Chayne leaned forward, and sitting side by side with Sylvia, gazed down upon it with rapture. Oh, wonderful house where Sylvia was born! How much the world owed to it!
"It was there!" he said with awe.
"Yes," replied Sylvia. She was not without a proper opinion of herself, and it seemed rather a wonderful house to her, too.
"Perhaps on some such night as this," he said, and at once took the words back. "No! You were born on a sunny morning of July and the blackbirds on the branches told the good news to the blackbirds on the lawn, and the stream took up the message and rippled it out to the ships upon the sea.
There were no wrecks that day."
Sylvia turned to him, her face made tender by a smile, her dark eyes kind and bright.
"Hilary!" she whispered. "Oh, Hilary!"
"Sylvia!" he replied, mimicking her tone. And Sylvia laughed with the clear melodious note of happiness. All her old life was whirled away upon those notes of laughter. She leaned to her lover with a sigh of contentment, her hair softly touching his cheek; her eyes once more dropped to the still garden and the dark square house at the down"s foot.
"There you asked me to marry you, to go away with you," she said, and she caught his hand and held it close against her breast.
"Yes, there I first asked you," he said, and some distress, forgotten in these first perfect moments, suddenly found voice. "Sylvia, why didn"t you come with me then? Oh, my dear, if you only had!"
But Sylvia"s happiness was as yet too fresh, too loud at her throbbing heart for her to mark the jarring note.
"I did not want to then," she replied lightly, and then tightening her clasp upon his hand. "But now I do. Oh, Hilary, I do!"
"If only you had wanted then!"
Though he spoke low, the anguish of his voice was past mistaking. Sylvia looked at him quickly and most anxiously; and as quickly she looked away.
"Oh, no," she whispered hurriedly.
Her happiness could not be so short-lived a thing. Her heart stood still at the thought. It could not be that she had set foot actually within the dreamland, to be forthwith cast out again. She thought of the last week, its aching lonely hours. She needed her lover at her side, longed for him with a great yearning, and would not let him go.
"I"ll not listen, Hilary," she said stubbornly. "I will not hear! No"; and Chayne drew her close to his side.
"There is bad news, Sylvia."
The outcry died away upon her lips. The words crushed the rebellion in her heart, they were so familiar. It seemed to her that all her life bad news had been brought to her by every messenger. She shivered and was silent, looking straight out across the moonlit sea. Then in a small trembling voice, like a child"s, she pleaded, still holding her face averted:
"Don"t go away from me, Hilary! Oh, please! Don"t go away from me now!"
Her voice, her words, went to Chayne"s heart. He knew that pride and a certain reticence were her natural qualities. That she should throw aside the one, break through the other, proved to him indeed how very much she cared, how very much she needed him.
"Sylvia," he cried, "it will only be for a little while"; and again silence followed upon his words.
Since bad news was to be imparted, strength was needed to bear it; and habit had long since taught Sylvia that silence was the best nurse of strength. She did not turn her face toward her lover; but she drooped her head and clenched her hands tightly together upon her knees, nerving herself for the blow. The movement, slight though it was, stirred Chayne to pity and hurt him with an intolerable pain. It betrayed so unmistakably the long habit of suffering. She sat silent, motionless, with the dumb patience of a wounded animal.
"Oh, Sylvia, why did you not come with me on that first day?" he cried.
"Tell me your bad news, dear," she replied, gently.
"I cannot help it," he began in broken tones. "Sylvia, you will see that there is no escape, that I must go. An appointment was offered to me--by the War Office. It was offered to me, pressed on me, the day after I last came here, the day after we were together in the library. I did not know what to do. I did not accept it. But it seemed to me that each time I came to see you we became more and more estranged. I was given two days to make up my mind, and within the two days, my dear, your letter came, telling me you did not wish to see me any more."
"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered.
"I accepted the appointment at once. There were reasons why I welcomed it. It would take me abroad!"
"Abroad!" she cried.
"Yes, I welcomed that. To be near you and not to see you--to be near you and know that others were talking with you, any one, every one except me--to be near you and know that you were unhappy and in trouble, and that I could not even tell you how deeply I was sorry--I dreaded that, Sylvia. And yet I dreaded one thing more. Here, in England, at each turn of the street, I should think to come upon you suddenly. To pa.s.s you as a stranger, or almost as a stranger. No! I could not do it!"
"Oh, Hilary!" she whispered, and lifting his hand she laid it against her cheek.
"So for a week I was glad. But this morning I received your second letter, Sylvia. It came too late, my dear. There was no time to obtain a subst.i.tute."
Sylvia turned to him with a startled face.
"When do you go?"
"Very soon."
"When?"
The words had to be spoken.
"To-morrow morning. I catch the first train from Weymouth to Southampton.
We sail from Southampton at noon."
Habit came again to her a.s.sistance. She turned away from him so that he might not see her face, and he went on:
"Had there been more time, I could have made arrangements. Some one else could have gone. As it is--" He broke off suddenly, and bending toward her cried: "Sylvia, say that I must go."
But she could not bring herself to that. She was minded to hold with both hands the good thing which had come to her this night. She shook her head. He sought to turn her face to his, but she looked stubbornly away.
"And when will you return?" she asked.
"In a few months, Sylvia."
"When?"
"In June." And she counted off the months upon her fingers.
"So after to-night," she said, in a low voice, "I shall not see you any more for all these months. The winter must pa.s.s, and the spring, too. Oh, Hilary!" and she turned to him with a quivering face and whispered piteously: "Don"t go, my dear. Don"t go!"
"Say that I must go!" he insisted, and she laughed with scorn. Then the laughter ceased and she said:
"There will be danger?"
"None," he cried.
"Yes--from sickness, and--" her voice broke in a sob--"I shall not be near."