The Moon Out of Reach (Ainslee's serial)/Part 6

by Margaret Pedler

 

CHAPTER XXIX.

MAY had slipped away into the ranks of the dead months, and June, a June resplendent with sunshine and roses, had taken her place.

Nan, an open letter in her hand, sat perched on the low wall of the, quadrangular court at Mallow. A month there had practically restored her health, and, to all outward appearance, she was the same Nan who had stayed at Mallow almost a year ago.

But within herself she knew that a great gulf lay fixed between those insouciant, long-ago days and this golden, scented morning. The world had not altered. June was still vivid and sweet with the rapture of summer. It was she herself who had changed,

Looking backward, she almost wondered how she had endured the agony of love and suffering and sacrifice which had been compressed into a single year. She wished sometimes that they had let her die when she was so ill. It seemed foolish to make so much effort to hold on to life when everything which had made it lovely and pleasant and desirable had gone out of it.

Her marriage now loomed ahead in the near future and, in spite of her dogged intention to fulfill her bargain, she dreaded unspeakably the actual day which would make her Roger's wife—compelling her to a physical and spiritual bondage from which she shrank with loathing.

But there could be no escape. None. Throughout her illness, and since then, while she had groped her way slowly back to health here at Mallow, Roger had been thoughtful and considerate to an astonishing degree, and she had been grateful to him. Grateful, too, that she had been spared a disagreeable scene with his mother. Lady Gertrude had met her without censure, even with a certain limited cordiality, and she had been considerably mollified by the Seymours' tactful agreement to her cherished scheme that Nan's marriage should take place from Mallow Court. Actually, Kitty had consented because she considered that the longer Nan could lead an untrammeled life at Mallow, prior to her marriage, the better, and thanks to her skillful management the date had been fixed for the latter end of July.

Between them, Barry and Kitty and the two Fentons, who had joined the Mallow party for a short holiday, did their utmost to make the time that must still elapse before the wedding a little space of restfulness and peace, shielding Nan from every possible worry and annoyance. Even the question of trousseau was swept aside by Kitty of the high hand.

“Leave it to me. I'll see to it all,” she exclaimed. “Good gracious, there's a post in the country, isn't there? Patterns can be sent and everything got under way, and finally Madame Véronique shall come down here for the fittings. So that's that!”

But, in spite of Kitty's good offices, Nan was beginning to find the thorns in her path. Now that her health was more or less restored Roger no longer exercised the same self-control.

And, only yesterday, he had suddenly caught her in his arms, kissing her fiercely. But, feeling her lips lie stiff and unresponsive beneath his own, he had almost flung her from him. Then, gripping her by the arm until the delicate flesh showed red and bruised beneath the pressure, he had said savagely:

“By God, Nan! I'll make you love me—or break you!”

Nan turned back her sleeve and looked at the mark now darkening into a bruise, which his grasp had made on the white skin of her arm. Then she reread the letter in her hand. It bore yesterday's date and was very brief.

I'm hoping to get out of town very soon now, and I propose to come down and inspect my new property with a view to redecorating the house. I could never live with dear godfather's early-Victorian chairs and tables! So you may expect to see me almost any day now on the doorstep of Mallow Court. Yours as always,

Maryon.

Nan's first impulse was to beg him not to come. But yesterday's scene with Roger had increased her fear and dread of her coming marriage, and she was conscious of a captive's longing for one more taste of freedom, for one more meeting with the man who had played a big part in the old bohemian life she had loved so well.

For long she hesitated how to answer Maryon's letter, sitting there on the seaward wall, her chin cupped in her hand. But at last her decision was taken. She tore up his letter and, strolling to the edge of the cliff, tossed the pieces into the sea. She would send no answer at all, leaving it to the shuttle of Fate to weave the next strand in her life.

And a week later Maryon Rooke came down to take possession of his new domain.

“I can take six clear weeks now,” he told Nan. “That's better than my first plan of week-ending down here. I have been working hard since you blew into my studio one good day, and now for six weeks I toil not, neither do I spin. Unless,” he added suddenly, “I paint a portrait of you while I'm here!”

Nan glanced at him delightedly.

“I should love it. Only you won't paint my soul, will you, Maryon, as you did Mrs. T. van Decken's?”

“I don't know, Nan. I think I should rather like to paint it. Your soul would be an intricate piece of work.”

“I'm sure it wouldn't make nearly as nice a picture as my face. I think it's rather a plain soul.”

“The answer to that is obvious,” he replied lightly. “Well, I shall talk to Trenby about the portrait. I suppose permission from headquarters would be advisable?”

Nan made a small grimace.

“Of the first importance, my friend.”

Rather to Nan's surprise, Roger quite readily gave permission for Rooke to paint her portrait. In fact, he appeared openly delighted with the idea that her charming face should be permanently transferred to canvas. In his own mind he had promptly decided to buy the portrait when completed and add it to the picture gallery at the Hall, where many a lively Trenby of bygone generations looked down, smiling or sad, from the walls.

The sittings were begun out of doors in the tranquil seclusion of the rose garden. Rooke motored across to Mallow almost daily, and Nan posed in a dozen different attitudes while he made sketches of her both in line and color, none of which, however, satisfied him in the least.

“My dear Nan,” he exclaimed one day, as he tore up a rough charcoal sketch in disgust, “you're the worst subject I've ever encountered, or else my hand has lost its cunning! I can't get you—you—in the very least!”

“Oh, Maryon”—she broke her pose to look across at him with a provoking smile—“can't you find my soul after all?”

“I don't believe you've got one. Anyway, it's too elusive to pin down on canvas. Even your face seems out of my reach. You won't look as I want you to. Any other time of the day I see just the expression on your face I want to catch—the expression”—his voice dropped a shade—“which means Nan to me. But the moment you come out here and pose, it's just a pretty, meaningless mask which isn't you at all. After all, it is your soul I want!” he said vehemently.

He took a couple of quick strides across the grass to her side.

“Give it to me, Nan—the soul that looks out of your eyes sometimes. This picture will never be sold. It's for me me! Surely,” he added with a little uneven laugh, “as I've lost the substance, you won't grudge me the shadow?”

A faint color ran up under her clear skin.

“Oh, I know it was my own fault,” he went on. “There was a time, Nan, when I had my chance, wasn't there?”

“Perhaps there was—once,” she acknowledged slowly.

“And I lost it! Well, I've paid for it every day of my life,” he said shortly. “And twice a day since your engagement,” he added whimsically.

“To get back to the picture,” suggested Nan.

He laughed.

“We can't get back, seeing we've never got there at all yet. These”—he indicated the various sketches littering the lawn—“are merely preliminary. When I begin the portrait itself, we'll retire indoors. I think the music room here will answer the purpose of a studio very well.”

“Two whole weeks!” observed Nan meditatively. “I fancy Roger will be somewhat surprised that progress is so slow.”

“Trenby? Pooh! It's not his picture. I shall have to explain to him that art is long.”

“He'll get fidgety about it. You see, already we've stayed at home several times when the others have arranged a picnic expedition.”

“Choosing the better part,” he retorted. “I should like to make one more attempt this afternoon, if you're not too tired. See, your arms—so! And I want your face the least bit tilted.”

He put his hand very gently beneath her chin, posing her head as he wished it. For a moment he held her so, her face cupped in his hand, while his hazel eyes stared down at her with a smoldering fire in their depths.

Slowly the hot color crept into her face beneath his scrutiny.

“Maryon!” Her lips moved in protest.

“I think you've got the shortest upper lip of any woman I know,” he said, calmly releasing her and going back to his easel. “And women with short upper lips are the very devil.”

He sketched rapidly for a time.

Her pose at the moment was practically perfect—the small head tilted a little on the long, round throat, while the slanting rays of the sun turned the dusky hair into a shadowy, gold-flecked nimbus.

Rooke worked on in silence, though once as he looked across at her he caught his under lip suddenly between his teeth. She was so utterly desirable, the curve of her cheek, the grace of her lissom body, the faint blue veins that showed beneath the warm, ivory skin. And she was going to be Trenby's wife!

“There!” he said abruptly. “That's the idea at last. To-morrow we'll begin the portrait itself.”

Nan rose, stretching her arms above her head.

“I'm sure I shall die of fatigue, Maryon,” she observed, coming round to his side to inspect the sketch.

“Nonsense! I shall allow due intervals for rest and—mental refreshment. What do you think of it?”

“I look rather—attractive,” she offered impertinently.

“You do. Only I could suggest a substitute for the word 'rather.'”

Her eyes defied him.

“Could you? What would it be?”

Before he could make any answer, there came a sound of voices close at hand, and a minute later Trenby and Isobel Carson appeared from round the corner of a high box hedge.

“We've been farming,” announced Isobel. “I've been looking at Roger's prize sheep and cattle. Then we thought we'd motor across and inspect the portrait. How's it going, Mr. Rooke?”

“The portrait isn't begun yet, Miss Carson,” he replied blandly.

“It seems to take a long time to get under way,” she retorted. “Is it so difficult to make a start? Surely not—for the great Mr. Rooke!” Her tone was mocking.

There was a perpetual warfare between herself and Rooke. She was the kind of woman he cordially detested, and when Rooke disliked man or woman he took small pains to conceal the fact. Isobel had winced, more than once, under the lash of his caustic tongue.

“I've made a start, Miss Carson, as these sketches testify, but some subjects require very much more delicate handling than—others would.” The half-closed hazel eyes swept her insolently from head to foot.

Isobel reddened.

“Then Nan must be an unusually difficult subject, mustn't she, Roger? Why, you've been at it two weeks and have literally nothing to show for it! You want speeding up.”

Meanwhile Roger had been regarding the sketches in silence, an uneasy feeling of dissatisfaction stirring in his mind.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “You don't seem to have made much progress.”

“You must have a little patience, Trenby,” replied Rooke pleasantly. “The start is the difficult part. Tell me,” he said, placing a couple of sketches on the easel as he spoke, “which of those two poses do you like the better?”

For the moment Roger's thoughts, slowly moving toward a vague suspicion, were directed into another channel, precisely as Rooke had intended they should be, and he examined the sketches carefully. Finally he gave his opinion with surprisingly good judgment.

“That's Nan,” he said, indicating one of them—the last of the afternoon's efforts.

“Yes,” agreed Rooke. “That's my choice.” Then, turning laughingly to Nan, he went on: “The die is cast. To-morrow we'll begin work in good earnest.”

“To-morrow?” broke in Isobel. “Oh, Roger, you mustn't let him take possession of Nan to-morrow! We're all motoring over to Denleigh Abbey for lunch, and the Peabodys will think it most odd if Nan doesn't come.”

“The Peabodys?” queried Rooke. “Are those the 'new rich' people who've bought the Abbey?”

“Yes. And they want us all to go—they want to hear Nan play,” she added.

“And to see me paint?” he suggested ironically.

She ignored his retort and, turning to Nan, appealed to her directly.

“Shan't you come?” she asked bluntly.

“Well, if Maryon wants me to sit for him——” Nan began hesitatingly.

“The sooner the portrait's begun, the sooner it will be finished,” interposed Rooke. “Can't you dispense with your fiancée to-morrow, Trenby? But just as you like, of course,” he added courteously.

Roger hesitated. The frank appeal was disarming.

“Let's leave it like this,” continued Rooke, following up his advantage, “if the light's good, you'll let me have Nan, but if it's a dull day she shall be swept into the gilded portals of the Peabodys.”

“Very well,” agreed Roger rather reluctantly.

“I think you'll find,” said Isobel, as she and Roger strolled back to the car, “that the light will be quite good enough for painting.”

And that seemingly harmless remark lodged in Roger's mind and rankled there throughout the whole of the following day when the Peabody lunch took place as arranged—but lacking the company of Maryon Rooke and Nan.

CHAPTER XXX.

“And this is my holiday!” exclaimed Maryon, standing back from his easel the better to view the effect of his work. “Nan, you've a lot to answer for.”

Another fortnight had gone by and the long hours passed in the music room, which had been temporarily converted into a studio, were beginning to show fruit in the shape of a nearly completed portrait.

Nan slipped down from the makeshift “throne.”

“May I come and look?”

Rooke moved aside.

“Yes, if you like. I've been working at the face to-day.”

She regarded the picture for some time in silence, Rooke watching her intently the while.

“Well?” he said at last.

“Maryon”—she spoke slowly—“do I really look like—that?”

“Yes,” he replied quietly. “When you let yourself go, when you take off the meaningless mask I complained of.”

With that uncanny discernment of his, he had sensed the passionate, wistful, unhappy spirit which looked out from Nan's eyes, and the face on the canvas gave back a mute appeal that was almost painfully arresting.

“You'd no right to do it!” she exclaimed a little breathlessly.

“I painted what I saw.”

She was silent, tremulously disturbed. He could see the quick rise and fall of her breast beneath the filmy white of her gown.

“Nan,” he went on in low, tense tones, “did you think I could be with you, day after day like this, and not find out? Could I have painted your face, loving each line of it, and not learned the truth?” She stretched out her hand as if to check him, but he paid no heed. “The truth that Roger is nothing to you—never will be!”

“He's the man I'm going to marry,” she said unevenly.

“And I'm only the man who loves you! But because I failed once, putting love second, must I be punished eternally? I'm ready to put it first now, to lay all I have and all I've done on its altar.”

“What—what do you mean?” she stammered.

He put his hands lightly on her shoulders and drew her nearer to him.

“Is it hard to guess, Nan? I want you to leave this life you hate and come with me. Let me take you away from it all—and somewhere we'll find happiness together.”

She stared at him with wide, horrified eyes.

“Oh, you're mad—you're mad!”

With a struggle she freed herself from his grasp and stood away from him.

“Listen,” she said. “Listen to me and then you'll understand what you're asking. I'm not happy—that's true. But it's my own fault, not Roger's. I ought never to have given him my promise. I loved some one else——”

“Mallory!” broke in Rooke.

“Yes—Peter. It's quite simple. We met too late. But I learned then what love means. Once I asked him, I begged him, to take me away with him. And he wouldn't. I'd have gone to the ends of the earth with him. I'd go to-morrow if he'd take me! But he won't. And he never will. And now,” she went on, with a hard laugh, “I don't think you'll ask me again to go away with you.”

“Yes, I shall. Mallory may be able to live at such high altitudes that he can throw over his life's happiness—and yours, too—for a scruple. I can't, and I don't want to. I love you, and I'm selfish enough to be ready to take you any minute that you'll come.”

Throwing one arm about her shoulders, he turned her face up to his.

“Don't you understand?” he went on hoarsely. “I'm flesh-and-blood man, and you're the woman I love.”

The hazel eyes blazed with a curious light, and she shivered a little, fighting the man's personality, battling against that strange kinship of temperament by which he always drew her.

“I can wait,” he said quietly, releasing her. “You can't go on long as you're living now; the tension's too high. And when you're through with it—come to me, Nan! I'd at least make you happier than Trenby ever will.”

Without reply she moved toward the door and he stood aside, allowing her to pass out of the room in silence.

In the hall she encountered Roger, and the sight of his big, tweed-clad figure, so solidly suggestive of normal, everyday things, filled her with an unexpected sense of relief.

“What have you been doing with yourself?” he asked, his eyes fastening suspiciously on her flushed cheeks.

She answered him with a poor attempt at her usual nonchalance.

“Oh, Maryon came over this morning, so I've been sitting to him.”

“All day? I don't like it.” The look of displeasure deepened on his face. “People will talk. You know what country folks are like.”

Nan's eyes flashed.

“Let them talk! I'm not going to regulate my conduct according to the villagers' standard of propriety,” she replied indignantly.

“It isn't only the villagers,” pursued Roger. “Isobel said, only yesterday, she thought it was rather indiscreet.”

“Isobel!” interrupted Nan scornfully. “It would be better if she kept her thoughts for home consumption. The neighborhood might conceivably comment on the number of times you and she go 'farming' together.”

Roger looked quickly at her, a half smile on his lips.

“Why, Nan!” he said, a note of surprise, almost of satisfaction, in his voice. “I believe you're growing jealous.”

She laughed contemptuously.

“My dear Roger, surely by this time it must be clear to you that I'm not very likely to be afflicted by—jealousy!”

The shaft went home, and in an instant the dawning smile on his face was replaced by an expression of bitter resentment.

“No, I suppose not,” he returned sullenly, staring down at her. Then he gripped her shoulder in sudden anger. “But I am jealous!” he declared vehemently. “Do you hear, Nan? Jealous of your reputation and your time—the time you give to Rooke.”

She shrank away from him, and the movement seemed to rouse him to a white heat of fury. Instead of releasing her, he pulled her closer to him.

“Don't shrink like that!” he exclaimed savagely. “By God! Do you think I'll stand being treated as if I were a leper? You avoid me all you can, detest the sight of me, I suppose! But remember one thing—you're going to be my wife. Nothing can alter that, and you belong—to—me!” He emphasized each word separately. “You mayn't give me your smiles, but I'm damned if you shall give them to any other man.” He thrust his face, distorted with anger, close to hers. “Now do you understand?”

She struggled in his grasp like a frightened bird, her eyes dilating with terror. His white, furious face and blazing eyes filled her with panic.

“Roger! Let me go!” she cried, her voice sharp with fear. “Let me go! You're hurting me!”

“Hurting you?” With an effort he mastered himself, loosening his grasp a little, but still holding her. “Hurting you? I wonder if you realize what a woman like you can do to a man? Sometimes, I almost feel that I could kill you—to make sure of you!”

“But why should you distrust me? It's Isobel—Isobel Carson who's put these ideas into your head!”

“Perhaps she's opened my eyes,” he said grimly. “They've been shut too long.”

“You've no right to distrust me!”

“Haven't I, Nan, haven't I?” He held her a little away from him and searched her face. “Answer me! Have I no right to doubt you?”

She would have given the world to able to answer him with a simple “No.” But her lips refused to shape the word. There was so much that lay between them, so much that was complicated and difficult to interpret.

Slowly her eyes fell before his.

“I utterly decline to answer such a question,” she replied at last. “It's an insult.”

His hands fell from her shoulders.

“I think I'm answered,” he said curtly, and, turning on his heel, he strode away, leaving Nan shaken and dismayed.

As far as Maryon was concerned, he refrained from making any allusion to what had taken place that day in the music room, and gradually the sense of shocked dismay with which his proposal had filled Nan at the time grew blurred and faded, skillfully obliterated by his unfailing tact. But the remembrance of it lingered, tucked away in a corner of her mind, offering a terrible solution of her difficulties.

CHAPTER XXXI.

The afternoon post had just been delivered and the postman was already whizzing his way down the drive on his scarlet-painted bicycle as Lady Gertrude unlocked the private post bag appertaining to Trenby Hall. This was one of the small jobs usually delegated to her niece, but for once the latter was away on a holiday, staying with friends at Penzance.

The bag yielded up some bills and a solitary letter, addressed in Isobel's looped and curly writing. For the most part it dealt with small incidents of her visit, but just before the end—where it might linger longest in the memory—came a paragraph which riveted Lady Gertrude's attention.

And how about Nan's portrait? I suppose by this time it is finished and adorning the picture gallery. That is, if Roger has really succeeded in persuading Mr. Rooke to part with it. It certainly ought to be an exceptional portrait, judging by the length of time it has taken to accomplish! Dear Aunt Gertrude, I cannot help thinking it was a mistake that Nan didn't give Mr. Rooke the sittings at his studio in town or, better still, have waited until after her marriage. People in the country are so apt to be censorious, aren't they? And there has been a good deal of comment on the matter, I know. I didn't wish to worry you about it, but I feel you and Roger really ought to know this.

“Letter from Isobel, mother? What's her news?”

Roger came striding into the room just as Lady Gertrude finished reading.

“The kind of news to which I fear we shall have to grow accustomed,” she said acidly. “It appears that Nan is getting herself talked about in connection with that artist who is painting her portrait.”

By the time she had finished speaking Roger's face was like a thundercloud.

“What do you mean? What does Isobel say?” he demanded.

“You had better read the letter for yourself,” replied his mother, pushing it toward him.

He snatched it up and read it hastily, then stood silently staring at it, his face white with anger.

“It's a great pity you ever met Nan Davenant,” pursued his mother, breaking the silence. “There's bad blood in the Davenants, and Nan will probably create a scandal for us one day. I understand she strongly resembles her notorious great-grandmother, Angèle de Varincourt.”

“My wife will lead a very different kind of life from Angèle de Varincourt,” remarked Roger. “I'll see to that.”

“It's a pity you didn't look nearer home for a wife, Roger,” she observed. “I always hoped you would learn to care for Isobel.”

“Isobel!” he repeated with blank amazement. “I do care for her, she's a jolly good sort, but not in that way. Besides, she doesn't care for me in the slightest, except in a sisterly fashion.”

“Are you sure of that? Remember, you've never asked her the question.” And with this final thrust Lady Gertrude left him to his thoughts.

No doubt, later on, the thought of Isobel in the new light presented by his mother would recur to his mind, but for the moment he was entirely preoccupied with the matter of Nan's portrait and his determination to put an end to the sittings.

It would be quite easy, he decided. The only thing that stood in the way of his immediately carrying out his plan was the fact that he had promised to go away the following morning on a few days' fishing expedition with Barry Seymour and the two Fentons. The realization that Maryon Rooke would probably spend the best part of those few days in Nan's company set the blood pounding furiously through his veins. His decision was taken instantly. The fishing party must go without him.

As a natural sequence to his engagement to Nan he had an open invitation to Mallow, and this evening he availed himself of it by motoring over there to dinner. The question of the fishing party was easily disposed of on the plea of unexpected estate matters which required his supervision. Barry brushed his apologies aside.

“My dear chap, it doesn't matter a scrap. We three'll go as arranged and you must join us on our next jaunt. Kitty'll be here to look after Nan,” he added, smiling good-naturedly. “She hates fishing—it bores her stiff.”

After dinner Roger broached the matter of the portrait to Nan.

“When's Rooke going to finish that portrait of you?” he asked. “He's taking an unconscionable time over it.”

Nan colored a little under the suspicion she read in his eyes.

“I—I think he'll finish it to-morrow,” she stammered. “It's nearly done, you know.”

“So I should think. I'll see Rooke about it. I'm going to buy the thing.”

“To—to buy it?” she repeated nervously.

“Yes.” His keen eyes flashed over her. “Is there anything extraordinary in a man's purchasing the portrait of his future wife?”

“No. Oh, no. Only I don't fancy Maryon painted it with any idea of selling it.”

“And I didn't allow you to sit for it with any idea of his keeping it,” retorted Roger grimly.

Nan remained silent, feeling that further discussion of the matter while he was in his present humor would serve no purpose. She was glad when the evening came to an end, but she was still in a sore and angry frame of mind when she joined Rooke in the music room the following day.

He speedily divined that something had occurred to ruffle her, and without endeavoring to elicit the cause—possibly he felt he could make a pretty good guess at it!—he set himself to amuse and entertain her. He was so far successful in his efforts that before very long she had almost forgotten her annoyance of the previous evening and was deep in a discussion regarding the work of a certain modern composer.

Engrossed in argument, neither Maryon nor Nan noticed the hum of a motor approaching up the drive, and when the door of the room was thrown open to admit Roger Trenby neither of them was able to repress a slight start. Instantly a dark look of anger overspread Roger's face as he advanced into the room.

“Good morning, Rooke,” he said, nodding briefly, but not offering his hand. “So the portrait is finished at last, I see.”

Nan glanced across at him anxiously. There was something in his manner that filled her with a quick sense of apprehension.

“Not quite,” replied Rooke easily. “I'm afraid we've been idling this morning. There are a still a few more touches I should like to add.”

Roger crossed the room and, standing in front of the picture, surveyed it in silence.

“I think,” he said at last, “that I'm satisfied with it as it is. It will look very well in the gallery at Trenby.”

Rooke's eyes narrowed suddenly.

“The portrait isn't for sale,” he observed.

“Of course not—to any one but myself,” replied Roger composedly.

“Not even to you, I'm afraid,” answered Rooke. “I painted it for the great pleasure it gave me and not from any mercenary motive.”

Nan, watching the two men, saw a sudden flash in Roger's eyes.

“Then may I ask what you intend to do with it?” he demanded. There was something in the dead level of his tone which suggested a white-hot anger forcibly held in leash.

“I thought, with Nan's permission, of exhibiting it first,” said Rooke placidly. “After that, there is a wall in my house at Westminster where it would hang in an admirable light.”

The cool insolence of his manner acted like a lighted torch to gunpowder. Roger swung round upon him furiously, his hands clenched, his forehead suddenly gnarled with knotted veins.

“By God, Rooke!” he exclaimed. “You go too far! You will exhibit Nan's portrait—you will hang it in your house! And you think I'll stand by and tolerate such damned impertinence? Understand! Nan's portrait hangs at Trenby Hall—or nowhere!”

Rooke regarded him apparently unmoved.

“I've yet to learn the law which compels a man to part with his work,” he remarked indifferently.

Roger took an impetuous step toward him, his clenched hand raised as if to strike.

“You hound!” he began hoarsely.

Nan rushed between them, catching the upraised hand.

“Roger! Roger!” she cried, her voice shrill with fear.

But he shook off her hand, flinging her aside with such force that she staggered helplessly backward,

“As for you,” he thundered, his eyes blazing with concentrated anger, “it's you I have to thank that any man should hold my future wife so cheap as to imagine he may paint her portrait and then keep it in his house as though it were his own! But I'm damned if he shall!”

White and shaken, she leaned against the window frame, clutching at the woodwork for support and staring at him with affrighted eyes as he turned once more to Rooke.

“Take your choice, Rooke,” he said shortly. “My check for five hundred and get out of this house, or——” He paused significantly.

“Or? The other alternative?” murmured Rooke.

Roger laughed roughly, fingering something he held concealed in his hand.

“You'll know that later,” he said grimly. “I advise you to close with the five hundred.”

Rooke shook his head.

“Sorry, it's impossible. I prefer to keep the picture.”

“Oh, Maryon; give in to him! Do give in to him!”

The words came sobbingly from Nan's white lips, and Rooke turned to her instantly.

“Have I your permission to keep the picture, Nan?” he asked, fixing her with his queer, magnetic eyes.

An oath broke from Roger.

“You'll have the original, you see, Trenby,” explained Rooke urbanely, glancing toward him.

Then he turned again to Nan.

“Have I, Nan?”

She opened her lips to reply, but no words came. She stood there silently, her eyes wide and terror-stricken, her cheeks stained with the tears that dripped down them unheeded.

Roger's glance swept her as if there was something distasteful to him in the sight of her and she flinched under it, moaning a little.

“Well,” he said to Rooke, “is the picture mine—or yours?”

“Mine,” answered Rooke.

Roger made a single stride toward the easel. Then his hand shot out, and the next moment there was a grinding sound of ripping and tearing as, with the big blade of his clasp knife, he slashed and rent and hacked at the picture until it was a wreck of split and riven canvas.

With a cry like that of a wounded animal Rooke leaped forward to save it, but Roger hurled him aside, and once more the knife bit its way remorselessly through paint and canvas.

There was something indescribably horrible in this deliberate, merciless destruction of the exquisite work of art. Nan, watching the keen blade sweep again and again across the painted figure of the portrait, felt that the blows were being rained upon her own body. Distraught with the violence and horror of the scene she tried to scream, but her voice failed her, and with a hoarse, half-strangled cry she covered her eyes. But the raucous sound of rending canvas still grated hideously against her ears.

Suddenly Roger ceased to cut and slash at the portrait. Seizing it in both hands, he dragged it from the easel and flung it on the floor at Rooke's feet.

“There's your picture!” he said. “Take it, and hang it in your 'admirable light!'” Then he strode out of the room.

A long silence fell between the two who were left. Then Rooke, who was staring at the ruin of his work with his mouth twisted into an odd, cynical smile, murmured beneath his breath:

“Sic transit——”

Wan-faced and with staring eyes, Nan drew near the heap of mangled canvas.

“I can't bear it! I can't bear it!” she whispered at last, and a shuddering sob shook her slight frame from head to foot. “Oh, Maryon!”

She stretched her hands toward him gropingly, like a child who is frightened in the dark.

 

Half an hour later they were still together, standing with linked hands. In Rooke's eyes there was a quiet light of triumph, while Nan's attitude betrayed a kind of hesitancy, as of one driven along strange and unknown ways.

“Then you'll come, Nan, you'll come?” he said eagerly.

“I'll come,” she answered dully. “I can't bear my life any longer.”

“I'll make you happy. I swear it.”

“Will you, Maryon?” She shook her head and the eyes she raised to his were full of a dumb, hopeless misery. “I don't think anything could ever make me—happy. But I'd have gone on, I'd have borne it, if Uncle David were still here. What we are going to do would have hurt him so.” Her voice trembled. “But he's gone, and now nothing seems to matter very much.”

A sudden, overwhelming tenderness for this pain-racked, desolate spirit surged up in Maryon's heart.

“You poor little child!” he murmured. “You poor child!”

And, gathering her into his arms, he held her closely, leaning his cheek against her hair, with no passion, but with a swift, understanding sympathy that sprang from the best that was in the man,

She clung to him forlornly, so tired and hopeless she no longer felt any impulse to resist him. She had tried to withstand him and to go on treading the uphill path that lay before her. But now she had come to the end of her strength. She would go away with Maryon, and somewhere, perhaps, together they would build up a new and happier life.

Dimly at the back of her mind floated the memory of Peter's words:

“But there's honor, dear, and duty.”

She crushed down the remembrance resolutely. If she were going away into a new world with Maryon, the door of memory must be closed fast.

CHAPTER XXXII.

The atmosphere still held the chill of early morning as Sandy McBain emerged, vigorous and glowing and amazingly hungry, from his daily swim in the sea. He dressed quickly in a small tent erected on the shore and then, whistling cheerfully and with his towel slung over his shoulders, took his way up the beach to where his bicycle stood propped against a bowlder.

A few minutes' pedaling brought him into St. Wennys, where he dismounted to buy a package of cigarettes. It was a quaint little village, typical of the West country, with its double row of small houses climbing the side of a steep hill, capped at the summit by an ancient church of weather-beaten stone. The bright June sunshine winked against the panes of the cottage windows and flickered down upon the knobby surface of the cobbled pavements, while in the dust of the wide road an indiscriminate group of children and dogs played joyously together.

The warning hoot of a motor horn sent them scuttling to the side of the road, and, as Sandy smilingly watched the grubby little crowd's hasty flight for safety, a big green car shot by and was swiftly lost sight of in a cloud of whirling dust.

But not before Sandy's keen eyes had noted its occupants.

“Nan and the artist fellow!” he muttered.

Then, remembering that Nan had promised to go driving with him that afternoon, he stepped out into the middle of the street and stood staring up the broad white road along which the ear had disappeared—the great road which led to London,

An ominous foreboding knocked at the door of his mind. Where was Nan going with Rooke—driving at reckless speed at this hour of the day on the road to London? Of course, it was just possible she had only gone out for a morning spin with Maryon and would return in time to keep her appointment with him. But the hour was an unusually early one at which to make a start, and the green car was ripping along at a pace which rather precluded the idea of a pleasure jaunt.

Sandy was obsessed by a sense of misgiving that would not be denied. Wheeling his bicycle around, he mounted and headed straight for Mallow Court at breakneck speed.

He arrived to find Kitty composedly dividing her attention between her breakfast and an illustrated paper, and for a moment he felt reassured. She jumped up and greeted him joyfully.

“Hello, Sandy! Been down to bathe? Come along and have some breakfast with me. Or have you had it already?”

He shook his head.

“No, I've not been home yet.”

“Then you must be famished. I'll ring for another cup. I'm all alone in my glory. Barry and the Fentons departed yesterday on their fishing trip, and Nan——”

“Yes. Where's Nan?” For the life of him he could not check the eager question.

“She's gone off for the day with Maryon. He's driving her over to Clovelly—she's never been there, you know.”

Sandy's heart sank. He knew the quickest route from St. Wennys to Clovelly—and the green car's nose had been set in quite a different direction.

“She'd planned to go out with me this afternoon,” he said slowly.

“Tch!” Kitty clicked her tongue sharply against her teeth and, crossing to the chimney piece, took down a letter which was resting there. “I'd forgotten this! Nan left it to be given to you when you called for her this afternoon. I wanted her to phone and put you off, but she said you would understand when you'd read the letter and that there was something she wanted you to do for her.”

Sandy ripped open the envelope and his eyes flew down the page. It began abruptly:

Sandy Dear: I'm going to vanish out of your life, but we've been such good pals that I can't do it without just a word of good-by. Not of justification—I know there's none for what I'm going to do. But I know, too, that there'll be a little pity in your heart for me, and that you, at least, will understand in a way why I've had to do this and won't blame me quite so much as the rest of the world. I'm going away with Maryon, and by this afternoon, when you come to fetch me for our motor spin, I shall have taken the first step on the new road. Nothing you could have said would have altered my determination, so you need never think that, Sandy boy. I know your first impulse will be to follow me. But you can spare your petrol, for even if you overtook me, I shouldn't come back.

I don't expect to find happiness, but life with Maryon can never be dull. There'd never be anything to occupy my mind at Trenby—except soup jellies. So it would just go running round and round in circles—with the memory of all I've missed as the pivot of the circle. I'm sure Maryon will at least be able to keep me from thinking in circles. He's always flying off at a tangent, and naturally I shall have to go flying after him.

And now there's just one thing I want you to do for me. Tell Kitty. I couldn't leave a letter for her as it might have been found almost at once. You won't get this till you come over for me in the afternoon, and by that time Maryon and I shall be far away. Give Kitty all my love, and tell her I feel a beast to leave her like this after her angel goodness to me. And say to her, too, that I will write very soon.

Good-by, Sandy boy.

“Well? Well?” Kitty's patience was getting exhausted. “Moreover, there was something in the set look on Sandy's face that frightened her.

He handed her the letter.

“She's bolted with Maryon Rooke,” he said simply.

When Kitty had absorbed the contents of the letter she looked up at him blankly.

“Nan—gone!” she stammered. “And it's too late to stop her!”

“It's not! We must stop her!” The absolute determination in Sandy's voice infected Kitty. She felt her courage rising to the emergency.

“What can we do?” she asked quietly. She was as steady as a rock now.

Sandy dropped into a chair.

“We must work it out,” he said slowly. “Rooke told you they were going to Clovelly, didn't he?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they're not going anywhere near Clovelly. That was just a blind. They took the London road.”

“Even that mightn't mean they were going to London. They could branch off anywhere.”

“They could,” agreed Sandy, “but we've got to remember Rooke has a house in Westminster—nice little backwater. It's just possible they might go there first—just to pick up anything Rooke might want, arrange about letters and so on.”

“And you think you might overtake them there?” asked Kitty quickly.

“I must do more than that. I must be there first—to receive them.”

“Can you do it in the time?”

“Yes. By train. They're traveling by car, remember.”

Kitty glanced at the clock.

“It's too late for you to catch the early train from St. Wennys Halt. And there's no other till the afternoon.”

“I won't risk the afternoon train. It stops at every little wayside station, and if it were ten minutes late I'd miss the express from Exeter.”

“Then you'll motor?”

“Yes, I'll drive to Exeter, and catch the train that gets into town about half-past seven. Maryon isn't likely to reach London until about an hour or so after that.”

“That's settled, then. The next thing is breakfast for two,” said Kitty practically. “I'd only just begun when you came, and I—I'll start again to keep you company. You must be absolutely starving.”

She rang the bell and gave her orders to the servant who appeared a moment later.

“What about your mother?” she went on when they were alone again. “I'll phone her you're having breakfast here, shall I?”

“Yes. And, look here, we've got to make things appear quite ordinary. The mater knows I'm supposed to be taking Nan for a run this afternoon. You'd better say I'm coming straight back to get the car as we're starting earlier.”

Kitty nodded, and hurried off to the telephone.

“It's all right,” she announced when she returned.

“Then that coast's clear,” said Sandy. “Who else? There's Roger. What shall you do if he comes over to-day?”

“He won't. Lady Gertrude had a heart attack yesterday, and, as Isobel Carson's away, Roger has to stay with his mother. He telephoned Nan last night.”

“I think that safeguards everything at this end, then,” replied Sandy, heaving a sigh of relief. “Allah is very good.”

After that, being a man with a long journey in front of, him, he sensibly applied himself to the consumption of bacon and eggs.

Half an hour later he was ready to start for home.

“It's the slenderest chance, Kitty,” he reminded her gravely. “They may not go near London. But it's the only chance!”

“I know,” she assented with equal gravity.

“And in any case I can't get her back here till the morning. Good heavens!” he exclaimed as a new thought struck him. “What about the mater? She'll be scared stiff if I don't turn up in the evening! Probably she'll ring up the police, thinking we've had a smash-up in the car. That would settle everything!”

“Don't worry about it,” urged Kitty. “I'll invent something—phone her: later on to say you're stopping here for the night.”

Sandy nodded soberly.

“That'll do it, and I'll—oh, hang! What about your servants? They'll talk.”

“And I shall lie,” replied Kitty valiantly. “Nan will be staying overnight with friends. Oh, leave things to me at this end! I'll manage somehow. Only bring her back—bring her back, Sandy!”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

It was not until Sandy was actually in the express heading for London that he realized all of the difficulties which lay ahead. He was just a big-hearted, impulsive boy and, without wasting time in futile blame or vain regrets, he had plunged straight into the maelstrom which had engulfed his pal, determined to help her back to shore.

But, assuming he was right in his surmise that Rooke would take Nan first of all to London, he doubted his own ability to persuade her to return with him, and, even if he were successful in this, there still remained the outstanding fact that by no human means could she reach Mallow until the small hours of the morning. He could well imagine the consternation and scandal which would ensue should she arrive at the Court about five o'clock a.m.! As far as the neighborhood—and Roger Trenby—were concerned, she might just as well run away with Maryon Rooke as return with Sandy McBain at that ungodly hour! She would be equally compromised.

Sandy began to see that the plans which he and Kitty had hastily thrown together in the dire emergency of the moment might serve well enough by way of temporary cover, but that in the long run they would rather complicate matters. Suddenly into his harassed mind sprang the thought of Mallory. Of all men in the world, surely he, who loved Nan, would find a way to save her!

From the moment this idea took hold of him Sandy felt that part of the insuperable load of trouble and anxiety had been lifted from his shoulders. His duty was now quite simple and straightforward. When he reached town he had only to seek out Peter, lay the whole matter before him, and then, in some way or other, he believed that Nan's errant feet would be turned from the dangerous path on which they were set. There was something rather touching in his boyish faith that Peter would be able, even at the last moment, to save the woman he loved.

With unwonted forethought, born of the urgent needs of the moment, he dispatched the following telegram to Peter:

Coming to see you. Arrive London to-night seven-thirty. Very urgent.

Sandy McBain.

“Well, young Sandy McBain?”

Peter looked up from a table littered with manuscript. His face, a moment before rather troubled and stern, relaxed into a friendly smile, although the fingers of one hand still tapped restlessly on a sheet of paper that lay beside him—a cablegram from India which had evidently been the subject of his thoughts at the moment of Sandy's arrival.

“What's the urgent matter? Have you got into a hole—and want a friendly haul out? If so, I'm your man.”

Sandy looked down wretchedly at the fine-cut face with its kind eyes and sensitive mouth,

“Oh, don't!” he said hastily, checking the friendly welcome as though it hurt him. “It—it isn't me. It's Nan.”

Peter sat quite still.

“Nan!” he repeated, and something in the tone of his voice as he uttered the little name seemed to catch at Sandy's heartstrings, sending a sudden unmanageable lump into his throat.

“Yes, Nan,” he answered, and added quickly: “She's gone—gone away with Maryon Rooke.”

Peter rose quietly to his feet.

“When?” he asked tensely.

“Now—to-day. If they've come to London, they'll be here very soon. They were in his car—I saw them on the London road. She left a letter for me. Oh, good God, Mallory! Can't you save her—can't you save her?” Sandy grabbed the older man by the shoulder, and stared at him with feverish eyes.

Peter pushed him down into a chair. In a few minutes he had drawn the whole story from Sandy's eager lips, and as he listened his eyes grew curiously hard and stern.

“So we've just one chance—the house in Westminster,” he commented. “We'll go there, Sandy. At once.”

They made their way quickly downstairs and out into the street. Hailing a passing taxi, Peter directed the man to drive to Maryon's house, where he inquired for Rooke in a casual manner, as though expecting to find him in. The maid who opened the door told him that Mr. Rooke had only just arrived and had gone out again immediately, but that she expected him back at any moment.

“Then we'll wait,” said Peter easily. “Miss Davenant's waiting here, too, isn't she?”

An odd look of surprise crossed the girl's face. She had thought—well, what matter what she had thought since it was evident there was really no secret about the lady's presence in her master's house? These people obviously expected to meet her here. Perhaps there were others coming as well.

“Yes, sir,” she answered civilly, “Miss Davenant is in the studio.”

Sandy heard Peter catch his breath at the reply. Then the maid threw open the studio door, and they saw Nan sitting in a chair beside a recently lighted fire. She turned at the sound of their entrance and, as her eyes fell upon Peter, rose slowly to her feet, staring at him, while every drop of color drained away from her face.

“Peter!” she cried wonderingly. “Peter!”

There was an expression in her eyes as of the dawning of a great joy struggling against amazed unbelief, so that Sandy felt as if he had seen into some secret, holy place. Turning, he stumbled out of the room, leaving those two who loved alone together.

 

“Peter, you're asking me to do the hardest thing in the world,” said Nan at last.

She had listened in silence while he urged her to return.

“I know I am,” he answered. “And do you think it's easy—for me to ask it? To ask you to go back? If it were possible—dear God! If it were possible to take you away, would I have left it undone?”

“I can't go back—I can't indeed! Why should I? I've only made Roger either furious or wretched ever since we were engaged. It isn't as if I could do any good by going back!”

“Isn't it something good to have kept faith?” There was a stern note in his voice.

She looked at him wistfully.

“If it had been you, Peter. It's easy to keep faith when one loves.”

“And are you being faithful—even to our love?” he asked quietly.

“To our love?” she whispered.

“There is a faithfulness of the spirit, Nan—the only faithfulness possible to those who are set apart as we are.” He broke off and stood silent a moment, looking down at her with hard, hurt eyes. Presently he went on: “That was all we might keep, you and I—our faith; honor binds each of us to some one else. But honor doesn't bind you to Maryon Rooke! If you go with him, you betray our love—the part of it that nothing can touch or spoil, if we so will it. You won't do that, Nan. You can't do it!”

She knew, then, that she would have to go back and keep faith with Roger—and keep that deeper faith which love itself demanded.

“I'll go back,” she said at last. “You've won, Peter. I can't—hurt—our love.”

 

To Sandy the time seemed immeasurably long as he waited on the farther side of the closed door, but at last they came out to him—Peter, stern and rather strained-looking, and Nan, with tear-bright eyes and a face from which every vestige of color had vanished.

“Get a taxi, will you, Sandy?” said Peter.

Perhaps Sandy's face asked the question his lips dared not utter, for Nan nodded to him with a twisted little smile.

“Yes, Sandy boy, I'm going back.”

“Thank God!”

He wrung her hands, and then went off in search of a taxi. Nan glanced round her a trifle nervously.

“Maryon may be back at any moment,” she said. “Something's gone wrong with the car and he's taken it around to the garage.”

“We shall be off directly,” answered Peter. “See”—he pointed down the street—“here comes Sandy with a taxi for us.”

In a few minutes they had started, the taxi slipping swiftly away through the lamp-lit streets. It had turned a corner and was out of sight by the time the parlor maid, hearing the sound of the street door closing, had hurried upstairs only to find an empty studio. She could not give Rooke, on his return, the slightest information as to what had become of his guests—the lady, or the two gentlemen who, she told him, had called shortly after he left, apparently expecting to find Miss Davenant there.

Meanwhile the taxi had carried them swiftly to Peter's house, where he hurried Nan and Sandy up to his own sanctum, instructing the taxi driver to wait below.

“We've just time for a few sandwiches before we start,” he said. He rang the bell for his servant and gave his orders in quick, authoritative tones.

The food and wine, which Peter insisted upon her taking, brought back a little color into Nan's wan face, though her eyes were still full of a dumb anguish and every now and then her mouth quivered piteously.

She felt dazed and bewildered, as if she were moving in a dream. Was it really true that she had run away from the man she was to marry and was being brought back by the man who loved her? The whole affair appeared topsy-turvy and absurd. She supposed she ought to feel ashamed and overwhelmed, but somehow the only thing that seemed to her to matter was that she had failed in that high ideal of love which Peter had expected of her. She knew instinctively, despite the grave kindness of his manner, that she had hurt him immeasurably.

“And what are you going to do with me now?” she asked at last.

Mallory glanced up at her from the time-table he was studying.

“There's a ten o'clock express which stops at Exeter. We're taking you home by that.”

“There's no connection on to St. Wennys,” remarked Nan impassively.

“No. But Sandy left his car in Exeter, and we shall motor from there.”

“You won't be able to keep Roger ignorant of the fact that I've been away,” pursued Nan.

“He will know nothing about it,” said Peter quietly.

She looked dubious.

“I think,” she observed slowly, “that you may find it more difficult than you expect—to manage that. Some one is sure to find out and tell him.”

“Not necessarily,” he answered.

“What about the servants?” persisted Nan. “They'll hardly allow my arrival at Mallow in the early hours of the morning to pass without comment! I really think, Peter,” she added with a wry smile, “that it would have been simpler all around if you'd allowed me to run away.”

His eyes sought hers.

“Won't you trust me, Nan?” he said patiently. “I'm not going to take you to Mallow to-night. I'm going to take you to Sandy's mother.”

“To the mater!” Sandy fairly gasped with astonishment.

His mother, narrow-minded and preëminently Puritanical in her views, was the very last person in the world whose help he would have though of requisitioning in the present circumstances.

Peter nodded.

“Yes. I've only met her two or three times, but I'm quite sure she is the right person. I believe,” he added, smiling gently, “that I know your mother better than you do, Sandy.”

And it would appear that this was really the case. For when, in the small hours of the morning, the trio reached Trevarthen Wood, and Sandy had effected an entry and aroused his mother, there followed a brief interview between Peter and Mrs. McBain from which the latter emerged with her keen eyes shining through a mist of tears.

Sandy and Nan were waiting together in the hall, and both looked up anxiously as she bore down upon them.

To the ordinary eye she may have appeared merely a very plain old woman, arrayed in a hideous dressing gown of uncompromising red flannel. But to Nan, as the bony arms went around her and the Scottish voice, harsh no longer, but tender as an old song, murmured in her ears, she seemed the embodiment of beautiful, consoling motherhood, and her flat chest a resting place where weary heads might gladly lie and sorrowful hearts pour out their grief in tears.

“Dinna greet, ma bairnie,” crooned Eliza. “Ma wee bairnie, greet nae mair.”

CHAPTER XXXIV.

It was not till late in the afternoon of the day following her flight from Mallow that Nan and Peter met again. He had, so Sandy informed her, walked over to the Court in order to see Kitty.

“I think he has some private affair of his own that he wants to talk over with her,” explained Sandy.

“It's about his wife. I expect,” answered Nan dully. “She's had sunstroke—and is ordered home from India.”

“Poor devil!” The words rushed from Sandy's lips. “How rotten everything is!” he added fiercely, with youth's instinctive revolt against the inevitableness of life's pains and penalties.

“And I've hardly mended matters, have I?” she submitted rather bitterly.

“Don't you worry any,” he said with gruff sympathy. “Mallory's fixed up everything—and it all dovetails in neatly with Kitty's saying you were staying with friends for the night. You're staying here, do you see? And Mallory and the mater between 'em have settled that you're to prolong your visit for a couple of days—to give more color to the proceedings, so to speak! You'll emerge without a stain on your character!” he went on, trying with boyish clumsiness to cheer her up.

“Oh, don't, Sandy!” Her lip quivered. “I—I don't think I mind much about that. I feel as if I'd stained my soul.”

“Well, if there were no blacker souls around than yours, old thing, the world would be a darned sight nicer place to live in! And that's that.”

Nan contrived a smile.

“Sandy, you're rather a dear!” she said gratefully.

And then Peter came in, and Sandy hastened to make himself scarce.

A dead silence followed his hurried exit. Nan found herself trembling, and for a moment she dared not lift her eyes to Peter's face for fear of what she might read there.

“Peter,” she said finally, without looking at him, “are you still—angry with me?”

“What makes you think I am angry?”

She looked up at that, then shrank back from the bitter hardness in his face.

“Oh, you are—you are!” she cried tremulously.

“Don't you think most men would be under the same circumstances?”

“I don't understand,” she said very low.

“No? I suppose you wouldn't,” he replied. “You don't seem to understand the meaning of the word—faithfulness. Perhaps you can't help it—you're half a Varincourt! Don't you realize what you've done? You've torn down our love and soiled it—made it nothing! I believed in you as I believed in God. And then you run away with Maryon Rooke! One man or another—apparently it's all the same to you.”

“Has it hurt you—like that?” she asked incredulously. “You didn't mind—about Roger. Not in the same way.”

“Mind?” The word came hoarsely, and his hands, hanging loosely at his sides, slowly clenched. All the torture of a man who knows that the woman he loves will be another man's wife found utterance in that one short word. Nan shivered at the stark agony in his tone. She did not attempt to answer him. There was nothing she could say. She could only stand voiceless and endure the pain-racked silence which followed.

It seemed to her that an infinity of time dragged by before he spoke again, this time in quiet, level tones from which every atom of emotion had been crushed.

“You were pledged to Trenby,” he said slowly. “That was different. I couldn't ask you to break your pledge to him, even had I been free to do so. You were his, not mine. But you had given no promise to Maryon Rooke.”

The incalculable reproach and accusation of those last words seemed to burn their way into her heart. In a flash of revelation the whole thing became clear to her. She saw how bitterly she had failed the man she loved in that mad moment when she had thrown up everything and gone away with Maryon.

Dimly she acquiesced in the fact that there were excuses to be made—the long strain of the preceding months, her illness, leaving her with weakened nerves, and finally, Roger's outrageous behavior in the studio that day. But of these she would not speak to Peter. Had he not saved her from herself she would have wrecked her whole life by now, and she felt that, to him, she could not make excuses—however valid they might be.

She had failed him utterly—failed in that faithfulness of the spirit without which love is no more than a sex instinct. She knew it must appear like this to him, although deep within herself she was conscious that it was not really so. In her heart there was a white flame that would burn only for Peter—an altar flame which nothing could touch or defile.

“There is only one thing,” Peter was speaking again, still in the same curiously detached tones as before, “there's only one more thing to be said. You've made it easier for me to do—what I have to do.”

“What you have to do?” she repeated.

“Yes. I've had a cable from India. My wife is no better, and I'm going out to bring her home.”

“I'm sorry she's no better,” said Nan mechanically,

He murmured a formal word of thanks, and then a hesitating knock sounded on the door and, after a moment's discreet delay, Sandy's freckled face peered in at them.

“I'm afraid you must leave now, Mallory, if you're to catch the train,” he said apologetically. “Kitty is here, waiting to drive you to the station.”

They went out into the drive where Kitty was sitting behind the wheel of the car. She greeted Nan precisely as though nothing had happened since they had last met, and, with a handshake all around, Mallory stepped into the car beside her, and was whirled away to the station.

 

“It seems years since yesterday morning,” said Nan when, after Kitty's return from the station, they found themselves alone together.

“Yes,” Kitty acquiesced simply. “It seems years.” And then, bit by bit, she drew from Nan the whole story of her flight from Mallow and of the violent scene which had preceded it, when Roger had so ruthlessly destroyed the portrait.

“I don't think—Peter—will ever forgive me,” went on Nan, with a quiet hopelessness in her voice that was infinitely touching. “He would hardly speak to me.”

“My dear”—Kitty's accustomed vitality arose to meet the occasion—“he'll forgive you some day, when he understands. Probably only a woman could really understand what made you do it. In any case, as far as Peter's concerned, it was all so ghastly for him, coming when it did—last night! He must have felt as if the world were falling to pieces.”

“Last night? Why should it have been worse last night?”

“Because he'd just had a cable from India, about ten minutes before Sandy arrived, telling him that his wife had gone mad, and asking him to fetch her home.”

“Gone mad?” Nan's voice was hardly more than a whisper of horror.

“Yes. He'd had a letter a day or two earlier warning him that things weren't going right with her. You know, she's a frightfully restless, excitable woman, and, after having sunstroke, she was ordered to keep quiet and rest as much as possible until she was able to come home. She declined to do either—rest, or come home. She continued to ride and dance and amuse herself exactly as if there were nothing the matter. The result is that, at the present moment, she is practically insane. No one can manage her. So they've sent for Peter, and, of course, like the angel he is, he will go. He's—he's too idealistic for this world, is Peter!” And Kitty's voice broke a little.

Nan was silent. Her hands lay folded on her knee, but the slender fingers worked incessantly. Presently she got up very quietly and, without speaking, sought the sanctuary of her own room, where she could be alone.

She felt utterly crushed and despairing as she realized that just at the moment of Peter's greatest need she had failed him—spoiled the one thing that had counted in a life bare of happiness, by robbing him of his faith and trust in the woman he loved.

Later on, when Nan came downstairs to dinner, she spoke and moved almost mechanically. Only once did she show the least interest in anything that was said, and that was when Eliza remarked with relish:

“Roger Trenby will be wishin' Isobel Carson back home! I hear Lady Gertrude keeps him dancing attendance on her from morn till night, declaring she's at death's door the while.”

Sandy grinned.

“Yes, Roger phoned an hour ago and asked to speak to you, Nan—he'd heard you were staying here. I said you were taking a nap.”

“Thank you, Sandy,” Nan said, smiling faintly. She had no wish either to see or speak to Roger just now. There was something that must be fought out and decided before he and she met again.

Aunt Eliza bustled her off to bed early and she went thankfully—not to sleep, but to search out her own soul and make the biggest decision of her life.

It was not till the moon-pale fingers of dawn came creeping in through the chinks between blind and window that decision, she was well aware. Nan lay back on her pillows, knowing that for good or ill she had taken her decision,

Something of the immensity of love, its heights and depths, had been revealed to her in those tense silences she had shared with Peter, and she knew that she had been untrue to the love within her—untrue from the very beginning when she had first pledged herself to Roger.

She had rushed headlong into her engagement with him, driven by cross currents that had whirled her hither and thither. Afterward, when the full realization of her love for Peter had overwhelmed her, her pride—the dogged, unyielding pride of the Davenants, whose word was their bond—had held her to her promise.

It had been a matter of honor with her. Now she was learning that utter loyalty to love involved a higher, finer honor than a spoken pledge given by a reckless girl who had thought to find safety. for herself and happiness for her friend by giving it.

For Peter, that faithfulness of the spirit, of which he had spoken, alone was possible. The woman he had married had her claims upon him. But as far as she herself was concerned, Nan realized that she could yet keep her love pure and untouched, faithful to the mystic, threefold bond of spirit, soul, and body.

She would never marry Roger now. To-morrow she would write and tell him so. That he would storm and rave and try to force her to retract this new decision. But that would only be part of the punishment which she must be prepared to suffer. And there would be a certain amount of obloquy and gossip to be faced. People in general would say she had behaved dishonorably. But, whatever the result, she was ready to bear it. It would be a very small atonement for her sin against love!

The following day she returned to Mallow Court to be greeted joyfully by Kitty. Once or twice the latter glanced at her a trifle uneasily as if she sensed something different in her, but it was not till late in the evening that Nan unburdened herself.

Kitty did not say much. But she and Barry were as much lovers now as they had been the day they married, and she understood.

“I think you're right,” she said.

“I know I am,” answered Nan with quiet conviction. “I feel as if all this time I have been profaning our love. Now I want to keep it quite, quite sacred—in my heart. It wouldn't make any difference even if Peter ceased to care for me. It's my caring for him that matters.”

“Shall you—do you intend to see Roger?”

“No. I shall write to him to-morrow. But if he still wishes to see me after that, of course I can't refuse.”

“And Peter?”

“He will have gone.”

Kitty shook her head.

“No. He sails the day after to-morrow. He couldn't get a berth before.”

“Then,” said Nan very softly and with a quiet radiance in her eyes, “then I'll write to him to-morrow—after I've written to Roger.”

There was a deep sense of thankfulness in her heart that she would be able to heal Peter's hurt before he went East to face the bitter and difficult thing which awaited him. A strange sense of comfort stole over her. When she had written her letter to Roger, retracting the promise she had given him, She would be free—free to belong wholly to the man she loved.

Though they might never be together, though their love must remain forever unconsummated, still in her loneliness she would know herself utterly and entirely his.

CHAPTER XXXV.

The fishing party returned to Mallow the following morning. They were in high spirits, full of stories and cracking jokes about each others' prowess or otherwise—especially the “otherwise,” although both men united in praising Penelope's exploits as a fisherwoman.

The advent of three people who were in complete ignorance of the happenings of the past few days went far to restore the atmosphere to normal. Amid the bustle of their arrival and the gay chatter which accompanied it, it would have been impossible for Kitty, at least, not to throw aside for the moment the anxieties which beset her and join in the general fun and laughter.

But Nan, although she played up pluckily, so that no suspicions were aroused in the minds of the returned wanderers, was still burdened by the knowledge of what yet remained for her to do, and, when the jolly clamor had abated a little, she escaped upstairs to write her letter to Roger. It was a difficult letter to write because, though nothing he could say or do would alter her determination, she realized that in his own way he loved her, and she wanted to hurt him as little as possible.

After she had stated her decision quite clearly and simply, she continued:

I know you will think I am being both dishonorable and disloyal, but to me it seems I am doing the only thing possible in loyalty to the man I love. And in a way it is loyal to you, too, Roger, because as you have known from the beginning—I could never give you all that a man has a right to expect from the woman he marries. One can't “share out” love in bits. I've learned that love means all or nothing, and, as I cannot give you all, it must be nothing. And of this you may be sure—perhaps it may make you feel that I have behaved less badly to you—I am not breaking off our engagement in order to marry some one else. I shall never marry any one, now.

Nan read it through, then slipped it into an envelope and sealed it. When she had directed it to “Roger Trenby, Esq.,” she leaned back in her chair, feeling curiously tired, but conscious of a sense of peace and tranquillity that had been absent from her since the day on which she had promised to marry Roger.

Now—now she was free! Though she would never know the supreme joy of mating with the man she loved, she had at least escaped the prison which the wrong man's love can make for a woman. Just as no other man than Peter would ever hold her heart, so henceforth no kiss but his would ever touch her lips. But for Peter the burden would be heavier. It would be different—harder. And there was nothing in the world which might avail to lighten his burden. Only perhaps, later on, it might comfort him to know that, though in this world they could never come together, the woman he loved was his completely, that she had surrendered nothing of herself to any other man.

She picked up the letter to Roger and made her way downstairs, intending to drop it herself into the post box at the gates of Mallow. As she turned the last bend of the stairs she came upon an agitated little group of people clustering around Sandy McBain, who, apparently, had just arrived. Her hand tightened on the rail. Why had every one collected in the hall? Even one or two scared-looking servants were discernible in the background, and on every face was a strange, unusual gravity. Nan felt as if some one had suddenly slipped a band around her heart and was drawing it tighter and tighter.

Nobody seemed to notice her as, with reluctant, dragging, footsteps, she descended the rest of the stairs. Then Ralph caught sight of her and exclaimed:

“Here's Nan!” Her name ran through the group in a shocked murmur of repetition, followed by a quick, hushed silence.

“What is it?” she asked apprehensively.

Several voices answered, but only the words “Roger” and “accident” came to her clearly out of the blur of sound.

“What is it?” she repeated. “What has happened?”

“There's been an accident,” began Barry slowly. “Lady Gertrude——”

“Is she killed?' Nan interrupted in shocked tones.

“No, no. But she had another attack this morning—heart, or temper—and as the doctor was out when they phoned for him, she sent Roger rushing off posthaste in the car to find him and bring him along. And”—he hesitated a little—“I'm afraid he's had rather a bad smash-up.”

Nan's face went very white.

“Do you mean—in the car?” she asked in a queer, stiff voice.

“Yes.” It was Sandy who answered her. “He'd just swerved to avoid driving over a dog, and the next minute a kiddy ran out from the other side of the road, right in his path, and he swerved again, so sharply that the car ran up the side of the hedge and overturned.”

“And Roger?”

“He was—underneath the car,” he said reluctantly.

Nan took a step forward and laid a hand on his arm.

“You were there!” She spoke as if stating a fact. “You saw it!”

“Yes,” he acknowledged. “We got him out from under the car and carried him home on a hurdle. Then I found the doctor, and he's with him now.”

“I'd better go right over and see if I can help,” said Nan impulsively.

“No need. Isobel will be back this afternoon—I've wired her. And they've already telephoned for a couple of trained nurses. Besides, Lady Gertrude's malady vanished the minute she heard Roger was injured. I think her illness was mostly due to the fact that Isobel was away, so of course she wanted to keep Roger by her side all the time.”

A general smile acknowledged the truth of Sandy's diagnosis, but it was quickly smothered. The suddenness and gravity of the accident which had befallen Roger had shocked them all.

“What does the doctor say?” asked Penelope.

“He hasn't said anything very definite yet,” replied Sandy. “He's afraid there's some injury to the spine, so he's wired for a Plymouth consultant. When he comes, they'll make a thorough examination.”

“Ah!” Nan drew in her breath sharply.

“I suppose we shall hear to-night,” said Kitty. “The Plymouth man will get here early this afternoon.”

“I'll come over and let you know the report,” answered Sandy. “I'm going back to Trenby now, to see if I can do any errands or odd jobs for them. A man's a useful thing to have about the place at a time like this.”

Kitty nodded soberly.

“Quite right, Sandy. And if there's anything any of us can do to help, phone down at once.”

A minute later Sandy was speeding back to the Hall.

“It's pretty ghastly,” said Kitty as she and Nan turned away together. “Poor old Roger!”

“Yes,” replied Nan mechanically. “Poor Roger.”

A sudden thought had sprung into her mind, overwhelming her with its significance. The letter she had written to Roger—she couldn't send it now! Common humanity forbade that it should go. It would have to wait—wait till Roger had recovered. The disappointment, cutting across a deep and real sympathy with the injured man, was sharp and bitter.

Very slowly she made her way upstairs. The letter, which she still clasped rigidly, seemed to burn her palm like red-hot iron. When she reached her room she opened her hand stiffly, and the crumpled envelope fell on the bed.

She stared at it blankly. That letter—which had meant so much to her—could not be sent! She might have to wait weeks—months even, before it could go. And, meanwhile, she would be compelled to pretend—pretend to Roger, because he was so ill that the truth must be hidden from him till he recovered. Then, swift as the thrust of a knife, another thought followed. Suppose—suppose Roger never recovered? What was it Sandy had said? An injury to the spine. Did people recover from spinal injury? Or did they linger on, wielding those terrible rights which weakness forever holds over health and strength?

Nan flung herself on the bed and lay there, trying to realize the awful possibilities which the accident to Roger might entail for her. If it left him crippled—a hopeless invalid—the letter she had written could never be sent at all. She could not desert him, break off her engagement, if she herself represented all that was left to him in life.

It seemed hours afterward, though in reality barely half an hour had elapsed, when she heard the sound of footsteps racing up the staircase, and a minute later, without even a preliminary knock, Kitty burst into the room. Her face was alight with joyful excitement. In her hand she held an open telegram.

“Listen, Nan! Oh,” she explained, seeing the other's startled, apprehensive face, “it's good news this time!”

Good news! Nan stared at her with an expression of impassive incredulity. There was no good news that could come to her.

“It seems horrible to feel glad about any one's death, but I simply can't help it,” went on Kitty. “Peter has just telegraphed me that Celia died yesterday. Oh, Nan, dearest! I'm so glad for you—so glad for you and Peter!”

Nan, who had risen at Kitty's entrance, swayed suddenly and caught at the bedpost to steady herself.

“What did you say?” she asked huskily.

“That Peter's wife is dead. That he's free—free to marry you.” She checked herself and peered into Nan's white, expressionless face. “Nan, why don't you—look glad? You are glad, surely?”

“Glad?” repeated Nan vaguely. “No, I can't be glad yet. Not yet.”

“You're not worrying just because Peter was angry the last time he saw you?”

“No. I wasn't thinking of that.”

“Then, my dear, why not be glad—glad and thankful that nothing stands between you? I don't think you realize it! You're quite free now. And so is Peter. Your letter to Roger has gone—poor Roger! It's frightfully rough luck on him, particularly just now. But still, some one always has to go to the wall in a triangular mix-up. And though I like him well enough, I love you and Peter. So I'd rather it were Roger, since it must be some one.”

Nan pointed to the bed. On the gay, flowered coverlet lay the crumpled letter.

“My letter to Roger has not gone,” she said, speaking very distinctly. “I was on my way to post it when I found you all in the hall discussing Roger's accident. And now—it can't go.”

Kitty's face lengthened in dismay, then a look of relief passed over it.

“Give it to me,” she exclaimed impulsively. “I'll post it at once. It will catch precisely the same post it would have caught it you'd put it in the post box when you meant to.”

“Kitty! How can you suggest such a thing!” cried Nan in horrified tones. “If—if I'd posted it unknowingly, and it had reached him after the accident it would have been bad enough! But to post it now, deliberately, when I know, would be absolutely wicked and brutal.”

There was a momentary silence.

“You're quite right,” acknowledged Kitty finally in a muffled voice. She lifted a penitent face. “I suppose it was cruel of me to suggest it. But oh! I do so want you and Peter to be happy—and quickly!”

“I knew you couldn't mean it,” Nan said, smiling faintly, “seeing that you're about the most tender-hearted person I know.”

“I suppose you will have to wait a little,” conceded Kitty reluctantly. “At least till Roger is mended up a bit. It may not be anything very serious, after all. A man often gets a bad spill out of his car and is driving again within a few weeks.”

“We shall hear soon,” replied Nan levelly. “Sandy said he would let us know the result of the doctor's examination.”

“Well, come for a stroll in the rose garden, then. It's hateful—waiting to hear,” said Kitty rather shakily.

“Get Barry to go with you. I'd rather stay here, I think.” Nan spoke quickly. She felt that she could not bear to go into the rose garden where she had given that promise to Roger which bade fair to wreck the happiness of two lives—her own and Peter's.

“Very well,” said Kitty. “Try to rest a little. I'll come up the moment we hear any news.”

She left the room and, as the door closed behind her, Nan gave vent to a queer, hysterical laugh. Rest! How could she rest, knowing that now Peter was free—free to make her his wife—the great gates of Fate might yet swing to, shutting them both out of love's garden forever!

For she had realized, with a desperate clearness of vision, that if Roger were incurably injured, she could not add to his burden by retracting her promise to be his wife. She must make the uttermost sacrifice—give up the happiness to which the death of Celia Mallory had opened the way, and devote herself to mitigating Roger's lot in so far as it could be mitigated. Duty, with stern, sad eyes, stood beside her, bidding her follow the hard path of sacrifice which winds upward, through a blurred mist of tears, to the great white throne of Gods The words of the little song which had always seem a link between Peter and herself came back to her like some dim echo from the past.

She sank on her knees, her arms flung out across the bed. She did not consciously pray, but her attitude of thought and spirit was a wordless cry that she might be given courage and strength to do this thing if it must needs be.

 

It was late in the afternoon when Kitty, treading softly, came into Nan's room.

“Have you been sleeping?” she asked.

Nan felt as though she had not slept for a year. Her eyes were dry and burning in their sockets.

“There's very bad news about Roger,” said Kitty, in the low tones of one who has hardly yet recovered from the shock of unexpectedly grave tidings. “His spine is so injured that he'll never be able to walk again. He”—she choked over the telling of it—“his legs will always be paralyzed.”

Nan stared at her vacantly, as though she hardly grasped the meaning of the words. Then, without speaking, she covered her face with her hands. The room seemed to be full of silence—a heavy, terrible silence, charged with calamity. At last, unable to endure the burden of the intense quiet any longer, Kitty stirred restlessly. The tiny noise of her movement sounded almost like a pistol shot in that profound stillness. Nan's hands dropped from her face, and she picked up the letter which still lay on the bed and very carefully tore it into small pieces.

Kitty watched her for a moment as if fascinated; then suddenly she spoke.

“Why are you doing that? Why are you doing that?” she demanded irritably.

Nan looked at her with steady eyes.

“Because—it's finished! That letter will never be needed now.”

“It will! Of course it will!” insisted Kitty. “Not now, but later—when Roger's got over the shock of the accident.”

Nan smiled at her curiously.

“Roger will never get over the consequences of his accident,” she said. “Can you imagine what it's going to mean to him to be tied down to a couch for the rest of his days? An outdoor man like Roger, who has hunted and shot and fished all his life?”

“Of course I can imagine! It's all too dreadful to think of! But now Peter's free, you can't—you can't mean to give him up for Roger!”

“I must,” answered Nan quietly. “I can't take the last thing he values from a man who's lost nearly everything.”

Kitty grasped her by the arm.

“Do you mean,” she said incredulously, “do you mean you're going to sacrifice Peter to Roger?”

“It won't hurt Peter—now—as it would have—before.” Nan spoke rather tonelessly. “He's already lost his faith and trust in me. The worst wrench for him is over. I think that I'm glad now he thought what he did—that he couldn't find it in his heart to forgive me. It will make it easier for him.”

“Easier? Yes, if you actually do what you say you will. But you're deliberately taking away his happiness, robbing him of it, even though he doesn't know he's being robbed. Good heavens, Nan! Did you ever love him?” she demanded harshly.

“I don't think you want an answer to that question,” returned Nan gently. “But, you see, I can't—divide myself—between Peter and Roger.”

“Of course you can't! Only why sacrifice both yourself and Peter to Roger? It isn't reasonable!”

“Because I think he needs me most. Just picture it, Kitty, he's got nothing left to look forward to till he dies! Nothing! Oh, I can't add to what he'll have to bear! He's so helpless!”

“You'll have plenty to bear yourself—tied to a helpless man of Roger's temper,” retorted Kitty.

“Yes,” Nan agreed soberly. “I think—I'm prepared for that.”

“Prepared?”

“Yes. It seems to me I've known all afternoon that this was coming, that Roger might be crippled beyond curing. And I've looked at it from every angle, so as to be quite sure of myself.” She paused. “I'm quite sure, now.”

The quiet resolution in her voice convinced Kitty that her mind was made up. Nevertheless, for nearly an hour she tried by every argument in her power, by every entreaty, to shake her decision. But Nan held her ground.

“I must do it,” she said. “It's useless trying to dissuade me. It's so clear to me that it's the one thing I must do. Don't say anything more about it, Kitten. You're only wearing yourself out. I wish—I wish you'd try to help me to do it. It won't be the easiest thing in the world,” she added, with a brief smile that was infinitely more sad than tears. “I know that.”

“Help you?” cried Kitty passionately. “Help you to ruin your life, and Peter's with it? No, I won't help you. I tell you, Nan, you can't do this thing! You shall not marry Roger Trenby!”

Nan listened to her patiently. Then she said still very quietly:

“I must marry him. It will be the one decent thing I've ever done in my life.”

CHAPTER XXXVI.

The next morning at breakfast only one letter lay beside Nan's plate. As she recognized Maryon Rooke's small, squarish handwriting, the color deepened in her cheeks. Her slight confusion passed unnoticed, however, as every one else was absorbed in his or her individual share of the morning's mail.

For a moment Nan hesitated, conscious of an intense disinclination to open the letter. It gave her a queer feeling of panic, recalling with poignant vividness the day when she and Maryon had last been together. At length, somewhat dreading what it might contain, she opened it and began to read.

I've had a blazing letter from young Sandy McBain, which has increased my respect for him enormously (wrote Maryon). I've come to the conclusion that I deserve all the names he called me. Nan, how do you manage to make every one so amazingly devoted to you? I think it must be that ridiculously short upper lip of yours, or your “blue-violet” eyes, or some other of your absurd and charming characteristics.

I shall probably go abroad for a bit—to recover my self-respect. I'm not feeling particularly proud of myself just now, and it always spoils my enjoyment of things if I can't be genuinely pleased with my ego. Don't cut me when next we meet, if fortune is ever kind enough to me to let us meet again. Because, for once in my life, I'm really sorry for my sins.

I believe that somewhere in the ramshackle thing I call my soul, I'm glad Sandy took you away from me. Though there are occasional moments when I feel murderous toward him. Yours, Maryon.

Nan laid down the closely written sheet with a half smile, half sigh. The letter somewhat cheered her, washing away what remained of the bitterness in her thought of Maryon. It was very characteristic of the man, with its intense egotism and its lightly cynical note. Yet beneath the surface flippancy Nan could read a genuine remorse and self-reproach. And in some strange way it comforted her a little to know that Maryon was sorry.

“Had a nice letter, Nan?” asked Barry, looking up from his own correspondence. “You're wearing a smile of sorts.”

“Yes. It was—rather a nice letter. Good and bad mixed, I think,” she answered.

“Then you're lucky,” observed Kitty. There was a rather frightened look in her eyes. “We'll go into your study after breakfast, Barry. I want to consult you about one of my letters. It's—it's undiluted bad, I think.”

Barry's blue eyes smiled at her.

“All right, old thing. Two heads are generally better than one if you're up against a snag.”

Half an hour later she beckoned him into the study.

“What's the trouble?” He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Don't look like that, Kitten. We're sure to be able to put things right somehow.”

She smiled at him rather ruefully.

“It's you who'll have to do the putting right, Barry—and it'll be a hateful business, too,” she replied.

“Thanks,” murmured Barry. “Well, what's in the letter that's bothering you?”

“It's from Peter,” burst out Kitty. “He's going straight off to Africa—to-morrow! Celia, of course, will be buried out in India; her uncle has cabled Peter that he'll arrange everything. And Peter was able to get a berth on a boat that sails to-morrow, so he proposes to start at once.”

“I should have thought he'd have started at once—in this direction,” remarked Barry dryly.

“He would have, I expect, only he's so bitter over Nan's attempt to run away with Maryon Rooke that he's determined to bury himself in the wilds. If he only knew what she'd gone through before she did such a thing, he'd understand and forgive her. But that's just like a man! When the woman he cares for acts in a way that's entirely inconsistent with all he knows of her, he never thinks of trying to work backward to find out the cause. The effect's enough for him! Oh, I do think Peter and Nan are most difficult people to manage. If it were only that—just a lovers' squabble—one might fix things up. But now, just when every obstacle in the world is removed and they: could be happily married, Nan must needs decide that it's her duty to marry Roger!”

“Her duty?”

“Yes.” And Kitty plunged forth with into a detailed account of all that had happened.

“Good old Nan!” was Barry's comment when she had finished.

“Of course it's splendid of her,” said Kitty. “Nan was always an idealist in her notions—but in practice it would just mean purgatory. And I won't let her smash up the whole of her own life, and Peter's, for an ideal!”

“How do you propose to prevent it, my dear?”

“I propose that you should prevent it.”

“I? How?”

Kitty laid an urgent hand on his arm.

“You must go over to Trenby and see Roger.”

“See Roger? My dear girl, he won't be able to see visitors for days yet.”

“Oh, yes he will,” replied Kitty. “Isobel Carson rang up just now to ask if Nan would come over. It seems that, barring the injury to his back, he escaped without a scratch. He didn't even know he was hurt till he found he couldn't use his legs. Of course, he'll be in bed. Isobel says he seems almost his usual self except that he won't let any one sympathize with him about his injury.”

Barry made no answer. He reflected that it was quite in keeping with all he knew of the man for him to bear in silence the shock of knowing that henceforward he would be a helpless cripple.

“Well?” queried Barry grudgingly. “If I do see him, what then?”

“You must tell him that Peter is free and make him release Nan from her engagement. In fact, he must do more than that,” she continued emphatically. “In her present mood Nan would probably decline to accept her release. He must absolutely refuse to marry her.”

“And supposing he won't do that?”

Kitty's lip curled.

“Under the circumstances, I should think any man who cared for a woman and who wasn't a moral and physical coward would see it was the one and only thing he could do.”

Her husband remained silent.

“You'll go, Barry?”

“I don't want to interfere in Trenby's personal affairs. Poor devil! He's got enough to bear just now!”

Sudden tears filled Kitty's eyes. She pitied Roger from the bottom of her heart, but she must still fight for the happiness of Nan and Peter.

“I know,” she acquiesced unhappily. “But, don't you see, if he doesn't bear this, too, Nan will have to bear a twofold burden for the rest of her life. Oh, Barry! Don't fail me! It's a man's job—this. No woman could do it without making Roger feel it frightfully. A man so hates to discuss any physical disablement with a woman. It hurts his pride. He'd rather ignore it.”

“But what's the use?” protested Barry. “If Peter is off to-morrow for the back of beyond, you're still no farther on. You've only made things doubly hard for that poor devil up at the Hall without accomplishing anything else.”

“Peter won't go to-morrow,” asserted Kitty. “I've settled that. I wired him to come down here—I sent the wire immediately after breakfast. He'll be here to-night.”

“Pooh! He'll take no notice of a telegram like that! A man doesn't upset the whole of his plans to go abroad because a pal in the country wires him 'to come down!'”

“Precisely. So I worded my wire in a way that will insure his coming,” replied Kitty, with returning spirit.

Barry looked at her doubtfully.

“What did you put on it?”

“I said: 'Bad accident here. Come at once.' I know that will bring him. And it has the further merit of being the truth!” she added with a rather shaky little laugh.

“That will certainly bring him,” agreed Barry. “But suppose Trenby declines point-blank to release Nan?” he pursued. “What will you do then—with Peter on your hands?”

“Well, anyway, Peter will understand what Nan is doing and why she's doing it. And when Peter knows the whole truth, I think he'll probably run away with her. I know I should—if I were a man! Now, will you go and see Roger, please?”

“I suppose I shall have to. But it's a beastly job.” Barry's usually merry eyes were clouded.

“Beastly,” agreed Kitty sympathetically. “But it's got to be done.”

Ten minutes later she watched her husband drive away in the direction of Trenby Hall, and composed herself to wait patiently on the march of events.

 

Barry looked pitifully down at the big, helpless figure lying between the sheets of the great four-poster bed. Except for an unwonted pallor and the fact that no movement of the body below the waist was visible, Roger looked very much as usual. He waved away the words of sympathy which were hovering on Barry's lips.

“Nice of you to come over so soon,” he said curtly. “But, for God's sake, don't condole with me. I don't want condolences, and I won't have 'em.” There was a note in his voice which told of the effort which his savage self-repression cost him.

Barry understood, and for a few minutes they discussed things generally, Roger briefly describing the accident. Then suddenly he asked:

“When's Nan coming to see me? I told Isobel to telephone over to Mallow this morning.”

“You're hardly up to visitors,” said Barry, searching for delay. “I don't suppose I ought to have come, really.”

Roger looked at him with eyes that burned fiercely underneath his shaggy brows.

“I'm as right as you are—except for my confounded back,” he answered. “I've not got a scratch on me. Only something must have struck me as the car overturned—and injured my spine.”

“You may not be so badly injured as you think,” ventured Barry. “Some other doctor might give you a different report.”

“Oh, he's quite a shining light—the man who came down here. Spine's his job. And his examination was thorough enough. There's nothing can be done. My legs are useless—and I'm a strong, healthy man who may live to a ripe old age.”

He turned his head on the pillow, and Barry crossed to the window, giving the man time to regain his self-command,

“Well, what about Nan?” Roger demanded at last harshly. “When is she coming?'

Barry faced around to the bed again.

“I came to talk to you about Nan,” he replied reluctantly. “But——”

“Talk away, then!”

“Well, it's very difficult to tell you. You see, Trenby, this ghastly accident of yours makes a difference in——”

Roger interrupted with a snarl. His arms waved convulsively.

“Well, what about Nan?” he asked, scowling. “I suppose you've come to ask me to let her off? That's the natural thing! Is that it?”

“Yes,” answered Barry simply. “That's it.”

Roger's face went white with anger.

“Then you may tell her,” he said, pounding the bed with his fist to emphasize his words, “that I haven't the least intention of releasing her. She's a contemptible little coward even to suggest it. But that's a woman all over!”

“It's nothing of the sort,” returned Barry, roused to indignation by Roger's brutal answer. He spoke with a quiet forcefulness there was no mistaking. “Nan knows nothing whatever about my visit here, nor the purpose of if. On the contrary, had she known, I'm quite sure she would have tried to prevent my coming, since she has made up her mind to marry you as soon as you wish.”

“Oh, she has, has she?” Roger paused grimly. A moment later he broke out: “Then—then—what the devil right have you to interfere?”

“None,” said Barry gravely. “Except the right of one man to remind another of his manhood—if he sees him in danger of losing it.”

The thrust, so quietly delivered, went home. Roger bit his under lip, his eyes glowering.

“So that's what you think of me, is it?” he said sullenly.

The look in Barry's eyes softened the stern sincerity of his reply.

“What else can I think? In your place a man's first thought should surely be to release the woman he loves from the infernal bondage which marriage with him must inevitably mean.”

“On the principle that from him who hath not shall be taken even that which he hath, I suppose!” gibed the bitter voice from the bed.

“No,” answered Barry quietly. “But just because if you love a woman you can't possibly want to hurt her.”

“And if she loved you, a woman couldn't possibly want to turn you down because you've had the damnedest bad luck any man could have.”

“But does she love you?” asked Barry. “I know—and you know—that she does not. She cares for some one else!”

Roger made a sudden, violent movement.

“Who is it? She has never told me who it was. I suppose it's that damned cad who painted her portrait—Maryon Rooke?”

Barry smiled a little.

“No,” he answered. “The man she loves is Peter Mallory.”

“Mallory!” Roger repeated in blank astonishment. Then he added swiftly, and with a gleam of triumph in his eyes: “But he's married!”

“His wife has just died—out in India.”

“So that's why you came?” sneered Roger. “Well, you can tell Nan that she won't marry Peter Mallory with my consent. I'll never set her free to be another man's wife—there's only one thing left to me in the world, and that's Nan! And I'll have~her!”

“Is that your final decision?” asked Barry. He was beginning to recognize the hopelessness of any effort to turn or influence the man.

“Yes. And tell Nan,” said Roger derisively, “that I shall expect my truly devoted fiancée here this afternoon.”

CHAPTER XXXVII.

It was late in the afternoon when the Mallow car once more purred up to the door of Trenby Hall, and Nan descended from it. She was looking very pale, her face like a delicate white cameo beneath the shadow of her hat, while the clinging black of her gown accentuated the slender lines—too slender, now—of her figure.

Kitty had told her of Barry's interview with Trenby and of its utter futility, and, although Nan had been prepared to sacrifice her whole existence to the man who had suffered so terrible an injury, she was bitterly disappointed that he proposed exacting it from her as a right rather than accepting it as a free gift.

If for once he could have shown himself generous and offered to give her back her freedom—an offer she would have refused to accept—how much the fact that each of them had been willing to make a sacrifice might have helped to sweeten their married life! Instead, Roger had forced upon her the realization that he was unchanged—still the same arrogant “man with the club” that he had always been, insisting on his own way, either by brute force or by the despotism of a moral obligation which was equally compelling.

But these thoughts fled, driven away by a rush of overwhelming sympathy, when her eyes fell on the great, impotent hulk of a man who lay propped up against his pillows.

“Oh, Roger!” With a low cry of dismay, Nan ran to the bed and slipped down on her knees beside it.

“It's a rotten bit of luck, isn't it?” he returned briefly.

She expected the fierce clasp of his arms about her, and had steeled herself to submit to his kisses without flinching. But he did not offer to kiss her. Instead, pointing to a chair, he said quietly:

“Pull up that chair—I'm sorry I can't offer to do it for you—and sit down.”

She obeyed while he watched her in silence. The silence lasted so long that at last, finding it almost unbearable, she broke it.

“Roger, I'm so—so grieved to see you—like this.” She leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped tightly together. “But don't give up hope yet,” she went on earnestly. “You've only had one specialist's opinion. He might easily be wrong. After a time you may be walking about again as well as any other man. I've heard of such cases.”

“And I suppose you're banking on the hope that mine is one of them, so that you'll not be tied to a helpless log for a husband. Is that it?”

She shrank back, deeply hurt. If he were to be always like this—prey to a kind of ferocious suspicion of every word and act of hers, then the outlook for the future was dark indeed. The burden of it would be more than she could bear.

Roger, seeing her wince, gestured apologetically.

“| didn't mean quite all that,” he said quickly. “I'm rather like a newly caged wild beast—savage even with its keeper. Still, any woman might be forgiven for preferring to marry a sound man rather than a cripple. You're ready to go on with the deal, Nan?”

“Yes, I'm ready,” she answered in a low voice.

“Have you realized all it means? I'm none too amiable at best, and my temper's not likely to improve now I'm tied by the leg. You'll have to fetch and carry, and put up with all the whims and tantrums of a very sick man. Are you really sure of yourself?”

“Quite sure.”

His hawk's eyes flashed over her face, as though he would pierce through the veil of her grave and tranquil expression,

“Even though Peter Mallory's free to marry you now?” he demanded suddenly.

“Peter!” The word came in a whisper. She threw out her hands appealingly. “Roger, can't we leave the past behind? We've each a good deal”—her thoughts flew back to that dreadful episode in the improvised studio—“a good deal to forgive. Let us put the past quite away—on the top shelf—and forget. I've told you I'm willing to be your wife. Let's start from that. I'll marry you as soon as you like.”

“I believe you really would!” said Roger after a long pause, with a note of sheer wonderment in his voice.

“I've just said so.”

“Well, my dear, thank you very much for the offer, but I'm not going to accept it.”

“Not going to accept it!” she repeated, utterly bewildered. “But you can't—you won't refuse!”

“I can and I do—entirely refuse to marry you.”

Nan began to think his mind was wandering.

“No,” he said, detecting her thought. “I'm as sane as you are. Come here a little closer—and I'll tell you all about it.”

Rather nervously, Nan drew nearer to him.

“Don't be frightened,” he said, with a strange kindness and gentleness in his voice. “I had a visitor this morning who told me some unpalatable truths about myself. He asked me to release you from your engagement, and I flatly refused. He also enlightened my ignorance concerning Peter Mallory and informed me that he was now free to marry you. That settled matters as far as I was concerned. I made up my mind I would never give you up to another man!” He paused. “Since then I've had time for reflection, and reflection's a useful kind of thing. Then, when you came in just now looking like a broken flower with your white face and sorrowful eyes, I made a snatch at whatever's left of a decent man in this battered old frame of mine.”

He paused and took Nan's hand in his. Very gently he drew the ring he had given her from her finger.

“You are quite free, now,” he said quietly.

“No, no!” Impulsively she tried to recover the ring. “Let me be your wife! I'm willing—quite, quite willing!” she urged, her heart overflowing with tenderness and pity for this man who was voluntarily renouncing the one thing left him.

“But Mallory wouldn't be 'quite willing,'” replied Roger, with a twisted smile. “Nor am I. And an unwilling bridegroom isn't likely to make a good husband!”

Nan's mouth quivered.

“Roger——” The sob in her throat choked into silence the rest of what she had meant to say. Her hands went out to him, and he took them in his and held them.

“Will you kiss me—just once, Nan?” he said. “I don't think Mallory would grudge it to me.”

She bent over him and, for the first time unshrinkingly and with infinite tenderness, laid her lips on his. Then, very quietly, she left the room. She was conscious of a sense of awe. First Maryon, and now, to an even greater degree, Roger, had revealed some secret quality of fineness with which no one would have credited them.

She was glad when she came downstairs from Roger's bedroom to find that there was no one about. A meeting with Lady Gertrude at the moment would have been of all things the most repugnant to her. With a feeling of intense thankfulness that the thin, steel-eyed woman was nowhere to be seen, she stepped into the car and was borne swiftly down the drive. At the lodge, however, where the chauffeur had to pull up while the lodge keeper opened the gates, Isobel Carson came into sight, and common courtesy demanded that Nan should get out of the car and speak to her. She had been gathering flowers—for Roger's room, was Nan's involuntary thought—and carried a basketful of lovely blossoms over her arm.

In a few words Nan told her of her interview with Roger. Isobel listened intently.

“I'm glad you were willing to marry him,” she said abruptly as Nan ceased speaking. “It was—decent of you. Because, of course, you were never in love with him.”

“No,” Nan acknowledged simply.

“While I've loved him ever since I knew him!” burst out Isobel. “But he's never looked at me, thought of me—like that! Perhaps, now you're out of the way——” She broke off, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Into Nan's mind flashed the possibility of all that this might mean—this wealth of wasted love which was waiting for Roger if he cared to take it.

“Would you marry him—now?” she asked.

“Marry him?” Isobel's eyes glowed. “I'd marry him if he couldn't move a finger! I love him! And there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him.”

She looked almost beautiful at that moment, with her face irradiated by a look of absolute, selfless devotion.

“And I wouldn't rest till he was cured!” The words came pouring from her lips. “I'd try every surgeon in the world before I'd give up hope, and if they failed, I'd try what love—just patient, helpful love—could do! One thinks of a thousand ways which might cure when one loves,” she added.

“Love is a great healer,” said Nan gently. “I'm not sure that anything is impossible if you have both love and faith.” She paused, her foot on the step of the car. “I think—I think, some day, Roger will open the door of his heart to you, Isobel,” she ended softly.

She was glad to lean back in the car and to feel the cool rush of the air against her face. She was tired, immensely tired, from the strain of the afternoon. And now the remembrance came flooding back into her mind that, even though Roger had released her, she and Peter were still set apart—no longer by the laws of God and man, but by the fact that she herself had destroyed his faith and trust in her.

She stepped wearily out of the car when it reached Mallow. She was late in returning, and neither Kitty nor Penelope were visible as she entered the big paneled hall. Probably they had already gone upstairs to dress.

As she made her way slowly toward the staircase, absorbed in rather bitter thoughts, a slight sound caught her ear—a sudden stir of movement. Then, out of the dim shadows of the hall, some one came toward her—some one who limped a little as he came.

“Nan!”

For an instant her heart seemed to stop beating. The quiet, drawling voice was Peter's, no longer harsh with anger, or stern with the enforced repression of a love that was forbidden, but tender and infolding as it had been that moonlit night amid the ruins of King Arthur's castle.

“Peter! Peter!”

She ran blindly toward him, whispering his name.

How it had happened she neither knew nor cared—all that mattered was that Peter was here, waiting for her.

“Beloved!” he murmured as his arms closed around her, and she knew that every barrier was down between them—the past, with all its blunders, had been wiped out.

Presently she leaned away from him.

“Peter, I used to wonder why God kept us apart. I almost lost my faith—once.”

Peter's steady, blue-gray eyes met hers.

“Beloved,” he said, “I think we can see why, even now. Isn't our love—which we've fought to keep pure and clean—a thousand times better and finer thing than the love we might have snatched at and taken when it wasn't ours to take?”

She smiled up at him, a tender gravity in her face. Her thoughts slipped back to the little song which had seemed to hold so strange a symbolism of her own life. The third verse had come true at last. She repeated it:

“But sometimes God on His great white throne
Looks down from the heaven above,
And lays in the hands that are empty
The tremulous star of love.”

Peter stooped and kissed her lips. There was a still, quiet passion in his kiss, but there was something more—something deeper and intransmutable—the same unchanging troth which he had given her at Tintagel of love that would last “through this world into the next.”

THE END.