"No--I walked--a great part of the way, at least. Will you help me up?
It"s very foolish, but I can"t stand."
She rose, tottering, and leaning heavily upon his hand. She drew her own across her forehead.
"It"s only hunger. And I had some milk. Was Augustina in a great way?"
"She was anxious, of course. We both were."
"Yes! it was stupid. But look--" she clung to him. "Will you take me into the drawing-room, and get me some wine--before I see Augustina?"
"Lean on me."
She obeyed, and he led her in. The drawing-room door was open, and she sank into the nearest chair. As she looked up she saw the Romney lady shining from the wall in the morning sunlight. The blue-eyed beauty looked down, as though with a careless condescension, upon the pale and tattered Laura. But Laura was neither envious nor ashamed. As Helbeck left her to get wine, she lay still and white; but in the solitude of the room while he was gone, a little smile, ghostly as the dawn itself, fluttered suddenly beneath her closed lids and was gone again.
When he returned, she did her best to drink and eat what she was told.
But her exhaustion became painfully apparent, and he hung over her, torn between anxiety, remorse, and the pulsations of a frantic joy, hardly to be concealed, even by him.
"Let me wake Augustina, and bring her down!"
"No--wait a little. I have been in a quarry all night, you see! That isn"t--resting!"
"I tried to direct you--I managed to telegraph to the station-master; but it must have missed. I asked him to direct you to the inn."
"Oh, the inn!" She shuddered suddenly. "No, I couldn"t go to the inn."
"Why--what frightened you?"
He sat down by her, speaking very gently, as one does to a child.
She was silent. His heart beat--his ear hungered for the next word.
She lifted her tired lids.
"My cousin was there--at the junction. I did not want him. I did not wish to be with him; he had no right whatever to follow me. So I sent him to the inn to ask--and I----"
"You----?"
"I hid myself in the quarry while he was gone. When he came back, he went on over the sands, calling for me--perhaps he thought I was lost in one of the bad places."
She gave a little whimsical sigh, as though it pleased her to think of the lad"s possible frights and wanderings.
Helbeck bent towards her.
"And so--to avoid him----?"
She followed his eye like a child.
"I had noticed a quarry beside the line. I climbed up there--under the engine-house--and sat there till it was light. You see"--her breath fluttered--"I couldn"t--I couldn"t be sure--he was sober. I dare say it was ridiculous--but I was so startled--and he had no business----"
"He had given you no hint--that he wished to accompany you?"
Something drove, persecuted the man to ask it in that hoa.r.s.e, shaking tone.
She did not answer. She simply looked at him, while the tears rose softly in her clear eyes. The question seemed to hurt her. Yet there was neither petulance nor evasion. She was Laura, and not Laura--the pale sprite of herself. One might have fancied her clothed already in the heavenly super-sensual body, with the pure heart pulsing visibly through the spirit frame.
Helbeck rose, closed the door softly, came back and stood before her, struggling to speak. But she intercepted him. There was a look of suffering, a frown.
"I saw a man die yesterday," she said abruptly. "Did Polly tell you?"
"I heard of the accident, and that you had stayed to comfort the child."
"It seems very heartless, but somehow as we were in the train I had almost forgotten it. I was so glad to get away from Froswick--to be coming back. And I was very tired, of course, and never dreamt of anything going wrong. Oh, _no_! I haven"t forgotten really--I never shall forget."
She pressed her hands together shuddering. Helbeck was still silent.
But it was a silence that pierced. Suddenly she flushed deeply. The spell that held her--that strange transparency of soul--broke up.
"Naturally I was afraid lest Augustina should be anxious," she said hastily, "and lest it should be bad for her."
Helbeck knelt down beside her. She sank back in her chair, staring at him.
"You were glad to be coming back--to be coming here?" he said in his deep voice. "Is that true? Do you know that I have sat here all night--in misery?"
The struggling breath checked the answer, cheeks and lips lost every vestige of their returning red. Only her eyes spoke. Helbeck came closer.
Suddenly he s.n.a.t.c.hed the little form to his breast. She made one small effort to free herself, then yielded. Soul and body were too weak, the ecstasy of his touch too great.
"You can"t love me--you can"t."
She had torn herself away. They were sitting side by side; but now she would not even give him her hand. That one trembling kiss had changed their lives. But in both natures, pa.s.sion was proud and fastidious from its birth; it could live without much caressing.
As she spoke, he met her gaze with a smiling emotion. The long, stern face in its grizzled setting of hair and beard had suffered a transformation that made it almost strange to her. He was like a man loosed from many bonds, and dazzled by the effects of his own will. The last few minutes had made him young again. But she looked at him wistfully once or twice, as though her fancy nursed something which had grown dear to it.
"You can"t love me," she repeated; "when did you begin? You didn"t love me yesterday, you know--nor the day before."
"Why do you suppose I went away the day after the ghost?" he asked her slowly.
"Because you had business, or you were tired of my very undesirable company."
"Put it as you like! Do you explain my recent absences in the same way?"
"Oh, I can"t explain you!" She raised her shoulders, but her face trembled. "I never tried."
"Let me show you how. I went because you were here."
"And you were afraid--that you might love me? Was it--such a hard fate?"
She turned her head away.