"Do you think I"d let you touch him?" he burst out. "Go! I"ll manage."
She crept away, cowed by his vehemence, overcome by the desire to obey which subdues most women when the command is from one they love. Back to the fire she had left so short a time ago. It was dull now, but a touch sent the responsive flames leaping up the chimney. Would any amount of care restore that confidence in herself which but an hour ago had defied fate? Eustace and she--Eustace and me. What evil chance was this?
She started from a maze of confused fear at his knock at her door.
"A light, please. You have no bed here, and none of the other rooms are fit for you to-night; so I have brought this. I had to leave him--there."
"Why should you trouble?" she asked drearily, with lack-l.u.s.tre eyes on his burden of blankets and pillows. "I can so easily sit up; it must be near morning now."
He gave her a look so full of pa.s.sionate adoration that her eyes fell before it.
"Do you think I am going to let you suffer one little bit--one atom of discomfort because of _him?_ No, that shall not be; you shall never suffer."
"How can you help it?"
"How can you ask? We may have made a mistake, Maud; perhaps we _hav"n"t_ G.o.d knows. But if we have, why then--" He came over to where she was standing and took her hands in his. So they stood, those two alone, with nothing between them save a conscience which could be turned aside; every barrier raised by the world broken down by a strange fate, by a mere turn of the tide.
"Good-night, dear," he said, stooping to kiss her.
She made no reply, no protest; perhaps in her heart of hearts she knew that he said the truth. That if it was a mistake, why then--
The waves caught up that refrain also, as she lay with wide, sleepless eyes on the little camp-bed with which his care had provided her. "It is a mistake--you shall not suffer--it is a mistake--you shall not suffer."
III
When she woke next morning, a be-capped and be-ap.r.o.ned upper housemaid was bringing in her early cup of tea.
"Yes, milady, we "ave hall come. Mr. "Ooper "e "ave come too, milady.
Indeed, if it "adn"t bin for Mr. "Ooper, we should "ave bin picking hup cattle in that horful Minch till hevenin"; but "e took it on "imself to tell the capting as master would willin" pay hextra for us to come as quick as might be. And thankful we was, milady, for some of us mightn"t "ave lived to see land."
Jane looked as if she certainly would have been one of those to succ.u.mb, and Lady Maud gave a sigh of relief.
"Tell Hooper to go to his master,--he wasn"t very well last night,--and tell Josephine I shall breakfast in my room."
"Mr. "Ooper "ave gone to master," replied Jane in a voice which implied that the reminder was unnecessary; "and if you please, milady, Capting Weeks "e "ave come too. We picked "im up with some cattle in a boat from some place as begins with an "Hoich.""
Lady Maud gave another sigh of relief. The sand-bags of civilization were a great protection after all; and if Captain Weeks had come, Eustace would go out shooting with him. That would give her a whole day to face the situation. Honestly, she thought far more of possible difficulties with him than with her husband. The shock had been terrible at the time, but perhaps, after all, it was an isolated offence. Heaps of men in society got drunk decently out of sight of their legal womenkind, and no one thought-- The recurrence of the phrase she had used the night before made her pause and hide her face in the pillow in sudden horror at herself and him. No! without going so far as that, one could still be rational. Edward was devoted to her, and if a wife by her influence made a better man of her husband, wherein lay the degradation? Last night--great heavens! what had come over her last night? She had been taken by surprise, placed in conditions which no one could possibly have foreseen, dragged by main force from every shelter. Her face burnt as she remembered, and yet how natural it had been! Natural and therefore absurd, ridiculous.
To-day, however, was different, and so the little pencilled note from Eustace, which Josephine brought in with the breakfast, received no reply save a message to say she was perfectly well and hoped he would look after Captain Weeks, if Mr. Wilson was not able to go out. A bold parry, which made Eustace Gordon set his teeth.
Yes! to-day was different; a new heaven and a new earth. The very house transformed; for when she came down to lunch, the drawing-room was full of tables, screens, photographs, and ferns, while in the dining-room the butler stood ready to remove the silver covers, and so let loose the pent-up energies of two footmen who, with bent heads, seemed waiting for some one to say grace. Mr. Gordon, the report ran, had taken Captain Weeks to the Carbost beat, and would not be back till late. Her ladyship was to open any telegram which might come, as it would relate to the yacht. Mr. Wilson had gone to shoot rock-pigeon with the head keeper. The professor was exploring, and begged her ladyship not to wait lunch for him. So said the butler gravely as he filled her gla.s.s. Through the window she could see the Atlantic guiltless of a white feather, and her own courage rose with the outlook. As she strolled about the heathery knolls after lunch, a boy on a pony appeared with the expected telegram. "Started, should be with you to-morrow." So that was an end of one trouble. Then Cynthia Strong and some others were to come by the next boat. Will Lockhart was cruising about the coast and might look in on them at any time.
There would be no more solitude; not even to-day, since there across the moor came Miss Macdonald, attired for calling, and beside her that good-looking young sailor. Lady Maud liked boys, especially handsome ones with palpable adoration in their blue eyes.
The professor, coming in very hot about tea-time, found the trio having it like children out in a bieldy bit by the burn, but with the butler solemnly presiding over the fire. A fire which gave James, the under footman, the hugest delight until his enjoyment was crushed out of him by his superior officer. For the butler knew his duty: afternoon tea was afternoon tea wherever her ladyship chose to take it; that is to say, a function at which a footman must preserve an impa.s.sive face. So poor James put on the sticks with funeral calm and burnt his fingers with great decorum.
"Here is a lady, professor," said Lady Maud,--"Miss Macdonald--Professor Endorwick,--who will tell you everything you can possibly want to know about the island. She is a mine of useful information; at least I have found her so."
That gracious voice, face, and manner had been a sort of rapture to young Rick Halmar for the last half hour, and when, after launching the others into conversation, she turned to him with the undefinable change in manner she could no more avoid in talking to men than the magnet can keep its influence, his heart gave quite a throb.
"I didn"t introduce you," she said, smiling, "because I only know your Christian name; and I"m not sure of that."
"Rick! Rick Halmar," he replied with a blush which took him by surprise; for he was not as a rule self-conscious.
"Rick?" she echoed curiously.
"Eric. My father was a Norwegian. But it was a boshy name and the fellows on the _Britannia_ called me "Little by Little"--after the book, you know."
She laughed. "A very inappropriate name, Mr. Halmar. You must be six feet."
He shook his head. "Five feet eleven and three-quarters. It"s too big for a sailor. You get in the way of the ropes and things."
"Not too big for a man--but listen! the professor is overcome already; how delightful!"
In good sooth he was actually reduced to the position of listener, an isolated a.s.sertion of interest being all the speech allowed him as Miss Willina waxed eloquent over the cra.s.s superst.i.tions of the islanders and her own select beliefs.
Rick"s face grew brimful of smiles.
"Aunt Will is as bad as the best, herself. Why, the other day I carved out a sort of devil,--a thing they worship in the Caribbees,--and she was in quite a taking because it was left out on a _harp_,--that"s a Viking"s tomb, Lady Maud. She has some rigmarole about "tribute to the dead," their sending back things to work evil to the living. But, do you know, Lady Maud, it"s awfully rum, but I couldn"t find the thing when I went to look for it yesterday morning."
"You couldn"t find it? Mr. Halmar, don"t speak loud; don"t attract their attention by looking surprised! Was it--the devil, I mean--fearfully ugly?"
"The best I ever made."
"Had it white eyes with a shot stuck in them?"
"Lady Maud! did you find it?"
"Not I, but the professor did. It"s a footstep of a discredited belief, and he is going to lecture on it to the British a.s.sociation.
Isn"t it perfectly lovely? How we shall all laugh!"
"But you will tell him, of course?"
"Tell him! Why should I? These things are one of my chief joys in life."
Rick Halmar winced. "But don"t you see, Lady Maud, it"s my fault more or less? I oughtn"t to go carving devils and leaving them about. It isn"t fair."
She raised her eyebrows. "When you are older, Mr. Halmar, you won"t be so eager to accept responsibility. By the way, does yours extend to another devil of the same sort which was found on Grada Sands?"
He let his head drop into his hands in comic despair. "How one"s sins _do_ find one out! It must be the one Aunt Will flung into the Minch.
Everything comes round sooner or later to the sands. Has the professor got it too?"
"No, Mr. Halmar. _I_ have it."
"You! Oh, Lady Maud--I am sorry."