The vision was so blazing bright that I covered my eyes to shut it out.
Not that I hated it. Oh no, I loved it too well!
So, for a while, I stood, my hands pressed over my eyes, my ears strained to catch distant sounds--yet wishing not to hear. Suddenly, close by, there came the click of a latch. My hands dropped like broken clock weights. I opened my eyes. Jim Beckett was in the room, and the door was shut.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
I stared, fascinated. Here was Jim-of-the-rose-arbour, and a new Jim-of-the-war--a browner, thinner, sterner Jim, a Jim that looked at me with a look I could not read. It may have been cruel, but it was not cold, and it pierced like a hot sword-blade through my flesh into my soul.
"_You_--after all!" he said. The remembered voice I had so often heard in dreams, struck on my nerves like a hand on the strings of a harp. I felt the vibration thrill through me.
"Yes--it"s I." The answer came in a whisper from dry lips. "I"m sorry!"
"What are you sorry for? Because you are you?"
"It wouldn"t be--_quite_ so horrible if--I"d been a stranger."
"You think not?"
"I--it seems as if I took advantage of--oh, that"s just what I did! I"m not asking you to forgive me----"
"It isn"t so much a question of forgiving, as putting things straight.
We _must_ put them straight----"
"I"ll do whatever you wish," I promised. "Only--let me go soon."
"Are you afraid of me?" There was sharpness in his tone.
"Not afraid. I am--utterly humiliated."
"Why did you do this--thing? Let"s have that out first."
"The thought came into my head when I was at my wits" end--for my brother. Not that that"s an excuse!"
"I"m not worrying about excuses. It"s explanations I need, I had my own theories--thinking it all over--and wondering--whether it would be you or a stranger I should find. The name was the one thing I had to go on: "O"Malley" and its likeness to Ommalee. That was the way I heard your name p.r.o.nounced, you know, when we met. I was coming back to see you and make sure. But I was laid up in Paris with an attack of typhoid. Perhaps Mother told you?"
"Yes. But please, let us not talk of that! There isn"t much time. You"ll have to go back to Fath--to Mr. and Mrs. Beckett. Tell me quickly what you want me to do."
"I was forgetting for a minute. You look very pale, Miss O"Malley.
Hadn"t you better sit down?"
"No, thank you. I like standing--where I am."
"Ah!" he gave a sudden exclamation. At last he had seen Brian"s sketch.
He had not noticed it, or any of the "den treasures," before. He had looked only at me.
"Why--it"s _the_ picture! And--Gee!"--his eyes travelled round the room--"all my dear old things! What a mother I"ve got!" He gazed about during a full minute of silence, then turned abruptly back to me. "You love her--don"t you?"
"Who could help loving her?"
"And the dear old Governor--you"re fond of him?"
"I should be even worse than I am, if I didn"t adore them both. They have been--angels to me and my brother."
"I"m told that you and he have been something of the same sort to them."
"Oh, they would speak kindly of us, of course!--They"re so n.o.ble, themselves, they judge----"
"It was another person who told me the particular thing I"m thinking of now."
"Another person? Doctor Paul, I suppose."
"You must guess again, Miss O"Malley."
"I can"t think of any one else who would----"
"What about your friend, Mr. O"Farrell?"
"He"s not my friend!" I cried. "Oh, I _knew_ he"d somehow contrive a chance to talk to you alone, about me!"
"He certainly did. And what he said impressed me a good deal."
"Most likely it"s untrue."
"_Too_ likely! I"m very anxious to find out from headquarters if it"s true or not."
"If you ask me, I"ll answer honestly. I can"t and won"t lie to you."
"I"ll take you at your word and ask you--in a minute. You may be angry when I do. But--it will save time. It"ll clear up all my difficulties at one fell swoop."
"Why wait a minute, then?" I ventured, with faint bitterness, because _his_ "difficulties" seemed so small compared with mine. He was in the right in everything. This was his home. The dear Becketts were his people. All the world was his.
"I wait a minute, because something has to be told you before I can ask you to answer any more questions. When I didn"t know who or what my--er--official fiancee would turn out to be, this was the plan I made, to save my parents" feelings--and yours. I thought that, when we"d had the interview I asked you to give me, we could manage to quarrel, or discover that we didn"t like each other as well as before. We could break off our engagement, and Father and Mother need never know--how it began."
"A very generous idea of yours!" I cried, the blood so hot in my cheeks that it forced tears to my eyes. "It had occurred to me, too, that for _their_ sakes we might manage that way. Thank you, Mr. Beckett, for sparing me the pain--I deserve. I couldn"t have dared hope for such a happy solution----"
"Couldn"t you?"
"No. I----"
"Well, I"m hoping for an even happier one--a lot happier. But of course it depends on what you say to Mr. O"Farrell"s--accusation."
"He--made an accusation?"
"Listen, and tell me what you"d call it. He said you told him at Amiens, when he asked you to marry him, that--_you loved me_."