"Well, you can listen to music much better if you're really comfy," said Nan. "Sit down and light your pipe—there, I'll light it for you when you've finished squashing the 'baccy down into it."
Roger dropped leisurely into the big chair, filled and lit his pipe, and when it was drawing well, stretched out his legs to the logs' warm glow with a sigh of contentment.
"Now, fire away, sweetheart," he said. "I'm all attention."
She looked across at him, feeling for the first time a little anxious and uncertain of the success of her plan.
"Of course, it'll sound very bald—just played on the piano," she explained carefully. "You'll have to try and imagine the difference the orchestral part makes."
Switching off the lights, so that nothing but the flickering glow of the fire illumined the room, she began to play.
For half an hour she played on, lost to all thoughts of the world around her, wrapped in the melody and meaning of the music. Then, as thefinalerushed in a torrent of golden chords to its climax and the last note was struck, her hands fell away from the piano and she sank back on her seat with a little sigh of exhaustion and happiness.
A pause followed. How well she remembered listening for that pause when she played, in public!—The brief, pulsating silence which falls while the thought of the audience steal back from the fairyland whither they have wandered and readjust themselves reluctantly to the things of daily life. And then, the outburst of applause.
In silence she awaited Roger's approval, her lips just parted, her face still alight with the joy of the creator who knows that his work is good.
But the words for which she was listening did not come. . . . Instead—utter silence! . . . Wondering, half apprehensive of she knew not what, Nan twisted round on the music-seat and looked across to where Roger was sitting. The sharp, quick intake of her breath broke the silence as might a cry. Weary after his long day in the saddle, soothed by the warmth of the fire and the rhythm of the music, Roger was sleeping peacefully, his head thrown back against a cushion!
Nan rose slowly and, coming forward into the circle of the firelight, stared down at him incredulously. It was unbelievable! She had been giving him all the best that was in her—the work of her brain, the interpretation of her hands—baring her very heart to him during the last half-hour. And he had slept through it all!
In any other circumstances, probably, the humorous side of the matter would have struck her, and the sting and smart of it been washed away in laughter.
But just now it was impossible for her to feel anything but bitterness and hopeless disappointment. For weeks she had been working hard, without the fillip of congenial atmosphere, doggedly sticking to it in spite of depression and discouragement, and now that the results of her labour were ready to be given to the world, she was strung up to a high pitch and ill-prepared to receive a sudden check.
She had counted so intensely on winning Roger's sympathy and understanding—on putting an end to that blundering, terrible jealousy of his by playing the game to the limit of her ability. It had been like making a burnt-offering for her to share the thing she loved best with Roger—to let him into some of the secret places where dwelt her inmost dreams and emotions. And she had nerved herself to do it, made her sacrifice—in vain! Roger was even unconscious that it was a sacrifice!
She looked down at him as he lay with the firelight flickering across his strong-featured face, and a storm of fury and indignation swept over her. She could have struck him!
Presently he stirred uneasily. Perhaps he felt the cessation of the music, the sense of someone moving in the room. A moment later he opened his eyes and saw her standing beside him.
"You, darling?" he murmured drowsily. He stretched his arms. "I think . . . I've been to sleep." Then, recollection returning to him: "By Jove! And you were playing to me—"
"Yes," she answered slowly. Her lips felt dry. "And I'll never play to you again as long as I live!"
He smiled indulgently.
"That's putting it rather strong, isn't it?" he said, making a long arm and pulling her down on to his knee.
She sprang up again instantly and stood a little away from him, her hands clenched, her breast heaving tumultuously.
"Come back, small firebrand!" he commanded laughingly.
A fresh gust of indignation, swept over her. Even now he didn't comprehend, didn't realise in the very least how he had wounded her. Her nails dug into the flesh of her palms as she took a fresh grip of herself and answered him—very slowly and distinctly so that he might not miss her meaning.
"It's not putting it one bit too strong. It's what I feel—that I can't ever play to you again." She paused, then burst out impetuously: "You've always disliked my love of music! You were jealous of it. And to-night I wanted to show you—to—to share it with you. You hated the piano—you wanted to smash it, because you thought it came between us. And so I tried to make you understand!" Her words came rushing out headlong now, bitter, sobbing words, holding all the agony of mind which she had been enduring for so long.
"You've no idea what music means to me—and you've not tried to find out. Instead, you've laughed indulgently about it, been impatient over it, and behaved as though it were some child's toy of which you didn't quite approve." Her voice shook. "And it isn't! It'spartof me—part of the woman you want to marry . . ."
She broke off, a little breathlessly.
Roger was on his feet now and there was a deep, smouldering anger in his eyes as he regarded her.
"And is all this outburst because I fell asleep while you were playing?" he asked curtly.
She was silent, battling with the emotion that was shaking her.
"Because"—he went on with a tinge of contempt in his voice—"if so, it's a ridiculous storm in a tea-cup."
"'Ridiculous'! . . . Yes, that's all it would be to you," she answered bitterly. "But to me it's just like a light flashed on our future life together. We're miles apart—miles! We haven't a thought, an idea, in common. And when it comes to music—to the one big thing in my life—you brush it aside as if it could be taken up or put down like a child's musical box!"
Roger looked at her. Something of her passionate pain and resentment was becoming clear to him.
"I didn't know it meant as much to you as that," he said slowly.
"It's everything to me now!" she burst out wildly. "The only thing I have left—left of my world as I knew it."
His face whitened, and a curious, strained brilliance came into his eyes. She had touched him an the raw, roused his mad jealousy of all that had been in her life of which, he had had no share.
"The only thing you have left?" he repeated, with a slow, dangerous inflection in his voice. "Do you mean that?"
"Yes!"—smiting her hands together. "Can't you see it? There's . . .nothing. . . here for me. Are we companions, you and I? We're absolute strangers! We don't think, or feel, or move in the same world."
"No?"
Just the brief monosyllable, spoken as coolly as though she had remarked that she didn't like the colour of his tie. She looked up, bewildered, and met his gaze. His eyes frightened her. They were ablaze, remorseless as the eyes of a bird of prey. A sudden terror of him overwhelmed her.
"Roger!" she cried. "We can't marry! Let me go—release me from my promise! Oh!"—breaking down all at once—"I can't bear it! I can't marry you! Let me go—oh, please let me go!"
There was a pause—a pause during which Nan could feel her heart leaping in her body like some terrified captive thing. Then, Roger made a movement. Instinctively she knew it was towards her and flung out her arms to ward him off. But she might as well have opposed him with two straws. He caught both wrists in one of his big hands and bent her arms downwards, drawing her close to him till she lay unwillingly against his breast, held there in a grasp like iron.
"Will I release you?" he said savagely. "No, I willnot! Neither now, nor at any future time. You'remine! Do you understand what that means? It means if you'd one day left to live, it would bemyday—one night,mine! And I swear to you if any man takes you from me I'll kill him first and you after.Nowdo you understand?"
She tried to speak, but her voice failed her. It was as though he had pronounced sentence on her—a life sentence! She could never get away from him—never, never! A shudder ran through her whole body. He felt it, and it stung him to fresh anger. Her head was pressed into his shoulder as though for shelter.
"Look up!" he demanded imperiously. "Don't hide your face. It's mine.And I want to see it!"
Reluctantly, compelled by his voice, she lifted a white, tortured face to his. Then, meeting his eyes, savagely alight with the fire of conquest, she turned her head quickly aside. But it was useless. She was powerless in the vice-like grip of his arms, and the next moment he was kissing her, eyes and mouth and pulsing throat, with terrible, burning kisses that seemed to sear their way through her whole body, branding her indelibly his.
It was useless to struggle. She hung nervelessly in his straining arms, mute and helpless to withstand him, while his passion swept over her like a tidal wave, submerging her utterly.
When at last he set her free she swayed unsteadily, catching at the table for support. Her knees seemed to be giving way under her. She was voiceless, breathless from his violence. The tide had receded, leaving her utterly spent and exhausted.
He regarded her in silence for a moment.
"I don't think you'll ask me to release you from your engagement again," he said slowly.
"No," she whispered tonelessly. "No."
She tottered almost as though she were going to fall. With a sort of rough kindliness he put out his hand to steady her, but she shrank from him like a beaten child.
"Don't do that!" he exclaimed unevenly. Adding: "I've frightened you,I suppose?"
She bent her head.
"Well"—sulkily—"it was your own fault. You roused the wild beast in me." Then, with a queer, half-shamed laugh, he added: "There's Spanish blood in the Trenbys, you know—as there is in many of the Cornish folk."
Nan supposed this avowal was intended as an apology, or at least as an explanation of sorts. It was rather appealing in its boyish clumsiness, but she felt too numb, too utterly weary, to respond to it.
"You're tired," he said abruptly. "You'd better go to bed." He put a hand beneath her arm, but she shrank away from him with a fresh spasm of terror.
"Don't be afraid. I'm not going to kiss you again." He spoke reassuringly. "Come, let me help you. You can hardly stand."
Once more he took her arm, and, too stunned to offer any resistance, she allowed him to lead her from the room.
"Will you be all right, now?" he asked anxiously, as they paused at the foot of the staircase.
She gripped the banister.
"Yes," she answered mechanically. "I shall be all right."
He remained at the bottom of the stairs, watching until her slight figure had disappeared round the bend of the stairway.
"Your Great-aunt Rachel is dead, Roger."
Lady Gertrude made this announcement the following morning at breakfast. In her hand she held the letter which contained the news—written in an old-fashioned, sloping style of penmanship on thin, heavily black-bordered note-paper. No one made any reply unless a sympathetic murmur from Isobel could be construed as such.
"Cousin Emily writes that the funeral is to take place next Thursday," pursued Lady Gertrude, referring to the letter she held. "We shall have to attend it, of course."
"Must we?" asked Roger, with obvious lack of enthusiasm. "I haven't seen her for at least five years."
"I know." The reply came so sharply that it was evident he had touched upon a sore subject. "It is very much to be regretted that you haven't. After all, she must have left at least a hundred thousand to divide."
"Even the prospect of a share of the spoil wouldn't have compensated for the infliction of visiting an old termagant like Great-aunt Rachel," averred Roger unrepentantly.
"I shall be interested to hear the will read, nevertheless," rejoined Lady Gertrude. "After all, you were her only great-nephew and, in spite of your inattentiveness, I don't suppose she has overlooked you. She may even have remembered Isobel to the extent of a piece of jewellery."
Isobel's brown eyes gleamed—like the alert eyes of a robin who suddenly perceives the crumbs some kindly hand has scattered on the lawn.
"I'm afraid we shall have to leave you alone for a night, Nan," pursuedLady Gertrude with a stiff air of apology.
Nan, engrossed in a long epistle from Penelope, failed to hear and made no answer. The tremendous fact of great-aunt's death, and the possible disposition of her property, had completely passed her by. It was little wonder that she was so much absorbed. Penelope's letter had been written on board ship and posted from Liverpool, and it contained the joyful tidings that she and her husband had returned to England and proposed going straight to the Edenhall flat. "You must come up and see us as soon as your visit to Trenby comes to an end," wrote Penelope, and Nan devoutly wished it could end that very moment.
"I don't think you heard me, Nan." Lady Gertrude's incisive voice cut sharply across the pulsing excitement of the girl's thoughts.
"I—I—no. Did you speak to me?" she faltered. Her usual dainty assurance was fast disappearing beneath the nervous strain of living with Lady Gertrude.
The facts concerning great-aunt's death were recapitulated for her benefit, together with the explanation that, since Lady Gertrude, Roger, and Isobel would be obliged to stay the night with "Cousin Emily" in order to attend the funeral, Nan would be reluctantly left to her own devices.
"I can't very well take you with us—on such an occasion," meditated Lady Gertrude aloud. "To Cousin Emily you would be a complete stranger, you see. Besides, she will no doubt have other relatives besides ourselves to put up at the house. Would you care for me to ask someone over to keep you company while we're away?"
"Oh, no, thank you," replied Nan hastily. "Please don't worry about me at all, Lady Gertrude. I don't in the least mind being left alone—really."
A sudden ecstatic thought had come into her mind which could only be put into execution if she were left alone at Trenby, and the bare possibility of any other arrangement now being made filled her with alarm.
"Well, I regret the necessity of leaving you," said Lady Gertrude, meticulous as ever in matters of social observance. "But the servants will look after you well, I hope. And in any case, we shall be home again on Thursday night. We shall be able to catch the last train back."
During the day or two which intervened before the family exodus, Nan could hardly contain her impatience. Their absence would give her the opportunity she longed for—the opportunity to get away from Trenby! The idea had flashed into her mind the instant Lady Gertrude had informed her she would be left alone there, and now each hour that must elapse before she could carry out her plan seemed an eternity.
Following upon the prolonged strain of the preceding three months, that last terrible scene with Roger had snapped her endurance. She could not look back upon it without shuddering. Since the day of its occurrence she had hardly spoken to him, except at meal times when, as if by mutual consent, they both conversed as though nothing had happened—for Lady Gertrude's benefit. Apart from this, Nan avoided him as much as possible, treating him with a cool, indifferent reserve he found difficult to break down. At least, he made no very determined effort to do so. Perhaps he was even a little ashamed of himself. But it was not in his nature to own himself wrong.
Like many men, he had a curiously implicit faith in the principle of "letting things blow over." On occasion this may prove the wisest course to adopt, but very rarely in regard to a quarrel between a man and woman. Things don't "blow over" with a woman. They lie hidden in her heart, gradually permeating her thoughts until her whole attitude towards the man in question has hardened and the old footing between them become irrecoverable.
Nan felt that she had made her effort—and failed. Roger had missed the whole meaning of her attempt to bring about a mutual feeling of good comradeship, brushed it aside as of no importance. And instead, he had substituted his own imperious demands, rousing her, once the stress of the actual interview itself was past, to fierce and bitter revolt. No matter what happened in the future, she must get away now—snatch a brief respite from the daily strain of her life at the Hall.
But with an oddly persistent determination she put away from her all thought of breaking off her engagement. To most women similarly situated this would have been the obvious and simplest solution of the problem. But it seemed to Nan that her compact with Roger demanded a finer, more closely-knit interpretation of the word honour than would have been necessary in the case of an engagement entered into under different circumstances. The personal emergency which had driven her into giving Roger her promise weighed heavily upon her, and she felt that nothing less than his own consent would entitle her to break her pledge to him. When she gave it she had thought she was buying safety for herself and happiness for Penelope—cutting the tangled threads in which she found herself so inextricably involved—and now, as Lord St. John had reminded her, she could not honourably refuse to pay the price. She could not plead that she had mistaken her feelings towards him. She had pledged her word to him, open-eyed, and she was not free, as other women might be, to retract the promise she had given.
Added to this, Roger's sheer, dominant virility had imbued her with a fatalistic sense of her total inability to escape him. She had had a glimpse of the primitive man in him—of the man with the club. Even were she to violate her conscience sufficiently to end the engagement between them, she knew perfectly well that he would refuse to accept or acknowledge any such termination. Wherever she hid herself he would find out her hiding-place and come in search of her, and insist upon the fulfilment of her promise. And supposing that, in desperation, she married someone else, what was it he had said? "I swear to you if any man takes you from me I'll kill him first and you after!"
So, there was no escape for her. Roger would dog her footsteps round the world and back again sooner than let her go free of him. In a vaguely aloof and apathetic manner she felt as though it was her destiny to marry him. And no one can escape from destiny. Life had shown her many beautiful things—even that rarest thing of all, a beautiful and unselfish love. But it had shown them only to snatch them away again once she had learned to value them.
If only she had never met Peter, never known the secret wonder and glory, the swift, sudden strength, the exquisite mingling of passion and selflessness which go to the making of the highest in love, she might have been content to become Roger's wife and bear his children.
His big strength and virile, primitive possessiveness would appeal to many women, and Nan reflected that had she cared for him it would have been easy enough to tame him—with his tempestuous love, his savage temper, and his shamefaced "little boy" repentances! A woman who loved him in return might have led him by a thread of gossamer! It was the very fact that Nan did not love him, and that he knew it, which drove the brute in him uppermost in his dealings with her. He wanted tomakeher care, to bend her to his will, to force from her some response to his own over-mastering passion.
Wearily she faced the situation for the hundredth time and knew that in the long run she must abide by it. She had learned not to cry for the moon any longer. She wanted nothing now either in this world or the next except the love that was denied her.
Her thoughts went back to the day when she and Peter had first met and driven together through the twilit countryside to Abbencombe. She remembered the sudden sadness which had fallen upon him and how she had tried to cheer him by repeating the verses of a little song. It all seemed very long ago:
"But sometimes God on His great white ThroneLooks down from the Heaven above,And lays in the hands that are emptyThe tremulous Star of Love."
The words seemed to speak themselves in her brain just as she herself had spoken them that day, with the car slipping swiftly through the winter dusk. She could feel again the throb of the engine—see Peter's whimsical grey-blue eyes darken suddenly to a stern and tragic gravity.
For him and for her there could be no star. To the end of life they two must go empty-handed.
The big limousine was already at the door when Lady Gertrude and Isobel, clothed from head to foot in sombre black, descended from their respective rooms. Roger, also clad in the same funereal hue and wearing a black tie—and looking as though his garments afforded him the acme of mental discomfort—stood waiting for them, together with Nan, in the hall.
Lady Gertrude bestowed one of her chilly kisses upon her son's fiancée and stepped into the car, Isobel followed, and Roger, with a muttered: "Confound Great-aunt Rachel's fortune!" brought up the rear. A minute later the car and its black-garbed occupants disappeared down the drive.
Nan turned back into the house. There was a curiously lightened feeling in the atmosphere, she thought—as though someone had lifted the roof of a dungeon and let in the sunlight and fresh air. She stretched her arms luxuriously above her head and exhaled a long sigh of relief. Then, running like a child let out of school, she fled down the long hall to the telephone stand. Lifting the receiver, her fingers fairly danced upon the forked clip which had held it.
Her imperative summons was answered with a most unusual promptness by the exchange—it was going to be a lucky day altogether, she told herself. Demanding, "Trunks, please!" she gave the number of the Edenhall flat and prepared to possess her soul in patience till her call came through.
At lunch she was almost too excited to eat, and when finally Morton, entering quietly, announced: "You are wanted on the telephone, miss," she hardly waited to hear the end of the sentence but flew past him to the telephone stand and snatched up the instrument.
"Hello! Hello! That you, Penny? . . . Yes, ofcourseit's Nan! Oh, my dear, I'm so glad you're back! Listen. I want to run up to town for a few days. . . . Yes. Roger's away. They're all away. . . . You can put me up? To-morrow? Thanks awfully, Penny. . . . Yes, Waterloo. At 4.16. Good-bye. Give my love to Ralph. . . . Good-bye."
She hung up the receiver and, returning to the dining-room, made a pretence of finishing her lunch. Afterwards, with as much composure as she could muster up—seeing that she wanted to dance and sing out of pure happiness—she informed Morton that she had been called away suddenly to London and would require the car early the next morning to take her to the station. Whatever curiosity Morton may have felt concerning this unexpected announcement, he concealed it admirably, merely replying with his usual imperturbability: "Very good, miss."
"I'm leaving a letter for Mr. Trenby—to explain. See that he has it as soon as he gets back to-morrow."
And once again Morton answered respectfully:
"Very good, miss."
The writing of the letter did not occupy much time. She reflected that she must take one of two courses. Either she must write him at length, explaining everything—and somehow she felt it would be impossible to explain to Roger her desperate need for flight, for a respite from things as they were—or she must leave a brief note merely stating that she had gone away. She decided on the latter and after several abortive attempts, which found their ultimate fate in the fire, she achieved the following telegraphic epistle:
"DEAR ROGER,—Have gone to town. Stopping with Penelope.—NAN."
Afterwards she packed with gleeful hands. It seemed too good to be true that in twenty-four hours she would actually find herself back in London—away from this gloomy, tree-girdled house with its depressing atmosphere both outside and in, away from Lady Gertrude's scathing tongue and Isobel's two-edged speeches, and, above all, secure for a time from Roger's tumultuous love-making and his unuttered demand for so much more than she could ever give him.
She craved for the rush and bustle of London, for the play that might keep her from thinking, the music which should minister to her soul, and, more than all, she longed to see the beloved familiar faces—to see Penelope and Ralph and Lord St. John. She felt as though for the last three months she had been dwelling in some dreadful unknown world, with only boy Sandy to cling to out of the whole unnerving chaos.
* * * * * *
"You blessed child! Iamglad to see you!"
Penelope, looking the happiest and most blooming of youthful matrons, was on the platform when the Cornish express steamed into Waterloo station and Nan alighted from it. The two girls embraced warmly.
"You can't—you can't possibly be as glad as I am, Penny mine," returned Nan. "Hmf!"—wrinkling up her nose. "Hownice London smells!"
Penelope burst out laughing. Nan nodded at her seriously.
"I mean it. You've no idea how good that smoky, petrolly smell is after the innocuous breezes of the country. It's full of gorgeous suggestions of cars and people and theatres and—and life!"
They hurried to the other end of the platform where the porters were disinterring the luggage from the van and dumping it down on the platform with a splendid disregard for the longevity of the various trunks and suit-cases they handled. Nan's attendant porter quickly extricated her baggage from the motley pile, and very soon she and Penelope were speeding away from the station as fast as their chauffeur—whose apparent recklessness was fortunately counter-balanced by consummate skill—could take them.
"How nice and familiar it all looks," said Nan, as the car granted up the Haymarket. "And it's heavenly to be going back to the dear old flat. Whereabouts are you looking for a house, by the way?"
"Somewhere in Hampstead, we think, where the air—and the rents!—are more salubrious than nearer in."
"Of course." Nan nodded. "All singers live at Hampstead. You'd be quite unfashionable if you didn't. I suppose you and Ralph are frightfully busy?"
"Yes. But we're free to-night, luckily. So we can yarn to our hearts' content. To-morrow evening we're both singing at the Albert Hall. And, oh, in the afternoon we're going to tea at Maryon's studio. His new picture's on view—private, of course."
"What new picture?"
"His portrait of the famous American beauty, Mrs. T. Van Decken. I believe she paid a fabulous sum for it; Maryon's all the rage now, you know. So he asked us to come down and see it before it's shipped off to New York. By the way, he enquired after you in his letter—I've got it with me somewhere. Oh, yes, here it is! He says: 'What news have you of Nan? I've lost sight of her since her engagement. But now it seems likely I shall be seeing her again before any of you.' I can't think what he means by that."
"Nor I," said Nan, somewhat mystified. "But anyway," she added, smiling, "he will be seeing me even sooner than he anticipates. How has his marriage turned out?"
Penelope laughed.
"Very much as one might have expected. They live most amicably—apart!"
"They've surely not quarrelled already?"
"Oh, no, they've not quarrelled. But of course they didn't fit into each other's scheme of life one bit, and they've re-arranged matters to suit their own convenience. She's in the south of France just now, and when she comes to town they'll meet quite happily and visit at each other's houses. She has a palatial sort of place in Mayfair, you know, while Maryon has a duck of a house in Westminster."
"How very modern!" commented Nan, smiling. "And—how like Maryon!"
"Just like him, isn't it? And"—drily—"it was just like him, too, to see that the marriage settlement arrangements were all quite water-tight. However, on the whole, it's a fair bargain between them. She rejoices in the honour and glory of being a well-known artist's wife, while he has rather more money than is good for him."
Ralph, broadened out a bit since his successful trip to America, was on the steps of the Mansions to welcome them, and the lift conveyed them all three up to the flat—the dear, home-like flat of which Nan felt she loved every inch.
"You're in your old room," Penelope told her, and Nan gave vent to a crow of delight.
Dinner was a delightful meal, full of the familiar gossip of the artistes' room, and the news of old friends, and fervent discussions on matters musical and artistic, with running through it all a ripple of humour and the cheery atmosphere of camaraderie and good-fellowship. When it was over, the three drew cosily together round the fire in Ralph's den. Nan sank into her chair with a blissful sigh.
"That's not a sigh of repletion, Penny," she explained. "Though really your cook might have earned it? . . . But oh!isn'tthis nice?" Inwardly she was reflecting that at just about this time Roger, together with Lady Gertrude and Isobel, would be returning from Great-aunt Rachel's funeral, only to learn of her own flight from Trenby Hall.
"Yes," agreed Penelope. "It really was angelic of Roger to spare you at a moment's notice."
Nan gave a grim little smile.
"You dear innocent! Roger—didn't know—I was coming."
"What!"
"No, I just thought I'd come . . . and he—they were all away . . . and I came! I left a note behind, telling him I was going to stay with you. So he won't be anxious!"
"Roger didn't know you were coming!" repeated Penelope. "Nan"—a sudden light illuminating the dark places—"have you had a quarrel?"
"Yes"—shortly. "A sort of quarrel."
"And you came straight off here? . . . Oh, Nan, what a fool's trick!He will be furious!"
Once or twice Penelope had caught a glimpse of that hot-headed temper which lay hidden beneath Roger's somewhat blunt exterior.
"Lady Gertrude will be furious!" murmured Nan reminiscently.
"I think she'll have the right to be," answered Penelope, with quiet rebuke in her tones. "It really was abominable of you to run away like that."
Nan shrugged her shoulders, and Ralph looked across at her, smiling broadly.
"You're a very exasperating young person, Nan," he said. "If you were going to be my wife, I believe I should beat you."
"Well, that would at least break the monotony of things," she retorted. But her lips set themselves in a straight, hard, line at the remembrance of Roger's stormy threat: "I might even do that."
"Is it monotony you're suffering from?" asked Ralph quickly.
She nodded.
"I'm fed up with the country and its green fields—never anything but green fields! They're so eternally,damnablygreen!"
"Oh, Nan! And the scenery in Cornwall is perfectly lovely!" protestedPenelope feebly.
"Man cannot live by bread alone, Penny—nor scenery either. I just yearned for London. So I came."
The next morning, much to Nan's surprise, brought neither letter nor telegram from Roger.
"I quite expected a wire: 'Return at once. All will be forgiven,'" she said frivolously, as lunch time came and still no message.
"Perhaps he isn't prepared to forgive you," suggested Ralph.
Nan stared at him without answering, her eyes dilating curiously. She had never even dreamed of such a possibility, and a sudden wild hope flamed up within her.
"It's rather a knock to a man's pride, you know, if the girl he's engaged to does a bolt the moment his back's turned," pursued Ralph.
"It was madness!" said Penelope with the calmness of despair.
Nan remained silent. Neither their praise nor blame would have affected her one iota at the moment. All that mattered was whether, without in the least intending to do it, she had cut the cords which bound her so irrevocably. Was it conceivable that Roger's pride would be so stung by her action in running away from Trenby Hall during his absence that he would never wish to see her again—far less make her his wife?
She had never contemplated the matter from that angle. But now, as Ralph put it before her, she realised that the attitude he indicated might reasonably be that of most men in similar circumstances.
Her heart beat deliriously at the very thought. If release came this way—by Roger's own decision—she would be free to take it! The price of the blunder she had made when she pledged herself to him—a price which was so much heavier than she could possibly have imagined—would be remitted.
And from the depths of her soul a fervent, disjointed prayer went up to heaven:
"God, God, please don't let him forgive me—don't let him ever forgive me!"
Nan was rather silent as the Fentons' big car purred its way through the crowded streets towards Westminster. For the moment the possible consequences of her flight from Trenby Hall had been thrust aside into a corner of her mind and her thoughts had slipped back to that last meeting with Maryon, when she had shown him so unmistakably that she, at least, had ceased to care.
She had hated him at the moment, rejoicing to be free from the strange, perverse attraction he held for her. But, viewed through the softening mists of memory, a certain romance and charm seemed to cling about those days when she had hovered on the border-line of love for him, and her heart beat a little faster at the thought of meeting him again.
Ralph Fenton had only a vague knowledge of the affair, but he dimly recollected that there had been something—a passing flirtation, he fancied—between Maryon and Nan in bygone days, and he proceeded to chaff her gently on the subject as they drove to the studio.
"Poor old Rooke will get a shock, Nan, when we dump you on to him this afternoon," he said. "He won't be anticipating the arrival of an old flame."
She flushed a little, and Ralph continued teasingly:
"You'll really have to be rather nice to him! He's paid pretty dearly for his foolishness in bartering love for filthy lucre."
Penelope frowned at her husband, much as one endeavours to frown down the observations of anenfant terrible.
"Don't be such an idiot, Ralph," she said severely.
He grinned delightedly.
"Old fires die hard, Penny. Do you think it is quite right of us to introduce Nan on the scene again? She's forbidden fruit now, remember."
"And doubtless Maryonwillremember it," retorted Penelope tartly.
"I think," pursued Fenton, "it's not unlike inserting a match into a powder barrel. Rooke"—reflectively—"always reminds me somewhat of a powder barrel. And Nan is by no means a safety match—warranted to produce a light from the legitimate box and none other!"
"I wish," observed Nan plaintively, "that you wouldn't discuss me just as if I weren't here."
They all laughed, and then, as the car slowed down to a standstill atMaryon's door, the conversation came to an end.
Rooke had established himself in one of the big and comparatively inexpensive houses in Westminster, in that pleasant, quiet backwater which lies within the shadow of the beautiful old Abbey, away from the noisy stream of general traffic. The house had formerly been the property of another artist who had built on to it a large and well-equipped studio, so that Rooke had been singularly fortunate in his purchase.
Nan looked about her with interest as the door swung open, admitting them into a fair-sized hall. The thick Eastern carpet, the dim, blue-grey hangings on the walls, the quaint brazen lamps—hushing the modern note of electric light behind their thick glass panes—spoke eloquently of Maryon. A faint fragrance of cedar tinged the atmosphere.
The parlourmaid—unmistakably a twentieth-century product—conducted them into a beautiful Old English room, its walls panelled in dark oak, while heavy oaken beams traversed the ceiling. Logs burned merrily on the big open hearth, throwing up showers of golden sparks. Above the chimneypiece there was a wonderful old plaster coat-of-arms, dating back to the seventeenth century, and the watery gleams of sunshine, filtering in through the diamond panes of latticed windows, fell lingeringly on the waxen surface of an ancient dresser. On the dresser shelves were lodged some willow-pattern plates, their clear, tender blue bearing witness to an early period.
"How like Maryon it all is!" whispered Nan.
And just then Rooke himself came into the room. He had altered very little. It was the same supple, loose-limbed figure that approached. The pointed Van Dyck beard was as carefully trimmed, the hazel eyes, with their misleading softness of appeal, as arresting as of old. Perhaps he bore himself with a little more assurance. There might have been a shade less of the Bohemian and a shade more of the successful artist about him.
But Rooke would never suffer from the inordinate complacency which spoils so many successful men. Always it would be tempered by that odd, cynical humour of his. Beautiful ladies who gushed at him merely amused him, and received in return some charming compliment or other that rang as hollow as a kettle-drum. Politicians who came to him for their portraits were gently made to feel that their favourite oratorical attitude—which they inevitably assumed when asked to pose themselves quite naturally—was not really overwhelmingly effective, while royalties who perforce condescended to attend his studio—since he flatly declined to paint them in their palaces—found that he was inclined to overlook the matter of their royal blood and to portray them as though they were merely men and women.
There was an amusing little story going the rounds in connection with a certain peeress—one of the "new rich" fraternity—who had recently sat to Rooke for her portrait. Her husband's title had presumably been conferred in recognition of the arduous services—of an industrial and financial nature—which he had rendered during the war. The lady was inclined to be refulgent on the slightest provocation, and when Rooke had discussed with her his ideas for her portrait she had indignantly repudiated his suggestion that only a simple evening gown and furs should be worn.
"But it will look like the picture of a mere nobody," she had protested. "Of—of just anyone!"
"Of anyone—or someone," came Rooke's answer. "The portrait of a great lady should be able to indicate . . . which."
The newly-fledged peeress proceeded to explain that her own idea had been that she should be painted wearing her state robes and coronet—plus any additional jewels which could find place on her person.
Maryon bowed affably.
"But, by all means," he agreed. "Only, if it is of them you require a portrait, you must go to Grégoire Marni. He paints still-life."
Rooke came into the room and greeted his visitors with outstretched hands.
"My dear Penelope and Ralph," he began cordially. "This is good of busy people like yourselves—"
He caught sight of the third figure standing a little behind theFentons and stopped abruptly. His eyes seemed to flinch for a moment.Then he made a quick step forward.
"Why, Nan!" he exclaimed. "This is a most charming surprise."
His voice and manner were perfectly composed; only his intense paleness and the compression of his fine-cut nostrils betrayed any agitation. Nan had seen that "white" look on his face before.
Then Penelope rushed in with some commonplace remark and the brief tension was over.
"Come and see my Mrs. T. Van Decken," said Rooke presently. "The light's pretty fair now, but it will be gone after tea."
They trooped out of the room and into the studio, where several other people, who had already examined the great portrait, were still strolling about looking at various paintings and sketches.
It was a big bare barn of a place with its cold north light, for Rooke, sybarite as he was in other respects, treated his work from a Spartan standpoint which permitted necessities only in his studio.
"Empty great barrack, isn't it?" he said to Nan. "But I can't bear to be crowded up with extraneous hangings and draperies like some fellows. It stifles me."
She nodded sympathetically.
"I know. I like an empty music-room."
"You still work? Ah, that's good. You shall tell me about it—afterwards—when this crowd has gone. Oh, Nan, there'll be such a lot to say!"
His glance held her a moment, and she flushed under it. Those queer eyes of his had lost none of their old magnetic power. He turned away with a short, amused laugh, and the next moment was listening courteously to an elderly duchess's gushing eulogy of his work.
Nan remained quietly where she was, gazing at the big picture of the famous American beauty. It was a fine piece of work; the lights and shadows had been handled magnificently, and it was small wonder that the man who could produce such work had leaped into the foremost rank of portrait-painters. She felt very glad of his success, remembering how bitter he had been in former days over his failure to obtain recognition. She turned and, finding him beside her again, spoke her thought quite simply.
"You've made good at last, Maryon. You've no grudge against the world now."
He looked down at her oddly.
"Haven't I? . . . Well, you should know," he replied.
She gave a little impatient twist of her shoulders. He hadn't altered at all, it seemed; he still possessed his old faculty for implying so much more than was contained in the actual words he spoke.
"Most people would be content with the success you've gained," she answered steadily.
"Most people—yes. But to gain the gold and miss . . . the rainbow!—A quoi bon?"
His voice vibrated. This sudden meeting with Nan was trying him hard.
There had been two genuine things in the man's life—his love for Nan and his love of his art. He had thrust the first deliberately aside so that he might not be handicapped in the second, and now that the race was won and success assured he was face to face with the realisation of the price that must be paid. Nan was out of his reach for ever. Standing here at his side with all her old elusive charm—out of his reach!
"What did you mean"—she was speaking to him again—"by telling Penny that you expected to see me soon—before she would?"
"Ah, that's my news. Of course, when I wrote, I thought you were still down in Cornwall, with the Trenbys. I'd no idea you were coming up to town just now."
"I'm up unexpectedly," murmured Nan. "Well? What then?"
He smiled, as though enjoying his secret.
"Isn't Burnham Court somewhere in your direction?"
"Yes. It's about midway between the Hall and Mallow Court. It belonged to a Sir Robert Burnham who's just died. Why do you ask?"
"Because Burnham was my godfather. The old chap disapproved of me strongly at one time—thought painting pictures a fool's job. But since luck came my way, his opinion apparently altered, and when he died he left me all his property—Burnham Court included."
"Burnham Court!" exclaimed Nan in astonishment.
"Yes. Droll, isn't it? So I thought of coming down some time this spring and seeing how it feels to be a land-owner. My wife is taking a trip to the States then—to visit some friends."
"How nice!" Nan's exclamation was quite spontaneous. It would be nice to have another of her own kind—one of her mental kith and kin—near at hand after she was married.
"I shan't be down there all the time, of course, but for week-ends and so on—in the intervals between transferring commonplace faces, and still more frequently commonplace souls, to canvas." He paused, then asked suddenly: "So you're glad, Nan?"
"Of course I am," she answered heartily. "It will be like old times."
"Unfortunately, old times never—come back," he said shortly.
And then a quaint, drumming noise like the sound of a distant tom-tom summoned them to tea.
Most of the visitors took their departure soon afterwards, but Nan and the Fentons lingered on, returning to the studio to enjoy the multitude of sketches and studies stored away there, many of them carelessly stacked up with their faces to the wall. Rooke made a delightful host, pulling out one canvas after another and pouring out a stream of amusing little tales concerning the oddities of various sitters.
Presently the door opened and the maid ushered in yet another visitor.
Nan, standing rather apart by one of the bay windows at the far end of the room, was examining a rough sketch, in black and white. She caught her breath suddenly at the sound of the newcomer's voice.
"I couldn't get here earlier, as I promised, Rooke, and I'm afraid the daylight's gone. However, I've no doubt Mrs. Van Decken will look equally charming by artificial light. In fact, I should have said it was her natural element."
Nan, screened from the remainder of the room by the window embrasure, let the sketch she was holding flutter to the ground.
The quiet, drawling voice was Peter's! And he didn't know she was here! It would be horrible—horrible to meet him suddenly like this . . . here . . . in the presence of other people.
She pressed herself closely against the wall of the recess, her breath coming gaspingly between parched lips. The mere tones of his voice, with their lazy, distinctive drawl, set her heart beating in great suffocating leaps. She had never dreamed of the possibility of meeting him—here, of all places, and the knowledge that only a few yards separated them from one another, that if she stepped out from the alcove which screened her she would be face to face with him, drained her of all strength.
She stood there motionless, her back to the wall, her palms pressed rigidly against its surface.
Was he coming towards here? . . . Now? It seemed hours since his voice had first struck upon her ears.
At last, after what appeared an infinity of time, she heard the hum of talk and laughter drift out of the room . . . the sound of footsteps retreating . . . the closing of a door.
Her stiff muscles relaxed and, leaning forward, she peered into the studio. It was empty. They had all gone, and with a sigh of relief she stepped out from her hiding-place.
She wandered aimlessly about for a minute or two, then came to anchor in front of Mrs. T. Van Decken's portrait. With a curious sense of detachment, she fell to criticising it afresh. It had been painted with amazing skill and insight. All the beauty was there, the exquisite tinting of flesh, the beautiful curve of cheek and throat and shoulder. But, behind the lovely physical presentment, Nan felt she could detect the woman's soul—predatory, feline, and unscrupulous. It was rather original of Maryon to have done that, she thought—painted both body and spirit—and it was just like that cynical cleverness of his to have discerned so exactly the soulless type of woman which the beautiful body concealed and to have insolently reproduced it, daring discovery.
She looked up and found him standing beside her. She had not heard the quiet opening and closing of the door.
"An old friend of yours has just come in to see my Van Decken," he said quietly. His eyes were slightly quizzical.
Nan turned her face a little aside.
"I know. Where—where is he?"
"I took him along to have some tea. I've left him with the Fentons; they can prepare him for the . . . shock."
She flushed angrily.
"Maryon! You're outrageous!" she protested.
"I imagined. I was showing great consideration, seeing I've no cause to bear Mallory any overwhelming goodwill."
"I thought you had only met him once or twice?"
Rooke looked down at her with an odd expression.
"True—in the old days, only once. At your flat. But we've knocked up against each other several times since then. And Mrs. Van Decken asked him to come and see her portrait."
"You and he can have very little in common," observed Nan carelessly.
"Nothing"—promptly—"except the links of art. I've always been true in my art—if in nothing else. Besides, all's grist that comes to Mallory's mill. He regards me as a type. Ah!"—as the door opened once more—"here they come."
Her throat contracted with nervousness and she felt that it would be a physical impossibility for her to speak. She turned mechanically as Penelope re-entered the room, followed by her husband and Peter Mallory. Uppermost in Nan's mind was the thought, to which she clung as to a sheet-anchor, that of the three witnesses to this meeting between Peter and herself, the Fentons were ignorant of the fact that she cared for him, and Maryon, whatever he might suspect, had no certain knowledge.
The dreaded ordeal was quickly over. A simple handshake, and in a few moments they were all five chatting together, Mrs. Van Decken's portrait prominent in the conversation.
Mallory had altered in some indefinable way. In the fugitive glances she stole at him Nan could see that he was thinner, his face a trifle worn-looking, and the old whimsical light had died out of his eyes, replaced by a rather bitter sadness.
"You'd better come and dine with us to-night, Mallory," said Fenton, pausing as they were about to leave. "Penelope and I are due at the Albert Hall later on, but we shall be home fairly early and you can entertain Nan in our absence. It's purely a ballad concert, so she doesn't care to go with us—it's not high-brow enough!"—with a twinkle in Nan's direction.
She glanced at Peter swiftly. Would he refuse?
There was the slightest pause. Then—
"Thank you very much," he said quietly. "I shall be delighted."
"We dine at an unearthly hour to-night, of course," volunteeredPenelope. "Half-past six."
"As I contrived to miss my lunch to-day, I shan't grumble," repliedPeter, smiling. "Till to-night, then."
And the Fentons' motor slid away into the lamplit dusk.
"Wasn't that rather rash of you, Ralph?" asked Penelope later on, when they were both dressing for the evening. "I think—last summer—Peter was getting too fond of Nan for his own peace of mind."
Ralph came to the door of his dressing-room in his shirt-sleeves, shaving-brush in hand.
"Good Lord, no!" he said. "Mallory's married and Nan's engaged—what more do you want? They were just good pals. And anyway, even if you're right, the affair must he dead embers by this time."
"It may be. Still, there's nothing gained by blowing on them," repliedPenelope sagely.
Nan gave a final touch to Penelope's hair, drawing the gold fillet which bound it a little lower down on to the broad brow, then stood back and regarded the effect with critical eyes.
"That'll do," she declared. "You look a duck, Penelope! I hope you'll get a splendid reception. You will if you smile at the audience as prettily as you're smiling now! Won't she, Ralph?"
"I hope so," answered Fenton seriously. "It would be a waste of a perfectly good smile if she doesn't." And amid laughter and good wishes the Fentons departed for the concert, Peter Mallory accompanying them downstairs to speed them on their way.
Meanwhile Nan, left alone for the moment, became suddenly conscious of an overpowering nervousness at the prospect of spending the evening alone with Peter. There was so much—so much that lay behind them that they must either restrict their conversation to the merest trivialities, avoiding all reference to the past, or find themselves plunged into dangerous depths. Dinner had passed without incident. Sustained by the presence of Penelope and Ralph, Nan had carried through her part in it with a brilliance and reckless daring which revealed nothing at all of the turmoil of confused emotions which underlay her apparent gaiety.
She seemed to have become a new being this evening, an enchanting creature of flame and fire. She said the most outrageous things at dinner, talking a lot of clever nonsense but sheering quickly away if any more serious strain of thought crept into the conversation. For an instant she might plumb the depths, the next she would be winging lightly over the surface again, while a spray of sparkling laughter rose and fell around her. With butterfly touch she opened the cupboard of memory, daring Peter the while with her eyes, skimming the thin ice of bygone times with the adroitness of an expert skater.
She was wearing the frock which had called forth Lady Gertrude's ire, and from its filmy folds her head and shoulders emerged like a flower from its sheath, vividly arresting, her scarlet lips and "blue-violet" eyes splashes of live colour against the warm golden ivory of her skin.
It was Nan at her most emotionally distracting, now sparkling with an almost feverish vivacity, now drooping into sudden silence, while the lines of her delicately angled face took on a touching, languorous appeal.
But now, now that the need for playing a part was over, and she stood waiting for Mallory's return, something tragic and desperate looked out of her eyes. She paced the room restlessly. Outside a gale was blowing. She could hear the wind roaring through the street. A sudden gust blew down the chimney and the flames flickered and bent beneath it, while in the distance sounded a low rumble of thunder—the odd, unexpected thunder that comes sometimes in winter.
Presently the lift gates clanged apart. She heard Mallory's step as he crossed the hall. Then the door of the room opened and shut.
She did not speak. For a moment she could not even look up. She was conscious of nothing beyond the one great fact that she and Peter were alone together—alone, yet as much divided as though the whole world lay between them.
At last, with an effort, she raised her eyes and saw him standing beside her. A stifled cry escaped her. Throughout dinner, while the Fentons had been present, he had smiled and talked much as usual, so that the change in the man had been less noticeable. But the mask was off now, and in repose his face showed, so worn and ravaged by grief that Nan cried out involuntarily in pitiful dismay.
Her first impulse was to fold her arms about him, drawing that lined and altered face against her bosom, hiding from sight the stark bitterness of the eyes that met her own, and comforting him as only the woman who loves a man knows how.
Then, like a black, surging flood, the memory of all that kept them apart rushed over her and she drew back her arms, half-raised, falling limply to her sides. He made no effort to approach her. Only his eyes remained fixed on her, hungrily devouring every line of the beloved face.
"Why did you come?" she asked at last. Her voice seemed to herself as though it came from a great distance. It sounded like someone else speaking.
"I couldn't keep away. Life without you has become one long, unbearable hell."
He spoke with a strange, slow vehemence which seemed to hold the aggregated bitterness and pain of all those solitary months.
A shudder ran through her slight frame. Her own agony of separation had been measurable with his.
"But you said . . . at Tintagel . . . that we mustn't meet again. You shouldn't have come—oh, you shouldn't have come!" she cried tremulously.
He drew a step nearer to her.
"Ihadto come, I'm a man—not a saint!" he answered.
She looked up swiftly, trying to read what lay behind the harsh repression in his tones. She felt as though he were holding something in leash—something that strained and fought against restraint.
"I'm a man—not a saint!" The memory of his renunciation at King Arthur's Castle swept over her.
"Yet I once thought you—almost that, Peter," she said slowly.
But he brushed her words aside.
"Well, I'm not. When I saw you to-day at the studio . . . God! Did you think I'd keep away? . . . Nan, did youwantme to?"
The leash was slipping. She trembled, aching to answer him as her whole soul dictated, to tell him the truth—that she wanted him every minute of the day and that life without him stretched before her like a barren waste.
"I—we—oh, you're making it so hard for me!" she said imploringly."Please go—go, now!"
Instead, he caught her in his arms, holding her crushed against his breast.
"No, I'm not going. Oh, Nan—little Nan that I love! I can't give you up again. Beloved!—Soul of me!" And all the love and longing, against which he had struggled unavailingly throughout those empty months of separation, came pouring from his lips in a torrent of passionate pleading that shook her heart.
With an effort she tore herself free—wrenched herself away from the arms whose clasp about her body thrilled her from head to foot. Somewhere in one of the cells of her brain she was conscious of a perfectly clear understanding of the fact that she must be quite mad to fight for escape from the sole thing in life she craved. Celia Mallory didn't really count—nor Roger and her pledge to him. . . . They were only shadows. What counted was Peter's love for her and hers for him. . . . Yet in a curious numbed way she felt she must still defer to those shadows. They stood like sentinels with drawn swords at the gate of happiness, and she would never be able to get past them. So it was no use Peter's staying here.
"You must go, Peter!" she exclaimed feverishly. "You must go!"
A new look sprang into his eyes—a sudden, terrible doubt and questioning.
"You want me to go?"
"Yes—yes!" She turned away, gesturing blindly in the direction of the door. The room seemed whirling round her. "I—Iwantyou to go!"
Then she felt his hand on her shoulder and, yielding to its insistent pressure, she faced him again.
"Nan, is it because you've ceased to care that you tell me to go?" He spoke very quietly, but there was something in the tense, hard-held tones before which she blenched—a note of intolerable fear.
Her shaking hands went up to her face. It would be better if he thought that of her—better for him, at least. For her, nothing mattered any more.
"Don't ask me, Peter!" she gasped, sobbingly. "Don't ask me!"
Slowly his hand fell away from her shoulder.
"Then it's true? You don't care? Trenby has taken my place?"
A heavy silence dropped between them, broken only by the sullen roll of thunder. Nan shivered a little. Her face was still hidden in her hands. She was struggling with herself—trying to force from her lips the lie which would send the man's reeling faith in her crashing to earth and drive him from her for ever. She knew if he went from her like that, believing she had ceased to care, he would never come back again. He would wipe her out utterly from his thoughts—out of his heart. Henceforward she would be only a dead memory to him—the symbol of a shattered faith.
It was more than she could bear. She could not give up that—Peter's faith in her! It was all she had to cling to—to carry her through life.
She stretched out her arms to him, crying brokenly:
"Oh, Peter—Peter—"
At the sound, of her low, shaken voice, with its infinite appeal for understanding, the iron control he had been forcing on himself snapped asunder, and he caught her in his arms, kissing her with the fierce hunger of a man who has been starved of love.
She leaned against him, physically unable to resist, and deep down in her heart glad that she could not. For the moment everything was swept away in an anguish of happiness—in the ecstasy of burning kisses crushed against her mouth and throat and the strained clasp of arms locked round her.
"My woman!" he muttered unsteadily. "My woman!"
She could feel the hard beating of his heart, and her slender body trembled in his arms with an answering passion that sprang from the depths of her being. Forgetful of everything, save only of each other and their great love, their lips clung together.
Presently he tilted her head back. Her face was white, the shadowed eyes like two dark stains on the ivory bloom of a magnolia.
"Beloved! . . . Nan, say that you love me—let me hear you say it!"
"You know!" Her voice shook uncontrollably. "You don't need to ask me, Peter. It—ithurtsto love anyone as I love you."
His hold tightened round her.
"You're mine . . . mine out of all the world . . . my beloved. . . ."
A flare of lightning and again the menacing roll of thunder. Then, sudden as the swoop of a bat, the electric burners quivered and went out, leaving only the glow of the fire to pierce the gloom. In the dim light she could see his face bent over her—the face of her man, the man she loved, and all that was woman and lover within her leaped to answer the call of her mate—the infinite, imperious demand of human love that has waited and hungered through empty days and nights till at last it shall be answered by the loved one.
For a moment she lay unresisting in his arms, helpless in the grip of the passion of love which had engulfed them both. Then the memory of the shadows—the sentinels with drawn swords—came back to her. The swords flashed, cleaving the dividing line afresh before her eyes.
Slowly she leaned away from his breast, her face suddenly drawn and tortured.
"Peter, I must go back—"
"Back? To Trenby?" Then, savagely: "You can't. I want you!"
He stooped his head and she felt his mouth on hers.
A glimmer of pale firelight searched out the two tense faces; the shadowy room seemed listening, waiting—waiting—