"Don"t I?" he asked. "Why, I come and see you."
"Oh, for twenty minutes once a month; just to keep the acquaintance open, I suppose. It"s like shutting all the gates on Ascension Day (isn"t it Ascension Day?), only the other way round, you know."
"You so often quarrel with me," said Tom.
"What nonsense!" said Adela. "Anyhow, I won"t quarrel here."
Tom glanced at her. She was looking bright and happy and young. He liked her even better here in Dieppe than in a London drawing-room. Her conversation was not so elaborate, but it was more spontaneous and, to his mind, pleasanter. Moreover, the sea air had put colour in her cheeks and painted her complexion afresh. The thought strayed through Tom"s mind that she was looking quite handsome. It was the one good thing that he did not always think about her. He went on studying her till she suddenly turned and caught him.
"Well," she asked, with a laugh and a blush, "do I wear well?"
"You always talk as if you were seventy," said Tom reprovingly.
Adela laughed merrily. The going of Ruston and the coming of Tom were almost too much good-fortune for one day. And Tom had come in a pleasant mood.
"You don"t really like Mrs. Cormack, do you?" she asked. "She hates me, you know."
"Oh, if I have to choose between you----" said Tom, and stopped.
"You stop at the critical moment."
"Well, Mrs. Cormack isn"t here," said Tom.
"So I shall do to pa.s.s the time?"
"Yes," he laughed; and then they both laughed.
But suddenly Adela"s laugh ceased, and she jumped up.
"There"s Marjory Valentine!" she exclaimed.
"What! Where?" asked Tom, rising.
"No, stay where you are, I want to speak to her. I"ll come back," and, leaving Tom, she sped after Marjory, calling her name.
Marjory looked round and hastened to meet her. She was pale and her eyes heavy for trouble and want of sleep.
"Oh, Adela, I"m so glad to find you! I was going to look for you at the hotel. I must talk to you."
"You shall," said Adela, taking her arm and smiling again.
She did not notice Marjory"s looks; she was full of her own tidings.
"I want to ask you whether you think Lady Semingham----" began Marjory, growing red, and in great embarra.s.sment.
"Oh, but hear my news first," cried Adela; "Marjory, he"s gone!"
"Who?"
"Why, that man Mr. Ruston."
"Gone?" echoed Marjory in amazement.
To her it seemed incredible that he should be gone--strange perhaps to Adela, but to her incredible.
"Yes, this morning. He got a letter--something about his Company--and he was off on the spot. And Tom--Mr. Loring (he"s come, you know), thinks--that that really was his reason, you know."
Marjory listened with wide-open eyes.
"Oh, Adela!" she said at last with a sort of shudder.
She could have believed it of no other man; she could hardly believe it of one who now seemed to her hardly a man.
"Isn"t it splendid? And he went off without seeing--without going up to the cliff at all. I never was so delighted in my life."
Marjory was silent. No delight showed on her face; the time for that was gone. She did not understand, and she was thinking of the night"s experience and wondering if Maggie Dennison had known that he was going.
No, she could not have known.
"But what did you want with me, or with Bessie?" asked Adela.
Marjory hesitated. The departure of Willie Ruston made a difference. She prayed that it meant an utter difference. There was a chance; and while there was a chance her place was in the villa on the cliff. His going rekindled the spark of hope that almost had died in the last terrible night.
"I think," she said slowly, "that I"ll go straight back."
"And tell Maggie?" asked Adela with excited eyes.
"If she doesn"t know."
Adela said nothing; the subject was too perilous. She even regretted having said so much; but she pressed her friend"s arm approvingly.
"It doesn"t matter about Lady Semingham just now," said Marjory in an absent sort of tone. "It will do later."
"You"re not looking well," remarked Adela, who had at last looked at her.
"I had a bad night."
"And how"s Maggie?"
The girl paused a moment.
"I haven"t seen her this morning. She sent word that she would breakfast in bed. I"ll just run up now, Adela."
She walked off rapidly. Adela watched her, feeling uneasy about her.
There was a strange constraint about her manner--a hint of something suppressed--and it was easy to see that she was nervous and unhappy. But Adela, making lighter of her old fears in her new-won comfort, saw only in Marjory a grief that is very sad to bear, a sorrow that comes where love--or what is nearly love--meets with indifference.
"She"s still thinking about that creature!" said Adela to herself in scorn and in pity. She had quite made up her mind about Willie Ruston now. "I"m awfully sorry for her." Adela, in fact, felt very sympathetic.
For the same thing might well happen with love that rested on a worthier object than "that creature, Willie Ruston!"
Meanwhile the creature--could he himself at the moment have quarrelled with the word?--was carried over the waves, till the cliff and the house on it dipped and died away. The excitement of the message and the start was over; the duty that had been strong enough to take him away could not yet be done. A s.p.a.ce lay bare--exposed to the thoughts that fastened on it. Who could have escaped their a.s.sault? Not even Willie Ruston was proof; and his fellow-voyagers wondered at the man with the frowning brows and fretful restless eyes. It had not been easy to do, or pleasant to see done, this last sacrifice to the G.o.d of his life. Yet it had been done, with hardly a hesitation. He paced the deck, saying to himself, "She"ll understand." Would any woman? If any, then, without doubt, she was the woman. "Oh, she"ll understand," he muttered petulantly, angry with himself because he would not be convinced. Once, in despair, he tried to tell himself that this end to it was what people would call ordered for the best--that it was an escape for him--still more for her.