Book Two—Chapter Fifteen.

Book Two—Chapter Fifteen.It seemed to Sinclair that all the conditions that night favoured his suit. It was a perfect evening, warm and still, with a brilliant moon in a cloudless sky lighting the world with a luminous whiteness in which everything was revealed scarcely less clearly than in the daylight. It was a night for lovers, for the open air and solitude; it was not a night for dancing. Sinclair, after the first dance, which he had with Esmé, was content to remain on the outskirts of the crowd and look on at the rest. The floor was thronged with dancers. The lights, the music, the colour of the moving crowd, appealed pleasantly to the senses. He liked to watch; and every now and again he caught Esmé’s eye and won a smile from her which cheered him. She appeared more than usually sweet and kind that night, he thought.The supper dance gave him the right to claim her again. In the interim he had done a lot of thinking. He had his phrases turned and clear in his mind. He knew very definitely what he wanted to say; he had rehearsed it in his thoughts endless times. And he knew the right atmosphere for the deliverance of those neatly turned sentences. He wasn’t going to fling the thing at her in a crowded room with numberless people present. They would slip away together in the moonlight, and stroll along the sea wall, against which the tiny waves broke softly, running in and curling round the rocks, slapping musically against the stonework which checked their further advance. He could tell her to the accompaniment of the sea what he could not tell her in a hot and crowded place. He wanted her to himself, away from these others.It was not a difficult matter to persuade her to go with him. With the finish of supper they left the hall together, crossed the moonlit square, passed the Customs House, and so on to the sea wall, where the quiet of the night was undisturbed; the swish of lapping water and the low murmur of the sea were the only audible sounds in the surrounding stillness.He sat down beside her on a seat cut into the wall, and remained very still, holding her hand and looking away to where the ships rode at anchor far out on the silver sea. All the things which he had meant to say to her, all his carefully planned sentences, eluded him; he felt intensely, horribly nervous as he sat there in the growing silence, holding her hand and looking out across the sea.The girl sat and looked at the water also and forgot the man beside her. Her thoughts were away from her present surroundings. She was thinking of a sentence in one of Hallam’s letters, while she sat silent in the moonlight and saw the surface of the sea, as he had seen it from his window while he wrote his letter to her, splashed with silver, broken up and spread over it, a running liquid fire. It was here just as he had described it—the same sea, the same moon,—with the waste of waters intervening, dividing them in everything but thought. Sinclair had made a mistake in taking her down to the sea.“Esmé!” he said presently, breaking the dragging silence, and pressing her hand warmly in his strong grasp. “Esmé!”She turned her face to his, wholly unaware of the emotional stress under which he laboured, but conscious of a quality in his voice which rendered it unfamiliar. She saw his face close to hers, strained and white in the moonlight, heard his breathing, hard and deep, like the breathing of a man after violent exercise, and felt a faint surprise. Dimly she began to realise that something unusual was happening; a look of apprehension grew in her eyes.He groped about after the sentences he had so carefully prepared, but his mind was a blank. He could think of nothing effective to say; and all the while her eyes, puzzled and questioning, were on his face.“I love you,” he mumbled presently, and took heart of grace when the words were out and pulled her swiftly to him and kissed her. “Dear, I love you with all my soul. I want to marry you.”Very gently she freed herself from his hold, and drew back, and sat scrutinising him with ever growing distress. She liked him so well. She hated having to hurt him; but it had never occurred to her that he was in love with her. His affection had seemed so frankly friendly hitherto.“George, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know. I don’t feel towards you like that.”“Perhaps not now. But you will,” he suggested. “I’ve been a little abrupt. I ought to have waited.”“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” she said.“Are you sure?”“Quite sure. I’m very fond of you; but that’s all,” she added convincingly.“Well, look here! I’m not taking ‘No’ right off like that. I’m going to wait—”“No,” she interrupted quickly. “You mustn’t think that. I shan’t change.”His face fell.“You don’t mean that there is some one else?” he asked.For a moment or two she did not answer; then she nodded, without speaking, and put out a hand and touched his arm.“My dear,” she said, “don’t ask me questions. It is quite possible that I shall never marry the man I love, but I cannot marry any one else. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you cared for me like that. I wish you didn’t. You must put me out of your thoughts.”He smiled faintly.“That’s not easily done,” he replied. “Besides, I don’t want to. Like you, I may never marry the girl I love, but at least I cannot love any one else. You are the one and only girl for me. I know. I’m not a moonstruck boy. You’ll let me keep your friendship, won’t you? I won’t take advantage of it.”Tears came into her eyes. She had never liked him so much as in that moment. The idea of giving up his friendship had not occurred to her until he begged the privilege of retaining it. She did not want to give it up. It was one of the pleasant things in her life.“I want to continue being friends,” she said. “I’ve grown to look on you as a chum. That’s how I’ve always thought of you. I want to be friends—and to put this other thing out of my thoughts.”“Yes,” he agreed. “We’ll wipe that out. I made a mistake. You know, dear,”—he felt for her hand and found it and held it tightly,—“I think you are the sweetest girl in the world. I’ll do anything for you. For the present I’m feeling a bit sore, and just for a little while will keep in the background. When I turn up again I’ll be over the worst of it, and you needn’t fear that I shall make a fool of myself. We’ll take things up where we dropped them.”His defeat staggered Sinclair. He had been so sure that his luck was in, so confident of the girl’s affection, and unsuspicious of a possible rival. He knew of no one with whom she was on terms of particular intimacy. It never entered his thoughts to associate Hallam with her in any way. He had not seen the development of that acquaintance. He would have disapproved if he had. His naturally healthy mind held only contempt for such weakness as Hallam’s. He had summed up the man briefly as a waster, and so disposed of him. That the man he despised would one day have to be reckoned with, that he stood already in his life, a menace to his happiness, an adverse influence, he was wholly unaware. It was as well for his peace of mind that he remained in ignorance for long after she had refused him of his rival’s identity. A rival who did not materialise left room for a tiny gleam of hope in his heart.“We’d better get back,” he said, and rose from the seat. The beauty of the night held no longer any attraction for him.“I want to go home,” she said, rising also. “I’m tired, and—I want to go home.”He took her back to the hall and waited while she fetched her cloak. She came out after a brief while, white faced and pensive, with a look in her eyes as though she had been crying and had dashed the tears hastily away.He drew her hand through his arm and went with her out into the warm, still night, along the deserted streets, up White’s Road, traversing the intervening byways to her own road almost in silence. At her door he said good-night, and was turning away when she stopped him. Her heart ached with pity for the sadness in his eyes.“George, I’m sorry,” she whispered, and tugged at his sleeve.“That’s all right,” he answered, breaking away from her.His voice sounded husky and a little gruff; he could not trust himself to say more. She drew back, feeling troubled and inadequate, and stood on the doorstep looking after him wistfully while he hurried down the road in the moonlight, turned a corner and went out of her sight. She had an impulse to run after him: she felt that she must say something, do something, anything, to drive the pain and disappointment from his look; it hurt her to let him go like that. But on reflection she knew that she could do nothing; she must let him go.She opened the door and went dejectedly inside and shut it quickly and turned the key in the lock. Softly she crept upstairs to her room. The blind was not drawn and the moonlight streamed in through the open window and made any other illumination unnecessary.She seated herself on the side of the bed and stared out at the black shadow of the tree with its clusters of blossoms showing palely in the white light. The household she supposed was asleep; everything was very still and quiet. In the distance a dog barked incessantly: there was no other sound to disturb the quiet of the night.And then suddenly her door opened softly, and Rose came in in her nightdress, and stood looking in sleepy surprise at the motionless figure seated on the bed. She advanced to the bed and sat down beside the girl and started a whispered conversation.“I heard you come in,” she said. “Jim’s asleep. Have you had a good time? Why don’t you get to bed?”“I forgot,” Esmé said, and began to unfasten her dress. Rose became actively helpful.“You are tired,” she said. “What’s the matter, dear?” She took the girl’s face between her hands and scrutinised it closely. “Esmé, what has happened? I wish you’d confide in me more.”The gentle reproach in her sister’s voice, acting on her overwrought nerves, caused the tears, so near the surface, to overflow. She dropped her face on to Rose’s shoulder and wept softly.“Did George say anything to you to-night?” Rose asked, feeling increasingly surprised. She had not wept when Jim proposed to her. She remembered quite vividly that she had felt elated and very excited. She had wanted to speak of it, to tell people. She could not fathom Esmé’s mood.“Is that the trouble, little goose?” she asked. “I knew—we all knew—he meant to propose.”Whereupon Esmé lifted her face and turned her tear-wet eyes on the speaker in wide amaze.“You knew!” she said. “Well, I didn’t. I wish I had known. I thought he was just a pal.”“A pal makes a good husband,” Rose said thoughtfully, with the first glimmer of doubt in her mind as to what answer her sister had returned. “It’s all right, isn’t it?”“It’s all wrong,” Esmé answered ruefully, and dabbed at her eyes,—“just as wrong as it can be. He’s hurt; and I hate hurting him. I like him so well. But I don’t love him, Rose.”“You don’t mean that you refused him?”“Of course I mean that. I couldn’t marry George.”“Why not?” Rose inquired blankly. When no response came to her question, she caught her sister’s arm and turned her towards her and looked her steadily in the eyes.“Tell me,” she said quietly, “what there is between you and Paul Hallam? You’ve changed since you knew him. You are more reserved, and you’ve lost your high spirits. Who is Paul Hallam? And why does he write to you? What is he to you?”“He is just a friend,” Esmé answered.“You love him,” Rose said. “Do you think I am so dense as not to have discovered that? You can trust me. I’ve not let Jim guess that I know who your correspondent is. I’ve kept your counsel all the time; it’s your affair. But I think you might tell me.”Esmé made a gesture that was at once a protest and an appeal. She sat straighter, with her hands locked together in her lap, and stared out at the moonlight unseeingly.“I’d tell you if there was anything to tell,” she said. “There isn’t. There has never been any talk of love between us ever. We are just good friends.”“But you love him?” Rose persisted.“Yes, I love him with all my heart. If I never see him again I will go on loving him for the rest of my life.”In face of this Rose found nothing to say. The situation had got beyond her. She felt increasingly curious. She wanted to know more about this man; but Esmé’s manner baffled her. It was very evident that the subject was distressing to the girl. There was something behind all this of which she was in ignorance and which she felt she ought to be told. She put one or two leading questions, but all she elicited was the fact that Hallam was a man of independent means and no fixed abode. That struck Rose as significant. If no duties engrossed him it was odd that he should be satisfied to communicate with the girl only by post. If he were sufficiently interested in her to keep up a correspondence, why did he never come to see her?“I would advise you to put Paul Hallam out of your thoughts,” she said, as an outcome of these reflections.Then she kissed the girl, and got off the bed, and stood hesitating between the bed and the door, sleepy, yet reluctant to leave her sister alone.“I hoped when I came in you would have a different story to tell me,” she added. “Don’t waste your life, thinking of a man who doesn’t care enough to want to come and see you. George is honest, and he loves you. It’s a pity to throw away a really good chance of happiness.”“To marry a man when you love another would not bring happiness,” Esmé said, facing her sister in the moonlight, half undressed, and with her hair falling about her shoulders and shading her face. “And it wouldn’t be fair to George.”“I expect George, like most people, would prefer half a loaf to no bread,” Rose answered. She opened the door. “Good-night, dear,” she said softly. “You go to sleep, and don’t bother your head about any of them. Men aren’t worth half the tears women waste on them.”She returned to her own room, and stood for a moment or so looking thoughtfully at the sleeping face of her husband, as he lay on his back with arms spread wide across the bed, and a faint smile touched her lips.“It is all beauty and romance till we marry you,” she mused. “Then we discover that our demi-gods are just mere men. I wonder whether I would have wept over you in the old days? ... I didn’t anyway.”With which she got into bed and fell asleep.But Esmé did not sleep. She lay awake in the hot stuffy darkness of her little room, which the kitchen stove abetted the sun in keeping hot by day, while the warm slates of the too adjacent roof prevented any appreciable decrease in temperature during the night—lay awake with her mind filled with the thought of one man, and her imagination afire with the memory of splashes of moonlight on a heaving mass of water that stretched away endlessly and laved the moonlit, rock-strewn beach of a little bay along the coast. Then, with the dawn, she fell asleep and dreamed of the moonlight and of Paul Hallam.

It seemed to Sinclair that all the conditions that night favoured his suit. It was a perfect evening, warm and still, with a brilliant moon in a cloudless sky lighting the world with a luminous whiteness in which everything was revealed scarcely less clearly than in the daylight. It was a night for lovers, for the open air and solitude; it was not a night for dancing. Sinclair, after the first dance, which he had with Esmé, was content to remain on the outskirts of the crowd and look on at the rest. The floor was thronged with dancers. The lights, the music, the colour of the moving crowd, appealed pleasantly to the senses. He liked to watch; and every now and again he caught Esmé’s eye and won a smile from her which cheered him. She appeared more than usually sweet and kind that night, he thought.

The supper dance gave him the right to claim her again. In the interim he had done a lot of thinking. He had his phrases turned and clear in his mind. He knew very definitely what he wanted to say; he had rehearsed it in his thoughts endless times. And he knew the right atmosphere for the deliverance of those neatly turned sentences. He wasn’t going to fling the thing at her in a crowded room with numberless people present. They would slip away together in the moonlight, and stroll along the sea wall, against which the tiny waves broke softly, running in and curling round the rocks, slapping musically against the stonework which checked their further advance. He could tell her to the accompaniment of the sea what he could not tell her in a hot and crowded place. He wanted her to himself, away from these others.

It was not a difficult matter to persuade her to go with him. With the finish of supper they left the hall together, crossed the moonlit square, passed the Customs House, and so on to the sea wall, where the quiet of the night was undisturbed; the swish of lapping water and the low murmur of the sea were the only audible sounds in the surrounding stillness.

He sat down beside her on a seat cut into the wall, and remained very still, holding her hand and looking away to where the ships rode at anchor far out on the silver sea. All the things which he had meant to say to her, all his carefully planned sentences, eluded him; he felt intensely, horribly nervous as he sat there in the growing silence, holding her hand and looking out across the sea.

The girl sat and looked at the water also and forgot the man beside her. Her thoughts were away from her present surroundings. She was thinking of a sentence in one of Hallam’s letters, while she sat silent in the moonlight and saw the surface of the sea, as he had seen it from his window while he wrote his letter to her, splashed with silver, broken up and spread over it, a running liquid fire. It was here just as he had described it—the same sea, the same moon,—with the waste of waters intervening, dividing them in everything but thought. Sinclair had made a mistake in taking her down to the sea.

“Esmé!” he said presently, breaking the dragging silence, and pressing her hand warmly in his strong grasp. “Esmé!”

She turned her face to his, wholly unaware of the emotional stress under which he laboured, but conscious of a quality in his voice which rendered it unfamiliar. She saw his face close to hers, strained and white in the moonlight, heard his breathing, hard and deep, like the breathing of a man after violent exercise, and felt a faint surprise. Dimly she began to realise that something unusual was happening; a look of apprehension grew in her eyes.

He groped about after the sentences he had so carefully prepared, but his mind was a blank. He could think of nothing effective to say; and all the while her eyes, puzzled and questioning, were on his face.

“I love you,” he mumbled presently, and took heart of grace when the words were out and pulled her swiftly to him and kissed her. “Dear, I love you with all my soul. I want to marry you.”

Very gently she freed herself from his hold, and drew back, and sat scrutinising him with ever growing distress. She liked him so well. She hated having to hurt him; but it had never occurred to her that he was in love with her. His affection had seemed so frankly friendly hitherto.

“George, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know. I don’t feel towards you like that.”

“Perhaps not now. But you will,” he suggested. “I’ve been a little abrupt. I ought to have waited.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. I’m very fond of you; but that’s all,” she added convincingly.

“Well, look here! I’m not taking ‘No’ right off like that. I’m going to wait—”

“No,” she interrupted quickly. “You mustn’t think that. I shan’t change.”

His face fell.

“You don’t mean that there is some one else?” he asked.

For a moment or two she did not answer; then she nodded, without speaking, and put out a hand and touched his arm.

“My dear,” she said, “don’t ask me questions. It is quite possible that I shall never marry the man I love, but I cannot marry any one else. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you cared for me like that. I wish you didn’t. You must put me out of your thoughts.”

He smiled faintly.

“That’s not easily done,” he replied. “Besides, I don’t want to. Like you, I may never marry the girl I love, but at least I cannot love any one else. You are the one and only girl for me. I know. I’m not a moonstruck boy. You’ll let me keep your friendship, won’t you? I won’t take advantage of it.”

Tears came into her eyes. She had never liked him so much as in that moment. The idea of giving up his friendship had not occurred to her until he begged the privilege of retaining it. She did not want to give it up. It was one of the pleasant things in her life.

“I want to continue being friends,” she said. “I’ve grown to look on you as a chum. That’s how I’ve always thought of you. I want to be friends—and to put this other thing out of my thoughts.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “We’ll wipe that out. I made a mistake. You know, dear,”—he felt for her hand and found it and held it tightly,—“I think you are the sweetest girl in the world. I’ll do anything for you. For the present I’m feeling a bit sore, and just for a little while will keep in the background. When I turn up again I’ll be over the worst of it, and you needn’t fear that I shall make a fool of myself. We’ll take things up where we dropped them.”

His defeat staggered Sinclair. He had been so sure that his luck was in, so confident of the girl’s affection, and unsuspicious of a possible rival. He knew of no one with whom she was on terms of particular intimacy. It never entered his thoughts to associate Hallam with her in any way. He had not seen the development of that acquaintance. He would have disapproved if he had. His naturally healthy mind held only contempt for such weakness as Hallam’s. He had summed up the man briefly as a waster, and so disposed of him. That the man he despised would one day have to be reckoned with, that he stood already in his life, a menace to his happiness, an adverse influence, he was wholly unaware. It was as well for his peace of mind that he remained in ignorance for long after she had refused him of his rival’s identity. A rival who did not materialise left room for a tiny gleam of hope in his heart.

“We’d better get back,” he said, and rose from the seat. The beauty of the night held no longer any attraction for him.

“I want to go home,” she said, rising also. “I’m tired, and—I want to go home.”

He took her back to the hall and waited while she fetched her cloak. She came out after a brief while, white faced and pensive, with a look in her eyes as though she had been crying and had dashed the tears hastily away.

He drew her hand through his arm and went with her out into the warm, still night, along the deserted streets, up White’s Road, traversing the intervening byways to her own road almost in silence. At her door he said good-night, and was turning away when she stopped him. Her heart ached with pity for the sadness in his eyes.

“George, I’m sorry,” she whispered, and tugged at his sleeve.

“That’s all right,” he answered, breaking away from her.

His voice sounded husky and a little gruff; he could not trust himself to say more. She drew back, feeling troubled and inadequate, and stood on the doorstep looking after him wistfully while he hurried down the road in the moonlight, turned a corner and went out of her sight. She had an impulse to run after him: she felt that she must say something, do something, anything, to drive the pain and disappointment from his look; it hurt her to let him go like that. But on reflection she knew that she could do nothing; she must let him go.

She opened the door and went dejectedly inside and shut it quickly and turned the key in the lock. Softly she crept upstairs to her room. The blind was not drawn and the moonlight streamed in through the open window and made any other illumination unnecessary.

She seated herself on the side of the bed and stared out at the black shadow of the tree with its clusters of blossoms showing palely in the white light. The household she supposed was asleep; everything was very still and quiet. In the distance a dog barked incessantly: there was no other sound to disturb the quiet of the night.

And then suddenly her door opened softly, and Rose came in in her nightdress, and stood looking in sleepy surprise at the motionless figure seated on the bed. She advanced to the bed and sat down beside the girl and started a whispered conversation.

“I heard you come in,” she said. “Jim’s asleep. Have you had a good time? Why don’t you get to bed?”

“I forgot,” Esmé said, and began to unfasten her dress. Rose became actively helpful.

“You are tired,” she said. “What’s the matter, dear?” She took the girl’s face between her hands and scrutinised it closely. “Esmé, what has happened? I wish you’d confide in me more.”

The gentle reproach in her sister’s voice, acting on her overwrought nerves, caused the tears, so near the surface, to overflow. She dropped her face on to Rose’s shoulder and wept softly.

“Did George say anything to you to-night?” Rose asked, feeling increasingly surprised. She had not wept when Jim proposed to her. She remembered quite vividly that she had felt elated and very excited. She had wanted to speak of it, to tell people. She could not fathom Esmé’s mood.

“Is that the trouble, little goose?” she asked. “I knew—we all knew—he meant to propose.”

Whereupon Esmé lifted her face and turned her tear-wet eyes on the speaker in wide amaze.

“You knew!” she said. “Well, I didn’t. I wish I had known. I thought he was just a pal.”

“A pal makes a good husband,” Rose said thoughtfully, with the first glimmer of doubt in her mind as to what answer her sister had returned. “It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“It’s all wrong,” Esmé answered ruefully, and dabbed at her eyes,—“just as wrong as it can be. He’s hurt; and I hate hurting him. I like him so well. But I don’t love him, Rose.”

“You don’t mean that you refused him?”

“Of course I mean that. I couldn’t marry George.”

“Why not?” Rose inquired blankly. When no response came to her question, she caught her sister’s arm and turned her towards her and looked her steadily in the eyes.

“Tell me,” she said quietly, “what there is between you and Paul Hallam? You’ve changed since you knew him. You are more reserved, and you’ve lost your high spirits. Who is Paul Hallam? And why does he write to you? What is he to you?”

“He is just a friend,” Esmé answered.

“You love him,” Rose said. “Do you think I am so dense as not to have discovered that? You can trust me. I’ve not let Jim guess that I know who your correspondent is. I’ve kept your counsel all the time; it’s your affair. But I think you might tell me.”

Esmé made a gesture that was at once a protest and an appeal. She sat straighter, with her hands locked together in her lap, and stared out at the moonlight unseeingly.

“I’d tell you if there was anything to tell,” she said. “There isn’t. There has never been any talk of love between us ever. We are just good friends.”

“But you love him?” Rose persisted.

“Yes, I love him with all my heart. If I never see him again I will go on loving him for the rest of my life.”

In face of this Rose found nothing to say. The situation had got beyond her. She felt increasingly curious. She wanted to know more about this man; but Esmé’s manner baffled her. It was very evident that the subject was distressing to the girl. There was something behind all this of which she was in ignorance and which she felt she ought to be told. She put one or two leading questions, but all she elicited was the fact that Hallam was a man of independent means and no fixed abode. That struck Rose as significant. If no duties engrossed him it was odd that he should be satisfied to communicate with the girl only by post. If he were sufficiently interested in her to keep up a correspondence, why did he never come to see her?

“I would advise you to put Paul Hallam out of your thoughts,” she said, as an outcome of these reflections.

Then she kissed the girl, and got off the bed, and stood hesitating between the bed and the door, sleepy, yet reluctant to leave her sister alone.

“I hoped when I came in you would have a different story to tell me,” she added. “Don’t waste your life, thinking of a man who doesn’t care enough to want to come and see you. George is honest, and he loves you. It’s a pity to throw away a really good chance of happiness.”

“To marry a man when you love another would not bring happiness,” Esmé said, facing her sister in the moonlight, half undressed, and with her hair falling about her shoulders and shading her face. “And it wouldn’t be fair to George.”

“I expect George, like most people, would prefer half a loaf to no bread,” Rose answered. She opened the door. “Good-night, dear,” she said softly. “You go to sleep, and don’t bother your head about any of them. Men aren’t worth half the tears women waste on them.”

She returned to her own room, and stood for a moment or so looking thoughtfully at the sleeping face of her husband, as he lay on his back with arms spread wide across the bed, and a faint smile touched her lips.

“It is all beauty and romance till we marry you,” she mused. “Then we discover that our demi-gods are just mere men. I wonder whether I would have wept over you in the old days? ... I didn’t anyway.”

With which she got into bed and fell asleep.

But Esmé did not sleep. She lay awake in the hot stuffy darkness of her little room, which the kitchen stove abetted the sun in keeping hot by day, while the warm slates of the too adjacent roof prevented any appreciable decrease in temperature during the night—lay awake with her mind filled with the thought of one man, and her imagination afire with the memory of splashes of moonlight on a heaving mass of water that stretched away endlessly and laved the moonlit, rock-strewn beach of a little bay along the coast. Then, with the dawn, she fell asleep and dreamed of the moonlight and of Paul Hallam.

Book Two—Chapter Sixteen.From dreaming of Hallam at night and thinking of him in the daytime, Esmé arrived at a stage of almost incredible longing to see him again. Letters did not satisfy her. She wanted to hear his voice speaking to her, wanted to feel his presence, wanted, above all, to discover whether the months had changed him, and if the lapse of time had decreased his kindly feeling for her in any way. His letters no longer referred to the possibility of meeting: they became more formal in tone as time went by.Soon after her tennis victory he wrote congratulating her on the event. She had not written to him on the subject; his information had been gleaned from the papers.“I see you have been distinguishing yourself on the tennis courts,” he wrote. “Why do you leave me to discover the tale of your triumphs from the newspapers? I prefer to hear of these things first hand. The news furnished a further link with the old Zuurberg days. I recall how you practised with Sinclair then. So you keep hold on the thread of that acquaintance also?”It occurred to Esmé that this circumstance had displeased him. She wished that she had written to him about the tournament and her part in it. It did seem a little odd, when she came to think of it, that she had suppressed this piece of news.His letter was brief; and contained very little news of personal interest. It read as though it had been written with an effort, and not because he wanted to talk to her. A first fear that he might weary of the correspondence gripped her. If he ceased to write she would be desolate. His letters had come to mean so much to her: they caught her away from the dreary routine of her days; they coloured life for her warmly, kept her interest on the alert. Giving music lessons endlessly through the long, hot days, returning to the stuffy overcrowded little house where numberless small duties constantly demanded her attention, was not an existence calculated to add romance to life. She had grown weary of these things. The blood in her veins was astir like the sap in the trees in the springtime. Love budded in her heart; it only awaited a sign to burst into flower.There were times when she fancied she read in Hallam’s letters an intimation that he wanted her. He spoke often of his loneliness, and made reference to the happiness of their time together. But the months went by and he did not come, and into his letters crept a new note of reserve. Then followed a period of silence, after which he wrote from a totally new address and begged for news of her. She allowed herself twenty-four hours for reflection; then she replied to his letter in the old friendly vein.It was nearing the vacation, and she spoke of needing a holiday, and told him that she could not decide where to go.“I’ve thought of the Zuurberg,” she wrote; “but your remark about walking among tombstones sticks in my memory unpleasantly. I am afraid it would be just that.”To which he replied from De Aar:“There is a dignity about monuments which is soothing. My former remarks were ill-considered. You might do worse than walk among memories. Try the Zuurberg again, and tell me what you feel in respect to resuscitated emotions. I would suggest that you came up here, but it is a long journey and too hot for the time of the year.”Clearly he did not want her to join him. That thought wounded her. It had been in her mind when she told him of her indecision that he might propose meeting somewhere; that he made no such proposal seemed to prove that he did not desire to see her. She felt vexed with herself for having mentioned the subject to him. Once again the feeling of having been snubbed by this man tormented her. In the old days it had caused her indignation, but now it hurt.The question of her holiday became a matter for debate in her mind. She no longer desired to go to the Zuurberg; but the fear that he might read in a change of plan her reason for deciding against it stiffened her resolve to do what she did not want to do. The Zuurberg had not lost its attraction for her; but it would be, she knew, haunted with memories, where the ghosts of old pleasures would meet her at every turn.Fear of these ghosts prompted her to suggest taking the children with her, a proposal which led to a wordy discussion as to ways and means. Their father did not consider change necessary for them. Rose disputed this; she wished them to go.“Other people’s children go away,” she insisted finally on a softer note. “If we can’t afford a holiday for ourselves we ought to let them have one. I think we might manage it, Jim, don’t you?”This direct appeal from her, to which he was unaccustomed, took him aback. He was indeed surprised into acquiescing. In the end he spoke as if it had been his wish all along. Later, when he left the room, Rose looked across at her sister and smiled quietly.“That was accomplished through the exercise of a little of the tact you advocate,” she said.“It’s worth it, don’t you think?” Esmé returned, and laughed. “All he needs is management.”“Most men, I suppose, need that. You can’t drive them in the direction you wish, but if you can make them believe it’s the way they want to go, they start off at the gallop. Funny animals, aren’t they?”“Some of them are rather nice,” Esmé ventured.“Some of them—perhaps. But you don’t know; you aren’t married. A girl never really knows a man—knows him, I mean, for what he is underneath the veneer of social pretences until she has lived with him. Then little things peep out, selfishnesses—like ugly excrescences upon the smooth surfaces you fancied were rather fine and noble. A man when he is a lover is all chivalrous gentleness. Well, the chivalry is mostly veneer. Jim always gives up his seat in a tram to a woman; when he is in his own home, you may have noticed, he takes the most comfortable chair. They have to relax sometimes, you see; it isn’t possible to live up to that level always. I’d rather a man were a bear outside the home and considerate in it. There are such men, I suppose, but I haven’t met them.”“There are such men,” Esmé repeated, and thought of Hallam’s lack of social manner. She wondered whether the gentleness which she knew to be in him would manifest itself in the home. She could not imagine him behaving altogether selfishly towards any one for whom he cared.“Husbands want training, like children,” Rose went on. “I didn’t train my man; I began by spoiling him. That’s where most girls make a mistake. Then, when the babies come, the spoiling ceases generally. But the harm is done. I have often observed that the husbands of selfish women are a long way the nicest. Men like peace; they will sacrifice a great deal in order to get it.”“It is rather an agreeable thing,” Esmé said, reflecting that a little more of it in her sister’s household would make life pleasanter.“I dare say it is; but it can’t be had on an insufficient income. If you like peace so much, why do you take the children with you on your holiday? You won’t get peace where they are.”“Oh! we’ll get along. We shall be out all day, and there will be other children for them to play with. They won’t worry me.”“It’s nice of you to be bothered with them,” Rose said. She scrutinised her sister closely, and, curiosity getting the upper hand, asked bluntly: “Where is Paul Hallam now?”“On the Karroo,” Esmé answered, surprised. “Why?”“I didn’t know. I thought perhaps you might meet at the Zuurberg.”“No. He left there long ago.”“Well, but he might have felt it worth his while to go back when you were there. I don’t understand that affair, Esmé. I don’t trust the man. My dear, I don’t trust him. And you are wearing yourself out, thinking of him. You are losing your vitality. You aren’t as pretty as you were. No.” She surveyed the girl fixedly with adversely criticising eyes. “You arenotso pretty.”This came as a shock to Esmé. She wanted to look in the glass over the mantelpiece; but her sense of dignity and the fitness of things kept her glued to her seat. What, after all, did it matter if her looks departed? There was no one to note these things nor feel distressed on their account.“Why does he continue to write to you, and never come to see you?” Rose asked. “It’s not fair to you. And there’s George... If it wasn’t for Paul Hallam you would marry George. He is a good fellow, and he’s getting on. It would be a most suitable arrangement. You don’t want to teach all your life. You want a home. Every woman does. Instead you fill your head with romantic nonsense, and make yourself miserable, and George miserable—for a man who doesn’t care. You could forget him if you left off corresponding. Why do you let him play with you?”“He doesn’t play with me,” Esmé answered, flushing. “He never asked me for anything more than friendship. I give him that because it is a help to him, and because he is lonely. Why cannot a man and a girl be friends?”“I should have thought your own case furnished an answer to that,” Rose said. “In a friendship between a man and a girl one of them invariably falls in love. You can’t get away from nature. The eternal question of sex hides behind all these unequal friendships. That’s what makes them interesting. But these interesting relationships can spoil one’s life. I wish that you had never met this man. I feel uneasy about it.”Esmé sat in an attitude of disturbed attention, and kept her eyes studiously averted from her sister’s. There was just sufficient reason in her discursive statements to cause the girl to wince mentally. She was beginning to believe that she was giving more than Paul Hallam wanted from her, more than he dreamed of when he proposed continuing the friendship. This thought was humiliating; but only temporarily so: even as she felt its sting another thought drew the venom from it. If she could help him, even a little, it was worth while.

From dreaming of Hallam at night and thinking of him in the daytime, Esmé arrived at a stage of almost incredible longing to see him again. Letters did not satisfy her. She wanted to hear his voice speaking to her, wanted to feel his presence, wanted, above all, to discover whether the months had changed him, and if the lapse of time had decreased his kindly feeling for her in any way. His letters no longer referred to the possibility of meeting: they became more formal in tone as time went by.

Soon after her tennis victory he wrote congratulating her on the event. She had not written to him on the subject; his information had been gleaned from the papers.

“I see you have been distinguishing yourself on the tennis courts,” he wrote. “Why do you leave me to discover the tale of your triumphs from the newspapers? I prefer to hear of these things first hand. The news furnished a further link with the old Zuurberg days. I recall how you practised with Sinclair then. So you keep hold on the thread of that acquaintance also?”

It occurred to Esmé that this circumstance had displeased him. She wished that she had written to him about the tournament and her part in it. It did seem a little odd, when she came to think of it, that she had suppressed this piece of news.

His letter was brief; and contained very little news of personal interest. It read as though it had been written with an effort, and not because he wanted to talk to her. A first fear that he might weary of the correspondence gripped her. If he ceased to write she would be desolate. His letters had come to mean so much to her: they caught her away from the dreary routine of her days; they coloured life for her warmly, kept her interest on the alert. Giving music lessons endlessly through the long, hot days, returning to the stuffy overcrowded little house where numberless small duties constantly demanded her attention, was not an existence calculated to add romance to life. She had grown weary of these things. The blood in her veins was astir like the sap in the trees in the springtime. Love budded in her heart; it only awaited a sign to burst into flower.

There were times when she fancied she read in Hallam’s letters an intimation that he wanted her. He spoke often of his loneliness, and made reference to the happiness of their time together. But the months went by and he did not come, and into his letters crept a new note of reserve. Then followed a period of silence, after which he wrote from a totally new address and begged for news of her. She allowed herself twenty-four hours for reflection; then she replied to his letter in the old friendly vein.

It was nearing the vacation, and she spoke of needing a holiday, and told him that she could not decide where to go.

“I’ve thought of the Zuurberg,” she wrote; “but your remark about walking among tombstones sticks in my memory unpleasantly. I am afraid it would be just that.”

To which he replied from De Aar:

“There is a dignity about monuments which is soothing. My former remarks were ill-considered. You might do worse than walk among memories. Try the Zuurberg again, and tell me what you feel in respect to resuscitated emotions. I would suggest that you came up here, but it is a long journey and too hot for the time of the year.”

Clearly he did not want her to join him. That thought wounded her. It had been in her mind when she told him of her indecision that he might propose meeting somewhere; that he made no such proposal seemed to prove that he did not desire to see her. She felt vexed with herself for having mentioned the subject to him. Once again the feeling of having been snubbed by this man tormented her. In the old days it had caused her indignation, but now it hurt.

The question of her holiday became a matter for debate in her mind. She no longer desired to go to the Zuurberg; but the fear that he might read in a change of plan her reason for deciding against it stiffened her resolve to do what she did not want to do. The Zuurberg had not lost its attraction for her; but it would be, she knew, haunted with memories, where the ghosts of old pleasures would meet her at every turn.

Fear of these ghosts prompted her to suggest taking the children with her, a proposal which led to a wordy discussion as to ways and means. Their father did not consider change necessary for them. Rose disputed this; she wished them to go.

“Other people’s children go away,” she insisted finally on a softer note. “If we can’t afford a holiday for ourselves we ought to let them have one. I think we might manage it, Jim, don’t you?”

This direct appeal from her, to which he was unaccustomed, took him aback. He was indeed surprised into acquiescing. In the end he spoke as if it had been his wish all along. Later, when he left the room, Rose looked across at her sister and smiled quietly.

“That was accomplished through the exercise of a little of the tact you advocate,” she said.

“It’s worth it, don’t you think?” Esmé returned, and laughed. “All he needs is management.”

“Most men, I suppose, need that. You can’t drive them in the direction you wish, but if you can make them believe it’s the way they want to go, they start off at the gallop. Funny animals, aren’t they?”

“Some of them are rather nice,” Esmé ventured.

“Some of them—perhaps. But you don’t know; you aren’t married. A girl never really knows a man—knows him, I mean, for what he is underneath the veneer of social pretences until she has lived with him. Then little things peep out, selfishnesses—like ugly excrescences upon the smooth surfaces you fancied were rather fine and noble. A man when he is a lover is all chivalrous gentleness. Well, the chivalry is mostly veneer. Jim always gives up his seat in a tram to a woman; when he is in his own home, you may have noticed, he takes the most comfortable chair. They have to relax sometimes, you see; it isn’t possible to live up to that level always. I’d rather a man were a bear outside the home and considerate in it. There are such men, I suppose, but I haven’t met them.”

“There are such men,” Esmé repeated, and thought of Hallam’s lack of social manner. She wondered whether the gentleness which she knew to be in him would manifest itself in the home. She could not imagine him behaving altogether selfishly towards any one for whom he cared.

“Husbands want training, like children,” Rose went on. “I didn’t train my man; I began by spoiling him. That’s where most girls make a mistake. Then, when the babies come, the spoiling ceases generally. But the harm is done. I have often observed that the husbands of selfish women are a long way the nicest. Men like peace; they will sacrifice a great deal in order to get it.”

“It is rather an agreeable thing,” Esmé said, reflecting that a little more of it in her sister’s household would make life pleasanter.

“I dare say it is; but it can’t be had on an insufficient income. If you like peace so much, why do you take the children with you on your holiday? You won’t get peace where they are.”

“Oh! we’ll get along. We shall be out all day, and there will be other children for them to play with. They won’t worry me.”

“It’s nice of you to be bothered with them,” Rose said. She scrutinised her sister closely, and, curiosity getting the upper hand, asked bluntly: “Where is Paul Hallam now?”

“On the Karroo,” Esmé answered, surprised. “Why?”

“I didn’t know. I thought perhaps you might meet at the Zuurberg.”

“No. He left there long ago.”

“Well, but he might have felt it worth his while to go back when you were there. I don’t understand that affair, Esmé. I don’t trust the man. My dear, I don’t trust him. And you are wearing yourself out, thinking of him. You are losing your vitality. You aren’t as pretty as you were. No.” She surveyed the girl fixedly with adversely criticising eyes. “You arenotso pretty.”

This came as a shock to Esmé. She wanted to look in the glass over the mantelpiece; but her sense of dignity and the fitness of things kept her glued to her seat. What, after all, did it matter if her looks departed? There was no one to note these things nor feel distressed on their account.

“Why does he continue to write to you, and never come to see you?” Rose asked. “It’s not fair to you. And there’s George... If it wasn’t for Paul Hallam you would marry George. He is a good fellow, and he’s getting on. It would be a most suitable arrangement. You don’t want to teach all your life. You want a home. Every woman does. Instead you fill your head with romantic nonsense, and make yourself miserable, and George miserable—for a man who doesn’t care. You could forget him if you left off corresponding. Why do you let him play with you?”

“He doesn’t play with me,” Esmé answered, flushing. “He never asked me for anything more than friendship. I give him that because it is a help to him, and because he is lonely. Why cannot a man and a girl be friends?”

“I should have thought your own case furnished an answer to that,” Rose said. “In a friendship between a man and a girl one of them invariably falls in love. You can’t get away from nature. The eternal question of sex hides behind all these unequal friendships. That’s what makes them interesting. But these interesting relationships can spoil one’s life. I wish that you had never met this man. I feel uneasy about it.”

Esmé sat in an attitude of disturbed attention, and kept her eyes studiously averted from her sister’s. There was just sufficient reason in her discursive statements to cause the girl to wince mentally. She was beginning to believe that she was giving more than Paul Hallam wanted from her, more than he dreamed of when he proposed continuing the friendship. This thought was humiliating; but only temporarily so: even as she felt its sting another thought drew the venom from it. If she could help him, even a little, it was worth while.

Book Two—Chapter Seventeen.“To revisit a familiar spot is like walking among tombstones. Every point recalls a memory, and memory belongs to the past.”Very vividly, like something heard long ago but never before realised, these words which Hallam had uttered on the morning she left the Zuurberg all those weary months before, echoed in Esmé’s thoughts when she made her second journey up the mountain road. The truth of them struck her like a thing which hurts. Her memories came back to her, as he had said they would, with the dust on them. And there was no evading them; they obtruded at every point.At Coerney there was the same wait under the trees before the cart was ready to start; the same languid stillness brooded over the place, the same enervating heat. Here was the first tombstone. She looked about her with reminiscent eyes, marked the spot where she had sat with Hallam while they waited for the train to come in, realised the crowd of new impressions which jostled the memories in her brain, and fell into thought.The children were busy exploring. The sound of their gay, excited voices came to her distantly on the languid air. But she could not see them; their figures were hidden among the trees.Everything was much the same as on her former visit. There were two other travellers beside her party: they had gone into the hotel for refreshments. Presently they came out. The horses appeared with the driver, and the business of inspanning began. The children wandered back and became actively interested in these proceedings. John wished to drive: a compromise was effected by his being allowed to sit beside the driver and hold the whip. Then began the toil upward.With every mile of the journey memories came crowding back into Esmé’s mind, a dismal procession of pale ghosts that came and went and left a feeling of greater loneliness when they passed. These memories of her first glowing impressions, when excitement and a sense of adventure had coloured her imagination, gave to the present occasion a sort of flatness: the wonder of romance was missing from the picture. She looked about her with intent, mystified eyes. Everywhere there were tombstones; they met her all along the route.Yet the beauty of the place remained unchanged. The wild grandeur of the scenery, the magnificent solitude, the almost terrifying depths of the chasm which lost itself in the froth of green below, these things impressed her as they had impressed her before with a wondering admiration that held something of awe in it; but whereas before, though she had believed herself to be lonely, hope had travelled with her as a companion; on this occasion there was no joyful anticipation in her heart, only a sense of disappointment that the finish of the journey promised nothing more than the usual holiday offers—rest and change from the ordinary busy life.She wished, with an urgency no less insistent because of its futility, that she had decided on some other place—any other place—in which to spend her holiday. The mountain road was haunted with the ghosts of dead pleasures; the gorge was haunted; its secret places were the repositories for the thoughts of yesterday, for the dreams which pass with the night.She gazed down into the black-green silences and felt her despondency deepen. These familiar things linked up her life so completely with the one brief romance it had ever known. She could not disentangle her thoughts from the past. Everywhere her eyes turned, each fresh curve in the road, brought back recollections of Hallam, and of their drive down the mountain together. What was he doing now? Where was he, while she was being borne higher and higher up the steep ascent?Every now and again the children turned in their seats to flash some question at her, or to point out some amazing novelty which caught their eager attention. The big tree across the road, which cut through its giant trunk, was a source of wonder and delight to them. John forgot his dignity and allowed himself to be impressed by its dimensions.“Man! but they can grow trees up this way,” he remarked to the driver.Whereat the driver unbent so far as to permit him to drive under the tree. Whatever his aunt thought about it, John thoroughly enjoyed the experience of that journey up the mountain road. But when the hotel broke first upon his sight he was a little disappointed by its unpretentious appearance.“It isn’t very big. It’s just like an ordinary house,” he complained.“I expect you’ll find there is room enough for you inside,” Esmé said.“Gimme my suit-case. I’ll go and find out,” John replied.The cart drew up before the entrance. John scrambled down and waited impatiently for his luggage. He had never owned a suit-case before. He insisted upon carrying it. This delayed the party. Esmé was obliged to wait while the cart was unloaded, until John’s baggage came to light and was given into his care. Declining assistance, he struggled with his burden manfully up the short path, and, flushed and a little short of breath, deposited it on the stoep with an air of satisfaction. Some one came forward and offered to carry it inside for him; but John was distrustful of these overtures.“I can manage,” he said politely, to the amusement of a man who was seated on the stoep, “if you’ll show me the way, please.”Before following his conductor he looked round for his aunt and sister; and the man who had shown amusement looked in the same direction, and then stood up. John was not interested in the stranger’s movements; he was anxious to go inside and unpack; but the others were so slow in coming. Mary had halted in the path to fondle an amazingly fat white cat. John was not keen on cats; he preferred a dog. He wished they would hurry up.“John,” Mary’s shrill voice called on a note of enthusiasm, “it’s the darlingest thing, and it’s called Snowflake.”“Oh,comeon!” John returned.Mary came on at a run, and Esmé followed leisurely. And then another delay occurred. John’s patience was exhausted. Girls were all alike, he reflected scornfully; they made a fuss over everything they met. He did not understand why his aunt should stop to speak to the man who had been seated on the stoep, and who now stepped off the stoep and went to meet her. It seemed as though she had forgotten that he was waiting for her to go in with him.She had stopped still in the path and was talking to the man. She had forgotten John and his suit-case altogether; she had forgotten everything. The weary months of waiting had slipped out of the picture; the present had rolled back into the past. She was back in the old spot with the man beside her whose presence made for her the magic of the place. The ghosts which had met and mocked her on the journey were finally laid to rest.Hallam had come down the path quickly, and stood in front of her and blocked her way. She stood still, flushed and wondering, and looked at him with eyes which told a tale.“I began to think you hadn’t come,” he said.“Oh!” she said, and held out a hand with a slightly nervous laugh. “I never expected to see you. Why didn’t you tell me?”“I was coming to the station to meet you,” he said, “but the cart went away fairly loaded. I have been sitting here waiting for you for the past two days. What do you suppose I meant, you dense little thing, when I advised you to take your holiday here? Do you think I’d have left you to wander alone among the musty relics you dreaded? ... I am going to take you to-morrow morning to see the sun rise,” he added in a lighter tone.Esmé laughed happily.“I haven’t seen the sun rise since the last time we saw it together,” she said, and scrutinised him for the first time with unwavering eyes.She thought him looking extremely well and fit. He appeared younger and altogether more sure of himself. And the stoop of the shoulders was less noticeable; he carried himself better. He met her eyes and smiled.“I rather suspected your early morning activity was a cultivation,” he said. “It is possible, I have found, to discard habits as well as to cultivate them.”That was the only reference he made to the long months he had spent fighting his baser self. He did not know whether she caught the drift of his remark. It did not seem to him to matter much. There was manifestly very little need for explanations on either side. They took one another for granted. They took their love for one another for granted; it stood revealed, a thing which needed no words, which expressed itself mutely in their satisfaction in one another. They gazed into each other’s eyes, and there was no shadow of doubt in their minds at all.“You are looking well,” she said.“Yes,” he said; “I feel well. I feel amazingly, extravagantly well. So do you. You’re radiant. That’s because we are feeling so extremely pleased, both of us, with life and with ourselves,—particularly with ourselves. We are going to have the best of times together. I have been looking forward to this for months. And now you’re here... It is almost as if we had never parted. It’s better, really; the break brings us nearer. It’s just good.”The happiness which she felt shone in her face. She looked about her at the familiar little garden, at the homely comfortable hotel, and the small stoep in front of the house, where John and Mary waited, John seated on the steps with his precious suit-case beside him. Then she looked back into the man’s face, and her eyes were grave and tender when they met his.“I had forgotten the children,” she said.He glanced over his shoulder.“The little chap with the suit-case,” he said. “And the girl—yes. Who are they?”She explained them.“I brought them with me to keep away the ghosts,” she said.He laughed.“Well, they are here. I wish they weren’t; but we’ll make the best of it. It doesn’t very much matter. The sooner they get used to me and the situation, the better. If there is any one sufficiently good-natured to foster them we will shift our responsibilities. I am going to monopolise you. I’ve been lonely ever since I said good-bye to you at Coerney.”He turned and walked beside her up the short path to the stoep.“I’m glad to have you back,” he said.John and Mary, staring with round-eyed curiosity at the pair as they advanced, wondered why their aunt looked so shy, and why she coloured suddenly from neck to brow and looked down and spoke softly.“It’s good to be back,” she replied.They came to a halt at the steps; and John, remembering his manners, stood up, but continued to stare, unabashed.“This is John,” Esmé said with greater confidence; and John held out a small, hot hand.“How d’ye do?” he said, as one man to another.

“To revisit a familiar spot is like walking among tombstones. Every point recalls a memory, and memory belongs to the past.”

Very vividly, like something heard long ago but never before realised, these words which Hallam had uttered on the morning she left the Zuurberg all those weary months before, echoed in Esmé’s thoughts when she made her second journey up the mountain road. The truth of them struck her like a thing which hurts. Her memories came back to her, as he had said they would, with the dust on them. And there was no evading them; they obtruded at every point.

At Coerney there was the same wait under the trees before the cart was ready to start; the same languid stillness brooded over the place, the same enervating heat. Here was the first tombstone. She looked about her with reminiscent eyes, marked the spot where she had sat with Hallam while they waited for the train to come in, realised the crowd of new impressions which jostled the memories in her brain, and fell into thought.

The children were busy exploring. The sound of their gay, excited voices came to her distantly on the languid air. But she could not see them; their figures were hidden among the trees.

Everything was much the same as on her former visit. There were two other travellers beside her party: they had gone into the hotel for refreshments. Presently they came out. The horses appeared with the driver, and the business of inspanning began. The children wandered back and became actively interested in these proceedings. John wished to drive: a compromise was effected by his being allowed to sit beside the driver and hold the whip. Then began the toil upward.

With every mile of the journey memories came crowding back into Esmé’s mind, a dismal procession of pale ghosts that came and went and left a feeling of greater loneliness when they passed. These memories of her first glowing impressions, when excitement and a sense of adventure had coloured her imagination, gave to the present occasion a sort of flatness: the wonder of romance was missing from the picture. She looked about her with intent, mystified eyes. Everywhere there were tombstones; they met her all along the route.

Yet the beauty of the place remained unchanged. The wild grandeur of the scenery, the magnificent solitude, the almost terrifying depths of the chasm which lost itself in the froth of green below, these things impressed her as they had impressed her before with a wondering admiration that held something of awe in it; but whereas before, though she had believed herself to be lonely, hope had travelled with her as a companion; on this occasion there was no joyful anticipation in her heart, only a sense of disappointment that the finish of the journey promised nothing more than the usual holiday offers—rest and change from the ordinary busy life.

She wished, with an urgency no less insistent because of its futility, that she had decided on some other place—any other place—in which to spend her holiday. The mountain road was haunted with the ghosts of dead pleasures; the gorge was haunted; its secret places were the repositories for the thoughts of yesterday, for the dreams which pass with the night.

She gazed down into the black-green silences and felt her despondency deepen. These familiar things linked up her life so completely with the one brief romance it had ever known. She could not disentangle her thoughts from the past. Everywhere her eyes turned, each fresh curve in the road, brought back recollections of Hallam, and of their drive down the mountain together. What was he doing now? Where was he, while she was being borne higher and higher up the steep ascent?

Every now and again the children turned in their seats to flash some question at her, or to point out some amazing novelty which caught their eager attention. The big tree across the road, which cut through its giant trunk, was a source of wonder and delight to them. John forgot his dignity and allowed himself to be impressed by its dimensions.

“Man! but they can grow trees up this way,” he remarked to the driver.

Whereat the driver unbent so far as to permit him to drive under the tree. Whatever his aunt thought about it, John thoroughly enjoyed the experience of that journey up the mountain road. But when the hotel broke first upon his sight he was a little disappointed by its unpretentious appearance.

“It isn’t very big. It’s just like an ordinary house,” he complained.

“I expect you’ll find there is room enough for you inside,” Esmé said.

“Gimme my suit-case. I’ll go and find out,” John replied.

The cart drew up before the entrance. John scrambled down and waited impatiently for his luggage. He had never owned a suit-case before. He insisted upon carrying it. This delayed the party. Esmé was obliged to wait while the cart was unloaded, until John’s baggage came to light and was given into his care. Declining assistance, he struggled with his burden manfully up the short path, and, flushed and a little short of breath, deposited it on the stoep with an air of satisfaction. Some one came forward and offered to carry it inside for him; but John was distrustful of these overtures.

“I can manage,” he said politely, to the amusement of a man who was seated on the stoep, “if you’ll show me the way, please.”

Before following his conductor he looked round for his aunt and sister; and the man who had shown amusement looked in the same direction, and then stood up. John was not interested in the stranger’s movements; he was anxious to go inside and unpack; but the others were so slow in coming. Mary had halted in the path to fondle an amazingly fat white cat. John was not keen on cats; he preferred a dog. He wished they would hurry up.

“John,” Mary’s shrill voice called on a note of enthusiasm, “it’s the darlingest thing, and it’s called Snowflake.”

“Oh,comeon!” John returned.

Mary came on at a run, and Esmé followed leisurely. And then another delay occurred. John’s patience was exhausted. Girls were all alike, he reflected scornfully; they made a fuss over everything they met. He did not understand why his aunt should stop to speak to the man who had been seated on the stoep, and who now stepped off the stoep and went to meet her. It seemed as though she had forgotten that he was waiting for her to go in with him.

She had stopped still in the path and was talking to the man. She had forgotten John and his suit-case altogether; she had forgotten everything. The weary months of waiting had slipped out of the picture; the present had rolled back into the past. She was back in the old spot with the man beside her whose presence made for her the magic of the place. The ghosts which had met and mocked her on the journey were finally laid to rest.

Hallam had come down the path quickly, and stood in front of her and blocked her way. She stood still, flushed and wondering, and looked at him with eyes which told a tale.

“I began to think you hadn’t come,” he said.

“Oh!” she said, and held out a hand with a slightly nervous laugh. “I never expected to see you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was coming to the station to meet you,” he said, “but the cart went away fairly loaded. I have been sitting here waiting for you for the past two days. What do you suppose I meant, you dense little thing, when I advised you to take your holiday here? Do you think I’d have left you to wander alone among the musty relics you dreaded? ... I am going to take you to-morrow morning to see the sun rise,” he added in a lighter tone.

Esmé laughed happily.

“I haven’t seen the sun rise since the last time we saw it together,” she said, and scrutinised him for the first time with unwavering eyes.

She thought him looking extremely well and fit. He appeared younger and altogether more sure of himself. And the stoop of the shoulders was less noticeable; he carried himself better. He met her eyes and smiled.

“I rather suspected your early morning activity was a cultivation,” he said. “It is possible, I have found, to discard habits as well as to cultivate them.”

That was the only reference he made to the long months he had spent fighting his baser self. He did not know whether she caught the drift of his remark. It did not seem to him to matter much. There was manifestly very little need for explanations on either side. They took one another for granted. They took their love for one another for granted; it stood revealed, a thing which needed no words, which expressed itself mutely in their satisfaction in one another. They gazed into each other’s eyes, and there was no shadow of doubt in their minds at all.

“You are looking well,” she said.

“Yes,” he said; “I feel well. I feel amazingly, extravagantly well. So do you. You’re radiant. That’s because we are feeling so extremely pleased, both of us, with life and with ourselves,—particularly with ourselves. We are going to have the best of times together. I have been looking forward to this for months. And now you’re here... It is almost as if we had never parted. It’s better, really; the break brings us nearer. It’s just good.”

The happiness which she felt shone in her face. She looked about her at the familiar little garden, at the homely comfortable hotel, and the small stoep in front of the house, where John and Mary waited, John seated on the steps with his precious suit-case beside him. Then she looked back into the man’s face, and her eyes were grave and tender when they met his.

“I had forgotten the children,” she said.

He glanced over his shoulder.

“The little chap with the suit-case,” he said. “And the girl—yes. Who are they?”

She explained them.

“I brought them with me to keep away the ghosts,” she said.

He laughed.

“Well, they are here. I wish they weren’t; but we’ll make the best of it. It doesn’t very much matter. The sooner they get used to me and the situation, the better. If there is any one sufficiently good-natured to foster them we will shift our responsibilities. I am going to monopolise you. I’ve been lonely ever since I said good-bye to you at Coerney.”

He turned and walked beside her up the short path to the stoep.

“I’m glad to have you back,” he said.

John and Mary, staring with round-eyed curiosity at the pair as they advanced, wondered why their aunt looked so shy, and why she coloured suddenly from neck to brow and looked down and spoke softly.

“It’s good to be back,” she replied.

They came to a halt at the steps; and John, remembering his manners, stood up, but continued to stare, unabashed.

“This is John,” Esmé said with greater confidence; and John held out a small, hot hand.

“How d’ye do?” he said, as one man to another.

Book Two—Chapter Eighteen.The young Bainbridges were not slow in coming to a conclusion in regard to the condition of affairs between Hallam and their aunt. John pronounced Hallam as being “all right”; Mary thought him old. But then her aunt was rather old also; aunts are not girls. Mary viewed this mature romance with feminine curiosity. She thought it odd, but immensely interesting. She dogged their footsteps.“I believe Mr Hallam is in love with Auntie,” she confided to John, who probably unaided would not have discovered this surprising fact.“I wonder!” John said, and pondered the announcement. “I think I’ll ask him,” he added.He took an early opportunity of doing so. He waylaid the pair, returning from their morning walk, and planted himself in front of Hallam, looking squarely up at him, with his hands in his pockets, in an attitude so reminiscent of his father as to move Esmé to merriment. Her laugh ended in a strangled gurgle when John spoke.“Are you going to marry Auntie, Mr Hallam?” John asked with a directness that would have disconcerted most people, but at which Hallam only smiled.“I am,” he answered. “I hope you don’t object?”“No; that’s all right,” John said amiably. “I only wanted to know.”And then he wandered off to join Mary and impart the result of his inquiries to her. Hallam looked at Esmé, and turned about abruptly, and proceeded to walk with her away from the hotel.“I think,” she said hesitatingly, “that I ought to go in.”“Not yet,” he said. “I want to talk to you. You may think that that was an odd sort of proposal; but the little chap forced my hand. It is amazing how sharp children are. Did you mind?”“No,” she replied, confused but extraordinarily happy. “I was a little unprepared though.”They had both taken things so much for granted that she had not noticed that he had never definitely asked her to marry him. That part of it did not seem to matter.“You knew,” he said, “how things were? I think we both assumed it from the moment you arrived. But John has put matters on a businesslike footing. I said I meant to marry you. I do—if you’ll take me. You know what I am. I think you know more about me than any one. Any good that is in me is of your making—”“No,” she interrupted quickly. But he took no heed of that, and went on as if she had not spoken.“When I met you I was drifting. No other influence, I believe, could have pulled me up. It was not merely that you made me realise the folly of wasting my life; you opened my mind to more than that. I have come to see that man has a duty towards his fellow-men; that he has got to serve the community: if he serve it ill, he plays a mean part; if his service be good he doesn’t merit praise, he is simply doing his job. You have pulled me out of the mire; now that I have cleaned some of the mud off I want you to take me by the hand and continue the journey with me. There isn’t any need for me to say in words that I love you. I think you guessed that long ago.”He looked down and saw her face all flushed and confused, with eyes, too shy to meet his own, lowered till the lashes touched her cheeks. He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her; but the open road was ill suited to his purpose, and he decided to wait.“Dear, will you marry me?” he asked.For one fleeting moment she lifted her eyes to his face, and her look was so sweet and so gravely tender when it met his that his longing increased. Then she looked away again and answered softly:“Yes.”Bald little monosyllable, which was all her lips could utter though her heart was filled with love for him; but it sufficed for Hallam. He pressed closer to her and bent down over her and touched her hand.“I want to kiss you,” he muttered. “I’m longing to kiss your lips.”She looked up, startled, and moved a little away from him. The passionate urgency in his voice was so altogether unexpected and unfamiliar that she felt disquieted. She was afraid of being seen from the hotel.“Not now,” she faltered. “Wait, I haven’t got used to the idea yet. Not now.”He laughed quietly.“Little duffer!” he said. “Do you suppose I am going to make love to you in front of the windows of the hotel? I’ll wait—until we are alone. Then...”Voice and eyes were eloquent. There was an air of confident mastery about him. She felt increasingly shy of him. He seemed suddenly to loom bigger, to express qualities of a virile and dominating nature which she had not suspected were in him. It was as though he put out a hand and took her heart in it and held it in a firm grasp. It frightened her just a little. Her breath came quicker and her pulses beat fast. They turned about and started to walk back.“I think we had better go and have some breakfast,” he said, with an amused look at her confused face. “If we delay any longer we shall be faced with more awkward questions from young John. After breakfast we will go in search of solitude and have our talk. There are endless things I want to say to you.”They entered the hotel, separating at the door to meet again at the breakfast-table. It was a silent meal so far as they were concerned, as silent as those meals through which they had sat in the early days of their acquaintance, when the man had maintained a moody aloofness painfully embarrassing to his companion. She felt no embarrassment any longer when he did not talk at table, and the chatter of the children made conversation difficult.She was glad on that particular occasion that she had the children to distract her attention. She felt so extraordinarily shy of the man beside her, shy of the accepted position of their new relations. She felt that she must drag out the meal indefinitely: she wanted to postpone that walk. But Hallam held altogether different views; and presently he got up and prepared to leave the table.“Hurry up!” he said. “You’ll find me waiting for you on the stoep.”Then he went out, and she found herself confronted with the problem of disposing of John and Mary for the morning. They were desirous of accompanying her. The situation held an absorbing interest for them.“I am going to be your bridesmaid, Auntie,” Mary said, fascinated with the prospect of a wedding looming in the near future. “And wear a blue dress,” she added.John’s face became grimly resolute.“Mr Hallam needn’t count on me for best man,” he announced. “I’m off that.”Esmé left them to the discussion of these weighty matters under the sympathetic guardianship of a visitor at the hotel, who had children of her own and did not mind an addition to the party, and joined Hallam. They set out together on their first walk since their engagement.For a time they walked in silence, both of them a little impressed with the strangeness of the new situation. Hallam’s face was grave and thoughtful, and every now and again he turned to the girl with a curious eagerness in his eyes, and an added tenderness in the look he gave her.It was altogether a memorable and wonderful occasion. He liked the shyness of her mood. It surprised and amused him to see her eyes droop before his gaze, and the colour come and go in her cheeks. He had known her before only as a very self-possessed young woman; but she revealed to him that morning, as he revealed to her, new and unexpected qualities that were profoundly interesting. Again there came over him the longing to take her in his arms and hold her close against his heart.He took her hand when they were well away from the hotel, and they walked along together thus and talked disjointedly and a trifle self-consciously of trivial things. Presently Hallam said:“I am going back with you when you leave. I have to make the acquaintance of your people. That is a necessary preliminary. Afterwards we will speed matters, and get married without undue delay. There isn’t any object in waiting, is there? I don’t feel that I can wait. I want you so.”“I’ll have to resign my position as music teacher,” she said. “There is nothing else to consider. You know, I can’t quite realise it yet. It all seems so strange and wonderful.”“It is wonderful,” he answered gravely. “It’s wonderful to me that you should love me. It seems more wonderful still that you trust me. Your belief in me has been more helpful than any sermon. It is a sermon. It’s a sort of religion. I’ve leaned on you... you little thing, whom I could pick up and toss over my shoulder! Dear, you’ll never know how much I love you. I can’t put it into words.”She squeezed his hand understandingly. It was the same with her. She could never have told him all that was in her heart.“There isn’t any need for words,” she said softly.“No.” He looked at her quickly. “You do understand,” he said. “You’ve always understood. From the first we seemed to strike the same thoughts instinctively. We get at one another somehow. I feel as if I had known you all my life.”“And I,” she answered with a shy little laugh, “feel that I am only beginning to know you. Each time I am with you something fresh and unexpected leaps to the surface, and I’ve got to start again from the beginning and reconstruct all my ideas of you. I wonder if it will always be like that?”“You will find me consistent in one respect anyhow,” he answered.He drew her into the shadow of some trees towards which their steps had been directed, and came to a halt facing her, and dropped her hand and put his arms around her.“Now...” he said.He held her closely and for the first time kissed her lips.

The young Bainbridges were not slow in coming to a conclusion in regard to the condition of affairs between Hallam and their aunt. John pronounced Hallam as being “all right”; Mary thought him old. But then her aunt was rather old also; aunts are not girls. Mary viewed this mature romance with feminine curiosity. She thought it odd, but immensely interesting. She dogged their footsteps.

“I believe Mr Hallam is in love with Auntie,” she confided to John, who probably unaided would not have discovered this surprising fact.

“I wonder!” John said, and pondered the announcement. “I think I’ll ask him,” he added.

He took an early opportunity of doing so. He waylaid the pair, returning from their morning walk, and planted himself in front of Hallam, looking squarely up at him, with his hands in his pockets, in an attitude so reminiscent of his father as to move Esmé to merriment. Her laugh ended in a strangled gurgle when John spoke.

“Are you going to marry Auntie, Mr Hallam?” John asked with a directness that would have disconcerted most people, but at which Hallam only smiled.

“I am,” he answered. “I hope you don’t object?”

“No; that’s all right,” John said amiably. “I only wanted to know.”

And then he wandered off to join Mary and impart the result of his inquiries to her. Hallam looked at Esmé, and turned about abruptly, and proceeded to walk with her away from the hotel.

“I think,” she said hesitatingly, “that I ought to go in.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I want to talk to you. You may think that that was an odd sort of proposal; but the little chap forced my hand. It is amazing how sharp children are. Did you mind?”

“No,” she replied, confused but extraordinarily happy. “I was a little unprepared though.”

They had both taken things so much for granted that she had not noticed that he had never definitely asked her to marry him. That part of it did not seem to matter.

“You knew,” he said, “how things were? I think we both assumed it from the moment you arrived. But John has put matters on a businesslike footing. I said I meant to marry you. I do—if you’ll take me. You know what I am. I think you know more about me than any one. Any good that is in me is of your making—”

“No,” she interrupted quickly. But he took no heed of that, and went on as if she had not spoken.

“When I met you I was drifting. No other influence, I believe, could have pulled me up. It was not merely that you made me realise the folly of wasting my life; you opened my mind to more than that. I have come to see that man has a duty towards his fellow-men; that he has got to serve the community: if he serve it ill, he plays a mean part; if his service be good he doesn’t merit praise, he is simply doing his job. You have pulled me out of the mire; now that I have cleaned some of the mud off I want you to take me by the hand and continue the journey with me. There isn’t any need for me to say in words that I love you. I think you guessed that long ago.”

He looked down and saw her face all flushed and confused, with eyes, too shy to meet his own, lowered till the lashes touched her cheeks. He longed to take her in his arms and kiss her; but the open road was ill suited to his purpose, and he decided to wait.

“Dear, will you marry me?” he asked.

For one fleeting moment she lifted her eyes to his face, and her look was so sweet and so gravely tender when it met his that his longing increased. Then she looked away again and answered softly:

“Yes.”

Bald little monosyllable, which was all her lips could utter though her heart was filled with love for him; but it sufficed for Hallam. He pressed closer to her and bent down over her and touched her hand.

“I want to kiss you,” he muttered. “I’m longing to kiss your lips.”

She looked up, startled, and moved a little away from him. The passionate urgency in his voice was so altogether unexpected and unfamiliar that she felt disquieted. She was afraid of being seen from the hotel.

“Not now,” she faltered. “Wait, I haven’t got used to the idea yet. Not now.”

He laughed quietly.

“Little duffer!” he said. “Do you suppose I am going to make love to you in front of the windows of the hotel? I’ll wait—until we are alone. Then...”

Voice and eyes were eloquent. There was an air of confident mastery about him. She felt increasingly shy of him. He seemed suddenly to loom bigger, to express qualities of a virile and dominating nature which she had not suspected were in him. It was as though he put out a hand and took her heart in it and held it in a firm grasp. It frightened her just a little. Her breath came quicker and her pulses beat fast. They turned about and started to walk back.

“I think we had better go and have some breakfast,” he said, with an amused look at her confused face. “If we delay any longer we shall be faced with more awkward questions from young John. After breakfast we will go in search of solitude and have our talk. There are endless things I want to say to you.”

They entered the hotel, separating at the door to meet again at the breakfast-table. It was a silent meal so far as they were concerned, as silent as those meals through which they had sat in the early days of their acquaintance, when the man had maintained a moody aloofness painfully embarrassing to his companion. She felt no embarrassment any longer when he did not talk at table, and the chatter of the children made conversation difficult.

She was glad on that particular occasion that she had the children to distract her attention. She felt so extraordinarily shy of the man beside her, shy of the accepted position of their new relations. She felt that she must drag out the meal indefinitely: she wanted to postpone that walk. But Hallam held altogether different views; and presently he got up and prepared to leave the table.

“Hurry up!” he said. “You’ll find me waiting for you on the stoep.”

Then he went out, and she found herself confronted with the problem of disposing of John and Mary for the morning. They were desirous of accompanying her. The situation held an absorbing interest for them.

“I am going to be your bridesmaid, Auntie,” Mary said, fascinated with the prospect of a wedding looming in the near future. “And wear a blue dress,” she added.

John’s face became grimly resolute.

“Mr Hallam needn’t count on me for best man,” he announced. “I’m off that.”

Esmé left them to the discussion of these weighty matters under the sympathetic guardianship of a visitor at the hotel, who had children of her own and did not mind an addition to the party, and joined Hallam. They set out together on their first walk since their engagement.

For a time they walked in silence, both of them a little impressed with the strangeness of the new situation. Hallam’s face was grave and thoughtful, and every now and again he turned to the girl with a curious eagerness in his eyes, and an added tenderness in the look he gave her.

It was altogether a memorable and wonderful occasion. He liked the shyness of her mood. It surprised and amused him to see her eyes droop before his gaze, and the colour come and go in her cheeks. He had known her before only as a very self-possessed young woman; but she revealed to him that morning, as he revealed to her, new and unexpected qualities that were profoundly interesting. Again there came over him the longing to take her in his arms and hold her close against his heart.

He took her hand when they were well away from the hotel, and they walked along together thus and talked disjointedly and a trifle self-consciously of trivial things. Presently Hallam said:

“I am going back with you when you leave. I have to make the acquaintance of your people. That is a necessary preliminary. Afterwards we will speed matters, and get married without undue delay. There isn’t any object in waiting, is there? I don’t feel that I can wait. I want you so.”

“I’ll have to resign my position as music teacher,” she said. “There is nothing else to consider. You know, I can’t quite realise it yet. It all seems so strange and wonderful.”

“It is wonderful,” he answered gravely. “It’s wonderful to me that you should love me. It seems more wonderful still that you trust me. Your belief in me has been more helpful than any sermon. It is a sermon. It’s a sort of religion. I’ve leaned on you... you little thing, whom I could pick up and toss over my shoulder! Dear, you’ll never know how much I love you. I can’t put it into words.”

She squeezed his hand understandingly. It was the same with her. She could never have told him all that was in her heart.

“There isn’t any need for words,” she said softly.

“No.” He looked at her quickly. “You do understand,” he said. “You’ve always understood. From the first we seemed to strike the same thoughts instinctively. We get at one another somehow. I feel as if I had known you all my life.”

“And I,” she answered with a shy little laugh, “feel that I am only beginning to know you. Each time I am with you something fresh and unexpected leaps to the surface, and I’ve got to start again from the beginning and reconstruct all my ideas of you. I wonder if it will always be like that?”

“You will find me consistent in one respect anyhow,” he answered.

He drew her into the shadow of some trees towards which their steps had been directed, and came to a halt facing her, and dropped her hand and put his arms around her.

“Now...” he said.

He held her closely and for the first time kissed her lips.

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