John, my heart is breaking, but I know you do not mean what you said. I know it was only a moment of madness with you. I know you will love Louise all your life, and will bless me all your life because I am giving up the one thing which could make my life a paradise. I shall be in the train when you read this, on my way to Bath. I have wired my young man, as you call him, to meet me. I am going to ask him to marry me, if he will, next week.Good-by! I give you no advice. Some day I think that life will right itself with you.Sophy.
John, my heart is breaking, but I know you do not mean what you said. I know it was only a moment of madness with you. I know you will love Louise all your life, and will bless me all your life because I am giving up the one thing which could make my life a paradise. I shall be in the train when you read this, on my way to Bath. I have wired my young man, as you call him, to meet me. I am going to ask him to marry me, if he will, next week.
Good-by! I give you no advice. Some day I think that life will right itself with you.
Sophy.
The letter dropped upon the table. John stood for a moment dazed. Suddenly he began to laugh. Then he remembered the messenger-boy, gave him half a crown, and closed the door. He came back into the room and took his place at the table. He looked at the empty chair by his side, looked at the full glass on the sideboard. It seemed to him that he was past all sensations. The waiter came in silently.
"You can serve the dinner," John ordered, shaking out his napkin. "Open the champagne before you go."
"You will be alone, sir?" the man inquired.
"I shall be alone," John answered.
It was a room of silence, save for the hissing of the green logs that burned on the open hearth, and for the slow movements of Jennings as he cleared the table. Straight and grim in his chair, with the newspaper by his side, Stephen Strangewey sat smoking stolidly. Opposite to him, almost as grim, equally silent, sat John.
"Things were quiet at Market Ketton to-day, then, John?" Stephen asked at last.
"There was nothing doing," was the brief reply.
That, for the space of a quarter of an hour or so, was the sole attempt at conversation between the two brothers. Then Jennings appeared with a decanter of wine and two glasses, which he reverently filled. Stephen held his up to the light and looked at it critically. John's remained by his side, unnoticed.
"A glass for yourself, Jennings," Stephen ordered.
"I thank ye kindly, sir," the old man replied.
He fetched a glass from the sideboard, filled it, and held it respectfully before him.
"It's the old toast," Stephen said glumly. "You know it!"
"Aye, Master Stephen!" the servant assented. "We've drunk it together for many a long year. I give it ye now with all my heart—confusion to all women!"
They both glanced toward John, who showed no signs of movement. Then they drank together, the olderman and his servant. Still John never moved. Jennings drained his glass, placed the decanter by his master's side, and withdrew.
"So the poison's still there, brother?" Stephen asked.
"And will be so long as I live," John confessed gloomily. "For all that, I'll not drink your toast."
"Why not?"
"There was a little girl—you saw her when you were in London. She is married now, but I think of her sometimes; and when I do, you and old Jennings seem to me like a couple of blithering idiots cursing things too wonderful for you to understand!"
Stephen made no protest. For a time he smoked in silence. Curiously enough, as they sat there together, some of the grim fierceness seemed to have passed from his expression and settled upon John. More than once, as he looked across at his younger brother, it almost seemed as if there was something of self-reproach in his questioning look.
"You dined at the ordinary in Market Ketton?" Stephen asked at last.
"I did."
"Then you heard the news?"
"Who could help it?" John muttered. "There wasn't much else talked about."
"Bailiff Henderson has been over here," Stephen went on. "There's a small army of painters and decorators coming down to the castle next week. You saw the announcement of the wedding in theMorning Post, maybe?"
John assented without words. Stephen smoked vigorously for a few moments. Every now and then he glanced across to where John was sitting. Onceagain the uneasiness was in his eyes, an uneasiness which was almost self-reproach.
"You mind what I called her once, John—a witch-woman? She is that, right enough. This marriage of hers proves it. Although he is half a Frenchman, the Prince of Seyre is the greatest landowner in the county. He is the worst landlord, maybe, but the blood's there. He is a man who has lived among women all his life. He should know something about them, and be proof against their wiles. Yet he's going to marry her next Thursday!"
John moved a little restlessly in his chair.
"Let's drop it, Stephen," he begged. "We both know the facts. She is going to marry him, and that's the end of it. Fill your glass up again. Here's mine untouched. I'll drink your toast with you, if you'll leave out the little girl who was kind to me. I'll give it to you myself—confusion to all women!"
"Confusion to—" Stephen began. "What on earth is that?"
They both heard it at the same time—the faint beating of a motor-engine in the distance. John set down his glass. There was a strange look in his eyes.
"There are more cars passing along the road now than in the old days," he muttered; "but that's a queer sound. It reminds one—good Heavens, how it reminds one!"
There was a look of agony in his face for a moment. Then once more he raised his glass to his lips.
"It's passed out of hearing," Stephen said. "It's some one on the way to the castle, maybe."
Still their glasses remained suspended in mid air. The little garden gate had opened and closed with a click; there were footsteps upon the flinty walk.
"It's some one coming here!" John cried hoarsely. "Why can't they keep away? It's two years ago this week since I brought her up the drive and you met us at the front door. Two years ago, Stephen! Who can it be?"
They heard the front door open, they heard Jenning's voice raised in unusual and indignant protest. Then their own door was suddenly flung wide, and a miracle happened. John's glass slipped from his fingers, and the wine streamed out across the carpet. He shrank back, gripping the tablecloth. Stephen turned his head, and sat as if turned to stone.
"John!"
She was coming toward him exactly as he had dreamed of her so many times, her hands outstretched, her lips quivering, with that sweet look in her face which had dwelt there once for a few days—just a few days of her life.
"John," she faltered, "it isn't the car this time—it is I who have broken down! I cannot go on. I have no pride left. I have come to you. Will you help me?"
He found himself upon his feet. Stephen, too, had risen. She stood between the two men, and glanced from one to the other. Then she looked more closely into John's face, peering forward with a little start of pain, and her eyes were filled with tears.
"John," she cried, "forgive me! You were so cruel that morning, and you seemed to understand so little. Don't you really understand, even now? Have you ever known the truth, I wonder?"
"The truth!" he echoed hoarsely. "Don't we all know that? Don't we all know that he is to give you your rights, that you are coming—"
"Stop!" she ordered him.
He obeyed, and for a moment there was silence—a tense, strained silence.
"John," she continued at last, "I have no rights to receive from the Prince of Seyre. He owes me nothing. Listen! Always we have seen life differently, you and I. To me there is only one great thing, and that is love; and beyond that nothing counts. I tried to love the prince before you came, and I thought I did, and I promised him at last what you know, because I believed that he loved me and that I loved him, and that if so it was his right. Look down the road, John! On that night I was on my way to the castle, to give myself to him; but I broke down, and in the morning the world was all different, and I went back to London. It has been different ever since, and there has never been any question of anything between the prince and me, because I knew that it was not love."
John was shaking in every limb. His eyes were filled with fierce questioning. Stephen sat there, and there was wonder in his face, too.
"When you came to me that morning," she went on, "you spoke to me in a strange tongue. I couldn't understand you, you seemed so far away. I wanted to tell you the whole truth, but I didn't. Perhaps I wasn't sure—perhaps it seemed to me that it was best for me to forget, if ever I had cared, for the ways of our lives seemed so far apart. You went away, and I drifted on; but it wasn't true that I ever promised to marry the prince. No one had any right to put that paragraph in the newspaper!"
"But what are you doing here, then?" John asked hoarsely. "Aren't you on your way to the castle?"
She came a little nearer still; her arms went around his neck.
"You dear stupid!" she cried. "Haven't I told you? I've tried to do without you, and I can't. I've come for you. Come outside, please! It's quite light. The moon's coming over the hills. I want to walk up the orchard. I want to hear just what I've come to hear!"
He passed out of the room in a dream, under the blossom-laden boughs of the orchard, and up the hillside toward the church. The dream passed, but Louise remained, flesh and blood. Her lips were warm and her arms held him almost feverishly.
"In that little church, John, and quickly—so quickly, please!" she whispered.
Jennings hastened in to where Stephen was sitting alone.
"Mr. Stephen," he cried, "what's coming to us? There's that French hussy outside, and a motor-car in the drive, and the chauffeur's asking where he's to sleep. The woman wants to know whether she can have the same bedroom for her mistress as last time!"
"Then why don't you go and see about it, you old fool?" Stephen replied. "Pick up those pieces of glass there, lay the cloth, and get some supper ready."
Jennings gazed at his master, dumbfounded. No power of speech remained to him.
Through the open doorway they heard Aline's voice in the hall.
"Meester Jennings, will you please come and help me with the luggage?"
"Get along with you!" Stephen ordered. "You'dbetter hurry up with the supper, too. The boy Tom can see to the luggage."
The old man recovered himself slowly.
"You're taking 'em in, sir—taking 'em into the house?" he gasped. "What about that toast?"
Stephen refilled two glasses.
"We'd better alter it a little," he declared. "Here's confusion to most women, but luck to John and his wife!"
"Mr. John and his wife!" Jennings repeated, as he set his glass down empty. "I'll just see that them sheets is aired up-stairs, sir, or that hussy will be making eyes at Tom!"
He departed, and Stephen was left alone. He sat and listened to the sound of luggage being taken upstairs, to Aline's little torrent of directions, good-humored but profuse, to the sound of preparations in the kitchen. In the room the tall clock ticked solemnly; a fragment of the log every now and then fell upon the hearth.
Presently he rose to his feet. He heard the click of the garden gate, the sound of John and Louise returning. He rose and stood ready to welcome them.
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Transcriber's Notes:Errors in punctuations were not corrected unless otherwise noted below:On page 5, "unforgetable" was replaced with "unforgettable".On page 51, the comma after "more time here" was replaced with a period.On page 81, "confesed" was replaced with "confessed".On page 97, "he said." was replaced with "she said.".On page 132, "Gaillot" was replaced with "Graillot".On page 241, "carefullly" was replaced with "carefully".On page 269, "tast" was replaced with "taste".
Transcriber's Notes:
Errors in punctuations were not corrected unless otherwise noted below:
On page 5, "unforgetable" was replaced with "unforgettable".
On page 51, the comma after "more time here" was replaced with a period.
On page 81, "confesed" was replaced with "confessed".
On page 97, "he said." was replaced with "she said.".
On page 132, "Gaillot" was replaced with "Graillot".
On page 241, "carefullly" was replaced with "carefully".
On page 269, "tast" was replaced with "taste".