propped up among frilled pillows, an etherealised edition of herself; her hair divided into two plaits, one lying over each shoulder; the sweeping curve of her lashes shadowing her cheek; her eyes resting on a small dark head that nestled in the hollow of her arm. For, to Quita's intense satisfaction, the child had Eldred's black hair, and the clear Northern eyes that held all she knew, or as yet cared to know, of heaven.
Her delight at the inadequate tidings of her husband was greater than Honor had dared to expect. For she could not know how the wakeful night watches, and the hours of enforced quiet, had been haunted by that nightmare dread of the mountains, which Eldred's expurgated accounts of certain vicissitudes had justified rather than dispelled. But now—now he was through the worst of them, within easy distance of Kashmir; and she felt as a prisoner may feel when the doors swing wide, and he finds himself once more lord of light and space.
"Oh, Baby, think of it!" she whispered in ecstasy to the unheeding morsel of life in her arms. "He is coming—actually coming! Nothing can delay him very long now."
But the slow days multiplied into weeks; and still he did not come; and the scanty news from Kashmir was not hopeful enough to be passed on to her—yet. Then, as she grew stronger, and more openly bewildered at the silence and delay, Desmond decided to speak to her himself. And while the tale was still upon his lips, while Quita sat listening to it, white and tearless, his hand grasping her own, a merciful fate brought her an envelope quaveringly addressed in pencil, containing word of definite progress at last, and an assurance that once he could set foot to ground nothing should hold him back.
Ten days later the message, "Starting this morning," flashed through space to Dera Ishmael from Kashmir; and after that each hour brought him nearer. A second flash from Lahore; a third from Jhung; and Desmond, sending on a spare horse, rode down to the Indus to meet his friend, in Oriental fashion, 'at the edge of the carpet.'
It was a gaunt, weather-beaten figure of a man that stepped out of the ferry-boat and grasped his hand; but there was that in his bearing and in his unshadowed eyes that told Desmond the chief of what he wished to know. For the rest, the greeting between them was of their race and kind.
"Well, old chap, how are you?"
"Deuced glad to see you back again."
"And—Quita?"
"Deuced glad also, I suspect."
"Uncommonly kind of you both keeping her all this while."
"Kind? It's been a privilege seeing so much of her. We shall grudge giving her up."
And Desmond bestowed a reflective glance on the man who guessed nothing of the revelation in store for him.
Their talk riding back to the station was fitful and fragmentary. All that remained to be said—and there was a good deal of it—would come out bit by bit, at odd moments, mainly under the influence of tobacco. In the meantime, their mutual satisfaction went deeper than speech; and it was enough.
At the drawing-room door they parted.
"You'll find all you need in there, I think," Desmond said, on a note of profound understanding; and Lenox, putting a strong hand upon himself, pushed aside the heavy curtain and stood, at last, before his wife.
With a low cry, and arms outflung, she came to him; and that first rapture of reunion, of the heart's passionate upheaval and revealing—the more intense for the muteness of it—was a rapture sacred to themselves alone; not to be pried upon or set down. Such moments—come they but once in a lifetime, to one among a hundred—are God's reiterate answers to the problem of creation. The man or woman who has passed that way will never ask the soul's most withering question: To what end was I born? 'The rest may reason and welcome.' They are of the few who know.
Lenox and Quita swept headlong, as it were, to the crest of a wave, dropped presently back to earth. Then he set her a little away from him, almost at arm's-length, the better to feast his eyes upon the sight of her; and so became aware of the subtle change perceptible in her letters:—some exquisite quality, the fruit of long waiting, crowned by the miracle of motherhood; an appreciable softening of the lips; a triumph of the essential woman over mere line and curve that brought her near to actual beauty. But it was the new depth and tenderness in her eyes that drew and held him; eyes luminous, as never before, with the pride, the exaltation, of a consummate self-surrender,—not of necessity, but of free choice, the woman's utmost gift to her own one lover and compeer in all the world; if so be that she is privileged to find him, and if so be that he himself aspires to the larger claim. Eldred Lenox had so aspired; and, in consequence, had attained. Her mute confession of it stirred him to speech.
"I believe Ihavewon the whole of you at last—you very woman," he said almost under his breath.
"And I know it," she answered in the same tone. "Do you remember saying that day you were angry: 'If youwillmake it a case of mastery——!' Well, it is a case of mastery—absolute and permanent."
She spoke truth. At that moment, and indeed for many years after, she would have walked, at his bidding, into the heart of a furnace. He drew her close again.
"No, no, lass. I hope it's a case of love and comradeship on an equal footing,—as you have seen it in this house; the rarest thing in the world between a man and woman."
Her smile brought into play the dimple that he loved.
"How one needs you at every turn, to keep the balance of things! But come over to my easel. I have something to show you."
Very deliberately she lifted the draperies that hid the picture, and a low sound broke from him. Then he stood gazing upon it,—absorbed, captivated; and whereas, a moment since, the woman had triumphed, now all the artist in her thrilled at his tribute of silence, knowing it for the highest praise.
"A bit of pure inspiration," he said at last. "It lives and breathes!"
"That is your doing, more than mine. And I am glad it pleases you; for it is a present, and—a confession!"
"You did it simply for me?"
"For who else, in earth or heaven, dear and dense one?" she demanded, laughing; and was effectually put to silence. "Wasn't it just like me to throw all my heart into a portrait of myself?" she added, as he released her.
"It was enchanting of you; that's allIknow. But see here, lass, there must be no question of murdering half your personality on my account. I am grasping. I want both of you,—artist and woman."
"Dear heart, you've taken arbitrary possession of as many of me as there are! And indeed, I'd be puzzled to swear to the exact number. I seem to have let you in for three sorts of wives already! But seriously, Eldred, I have come to one conclusion in the long months I have had for thinking things over. I believe you were right in saying it might be best for me to give up painting men's portraits. Not altogether: I don't think I could, unless you insisted! But I won't make it a speciality, as I have done; and I'll be more circumspect in my methods, and in my choice of subjects. Will that do?"
He looked full at her for a moment; his keen eyes melting into wells of tenderness.
"My darling—what's come to you?" was all he said.
"A spirit of understanding, I hope," she answered sweetly. "But you'll find plenty of the old unreasonable Quita effervescing underneath!Par exemple—on the heels of my great renunciation, the first thing I want to do is a portrait of Major Desmond for my dear Honor,—if I may?"
"If you may! What next?" But being a man and human, he was obviouslygratified. "You could suggest nothing that would please me better.You'll make a fine thing of it; and as for your methods, 'get inside'Desmond for all you're worth. You'll do no harm inthatquarter!"
"Harm?" she flashed out, half indignant. "Has it ever, in all of your knowledge of me, gone as far as that?"
He could not lie to her; neither would he betray Dick.
"Did such a possibility never occur to you?" he suggested, evading direct reply.
But she was not to be thwarted.
"I asked you a question,mon cher."
"And that is my answer."
"A question is not an answer." Then intuition, and his evident discomfiture, enlightened her. "Mon Dieu, Eldred! Yon are never thinking—of Dick?"
He frowned. "What put that into your head?"
"Your manner; and something he wrote to me while he was away. You heard, of course? He said he had told you the good news."
"What good news? When?"
"Weeks ago. Before he came back off leave."
"I had no letter. Must have been mislaid while I was ill. What's up?Has he got a command?"
"Yes. And better than that. He is going to be married."
"By Jove! That's first-rate. Good old Dick! But what was it he said to you?"
"I'll show you the letter. Such a charming one. He began, 'Dear Friend,' which wasn't like him. It puzzled me. And he ended by saying he felt sure I should be glad to know how much of his present happiness he owed to his intimacy with me. So you see, dearest, I did no irretrievable harm."
"No, mercifully not, thanks to Dick's uprightness, and his happy temperament. But he might have been quite another sort; like myself, for instance. By the time I had known you two weeks, Quita, the damage was permanent. Even if there had been no word of love between us, I should never have given a thought to another woman—after that."
The quietness of his tone carried conviction, and her arms went out to him.
"Bless you, bless you, my own man," she murmured into the lapel of his coat. "I can never thank God enough that I came out to India and won you back."
Weak as he still was from the pain and prostration of his terrible illness, the exquisite completeness of her surrender almost unmanned him; and she felt him tremble through all his big frame. That roused the mother in her.
"Darling, how thoughtless of me! You are not strong enough yet for this sort of thing. Let me get you some wine—please."
"Wine? Nonsense, I'm all right. Desmond gave me a peg."
"Come to a chair, then."
She drew him towards one; but he gently forced her into it, sinking on one knee beside her, with a sigh of satisfaction.
"That's good. I begin to realise that I am actually home!"
"And I begin to realise what a wreck of yourself you are,mon pauvre. Wait till I've tyrannised over you for a month or so! Then we must get long leave."
And taking his head between her hands, she cherished it, smiling into his eyes; the passion of the wife deepened and hallowed by the protective tenderness of the mother. When and how should she tell him? That was the question in her mind. A paralysing shyness, for which she spurned herself, suffused her at the thought; and behind the shyness lurked a great longing to know how he would receive her culminating revelation. But in his present state she dreaded a shock for him,—even a shock of joy. She would wait a little longer for the given moment; and then . . . .
"The hair on your temples has gone quite silver," she lamented, caressing it with light finger-tips. "It is all those terrible mountains; and I hope you've had enough of them now to keep you quiet for a time. But I begin to dread Sir Henry Forsyth. He hasn't got another 'mission' up his sleeve, has he?"
She spoke laughingly, but his eyes were grave; and taking her two hands he prisoned them in his own.
"Quita, my brave lass," he said gently. "After all that has just passed between us, I can tell you no less than the truth, and leave you to give the casting vote. I am afraid the mountains are bound to play a big part in our immediate future, unless you seriously prefer that I should give up all idea of political work in those parts, and stick to the Battery."
"And if Idoseriously prefer it?"
"Your decision will be mine."
He spoke so steadily that she would fain have believed in his indifference as to the result. But the art of self-deception was not one of her accomplishments. She suppressed a sigh.
"Dear, there is only one decision possible. But for me you might never have put your hand to that plough. It was the one good that came to you through my crowning act of folly; and I'll not undo it, whatever it may mean—for me."
He thanked her with his eyes; and the mute homage in them was dearer to her than a score of kisses. When he tried to speak, she forestalled him.
"You have said it all, Eldred. I understand. I only want—more facts.Is it Gilgit? And when?"
"Next year, I'm afraid. They want us to re-establish the Agency—Travers and myself. I was up there, you see, before I found you again. We should be quite alone, at the start, with just a doctor and our Kashmiri soldiers."
"And I—it would be impossible?"
He pressed her hands.
"For the first few years—certainly. Everything would be raw; and the work incessant and absorbing. But later on, who can tell? We might see what could be done."
"And the nearest I could get to you, so as to live more or less within reach?"
"Srinagar. That's about twenty days' march from Gilgit. I could do it in ten, to get to you!" he added, smiling. "Spare time would be scarce, though; and in the winter we should be quite cut off by snow."
"Oh, Eldred!"
"I should hate that no less than you, be sure. But when things got a bit more settled, some sort of arrangement might be possible, at least for part of the summer; if you could really stand the isolation and the life."
"Stand it? Of course I could. I should love it."
His eyes lit up.
"You have pluck enough for half a dozen! But you don't look as strong as you did. There's a fragile air about you that troubles me. I never saw it before."
The faint colour in her cheeks invaded her temples. It was the given moment; long enough delayed in all conscience. Yet it found her palpitating—unprepared.
"You mustn't be troubled." She plunged desperately; unsure of what would come next. "It will pass. I am growing stronger every day."
"Stronger? Good Lord! You haven't been ill too, and I never knew it?"
"No—oh, no! Not ill—that is . . . not exactly. I mean . . ."
Confusion submerged her. His shoulder—the woman's legitimate refuge—was conveniently close; and she buried her blushes in it. At that a suspicion of the truth thrilled through him, like an electric current.
"Quita—look up—speak to me!" he besought her; his voice low, and not quite steady. "Is it possible . . ?"
"Darling, of course it is," she whispered back, without stirring. "Only—will you ever forgive me? I've saddled you with two women now, as if one wasn't bother enough!"
For answer he strained her closer; and so knelt for the space of many seconds; stunned, momentarily, by that deep-rooted, elemental joy in the transmission of life, which, in men of fine fibre, is tempered with amazement and awe; a sense of poignant, personal contact with the Open Secret of the world.
At last he spoke; and his words held no suggestion of the emotion that uplifted him.
"When? How old . . . how long ago?"
"Seven weeks ago. The second of October."
"Great Heaven! The day I was nearly done for; the day I crossed thePass. And I never dreamed . . . how it was with you."
Then, very gently, she found her head lifted from its resting-place; his eyes searching her own with an insistence not to be denied.
"Quita, you must have realised—all this before I started?"
"Yes."
"And you let me go without a word! By the Lord, I think I had the right to know."
Her lips trembled a little at the reproach in his tone; but she did not avert her eyes.
"Of course you had the right," she acknowledged with a flash of her old frankness. "But things were going crooked just then. It all seemed so strange, so difficult to speak of; and I thought if you were delayed it would save you from anxiety, not to know. Besides—I confess I knew it would mean . . . a great deal to you; and I wanted to win you all my own self, before I told you. There! That's the whole truth. Can you forgive me?"
"Forgive you, my darling? To-day of all days! I am at your feet."
She drew a deep breath. "That is quite wrong! But I can't pretend not to be proud of it; though in theory I object to pedestals as much as ever! And now——" she laid both hands upon him, her eyes full of laughter and tenderness. "Now—don't you want to come and see—the other woman?"
At that, his gravity went to pieces.
"Woman indeed! Bless her heart. Naturally I do. Hasn't she achieved a name yet?"
"No, poor little heathen. I told her she must wait for you; though the matter was settled long ago. What else could we call her—but Honor? And I pray she may be worthy of the name. Both the Desmonds will stand for her. I thought you would wish it; for, indeed, without their great goodness to us both she might never have found her way into the world at all! Now—come."
He raised her to her feet, and together they entered the room where, in a railed cot, the unconscious herald of a larger joy, a more sacred intimacy, lay sleeping:—a creature of flower-soft tints and curves, who, in the sublime wisdom of babyhood, was concerned for nothing on earth but her own inspired devices for self-development.
For long the two stood speechless before that astonishing, yet inevitable, third; that miracle of incorporate self-expression, whereby a man and woman behold their hidden spirits that have so passionately clung together across the gateless barrier of individual being, 'visibly here commingled and made flesh.' Then Lenox put out a hand and caressed the small soft head, reverently, cautiously, as if to verify its actuality. At his touch the child stirred; the dark lashes lifted; and in that instant of revealing, the truth came home to him that, by his will, a living soul, a thing of mysterious and infinite potentialities, had been added to the world's sum of life.
"See—she has your eyes," said Quita, tenderly triumphant; and for the second time she looked into his own through a mist of tears. "My last picture pleases you even better than the other one?" she added; and stooping, he kissed her lips.
"It lifts you into a new kingdom, Quita; and doesn't he honestly seem to you worth all the rest put together?"
"But yes,mon ami. She is my masterpiece—our masterpiece," she answered very low.