Anne found herself the first to enter the drawing room that night before dinner. It was still early, barely half-past seven. The theatricals were to begin at nine.
She had her unopened letters with her, and she sat down to peruse them by an open window. The evening sun poured full upon her in fiery splendour. She leaned her head against the woodwork, a little wearied.
She opened the first letter mechanically. Her thoughts were wandering. Without much interest she withdrew it from the envelope, saw it to be unimportant, and returned it after the briefest inspection. The next was of the same order, and received a similar treatment. The third and last she held for several seconds in her hand, and finally opened with obvious reluctance. It was from a doctor in the asylum in which her husband had been placed. Slowly her eyes travelled along the page.
When she turned it at length her hands were shaking, shaking so much that the paper rattled and quivered like a living thing. The writing ended on the further page, but before her eyes reached the signature the letter had fallen from her grasp. Anne, the calm, the self-contained, the stately, sat huddled in her chair—a trembling, stricken woman, with her hands pressed tightly over her eyes, as if to shut out some dread vision.
In the silence that followed someone entered the room with a light, cat-like tread, and approached the window against which she sat. But so overwhelmed was she for the moment that she was unaware of any presence till Nap's voice spoke to her, and she started to find him close to her, within reach of her hand.
She lifted her white face then, while mechanically she groped for the letter. It had fallen to the ground. He picked it up.
"What is it?" he said, and she thought his voice sounded harsh. "You have had bad news?"
She held out her hand for the letter. "No, it is good. I—am a little tired, that's all."
"That is not all," he said, and she heard the dogged note in his voice that she had come to know as the signal of indomitable resolution. He sat down on the window seat close to her, still keeping the letter in his hand.
She made a little hopeless gesture and sat silent, striving for composure. She knew that during the seconds that followed, his eyes never stirred from her face. It was his old trick of making her feel the compulsion of his will. Often before she had resisted it. To-night she was taken at a disadvantage. He had caught her unarmed. She was powerless.
She turned her head at last and spoke. "You may read that letter," she said.
The thin lips smiled contemptuously for an instant. "I have read it already," he said.
She started slightly, meeting his eyes. "You have read it?"
"In your face," he told her coolly. "It contains news of the man you call your husband. It is to say he is better—and—coming—home."
He spoke the last words as though he were actually reading them one by one in her tragic eyes.
"It is an experiment," she whispered. "He wishes it himself, it seems, and they think the change might prove beneficial. He is decidedly better—marvellously so. And he has expressed the desire to see me. Of course"—she faltered a little—"I should not be—alone with him. There would be an attendant. But—but you mustn't think I am afraid. It wasn't that. Only—only—I did not expect it. It has come rather suddenly. I am not so easily upset as a rule."
She spoke hurriedly, almost as though she were pleading with him to understand and to pardon her weakness.
But her words quivered into silence. Nap said nothing whatever. He sat motionless, the letter still in his hand, his eyes unswervingly fixed upon her,
That sphinx-like stare became unbearable at last. She gathered her strength and rose.
"You came upon me at an unlucky moment," she said. "Please forget it."
He still stared at her stonily without moving or speaking. Something that was almost fear gripped her. The very stillness of the man was in a fashion intimidating.
She stood before him, erect, and at least outwardly calm. "May I have my letter?" she said.
The words were a distinct command, and after a very decided pause he responded to it. He rose with a quick, lithe movement, and handed her the letter with a brief bow.
An instant later, while she still waited for him to speak, he turned on his heel and left her.
Very soon after, Mrs. Errol came in, and then one after another those who were staying in the house for the entertainment. But Anne had commanded herself by that time. No one noticed anything unusual in her demeanour.
Nap was absent from the dinner—table. Someone said that he was superintending some slight alteration on the stage. It was so ordinary an occurrence for him to fail to appear at a meal that no one was surprised. Only Anne covered a deep uneasiness beneath her resolute serenity of manner. She could not forget that basilisk stare. It haunted her almost to the exclusion of everything else. She had no thought to spare for the letter regarding her husband. She could only think of Nap. What had that stare concealed? She felt that if she could have got past those baffling, challenging eyes she would have seen something terrible.
Yet when she met him again she wondered if after all she had disquieted herself for nought. He was standing at the stage-entrance to the marquee, discussing some matter with one of the curtain-pullers when she arrived. He stood aside for her to pass, and she went by quickly, avoiding his eyes.
She kept out of his way studiously till her turn came, then perforce she had to meet him again, for he was stationed close to the opening on to the stage through which she had to pass. For the moment there was no one else at hand, and she felt her heart beat thick and fast as she waited beside him for her cue.
He did not speak to her, did not, she fancied, even look at her; but after a few dumb seconds his hand came out to hers and held it in a close, sinewy grip. Her own was nerveless, cold as ice. She could not have withdrawn it had she wished. But she did not wish. That action of his had a strange effect upon her, subtly calming her reawakened doubts. She felt that he meant to reassure her, and she suffered herself to be reassured.
Later, she marvelled at the ingenuity that had so successfully blinded her, marvelled at herself for having been so blinded, marvelled most of all at the self-restraint that could so shackle and smother the fierce passion that ran like liquid fire in every vein as to make her fancy that it had ceased to be.
When her turn came at length she collected herself and left him with a smile.
She went through her part very creditably, but she was unspeakably thankful when it was over.
"You are tired, Lady Carfax," Lucas murmured, when at length she found her way to the seat beside him that he had been reserving for her.
"A little," she admitted.
And then suddenly the impulse to tell him the primary cause of her trouble came upon her irresistibly. She leaned towards him and spoke under cover of the orchestra.
"Mr. Errol, I have had news of—my husband. He wants to come home. No, he is not well yet, but decidedly better, well enough to be at liberty in the charge of an attendant. And so—and so—"
The whispered words failed. She became silent, waiting for the steady sympathy for which she knew she would never wait in vain.
But he did not speak at once. It almost seemed as if he were at a loss. It almost seemed as if he realised too fully for speech that leaden weight of despair which had for a space so terribly overwhelmed her.
And then at last his voice came to her, slow and gentle, yet with a vital note in it that was like a bugle-call to her tired spirit. "Stick to it, Lady Carfax! You'll win out. You're through the worst already."
Desperately, as one half-ashamed, she answered him. "I wish with all my heart I could think so. But—I am still asking myself if—if there is no way of escape."
He turned his head in the dim light and looked at her, and shame stabbed her deeper still. Yet she would not recall the words. It was better that he should know, better that he should not deem her any greater or worthier than she was.
Then, "Thank you for telling me," he said very simply. "But you'll win out all the same. I have always known that you were on the winning side."
The words touched her in a fashion not wholly accountable. Her eyes filled with sudden tears.
"What makes you have such faith in me?" she said.
The light was too dim for her so see his face, but she knew that he was smiling as he made reply.
"That's just one of the things I can't explain," he said. "But I thinkGod made you for a spar for drowning men to cling to."
She smiled with him in spite of the tears. "May the spar never fail you!" she said.
"I am not afraid," he answered very steadily.
It was long before Anne slept that night, but yet though restless she was not wholly miserable. Neither was she perplexed. Her duty lay before her clearly defined, and she meant to fulfil it. Those few words with Lucas Errol had decided her beyond all hesitancy, so completely was she in sympathy with this strong friend of hers. Perhaps her wavering had only been the result of a moment's weakness, following upon sudden strain. But the strain had slackened, and the weakness was over. She knew that even Nap had not the power to move her now. With the memory of his firm hand-grip came the conviction that he would not seek to do so. Like herself he had been momentarily dismayed it might be, but he had taken his place among her friends, not even asking to be foremost, and remembering this, she resolutely expelled any lingering doubt of him. Had she not already proved that she had but to trust him to find him trustworthy? What tangible reason had he given her for withdrawing her trust even for a moment? She reproached herself for it, and determined that she would never doubt him again.
But yet sleep was long in coming to her. Once when it seemed near, the hooting of an owl near the open window drove it away; and once in the vague twilight before the dawn she started awake to hear the sharp thudding of a horse's hoofs galloping upon the turf not very far away. That last set her heart a-beating, she could not have said wherefore, save that it reminded her vaguely of a day in the hunting-field that had ended for her in disaster.
She slept at last and dreamed—a wild and fearful dream. She dreamed that she was on horseback, galloping, galloping, galloping, in headlong flight from someone, she knew not whom, but it was someone of whom she was unspeakably afraid. And ever behind her at break-neck speed, gaining upon her, merciless as fate, galloped her pursuer. It was terrible, it was agonising, yet, though in her heart she knew it to be a dream, she could not wake. And then, all suddenly, the race was over. Someone drew abreast of her. A sinewy hand gripped her bridle-rein. With a gasping cry she turned to face her captor, and saw—a Red Indian! His tigerish eyes gazed into hers. He was laughing with a fiendish exultation. The eagle feathers tossed above his swarthy face. It came nearer to her; it glared into her own. And suddenly recognition stabbed her like a sword. It was the face of Nap Errol….
He was on the stairs talking to Hudson, the valet, when she descended to breakfast, but he turned at once to greet her.
"I am sorry to say Lucas has had a bad night. He will keep his room to-day. How have you slept, Lady Carfax?"
She answered him conventionally. They went downstairs together.
Bertie was in the hall studying a newspaper. He came forward, scowling heavily, shook hands with Anne, and immediately addressed his brother.
"I've just come in from the stable. Have you been out all night? You've nearly ridden the mare to death."
Anne glanced at Nap instinctively. He was smiling. "Don't vex yourself, my good Bertie," he said. "The mare will be all right after a feed."
"Will she?" growled Bertie. "She is half dead from exhaustion anyway."
"Oh, skittles!" said Nap, turning to go.
The boy's indignation leaped to a blaze. "Skittles to you! I know what I'm saying. And if you're not ashamed of yourself, you damned well ought to be!"
Nap stopped. "What?" he drawled.
Bertie glared at him and subsided. The explosion had been somewhat more violent than he had intended.
Very quietly Nap stepped up to him. "Will you repeat that last remark of yours?"
Bertie was silent.
"Or do you prefer to withdraw it?"
Bertie maintained a dogged silence. He was fidgeting with the paper in a fashion that seemed to indicate embarrassment.
"Do you withdraw it?" Nap repeated, still quiet, still slightly drawling.
Bertie hunched his shoulders like a schoolboy. "Oh, get away, Nap!" he growled. "Yes—sorry I spoke. Now clear out and leave me alone!"
Anne was already at the further end of the hall, but Nap overtook her before she entered the breakfast room. He opened the door for her, and as she passed him she saw that he was still faintly smiling.
"Pardon thecontretemps!" he said. "You may have noticed before that I am not particularly good at swallowing insults."
"I wonder if there was a cause for it," she said, looking at him steadily. "Remember, I know what your riding is like."
He raised his eyebrows for a moment, then laughed. The room they entered was empty.
"No one down yet!" he observed. "Take a seat by the window. What will you have?"
He attended to her wants and his own, and finally sat down facing her. He seemed to be in excellent spirits.
"Please don't look so severe!" he urged. "Just as I am going to ask a favour of you, too!"
She smiled a little but not very willingly. "I don't like cruel people," she said. "Cruelty is a thing I can never forget because I abhor it so."
"And are you never cruel?" said Nap.
"I hope not."
"I hope not, too," he rejoined, giving her a hard look. "But I sometimes have my doubts."
Anne looked out of the window in silence.
The sharp rapping of his knuckles on the table recalled her. She turned, slightly startled, and met his imperious eyes. He smiled at her.
"Queen Anne, I crave a boon."
Almost involuntarily she returned his smile. "So you said before."
"And you don't even ask what it is."
"I am not quite sure that I want to know, Nap," she said.
"You are not liking me this morning," he observed.
She made no answer.
"What is it?" he said. "Is it the mare?"
She hesitated. "Perhaps, in part."
"And the other part?" He leaned forward, looking at her keenly. "Are you afraid of me, Anne?" he said.
His voice was free from reproach, yet her heart smote her. She reminded herself of how he had once pleaded with her for her trust.
"I'm sorry I pressed the mare," he said, "but it was quite as much her fault as mine. Moreover, the cub exaggerated. I will fetch him in and make him own it if you like."
She stayed him with a gesture. "No, don't, please! I think Bertie was probably in the right."
"Do you, though?" Nap leaned back again, regarding her with supercilious attention. "It's rather—daring of you to say so."
"Do you really think I stand in awe of you?" she said.
"You are such a truly remarkable woman," he made answer, "that I scarcely know what to think. But since you are not afraid of me—apparently, perhaps I may venture to come to the point. Do you know I have been laying plans for a surprise picnic for you and—one other? It's such a gorgeous day. Don't refuse!"
The boyish note she liked to hear sounded suddenly in his voice. He discarded his cynicism and leaned towards her again, eager, persuasive.
"Don't refuse," he reiterated. "Look at the sunshine, listen to the birds, think of a whole day in the open! I'll take you to the loveliest place I know in this quaint little island, and I'll be your slave all day long. Oh, I promise you won't find me in the way. Now don't look prudish. Be a girl for once. Never mind the rest of creation. No one else will know anything about it. We leave Baronmead this morning in the motor, and who cares what time we reach the Manor? It can't matter to you or anyone. Say you'll come! Say it!"
"My dear Nap!" Anne looked at him dubiously, uncertain whether to take him seriously.
"Say it!" he repeated. "There is no earthly reason why you shouldn't. And I'll take such care of you. Why shouldn't you have a real good time for once? You never have had in all your life."
True, only too true! But it was not that fact that made her waver.
"Will you tell me what plans you have made for this picnic?" she asked at length.
He began to smile. "My plans, Lady Carfax, are entirely subject to your approval. About forty miles from here there is a place called Bramhurst—a place after your own heart—a paradise. With judicious driving we could be there by one or soon after—in time for luncheon."
"Yes?" she said, as he stopped.
"That's all," said Nap.
"But—afterwards?" she hazarded.
"My dear Lady Carfax, if it is to be a surprise picnic, where's the use of settling all the details beforehand?" Nap's tone was one of indulgent protest; he was eating and drinking rapidly, as if he had an appointment to keep. "My suggestion is that we then follow our inclinations—your inclinations." He smiled at her again. "I am your slave till sunset."
"Could we be back at the Manor by then?" she asked.
"Of course we could."
"Will you promise that we shall be?" She looked up at him seriously.
He was still smiling. "If you ordain it," he said.
"I must be back by dinner-time," she asserted.
"And you dine?"
"At eight."
He pushed back his chair and rose. "Very discreet of you! The sun sets at eight-ten. At what hour will you deign to be ready?"
"At eleven," said Anne.
He glanced at his watch. "I am afraid you can't see Lucas to say good-bye. Hudson has just given him morphia."
"Is he so bad then?" she asked quickly.
"No worse than he has been before. Bad pain all night. He always fights against taking the stuff. I persuaded him." He spoke shortly, as if the subject were distasteful to him. "No doubt he is easier by this time," he added. "Eleven o'clock then! I will go and get ready." But even then he paused, his hand on the back of her chair. "Can you keep a secret?" he asked lightly.
She glanced up at him. "A secret?"
"An it please you," he said, "let this be a secret between yourself and your humble slave!"
And with the words he turned with an air of finality and went away.
It was a day in the very heart of the summer, a day of cloudless skies and wonderful, magic breezes, a day for the dreaming—and perchance for the fulfilment—of dreams. Swift and noiseless as the swoop of a monster bird the motor glided on its way; now rushing, now slackening, but never halting. Sometimes it seemed to Anne that she sat motionless while the world raced by her. She had often seen herself thus. And then with a thrill of the pulses came the exultation of rapid movement, banishing the illusion, while the very heart of her rejoiced in the knowledge thereof. For this one day—for this one day—she had left the desert behind her. She had yielded half against her judgment, but she knew no regret. On the morrow she would be back in the waste places where, during all her womanhood, she had wandered. But for this one day the roses bloomed for her and she drank deep of their fragrance. It had come to her so unexpectedly, so dazzlingly, this brief and splendid hour. She marvelled at herself that she had hesitated even for a moment to accept it.
Perhaps memories of another day came now and again to her as she leaned back on the cushions and opened her soul to the sunshine, memories of a day of sparkling winter which had begun in much the same genial atmosphere and had ended in most hideous disaster. But if they came she put them resolutely from her. There was no time to waste upon past or future. For this one day she would drink the wine of the gods; she would live.
Nap drove in almost unbroken silence. He was wearing a mask, and she had no clue to his thoughts; but she scarcely speculated about him. She did not want to talk. She only desired to give herself up to the pure pleasure of rapid movement. She had complete faith in his driving. If daring, he was never reckless, with her beside him.
The meadows were full of hay, and the scent of it lay like a spell upon the senses. The whirr of the mowing machine filled the air with a lazy droning. It was like a lullaby. And ever they sped on, through towns and villages and hamlets, through woods and lanes and open country, sure and swift and noiseless save for the cheery humming of the motor, which sang softly to itself like a spinning top.
They went through country of which Anne had no knowledge, but Nap seemed fully acquainted with it; for he never paused to ask the way, never raised his eyes to the finger-posts that marked the cross-roads. She marvelled at his confidence, but asked no questions. It was not a day for questions.
Only when they emerged at last upon a wide moor, where the early heather grew in tufts of deepest rose, she cried to him suddenly to stop.
"I must get some of it. It is the first I have seen. Look! How exquisite!"
He drew up at the side of the long white road that zigzagged over the moor, and they went together into the springy heath, wading in it after the waxen flowers.
And here Anne sat down in the blazing sunshine and lifted her clear eyes to his. "I won't thank you, because we are friends," she said. "But this is the best day I have ever had."
He pushed up his goggles and sat down beside her. "So you are not sorry you came?" he said.
"I could not be sorry to-day," she answered. "How long have you known this perfect place?"
He lay back in the heather with his arms flung wide. "I came here first one day in the spring, a day in May. The place was a blaze of gorse and broom—as if it were on fire. It suited me—for I was on fire too."
In the silence that succeeded his words he turned and leisurely scrutinised her. She was snapping a stalk of heather with minute care. A deep flush rose and spread over her face under his eyes.
"Why don't you look at me?" he said.
Very slowly her eyes came down to him. He was smiling in a secret fashion, not as if he expected her to smile in return. The sunlight beat down upon his upturned face. He blinked at her lazily and stretched every limb in succession, like a cat.
"Let me know when you begin to feel bored," he said. "I am quite ready to amuse you."
"I thought it was only the bores who were ever bored," she said.
He opened his eyes a little. "Did I say that or did you?"
She returned to her heather-pulling. "I believe you said it originally."
"I remember," he returned composedly. "It was on the night you bestowed upon me the office of court-jester, the night you dreamed I was the Knave of Diamonds, the night that—"
She interrupted very gently but very resolutely; "The night that we became friends, Nap."
"A good many things happened that night," he remarked, pulling off his cap and pitching it from him.
"Is that wise?" she said. "The sun is rather strong."
He sat up, ignoring the warning. "Anne," he said, "have you ever dreamed about me since that night?"
She was silent, all her attention concentrated upon her bunch of heather.His eyes left her face and began to study her hands.
After a moment he pulled a bit of string out of his pocket and without a word proceeded to wind it round the stalks she held. As he knotted it he spoke.
"So that is why you were afraid of me to-day. I knew there was something. I winded it the moment we met. Whenever I hold your hand in mine I can see into your soul. What was it, Anne? The Knave of Diamonds on a black mare—riding to perdition?"
He laughed at her softly as though she had been a child. He was still watching her hands. Suddenly he laid his own upon them and looked into her face.
"Or was it just a savage?" he asked her quietly.
Against her will, in spite of the blaze of sunshine, she shivered.
"Yes," he said. "But isn't it better to face him than to run away? Haven't you always found it so? You kissed him once, Anne. Do you remember? It was the greatest thing that ever happened to him."
He spoke with a gentleness that amazed her. His eyes held hers, but without compulsion. He was lulling her fear of him to rest, as he alone knew how.
She answered him with quivering lips. "I have wondered since if I did wrong."
"Then don't wonder," he said. "For I was nearer to the God you worship at that moment than I had ever been before. I never believed in Him till then, but that night I wrestled with Him—and got beaten." He dropped suddenly into his most cynical drawl, so that she wondered if, after all, he were mocking her. "It kind of made an impression on me. I thought it might interest you to know. Have you had enough of this yet? Shall we move on?"
She rose in silence. She was very far from certain, and yet she fancied there had been a ring of sincerity in his words.
As they reached the car she laid her hand for an instant on his arm. "If it did that for you, Nap," she said, "I do not regret it."
He smiled in his faint, cynical fashion. "I believe you'll turn me out a good man some day," he said. "And I wonder if you will like me any when it's done."
"I only want you to be your better self," she answered gently.
"Which is a myth," he returned, as he handed her in, "which exists only in your most gracious imagination."
And with that he pulled the mask over his face once more and turned to the wheel.
It was nearly two before they reached Bramhurst and drew up before the one ancient inn the place possessed. Upstairs, in a lattice-windowed room with sloping floor and bulging ceiling, a room that was full of the scent of honeysuckle, Anne washed away the dust of the road. Turning to the mirror on the dressing-table when this was over, she stood a moment wide-eyed, startled. Through her mind there swept again the memory of a day that seemed very far away—a day begun in sunshine and ended in storm, a day when she had looked into the eyes of a white-faced woman in the glass and had shrunk away in fear. It was a very different vision that now met her gaze, and yet she had a feeling that there was something in it that remained unaltered. Was it in the eyes that shone from a face so radiant that it might have been the face of a girl?
She could not have said. Only after that one brief glimpse she looked no more.
Descending, she found Nap waiting for her in the oak-beamed coffee-room. He made her sit facing the open window, looking forth upon hill and forest and shallow winding river.
The stout old English waiter who attended to their wants very speedily withdrew.
"He thinks we are on our wedding-trip," said Nap.
She glanced at him sharply.
"Yes, I let him have it so," he returned. "I never destroy a pretty illusion if I can help it."
"What time do we start back?" said Anne, aware of burning cheeks, which he was studying with undisguised amusement.
"Would you like some ice?" he suggested.
She laughed, with something of an effort. "Don't be ridiculous, Nap!"
"I am sure you have never done anything so improper in all your life before," he went on. "What must it feel like? P'r'aps you would have preferred me to explain the situation to him in detail? I will have him in and do it now—if you really think it worth while. I shouldn't myself, but then I seldom suffer from truthfulness in its most acute form. It's a tiresome disease, isn't it? One might almost call it dashed inconvenient on an occasion such as this. There is only one remedy that I can suggest, and that is to pretend it's true."
"I am not good at pretending," Anne answered gravely.
He laughed. "Very true, O Queen! Horribly true! But I am, you know, a positive genius in that respect. So I'm going to pretend I'm an Englishman—of the worthy, thick-headed, bulldog breed. (I am sure you admire it; you wouldn't be an Englishwoman if you didn't). And you are my devoted and adorable wife. You needn't look shocked. It's all for the sake of that chap's morals. Do you think I can do it?"
"I don't want you to do it, Nap," she said earnestly.
He dropped the subject instantly. "Your wish is law. There is only one other person in this world who can command my implicit obedience in this fashion. So I hope you appreciate your power."
"And that other is Lucas?" said Anne.
He nodded. "Luke the irresistible! Did you ever try to resist him?"
She shook her head with a smile.
"Take my advice then," he said. "Never do! He could whip creation with his hands tied behind him. Oh, I know you all think him mild-tempered and easy-going, more like a woman than a man. But you wait till you're hard up against him. Then you'll know what I mean when I tell you he's colossal." There was a queer ring of passion in his voice as he ended. It sounded to Anne like the half-stifled cry of a wounded animal.
Because of it she repressed the impulse to ask him what he meant. Nevertheless, after a moment, as if impelled by some hidden force, he continued.
"There was a time when I thought of him much as you do. And then one day there came a reckoning—an almighty big reckoning." He leaned back in his chair and stared upwards, while the grim lines of his mouth tightened. "It was down in Arizona. We fought a duel that lasted a day and a night. He was a worse cripple in those days than he is now, but he won out—he won out." Again came the cynical drawl, covering his actual feelings as with an impenetrable veil. "I've had a kind of respect for him ever since," he said. "One does, you know."
"One would," said Anne, and again refrained from asking questions.
She was thinking of the complete confidence with which Lucas had spoken of his ascendency over this man.
Finishing luncheon they went out over the common that stretched from the very door, down the hill-side of short, sun-baked grass, passing between masses of scorched broom, whose bursting pods crackled perpetually in the sunshine, till they came to the green shade of forest trees and the gleam of a running stream.
The whirr of grasshoppers filled the air and the humming of insects innumerable. Away in the distance sounded the metal clang of a cow-bell. It was the only definite sound that broke the stillness. The heat was intense. A dull, copper haze had risen and partially obscured the sun.
Anne stopped on the edge of the stream. Wonderful dragon-flies such as she had never seen before, peacock, orange and palest green, darted to and fro above the brown water. Nap leaned against a tree close to her and smoked a cigarette.
She spoke at last without turning. "Am I in fairyland, I wonder?"
"Or the Garden of Eden," suggested Nap.
She laughed a little, and stooping tried to reach a forget-me-not that grew on the edge of the water.
"Beware of the serpent!" he warned. "Anyway, don't tumble in!"
She stretched back a hand to him. "Don't let me go!"
His hand closed instantly and firmly upon her wrist. In a moment she drew back with the flower in her hand, to find his cigarette smouldering on a tuft of moss. He set his foot upon it without explanation and lighted another.
"Ought we not to be starting back?" she asked.
"It won't be so hot in half-an-hour," he said.
"But how long will it take?"
"It can be done in under three hours. If we start at half-past-four you should be home well before sunset."
He smiled with the words, and Anne suffered herself to be persuaded. Certainly the shade of the beech trees was infinitely preferable to the glare of the dusty roads, and the slumberous atmosphere made her feel undeniably languorous.
She sat down therefore on the roots of a tree, still watching the dragon-flies flitting above the water.
Nap stripped off his coat and made it into a cushion. "Lean back on this.Yes, really. I'm thankful for the excuse to go without it. How is that?Comfortable?"
She thanked him with a smile. "I mustn't go to sleep."
"Why not?" said Nap. "There is nothing to disturb you. I'm going back to the inn to order tea before we start."
He was off with the words with that free, agile gait of his that always made her think of some wild creature of the woods.
She leaned back with a sense of complete well-being and closed her eyes….
When she opened them again it was with a guilty feeling of having been asleep at a critical juncture. With a start she sat up and looked around her. The sun-rays were still slanting through the wood, but dully, as though they shone through a sheet of smoked glass. The stillness was intense.
A sharp sense of nervousness pricked her. There seemed to be something ominous in the atmosphere; or was it only in her own heart that it existed? And where was Nap? Surely he had been gone for a very long time!
She rose stiffly and picked up his coat. At the same instant a shrill whistle sounded through the wood, and in a moment she saw him coming swiftly towards her.
Quietly she moved to meet him.
He began to speak before he reached her. "I was afraid you would be tired of waiting and wander about till you got frightened and lost yourself. Do you ever have hysterics?"
"Never," said Anne firmly.
He took his coat and began to wriggle into it, surveying her meantime with a smile half-speculative, half-rueful.
"Well, that's a weight off my mind, anyway," he remarked at length. "For I have a staggering piece of news for you which I hardly dare to impart. Oh, it's no good looking at your watch. It's hopelessly late, nearly six o'clock, and in any case I can't get you home to-night. There's no petrol."
"Nap!" Anne's voice was a curious compound of consternation and relief. Somehow—doubtless it was the effect of thunder in the atmosphere—she had expected something in the nature of tragedy.
Nap put on his most contrite air. "Do be a brick and take it nicely!" he pleaded. "I know I was an all-fired fool not to see to it for myself. But I was called away, and so I had to leave it to those dunderheads at the garage. I only made the discovery when I left you a couple of hours ago. There was just enough left to take me to Rodding, so I pelted off at once to some motorworks I knew of there, only to find the place was empty. It's a hole of a town. There was some game on, and I couldn't get a conveyance anywhere. So I just put up the motor and came back across country on foot. I don't see what else I could have done, do you?"
Anne did not for the moment, but she was considering the situation too rapidly to answer him.
"My only consolation," he went on, "is that you have got a change of raiment, which is more than I have. Oh, yes, I had the sense to think of that contingency. Your bag is at the inn here, waiting for you."
"You had better have taken me back with you to Rodding," Anne said.
"Yes, I know. But I expected to be back in half an hour if all went well. It's easy to be wise after the event, isn't it? I've thought of that myself since." Nap picked up a twig and bit it viciously. "Anyway, there is some tea waiting for us. Shall we go back?"
Anne turned beside him. "Then what do you propose to do?"
He glanced at her. "Nothing before morning, I'm afraid. There is no vehicle to be had here. I will send someone down to Rodding in the morning for a conveyance. We can take the train from there to Staps, where I can get some petrol. We ought by that means to reach home sometime in the afternoon. It is the only feasible plan, I am afraid; unless you can suggest a better."
He looked at her keenly, still biting at the twig between his teeth.
Anne walked for several seconds in silence. At last, "Would it be quite impossible to walk to Rodding now?" she asked.
"Not at all," said Nap. "It is about eight miles through the woods. We should be benighted, of course. Also I fancy there is a storm coming up. But if you wish to make the attempt—"
"I was only wondering," she said quietly, "if we could get an evening train to Staps. That, I know, is on the main line. You could put up there, and I could take the night train to town."
"Oh, quite so," said Nap. "Shall we have tea before we start?"
They had emerged from the wood and were beginning to climb the hill. The veiled sunlight gave an unreal effect to the landscape. The broom bushes looked ghostly.
Anne gave an uneasy glance around. "I believe you are right about the storm," she said.
"I generally am right," observed Nap.
They walked on. "I shouldn't like to be benighted in the woods," she said presently.
His scoffing smile showed for an instant. "Alone with me too! Most improper!"
"I was thinking we might miss the way," Anne returned with dignity. "I wonder—shall we risk it?"
She turned to him as if consulting him, but Nap's face was to the sky. "That is for you to decide," he said. "We might do it. The storm won't break at present."
"It will be violent when it does," she said.
He nodded. "It will."
She quickened her steps instinctively, and he lengthened his stride. The smile had ceased to twitch his lips.
"Have you decided?" he asked her suddenly, and his voice sounded almost stern.
They were nearing the top of the hill. She paused, panting a little."Yes. I will spend the night here."
He gave her a glance of approval. "You are a wise woman."
"I hope so," said Anne. "I must telegraph at once to Dimsdale and tell him not to expect me."
Nap's glance fell away from her. He said nothing whatever.
"Thank the gods, we are the only guests!" said Nap that evening, as they sat down to dine at the table at which they had lunched.
The glare of a lurid sunset streamed across the sky and earth. There was a waiting stillness upon all things. It was the hush before the storm.
An unwonted restlessness had taken possession of Anne. She did not echo his thanksgiving, an omission which he did not fail to note, but upon which he made no comment.
It was in fact scarcely a place for any but day visitors, being some considerable distance from the beaten track. The dinner placed before them was not of a very tempting description, and Anne's appetite dwindled very rapidly.
"You must eat something," urged Nap. "Satisfy your hunger with strawberries and cream."
But Anne had no hunger to satisfy, and she presently rose from the table with something like a sigh of relief.
They went into the drawing-room, a room smelling strongly of musk, and littered largely with furniture of every description. Nap opened wide a door-window that led into a miniature rosegarden. Beyond stretched the common, every detail standing out with marvellous vividness in the weird storm-light.
"St. Christopher!" he murmured softly. "We are going to catch it."
Anne sat down in a low chair near him, gazing forth in silence, her chin on her hand.
He turned a little and looked down at her, and thus some minutes slipped away, the man as tensely still as the awe-stricken world without, the woman deep in thought.
He moved at last with a curious gesture as if he freed and restrained himself by the same action.
"Why don't you think out loud?" he said.
She raised her eyes for a moment. "I was thinking of my husband," she said.
He made a sharp movement—a movement that was almost fierce—and again seemed to take a fresh grip upon himself. His black brows met above his brooding eyes. "Can't you leave him out of the reckoning for this one night?" he asked.
"I think not," she answered quietly.
He turned his face to the sinking sun. It shone like a smouldering furnace behind bars of inky cloud.
"You told me once," he said, speaking with obvious constraint, "that you did not think you would ever live with him again."
She stifled a sigh in her throat. "I thought so then."
"And what has happened to make you change your mind?"
Anne was silent. She could not have seen the fire that leapt and darted in the dusky eyes had she been looking at him, but she was not looking. Her chin was back upon her hand. She was gazing out into the darkening world with the eyes of a woman who sees once more departed visions.
"I think," she said slowly at length, as he waited immovably for her answer, "that I see my duty more clearly now than then."
"Duty! Duty!" he said impatiently. "Duty is your fetish. You sacrifice your whole life to it. And what do you get in return? A sense of virtue perhaps, nothing more. There isn't much warming power in virtue. I've tried it and I know!" He broke off to utter a very bitter laugh. "And so I've given it up," he said. "It's a trail that leads to nowhere."
Anne's brows drew together for an instant. "I hoped you might come to think otherwise," she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. "How can I? I've lived the life of a saint for the past six months, and I am no nearer heaven than when I began. It's too slow a process for me. I wasn't made to plough an endless furrow."
"We all of us say that," said Anne, with her faint smile. "But do we any of us really know what we were made for? Are we not all in the making still?"
He thrust out his chin. "I can't be abstruse tonight. I know what I was made for, and I know what you were made for. That—anyway for tonight—is all that matters."
He spoke almost brutally, yet still he held himself as it were aloof. He was staring unblinking into the sunset. Already the furnace was dying down. The thunder-clouds were closing up. The black bars had drawn together into one immense mass, advancing, ominous. Only through a single narrow slit the red light still shone.
Mutely they watched it pass, Anne with her sad eyes fixed and thoughtful, Nap still with that suggestion of restrained activity as if he watched for a signal.
Gradually the rift closed, and a breathless darkness came.
Anne uttered a little sigh. "I wish the storm would break," she said. "I am tired of waiting."
As if in answer, out of the west there rose a long low rumble.
"Ah!" she said, and no more.
For as if the signal had come, Nap turned with a movement incredibly swift, a movement that was almost a spring, and caught her up into his arms.
"Are you tired of waiting, my Queen—my Queen?" he said, and there was a note of fierce laughter in his words. "Then—by heaven—you shall wait no longer!"
His quick breath scorched her face, and in a moment, almost before she knew what was happening, his lips were on her own. He kissed her as she had never been kissed before—a single fiery kiss that sent all the blood in tumult to her heart. She shrank and quivered under it, but she was powerless to escape. There was sheer unshackled savagery in the holding of his arms, and dismay thrilled her through and through.
Yet, as his lips left hers, she managed to speak, though her voice was no more than a gasping whisper. "Nap, are you mad? Let me go!"
But he only held her faster, faster still.
"Yes, I am mad," he said, and the words came quick and passionate, the lips that uttered them still close to her own. "I am mad for you, Anne. I worship you. And I swear that while I live no other man shall ever hold you in his arms again. Anne—goddess—queen—woman—you are mine—you are mine—you are mine!"
Again his lips pressed hers, and again from head to foot she felt as if a flame had scorched her. Desperately she began to resist him though terribly conscious that he had her at his mercy. But he quelled her resistance instantly, with a mastery that made her know more thoroughly her utter impotence.
"Do you think that you can hold me in check for ever?" he said. "I tell you it only makes me worse. I am a savage, and chains of that sort won't hold me. What is the good of fighting against fate? You have done it as long as I have known you; but you are beaten at last. Oh, you may turn your face from me. It makes no difference now. I've played for this, and I've won! You have been goddess to me ever since the day I met you. To-night—you shall be woman!"
He broke into a low, exultant laugh. She could feel the fierce beating of his heart, and her own died within her. The blaze of his passion ringed her round like a forest fire in which all things perish.
But even then she knew that somewhere, somewhere, there was a way of escape, and with the instinct of the hunted creature she sought it.
"To-night," she said, "I shall know whether you have ever really loved me."
"What?" he said. "You dare to question that now? Do you want to put me to the proof then? Shall I show you how much I love you?"
"No," she said. "Take your arms away!"
She did not expect his obedience, but on the instant he spread them wide and released her.
"And now?" he said.
She almost tottered, so amazing had been his compliance. And then as swiftly—came the knowledge that he had not really set her free. It had pleased him to humour her, that was all. He stood before her with all the arrogance of a conqueror. And through the gathering darkness his eyes shone like the eyes of a tiger—two flames piercing the gloom.
She mustered all her strength to face him, confronting him with that unconscious majesty that first had drawn him to her.
"And now," she said, "let us once and for all understand one another."
"What?" he said. "Don't you understand me yet? Don't you realise—yet—that when a man of my stamp wants a woman he—takes her?"
Again there throbbed in his voice that deep note of savagery, such savagery as made her quail. But it was no moment for shrinking. She knew instinctively that at the first sign of weakness he would take her back into his arms.
She straightened herself therefore, summoning all her pride. "Do you really think I am the sort of woman to be taken so?" she asked. "Do you really think I am yours for the taking? If so, then you have never known me. Nor—till this moment—have I known you."
He heard her without the faintest hint of astonishment or shame, standing before her with that careless animal grace of his that made him in some fashion superb.
"Yes," he said, "I really do think you are mine for the taking this time, but you will admit I've been patient. And I've taken the trouble to make things easy for you. I've spirited you away without putting you through any ordeals of hesitation or suspense. I've done it all quite unobtrusively. To-morrow we go to London, after that to Paris, and after that—whithersoever you will—anywhere under the sun where we can be alone. As to knowing each other"—his voice changed subtly, became soft, with something of a purring quality—"we have all our lives before us, and we shall be learning every day."
His absolute assurance struck her dumb. There was something implacable about it, something unassailable—a stronghold which she felt powerless to attack.
"Doesn't that programme attract you?" he said, drawing nearer to her. "Can you suggest a better? The whole world is before us. Shall we go exploring, you and I, alone in the wilds, and find some Eden that no man has ever trodden before? Shall we, Anne? Shall we? Right away from everywhere, somewhere in the sun, where I can teach you to be happy and you can teach me to be—good."
But at his movement she moved also, drawing back. "No!" she said. Her voice was low, but not lacking in strength. Having spoken, she went on almost without effort. "You are building upon a false foundation. If it were not so, I don't think I could possibly forgive you. As it is, I think when you realise your mistake you will find it hard to forgive yourself. I have treated you as a friend because I thought I could do so with safety. I thought for the sake of my friendship you had given up all thought of anything else. I thought you were to be trusted and I trusted you. Oh, I admit I ought to have known you better. But I shall never make that mistake again."
"No," Nap said. "I don't think you will."
He spoke deliberately; he almost drawled. Yet a sense of danger stabbed her. His sudden coldness was more terrible than his heat.
"But why say this to me now?" he said. "Do you think it will make any difference?"
He had not moved as he uttered the words, and yet she felt as if he menaced her. He made her think of a crouching tiger—a tiger whose devotion had turned to sudden animosity.
She did not shrink from him, but her heart quickened. "It must make a difference," she said. "You have utterly misunderstood me, or you would never have brought me here."
"Don't be too sure of that," he returned. "It may be that you can deceive yourself more easily than you can deceive me. Or again, it may be that I have come to the end of my patience and have decided to take by storm what cannot be won by waiting."
She drew herself up proudly. "And you call that—love!" she said, with a scorn that she had never before turned against him. "You dare to call that—love!"
"Call it what you will!" he flashed back. "It is something that can crush your cold virtue into atoms, something that can turn you from a marble saint into a living woman of flesh and blood. For your sake I've tried—I've agonised—to reach your level. And I've failed because I can't breathe there. To-night you shall come down from your heights to mine. You who have never lived yet shall know life—as I know it—to-night!"
Fiercely he flung the words, and the breath of his passion was like a fiery blast blown from the heart of a raging furnace. But still she did not shrink before him. Proud and calm she waited, bearing herself with a queenly courage that never faltered.
And it was as if she stood in a magic circle, for he raised no hand to touch her. Without word or movement she kept him at bay. Erect, unflinching, regal, she held her own.
He caught his breath as he faced her. The beast in him slunk back afraid, but the devil urged him forward. He came close to her, peering into her face, searching for that weak place in every woman's armour which the devil generally knows how to find. But still he did not offer to touch her. He had let her go out of his arms when he had believed her his own, and now he could not take her again.
"Anne," he said suddenly, "where is your love for me? I will swear you loved me once."
"I never loved you," she answered, her words clear-cut, cold as steel. "I never loved you. Once, it is true, I fancied that you were such a man as I could have loved. But that passed. I did not know you in those days. I know you now."
"And hate me for what you know?" he said.
"No," she answered. "I do not even hate you."
"What then?" he gibed. "You are—sorry for me perhaps?"
"No!" Very distinct and steady came her reply. "I only despise you now."
"What?" he said.
"I despise you," she repeated slowly, "knowing what you might be, and knowing—what you are."
The words passed out in silence—a silence so tense that it seemed as if the world itself had stopped. Through it after many seconds came Nap's voice, so softly that it scarcely seemed to break it.
"It is not always wise to despise an enemy, Lady Carfax—especially if you chance to be in that enemy's power."
She did not deign to answer; but her gaze did not flinch from his, nor did her pride waver.
He drew something abruptly from his pocket and held it up before her. "Do you see this?"
She stirred then, ever so slightly, a movement wholly involuntary, instantly checked. "Are you going to shoot me?" she asked.
"I thought that would make you speak," he remarked. "And you still despise me?"
Her breathing had quickened, but her answer was instant; for the first time it held a throb of anger. "I despise you for a coward. You are even viler than I thought."
He returned the weapon to his pocket. "It is not for you," he said. "I am more primitive than that. It is for the man who stands between us, for the man who thought he could whip Nap Errol—and live. I have never gone unarmed since."
He paused a moment, grimly regarding her. Then, "There is only one thing I will take in exchange for that man's life," he said. "Only—one—thing!"
But she stood like a statue, uttering no word.
A sudden gust of passion swept over him, lashing him to headlong fury. "And that one thing I mean to have!" he told her violently. "No power in heaven or hell shall keep you from me. I tell you"—his voice rose, and in the darkness those two flames glowed more redly, such flames as had surely never burned before in the face of a man—"whatever you may say, you are mine, and in your heart you know it. Sooner or later—sooner or later—I will make you own it." His voice sank suddenly to a whisper, no longer passionate, only inexpressibly evil. "Will you despise me then, Queen Anne? I wonder!—I wonder!"
She moved at last, raised her hand, stiffly pointed. "Go!" she said. "Go!"
Yet for a space he still stood in the doorway, menacing her, a vital figure, lithe, erect, dominant. The tension was terrible. It seemed to be strained to snapping point, and yet it held.
It was the fiercest battle she had ever known—a battle in which his will grappled with hers in a mighty, all-mastering grip, increasing every instant till she felt crushed, impotent, lost, as if all the powers of evil were let loose and seething around her, dragging her down.
Her resolution began to falter at last. She became conscious of a numbing sense of physical weakness, an oppression so overwhelming that she thought her heart would never beat again. Once more she seemed to totter on the edge of a depth too immense to contemplate, to hover above the very pit of destruction…
And then suddenly the ordeal was over. A blinding flash of lightning lit the room, glimmered weirdly, splitting the gloom as a sword rending a curtain, and was gone. There came a sound like the snarl of a startled animal, and the next instant a frightful crash of thunder.
Anne reeled back, dazed, stunned, utterly unnerved, and sank into a chair.
When she came to herself she was alone.