"No, no," she said hastily; "don"t say anything to stop me. I must go on with it. I have promised. He knows I don"t love him, and he doesn"t care."
Senhouse p.r.i.c.ked up his head. "Does he love you, do you suppose? Do you believe it?"
She shrugged half-heartedly. "He says so. He seemed to when I told him that I was going away.
"When was that?" he asked her. She told him the whole story as the reader knows it. Senhouse heard her, his head between his hands.
At the end of it, he looked out over the valley.
"Would to G.o.d," he said, "you and I had never met, Sanchia."
Tears filled her eyes. "Oh, why do you say that?"
He took her hands. "You know why." There was no faltering in the look that pa.s.sed between them now. They were face to face indeed. He got up, and stood apart from her. She waited miserably where she was.
"We may be friends now, I believe," he said. You"ll let me write to you?
You"ll trust me?"
"I shall live in your letters," she said. "I read nothing else but those I have. They are all the help I have." Then with a cry she broke out, "Oh, Jack, what a mess you"ve made of our affairs!"
He laughed bitterly. "Do you know my tale?"
"I guess it," she said.
"I played the rogue," he told her, "to a good girl, who was as far from my understanding as I was from hers. I thought that I had got over--it, you know, and that she and I could be happy together. Absurd, absurd! G.o.d bless her, she"s happy now. I swear to you that I meant to do her honour-- and directly I found out what she really wanted, I would have given it her. You"ll not believe that I was such a fool as to suppose she could feel happy with my ideas of wedded life--but I did. Oh, Heavens! Poor dear, affectionate, simple soul, she felt naked! She shivered at her own plight, and wondered why I"d been so unkind to her, seeing I was by ordinary so kind. I shudder to think what she must have gone through."
"But," she said, anxious to save him, "but she knew what your beliefs were--and accepted them. You told me so."
"Queen Mab," he said gravely, "she was a woman, not a fairy. And please to observe the difference. She, poor dear, felt as if she was stripped until she married. You will feel stripped when you do. Yet you both do it for the same reason. She obeys the law because she dare not break it; you because you choose to keep it. Despoina! Despoina!"
She laughed, a little awry. "You used to call me Artemis. I"m not she any more."
"You are all the G.o.ddesses. You do what you please. Your mind is of Artemis; you have the form of Demeter, the grave-eyed spirit of the corn-- and your gown, I observe, is blue, as hers was. I see Hera in you, too, the peering, proud lady of intolerant eyelids; and Kore, the pale, sad wife--which makes you your own daughter, my dear; and Gaia, by whom the Athenians swore when they were serious,--Gaia, the Heart of the Earth. All these you are in turns; but to me Despoina, the Lady of the Country, whose secrets no man knows but me."
She was now by his side, very pale and pure in her distress. She put her hand on his shoulder as she leaned to him. "Dearest, there is one of my secrets you have not learned. May I tell it you?"
He listened sideways, not able to look at her. She felt him tremble. "I think not--I think not. You will tell Ingram first--then do as you please.
Don"t ask me to listen. Haven"t I told you that I see you every night?"
"And I tell you nothing of my secret?"
"I never ask you."
"But do I not tell you? Can I keep it?"
"You don"t speak to me. You never speak. You look. Fairies don"t speak with the tongue. They have better ways."
"What do you do with me?"
"I follow you, over the hills."
"And then?"
"At dawn you leave me."
"I am a ghost?"
"I don"t know. You are Despoina. You go at dawn."
A power was upon her, and within her. She put both hands on his shoulders.
"One night I shall come--and not leave you. And after that you will not follow me any more. I shall follow you." Perfectly master of himself, his eyes met hers and held them.
"It shall be as you will."
She smiled confidently. "I shall come. I know that. But I shan"t speak."
"What need of speech between you and me?"
She saw Chevenix upon the high ground above. He stood on the gra.s.s d.y.k.es of Hirlebury, and waved his hat.
"I must go now," she said. "Good-bye, my dear one."
"Good-bye, Despoina. In seven hours you will be here again...."
"It is to be observed," says a gifted author, "that the laws of human conduct are precisely made for the conduct of this world of Men in which we live and breed and pay rent. They do not affect the Kingdom of the Dogs, nor that of the Fishes; by a parity of reasoning they should not be supposed to obtain in the Kingdom of Heaven, in which the Schoolmen discovered the citizens dwelling in nine spheres, apart from the blessed Immigrants, whose privileges did not extend so near to the Heart of the Presence. How many realms there may be between mankind"s and that ultimate object of Pure Desire cannot at present be known, but it may be affirmed with confidence that any denizen of any one of them, brought into relation with human beings, would act, and lawfully act, in ways which to men would seem harsh, unconscionable, without sanction or convenience. Such a being might murder one of the ratepayers of London, compound a felony, or enter into conspiracy to depose the King himself, and, being detected, very properly be put under restraint, or visited with chastis.e.m.e.nt either deterrent or vindictive, or both. But the true inference from the premisses would be that, although duress or banishment from the kingdom might be essential, yet punishment, so called, ought not to be visited upon the offender. For he or she could not be _nostri juris,_ and that which was abominable to us might well be reasonable to him or her, and, indeed, a fulfilment of the law of his being. Punishment, therefore, could not be exemplary, since the person punished exemplified nothing to Mankind; and if vindictive, then would be shocking, since that which it vindicated, in the mind of the victim either did not exist, or ought not.
The ancient Greek who withheld from the sacrifices to Showery Zeus because a thunderbolt destroyed his hayrick, or the Egyptian who manumitted his slaves because a G.o.d took the life of his eldest son, was neither a pious nor a reasonable person.
"Beyond question," he continues, "there are such beings upon the earth, visitors or sojourners by chance, whose true commerce is elsewhere, in a state not visible to us, nor to be apprehended by most of us; whose relation with mankind is temporary. The spheres which govern us, govern not them, and their conduct is dictated by their good pleasure, where ours goes after the good pleasure of our betters. Thus a man may, if he can, take a G.o.ddess or nymph to wife, but should not be disconcerted with what she may elect to do."
Sanchia returned silently to London by the 6.50 from Salisbury, and arrived at Charles Street by half-past eight, which was Lady Maria"s usual hour. She changed her dress hurriedly and came into the drawing-room.
Ingram was waiting there, his hands behind his back. He looked at her as she entered, but did not greet her. Perhaps he saw his doom in her eyes.
"Had a good day, Sancie?" he asked, after a while of gazing.
"Very good," she said.
"Saw your man?"
"Yes, I saw him."
"Mad as ever?"
"Ah," she said, "who is mad?"
"Well, my dear, if he is not, we are. That"s certain. What have you done with Bill Chevenix?"
"He"s gone home to dress. He will be here directly."
"I hope," said Ingram, "he played the perfect squire." She stood by the window looking out towards the west. Luminous orange mist flared up behind the chimney-stacks in streamers. Above that, in a sky faintly blue, crimson clouds, like plumes of feather, floated without motion.