CHAPTER XXXV'TWIXT CUP AND LIP"Oh, please wait a minute," said his tormentor; "I have a great deal more to say before we part."He halted, though chafing against himself for displaying such weakness, and stood, his hands in his pockets, glowering at her small figure, instinct with energy, erect in the sunny enclosure, framed by the grey stones.She smiled at him, a rapt kind of smile, seeming more occupied with her own thoughts than with him."Oh, doesn't it all look different?" she asked."I don't know quite what you mean, but everything is different—the whole world is changed since you and I were last here.""Yes. Utterly changed. The only thing that remains the same is just the very thing I thought would have changed most.""And that is?""You.""Ah, well, if you think so, that only shows what a little duffer you must be," he snapped."All right. I'm a duffer now. That is a change, since you used to look up to me, or pretend you did! However, it doesn't much matter. I want you to do me a very small favour. Walk back with me to Twice-Brewed.""No fear. What for?""I'll explain. I am doing a little tour up in the north—nobody is with me but my maid. I was intending to call at the Pele to-morrow, to leave something there—a little present for Madam and—and you. You were very kind to me when I was with you, and I was so ill afterwards that you never got properly thanked. Now it occurs to me that as we have met I can motor you home, going on afterwards to Caryngston, where I am to stay the night. I have written to the Seven Spears, and Mrs. Askwith expects me. By the way, how were you going to get home if I had not met you?""On my feet, of course.""Well, you may as well come in the car instead."He considered her, half angry, half amused. "You and your car!"She laughed out gaily. "It does seem absurd, doesn't it? But you might come and look at it. It's such a nice one. Don't be disagreeable.""I never need make any effort in that direction. It comes natural.""It doesn't. You cultivate it because you think it's clever, but you are completely mistaken. Now come along, and be thankful I can go on my own feet to-day instead of having to make use of yours.""I'm not sure there's any cause for thankfulness in that.""Oh, youareperverse! You must have got out of bed the wrong side this morning. I wonder how I put up with you; but, you see, I feel a little responsible. Having begun your education and then allowed it to lapse, the least I can do is to be patient with you.""I have frequently met with assurance," he remarked, "but for sheer brazen impudence, I certainly never met your equal.""And I don't think you ever will," she replied, as though highly complimented.Her feet went dancing over the heathery grass, mauve with harebells. Her heart was beating so wildly that she wondered if it could be audible. She had to fight her impulse to turn and cling to him as he strode beside her, gaunt and bony, the marks of suffering plainly on him, but Nin still—the same Nin. She refrained, however. There was something delicious in the present moment. She wanted to prolong it—wanted to know what he would do when he found out that the Pele was his.Suddenly he spoke. "Well, it will, as a matter of fact, be a convenience to me to get back home quickly," said he, "for I have to put myself inside a tail coat and go and dine with the Kendalls.""The Kendalls!" she cried ... and, in the extremity of her surprise, the next words came out without her own consent. "Why, what in the world do they want with you now?"He grinned in the way she knew so well. "You may well ask. Perhaps you haven't heard of poor Noel's death. That leaves me heir to the rotten title, worse luck!""Nin," said a low, changed voice from under her hat, "tell me the truth. Are you engaged to her?"There was a long, dreadful pause. "Yes," he said at last, "I think I am. That is, her father has given his consent. That's what I am going over about to-night.""And you—and you—you could bear—to come up here—withthatin your mind?""I came up here," he answered heavily, "to say good-bye to a dream."They went on for some way in silence. She told herself that no well-conducted young woman could venture farther than she had done in the direction of encouragement. The light went out of the skies, her step flagged, she could have cast herself upon the grass and wept. Yet for very pride she could not say, "Jilt her, marry me!" Had he not sworn with energy that nothing would induce him to marry her?"Well," said she at last, primly. "I can but hope you will be very happy.""Happy?" he said with a fierce little snort."There's one drawback, Sunia doesn't like her. Sunia does like me. You don't know how many times I have longed for her; my present maid is a kind of fish, she never entertains me with spells or mesmerising or fortune-telling or any of the devices to make time pass agreeably, of which Sunia is mistress. I wonder whether I could tempt her with very high wages to come to me and desert Madam!""She won't desert me, even when Miss Kendall is her mistress.""I don't think you need build on that. Miss Kendall won't keep her a month.""Jove! I never thought of that!""Well, I hope you will, under the circumstances, excuse my having proposed marriage to you this afternoon. I can only say in extenuation that I had no idea your affections were already engaged, or I would have been more discreet. Why, here we are already within sight of the inn. What a little way down it really is! A couple more fields and we are on the road! Goddard must have seen us coming down; he has brought the car along, I see."They spoke only trivialities until they reached the gate which the chauffeur held open.Olwen came out in a kind of dream. She felt as if she had been to a function which she imagined was a wedding and it had turned out, as sometimes in nightmare, to be a funeral after all.She addressed Ninian with a self-possessed smile, asking him to sit by Goddard and direct him. Then she got into the car with Parkinson, who proceeded to remove her mistress's wide-brimmed hat and tie her up in her motor-bonnet as they sped along.It was past five by the time they reached the little road that branched off to the Pele. Olwen stopped the car."It is getting so late that, as you have to dress, Mr. Guyse, I will not call upon Madam this afternoon," said she. "I shall hope to give myself that pleasure another time, if I ever come back to this neighbourhood, which, perhaps, is not very likely. Meanwhile, may I trouble you to carry this parcel to her? It is really a present for you, but I think she may share in its enjoyment. Give her my kind remembrances. Good-bye."Tongue-tied before the two servants, he made his adieux. Now it was he whose eyes eagerly sought for a glance from hers, but in vain. She felt as if one look would break down her pride, and that she would show some inkling of what she was enduring. As on the day when he had put her into the train at Raefell, they parted with barely a farewell. In a couple of minutes the car had become a dark speck upon the moor road to Caryngston.... She had but just glimpsed the grey tower—had hardly ventured even a glance, so sorely did she fear to give herself away. Now she leaned back in her corner, drawing down her veil to hide the drops that swam in her eyes, yet not daring to give way or to relieve her feelings by any sign of what she was going through.Caryngston in summer-time was quite an attractive village. Over the porch of the Seven Spears clambered a Gloire de Dijon rose. On the long benches outside the doors sat the hard-bitten northern farmers, enjoying the restful moment. Deb stood in the porch, and her eyes lit up as she recognised the little lady who had come in the snow upon an evening now far back in the mists of that antique period usually alluded to as "before the war."As they entered the passage, whose very wall-paper was unchanged, each moment, each event of the former occasion revived with poignant freshness.Deb had plenty to say, the whole war news of the village to give. Her young daughter had married the bootmaker's son the first time ever he came home on leave. She pointed out the house now inhabited by the reunited couple. "And she's a deal luckier than the most of 'em. Her man's only short of one foot, and that's no matter for the boot trade." It was a comfort to find her so absorbed in what she had to impart, as not to be very inquisitive concerning Olwen's own affairs, after once she had expatiated upon the wonderful fate that had befallen the "yoong lass" in having all that "brass" bequeathed to her.Supper was presently partaken of, and removed. At last, about half-past eight, Olwen was left alone, in the depths of that armchair where once she had sat swelling with resentment at Nin's impertinence. She had told Parkinson to go to bed, and was therefore free to indulge unnoticed in the luxury of red eyes. Her tears flowed fast.What folly had been hers! She had spent such a sum of money as, following on her large disbursements throughout the war, would make a real difference to her—and this in order to bestow the Pele upon Rose Kendall, the odious girl who had treated Mrs. Guyse's companion with studied insolence. Yet she gave thanks that she had given it. In the first passionate tumult of mortification, upon hearing of his engagement, she had been tempted to withhold the gift. She had put that temptation by. Having started to right a wrong, she could give Nin the one thing he wished to have, even though her own happiness proved to have been permanently lost. She had misjudged him, she had been ungenerous, undiscriminating, and for this she desired to make amends. Ninian, at a time when he knew her father to be dead and his own discreditable secret safe, had yet confessed. She in return, at a time when she knew him to be about to marry another woman, and her own happiness to be lost, yet held to her resolution to make him once more master of the Pele.By this deed she felt that she proved herself worthy of him.Though they would never see each other again, yet there would lie between them the memory of high things. It would make a sanctuary of life in the future—that future which loomed before her so long and so dark. As the slow minutes dragged on she fancied Ninian and his betrothed sitting together—left alone, no doubt, by considerate parents, so that they might make love.Such are the torments of jealousy that Miss Innes was quite exhausted by their keenness.He had never made love to her. He had never kissed her!If ever she had hated anyone she hated Rose Kendall at that moment.She felt as if ages had passed when she began to hear the stir which indicated the closing of the inn for the night: the sound of the kitchen fire being raked out, benches pushed back, voices raised and dying in the distance, the opening and shutting of doors. The hoofs of a horse clattered on the paved market stones, and ceased abruptly. Deb rattled some crockery in a cupboard, and her husband on the other side of the house turned a great key in a lock.Olwen must go to bed. She lifted a drenched handkerchief and wiped away the drops which still fell fast. She had extinguished the lamp, and was sitting in the dark. Thus she might slip past Deb without exciting remark.The door opened. She spoke, trying to use a natural voice: "It's all right, Mrs. Askwith; I am not gone to bed, but I am just—going."The door shut as softly, as swiftly as it had opened. The person who had entered moved round the table in the gloom and came close, standing over her as she cowered back into the depths of the big old porter's chair.CHAPTER XXXVIIN THE DARKShe heard the breathing of one who has ridden hard and far, and right through her there shuddered a thrill so exquisite that for a moment she could not move. She was on the point of springing up, flinging herself into those unseen arms, when she heard his voice, low and mocking."You little wretch—you treacherous minx! Don't you think you are the limit?"As in the mile-castle, she had but the time it took him to deliver himself of this courteous address in which to meet the challenge. She did it, however. If she died for it he should not know that she had been sitting there crying for the moon until her eyes were all swelled and her "hanshif" drenched."You must have left your dinner engagement very early, Mr. Guyse. It is barely ten o'clock. However, as I have been travelling all day I am very tired, and I will ask you to excuse me.""You may ask, but you won't get excused," he said rapidly. "What the dickens are you sitting in the dark for? I want to see your wicked face—to see the conscious guilt steal over it! How dare you? Oh, howdareyou insult me as you have insulted me to-day?" With a sudden change of tone he added, after a moment's breathless silence: "How could you plan such a fiendish vengeance?""Vengeance! How fatiguing you are!" said she languidly. "What vengeance should I want? I am giving you what you love most in the world. You always have wanted it—don't deny it! You would even almost, have married me in order to secure it! Only I bored you so utterly! However, if you are talking about insults, I don't think I can beat the one you have offered me. You couldn't bring yourself to marry me, but you can bring yourself to marry a poll parrot like that Kendall thing! Oh,dogo away; I wonder I have the patience to talk to you at all!""I wonder I have the patience not to shake you! ... Do you happen to know where there are some matches?""I'll call Deb and ask for some." ...She rose from the depths of the chair, and found her hands held."Why, you're as cold as a stone! Sitting alone in the dark and the cold—you're actually shivering——""That's with rage, not cold. Good night, Mr. Guyse. Sorry I can't stop and talk to you, but you pay your calls at unseemly hours.""Olwen!" It seemed he was in earnest at last. He had never before called her by her name. "Could you really be so stupid, so utterly unlike yourself, as to imagine that I should accept that deed of gift?"She gave a little low chuckle. "You can't help accepting it, silly.""Haven't you got the sense to see that it must be all or nothing between me and you?""Well, the choice lies with you, I suppose.""You suppose nothing of the kind," he cried in exasperation. "You know that all is out of the question, so it must be nothing from you to me—Miss Innes!"He was so near her that the warmth and energy of him seemed to enfold her. His breath still came fast—and no wonder. The distance between Caryngston and the Pele, though easy in a motor, was a long, hard ride. She knew that he could not have been at the Kendalls at all. She felt that he was within an ace of sheer explosion, yet still he resisted. Wouldnothingbreak down his pride?"Nin"—she threw all the appeal she could into her voice—"Nin, what do you mean? Why do you say that it is out of the question for me to give you—all?""Because you don't love me.""Indeed? And what about you? You don't love me, either."He gave a rough sort of laugh as if of utter scorn. "You unprincipled woman! Here, I have had enough of this bo-peep, I am going to make a light."He let go her hands to feel in his pocket for matches; and instantly she made a dart to get past him. He gave an exclamation."No, you don't!" dropped the match-box and caught her as she fled—caught her in both arms, held her a breathless moment in silence, breathing hard. Then, with a muttered ejaculation which sounded like "That's done it!" he bent his head down to where he supposed the top of her head to be. She had flung back her throat, and instead of the hair he meant to kiss, he found her lips....* * * * *"Well, it's your fault. You shouldn't have said I didn't love you! Such an obvious lie, now wasn't it?"The dark still enfolded them. She lay in his arms; but she could not answer. Life had gone past speech."What is it?" he whispered. "Are you angry? Have I hurt you?"He had to bend very close to catch what she said:"At last!""At last!" he echoed; "but girls are the very queerest! Why on earth, if you felt like this, did you treat me in the old days as though you wouldn't have anything to do with me?""Oh, Nin, it would take such ages to explain. I—I couldn't even begin yet. I'm—I'm too completely muddled.... Hadn't you better put me down now?"His hold did not slacken. "You are such a will-o'-the-wisp that I dread letting you go, in case you slip away into the dark, as you used to do when I dreamed of you at Griesslauen. Let me sit in the big chair and hold you as I did in the mile-castle—my little white-crane lady!" His odd voice held the tenderest, shyest note—both tones so new to her that they caused delicious shivers to pass through her, as if at a caressing touch. He sat down as he had suggested, cradling her head against him, and added with a choky laugh, "Gad, perhaps it's as well it happened in the dark, so that you could forget the kind of scarecrow I have turned into. You saw to-day, though, up on the moor. You once told me that I looked like a demon. An elderly demon isn't at all a charming sight, I should suppose."She slipped an arm about his neck. "You have altered, I won't deny it. But you are going to get back all your looks. Wait till you have had a six months' honeymoon! Even Sunia won't know you at the end!" And there her control gave way and she began to sob. "When I think—when I think—what you have gone through——""It was bad. But it's over. Yes, it was pretty bad. We won't talk of it now. You see, I was only a private. I went and enlisted in the Gordons because I had no previous military experience. There wasn't a hope of my getting a commission; and I wanted to get out there quick. So I did; I was out of England into France, and out of France into Germany before you could say 'Knife.' ... Well, if Germany is going to receive retribution at the hands of Providence for all her misdeeds, it's likely to be a good while before she's through.""You are not to think of such things now, but to listen to me. There is one thing I simply must know. When you looked up to-day and saw me standing there in the mile-castle, what did you think? Now don't tease, boy, tell me really.""I would if I could, but I can't. I felt as if I couldn't feel anything. The only idea left was a determination to keep my end up.""And I was just as determined to break you down.""Much you know about it! Break me down with your flippant Leap-Year proposals, which merely shocked me! ... That was what made me run over my whole list of ammunition and hit upon Rose Kendall!""Nin!" Two hands, which small though they may have been were still decidedly vigorous, went round his throat. "Were you having me on? Tell the truth now!""I can't, if you choke me! Well, yes and no. I was and I wasn't. It is not true that I am engaged to her, but they have been letting me see that they would be pleased enough if it came about. I was thinking that by going there this evening I was perhaps committing myself. Anyway, I thought it just possible that if I threw that stone it might hit you and hurt you, and I wanted to hurt you as much as I possibly could, because I knew I could never ask you, and you had shown such incredible effrontery in asking me! You really did deserve——""But, Nin, you are a perfect owl! If you thought I should mind being told you were engaged to the poll-parrot, how can you say you thought I didn't care for you?""Oh, I don't know! Weren't you sticking pins into me all over?"She laid her cheek close against his. "Effrontery!" she echoed, with a gleeful chuckle. "Yes, I was rather outrageous, wasn't I? Your prunes-prism school-marm asking you right out to marry her! But, you see, you had given yourself away completely. I saw you some minutes before you knew I was there ...and I saw what you had in your hand."She boldly plunged her hand into his coat pocket, but found nothing.He laughed. "Not there, not there, my child. I can't show it you without pulling off my coat and rolling up my sleeve. I've got a 'bracelet of bright hair about the bone' like the chap in Donne's verses ... it went to Griesslauen with me.... Kiddie, this is too good to be true. How nice and soft your cheek is against mine! Just like a peach. Does mine feel scratchy? Bum, isn't it, that it should be such bliss to rub them against each other! Oh, Jove! Here's Mother Deb!"They had but a moment to regain their feet before the sleepy landlady was upon them, bearing a candle in her hand."All in the dark! Then he must have gone," she began, and broke off to continue, in a shocked voice, "Muster Nin, it's time you was a-going.""You'll have to put me up here tonight, Deb, and to-morrow, yoong lass'll be away oop to t' Pele with me. We're going to get wed, yoong lass and me! What d'you think o' that?"CHAPTER XXXVIIVINDICATEDIn the gay morning air the car rushed over the high plain, carrying two lovers to the grim Pele.Olwen had informed Parkinson that she was going to stay a few days with Mrs. Guyse, but that she must leave her behind, as she was not sure of there being the necessary accommodation. She therefore wished her to remain at the Seven Spears until further orders. As a fact, she felt most uncertain of the treatment her maid would be likely to receive at the hands of the ayah.Parkinson listened grimly, with an offended air that made Miss Innes feel that a month's notice must be impending. She hoped it was, for she knew that this woman could never be an inmate of her future home.Early that morning Ezra had ridden into Caryngston upon one of the farm horses. He came to bring news of the sudden grave increase of Madam's illness, and to fetch Dr. Balmayne.Olwen's experience of sickness, gained so recently, caused her to be very prompt in action. She telegraphed to Newcastle for a nurse, begged Dr. Balmayne to send his car to Picton Bars to bring her up when she arrived, and offered to take him now to the Pele in her own fast car, and to send him back by the same means.She also insisted that Ninian should telegraph to Wolf the news of his mother's condition before leaving the town.There was embarrassment on both sides at the first meeting between Miss Innes and the doctor, especially when Ninian, at her special request, announced to him the fact of their engagement.He warmly congratulated the bridegroom elect, but was unable to feel that the lady was to be congratulated. However, he concealed his opinion as best he could. Having regard as much to his feeling as to their own, Olwen placed him beside Goddard on the journey, so that Nin and she might sit together. The night seemed to have worked a miracle in her lover. The light had come back to his eye, the glow to his cheek; he looked ten years younger already, as she assured him when she came down to breakfast and found him hungrily in wait for her. He commenced the day's amenities by the remark that he hardly knew which he wanted most, his girl or his breakfast."I object to being lifted up like a baby," said she reprovingly, as she smoothed her rumpled hair after his fervent greeting."I always did think what fun it would be to carry you about," was the unabashed reply. "I very nearly tried, that last evening at the Pele, when you declared you had a great mind to say 'Yes.'""If you had, Nin, I should never have run away," she whispered. "You could have held me with one hand, with a word, a look. You knew that, didn't you?""No, I didn't. I only knew that I couldn't, somehow. I had to let you go. But in my heart I thought—if you did care—and Sunia kept on telling me you did—that you would forgive me. Oh, my aunt, if you knew how I hoped and craved and expected day after day. It never dawned on me that you would drop me utterly. I don't know what I expected, but not that!""If you had known beforehand that I should drop you utterly, would you still have told Grandpapa?""Oh, I had to tell him in any case," he answered simply.She then described how her grandfather had received from him the impression that he felt no attachment to her, but had been tempted only by her fortune. She made him understand something of her own agony of humiliation, and of what she had gone through before her impulsive flight.He had no idea that Madam had told her of her own loveless marriage—of how another Ninian Guyse had wedded her for her fortune. "It was always running in my head," the girl confessed, "I could never forget the exact words she used—'He was as deep in debt as I in love.' You can understand how exactly it seemed to apply.""The thing I thought you would find it hardest to forgive," said he, "if you ever found it out, was our tampering with your correspondence. I loathed the necessity, but having once started on the beastly plot, it had to be done thoroughly, for we knew we had very little time—you must hear before long that you were an heiress, which would shut my mouth—and, after all our care, the one letter which gave the show away came straight to your hands through Dr. Balmayne! I think the knowledge of that was what made me throw up the dirty game. I said, Providence is taking care of this little girl. Am I such a hound as to interfere?""It was too late then," was her low reply. "You had done the mischief.""I somehow felt that it was so, wild as it sounded. It seemed impossible to believe that you were not feeling something of the storm that was shaking me. I thought if I could take you and hold you tight, I might make you believe in me, even when I had told you the truth. But you were too wise——""Too cowardly!""Too well protected by guardian angels!"So they talked; and by the time they reached the tower they had talked out all remnants of misunderstanding.Mrs. Baxter had been on the watch for the doctor's car, and came out into the courtyard. Her face, as she saw who sat with the master, was a curious study."Why, if it isn't oor yoong leddy!" said she, staring.Olwen, lifted out like a doll by Ninian, and set down upon the stones, ran to the good woman and gave her gay greeting."Oh, I am glad to see you! How's poor Madam?""A little easier-like this morning," was the answer. Nin went off at once to take the doctor upstairs, after asking Mrs. Baxter to show Goddard where to keep the car, and to provide for his sleeping accommodation."Where's ayah?" asked Olwen eagerly."She was upstairs with Madam," said Mrs. Baxter. Olwen guessed that Nin would send her down, but without telling her who was awaiting her. In fact this was just what he did."You're wanted below, ayah," he said to her, when Balmayne had been ushered into the sick room.Olwen stood in the hall, talking softly to Mrs. Baxter, and noiselessly the curtains parted and the little brown face, framed in its saree, made its appearance.The Hindu stopped short. For a moment the surprise was overwhelming. She had wondered what had come to her sahib, dashing off on horseback quite late in the evening, and not returning all night—a thing he had not done since she could remember. Just now as he spoke to her upstairs, the light in his eyes, the thrill in his voice had moved her as she had not been moved since first he had come home from his German prison, broken, changed, despairing.Here stood the answer to the puzzle, and in a swift moment Sunia was on her knees, holding Olwen's hands, kissing them repeatedly, murmuring soft Hindustani words of caressing."Ah, Sunia, you have been at your wicked spells," laughed the girl, "all the time I have been away! I have heard you calling, calling, never ceasing. I have struggled hard, but I am here at last—and I am never, never going away again!"The woman threw up her hands with a wild gesture. "Oh, Missee, my Missee, if only one little week—few days ago! You come too late! My sahib lost his castle! He never be really happy now, even with you!""I'm so vain that I think hewouldbe really happy, even without the castle, as long as he had me! But never mind, dear, it isn't too late! He has got back his old tower all right! Iwasin time, only just in time!"For the first time she saw Sunia overpowered. Sinking to the floor, the woman wrapped herself in the folds of her saree and her thin form shook with the intensity of her feeling."Sunia," softly said Olwen presently, "do you feel better? Can you listen?"The woman raised her face, all quivering. "And I ask my gods to curse my Missee!" she cried in anguish."Well, but they knew I didn't deserve to be cursed, so they took no notice," cried Olwen playfully. "Here I am, alive and well, and all the rest of my life I am just going to try and make your sahib happy. Now you must wipe your eyes and get up, because I have brought my luggage with me, and I am going to stay here."Sunia bounded to her feet. "Ayah dear," laughed the soft little voice, "I am rich now, very rich, and I have a maid who waits on me. May I send for her to come and be my maid here?"Violent rage transformed Sunia's face. "She not come here," muttered she; "I see to my Missee, I dress my Missee for her wedding.""You shall, I promise you," replied the girl, fairly hugging the little woman.It was a busy day. They had the nurse installed by soon after midday, and at about three Olwen was admitted to kiss and smile at her future mother-in-law.Mrs. Guyse was looking terribly ill and thin, but she was fully conscious and evidently took great pleasure in the sight of the girl.Olwen told her that she must make haste and get strong enough to be moved, so that she could go away to the south of Europe and grow quite well. Would she not like that? Wolf could take her, while Nin and she went for their wedding journey.Madam seemed quite pleased, and smiled; but there was a curious expression in her eyes as she turned them on the girl. She pressed the hand that held hers. "You are good and kind, my child. We treated you very badly. You have returned good for evil, and I could not bear for you to be—unhappy.""Unhappy, dear? I hope there is little chance of that. Nobody in the world was ever so happy as I.""I have been very ill," said Madam faintly, "and that makes one think. I have lain here and thought ... and there is something ... something you ought to know. Will you send Nin to me, my dear?""Don't you think," urged Olwen, "that you should wait until you are stronger? It is very likely that Nin will tell me the thing you have in mind. We have had so little time as yet to talk things over. Try not to worry."Madam hesitated. "Well, perhaps. But I think he will not tell you. He has never told me, often as I have begged him to. However, you can ask him. Ask him—as a message from me—tell him that I adjure him, before marrying you, to tell you the truth about—about Lily Martin."Lily Martin! Her name had vanished from Olwen's very thoughts. That story, which had so occupied her mind formerly as to blot out any other idea, had now receded into the dim background. However, she hastened to reassure Madam. "Dear, he told me all about that, long, long ago, while I was here."Madam smiled. "I think not."Olwen's heart beat. To Madam in her weak state she dare not say anything of what she knew. The patient lay still for a few minutes, then in a weak voice, gave some directions. Olwen was to find a key, unlock the bureau in Madam's sitting-room, take thence a dispatch-box, open that, and bring the envelope it contained to her.Carefully carrying out instructions, the girl easily found the required paper, and brought it to the bedside."Open it—look," whispered Madam.Olwen drew from the envelope another, which had been partially burned. This was the remains of a letter which had been through the post. It was thus addressed:Mrs. Ninian Guyse,3, Lockerbie TerraSouthampThe remains of the address had been burned away. She looked at it in some bewilderment."The day that Miss Martin tried to kill herself, she burnt a lot of old letters in the billiard-room grate," whispered the sick woman. "I came in and found this, which had fallen out of the fire. I picked it up, thinking that some day—some day—I would have the truth from Ninian. I hid it carefully, and was thankful it was I who found it. If there had been an inquest, it would have been terribly strong evidence. As it was, it all passed off. I suppose he has been keeping her ever since, and that is how he gets rid of so much money; but I have never spoken to him of it.""Is it his writing?" asked the girl."Yes.""I will talk to him about it," said Olwen quietly; "but I think you may be certain that he is not to blame.""If I could be! In other ways, he has been a good son, in spite of his odd manner. You really love him, in spite of his manners, my dear?""Because of them, I believe," laughed the girl, bending to kiss her and to hide the colour in her cheeks. "I wouldn't change him."She said nothing to Ninian of what had passed until after tea that evening. They had it in the dining-room, and grew very foolish over their memories of the last time they had shared the function.Afterwards, resisting the lure of his desire to play and be silly like two children, she told him there was something she must speak about, of a not particularly pleasant character; and that she demanded his full attention."Madam surprised me to-day," she went on, "by speaking on a subject which I would far rather were not mentioned between us; but what she said makes it necessary that the whole matter should be cleared up. She and you have never understood each other. You think she loves you less than Wolf, because she has a feeling of resentment against you, for making her live here, contrary to her inclination. But that's only partly true. She has something else to charge you with; and she has told me what it is."He was evidently surprised, and asked for an explanation with all the seriousness that she could desire."Before I say anything of what Madam showed me to-day," she continued, "I want you to read a letter which reached me in London some days ago. Its contents may not be news to you. I am inclined to suppose that they are not. The affair had faded from my mind, for the thought of you drives out everything else; but after what your mother said, I am sure you ought to know the whole truth."So saying, she put into his hands the letter she had received from theci-devantLily Martin.She watched his face with acute curiosity as he read, and she could see that he was unprepared for what he found."Wolf's wife!... That girl!" was all he said; but his voice expressed extreme distaste.Laying down the letter he propped his chin on his hands, and puckered his mouth into a soundless whistle; then, flinging himself back in his chair, "This is a facer for me," he muttered.Leaning forward, she laid a hand caressingly on his forehead, stroking back the hair. "Nin, did you know nothing of it?"He shrugged his shoulders. "Honestly, no, I didn't. I don't say that I didn't know he was in some matrimonial scrape, for I did. If it hadn't been that he was not free he wouldn't have allowed me to have the first innings with you. He was awfully fed up about that. He has drained me of every penny I could spare, and most of those I couldn't spare, in order to continue her allowance. He always said she was consumptive, and that it was only an affair of a few years. I never knew it was Lily Martin. Why, she must have been married to him when she first came to us! Help!"There was consternation in his accents. Olwen looked into the depths of his eyes, so limpid and boyish. How could she ever have thought this man untrustworthy?After a while she produced the burnt envelope, telling him where his mother had found it.To her relief, he seemed to attach small importance to it."If she is really Wolf's wife," he said absently, "that explains things. She wrote Mrs. Ninian Guyse on the back of a photo which she must have left by accident in the pages of a book. I thought when I found it that it was just her confounded cheek; but she had right on her side. You know that Ninian is the typical Guyse name in our senior branch of the family. Thus my father named his twin sons Ninian Wilfrid and Wilfrid Ninian respectively, so that if one of us got knocked out the survivor might still be a Ninian Guyse. Wolf's wife might almost as well call herself Mrs. Ninian Guyse as you might. As he wanted the thing kept dark, he would be very likely to use his other name. It was an obvious precaution. As to the writing, Wolf and I write so alike that our hands are often mistaken for one another. There is, however, one letter that we make quite differently, and that is our initial N. I always write it plain like a printed N, and Wolf writes it as on this address. My mother might not notice that, because I am always with her and she doesn't often see my signature. But I think I could easily convince any impartial person that I didn't write that address." He felt in his pocket, brought out some letters from his brother addressed to himself, and showed the initial N exactly as it appeared on the letter. Then he went to the bureau and fetched out a letter which he had just written to a local correspondent. The N at the foot, where his signature appeared, was, as he had said, quite different. "Rather tiresome, isn't it, that I can only clear myself in Madam's eyes by incriminating Wolf? She thinks a hundred times more of him than she does of me. I can't tell tales of him."She contemplated his serious, absorbed face, and laughed out aloud in the completeness of her relief. "Oh, Nin," said she, "youarea darling!"His expression changed like lightning to its most wicked twinkle."Come," he said, "we're getting on. That's the very first pretty name you ever called me—are you aware of that, my porcelain rogue?""I prefer being a school-marm and a white crane and a blue thing with a red nose to any amount of darlings," was her contented reply.
CHAPTER XXXV
'TWIXT CUP AND LIP
"Oh, please wait a minute," said his tormentor; "I have a great deal more to say before we part."
He halted, though chafing against himself for displaying such weakness, and stood, his hands in his pockets, glowering at her small figure, instinct with energy, erect in the sunny enclosure, framed by the grey stones.
She smiled at him, a rapt kind of smile, seeming more occupied with her own thoughts than with him.
"Oh, doesn't it all look different?" she asked.
"I don't know quite what you mean, but everything is different—the whole world is changed since you and I were last here."
"Yes. Utterly changed. The only thing that remains the same is just the very thing I thought would have changed most."
"And that is?"
"You."
"Ah, well, if you think so, that only shows what a little duffer you must be," he snapped.
"All right. I'm a duffer now. That is a change, since you used to look up to me, or pretend you did! However, it doesn't much matter. I want you to do me a very small favour. Walk back with me to Twice-Brewed."
"No fear. What for?"
"I'll explain. I am doing a little tour up in the north—nobody is with me but my maid. I was intending to call at the Pele to-morrow, to leave something there—a little present for Madam and—and you. You were very kind to me when I was with you, and I was so ill afterwards that you never got properly thanked. Now it occurs to me that as we have met I can motor you home, going on afterwards to Caryngston, where I am to stay the night. I have written to the Seven Spears, and Mrs. Askwith expects me. By the way, how were you going to get home if I had not met you?"
"On my feet, of course."
"Well, you may as well come in the car instead."
He considered her, half angry, half amused. "You and your car!"
She laughed out gaily. "It does seem absurd, doesn't it? But you might come and look at it. It's such a nice one. Don't be disagreeable."
"I never need make any effort in that direction. It comes natural."
"It doesn't. You cultivate it because you think it's clever, but you are completely mistaken. Now come along, and be thankful I can go on my own feet to-day instead of having to make use of yours."
"I'm not sure there's any cause for thankfulness in that."
"Oh, youareperverse! You must have got out of bed the wrong side this morning. I wonder how I put up with you; but, you see, I feel a little responsible. Having begun your education and then allowed it to lapse, the least I can do is to be patient with you."
"I have frequently met with assurance," he remarked, "but for sheer brazen impudence, I certainly never met your equal."
"And I don't think you ever will," she replied, as though highly complimented.
Her feet went dancing over the heathery grass, mauve with harebells. Her heart was beating so wildly that she wondered if it could be audible. She had to fight her impulse to turn and cling to him as he strode beside her, gaunt and bony, the marks of suffering plainly on him, but Nin still—the same Nin. She refrained, however. There was something delicious in the present moment. She wanted to prolong it—wanted to know what he would do when he found out that the Pele was his.
Suddenly he spoke. "Well, it will, as a matter of fact, be a convenience to me to get back home quickly," said he, "for I have to put myself inside a tail coat and go and dine with the Kendalls."
"The Kendalls!" she cried ... and, in the extremity of her surprise, the next words came out without her own consent. "Why, what in the world do they want with you now?"
He grinned in the way she knew so well. "You may well ask. Perhaps you haven't heard of poor Noel's death. That leaves me heir to the rotten title, worse luck!"
"Nin," said a low, changed voice from under her hat, "tell me the truth. Are you engaged to her?"
There was a long, dreadful pause. "Yes," he said at last, "I think I am. That is, her father has given his consent. That's what I am going over about to-night."
"And you—and you—you could bear—to come up here—withthatin your mind?"
"I came up here," he answered heavily, "to say good-bye to a dream."
They went on for some way in silence. She told herself that no well-conducted young woman could venture farther than she had done in the direction of encouragement. The light went out of the skies, her step flagged, she could have cast herself upon the grass and wept. Yet for very pride she could not say, "Jilt her, marry me!" Had he not sworn with energy that nothing would induce him to marry her?
"Well," said she at last, primly. "I can but hope you will be very happy."
"Happy?" he said with a fierce little snort.
"There's one drawback, Sunia doesn't like her. Sunia does like me. You don't know how many times I have longed for her; my present maid is a kind of fish, she never entertains me with spells or mesmerising or fortune-telling or any of the devices to make time pass agreeably, of which Sunia is mistress. I wonder whether I could tempt her with very high wages to come to me and desert Madam!"
"She won't desert me, even when Miss Kendall is her mistress."
"I don't think you need build on that. Miss Kendall won't keep her a month."
"Jove! I never thought of that!"
"Well, I hope you will, under the circumstances, excuse my having proposed marriage to you this afternoon. I can only say in extenuation that I had no idea your affections were already engaged, or I would have been more discreet. Why, here we are already within sight of the inn. What a little way down it really is! A couple more fields and we are on the road! Goddard must have seen us coming down; he has brought the car along, I see."
They spoke only trivialities until they reached the gate which the chauffeur held open.
Olwen came out in a kind of dream. She felt as if she had been to a function which she imagined was a wedding and it had turned out, as sometimes in nightmare, to be a funeral after all.
She addressed Ninian with a self-possessed smile, asking him to sit by Goddard and direct him. Then she got into the car with Parkinson, who proceeded to remove her mistress's wide-brimmed hat and tie her up in her motor-bonnet as they sped along.
It was past five by the time they reached the little road that branched off to the Pele. Olwen stopped the car.
"It is getting so late that, as you have to dress, Mr. Guyse, I will not call upon Madam this afternoon," said she. "I shall hope to give myself that pleasure another time, if I ever come back to this neighbourhood, which, perhaps, is not very likely. Meanwhile, may I trouble you to carry this parcel to her? It is really a present for you, but I think she may share in its enjoyment. Give her my kind remembrances. Good-bye."
Tongue-tied before the two servants, he made his adieux. Now it was he whose eyes eagerly sought for a glance from hers, but in vain. She felt as if one look would break down her pride, and that she would show some inkling of what she was enduring. As on the day when he had put her into the train at Raefell, they parted with barely a farewell. In a couple of minutes the car had become a dark speck upon the moor road to Caryngston.
... She had but just glimpsed the grey tower—had hardly ventured even a glance, so sorely did she fear to give herself away. Now she leaned back in her corner, drawing down her veil to hide the drops that swam in her eyes, yet not daring to give way or to relieve her feelings by any sign of what she was going through.
Caryngston in summer-time was quite an attractive village. Over the porch of the Seven Spears clambered a Gloire de Dijon rose. On the long benches outside the doors sat the hard-bitten northern farmers, enjoying the restful moment. Deb stood in the porch, and her eyes lit up as she recognised the little lady who had come in the snow upon an evening now far back in the mists of that antique period usually alluded to as "before the war."
As they entered the passage, whose very wall-paper was unchanged, each moment, each event of the former occasion revived with poignant freshness.
Deb had plenty to say, the whole war news of the village to give. Her young daughter had married the bootmaker's son the first time ever he came home on leave. She pointed out the house now inhabited by the reunited couple. "And she's a deal luckier than the most of 'em. Her man's only short of one foot, and that's no matter for the boot trade." It was a comfort to find her so absorbed in what she had to impart, as not to be very inquisitive concerning Olwen's own affairs, after once she had expatiated upon the wonderful fate that had befallen the "yoong lass" in having all that "brass" bequeathed to her.
Supper was presently partaken of, and removed. At last, about half-past eight, Olwen was left alone, in the depths of that armchair where once she had sat swelling with resentment at Nin's impertinence. She had told Parkinson to go to bed, and was therefore free to indulge unnoticed in the luxury of red eyes. Her tears flowed fast.
What folly had been hers! She had spent such a sum of money as, following on her large disbursements throughout the war, would make a real difference to her—and this in order to bestow the Pele upon Rose Kendall, the odious girl who had treated Mrs. Guyse's companion with studied insolence. Yet she gave thanks that she had given it. In the first passionate tumult of mortification, upon hearing of his engagement, she had been tempted to withhold the gift. She had put that temptation by. Having started to right a wrong, she could give Nin the one thing he wished to have, even though her own happiness proved to have been permanently lost. She had misjudged him, she had been ungenerous, undiscriminating, and for this she desired to make amends. Ninian, at a time when he knew her father to be dead and his own discreditable secret safe, had yet confessed. She in return, at a time when she knew him to be about to marry another woman, and her own happiness to be lost, yet held to her resolution to make him once more master of the Pele.
By this deed she felt that she proved herself worthy of him.
Though they would never see each other again, yet there would lie between them the memory of high things. It would make a sanctuary of life in the future—that future which loomed before her so long and so dark. As the slow minutes dragged on she fancied Ninian and his betrothed sitting together—left alone, no doubt, by considerate parents, so that they might make love.
Such are the torments of jealousy that Miss Innes was quite exhausted by their keenness.
He had never made love to her. He had never kissed her!
If ever she had hated anyone she hated Rose Kendall at that moment.
She felt as if ages had passed when she began to hear the stir which indicated the closing of the inn for the night: the sound of the kitchen fire being raked out, benches pushed back, voices raised and dying in the distance, the opening and shutting of doors. The hoofs of a horse clattered on the paved market stones, and ceased abruptly. Deb rattled some crockery in a cupboard, and her husband on the other side of the house turned a great key in a lock.
Olwen must go to bed. She lifted a drenched handkerchief and wiped away the drops which still fell fast. She had extinguished the lamp, and was sitting in the dark. Thus she might slip past Deb without exciting remark.
The door opened. She spoke, trying to use a natural voice: "It's all right, Mrs. Askwith; I am not gone to bed, but I am just—going."
The door shut as softly, as swiftly as it had opened. The person who had entered moved round the table in the gloom and came close, standing over her as she cowered back into the depths of the big old porter's chair.
CHAPTER XXXVI
IN THE DARK
She heard the breathing of one who has ridden hard and far, and right through her there shuddered a thrill so exquisite that for a moment she could not move. She was on the point of springing up, flinging herself into those unseen arms, when she heard his voice, low and mocking.
"You little wretch—you treacherous minx! Don't you think you are the limit?"
As in the mile-castle, she had but the time it took him to deliver himself of this courteous address in which to meet the challenge. She did it, however. If she died for it he should not know that she had been sitting there crying for the moon until her eyes were all swelled and her "hanshif" drenched.
"You must have left your dinner engagement very early, Mr. Guyse. It is barely ten o'clock. However, as I have been travelling all day I am very tired, and I will ask you to excuse me."
"You may ask, but you won't get excused," he said rapidly. "What the dickens are you sitting in the dark for? I want to see your wicked face—to see the conscious guilt steal over it! How dare you? Oh, howdareyou insult me as you have insulted me to-day?" With a sudden change of tone he added, after a moment's breathless silence: "How could you plan such a fiendish vengeance?"
"Vengeance! How fatiguing you are!" said she languidly. "What vengeance should I want? I am giving you what you love most in the world. You always have wanted it—don't deny it! You would even almost, have married me in order to secure it! Only I bored you so utterly! However, if you are talking about insults, I don't think I can beat the one you have offered me. You couldn't bring yourself to marry me, but you can bring yourself to marry a poll parrot like that Kendall thing! Oh,dogo away; I wonder I have the patience to talk to you at all!"
"I wonder I have the patience not to shake you! ... Do you happen to know where there are some matches?"
"I'll call Deb and ask for some." ...
She rose from the depths of the chair, and found her hands held.
"Why, you're as cold as a stone! Sitting alone in the dark and the cold—you're actually shivering——"
"That's with rage, not cold. Good night, Mr. Guyse. Sorry I can't stop and talk to you, but you pay your calls at unseemly hours."
"Olwen!" It seemed he was in earnest at last. He had never before called her by her name. "Could you really be so stupid, so utterly unlike yourself, as to imagine that I should accept that deed of gift?"
She gave a little low chuckle. "You can't help accepting it, silly."
"Haven't you got the sense to see that it must be all or nothing between me and you?"
"Well, the choice lies with you, I suppose."
"You suppose nothing of the kind," he cried in exasperation. "You know that all is out of the question, so it must be nothing from you to me—Miss Innes!"
He was so near her that the warmth and energy of him seemed to enfold her. His breath still came fast—and no wonder. The distance between Caryngston and the Pele, though easy in a motor, was a long, hard ride. She knew that he could not have been at the Kendalls at all. She felt that he was within an ace of sheer explosion, yet still he resisted. Wouldnothingbreak down his pride?
"Nin"—she threw all the appeal she could into her voice—"Nin, what do you mean? Why do you say that it is out of the question for me to give you—all?"
"Because you don't love me."
"Indeed? And what about you? You don't love me, either."
He gave a rough sort of laugh as if of utter scorn. "You unprincipled woman! Here, I have had enough of this bo-peep, I am going to make a light."
He let go her hands to feel in his pocket for matches; and instantly she made a dart to get past him. He gave an exclamation.
"No, you don't!" dropped the match-box and caught her as she fled—caught her in both arms, held her a breathless moment in silence, breathing hard. Then, with a muttered ejaculation which sounded like "That's done it!" he bent his head down to where he supposed the top of her head to be. She had flung back her throat, and instead of the hair he meant to kiss, he found her lips....
* * * * *
"Well, it's your fault. You shouldn't have said I didn't love you! Such an obvious lie, now wasn't it?"
The dark still enfolded them. She lay in his arms; but she could not answer. Life had gone past speech.
"What is it?" he whispered. "Are you angry? Have I hurt you?"
He had to bend very close to catch what she said:
"At last!"
"At last!" he echoed; "but girls are the very queerest! Why on earth, if you felt like this, did you treat me in the old days as though you wouldn't have anything to do with me?"
"Oh, Nin, it would take such ages to explain. I—I couldn't even begin yet. I'm—I'm too completely muddled.... Hadn't you better put me down now?"
His hold did not slacken. "You are such a will-o'-the-wisp that I dread letting you go, in case you slip away into the dark, as you used to do when I dreamed of you at Griesslauen. Let me sit in the big chair and hold you as I did in the mile-castle—my little white-crane lady!" His odd voice held the tenderest, shyest note—both tones so new to her that they caused delicious shivers to pass through her, as if at a caressing touch. He sat down as he had suggested, cradling her head against him, and added with a choky laugh, "Gad, perhaps it's as well it happened in the dark, so that you could forget the kind of scarecrow I have turned into. You saw to-day, though, up on the moor. You once told me that I looked like a demon. An elderly demon isn't at all a charming sight, I should suppose."
She slipped an arm about his neck. "You have altered, I won't deny it. But you are going to get back all your looks. Wait till you have had a six months' honeymoon! Even Sunia won't know you at the end!" And there her control gave way and she began to sob. "When I think—when I think—what you have gone through——"
"It was bad. But it's over. Yes, it was pretty bad. We won't talk of it now. You see, I was only a private. I went and enlisted in the Gordons because I had no previous military experience. There wasn't a hope of my getting a commission; and I wanted to get out there quick. So I did; I was out of England into France, and out of France into Germany before you could say 'Knife.' ... Well, if Germany is going to receive retribution at the hands of Providence for all her misdeeds, it's likely to be a good while before she's through."
"You are not to think of such things now, but to listen to me. There is one thing I simply must know. When you looked up to-day and saw me standing there in the mile-castle, what did you think? Now don't tease, boy, tell me really."
"I would if I could, but I can't. I felt as if I couldn't feel anything. The only idea left was a determination to keep my end up."
"And I was just as determined to break you down."
"Much you know about it! Break me down with your flippant Leap-Year proposals, which merely shocked me! ... That was what made me run over my whole list of ammunition and hit upon Rose Kendall!"
"Nin!" Two hands, which small though they may have been were still decidedly vigorous, went round his throat. "Were you having me on? Tell the truth now!"
"I can't, if you choke me! Well, yes and no. I was and I wasn't. It is not true that I am engaged to her, but they have been letting me see that they would be pleased enough if it came about. I was thinking that by going there this evening I was perhaps committing myself. Anyway, I thought it just possible that if I threw that stone it might hit you and hurt you, and I wanted to hurt you as much as I possibly could, because I knew I could never ask you, and you had shown such incredible effrontery in asking me! You really did deserve——"
"But, Nin, you are a perfect owl! If you thought I should mind being told you were engaged to the poll-parrot, how can you say you thought I didn't care for you?"
"Oh, I don't know! Weren't you sticking pins into me all over?"
She laid her cheek close against his. "Effrontery!" she echoed, with a gleeful chuckle. "Yes, I was rather outrageous, wasn't I? Your prunes-prism school-marm asking you right out to marry her! But, you see, you had given yourself away completely. I saw you some minutes before you knew I was there ...and I saw what you had in your hand."
She boldly plunged her hand into his coat pocket, but found nothing.
He laughed. "Not there, not there, my child. I can't show it you without pulling off my coat and rolling up my sleeve. I've got a 'bracelet of bright hair about the bone' like the chap in Donne's verses ... it went to Griesslauen with me.... Kiddie, this is too good to be true. How nice and soft your cheek is against mine! Just like a peach. Does mine feel scratchy? Bum, isn't it, that it should be such bliss to rub them against each other! Oh, Jove! Here's Mother Deb!"
They had but a moment to regain their feet before the sleepy landlady was upon them, bearing a candle in her hand.
"All in the dark! Then he must have gone," she began, and broke off to continue, in a shocked voice, "Muster Nin, it's time you was a-going."
"You'll have to put me up here tonight, Deb, and to-morrow, yoong lass'll be away oop to t' Pele with me. We're going to get wed, yoong lass and me! What d'you think o' that?"
CHAPTER XXXVII
VINDICATED
In the gay morning air the car rushed over the high plain, carrying two lovers to the grim Pele.
Olwen had informed Parkinson that she was going to stay a few days with Mrs. Guyse, but that she must leave her behind, as she was not sure of there being the necessary accommodation. She therefore wished her to remain at the Seven Spears until further orders. As a fact, she felt most uncertain of the treatment her maid would be likely to receive at the hands of the ayah.
Parkinson listened grimly, with an offended air that made Miss Innes feel that a month's notice must be impending. She hoped it was, for she knew that this woman could never be an inmate of her future home.
Early that morning Ezra had ridden into Caryngston upon one of the farm horses. He came to bring news of the sudden grave increase of Madam's illness, and to fetch Dr. Balmayne.
Olwen's experience of sickness, gained so recently, caused her to be very prompt in action. She telegraphed to Newcastle for a nurse, begged Dr. Balmayne to send his car to Picton Bars to bring her up when she arrived, and offered to take him now to the Pele in her own fast car, and to send him back by the same means.
She also insisted that Ninian should telegraph to Wolf the news of his mother's condition before leaving the town.
There was embarrassment on both sides at the first meeting between Miss Innes and the doctor, especially when Ninian, at her special request, announced to him the fact of their engagement.
He warmly congratulated the bridegroom elect, but was unable to feel that the lady was to be congratulated. However, he concealed his opinion as best he could. Having regard as much to his feeling as to their own, Olwen placed him beside Goddard on the journey, so that Nin and she might sit together. The night seemed to have worked a miracle in her lover. The light had come back to his eye, the glow to his cheek; he looked ten years younger already, as she assured him when she came down to breakfast and found him hungrily in wait for her. He commenced the day's amenities by the remark that he hardly knew which he wanted most, his girl or his breakfast.
"I object to being lifted up like a baby," said she reprovingly, as she smoothed her rumpled hair after his fervent greeting.
"I always did think what fun it would be to carry you about," was the unabashed reply. "I very nearly tried, that last evening at the Pele, when you declared you had a great mind to say 'Yes.'"
"If you had, Nin, I should never have run away," she whispered. "You could have held me with one hand, with a word, a look. You knew that, didn't you?"
"No, I didn't. I only knew that I couldn't, somehow. I had to let you go. But in my heart I thought—if you did care—and Sunia kept on telling me you did—that you would forgive me. Oh, my aunt, if you knew how I hoped and craved and expected day after day. It never dawned on me that you would drop me utterly. I don't know what I expected, but not that!"
"If you had known beforehand that I should drop you utterly, would you still have told Grandpapa?"
"Oh, I had to tell him in any case," he answered simply.
She then described how her grandfather had received from him the impression that he felt no attachment to her, but had been tempted only by her fortune. She made him understand something of her own agony of humiliation, and of what she had gone through before her impulsive flight.
He had no idea that Madam had told her of her own loveless marriage—of how another Ninian Guyse had wedded her for her fortune. "It was always running in my head," the girl confessed, "I could never forget the exact words she used—'He was as deep in debt as I in love.' You can understand how exactly it seemed to apply."
"The thing I thought you would find it hardest to forgive," said he, "if you ever found it out, was our tampering with your correspondence. I loathed the necessity, but having once started on the beastly plot, it had to be done thoroughly, for we knew we had very little time—you must hear before long that you were an heiress, which would shut my mouth—and, after all our care, the one letter which gave the show away came straight to your hands through Dr. Balmayne! I think the knowledge of that was what made me throw up the dirty game. I said, Providence is taking care of this little girl. Am I such a hound as to interfere?"
"It was too late then," was her low reply. "You had done the mischief."
"I somehow felt that it was so, wild as it sounded. It seemed impossible to believe that you were not feeling something of the storm that was shaking me. I thought if I could take you and hold you tight, I might make you believe in me, even when I had told you the truth. But you were too wise——"
"Too cowardly!"
"Too well protected by guardian angels!"
So they talked; and by the time they reached the tower they had talked out all remnants of misunderstanding.
Mrs. Baxter had been on the watch for the doctor's car, and came out into the courtyard. Her face, as she saw who sat with the master, was a curious study.
"Why, if it isn't oor yoong leddy!" said she, staring.
Olwen, lifted out like a doll by Ninian, and set down upon the stones, ran to the good woman and gave her gay greeting.
"Oh, I am glad to see you! How's poor Madam?"
"A little easier-like this morning," was the answer. Nin went off at once to take the doctor upstairs, after asking Mrs. Baxter to show Goddard where to keep the car, and to provide for his sleeping accommodation.
"Where's ayah?" asked Olwen eagerly.
"She was upstairs with Madam," said Mrs. Baxter. Olwen guessed that Nin would send her down, but without telling her who was awaiting her. In fact this was just what he did.
"You're wanted below, ayah," he said to her, when Balmayne had been ushered into the sick room.
Olwen stood in the hall, talking softly to Mrs. Baxter, and noiselessly the curtains parted and the little brown face, framed in its saree, made its appearance.
The Hindu stopped short. For a moment the surprise was overwhelming. She had wondered what had come to her sahib, dashing off on horseback quite late in the evening, and not returning all night—a thing he had not done since she could remember. Just now as he spoke to her upstairs, the light in his eyes, the thrill in his voice had moved her as she had not been moved since first he had come home from his German prison, broken, changed, despairing.
Here stood the answer to the puzzle, and in a swift moment Sunia was on her knees, holding Olwen's hands, kissing them repeatedly, murmuring soft Hindustani words of caressing.
"Ah, Sunia, you have been at your wicked spells," laughed the girl, "all the time I have been away! I have heard you calling, calling, never ceasing. I have struggled hard, but I am here at last—and I am never, never going away again!"
The woman threw up her hands with a wild gesture. "Oh, Missee, my Missee, if only one little week—few days ago! You come too late! My sahib lost his castle! He never be really happy now, even with you!"
"I'm so vain that I think hewouldbe really happy, even without the castle, as long as he had me! But never mind, dear, it isn't too late! He has got back his old tower all right! Iwasin time, only just in time!"
For the first time she saw Sunia overpowered. Sinking to the floor, the woman wrapped herself in the folds of her saree and her thin form shook with the intensity of her feeling.
"Sunia," softly said Olwen presently, "do you feel better? Can you listen?"
The woman raised her face, all quivering. "And I ask my gods to curse my Missee!" she cried in anguish.
"Well, but they knew I didn't deserve to be cursed, so they took no notice," cried Olwen playfully. "Here I am, alive and well, and all the rest of my life I am just going to try and make your sahib happy. Now you must wipe your eyes and get up, because I have brought my luggage with me, and I am going to stay here."
Sunia bounded to her feet. "Ayah dear," laughed the soft little voice, "I am rich now, very rich, and I have a maid who waits on me. May I send for her to come and be my maid here?"
Violent rage transformed Sunia's face. "She not come here," muttered she; "I see to my Missee, I dress my Missee for her wedding."
"You shall, I promise you," replied the girl, fairly hugging the little woman.
It was a busy day. They had the nurse installed by soon after midday, and at about three Olwen was admitted to kiss and smile at her future mother-in-law.
Mrs. Guyse was looking terribly ill and thin, but she was fully conscious and evidently took great pleasure in the sight of the girl.
Olwen told her that she must make haste and get strong enough to be moved, so that she could go away to the south of Europe and grow quite well. Would she not like that? Wolf could take her, while Nin and she went for their wedding journey.
Madam seemed quite pleased, and smiled; but there was a curious expression in her eyes as she turned them on the girl. She pressed the hand that held hers. "You are good and kind, my child. We treated you very badly. You have returned good for evil, and I could not bear for you to be—unhappy."
"Unhappy, dear? I hope there is little chance of that. Nobody in the world was ever so happy as I."
"I have been very ill," said Madam faintly, "and that makes one think. I have lain here and thought ... and there is something ... something you ought to know. Will you send Nin to me, my dear?"
"Don't you think," urged Olwen, "that you should wait until you are stronger? It is very likely that Nin will tell me the thing you have in mind. We have had so little time as yet to talk things over. Try not to worry."
Madam hesitated. "Well, perhaps. But I think he will not tell you. He has never told me, often as I have begged him to. However, you can ask him. Ask him—as a message from me—tell him that I adjure him, before marrying you, to tell you the truth about—about Lily Martin."
Lily Martin! Her name had vanished from Olwen's very thoughts. That story, which had so occupied her mind formerly as to blot out any other idea, had now receded into the dim background. However, she hastened to reassure Madam. "Dear, he told me all about that, long, long ago, while I was here."
Madam smiled. "I think not."
Olwen's heart beat. To Madam in her weak state she dare not say anything of what she knew. The patient lay still for a few minutes, then in a weak voice, gave some directions. Olwen was to find a key, unlock the bureau in Madam's sitting-room, take thence a dispatch-box, open that, and bring the envelope it contained to her.
Carefully carrying out instructions, the girl easily found the required paper, and brought it to the bedside.
"Open it—look," whispered Madam.
Olwen drew from the envelope another, which had been partially burned. This was the remains of a letter which had been through the post. It was thus addressed:
Southamp
The remains of the address had been burned away. She looked at it in some bewilderment.
"The day that Miss Martin tried to kill herself, she burnt a lot of old letters in the billiard-room grate," whispered the sick woman. "I came in and found this, which had fallen out of the fire. I picked it up, thinking that some day—some day—I would have the truth from Ninian. I hid it carefully, and was thankful it was I who found it. If there had been an inquest, it would have been terribly strong evidence. As it was, it all passed off. I suppose he has been keeping her ever since, and that is how he gets rid of so much money; but I have never spoken to him of it."
"Is it his writing?" asked the girl.
"Yes."
"I will talk to him about it," said Olwen quietly; "but I think you may be certain that he is not to blame."
"If I could be! In other ways, he has been a good son, in spite of his odd manner. You really love him, in spite of his manners, my dear?"
"Because of them, I believe," laughed the girl, bending to kiss her and to hide the colour in her cheeks. "I wouldn't change him."
She said nothing to Ninian of what had passed until after tea that evening. They had it in the dining-room, and grew very foolish over their memories of the last time they had shared the function.
Afterwards, resisting the lure of his desire to play and be silly like two children, she told him there was something she must speak about, of a not particularly pleasant character; and that she demanded his full attention.
"Madam surprised me to-day," she went on, "by speaking on a subject which I would far rather were not mentioned between us; but what she said makes it necessary that the whole matter should be cleared up. She and you have never understood each other. You think she loves you less than Wolf, because she has a feeling of resentment against you, for making her live here, contrary to her inclination. But that's only partly true. She has something else to charge you with; and she has told me what it is."
He was evidently surprised, and asked for an explanation with all the seriousness that she could desire.
"Before I say anything of what Madam showed me to-day," she continued, "I want you to read a letter which reached me in London some days ago. Its contents may not be news to you. I am inclined to suppose that they are not. The affair had faded from my mind, for the thought of you drives out everything else; but after what your mother said, I am sure you ought to know the whole truth."
So saying, she put into his hands the letter she had received from theci-devantLily Martin.
She watched his face with acute curiosity as he read, and she could see that he was unprepared for what he found.
"Wolf's wife!... That girl!" was all he said; but his voice expressed extreme distaste.
Laying down the letter he propped his chin on his hands, and puckered his mouth into a soundless whistle; then, flinging himself back in his chair, "This is a facer for me," he muttered.
Leaning forward, she laid a hand caressingly on his forehead, stroking back the hair. "Nin, did you know nothing of it?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Honestly, no, I didn't. I don't say that I didn't know he was in some matrimonial scrape, for I did. If it hadn't been that he was not free he wouldn't have allowed me to have the first innings with you. He was awfully fed up about that. He has drained me of every penny I could spare, and most of those I couldn't spare, in order to continue her allowance. He always said she was consumptive, and that it was only an affair of a few years. I never knew it was Lily Martin. Why, she must have been married to him when she first came to us! Help!"
There was consternation in his accents. Olwen looked into the depths of his eyes, so limpid and boyish. How could she ever have thought this man untrustworthy?
After a while she produced the burnt envelope, telling him where his mother had found it.
To her relief, he seemed to attach small importance to it.
"If she is really Wolf's wife," he said absently, "that explains things. She wrote Mrs. Ninian Guyse on the back of a photo which she must have left by accident in the pages of a book. I thought when I found it that it was just her confounded cheek; but she had right on her side. You know that Ninian is the typical Guyse name in our senior branch of the family. Thus my father named his twin sons Ninian Wilfrid and Wilfrid Ninian respectively, so that if one of us got knocked out the survivor might still be a Ninian Guyse. Wolf's wife might almost as well call herself Mrs. Ninian Guyse as you might. As he wanted the thing kept dark, he would be very likely to use his other name. It was an obvious precaution. As to the writing, Wolf and I write so alike that our hands are often mistaken for one another. There is, however, one letter that we make quite differently, and that is our initial N. I always write it plain like a printed N, and Wolf writes it as on this address. My mother might not notice that, because I am always with her and she doesn't often see my signature. But I think I could easily convince any impartial person that I didn't write that address." He felt in his pocket, brought out some letters from his brother addressed to himself, and showed the initial N exactly as it appeared on the letter. Then he went to the bureau and fetched out a letter which he had just written to a local correspondent. The N at the foot, where his signature appeared, was, as he had said, quite different. "Rather tiresome, isn't it, that I can only clear myself in Madam's eyes by incriminating Wolf? She thinks a hundred times more of him than she does of me. I can't tell tales of him."
She contemplated his serious, absorbed face, and laughed out aloud in the completeness of her relief. "Oh, Nin," said she, "youarea darling!"
His expression changed like lightning to its most wicked twinkle.
"Come," he said, "we're getting on. That's the very first pretty name you ever called me—are you aware of that, my porcelain rogue?"
"I prefer being a school-marm and a white crane and a blue thing with a red nose to any amount of darlings," was her contented reply.