That evening Priscilla found a letter from her stepmother awaiting her—a briefly worded, urgent summons.
"Your cousin has not arrived, after all," it said. "Your father and I are greatly disappointed. Would it not be as well for you to return to town? You can scarcely, I fear, afford to waste your time in this fashion. Young Lord Harfield was asking for you most solicitously only yesterday. Such a charming man, I have always thought!"
"That—chicken!" said Priscilla, and tossed her letter aside.
Later, she went up to the top of the Abbey, and out on to a part of the roof that had been battlemented, to dream her dream again under the stars and to view her paradise yet more closely from before the opening gates.
It was very late when she returned lightfooted to Froggy's sitting-room, and, kneeling by her friend's side, interposed her dark head between the kind, bulging eyes and the open Bible that lay upon the table.
"Froggy," she whispered softly, "I'm so happy, dear—so happy!"
And so kneeling, she told Froggy in short, halting sentences of the sudden splendour that had glorified her life.
Froggy was greatly astonished, and even startled. She was also anxious, and showed it. But Priscilla hastened to smooth this away.
"Yes, I know it's sudden. But sometimes, you know, love is like that. Don't be anxious, Froggy. I am much more cautious—but what a ridiculous word!—than you think. He doesn't know who I am yet. I pretended to him that I was a relation of yours. And he isn't to know at present. You will keep that in mind, won't you? And in a day or two I shall bring him in here to tea, and you will be able to judge of him for yourself. No, dear, no; of course he hasn't spoken. It is much too soon. You forget that though I have known him so long, he has only known me for two days. Oh, Froggy, isn't it wonderful to think of—that he should have come at last like this? It is almost as if—as if my love had drawn him."
Priscilla's reply to her stepmother's summons, written several days later, was a highly unsatisfactory epistle indeed, in the opinion of its recipient. She found it quite impossible to tear herself away from the country while the fine weather lasted, she wrote. She was enjoying herself immensely, and did not feel that she could ever endure the whole of a London season in one dose again.
It was not a well-thought-out letter, being written in a haste that made itself obvious between the lines. Carfax had hired a motor-car, and was waiting for her. They went miles that day, and when they stopped at last they were in a country that she scarcely knew—a country of barren downs and great sunlit spaces, lonely, immense.
"This is the place," said Carfax quietly, as he helped her to alight.
Priscilla walked a few paces and stood still. She knew exactly why he had chosen it. Her heart was beating wildly. It seemed to dominate all her other faculties. She felt it to be almost more than she could bear.
Those moments of unacknowledged waiting were terrible to her. She knew she had taken an irrevocable step, and her free instinct clamoured loudly against it. It amounted almost to a panic within her.
There came a quiet step on the turf behind her. She did not turn, but the suspense became suddenly unendurable. With a convulsive movement, she made as if she would go on. At the same instant an arm encircled her, checked her, held her closely.
"So, sweetheart!" said Julian Carfax, his voice soothing, womanly, but possessing withal a note of vitality, of purpose, that she had never heard in it before.
She suffered his hold with a faint but desperate cry.
"You don't know me," she said, with a gasping effort. "You don't—" The words failed. He was pressing her to him ever more closely, and she felt his fingers gently fumbling at her veil. With a sudden passionate movement she put up both hands, and threw it back.
"There!" she said, with a sound, half laugh, half sob, and turned herself wholly to him.
The next instant, as his lips pressed hers, all the anguish of doubt that had come upon her was gone like an evil spirit from her soul. She knew only that they stood alone together in a vast space that was filled to the brim with the noonday sunshine. All her heart was flooded with rejoicing. The gates had opened wide for her, and she had entered in.
Priscilla never quite realised afterwards how it was that the whole of that long summer day slipped by and her confession remained still unspoken. She did make one or two attempts to lead round to the subject, but each seemed to be foredoomed to failure, and at last she abandoned the idea—for that day, at least. It seemed, after all, but a paltry thing in face of her great happiness.
They sped homeward at length in the light of a cloudless sunset, smoothly and swiftly as if they swooped through air.
"I will take you to the edge of the park," Carfax said; and when they reached it he took her in his arms, holding her fast, as if he could not bear to let her go.
They parted at last almost in silence, but with the tacit understanding that they would meet in the glen on the following day.
Priscilla walked home through the lengthening shadows with a sense of wonderment and unreality at her heart. He had asked for no pledge, yet she knew that the bond between them was such as might stretch to the world's end and never break. They belonged to each other irrevocably now, whatever might intervene.
She reached the Abbey, walking as in a maze of happiness, with no thought for material things.
Romeo came to greet her with effusion, and an air of having something to tell her. She fondled him, and went on with him into the house. They entered by a conservatory, and so through the shrouded drawing-room into the great hall.
The girl's eyes were dazzled by the sudden gloom she found there. She expected to meet no one, and so it was with a violent start that she saw a man's figure detach itself from the shadows and come towards her.
"Who is it?" she asked sharply; and then in astonishment: "Why, Dad!"
Her father's voice answered her, but not with the gruff kindliness to which she was accustomed. It came to her grim and stern, and she knew instinctively that he hated the errand that had brought him.
"I have come down to fetch you," he said. "I do not approve of your being here alone. It is unusual and quite unnecessary. You are quite well?"
"Yes, I am well," Priscilla said. "But why should you object to my being here?"
She stood still, facing him. She knew who had inspired this interference, and from the bottom of her soul she resented it. Her father did not answer. Thinking it over calmly later, she knew that he was ashamed.
"Be ready to start from here in half an hour," he said. "We shall catch the nine-thirty."
Priscilla made no further protest. Her father had never addressed that tone to her before, and it cut her to the heart.
"Very well," she said; and turned to go.
Her deep voice held no anger, and only Romeo, pressed close against her, knew that the hand that had just caressed him was clenched and quivering.
Priscilla left a hastily scribbled note for Carfax in Froggy's keeping. In it she explained that she was obliged to go to town, but that she would meet him there any day before noon at any place that he would appoint. Froggy was to be the medium of his communication also.
She made no mention of Carfax to her father. He had hurt her far too deeply for any confidence to be possible. Moreover, it seemed to her that she had no right to speak until Carfax himself gave her leave.
She did not see her stepmother till the following day. The greeting between them was of the coolest, though Lady Raffold, being triumphant, sought to infuse a little sentiment into hers.
"I am really worn out, Priscilla," she said. "It is my turn now to have a little rest. I am going to leave all the hard work to you. It will be such a relief."
Three days later, however, she relinquished this attitude. Priscilla was summoned to her room, where she was breakfasting, and found her in great excitement.
"My dear child, he has arrived. He has actually arrived, and is staying at the Ritz. He must come and dine with us to-morrow night. It will be quite an informal affair—only thirty—so it can easily be managed. He must take you in, Priscilla; and, oh, my dear, do remember that it is the great opportunity of your life, and it mustn't be thrown away, whatever happens! Your father has set his heart upon it."
"Are you talking about Mr. Cochrane?" asked Priscilla.
"To be sure. Who else? Now don't put on that far-away look, pray! You know what is, after all, your simple duty, and I trust you mean to do it. You can't be going to disappoint your father in this matter. And you really must marry soon Priscilla. It is getting serious. In fact, it worries me perpetually. By the way, here is a letter for you from Raffold. It must have got among mine by mistake. Mrs. Burrowes's handwriting, I imagine."
She was right. It was directed by Froggy, but Priscilla paled suddenly as she took it, realising that it contained an answer to her own urgent note.
Alone in her own room she opened it. The message was even briefer than hers had been: "Sweetheart,—At 11A.M., on Thursday, under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.—I am thine, J. C."
Priscilla stood for long seconds with the note in her hand. It had reached her too late. The appointment had been for the day before. She turned to the envelope, and saw that it must have been lying among her stepmother's correspondence for two days. Doubtless he had waited for her at the trysting-place, and waited in vain.
Only one thing remained to be done, and that was to telegraph to Froggy for Carfax's address. But Froggy's answer, when it came, was only another disappointment:
"Address not known. Did you not receive letter I forwarded?"
Reluctantly Priscilla realised that there was nothing for it but patience. Carfax would almost certainly write again through Froggy.
That he had not her address she knew, for Froggy was under a solemn vow to reveal nothing, but she would not believe that he would regard her failure to keep tryst as a deliberate effort to snub him, though the fear that he might do so haunted and grew upon her all through the day.
She went to a theatre that night, and later to a dance, but neither entertainment served to lift the deadening weight from her spirits. She was miserable, and the four hours she subsequently spent in bed brought her no relief.
She rose at last in sheer desperation, and went for an early ride in the Park. She met a few acquaintances, but she shook them off. She wanted to be alone.
When she was returning, however, her youthful admirer, Lord Harfield, attached himself to her, refusing to be discouraged.
"I met your cousin at the Club yesterday," he told her.
"What is he like?" Priscilla asked, without much interest.
"Oh, haven't you seen him yet? A very queer fish, with a twang you could cut with a knife. Don't think you'll like him," said Lord Harfield, who was jealous of every man who so much as bowed to Priscilla.
Priscilla smiled faintly.
"I don't think so, either," she said. "You are coming to dine with us to-night, aren't you? He will be there too."
"Will he? I say, what a bore for you! Yes, I'm coming. I'll do my best to help you," the boy assured her eagerly.
And again Priscilla smiled. She was quite sure that she would be bored, whatever happened, though she was too kind-hearted to say so.
"I wonder why Priscilla has put on that severely plain attire? It makes her look almost ugly," sighed Lady Raffold. "And how dreadfully pale she is to-night! Really, I have never seen her look more unattractive."
She turned with her most dazzling smile to receive the American Ambassador, and no one could have guessed that under her smile was real anger, because her stepdaughter was gracing the occasion in a robe of sombre black.
All the guests had arrived with the exception of Ralph Cochrane, the heir-apparent, as Priscilla styled him, and Lady Raffold chatted with one eye on the door. It was too bad of the young man to be late.
She was just giving him up in despair, and preparing to proceed to the dining-room without him, when his name was announced. Lord Raffold went forward to meet him. Priscilla, sitting on a lounge with Lord Harfield's mother, caught the sound of a soft, leisurely voice apologising; and something tightened suddenly at her heart, and held its beating. It was a voice she knew.
As through a mist, she looked across the great room, with its many lights, its buzz of careless voices. And suddenly, it seemed to her, she was back in the little village church at Raffold, furtively watching a stranger who stood in the entrance, and searched with level scrutiny quite deliberately and frankly till he found her.
Their eyes met, and her heart thrilled responsively as an instrument thrills to the hand of a skilled player.
Almost involuntarily she rose. There was some mistake. She knew there must be some mistake. She felt that in some fashion it rested with her to explain and to justify his presence there.
But in that instant his eyes left her, and the magnetism that compelled her died swiftly down. She saw him shake hands with Lady Raffold, and bow to the Ambassador.
Then came her stepmother's quick, beckoning glance, and she moved forward in response to it. She was quivering from head to foot, bewildered, in some subtle fashion afraid.
"My dear, your cousin. He will take you in. Ralph, this is Priscilla."
It was sublimely informal. Lady Raffold had rehearsed that introduction several times. It was half the battle that the young man should feel himself one of the family from the outset.
Priscilla grabbed at her self-control, and managed to bow. But the next instant his hand, strong, warm, reassuring, grasped hers.
"Curious, isn't it?" the quiet voice asked. "We can't be strangers, you and I."
The grip of his fingers was close and intimate. It was as if he appealed for her support.
With an effort she forced herself to respond:
"Of course not. It must be quite five years since our first meeting."
He looked at her oddly, quizzically, as he offered his arm.
"Why, yes," he drawled, as they began to move towards the door. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot? It is exactly five years ago to-day."
"Funny, wasn't it, sweetheart?"
The soft voice reached her through a buzz of other louder voices. Priscilla moved slightly, but she did not turn her head.
"You will have to explain," she said. "I don't understand anything yet."
"Nor I," came the quiet retort. "It's the woman's privilege to explain first, isn't it?"
Against her will, the blood rose in her face. She threw him a quick glance.
"I can't possibly explain anything here," she said.
He met her look with steady eyes.
"Let me tell you the story of a fraud," he said; and proceeded without further preliminary. "There was once a man—a second son, without prospects and without fame—who had the good fortune to do a service to a woman. He went away immediately afterwards lest he should make a fool of himself, for she was miles above his head, anyway. But he never forgot her. The mischief was done, so far as he was concerned."
He broke off, and raised his champagne to his lips as if he drank to a memory.
Priscilla was listening, but her eyes were downcast. She wore the old, absent look that her stepmother always deprecated. The soft drawl at her side continued, every syllable distinct and measured.
"Years passed, and things changed. The man had belonged to a cadet branch of an aristocratic British family. But one heir after another died, till only he was left to inherit. The woman belonged to the older branch of the family, but, being a woman, she was passed over. A time came when he was invited by the head of the house to go and see his inheritance. He would have gone at once and gladly, but for a hint at the end of the letter to the effect that, if he would do his part, what the French shamelessly call amariage de convenancemight be arranged between his cousin and himself—an arrangement advantageous to them both from a certain point of view. He didn't set up for a paragon of morality. Perhaps even, had things been a little different, he might have been willing. As it was, he didn't like the notion, and he jibbed." He paused. "But for all that," he said, his voice yet quieter and more deliberate, "he wanted the woman, if he could make her care for him. That was his difficulty. He had a feeling all along that the thing must be an even greater offence to her than it was to him. He worried it all through, and at last he worked out a scheme for them both. He called himself by an old schoolalias, and came to her as a stranger——
"You're not eating anything, sweetheart. Wouldn't it be as well, just for decency's sake? There's a comic ending to this story, so you mustn't be sad. Who's that boy scowling at me on the other side of the table? What's the matter with the child?"
"Never mind," murmured Priscilla hastily. "He doesn't mean anything. Please go on."
He began to laugh at her with gentle ridicule.
"Impatient for the third act? Well, the scheme worked all right. But it so chanced that the woman decided to be subtle, too. She knew him for an old friend the instant she saw him. But he pretended to have forgotten that old affair in New York. He didn't want her to feel in any way under an obligation. So he played the humble stranger, and she—sweetheart—she played the simple, country maiden, and she did it to perfection. I think, you know, that she was a little afraid her name and title would frighten him away."
"And so he humoured her?" said Priscilla, a slight quiver in her deep voice.
"They humoured each other, sweetheart. That was where it began to be funny. Now I am going to get you to tell me the rest of the story."
She turned towards him again, her face very pale.
"Yes; it's very funny, no doubt—funny for the man, I mean; for the woman, I am not so sure. How does she know that he really cared for her from the beginning; that he was always quite honest in his motive? How can she possibly know this?"
Again for a moment their eyes met. There was no hint of dismay in the man's brown face.
"She does know it, sweetheart," he answered, with confidence. "I can't tell you how. Probably she couldn't, either. He was going to explain everything, you know, under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. But for some reason it didn't come off. He spent three solid hours waiting for her, but she didn't come. She had found him out, perhaps? And was angry?"
"Perhaps," said Priscilla, her voice very low.
Again he raised his glass to his lips.
"We will have the end of the story presently," he said; and deliberately turned to his left-hand neighbour.
A musicalsoiréewas to follow that interminable dinner, and for a time Priscilla was occupied in helping Lady Raffold to receive the after-dinner guests. She longed to escape before the contingent from the dining-room arrived upstairs, but she soon realised the impossibility of this. Her stepmother seemed to want her at every turn, and when at length she found herself free, young Lord Harfield appeared at her elbow.
It was intolerable. She turned upon him without pity.
"Oh, please," she said, "I've dropped my fan in the dining-room or on the stairs. Would you be so kind——"
He departed, not suspecting her of treachery; and she slipped forthwith into a tiny conservatory behind the piano. It was her only refuge. She could but hope that no one had seen her retire thither. Her need for solitude just then was intense. She felt herself physically incapable of facing the crowd in the music-room any longer. The first crashing chords of the piano covered her retreat. She shut herself softly in, and sank into the only chair the little place contained.
Her mind was a chaos of conflicting emotions. Anger, disappointment, and an almost insane exultation fought together for the mastery. She longed to be rational, to think the matter out quietly and impartially, and decide how to treat it. But her most determined efforts were vain. The music disturbed her. She felt as if the chords were hammering upon her brain. Yet when it suddenly ceased, the unexpected silence was almost harder to bear.
In the buzz of applause that ensued, the door behind her opened, and a man entered.
She heard the click of the key in the lock, and turned sharply to protest. But the words died on her lips, for there was that in his brown, resolute face that silenced her. She became suddenly breathless and quivering before him, as she had been that day on the down when he had taken her into his arms.
He withdrew the key, and dropped it into her lap.
"Open if you will," he said, in the quiet voice, half tender, half humorous, that she had come to know so well. "I am closely followed by the infant with the scowl."
Priscilla sat silent in her chair. What could she say to him?
"Well?" he said, after a moment. "The end of the story—is it written yet?"
She shook her head dumbly. Curiously, the throbbing anger had left her heart at the mere sound of his voice.
He waited for about three seconds, then knelt quietly down beside her.
"Say," he drawled, "I kind of like Raffold Abbey, sweetheart. Wouldn't it be nice to spend our honeymoon there? Do you think they would let us?" He laid his hand upon both of hers. "Wouldn't it be good?" he said softly. "I should think there would be room for two, eh, sweetheart?"
With an effort she sought to withstand him before he wholly dominated her.
"And every one will call it amariage de convenance!"
"Let them!" he answered, with suppressed indifference. "I reckon we shall have the laugh. But it isn't so unusual, you know. Americans always fall in love at first sight."
He was unanswerable. He was sublime. She marvelled that she could have ever even attempted to resist him.
With a sudden, tremulous laugh, she caught his hand to her, holding it fast.
"Not Americans only!" she said. And swiftly, passionately, she bent and pressed her lips to the red, seared scar upon her hero's wrist.
"And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues; and they repented not to give Him glory."
The droning voice quivered and fell silent. Within the hospital tent, only the buzz of flies innumerable was audible. Without, there sounded near at hand the squeak of a sentry's boots, and in the distance the clatter of the camp.
The man who lay dying was in a remote and quite detached sense aware of these things, but his fevered imagination had carried him beyond. He watched, as it were, the glowing pictures that came and went in his furnace of pain. These little details were to him but the distant humming of the spinning-wheel of time from which he was drawing ever farther and farther away. They did not touch that inner consciousness with which he saw his visions.
Now and then he turned his head sharply on the pillow, as an alien might turn at the sound of a familiar voice, but always, after listening intently, it came back to its old position, and the man's restless eyes returned to the crack high up in the tent canvas through which the sun shone upon him like a piercing eye.
The occupant of the bed next to him watched him furtively, fascinated but uneasy. He was a young soldier of the simple country type, and the wild words that came now and again from the fevered lips startled him uncomfortably. He wished the dying man would cease his mutterings and let him sleep. But every time the prolonged silence seemed to indicate a final cessation of the nuisance, the droning voice took up the tale once more.
"And men were scorched with great heat—and they repented not—repented not."
A soft-stepping native orderly moved to the bedside and paused. Instantly the wandering words were hushed.
"Bring me some water, Sammy," the same voice said huskily. "If you can't take the sun out of the sky, you can give me a drink."
The native shook his head.
"The doctor will come soon," he said soothingly. "Have patience."
Patience! The word had no meaning for him in that inferno of suffering. He moved his head, that searching spot of sunlight dancing in his eyes, and cursed deep in his throat the man who kept him waiting.
Barely a minute later the doctor came—a quiet, bronzed man, level-eyed and strong. He bent over the stricken figure on the bed, and drew the tumbled covering up a little higher. He had just written "mortally wounded" of this man on his hospital report, but there was nothing in his manner to indicate that he had no hope for him.
"Get another pillow," he said to the native orderly. And to the dying man: "That will take the sun out of your eyes. I see it is bothering you."
"Curse the sun!" the parched lips gasped. "Can't you give me a drink?"
The eyes of the young soldier in the next bed scanned the doctor's face anxiously. He, too, wanted a drink. He thirsted from the depths of his soul. But he knew there was no water to be had. The supply had been cut off hours before.
"No," the doctor said gravely. "I can't give it you yet. By-and-bye, perhaps——"
"By-and-bye!" There was a dreadful sound like laughter in the husky voice.
The doctor laid a restraining hand on the man's chest.
"Hush!" he said, in a lower tone. "It's this sort of thing that shows what a fellow is made of. All these other poor chaps are children. But you, Ford, you are grown up, so to speak. I look to you to help me,—to set the example."
"Example! Man alive!" A queer light danced like a mocking spirit in Private Ford's eyes, and again he laughed—an exceeding bitter laugh. "I've been made an example of all my life," he said. "I've sometimes thought it was what I was created for. Ah, thanks!" he added in a different tone, as the doctor raised him on the extra pillow. "You're a brick, sir! Sit down a minute, will you? I want to talk to you."
The doctor complied, his hand on the wounded man's wrist.
"That's better," Ford said. "Keep it there. And stop me if I rave. It's a queer little world, isn't it? I remember you well, but you wouldn't know me. You were one of the highfliers, and I was always more or less of an earthworm. But you'll remember Rotherby, the captain of the first eleven? A fine chap—that. He's dead now, eh?"
"Yes," the doctor said, "Rotherby's dead."
He was looking with an intent scrutiny at the scarred and bandaged face on the pillow. He had felt from the first that this man was no ordinary ranker. Yet till that moment it had never occurred to him that they might have met before.
"I always liked Rotherby," the husky voice went on. "He was a big swell, and he didn't think much of small fry. But you—you and he were friends, weren't you?"
"For a time," the doctor said. "It didn't last."
There was regret in his voice—the keen regret of a man who has lost a thing he valued.
"No; it didn't last," Ford agreed. "I remember when you chucked him. Or was it the other way round? I saw a good deal of him in those days. I thought him a jolly good fellow, till I found out what a scoundrel he was. And I had a soft feeling for him even then. You knew he was a scoundrel, didn't you?"
"Yes, I knew."
The doctor spoke reluctantly. The hospital tent, the silent row of wounded men, the stifling atmosphere, the flies, all were gone from his inner vision. He was looking with grave, compassionate eyes at the picture that absorbed the man at his side.
"He was good company, eh?" the restless voice went on. "But he had his black moments. I didn't know him so well in the days when you and he were friends."
"Nor I," the doctor said. "But—why do you want to talk of him?"
Again he was searching the face at his side with grave intensity. It did not seem to him that this man could ever have been of the sort that his friend Rotherby would have cared to admit to terms of intimacy. Rotherby—notwithstanding his sins—had been fastidious in many ways.
The answer seemed to make the matter more comprehensible.
"I was with him when he died," the man said. "It was in just such an inferno as this. We were alone together, looking for gold in the Australian desert. We didn't find it, though it was there, mountains of it. The water gave out. We tossed for the last drain—and I won. That was how Rotherby came to die. He hadn't much to live for, and he was going to die, anyhow. A queer chap, he was. He and his wife never lived together after the smash came, and he had to leave the country. Perhaps you knew?"
"Yes," the doctor said again, "I knew."
Ford moved his head restlessly.
"The thought of her used to worry him in the night," he said. "I've known him lie for hours not sleeping, just staring up at the stars, and thinking, thinking. I've sometimes thought that the worst torture on earth can't equal that. You know, after he was dead, they found her miniature on him—a thing in a gold case, with their names engraved inside. He used to wear it round his neck like a charm. It was by that they identified him—that and his signet-ring, and one or two letters. Scamp though I was, I had the grace not to rob the dead. They sent the things to his wife. I've often wondered what she did with them."
"I can tell you that," said the doctor quietly. "She keeps them among her greatest treasures."
Ford turned sharply on his pillows, and stifled an exclamation of pain.
"You know her still, then?" he said.
"She is my wife," the doctor answered.
A long silence followed his words. The wounded soldier lay with closed eyes and drawn brows. He seemed to be unconscious of everything save physical pain.
Suddenly he seemed to recover himself, and looked up.
"You," he said slowly, "you are Montagu Durant, the fellow she was engaged to before she married Rotherby."
The doctor bent his head.
"Yes," he said. "I am Montagu Durant."
"Rotherby's friend," Ford went on. "The chap who stuck to him through thick and thin—to be betrayed in the end. I know all about you, you see, though you haven't placed me yet."
"No, I can't place you," Durant said. "I don't think we ever knew each other very well. You will have to tell me who you are."
"Later—later," said Ford. "No, you never knew me very well. It was always you and Rotherby, you and Rotherby. You never looked at any one else, till that row at the 'Varsity when he got kicked out. Yes," with a sudden, sharp sigh, "I was a 'Varsity man too. I admired Leonard Rotherby in those days. Poor old Leo! He knew how to hit a boundary as well as any fellow! You never forgave him, I suppose, for marrying your girl?"
There was a pause, and the fevered eyes sought Durant's face. The answer came at length very slowly.
"I could have forgiven him," Durant said, "if he had stuck to her and made her happy."
"Ah! There came the rub. But did Rotherby ever stick to anything? It was a jolly good thing he died—for all concerned. Yet, you know, he cared for her to the last. Blackguard as he was, he carried her in his heart right up to his death. I tell you I was with him, and I know."
There was strong insistence in the man's words. Durant could feel the racing pulse leap and quiver under his hand. He leaned forward a little, looking closely into the drawn face.
"I think you have talked enough," he said. "Try to get some rest."
"I haven't raved," said Ford, with confidence. "It has done me good to talk. I can't help thinking of Leo Rotherby. My brain runs on him. He wanted to see you—horribly—before he died. I believe he'd have asked your forgiveness. But you wouldn't have given it to him, I suppose? You will never forgive him in your heart?"
Again the answer did not come at once. Durant was frowning a little—the frown of a man who tries to fathom his own secret impulses.
"I think," he said at last, "that if I had seen him and he had asked for it, I should not have refused my forgiveness."
"No one ever refused Rotherby anything," said the dying man, with a curious, half-humorous twist of his mouth under its dark moustache.
"Except yourself," Durant reminded him, almost involuntarily.
Again the wandering, uneasy eyes sought his. "You mean—that drain of water," Ford said, with a total lack of shame or remorse. "Yes, it's true Rotherby didn't have that. But it didn't make any difference, you know. He was going to die. And the living come before the dead, eh, doctor?"
Durant did not quite understand his tone, but he suffered the words to go unchallenged. He was not there to discuss the higher morality with a dying man. Moreover, he knew that the bare mention of water was a fiery torture to him, disguise it as he might.
He sat a little longer, then rose to go. He fancied that there was a shade less of restlessness about this man, whom he knew to be suffering what no other man in the tent could have endured in silence.
In response to a sign he stooped to catch a few, low-spoken words.
"By-and-bye," said Private Ford, with husky self-assurance, "when it's dark—or only moonlight—a man will creep out between the lines and crawl down to the river, to get some water for—the children."
He was wandering again, Durant saw; and his pity mounted high.
"Perhaps, poor fellow; perhaps," he answered gently.
As he went away he heard again the droning, unconscious voice:
"And power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched—with great heat. Eh, Sammy? Is that water you have there? Quick! Give me—what? There is none? Then why the—why the—" There came an abrupt pause; then a brief, dry chuckle that was like the crackling of flame through dead twigs. "Ah, I forgot. I mustn't curse. I've got to set the example to these children. But, O God, the heat and the flies!"
Durant wondered if after all it had been a kindness to call back the passing spirit that had begun to forget.
Slowly the scorching day wore away, till evening descended in a blaze of gorgeous colouring upon the desolate African wilderness and the band of men that had been surrounded and cut off by a wily enemy.
They were expecting relief. Hourly they expected it, but, being hampered by a score of wounded, it was not possible for them to break through the thickly populated scrub unassisted. And they had no water.
A stream flowed, brown and sluggish, not more than a hundred yards below the camp. But that same stream was flanked on the farther side by a long, black line of thicket that poured forth fire upon any man who ventured out from behind the great rocks that protected the camp.
It had been attempted again and again, for the needs of the wounded were desperate. But each effort had been disastrous, and at last an order had gone forth that no man was to expose himself again to this deadly risk.
So, silent behind their entrenchments, with the hospital tent in their midst, the British force had to endure the situation, waiting with a dogged patience for the coming of their comrades who could not be far away.
Regal to the last, the sun sank away in orange and gold; and night, burning, majestic, shimmering, spread over a cloudless sky. A full moon floated up behind dense forest trees, and shed a glimmering radiance everywhere. The heat did not seem to vary by a breath.
A great restlessness spread like a wave through the hospital tent. Men waked from troubled slumber, crying aloud like children, piteously, unreasoningly, for water.
The doctor went from one to another, restraining, soothing, reassuring. His influence made itself felt, and quiet returned; but it was a quiet that held no peace; it was the silent gripping of an agony that was bound to overcome.
Again and again through the crawling hours the bitter protest broke out afresh, like the crying of souls in torment. One or two became delirious and had to be forcibly restrained from struggling forth in search of that which alone could still their torture.
Durant was too fully occupied with these raving patients of his to spare any attention for the bed in the far corner on which they had laid the one man whose injuries were mortal. If he thought of the man at all, it was to reflect that he was probably dead.
But at last a young officer entered the seething tent, and touched him on the shoulder.
"Can you come outside a moment? You're wanted," he said.
Durant turned from a man who was lying exhausted and barely conscious, took up his case, and followed him out. He did just glance at the bed in the corner as he went, but he saw no movement there.
His summoner turned upon him abruptly as they emerged.
"Look here," he said. "There's a water-bag quite full, waiting for those poor beggars in there. Better send one of the orderlies for it."
"Water!" said Durant sharply, as if the news were difficult to believe. Then, recovering himself: "Tell the sentry, will you? I can't spare an orderly."
The young officer complied, and hurried him on.
"The poor chap is breathing his last," he said. "You can't do him any good, but he wants you."
"Who is it?" asked the doctor.
"The man who fetched the water—Ford. He was badly wounded when he started. He crawled every inch of the way on his stomach, and back again, dragging the bag with him. Heaven knows how he did it! It's taken him hours."
"Ford?" the doctor said incredulously. "Ford? Impossible! How did he get away?"
"Oh, he crawled through somehow; Heaven only knows how! But he's done now, poor beggar—pegging out fast. We got him into shelter, but we couldn't do more, he was in such agony."
The speaker stopped, for Durant had broken into a run. The moonlight showed him a group of men gathered about a prone figure. They separated and stood aside as he reached them; and he, kneeling, found in the prone figure the man who had talked with him in the afternoon of the friend who had played him false.
He was very far gone, lying in a dreadful twisted heap, his head, with its bloodstained bandages, resting on his arm. Yet Durant saw that he still lived, and tried with gentle hands to ease the strain of his position.
With a sharp gasp, Ford opened his eyes.
"Hullo!" he said. "It's you, is it? Did they get the water?"
"They have got it by now," the doctor answered.
"Ah!" The man's lips twisted in a difficult smile. He struggled bravely to keep the mortal agony out of his face. "Gave you the slip that time," he gasped. "Disobeyed orders, too. But it didn't matter—except for example. You must tell them, eh? Dying men have privileges."
"Tell him he'd have had the V. C. for it," whispered the officer in command, over the doctor's shoulder.
Durant complied, and caught the quick gleam that shot up in the dying eyes at his words.
"The gods were always behind time—with me," came the husky whisper. "I used to think I'd scale Olympus, but—they kicked me down. If—if there's any water to spare, when it's gone round, I—I——"
He broke off with a rending cough. Some one put a tin cup into the doctor's hand, and he held it to the parched lips. Ford drank in great gulps, and, as he drank, the worst agony passed. His limbs relaxed after the draught, and he lay quite still, his face to the sky.
After the passage of minutes he spoke again suddenly. His voice was no longer husky, but clear and strong. His eyes were the eyes of a man who sees a vision.
"Jove!" he said. "What a princely gathering to see me carry out my bat! Don't grin, you fellows. I know it was a fluke—a dashed fine fluke, too. But it's what I always meant, after all. There's good old Monty, yelling himself hoarse in the pavilion. And his girl—waving. Sweet girl, too—the best in the world. I might cut him out there. But I won't, I won't! I'm not such a hound as that, though she's the only woman in the world, bless her, bless her!"
He stopped. Durant was bending over him, listening eagerly, as one might listen to the voice of an old, familiar friend, heard again after many years.
He did not speak. He seemed afraid to dispel the other's dream. But after a moment, the man in his arms made a sudden, impulsive movement towards him. It was almost like a gesture of affection. And their eyes met.
There followed a brief silence that had in it something of strain. Then Ford uttered a shaky laugh. The vision had passed.
"So—you see—he had to die—anyhow," he said. "My love to—your wife, dear old Monty! Tell her—I'm—awfully—pleased!"
His voice ceased, yet for a moment his lips still seemed to form words.
Durant stooped lower over him, and spoke at last with a sort of urgent tenderness.
"Leo!" he said. "Leo, old chap!"
But there came no answer save a faint, still smile. The man he called had passed beyond his reach.
Relief came to the beleaguered force at daybreak, and the worst incident of the campaign ended without disaster. A casualty list, published in the London papers a few days later, contained an announcement, which concerned nobody who read it, to the effect that Private Ford, of a West African Regiment, had succumbed to his wounds.
"And you will come back, Jim? Promise! Promise!"
"Of course, darling—of course! There! Don't cry! Can't you see it's a chance in a thousand? I've never had such a chance before."
The sound of a woman's low sobbing was audible in the silence that followed; and a man who was leaning on the sea-wall above, started and peered downwards.
He could dimly discern two figures standing in the shadow of a great breakwater below him. More than that he could not distinguish, for it was a dark night; but he knew that the man's arms were about the girl, and that her face was hidden against him.
Realising himself to be an intruder, he stood up and began to walk away.
He had not gone a dozen yards before the sound of flying feet caught his attention, and he turned his head. A woman's light figure was running behind him along the deserted parade. He waited for her under a gas-lamp.
She overtook him and fled past him without a pause. He caught a glimpse of a pale face and fair hair in wild disorder.
Then she was gone again into the night, running swiftly. The darkness closed about her, and hid her from view.
The man on the parade paused for several seconds, then walked back to his original resting-place by the sea-wall.
The band on the pier was playing a jaunty selection from a comic opera. It came in gusts of gaiety. The wash of the sea, as it crept up the beach, was very mysterious and remote.
Below, on the piled shingle, a man stood alone, staring out over the darkness, motionless and absorbed.
The watcher above him struck a match at length and kindled a cigarette. His face was lit up during the operation. It was the face of a man who had seen a good deal of the world and had not found the experience particularly refreshing. Yet, as he looked down upon the silent figure below him, there was more of compassion than cynicism in his eyes. There was a glint of humour also, like the shrewd half-melancholy humour of a monkey that possesses the wisdom of all the ages, and can impart none of it.
Suddenly there was a movement on the shingle. The lonely figure had turned and flung itself face downwards among the tumbling stones. The abandonment of the action was very young, and perhaps it was that very fact that made it so indescribably pathetic. To Lester Cheveril, leaning on the sea-wall, it appealed as strongly as the crying of a child. He glanced over his shoulder. The place was deserted. Then he deliberately dropped his cigarette-case over the wall and exclaimed: "Confound it!"
The prone figure on the shingle rolled over and sat up.
"Hullo!" said Cheveril.
There was a distinct pause before a voice replied: "Hullo! What's the matter?"
"I've dropped my cigarette-case," said Cheveril. "Beastly careless of me!"
Again there was a pause. Then the man below him stumbled to his feet.
"I've got a match," he said. "I'll see if I can find it."
"Don't trouble," said Cheveril politely. "The steps are close by."
He walked away at an easy pace and descended to the beach. The flicker of a match guided him to the searcher. As he drew near, the light went out, and the young man turned to meet him.
"Here it is," he said gruffly.
"Many thanks!" said Cheveril. "It's so confoundedly dark to-night. I scarcely expected to see it again."
The other muttered an acknowledgment, and stood prepared to depart.
Cheveril, however, paused in a conversational attitude. He had not risked his property for nothing.
"A pretty little place, this," he said. "I suppose you are a visitor here like myself?"
"I'm leaving to-morrow," was the somewhat grudging rejoinder.
"I only came this afternoon," said Cheveril. "Is there anything to see here?"
"There's the sea and the lighthouse," his companion told him curtly—"nothing else."
Cheveril smiled faintly to himself in the darkness.
"Try one of these cigarettes," he said sociably. "I don't enjoy smoking alone."
He was aware, as his unknown friend accepted the offer, that he would have infinitely preferred to refuse.
"Been here long?" he asked him, as they plunged through the shingle towards the sand.
"I've lived here nearly all my life," was the reply. And, after a moment, as if the confidence would not be repressed: "I'm leaving now—for good."
"Ah!" said Cheveril sympathetically. "It's pretty beastly when you come to turn out. I've done it, and I know."
"It's infernal," said the other gloomily, and relapsed into silence.
"Going abroad?" Cheveril ventured presently.
"Yes. Going to the other side of the world." Surliness had given place to depression in the boy's voice. Sympathy, albeit from an unknown quarter, moved him to confidence. "But it isn't that I mind," he said, a moment later. "I should be ready enough to clear out if it weren't for—some one else!"
"A woman, I suppose?" Cheveril said.
He was aware that his companion glanced at him sharply through the gloom, and knew that he was momentarily suspected of eavesdropping.
Then, with impulsive candour, the answer came:
"Yes; the girl I'm engaged to. She has got to stay behind and marry—some one else."
Cheveril's teeth closed silently upon his lower lip. This, also, was one of the things he knew.
"You can't trust her, then?" he said, after a pause.
"Oh, she cares for me—of course!" the boy answered. "But there isn't a chance for us. They are all dead against me, and the other fellow will be on the spot. He hasn't asked her yet, but he means to. And her people will simply force her to accept him when he does. Of course they will! He is Cheveril, the millionaire. You must have heard of him. Every one has."
"I know him well," said Cheveril.
"So do I—by sight," the boy plunged on recklessly—"an undersized little animal with a squint."
"I didn't know he squinted," Cheveril remarked into the darkness. "But, anyhow, they can't make her marry against her will."
"Can't they?" returned the other fiercely. "I don't know what you call it, then. They can make her life so positively unbearable that she will have to give in, if it is only to get away from them. It's perfectly fiendish; but they will do it. I know they will do it. She hasn't a single friend to stand by her."
"Except you," said Cheveril.
They had nearly reached the water. The rush and splash of the waves held something solemn in their harmonies, like the chords of a splendid symphony. Cheveril heard the quick, indignant voice at his side like a cry of unrest breaking through.
"What can I do?" it said. "I have never had a chance till now. I have just had a berth in India offered to me; but I can't possibly hope to support a wife for two years at least. And meanwhile—meanwhile——"
It stopped there; and a long wave broke with a roar, and rushed up in gleaming foam almost to their feet. The younger man stepped back; but Cheveril remained motionless, his face to the swirling water.
Quite suddenly at length he turned, as a man whose mind is made up, and began to walk back to the dimly lighted parade. He marched straight up the shingle, as if with a definite purpose in view, and mounted the rickety iron ladder to the pavement.
His companion followed, too absorbed by his trouble to feel any curiosity regarding the stranger to whom he had poured it out.
Under a flaring gas-lamp, Cheveril stood still.
"Do you mind telling me your name?" he said abruptly.
That roused the boy slightly. "My name is Willowby," he answered—"James Willowby."
He looked at Cheveril with a dawning wonder, and the latter uttered a short, grim laugh. The light streamed full upon his face.
"You know me well, don't you," he said, "by sight?"
Young Willowby gave a great start and turned crimson. He offered neither apology nor excuse.
"I like you for that," Cheveril said, after a moment. "Can you bring yourself to shake hands?"
There was unmistakable friendliness in his tone, and Willowby responded to it promptly. He was a sportsman at heart, however he might rail at circumstance.
As their hands met, he looked up with a queer, mirthless smile.
"I hope you are going to be good to her," he said.
"I am going to be good to you both," said Lester Cheveril quietly.
In the silence that followed his words, the band on the pier became audible on a sudden gust of wind. It was gaily jigging out the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind Me."
"What a secluded corner, Miss Harford! May I join you?"
Evelyn Harford looked up with a start of dismay. He was the last person in the world with whom she desired atête-à-tête; but he was dining at her father's house, and she could not well refuse. Reluctantly she laid aside the paper on her knee.
"I thought you were playing bridge," she said, in a chilly tone.
"I cried off," said Cheveril.
He stood looking down at her with shrewd, kindly eyes. But the girl was too intent upon making her escape to notice his expression.
"Won't you go to the billiard-room?" she said. "They are playing pool."
He shook his head.
"I came here expressly to talk to you," he said.
"Oh!" said Evelyn.
She leaned back in her chair, and tried to appear at her ease; but her heart was thumping tumultuously. The man was going to propose, she knew—she knew; and she was not ready for him. She felt that she would break down ignominiously if he pressed his suit just then.
Cheveril, however, seemed in no hurry. He sat down facing her, and there followed a pause, during which she felt that he was studying her attentively.
Growing desperate at length, she looked him in the face, and spoke.
"I am not a very lively companion to-night, Mr. Cheveril," she said. "That is why I came away from the rest."
There was more of appeal in her voice than she intended; and, realising it, she coloured deeply, and looked away again. He was just the sort of man to avail himself of a moment's weakness, she told herself, with rising agitation. Those shrewd eyes of his missed nothing.
But Cheveril gave no sign of having observed her distress. He maintained his silence for some seconds longer. Then, somewhat abruptly, he broke it.
"I didn't follow you in order to be amused, Miss Harford," he said. "The fact is, I have a confession to make to you, and a favour to ask. And I want you to be good enough to hear me out before you try to answer. May I count on this?"
The dry query did more to quiet her perturbation than any solicitude. She was quite convinced that he meant to propose to her, but his absence of ardour was an immense relief. If he would only be businesslike and not sentimental, she felt that she could bear it.
"Yes, I will listen," she said, facing him with more self-possession than she had been able to muster till that moment. "But I shall want a fair hearing, too—afterwards."
A faint smile flickered across Cheveril's face.
"I shall want to listen to you," he said. "The confession is this: Last night I went down to the parade to smoke. It was very dark. I don't know exactly what attracted me. I came upon two people saying good-bye on the beach. One of them—a woman—was crying."
He paused momentarily. The girl's face had frozen into set lines of composure. It looked like a marble mask. Her eyes met his with an assumption of indifference that scarcely veiled the desperate defiance behind.
"When does the confession begin?" she asked him, with a faint laugh that sounded tragic in spite of her.
He leaned forward, scrutinising her with a wisdom that seemed to pierce every barrier of conventionality and search her very soul.
"It begins now," he said. "She came up on to the parade immediately after, and I waited under a lamp to get a glimpse of her. I saw her face, Miss Harford. I knew her instantly." The girl's eyes flickered a little, and she bit her lip. She was about to speak, but he stopped her with sudden authority. "No, don't answer!" he said. "Hear me out. I waited till she was gone, and then I joined the young fellow on the beach. He was in the mood for a sympathetic listener, and I drew him out. He told me practically everything—how he himself was going to India and had to leave the girl behind, how her people disapproved of him, and how she was being worked upon by means little short of persecution to induce her to marry an outsider on the wrong side of forty, with nothing to recommend him but the size of his banking account. He added that she had not a single friend to stand by and make things easier for her. It was that, Miss Harford, that decided me to take this step. I can't see a woman driven against her will; anything in the world sooner than that. And here comes my request. You want a friend to help you. Let me be that friend. There is a way out of this difficulty if you will but take it. Since I got you into it, it is only fair that I should be the one to help you out. This is not a proposal of marriage, though it may sound like one."
He ended with a smile that was perfectly friendly and kind.
The rigid look had completely passed from the girl's face. She was listening with a curious blend of eagerness and reluctance. Her cheeks were burning; her eyes like stars.
"I am so thankful to hear you say that," she said, drawing a deep breath.
"Shall I go on?" said Cheveril.
She hesitated; and very quietly he held out his hand to her.
"In the capacity of a friend," he said gravely.
And Evelyn Harford put her hand into his with the confidence of a child. It was strange to feel her prejudice against this man evaporate at a touch. It made her oddly unsure of herself. He was the last person in the world to whom she would have voluntarily turned for help.
"Don't be startled by what I am going to say," Cheveril said. "It may strike you as an eccentric suggestion, but there is nothing in it to alarm you. Young Willowby tells me that it will take him two years to make a home for you, and meanwhile your life is to be made a martyrdom on my account. Will you put your freedom in my hands for that two years? In other words, will you consider yourself engaged to me for just so long as his absence lasts? It will save you endless trouble and discomfort, and harm no one. When Willowby comes back, I shall hand you over to him, and your happiness will be secured. Think it over, and don't be scared. You will find me quite easy to manage. In any case, I am a friend you can trust, remember, even though I have got the face of a baboon."
So, with absolute quietness, he made his proposal; and Evelyn, amazed and incredulous, heard him out in silence. At his last words she gave a quick laugh that sounded almost hysterical.
"Oh, don't," she said—"don't! You make me feel so ashamed."
Cheveril's face was suddenly quizzical.
"There is nothing to be ashamed of," he said. "I take all the responsibility, and it would give me very great pleasure to help you."
"But I couldn't do such a thing!" she protested. "I couldn't!"
"Listen!" said Cheveril. "I am off for a yachting trip in the Pacific in a week, and I give you my word of honour not to return for nine months, at least. Will that make it easier for you?"
"I am not thinking of myself," she told him, with vehemence. "Of course, it would make everything right for me, so long as Jim knew. But I must think of you, too. I must——"
"You needn't," Cheveril said gently; "you needn't. I have asked to be allowed to stand by you, to have the great privilege of calling myself your friend in need. I am romantic enough to like to see a love affair go the right way. It is for my pleasure, if you care to regard it from that point of view." He paused, and into his eyes there came a queer, watchful expression—the look of a man who hazards much, yet holds himself in check. Then he smiled at her with baffling humour.
"Don't refuse me my opportunity, Miss Harford," he said. "I know I am eccentric, but I assure you I can be a staunch friend to those I like."
Evelyn had risen, and as he ended he also got to his feet. He knew that she was studying him with all her woman's keenness of perception. But the game was in his hands, and he realised it. He was no longer afraid of the issue.
"You offer me this out of friendship?" she said at last.
He watched her fingers nervously playing with a bracelet on her wrist.
"Exactly," he said.
Her eyes met his resolutely.
"Mr. Cheveril," she said (and though she spoke quietly, it was with an effort), "I want you, please, to answer just one question. You have been shown all the cards; but there must—there shall be—fair play, in spite of it."
Her voice rang a little. The bracelet suddenly slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. Cheveril stooped and picked it up. He held it as he made reply.
"Yes," he said, "I like fair play, too."
"Then you will tell me the truth?" she said, holding out her hand for her property. "I want to know if—if you were really going to ask me to marry you before this happened?"
He looked at her with raised eyebrows. Then he took the extended hand.
"Of course I was!" he said simply. She drew back a little, but Cheveril showed no discomfiture. "You see, I'm getting on in life," he said, in a patriarchal tone. "No doubt it was rank presumption on my part to imagine myself in any way suited to you; but I thought it would be nice to have a young wife to look after me. And you know the proverb about 'an old man's darling.' I believe I rather counted on that."
Again he looked quizzical; but the girl was not satisfied.
"That's ridiculous!" she said. "You talk as if you were fifty years older than you are. It may be funny, but it isn't strictly honest."
Cheveril laughed.
"I know what you mean," he said. "But really I'm not being funny. And I am telling you the simple truth when I say that all sentimental nonsense was knocked out of me long ago, when the girl I cared for ran away with a good-looking beast in the Army. Also, I am quite honest when I assure you that I would rather be your trusted friend and accomplice than your rejected suitor. By Jove, I seem to be asking a good deal of you!"
"No, don't laugh," she said quickly, almost as if something in his careless speech had pained her. "We must look at the matter from every stand-point before—before we take any action. Suppose you really did want to marry some one? Suppose you fell in love again? What then?"
"What then?" said Cheveril. And, though he was obligingly serious, she felt that somehow, somewhere, he was tricking her. "I should have to ask you to release me in that event. But I don't think it's very likely that will happen. I'm not so impressionable as I was."
She looked at him doubtfully. Obviously he was not in love with her, yet she was uneasy. She had a curious sense of loss, of disappointment, which even Jim's departure had not created in her.
"I don't feel that I am doing right," she said finally.
"I am quite unscrupulous," said Cheveril lightly. "Moreover, there is no harm to any one in the transaction. Your life is your own. No one else has the right to order it for you. It seems to me that in this matter you need to consider yourself alone."
"And you," she said, in a troubled tone.
He surprised her an instant later by thrusting a friendly hand through her arm.
"Come!" he said, smiling down at her. "Let us go and announce the good news!"
And so she yielded to him, and went.
The news of Evelyn Harford's engagement to Lester Cheveril was no great surprise to any one. It leaked out through private sources, it being understood that no public announcement was to be made till the marriage should be imminent. And as Cheveril had departed in his yacht to the Pacific very shortly after his proposal, there seemed small likelihood of the union taking place that year.
Meanwhile, her long battle over, Evelyn prepared herself to enjoy her hard-earned peace. Her father no longer poured hurricanes of wrath upon her for her obduracy. Her mother's bitter reproaches had wholly ceased. The home atmosphere had become suddenly calm and sunny. The eldest daughter of the house had done her obvious duty, and the family was no longer shaken and upset by internal tumult.
But the peace was only on the surface so far as Evelyn was concerned. Privately, she was less at peace than she had ever been, and that not on her own account or on Jim Willowby's. Every letter she received from the man who had taken her part against himself stirred afresh in her a keen self-reproach and sense of shame. He wrote to her from every port he touched, brief, friendly epistles that she might have shown to all the world, but which she locked away secretly, and read only in solitude. Her letters to him were even briefer, and she never guessed how Cheveril cherished those scanty favours.
So through all that summer they kept up the farce. In the autumn Evelyn went to pay a round of visits at various country-houses, and it was while staying from home that a letter from Jim Willowby reached her.
He wrote in apparently excellent spirits. He had had an extraordinary piece of luck, he said, and had been offered a very good post in Burmah. If she would consent to go out to him, they could be married at once.
That letter Evelyn read during a solitary ramble over a wide Yorkshire moor, and when she looked up from the boy's signature her expression was hunted, even tragic.
Jim had carefully considered ways and means. The thing she had longed for was within her grasp. All she had ever asked for herself was flung to her without stint.
But—what had happened to her? she wondered vaguely—she realised it all fully, completely, yet with no thrill of gladness. Something subtly potent seemed wound about her heart, holding her back; something that was stronger far than the thought of Jim was calling to her, crying aloud across the barren deserts of her soul. And in that moment she knew that her marriage with Jim had become a final impossibility, and that it was imperative upon her to write at once and tell him so.
She walked miles that day, and returned at length utterly wearied in body and mind. She was facing the hardest problem of her life.
Not till after midnight was her letter to Jim finished, and even then she could not rest. Had she utterly ruined the boy's life? she wondered, as she sealed and directed her crude, piteous appeal for freedom.
When the morning light came grey through her window she was still poring above a blank sheet of notepaper.
This eventually carried but one sentence, addressed to the friend who had stood by her in trouble; and later in the day she sent it by cable to the other side of the world. The message ran: "Please cancel engagement.—Evelyn." His answering cable was brought to her at the dinner-table. Two words only—"Delighted.—Lester."