"Your dress suits you," he jibed. "I suppose you put it on to----"
"I had to put it on," she interrupted; "I had to pa.s.s muster. I didn"t want to set the town talking. You know, as well as I, that it wasn"t easy--it wasn"t pleasant."
"No one asked you to do it," he replied, "and I wonder how you had the--the cheek!" Then suddenly he laughed; he could not help it. The whole business tickled him and his eyes took on a certain admiration.
"It beats c.o.c.k-fighting, my dear," he went on. "No one but you would have dared to do it. But it won"t do, Marmie. You don"t understand.
That old man--I won"t call him my father, Marmie--won"t give me the two thousand pounds for my majority. Fantine Le Grand has shown me how to get it, and I----" He paused; in sober truth now he came to think of the plan for so getting it, the less it appealed to him.
Marrion waited a second, then said--
"How?"
There was no reason why he should have answered her categorically, but he did; perhaps at the back of his mind was a desire to know what she thought of it. He gave a forced laugh.
"We are to dance for it. Oh, I know all the stuff that"s talked about dancing men and women, but we would go abroad! I should get leave of absence for six months on urgent private affairs, and no one would be a bit the worse."
"_You_ would!" commented Marrion briefly.
There was a world of scornful criticism in the words.
"Oh, dash it all," cried Marmaduke, "a man can"t always ride the high horse! And you"ve put me in the deuce of a hole, though I suppose you meant well. You see, I can"t wait for her now, as I must see Pringle tomorrow; but I can come back again," he added complacently, "and I will."
"Then you mean to--to marry--that woman?" put in Marrion.
He rose angrily and began to pace up and down the room. In sober truth once more, now that he was away from Fantine Le Grand"s allurements, he had begun to wonder if he were not paying rather dearly for his two thousand pounds.
"Of course I do; it"s in the bond, and I"m a man of my word. And you"ve no right to call her that woman. She is far better than you think, and I am very fond of her, very fond of her indeed!" He stopped opposite Marrion with a certain defiance. The blaze of the fire had died down; it was almost dark, save for a red glow on their faces. "Of course," he went on, "I ought to be deucedly angry with you, Marmie; but somehow I"m not, and if you will only take her a note from me----"
She started to her feet pa.s.sionately.
"A note!" she echoed, her voice vibrating with scorn. "Oh, Duke, Duke, sometimes I wonder if you can understand?--if any man ever understands? I came here, risking all, everything for you; you"ve been the sun in my heaven ever since I can remember; you"ve always been something very bright and very far away that is not to be touched or harmed. Yes, I come here to beg you not to ruin yourself body and soul, and you ask me to take a note!"
A sudden flash of lightning from the storm, now nigh at hand, lit up the room for a second, and showed her to him standing white and rigid like some accusing angel.
"You say you"re fond of her, but you"re not. I tell ye you"re no fond of her, Duke; ye ken na what love is--an" I do--for I love the verra ground you tread on, the verra things you"ve touched----"
Her voice, which in the extremity of her pa.s.sion had forgotten its acquired accent, failed; she sank back to her seat, and, throwing her arms out over the table, buried her face in them.
And a great silence fell between them, man and woman.
At last he laid his hand on her shoulder, and spoke humbly.
"I beg your pardon, Marmie; I did not understand, But I"m not worth it, child. Let me go my way----"
She pulled herself together.
"It"s time I was going home," she said, unsteadily.
"You can"t go in this storm," he put in relieved, as all men are, that the mental storm was over, "you"d better stop here for the night.
I"--he went to the fire and deliberately lit the candles, as if, with their light, to bring things back to normal again--"I--I"ll find a bed somewhere, and you can stop----"
Marrion interrupted him hastily.
"No, no, I must go! Folk will wonder. The boat is on this sh.o.r.e. I can easily slip over."
He walked to the window and looked out.
"It"s raining cats and dogs; you can"t go!" he said masterfully. "You stop here like a good girl, and I"ll go and settle up something for myself."
He left the room and for one second she stood irresolute. Should she stop? He had called her his wife, would doubtless call her so again to the landlady, and if she stopped--if she stopped----
Then, with a little sob, she caught up her cloak and ran downstairs.
The night was dark, but the moon shone fitfully between rifts in the clouds. The rain, coming in gusts with the wind, had ceased for a moment. She drew the hood of her cloak over her head and ran swiftly past the lighted windows of the bar, thinking she had escaped; but a moment after she heard swift steps following her own and, turning to look, saw Marmaduke, hatless, coatless, in pursuit.
The instinct of the chase awoke in her in a second; she doubled off the white road behind the shelter of a low beech copse.
"Marmie, Marmie, stop, I tell you! Don"t be a little fool!"
Easy to say that. But it was he was the fool, not she. If she kept in such cover as there was she might reach the boat before him--she must!
In the old days she had run as quick as he; and she knew where the boat was and he didn"t.
She tucked her petticoats high above the knee like any Leezie Lindsay and ran as for dear life. If she had failed in her mission--and had she?--she would not fail here. That last double had been successful.
His cry of "Marmie, Marmie, don"t be so foolish, dear!" sounded quite far off--like the wail of a plover.
Now it came nearer. Perhaps he had seen the lantern she had left to guide her own steps to the boat. If so, she had no time to lose, as he would make straight for it, and so must she, forsaking the bend to avoid a peat bog, and braving the moss hags even in the dark. Anyhow, she was lighter than he, and would not sink so deep; though, after the long spell of fine weather, the bog could not be very bad. And this was the worst part of it. With the ease of long practice she jumped lightly from hag to hag, sparing no time to look round for the figure behind her, though she knew it must be perilously near; for that instinct of the chase was as strong in him, perhaps stronger, than it was in her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eye was bright, her heart beat high, despite her breathlessness, and she knew that his did so also. Briefly they had both forgotten everything save their determination to have their own way.
"Marmie, you little devil, stop, I tell you!" came his voice close behind her. Then a splash, a loud "d.a.m.nation," told her that he had missed his hag.
That would give her time. She redoubled her speed, raced to the sh.o.r.e, and, not pausing to unfasten the boat, waded through the water, almost swimming the last bit, to where it rode at anchor on the outgoing tide. Clambering over the side she set to work at once to unknot the rope from the bow-ring. Not a second too soon, for Marmaduke, after a minute"s delay, due to his flounder and an unavailing search for the sh.o.r.e ring, had found it.
"Got you!" he cried joyfully, but he spoke too soon. The rope, undone, gave easy way to his strong pull, and the boat, with Marrion laughing in the bows, drifted slowly out from the sh.o.r.e.
He stood looking at her, the useless rope in his hand. By the light of the moon, now riding serene overhead (for the brief summer storm had pa.s.sed the zenith and now lay to the south, a dense bank of black quivering every now and again with throbs of summer lightning), he could see her tall and white, for her cloak had long since been flung aside, and heart-whole admiration possessed him.
"Marmie," he cried, "hold up--or, by G.o.d, I"ll swim after you. I want to speak to you."
She took an oar, stopped her way by holding on to one of the submerged seaweed-covered rocks of the boat-pier and waited.
"Why did you run away? Why wouldn"t you stop?"
She gave him the truth squarely and fairly.
"Because I should have pa.s.sed as your wife, and if I had chosen I might----" She hesitated, and he relieved her by a low whistle.
"By Jove!" he said slowly, almost absently. "I didn"t think of that, but"--he hesitated, in his turn--"but I thought, Marmie, you said you--you loved me!"
His voice lingered and lowered in altogether distracting fashion.
She turned hastily to the other oar, and let the blade drop into the water with a splash.