BOOK ONETHE CLAYTAKES SHAPEBOOK ONETHE CLAY TAKES SHAPEI.The six-foot Englishman, with the military carriage and the rough tweed cap, continued to stare at the back of the girl in the brown tailor suit, leaning over the ship's rail. There was something in the attitude that recalled a child swinging on the railing of a fort's drawbridge. He could not have told exactly why. Perhaps it was because he so often recalled that picture; perhaps it was because he had always held fast to a vague hope that some day he might meet that child again.The girl in the brown tailor suit remained motionless, her face turned toward the Liberty that was melting into an indistinct blur. The young Englishman came a little nearer. She had not been there when he had come aboard. Of that he was sure. Well, he had probably missed half of his fellow passengers while he was changing to his seafaring clothes, and there had been a couple of letters to be written to be carried back by the pilot. All that had taken time.The girl turned. The last faint trace of Liberty had faded; she might just as well admit that, and give her attention to the novelties of ship-board life. She looked curiously down the long white deck. Passengers were appearing every moment, clad in ulsters and soft hats; the deck steward was hurrying to and fro adjusting steamer chairs and wraps. The voyage had undoubtedly begun.Suddenly the line of her vision was interrupted by a tall man in a rough tweed cap. And then she noticed that he had snatched it from his head and was coming toward her with both hands outstretched."Isn't it—Cary?" he asked, eagerly.The girl looked into his eyes. Somewhere in their grave depths a smile was hidden."Why, it's Johnny," she cried, delightedly."To be sure it's Johnny! And what doyoumean by sailing under an English flag?"She laughed again, showing her perfect teeth."Isn't it absurd? But Daddy dragged me into it.""Which? The Cunarder or the trip?""Both. Where in the world have you been all this time, and oh! how's Rob? I declare I've so many questions to ask you I don't know where to begin."Stewart smiled."You're the same old Cary," he said, "Only a bit taller. Let me find your chair for you. You're not crossing alone?""Do you think I'd leave my father?""Of course not. Where is he?""There, forgive me. I was rude. I'm afraid Iamas bad as ever." Cary sighed."I never said that—""Well, Papa's writing a note to be carried back on the pilot. If he does not come up soon, I'll have to hunt him up. I'm his shadow. To tell you a secret; I'm chaperoning him on this trip!""Indeed!" Stewart's eyes were smiling."To be sure. Now, about yourself—""Your eyes say, 'What have you been doing in America that you failed to look me up?" said Stewart."That is just what I was thinking, and when we were going to hunt for you, too, when we landed! Come!""There isn't much to tell," said Stewart, meeting her eyes squarely. "There have been a good many years—uneventful ones—of a pretty steady 'grind', and rather rigid military training at Woolwich—"She looked up quickly."You are an officer? An engineer?"He laughed, pleased."You know more about our English military schools than the majority of American girls.""You forget I am an Army woman. Go on!""And so I'm a member—a young one—of the Royal Engineers. I was ordered to India, where I served out my sub-lieutenancy. I was in a bit of a row there, and after, I took the jungle fever and got sick leave. They've sent me over the Atlantic for a sea trip. I'm to be transferred later. I was only in New York two days. That's why I couldn't look you up. You see, I didn't know if you were still at the old fort down South, or in Texas or Montana or—any other of your big states." He was rapidly getting off of the subject of "self." "Now, where have you been and why didn't you keep on writing?""I did write, but you wouldn't answer—sent the letters to your home in Scotland.""Ah! We were traveling; the old place has been rented almost steadily for years. They must have miscarried in the forwarding. Father has preferred London political life, and mother wanted to be near us boys when at school and afterwards when we became cadets—""How is your mother?""Well; thanks. She'll be glad to see you again."Cary looked seaward."I shall never forget," she said, "how she nursed me." She was silent a moment. "How's Rob?" she asked, presently."I'm inclined to think he's less changed than any one of the three of us. He's fiery, fierce, affectionate, as ever, with a wonderful talent for getting into scrapes and scrambling out of them again.""What is he—a sailor?""He wanted to go in the navy—bad. Poor Rob. But my uncle had set his heart on the army for him. You know he was a great fighter in his day—retired on a wound that would have killed most men. He wanted him to go to Sandhurst, but Rob kicked on that, and they compromised on Woolwich.""I didn't know Rob would ever have brains enough for the Engineers." Cary laughed and caught wildly at her hat, which the wind was trying to tear from her head."Rob's clever enough—cleverer than most men, if he'd only study. He leaves Woolwich in a couple of months now—graduated. How he has ever stayed there as long as he has is a marvel. Such doings!" Stewart shook his head even as he smiled."I believe," he said, after a pause, "It's for his father's sake and my mother's that he has drawn the line where he has! There isn't an officer or an instructor who don't like him, though. He's as straight as a string where honor is concerned, and as brave—Well! You know how brave he could be as a child."Stewart went on."As for the cadets—they swear by him—every last boy of them! Rob will be wild when he hears you are in England, and will probably take 'French leave'!" Stewart laughed again. "There! That's the family history. Now, what about yourself?"The girl ran her hand thoughtfully along the railing."Papa was stationed at the Fort for three years after you left us. Since then we've been moving from pillar to post—in regular Army fashion. You know how it is?" She raised her eyes to Stewart and Stewart nodded. "He was ordered to Florida and then to Arkansas and then to Alaska—" she laughed. "He sent me to boarding school for a year but I couldn't stand not seeing him, and he was even worse about me. After that he taught me himself—dear, old Daddy—he taught me everything from calculus to colt riding. It's been a wild kind of a life, but I've missed the old Fort and the sea. None of the other places was ever much like home—" Cary raised her eyes from the railing and looked soberly toward the receding shore.Stewart watched her; realizing that while she had not grown pretty she was possessed of an indefinable magnetism.Cary went on."Then Daddy got notions about me—about my lack of advantages, social and—otherwise," Cary was laughing again. "He was retired last month and now he's carrying me off to Europe, to be polished. Am I such a rough specimen?" she asked Stewart, suddenly.He shook his head so gravely in denial that she smiled."There! Of course, I was only fooling! And so I'm going over to your great, beautiful, strange Old World to be 'finished'—as if anyone could ever be 'finished' as long as they live! I'm to see all the celebrated Old Masters and to visit all the old historic places and see the old ruins—" she broke off suddenly, "I think by the time I've finished, I'll be very tired, don't you?""And then?" asked Stewart."Why, then Daddy and I will return to America and have a little home somewhere—I hope near the Fort where I lived as a child; close by the sea and the capes and the beach."They were silent a moment. Behind them was the merry hum of voices and the rapid movement of feet hurrying to and fro, but for that moment they were as much alone as though they were in the shadow of the old fort wall."My home," said Stewart, looking out over the sea into nothingness. "My home in eastern Scotland is like that. Some day I hope you will see it. If you ever grow very homesick for America let me know, and I'll try to arrange to run up there for a day with you and mother. The long beach will remind you of home.""Thank you," said the girl, gently.There was a long quiet between them, and then the young officer's face changed suddenly and he broke into an infectious laugh."Oh, the guns—doyou remember the guns, and the pinafores and the sunbonnets? Weren't you ever caught?"The tall girl joined in with his laugh and the two—his deep and hers low—mingled and drifted back to the passers-by who smiled sympathetically at the sound. Cary shook her head."No—that is, not until long afterwards. It seems that the Department issued orders that the big show guns should be recast, and when they were taken away and broken up—they were found to be storehouses for a small girl's wardrobe! Lieutenant Burden happened to be on the spot and the story he tells—" she broke off, still laughing."Was there anything left of the things?" asked the Briton, amused."Yes, indeed—some were pretty well preserved! And how poor old Mammy Amy would worry over the thief who dared to steal her 'chile's clothes!' It's all too funny!""And Mam' Amy?""Dead. She followed us out to Alaska, but she died. I suppose it must have been the climate."Stewart's face grew a little grave."Lieutenant Burden—wasn't he the officer we stole the boat from?"The girl nodded, smiling."And that row! Wasn't that a row we had that day," he said. "Do you remember the terrible swim Rob took and how he saved us?""Yes. And how you comforted me. I went to sleep—didn't I?""Yes; and how ill you were afterwards! Do you know I've never forgiven myself for all that. I was thirteen, and the oldest, and should have had more horse sense.""What children we were!" Cary sighed."Are you wishing the time back?""I hardly know—" she hesitated, "No, I suppose not."Then:"They told me that you saved me in that illness.""Did they?""Do you believe in confessions?" he asked, with an odd smile.Cary laughed."That depends. Well—what have you been doing?""Do you know I kissed you that day when you fell asleep in the boat—when we were facing death together—and again when I was fighting death for you that long night?""You wretch! Well, it didn't count much then," Cary's eyes were twinkling, "You were thirteen and I was only seven. Rob! Imagine Rob ever kissing me!"Stewart laughed a little nervously."Look out, Rob may yet!""Preposterous! Don't you remember when you said you lived in Aberdeen and Rob in Argyll, and I innocently asked whether they were not near together? How indignant Rob was! And then I crossly retorted that they both began with 'a', anyway, and—" she paused for breath, and Stewart laughingly took up the story and finished it."And how Rob scornfully answered that so did 'cat' and 'crow'! He's never deigned to tell me which applied to which!""That was Rob all over!"Late that night the quartermaster at his lonely wheel, watched a tall man pacing the decks.After awhile the figure paused at the ship's railing and leaned against it heavily, looking out over the moonlit sea. The deep throbbing of the mighty engines came up to him and beat and beat against his senses."Twice," said the Briton, slowly, speaking to the stillness of the stars and the restlessness of the ocean, "Twice, as a boy, I kissed her, when we fought death together. Some day, in an hour of danger, I shall kiss her again."II.Cary was singing. Trevelyan heard her before he had reached the second flight of stairs in the lodgings. The clear contralto voice sifted down into the dark passage as sunlight sifts into a ravine. It rose; swelled higher and filled the entrance way. Trevelyan's pulses kept time to its swinging measure as he came on up the stairs, and quietly opened the door of the little sitting room. The measure died away. Cary finished the running accompaniment and rose from the piano."Bravo!" cried Trevelyan from the doorway."You have deserted me of late," she said, reproachfully, coming forward to greet him."Impossible! Let me explain, and all will be forgiven—" Trevelyan cut his sentence short, "Why, hello, John, where did you come from?"He nodded indifferently to Stewart standing by the window, walked over to a table and began to idly turn over the pages of a book. It was annoying always to find Stewart hanging around. The fact that Stewart was his cousin, and had shared everything he possessed with him since he had been a child, even down to his mother, did not count for anything in the world, just at this juncture. Stewart's mother was all right; indeed, she was undoubtedly the very best woman who ever lived, excepting his own mother who had been dead so long, and possibly Cary! But against Stewart himself he bore a well-founded grudge. Stewart had been the one to meet Cary on the steamer and bring her and her father to London and help them get settled in lodgings and introduce them to his friends. That was bad enough, in all conscience, but then it had been Stewart, who had constituted himself a combined walking Baedeker, and unfailing friend of the American officer and his daughter. That had been in those last wretched weeks before he had been graduated from Woolwich, and Stewart, with that confounded sick leave, had taken advantage of the opportunity offered. Even when Stewart reported for duty again, his transfer had been to a home regiment, and in the few times that he, Trevelyan, had seen them before his graduation, John had always been with Cary, and Cary had been overflowing with their mutual experiences. Now John had taken the Captain and herself to dine at the Albion, in Russell Street, Covent Garden; and had pointed out the traditional places occupied by Dickens, and Sothern, and Toole, and the rest. Now, it had been a morning ride with John, on Rotten Row, when Maggie, John's sister, had sent around her favorite mount. Again, it had been a trip to Hampstead Heath or Richmond Park, where, from the famous hill, standing with John, she had looked toward the towers of Windsor; or to the left had seen on the horizon, the bold outline of the Surrey Downs. It was John—or if John couldn't possibly manage it—it was John's mother or John's sister who had taken her everywhere. She had been to the Derby on the Stewarts' coach; she had been to Oxford with John's sister, and met Kenneth, John's younger brother; she had visited Stratford and seen Kenilworth, and generally "done" London almost before he had begun to serve his sub-lieutenancy. And if John had been unable to think of some new place to show her, he had walked with her down the Strand or through Fleet street or Cheapside, and the two of them had retraced Dickens's or Charles Lamb's steps, and explored all the little out of the way shops! That was just like John! Trevelyan detested such things, and Trevelyan detested them even more when John and Cary had done them together, and he had been left out!That sub-lieutenancy was another thing that rankled! Stewart had served his, and Stewart had done good work in that "row" in India, and had even got an honorable mention. Stewart always was a lucky dog. Trevelyan envied Stewart that "mention" more than he envied any man in the world anything. Cary thought so much of that "mention," and now Cary was going away!A wild throbbing resentment against his own position in the affair; against Cary's leaving England, rose up within him, as the sea rose up and beat against the crags at home. He did not define it, but it possessed him, as did the memory of Cary's face when he was away from her.He let the book fall back heavily on the table and walked over and leaned his elbows on the mantel, his head in his hands, and looked moodily into the open fire.Once Cary tried to draw him into the conversation, but Trevelyan refused to be won from the depths of his own depression, to the genial atmosphere pervading the little room, and Cary, used to his ways, let him alone. She had looked at John and shaken her head."I can't do a thing with him to-night," it had said, but Stewart, grown wonderfully quick-witted in regard to Cary, fancied that he heard her sigh.Outside the daylight faded and a heavy fog crept up and fell over the Thames and London like a pall. Here and there a street lamp flickered faintly through the mist, and the rumble of carriage wheels, heard, though unseen, reached them, and Cary lighted the big red lamp, preparatory to afternoon tea and the Captain's return. Once she went to the window to look for her father, pressing her face against the glass, but she could not see through the heavy, yellow mist. Trevelyan could hear her and John talking in the window recess, although he could not distinguish what they were saving. Once Cary laughed. The sound irritated him.After awhile Cary came back into the room and began to handle the tea-cups absent-mindedly. Her table was close to the fire, and Trevelyan, by turning his head, could watch the ruddy reflection play over her face. He turned back to the glowing logs."Sugar?" asked Cary suggestively, a little later of Trevelyan."No," said Trevelyan, moodily, "No sugar and no tea!"Cary shrugged her shoulders."You're impossible, to-day," she said, "Bread and butter, John?"After awhile Stewart prepared to leave. Trevelyan still leaned against the mantel, his face turned to the fire. He knew Stewart was going, but he did not move. From the doorway he could hear Stewart's voice calling out good-bye."Good-bye," he called back, shortly.Cary returned to the tea table, paused and looked at Trevelyan's back in an uncertain way. Trevelyan was acutely conscious of her nearness. She sat down, resting her intertwined fingers on the edge of the table and looked down at them."Well?"Trevelyan turned at the sound of her quiet voice and faced her, still resting one elbow on the mantel."Well!" he repeated, a touch of sarcasm in his voice, "It isn't 'well' at all! It's as confoundedly bad as it can be! Here you're going to leave London day after to-morrow, to be gone—""Three months," said Cary."Exactly!""I'll be back before you know it!"Trevelyan laughed bitterly."You think so?" Then: "I can tell you how long two months can be! I learned that at Woolwich before I graduated, and after I had seen you." He stopped abruptly and beat his foot impatiently on the fender."Nonsense! You're going to be a British officer. Where's your backbone?""I've backbone enough—there's no trouble about that!" Trevelyan laughed oddly. "I could fight all right. I could face danger. I could lead a charge into the mouth of the cannon! I've backbone enough!"He had turned to her full as he was speaking. His face was aflame with the possibilities his words had awakened. It was transformed back into the face of the boy who conquered the storm and the sea and death, and it was burning with a newer passion still.Cary's eyes fell before the look in his and rested on her folded hands. After a little she began to trace an intricate pattern on the table with her forefinger. A weight of fear was resting on her breast.Trevelyan stood silent looking down at her for a moment, and then he turned sharply and went over to the window. The perfume of the violets she wore possessed him. The clock on the mantel struck the half hour, and a log broke noisily on the hearth. Cary looked toward him. The oppressive fear had passed."There will be a month in Switzerland! Think of it—the Alps at last! Three weeks of Paris; three more of Ireland, and two in Scotland with the Camerons. Did you know I was going to your Scotland and to Argyll?"Trevelyan turned away from the window."No. Since when?""The Camerons asked me last week. They are to have a house party, I think. They asked John, too—"Trevelyan bit his lip."Is John going?""Not for the full time, but he hopes to get a three days' leave."Trevelyan came back to the fire and drummed on the mantel."When we were children," he said, suddenly, "down at the Fort, I used to tell you about Scotland. I am glad you are to see it. You will like it! And when you watch the sea beat against the crags, and the breakers tossing their white heads, you can think of me, remembering it used to be my home. I hope you will see a storm," Trevelyan went on, "such a storm as I used to glory in as a little chap! They don't have such storms anywhere else, I think!"He stopped short, and looked hard at the fire."The Camerons' place is within driving distance of my home. If I can get off for a day will you let me take you there? I want you to see it, and to meet old Mactier, and go with me into the caves where I used to play as a boy, and climb the crags, way up to their topmost peaks, and breathe the freedom that is in the air!"Cary sprang up, flinging out her hands. There was an odd pulsing in her throat."Go! of course I'll go!" she cried, and then the pulsing grew and grew, and choked her.At six Trevelyan left. She did not meet his eyes in parting, and Trevelyan missed her bantering voice, that usually followed him down stairs."It's Stewart," he told himself with passionate resentment, and he stumbled over the lower step and swore at the darkness.Cary went back into the empty room, over to the mantel and looked into the fire, as Trevelyan had done. She could hear the echo of the closing front door. Outside, the fog grew thicker. Inside, the red lamp threw its coloring on the crimson roses Stewart had brought that day, making them more glorious still, and the heat of the fire intensified the odor of the violets on the woman's breast. Stewart had brought the violets too.Cary turned away from the fire, and moved restlessly about the room, fixing a chair here, straightening a book there, and fingering some familiar object. As she passed the open piano, she hesitated, put out one finger and struck a key. The sound vibrated through the quiet room, deep and full and strong. A bar of an old Scotch song rose in her throat and broke. She closed the piano hastily. Once she leaned over the roses."Dear John," she murmured, and her hands touched for a moment the violets on her breast.Then she went back to the fire, and stood wide-eyed and silent, looking into the heart of it. She was dimly conscious of the violets' perfume, but it was Trevelyan's face she saw in the flames.III.There was a storm chill in the air. Trevelyan readjusted the carriage robe that had slipped away from Cary, and turned up the collar of his driving coat. Now and again he glanced at Cary. The girl's face was turned away and she was looking out over the gray crags to the grayer sea beyond. The last three months had wrought an indefinable change in her. Trevelyan had noticed it on his arrival at the Camerons' that morning. He wondered vaguely if it had anything to do with travel and the process of "polishing" to which Cary so often banteringly referred. Well he was not going to worry over it. He had only one day and he meant to make the most of it.He had written the Camerons he was coming, and had not even waited for an answer. He had announced his intention and it was enough. He had known Tom Cameron since they wore kilts together, and back of their friendship, his mother's family had known the Camerons for generations. Somewhere in the history of the houses, there had been an inter-marriage. That had been the enduring seal on the intimacy. The Scotch are clannish.It had taken him hours to reach the Camerons'. It would take him hours to return. But this one afternoon, at least, was his. After it, might come the deluge. After it—probably would come the deluge! He wasn't feeling very sure of himself or of his own self power. After a man has been in torment for three months—Tom Cameron's horse knew the road well—almost as well as Trevelyan did—and kept up a steady pace, and Tom Cameron's cart was comfortable.John was expected that afternoon for three days. Well; Cary would not be there to welcome him. Cary would be with him. Stewart might have her—undoubtedly would have her, for those three days, but to-day—this afternoon, was his.The Camerons, learned in the signs of the sky, had demurred at the storm chill in the air and the threatening clouds, when after an early lunch, Trevelyan and the American girl had stepped into the cart. Trevelyan, however, had no intention of having his well laid plans frustrated, and in his masterful way, had over-ruled the objections. The storm was a possibility. His return next morning at daybreak, a necessity. Let the storm come. He defied it.Cary shivered. Trevelyan noticed it and leaned toward her."You are cold?"Cary turned her eyes away from the gray crags and the gray sea. Trevelyan's were near her own. She shook her head."No," she faltered. "It must be Scotland—the Scotland you told me of as a child. Once, long ago I fought you about it. If I had dreamed—if I had known—" her voice faded into the boom of the nearing surf and she turned her eyes away from Trevelyan's, coastward again.The music of her voice and the roar of the ocean mingled and surged over Trevelyan."God!" he said under his breath.IV.As Trevelyan and the girl drove up the long entrance way and neared the house, they could distinguish through the faint Scotch mist that had fallen, the outline of Mactier waiting for them at the door.The old retainer hurried forward to welcome them."Ay, sir, but 'tis gude to see ye! My heart's been sore for a sight o' thy face this lang time!" he cried to Trevelyan.Trevelyan jumped down from the cart."Hello, Mactier!" he cried. "Jove! But it's good to seeyouagain!"Then he turned to Cary and helped her to the ground."This is Mactier," he said, as one saying all that is sufficient. "Mactier, I used to tell Miss Cary about you when I was a little shaver.""Aweel ye were ever a mindful lad o' me!" The old man smiled.He opened the door for them, and stood to one side to let them enter."'Tis a bad day ye have for seeing the old place," he said as they passed him."You can bring the horse around in an hour," called Trevelyan as the old man drove away.Then Trevelyan went back to Cary. The girl was standing at the furthest end of the great hall, looking out of the window. She could hear the beat of the sea on the near-by crags and through the faint mist catch a glimpse of the water.Mactier had opened the long-closed blinds and the light seemed concentrated around the figure of the girl. Trevelyan tore his riding gloves from his hands and bent and unbent his fingers rapidly. "If I had dreamed—if I had known—" He reached her side."I'm afraid it's a gloomy day we've struck," he said quietly, "but I'm in hopes the mist won't last. On clear days from here you can see the highest crag of all. It's where I used to spend half my days, as a little shaver,—up there on the top. It was my eyrie. I used to be a robber king and a shipwrecked mariner and a Viking all rolled in one."Trevelyan laughed, bending forward and nearer to her and looked out of the window, as though to penetrate the mist. Cary leaned against the frame of the window listening."When I got a bit older," Trevelyan's voice fell heavily on the silence of the big lonely hall, "I used to climb up there—to get away from everyone, and where no one could find me; and I would hide up there, and sit by the hour, looking out at the sea and watching the white spray breaking below me. And then later I used to try and think of what love meant—what love could be—if I should ever love—"He turned away abruptly and walked up and down the hall. After a little he came back to Cary, who had not stirred."And sometimes I used to dream of a woman who would some day come into my life—and I used to crawl to the edge of the crag and lean over and look into the white foam below, until I got dizzy—looking for her face. It seemed her face must be in the white foam—foolish, wasn't it?"Cary ran her finger along the ledge of the window."We all have our dreams."Trevelyan watched her, as she turned her face again to the window. The mist outside increased and seemed to muffle the beat of the sea and all the sounds of nature, and it hung around her and softened her face into wonderful curves. He turned his eyes away from her suddenly. He could have crushed that face in his hands, bringing it up to his own—"Mactier will be around in an hour," he said after a while in a matter of fact way, "and then I'll drive you about the place a bit before we return. We can easily make it and be back for dinner.""Yes?" asked Cary, absent-mindedly."Come! Wake up! And look around you! Isn't this a fine old hall?" But Trevelyan's voice lacked enthusiasm.Cary turned and looked around her. Her dream spell had passed. The odd throbbing in her throat, she had felt long ago in London, the evening she had bidden Trevelyan good-bye, returned with triple force. A wave of color swept over the usual pallor of her skin; her eyes were shining. Cary was transformed."Fine?" her voice pulsed with the enthusiasm Trevelyan's had lacked. "It's the finest old hall in all the world! The dearest old home! Take me over it—from the top to the bottom, and show me where you and John and Tom Cameron used to play!"Trevelyan led her from room to room; passing quickly this one, that held memories of his mother; pausing on the threshold of another, to tell the story of the Scotch boy's playtime; to show to her the first stag's head, shot when hunting with Mactier. Trevelyan told the story well, for he loved with all the unyielding strength of an unyielding nature, the memories his words called up. Now it was how Tom and he had slipped out of the window one night and scaled the ivy covered turret wall, that they might investigate the old cave down at the water's edge, by the light of the waning moon. Mactier had told them strange tales of the happenings in the cave when the moon was on the wane. Again it was the day he had stumbled with his gun and the bullet had entered his thigh; how old Mactier had flung him across his shoulders, and borne him home through the darkness of the falling night. Again it was the morning his mother had died; how he had been awakened by the hurrying of many feet, and starting up in bed had found his father bending over him, calling him by name.Never had the girl known Trevelyan to be so eloquent; never had she seen him as he was to-day. Now Trevelyan's voice was blithe with the blitheness of glad remembered things; now it broke with feeling, or vibrated with the passion of reviving scenes long dead to life. He seemed not to be speaking of himself. He was telling her the story of an English boy, Scottish bred; of his wild escapades; of his love of freedom and unrestricted things; of his dangers and his hopes; of what he meant to be when he became a man!And Cary, held fast by the magic of the story, felt her pulses throb; her being thrill. An unreasonable regret that she had not been a Scottish child to follow where he led, up the high crags or down into the black caves, took possession of her; and she recalled a picture of a sea churned into foam; of a boat drifting out toward the waste of ocean; and above the gray surface of the stone-hued waters, a boy's head turned landward.Once, in following Trevelyan from one room to another, she glanced out of the window and noticed vaguely that the heavy rain drops lay upon the glass. Later, she was conscious of the dull booming of thunder, echoing among the nearby crags and losing itself in the beat of the surf. Then a flash of vivid lightning lit up the sudden darkness that had fallen on the room.Trevelyan rushed to the window. The thralldom of the Scotch boy's story was upon him still."It's a storm!" he cried. "It's a storm come to welcome me!"He turned to Cary."Come here!" he commanded, "where you can watch the sea and the storm fight it out together!"She came instantly.The darkness increased until they could not distinguish each other's faces. The thunder came and beat itself against the crags and spent itself. Now and again they could see, by the glare of the prolonged lightning, the waters lashed into a white fury. Once, by its light, she looked at Trevelyan's face. It was white and he was breathing deeply. He was looking seaward and seemed unconscious of her presence. Once, he flung out his hand and it touched hers. It was colder than the storm chill in the air. Once, she looked at him again, and he, turning, met her eyes. Some power as mighty as the storm held her look to his, and then above the beating of the thunder on the crags and the booming, of the surf, she heard his voice."Just you and I and the storm! You and I in all the world—all that the world holds!" She felt his hand upon her shoulder; she felt its coldness through her heavy dress and she shrank away from him, her voice and her words broken, with a nameless fear.Above the storm she could hear Trevelyan laugh."Let you go, when I've got you at last! Let you go when your face has haunted me through all the days and all the nights of the long months!Let—you—go!""Oh, Robert!""Oh, you think I'm mad! Well, perhaps I am for love of you. You haunt me. You possess me. It was your face I dreamed of in the foam. There! don't tremble so! I won't hurt you, child!" The thunder drowned his voice."Do you dream what you are to me or could make of me? Do you know what it is to hold a man's soul in your hands?"The spell of his words lifted. The instinct of an unknown danger possessed her. She slipped away in the blackness toward the door. The silence grew and grew.Gradually the darkness lifted and the thunder and the boom of the surf lessened and the lightning came at long and longer intervals. Cary became acutely conscious of every sound. Somewhere in the distance she heard voices and the echo of men's footfalls. She kept her eyes away from Trevelyan who was standing with his back to her. Danger lay that way.Then the spell of Trevelyan's nearness crept over her again. She tried to fight it off, trembling. She moved a step toward him, one hand pressed close to her breast. Then she paused, arrested by a voice."Robert! Cary!Cary!"The sound echoed down the great hall, across the still deserted rooms, to the study where they stood.Trevelyan turned sharply."John!"Cary's hand crept from her breast to her face and she covered her eyes."John!"Trevelyan crossed the space between them."Cary!"The woman shrank back."Don't—you frighten me!" she moaned.Trevelyan caught her by the wrist."Cary! Cary! Take that back! How can love frighten? See, I love you—love you!"She was in his arms and he was leaning over her, his mouth close to her face."Cary!" he whispered.Down the long hall, through the silence of the deserted rooms, came the voice."Cary! Where are you? Cary!"She wrenched herself out of Trevelyan's arms."You are a coward!" she said slowly.A wild tide of passion leaped up in Trevelyan."How dare you call me a coward," he said, and his lips could hardly articulate, "If you were not a woman—" he choked and his voice died away.Cary moved nearer to the door. Once, she turned her pale face and looked at Trevelyan. Trevelyan stood rigid and mute where she had left him, the knuckles of one hand pressed to his mouth. She faltered."Cary! Cary! Where are you?"She turned, her thumb and forefinger pressing her throat."Here!" she cried. Then, louder: "Here!"Trevelyan passed her, and strode through the deserted rooms into the great hall."Cary is in the study," he said to the group of men he found there, "Hello Tom!""John arrived an hour after you left," said Cameron, regarding Trevelyan's rigid face curiously, "and when the storm came up nothing would do but that he must come for you both in a closed carriage. I knew you'd be safe enough—if necessary find shelter with some of the tenant's wives. But John—"Trevelyan turned to old Mactier."You can close up the house," he said shortly.Stewart found the girl standing in the study. He went up to her and drew her arm through his and quietly led her down the long dark passage that connected with the great hall. He could feel that she was trembling. He patted her hand soothingly."There, there! child. It's all right. I know!"
BOOK ONE
THE CLAYTAKES SHAPE
BOOK ONE
THE CLAY TAKES SHAPE
I.
The six-foot Englishman, with the military carriage and the rough tweed cap, continued to stare at the back of the girl in the brown tailor suit, leaning over the ship's rail. There was something in the attitude that recalled a child swinging on the railing of a fort's drawbridge. He could not have told exactly why. Perhaps it was because he so often recalled that picture; perhaps it was because he had always held fast to a vague hope that some day he might meet that child again.
The girl in the brown tailor suit remained motionless, her face turned toward the Liberty that was melting into an indistinct blur. The young Englishman came a little nearer. She had not been there when he had come aboard. Of that he was sure. Well, he had probably missed half of his fellow passengers while he was changing to his seafaring clothes, and there had been a couple of letters to be written to be carried back by the pilot. All that had taken time.
The girl turned. The last faint trace of Liberty had faded; she might just as well admit that, and give her attention to the novelties of ship-board life. She looked curiously down the long white deck. Passengers were appearing every moment, clad in ulsters and soft hats; the deck steward was hurrying to and fro adjusting steamer chairs and wraps. The voyage had undoubtedly begun.
Suddenly the line of her vision was interrupted by a tall man in a rough tweed cap. And then she noticed that he had snatched it from his head and was coming toward her with both hands outstretched.
"Isn't it—Cary?" he asked, eagerly.
The girl looked into his eyes. Somewhere in their grave depths a smile was hidden.
"Why, it's Johnny," she cried, delightedly.
"To be sure it's Johnny! And what doyoumean by sailing under an English flag?"
She laughed again, showing her perfect teeth.
"Isn't it absurd? But Daddy dragged me into it."
"Which? The Cunarder or the trip?"
"Both. Where in the world have you been all this time, and oh! how's Rob? I declare I've so many questions to ask you I don't know where to begin."
Stewart smiled.
"You're the same old Cary," he said, "Only a bit taller. Let me find your chair for you. You're not crossing alone?"
"Do you think I'd leave my father?"
"Of course not. Where is he?"
"There, forgive me. I was rude. I'm afraid Iamas bad as ever." Cary sighed.
"I never said that—"
"Well, Papa's writing a note to be carried back on the pilot. If he does not come up soon, I'll have to hunt him up. I'm his shadow. To tell you a secret; I'm chaperoning him on this trip!"
"Indeed!" Stewart's eyes were smiling.
"To be sure. Now, about yourself—"
"Your eyes say, 'What have you been doing in America that you failed to look me up?" said Stewart.
"That is just what I was thinking, and when we were going to hunt for you, too, when we landed! Come!"
"There isn't much to tell," said Stewart, meeting her eyes squarely. "There have been a good many years—uneventful ones—of a pretty steady 'grind', and rather rigid military training at Woolwich—"
She looked up quickly.
"You are an officer? An engineer?"
He laughed, pleased.
"You know more about our English military schools than the majority of American girls."
"You forget I am an Army woman. Go on!"
"And so I'm a member—a young one—of the Royal Engineers. I was ordered to India, where I served out my sub-lieutenancy. I was in a bit of a row there, and after, I took the jungle fever and got sick leave. They've sent me over the Atlantic for a sea trip. I'm to be transferred later. I was only in New York two days. That's why I couldn't look you up. You see, I didn't know if you were still at the old fort down South, or in Texas or Montana or—any other of your big states." He was rapidly getting off of the subject of "self." "Now, where have you been and why didn't you keep on writing?"
"I did write, but you wouldn't answer—sent the letters to your home in Scotland."
"Ah! We were traveling; the old place has been rented almost steadily for years. They must have miscarried in the forwarding. Father has preferred London political life, and mother wanted to be near us boys when at school and afterwards when we became cadets—"
"How is your mother?"
"Well; thanks. She'll be glad to see you again."
Cary looked seaward.
"I shall never forget," she said, "how she nursed me." She was silent a moment. "How's Rob?" she asked, presently.
"I'm inclined to think he's less changed than any one of the three of us. He's fiery, fierce, affectionate, as ever, with a wonderful talent for getting into scrapes and scrambling out of them again."
"What is he—a sailor?"
"He wanted to go in the navy—bad. Poor Rob. But my uncle had set his heart on the army for him. You know he was a great fighter in his day—retired on a wound that would have killed most men. He wanted him to go to Sandhurst, but Rob kicked on that, and they compromised on Woolwich."
"I didn't know Rob would ever have brains enough for the Engineers." Cary laughed and caught wildly at her hat, which the wind was trying to tear from her head.
"Rob's clever enough—cleverer than most men, if he'd only study. He leaves Woolwich in a couple of months now—graduated. How he has ever stayed there as long as he has is a marvel. Such doings!" Stewart shook his head even as he smiled.
"I believe," he said, after a pause, "It's for his father's sake and my mother's that he has drawn the line where he has! There isn't an officer or an instructor who don't like him, though. He's as straight as a string where honor is concerned, and as brave—Well! You know how brave he could be as a child."
Stewart went on.
"As for the cadets—they swear by him—every last boy of them! Rob will be wild when he hears you are in England, and will probably take 'French leave'!" Stewart laughed again. "There! That's the family history. Now, what about yourself?"
The girl ran her hand thoughtfully along the railing.
"Papa was stationed at the Fort for three years after you left us. Since then we've been moving from pillar to post—in regular Army fashion. You know how it is?" She raised her eyes to Stewart and Stewart nodded. "He was ordered to Florida and then to Arkansas and then to Alaska—" she laughed. "He sent me to boarding school for a year but I couldn't stand not seeing him, and he was even worse about me. After that he taught me himself—dear, old Daddy—he taught me everything from calculus to colt riding. It's been a wild kind of a life, but I've missed the old Fort and the sea. None of the other places was ever much like home—" Cary raised her eyes from the railing and looked soberly toward the receding shore.
Stewart watched her; realizing that while she had not grown pretty she was possessed of an indefinable magnetism.
Cary went on.
"Then Daddy got notions about me—about my lack of advantages, social and—otherwise," Cary was laughing again. "He was retired last month and now he's carrying me off to Europe, to be polished. Am I such a rough specimen?" she asked Stewart, suddenly.
He shook his head so gravely in denial that she smiled.
"There! Of course, I was only fooling! And so I'm going over to your great, beautiful, strange Old World to be 'finished'—as if anyone could ever be 'finished' as long as they live! I'm to see all the celebrated Old Masters and to visit all the old historic places and see the old ruins—" she broke off suddenly, "I think by the time I've finished, I'll be very tired, don't you?"
"And then?" asked Stewart.
"Why, then Daddy and I will return to America and have a little home somewhere—I hope near the Fort where I lived as a child; close by the sea and the capes and the beach."
They were silent a moment. Behind them was the merry hum of voices and the rapid movement of feet hurrying to and fro, but for that moment they were as much alone as though they were in the shadow of the old fort wall.
"My home," said Stewart, looking out over the sea into nothingness. "My home in eastern Scotland is like that. Some day I hope you will see it. If you ever grow very homesick for America let me know, and I'll try to arrange to run up there for a day with you and mother. The long beach will remind you of home."
"Thank you," said the girl, gently.
There was a long quiet between them, and then the young officer's face changed suddenly and he broke into an infectious laugh.
"Oh, the guns—doyou remember the guns, and the pinafores and the sunbonnets? Weren't you ever caught?"
The tall girl joined in with his laugh and the two—his deep and hers low—mingled and drifted back to the passers-by who smiled sympathetically at the sound. Cary shook her head.
"No—that is, not until long afterwards. It seems that the Department issued orders that the big show guns should be recast, and when they were taken away and broken up—they were found to be storehouses for a small girl's wardrobe! Lieutenant Burden happened to be on the spot and the story he tells—" she broke off, still laughing.
"Was there anything left of the things?" asked the Briton, amused.
"Yes, indeed—some were pretty well preserved! And how poor old Mammy Amy would worry over the thief who dared to steal her 'chile's clothes!' It's all too funny!"
"And Mam' Amy?"
"Dead. She followed us out to Alaska, but she died. I suppose it must have been the climate."
Stewart's face grew a little grave.
"Lieutenant Burden—wasn't he the officer we stole the boat from?"
The girl nodded, smiling.
"And that row! Wasn't that a row we had that day," he said. "Do you remember the terrible swim Rob took and how he saved us?"
"Yes. And how you comforted me. I went to sleep—didn't I?"
"Yes; and how ill you were afterwards! Do you know I've never forgiven myself for all that. I was thirteen, and the oldest, and should have had more horse sense."
"What children we were!" Cary sighed.
"Are you wishing the time back?"
"I hardly know—" she hesitated, "No, I suppose not."
Then:
"They told me that you saved me in that illness."
"Did they?"
"Do you believe in confessions?" he asked, with an odd smile.
Cary laughed.
"That depends. Well—what have you been doing?"
"Do you know I kissed you that day when you fell asleep in the boat—when we were facing death together—and again when I was fighting death for you that long night?"
"You wretch! Well, it didn't count much then," Cary's eyes were twinkling, "You were thirteen and I was only seven. Rob! Imagine Rob ever kissing me!"
Stewart laughed a little nervously.
"Look out, Rob may yet!"
"Preposterous! Don't you remember when you said you lived in Aberdeen and Rob in Argyll, and I innocently asked whether they were not near together? How indignant Rob was! And then I crossly retorted that they both began with 'a', anyway, and—" she paused for breath, and Stewart laughingly took up the story and finished it.
"And how Rob scornfully answered that so did 'cat' and 'crow'! He's never deigned to tell me which applied to which!"
"That was Rob all over!"
Late that night the quartermaster at his lonely wheel, watched a tall man pacing the decks.
After awhile the figure paused at the ship's railing and leaned against it heavily, looking out over the moonlit sea. The deep throbbing of the mighty engines came up to him and beat and beat against his senses.
"Twice," said the Briton, slowly, speaking to the stillness of the stars and the restlessness of the ocean, "Twice, as a boy, I kissed her, when we fought death together. Some day, in an hour of danger, I shall kiss her again."
II.
Cary was singing. Trevelyan heard her before he had reached the second flight of stairs in the lodgings. The clear contralto voice sifted down into the dark passage as sunlight sifts into a ravine. It rose; swelled higher and filled the entrance way. Trevelyan's pulses kept time to its swinging measure as he came on up the stairs, and quietly opened the door of the little sitting room. The measure died away. Cary finished the running accompaniment and rose from the piano.
"Bravo!" cried Trevelyan from the doorway.
"You have deserted me of late," she said, reproachfully, coming forward to greet him.
"Impossible! Let me explain, and all will be forgiven—" Trevelyan cut his sentence short, "Why, hello, John, where did you come from?"
He nodded indifferently to Stewart standing by the window, walked over to a table and began to idly turn over the pages of a book. It was annoying always to find Stewart hanging around. The fact that Stewart was his cousin, and had shared everything he possessed with him since he had been a child, even down to his mother, did not count for anything in the world, just at this juncture. Stewart's mother was all right; indeed, she was undoubtedly the very best woman who ever lived, excepting his own mother who had been dead so long, and possibly Cary! But against Stewart himself he bore a well-founded grudge. Stewart had been the one to meet Cary on the steamer and bring her and her father to London and help them get settled in lodgings and introduce them to his friends. That was bad enough, in all conscience, but then it had been Stewart, who had constituted himself a combined walking Baedeker, and unfailing friend of the American officer and his daughter. That had been in those last wretched weeks before he had been graduated from Woolwich, and Stewart, with that confounded sick leave, had taken advantage of the opportunity offered. Even when Stewart reported for duty again, his transfer had been to a home regiment, and in the few times that he, Trevelyan, had seen them before his graduation, John had always been with Cary, and Cary had been overflowing with their mutual experiences. Now John had taken the Captain and herself to dine at the Albion, in Russell Street, Covent Garden; and had pointed out the traditional places occupied by Dickens, and Sothern, and Toole, and the rest. Now, it had been a morning ride with John, on Rotten Row, when Maggie, John's sister, had sent around her favorite mount. Again, it had been a trip to Hampstead Heath or Richmond Park, where, from the famous hill, standing with John, she had looked toward the towers of Windsor; or to the left had seen on the horizon, the bold outline of the Surrey Downs. It was John—or if John couldn't possibly manage it—it was John's mother or John's sister who had taken her everywhere. She had been to the Derby on the Stewarts' coach; she had been to Oxford with John's sister, and met Kenneth, John's younger brother; she had visited Stratford and seen Kenilworth, and generally "done" London almost before he had begun to serve his sub-lieutenancy. And if John had been unable to think of some new place to show her, he had walked with her down the Strand or through Fleet street or Cheapside, and the two of them had retraced Dickens's or Charles Lamb's steps, and explored all the little out of the way shops! That was just like John! Trevelyan detested such things, and Trevelyan detested them even more when John and Cary had done them together, and he had been left out!
That sub-lieutenancy was another thing that rankled! Stewart had served his, and Stewart had done good work in that "row" in India, and had even got an honorable mention. Stewart always was a lucky dog. Trevelyan envied Stewart that "mention" more than he envied any man in the world anything. Cary thought so much of that "mention," and now Cary was going away!
A wild throbbing resentment against his own position in the affair; against Cary's leaving England, rose up within him, as the sea rose up and beat against the crags at home. He did not define it, but it possessed him, as did the memory of Cary's face when he was away from her.
He let the book fall back heavily on the table and walked over and leaned his elbows on the mantel, his head in his hands, and looked moodily into the open fire.
Once Cary tried to draw him into the conversation, but Trevelyan refused to be won from the depths of his own depression, to the genial atmosphere pervading the little room, and Cary, used to his ways, let him alone. She had looked at John and shaken her head.
"I can't do a thing with him to-night," it had said, but Stewart, grown wonderfully quick-witted in regard to Cary, fancied that he heard her sigh.
Outside the daylight faded and a heavy fog crept up and fell over the Thames and London like a pall. Here and there a street lamp flickered faintly through the mist, and the rumble of carriage wheels, heard, though unseen, reached them, and Cary lighted the big red lamp, preparatory to afternoon tea and the Captain's return. Once she went to the window to look for her father, pressing her face against the glass, but she could not see through the heavy, yellow mist. Trevelyan could hear her and John talking in the window recess, although he could not distinguish what they were saving. Once Cary laughed. The sound irritated him.
After awhile Cary came back into the room and began to handle the tea-cups absent-mindedly. Her table was close to the fire, and Trevelyan, by turning his head, could watch the ruddy reflection play over her face. He turned back to the glowing logs.
"Sugar?" asked Cary suggestively, a little later of Trevelyan.
"No," said Trevelyan, moodily, "No sugar and no tea!"
Cary shrugged her shoulders.
"You're impossible, to-day," she said, "Bread and butter, John?"
After awhile Stewart prepared to leave. Trevelyan still leaned against the mantel, his face turned to the fire. He knew Stewart was going, but he did not move. From the doorway he could hear Stewart's voice calling out good-bye.
"Good-bye," he called back, shortly.
Cary returned to the tea table, paused and looked at Trevelyan's back in an uncertain way. Trevelyan was acutely conscious of her nearness. She sat down, resting her intertwined fingers on the edge of the table and looked down at them.
"Well?"
Trevelyan turned at the sound of her quiet voice and faced her, still resting one elbow on the mantel.
"Well!" he repeated, a touch of sarcasm in his voice, "It isn't 'well' at all! It's as confoundedly bad as it can be! Here you're going to leave London day after to-morrow, to be gone—"
"Three months," said Cary.
"Exactly!"
"I'll be back before you know it!"
Trevelyan laughed bitterly.
"You think so?" Then: "I can tell you how long two months can be! I learned that at Woolwich before I graduated, and after I had seen you." He stopped abruptly and beat his foot impatiently on the fender.
"Nonsense! You're going to be a British officer. Where's your backbone?"
"I've backbone enough—there's no trouble about that!" Trevelyan laughed oddly. "I could fight all right. I could face danger. I could lead a charge into the mouth of the cannon! I've backbone enough!"
He had turned to her full as he was speaking. His face was aflame with the possibilities his words had awakened. It was transformed back into the face of the boy who conquered the storm and the sea and death, and it was burning with a newer passion still.
Cary's eyes fell before the look in his and rested on her folded hands. After a little she began to trace an intricate pattern on the table with her forefinger. A weight of fear was resting on her breast.
Trevelyan stood silent looking down at her for a moment, and then he turned sharply and went over to the window. The perfume of the violets she wore possessed him. The clock on the mantel struck the half hour, and a log broke noisily on the hearth. Cary looked toward him. The oppressive fear had passed.
"There will be a month in Switzerland! Think of it—the Alps at last! Three weeks of Paris; three more of Ireland, and two in Scotland with the Camerons. Did you know I was going to your Scotland and to Argyll?"
Trevelyan turned away from the window.
"No. Since when?"
"The Camerons asked me last week. They are to have a house party, I think. They asked John, too—"
Trevelyan bit his lip.
"Is John going?"
"Not for the full time, but he hopes to get a three days' leave."
Trevelyan came back to the fire and drummed on the mantel.
"When we were children," he said, suddenly, "down at the Fort, I used to tell you about Scotland. I am glad you are to see it. You will like it! And when you watch the sea beat against the crags, and the breakers tossing their white heads, you can think of me, remembering it used to be my home. I hope you will see a storm," Trevelyan went on, "such a storm as I used to glory in as a little chap! They don't have such storms anywhere else, I think!"
He stopped short, and looked hard at the fire.
"The Camerons' place is within driving distance of my home. If I can get off for a day will you let me take you there? I want you to see it, and to meet old Mactier, and go with me into the caves where I used to play as a boy, and climb the crags, way up to their topmost peaks, and breathe the freedom that is in the air!"
Cary sprang up, flinging out her hands. There was an odd pulsing in her throat.
"Go! of course I'll go!" she cried, and then the pulsing grew and grew, and choked her.
At six Trevelyan left. She did not meet his eyes in parting, and Trevelyan missed her bantering voice, that usually followed him down stairs.
"It's Stewart," he told himself with passionate resentment, and he stumbled over the lower step and swore at the darkness.
Cary went back into the empty room, over to the mantel and looked into the fire, as Trevelyan had done. She could hear the echo of the closing front door. Outside, the fog grew thicker. Inside, the red lamp threw its coloring on the crimson roses Stewart had brought that day, making them more glorious still, and the heat of the fire intensified the odor of the violets on the woman's breast. Stewart had brought the violets too.
Cary turned away from the fire, and moved restlessly about the room, fixing a chair here, straightening a book there, and fingering some familiar object. As she passed the open piano, she hesitated, put out one finger and struck a key. The sound vibrated through the quiet room, deep and full and strong. A bar of an old Scotch song rose in her throat and broke. She closed the piano hastily. Once she leaned over the roses.
"Dear John," she murmured, and her hands touched for a moment the violets on her breast.
Then she went back to the fire, and stood wide-eyed and silent, looking into the heart of it. She was dimly conscious of the violets' perfume, but it was Trevelyan's face she saw in the flames.
III.
There was a storm chill in the air. Trevelyan readjusted the carriage robe that had slipped away from Cary, and turned up the collar of his driving coat. Now and again he glanced at Cary. The girl's face was turned away and she was looking out over the gray crags to the grayer sea beyond. The last three months had wrought an indefinable change in her. Trevelyan had noticed it on his arrival at the Camerons' that morning. He wondered vaguely if it had anything to do with travel and the process of "polishing" to which Cary so often banteringly referred. Well he was not going to worry over it. He had only one day and he meant to make the most of it.
He had written the Camerons he was coming, and had not even waited for an answer. He had announced his intention and it was enough. He had known Tom Cameron since they wore kilts together, and back of their friendship, his mother's family had known the Camerons for generations. Somewhere in the history of the houses, there had been an inter-marriage. That had been the enduring seal on the intimacy. The Scotch are clannish.
It had taken him hours to reach the Camerons'. It would take him hours to return. But this one afternoon, at least, was his. After it, might come the deluge. After it—probably would come the deluge! He wasn't feeling very sure of himself or of his own self power. After a man has been in torment for three months—
Tom Cameron's horse knew the road well—almost as well as Trevelyan did—and kept up a steady pace, and Tom Cameron's cart was comfortable.
John was expected that afternoon for three days. Well; Cary would not be there to welcome him. Cary would be with him. Stewart might have her—undoubtedly would have her, for those three days, but to-day—this afternoon, was his.
The Camerons, learned in the signs of the sky, had demurred at the storm chill in the air and the threatening clouds, when after an early lunch, Trevelyan and the American girl had stepped into the cart. Trevelyan, however, had no intention of having his well laid plans frustrated, and in his masterful way, had over-ruled the objections. The storm was a possibility. His return next morning at daybreak, a necessity. Let the storm come. He defied it.
Cary shivered. Trevelyan noticed it and leaned toward her.
"You are cold?"
Cary turned her eyes away from the gray crags and the gray sea. Trevelyan's were near her own. She shook her head.
"No," she faltered. "It must be Scotland—the Scotland you told me of as a child. Once, long ago I fought you about it. If I had dreamed—if I had known—" her voice faded into the boom of the nearing surf and she turned her eyes away from Trevelyan's, coastward again.
The music of her voice and the roar of the ocean mingled and surged over Trevelyan.
"God!" he said under his breath.
IV.
As Trevelyan and the girl drove up the long entrance way and neared the house, they could distinguish through the faint Scotch mist that had fallen, the outline of Mactier waiting for them at the door.
The old retainer hurried forward to welcome them.
"Ay, sir, but 'tis gude to see ye! My heart's been sore for a sight o' thy face this lang time!" he cried to Trevelyan.
Trevelyan jumped down from the cart.
"Hello, Mactier!" he cried. "Jove! But it's good to seeyouagain!"
Then he turned to Cary and helped her to the ground.
"This is Mactier," he said, as one saying all that is sufficient. "Mactier, I used to tell Miss Cary about you when I was a little shaver."
"Aweel ye were ever a mindful lad o' me!" The old man smiled.
He opened the door for them, and stood to one side to let them enter.
"'Tis a bad day ye have for seeing the old place," he said as they passed him.
"You can bring the horse around in an hour," called Trevelyan as the old man drove away.
Then Trevelyan went back to Cary. The girl was standing at the furthest end of the great hall, looking out of the window. She could hear the beat of the sea on the near-by crags and through the faint mist catch a glimpse of the water.
Mactier had opened the long-closed blinds and the light seemed concentrated around the figure of the girl. Trevelyan tore his riding gloves from his hands and bent and unbent his fingers rapidly. "If I had dreamed—if I had known—" He reached her side.
"I'm afraid it's a gloomy day we've struck," he said quietly, "but I'm in hopes the mist won't last. On clear days from here you can see the highest crag of all. It's where I used to spend half my days, as a little shaver,—up there on the top. It was my eyrie. I used to be a robber king and a shipwrecked mariner and a Viking all rolled in one."
Trevelyan laughed, bending forward and nearer to her and looked out of the window, as though to penetrate the mist. Cary leaned against the frame of the window listening.
"When I got a bit older," Trevelyan's voice fell heavily on the silence of the big lonely hall, "I used to climb up there—to get away from everyone, and where no one could find me; and I would hide up there, and sit by the hour, looking out at the sea and watching the white spray breaking below me. And then later I used to try and think of what love meant—what love could be—if I should ever love—"
He turned away abruptly and walked up and down the hall. After a little he came back to Cary, who had not stirred.
"And sometimes I used to dream of a woman who would some day come into my life—and I used to crawl to the edge of the crag and lean over and look into the white foam below, until I got dizzy—looking for her face. It seemed her face must be in the white foam—foolish, wasn't it?"
Cary ran her finger along the ledge of the window.
"We all have our dreams."
Trevelyan watched her, as she turned her face again to the window. The mist outside increased and seemed to muffle the beat of the sea and all the sounds of nature, and it hung around her and softened her face into wonderful curves. He turned his eyes away from her suddenly. He could have crushed that face in his hands, bringing it up to his own—
"Mactier will be around in an hour," he said after a while in a matter of fact way, "and then I'll drive you about the place a bit before we return. We can easily make it and be back for dinner."
"Yes?" asked Cary, absent-mindedly.
"Come! Wake up! And look around you! Isn't this a fine old hall?" But Trevelyan's voice lacked enthusiasm.
Cary turned and looked around her. Her dream spell had passed. The odd throbbing in her throat, she had felt long ago in London, the evening she had bidden Trevelyan good-bye, returned with triple force. A wave of color swept over the usual pallor of her skin; her eyes were shining. Cary was transformed.
"Fine?" her voice pulsed with the enthusiasm Trevelyan's had lacked. "It's the finest old hall in all the world! The dearest old home! Take me over it—from the top to the bottom, and show me where you and John and Tom Cameron used to play!"
Trevelyan led her from room to room; passing quickly this one, that held memories of his mother; pausing on the threshold of another, to tell the story of the Scotch boy's playtime; to show to her the first stag's head, shot when hunting with Mactier. Trevelyan told the story well, for he loved with all the unyielding strength of an unyielding nature, the memories his words called up. Now it was how Tom and he had slipped out of the window one night and scaled the ivy covered turret wall, that they might investigate the old cave down at the water's edge, by the light of the waning moon. Mactier had told them strange tales of the happenings in the cave when the moon was on the wane. Again it was the day he had stumbled with his gun and the bullet had entered his thigh; how old Mactier had flung him across his shoulders, and borne him home through the darkness of the falling night. Again it was the morning his mother had died; how he had been awakened by the hurrying of many feet, and starting up in bed had found his father bending over him, calling him by name.
Never had the girl known Trevelyan to be so eloquent; never had she seen him as he was to-day. Now Trevelyan's voice was blithe with the blitheness of glad remembered things; now it broke with feeling, or vibrated with the passion of reviving scenes long dead to life. He seemed not to be speaking of himself. He was telling her the story of an English boy, Scottish bred; of his wild escapades; of his love of freedom and unrestricted things; of his dangers and his hopes; of what he meant to be when he became a man!
And Cary, held fast by the magic of the story, felt her pulses throb; her being thrill. An unreasonable regret that she had not been a Scottish child to follow where he led, up the high crags or down into the black caves, took possession of her; and she recalled a picture of a sea churned into foam; of a boat drifting out toward the waste of ocean; and above the gray surface of the stone-hued waters, a boy's head turned landward.
Once, in following Trevelyan from one room to another, she glanced out of the window and noticed vaguely that the heavy rain drops lay upon the glass. Later, she was conscious of the dull booming of thunder, echoing among the nearby crags and losing itself in the beat of the surf. Then a flash of vivid lightning lit up the sudden darkness that had fallen on the room.
Trevelyan rushed to the window. The thralldom of the Scotch boy's story was upon him still.
"It's a storm!" he cried. "It's a storm come to welcome me!"
He turned to Cary.
"Come here!" he commanded, "where you can watch the sea and the storm fight it out together!"
She came instantly.
The darkness increased until they could not distinguish each other's faces. The thunder came and beat itself against the crags and spent itself. Now and again they could see, by the glare of the prolonged lightning, the waters lashed into a white fury. Once, by its light, she looked at Trevelyan's face. It was white and he was breathing deeply. He was looking seaward and seemed unconscious of her presence. Once, he flung out his hand and it touched hers. It was colder than the storm chill in the air. Once, she looked at him again, and he, turning, met her eyes. Some power as mighty as the storm held her look to his, and then above the beating of the thunder on the crags and the booming, of the surf, she heard his voice.
"Just you and I and the storm! You and I in all the world—all that the world holds!" She felt his hand upon her shoulder; she felt its coldness through her heavy dress and she shrank away from him, her voice and her words broken, with a nameless fear.
Above the storm she could hear Trevelyan laugh.
"Let you go, when I've got you at last! Let you go when your face has haunted me through all the days and all the nights of the long months!Let—you—go!"
"Oh, Robert!"
"Oh, you think I'm mad! Well, perhaps I am for love of you. You haunt me. You possess me. It was your face I dreamed of in the foam. There! don't tremble so! I won't hurt you, child!" The thunder drowned his voice.
"Do you dream what you are to me or could make of me? Do you know what it is to hold a man's soul in your hands?"
The spell of his words lifted. The instinct of an unknown danger possessed her. She slipped away in the blackness toward the door. The silence grew and grew.
Gradually the darkness lifted and the thunder and the boom of the surf lessened and the lightning came at long and longer intervals. Cary became acutely conscious of every sound. Somewhere in the distance she heard voices and the echo of men's footfalls. She kept her eyes away from Trevelyan who was standing with his back to her. Danger lay that way.
Then the spell of Trevelyan's nearness crept over her again. She tried to fight it off, trembling. She moved a step toward him, one hand pressed close to her breast. Then she paused, arrested by a voice.
"Robert! Cary!Cary!"
The sound echoed down the great hall, across the still deserted rooms, to the study where they stood.
Trevelyan turned sharply.
"John!"
Cary's hand crept from her breast to her face and she covered her eyes.
"John!"
Trevelyan crossed the space between them.
"Cary!"
The woman shrank back.
"Don't—you frighten me!" she moaned.
Trevelyan caught her by the wrist.
"Cary! Cary! Take that back! How can love frighten? See, I love you—love you!"
She was in his arms and he was leaning over her, his mouth close to her face.
"Cary!" he whispered.
Down the long hall, through the silence of the deserted rooms, came the voice.
"Cary! Where are you? Cary!"
She wrenched herself out of Trevelyan's arms.
"You are a coward!" she said slowly.
A wild tide of passion leaped up in Trevelyan.
"How dare you call me a coward," he said, and his lips could hardly articulate, "If you were not a woman—" he choked and his voice died away.
Cary moved nearer to the door. Once, she turned her pale face and looked at Trevelyan. Trevelyan stood rigid and mute where she had left him, the knuckles of one hand pressed to his mouth. She faltered.
"Cary! Cary! Where are you?"
She turned, her thumb and forefinger pressing her throat.
"Here!" she cried. Then, louder: "Here!"
Trevelyan passed her, and strode through the deserted rooms into the great hall.
"Cary is in the study," he said to the group of men he found there, "Hello Tom!"
"John arrived an hour after you left," said Cameron, regarding Trevelyan's rigid face curiously, "and when the storm came up nothing would do but that he must come for you both in a closed carriage. I knew you'd be safe enough—if necessary find shelter with some of the tenant's wives. But John—"
Trevelyan turned to old Mactier.
"You can close up the house," he said shortly.
Stewart found the girl standing in the study. He went up to her and drew her arm through his and quietly led her down the long dark passage that connected with the great hall. He could feel that she was trembling. He patted her hand soothingly.
"There, there! child. It's all right. I know!"