But his strong, self-penetrating sense pushed the plea aside--in him it was hypocrisy, the merest conventionality. He had not even the half-stifled thanksgiving for respite from a doom still longed for, which had struggled for utterance in Maggie"s sobs. Yet he had something that might pa.s.s for it--a feeling that made even him start in the knowledge of its degradation. By fate, or accident, or mischance--call it what he might--there was nothing irrevocable yet. He could draw back still. Not thanksgiving for sin averted, but a shamefaced sense of an enforced safety made its way into his mind--till it was thrust aside by anger at the check that had baffled him, and by the longing that was still upon him.
Well, anyhow--for good or evil--willing or unwilling--he was away. And she was alone in the little house on the cliff. His face softened; he ceased to think of himself for a moment; he thought of her, as she would look when he did not come--when he was false to a tryst never made in words, but surely the strongest that had ever bound a man. He clenched his fists as he stood looking from the stern of the boat, muttering again his old plea, "She"ll understand!"
Was there not the railway?
CHAPTER XIX.
PAST PRAYING FOR.
Mrs. Dennison needed not Marjory to tell her. She had received Willie Ruston"s note just as she was about to leave her bedroom. It was scribbled in pencil on half a sheet of notepaper.
"Am called back to England--something wrong about our railway.
Very sorry I can"t come and say good-bye. I shall run back if I can, but I"m afraid I may be kept in England. Will you write?
"W. R. R."
She read it, and stood as if changed to stone. "Something wrong about our railway!" Surely an all-sufficient reason; the writer had no doubt of that. He might be kept in England; that meant he would be, and the writer seemed to see nothing strange in the fact that he could be. She did not doubt the truth of what the note said. A man lying would have piled Pelion on Ossa, reason on reason, excuse on excuse, protestation on protestation. Besides Willie Ruston did not lie. It was just the truth, the all-sufficient truth. There was something wrong with the railway, so he left her. He would lose a day if he missed the boat, so he left her without a word of farewell. The railway must not suffer for his taking holiday; her suffering was all his holiday should make.
Slowly she tore the note into the smallest of fragments, and the fragments fell at her feet. And his pa.s.sionate words were still in her ears, his kisses still burnt on her cheek. This was the man whom to sway had been her darling ambition, whom to love was her great sin, whom to know, as in this moment she seemed to know him, her bitter punishment.
In her heart she cried to heaven, "Enough, enough!"
The note was his--his to its last line, its last word, its last silence.
The man stood there, self-epitomised, callous and careless, unmerciful, unbending, unturning; vowed to his quest, recking of naught else.
But--she clung to this, the last plank in her shipwreck--great--one of the few for whom the general must make stepping-stones. She thought she had been one of the few; that torn note told her error. Still, she had held out her hands to ruin for no common clay"s sake. But it was too hard--too hard--too hard.
"Will you write?" Was he tender there? Her bitterness would not grant him even that. He did not want her to slip away. The smallest addition will make the greatest realm greater, and its loss sully the king"s majesty. So she must write, as she must think and dream--and remember.
Perhaps he might choose to come again--some day--and she was to be ready!
She went downstairs. In the hall she met her children, and they said something to her; they talked and chattered to her, and, with the surface of her mind, she understood; and she listened and answered and smiled. And all that they had said and she had said went away; and she found them gone, and herself alone. Then she pa.s.sed to the sitting-room, where was Marjory Valentine, breathless from mounting the path too quickly; and at sight of Marjory"s face, she said,
"I"ve heard from Mr. Ruston. He has been called away," forestalling Marjory"s trembling words.
Then she sat down, and there was a long silence. She was conscious of Marjory there, but the girl did not speak, and presently the impression of her, which was very faint, faded altogether away, and Maggie Dennison seemed to herself alone again--thinking, dreaming, and remembering, as she must now think, dream, and remember--remembering the day that was gone, thinking of what this day should have been.
She sat for an hour, still and idle, looking out across the sea, and Marjory sat motionless behind, gazing at her with despair in her eyes.
At last the girl could bear it no longer. It was unnatural, unearthly, to sit there like that; it was as though, by an impossibility, a dead soul were clothed with a living breathing body. Marjory rose and came close, and called,
"Maggie, Maggie!"
Her voice was clear and louder than her ordinary tones; she spoke as if trying to force some one to hear.
Maggie Dennison started, looked round, and pa.s.sed her hand rapidly across her brow.
"Maggie, I--I"ve not done anything about going."
"Going?" echoed Maggie Dennison. But her mind was clearing now; her brain had been stunned, not killed, and her will drove it to wakefulness and work again. "Going? Oh, I hope not."
"You know, last night----" began Marjory, timidly, flushing, keeping behind Mrs. Dennison"s chair. "Last night we--we talked about it, but I thought perhaps now----"
"Oh," interrupted Mrs. Dennison, "never mind last night. For goodness"
sake, forget last night. I think we were both mad last night."
Marjory made no answer; and Mrs. Dennison, her hand having swept her brow once again, turned to her with awakened and alert eyes.
"You upset me--and then I upset you. And we both behaved like hysterical creatures. If I told you to go, I was silly; and if you said you wanted to go, you were silly too, Marjory. Of course, you must stop; and do forget that--nonsense--last night."
Her tone was eager and petulant, the colour was returning to her cheeks; she looked alive again.
Marjory leant an arm on the back of the chair, looking down into Maggie Dennison"s face.
"I will stay," she said softly, ignoring everything else, and then she swiftly stooped and kissed Maggie"s cheek.
Mrs. Dennison shivered and smiled, and, detaining the girl"s head, most graciously returned her caress. Mrs. Dennison was forgiving everything; by forgiveness it might be that she could buy of Marjory forgetfulness.
There was a ring at the door. Marjory looked through the window.
"It"s Mr. Loring," she said in a whisper.
Maggie Dennison smiled--graciously again.
"It"s very kind of him to come so soon," said she.
"Shall I go?"
"Go? No, child--unless you want to. You know him too. And we"ve no secrets, Tom Loring and I."
Tom Loring had mounted the hill very slowly. The giving of that "piece of his mind" seemed not altogether easy. He might paint poor Harry"s forlorn state; Mrs. Dennison would be politely concerned and politely sceptical about it. He might tell her again--as he had told her before--that Willie Ruston was a knave and a villain, and she might laugh or be angry, as her mood was; but she would not believe. Or he might upbraid her for folly or for worse; and this was what he wished to do. Would she listen? Probably--with a smile on her lips and mocking little compliments on his friendly zeal and fatherly anxiety. Or she might flash out on him, and call his charge an insult, and drive him away; and a word from her would turn poor old Harry into his enemy.
Decidedly his task was no easy one.
It was a coward"s joy that he felt when he found a third person there; but he felt it from the bottom of his heart. Divine delay! Gracious impossibility! How often men adore them! Tom Loring gave thanks, praying silently that Marjory would not withdraw, shook hands as though his were the most ordinary morning call, and began to discuss the scenery of Dieppe, and--as became a newcomer--the incidents of his voyage.
"And while you were all peacefully in your beds, we were groping about outside in that abominable fog," said he.
"How you must have envied us!" smiled Mrs. Dennison, and Marjory found herself smiling in emulous hypocrisy. But her smile was very unsuccessful, and it was well that Tom Loring"s eyes were on his hostess.
Then Mrs. Dennison began to talk about Willie Ruston and her own great interest in him, and in the Omof.a.ga Company. She was very good-humoured to Tom Loring, but she did not fail to remind him how unreasonable he had been--was still, wasn"t he? The perfection of her manner frightened Marjory and repelled her. Yet it would have seemed an effort of bravery, had it been done with visible struggling. But it betrayed no effort, and therefore made no show of bravery.
"So now," said Maggie Dennison, "since I haven"t got Mr. Ruston to exchange sympathy with, I must exchange hostilities with you. It will still be about Omof.a.ga--that"s one thing."
Tom had definitely decided to put off his lecture. The old manner he had known and mocked and admired--the "these-are-the-orders" manner--was too strong for him. He believed he was still fond of her. He knew that he wondered at her still. Could it be true what they told him--that she was as a child in the hands of Willie Ruston? He hated to think that, because it must mean that Willie Ruston was--well, not quite an ordinary person--a conclusion Tom loathed to accept.
"And you"re going to stay some time with the Seminghams? That"ll be very pleasant. And Adela will like to have you so much. Oh, you can convert her! She"s a shareholder. And you must have a talk to the old Baron.
You"ve heard of him? But then he believes in Mr. Ruston, as I do, so you"ll quarrel with him."