Presently her voice came to him again, softly supplicating. "I shall never forgive you--if you go away and leave me," she added. "I can"t do without you now--now that I know you care."
"But I _must_ go! I can"t marry you--you haven"t understood--"
"Haven"t I?" She smiled--a small, wise, wonderful smile that began somewhere deep in her heart and touched her lips and lingered in her eyes.
"Tell me," she said. "Are you married, Garth?"
He started.
"Married! G.o.d forbid!"
"And if you married me, would you be wronging any one?"
"Only you yourself," he answered grimly.
"Then nothing else matters. You are free--and I"m free. And I love you!"
She leaned towards him, her hands outheld, her mouth still touched with that little, mystic smile. "Please--tell me all over again now much you love me."
But no answering hands met hers. Instead, he drew away from her and faced her, stern-lipped.
"I must make you understand," he said. "You don"t know what it is that you are asking. I"ve made shipwreck of my life, and I must pay the penalty. But, by G.o.d, I"m not going to let you pay it, too! And if you married me, you would have to pay. You would be joining your life to that of an outcast. I can never go out into the world as other men may. If I did"--slowly--"if I did, sooner or later I should be driven away--thrust back into my solitude. I have nothing to offer--nothing to give--only a life that has been cursed from the outset. Don"t misunderstand me," he went on quickly. "I"m not complaining, bidding for your sympathy. If a man"s a fool, he must be prepared to pay for his folly--even though it means a life penalty for a moment"s madness. And I shall have to pay--to the uttermost farthing. Mine"s the kind of debt which destiny never remits." He paused; then added defiantly: "The woman who married me would have to share in that payment--to go out with me into the desert in which I lie, and she would have to do this without knowing what she was paying for, or why the door of the world is locked against me. My lips are sealed, nor shall I ever be able to break the seal. _Now_ do you understand why I can never ask you, or any other woman to be my wife?"
Sara looked at him curiously; he could not read the expression of her face.
"Have you finished?" she asked. "Is that all?"
"All? Isn"t it enough?"--with a grim laugh.
"And you are letting this--this folly of your youth stand between us?"
"The world applies a harder word than folly to it!"
"I don"t care anything at all about the world. What do _you_ call it?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I call it folly to ask the criminal in the dock whether he approves the judge"s verdict. He"s hardly likely to!"
For a moment she was silent. Then she seemed to gather herself together.
"Garth, do you love me?"
The words fell clearly on the still, summer air.
"Yes"--doggedly--"I love you. What then?"
"What then? Why--this! I don"t care what you"ve done. It doesn"t matter to me whether you are an outcast or not. If you are, then I"m willing to be an outcast with you. Oh, Garth--My Garth! I"ve been begging you to marry me all afternoon, and--and----" with a broken little laugh--"you can"t _keep on_ refusing me!"
Before her pa.s.sionate faith and trust the barriers he had raised between them came crashing down. His arms went round her, and for a few moments they clung together and love wiped out all bitter memories of the past and all the menace of the future.
But presently he came back to his senses. Very gently he put her from him.
"It"s not right," he stammered unsteadily. "I can"t accept this from you. Dear, you must let me go away. . . . I can"t spoil your beautiful life by joining it to mine!"
She drew his arm about her shoulders again.
"You will spoil it if you go away. Oh! Garth, you dear, foolish man!
When will you understand that love is the only thing that matters?
If you had committed all the sins in the Decalogue, I shouldn"t care!
You"re mine now"--jealously--"my lover. And I"m not going to be thrust out of your life for some stupid scruple. Let the past take care of itself. The present is ours. And--and I love you, Garth!"
It was difficult to reason coolly with her arms about him, her lips so near his own, and his great love for her pulling at his heart. But he made one further effort.
"If you should ever regret it, Sara?" he whispered. "I don"t think I could bear that."
She looked at him with steady eyes.
"You will not have it to bear," she said. "I shall never regret it."
Still he hesitated. But the dawn of a great hope grew and deepened in his face.
"If you could be content to live here--at Far End . . . It is just possible!" He spoke reflectively, as though debating the matter with himself. "The curse has not followed me to this quiet little corner of the earth. Perhaps--after all . . . Sara, could you stand such a life?
Or would you always be longing to get out into the great world? As I"ve told you, the world is shut to me. There"s that in my past which blocks the way to any future. Have you the faith--the _courage_--to face that?"
Her eyes, steadfast and serene, met his.
"I have courage to face anything--with you, Garth. But I haven"t courage to face living without you."
He bent his head and kissed her on the mouth--a slow, lingering kiss that held something far deeper and more enduring than mere pa.s.sion. And Sara, as she kissed him back, her soul upon her lips, felt as though together they had partaken of love"s holy sacrament.
"Beloved"--Garth"s voice, unspeakably tender, came to her through the exquisite silence of the moment--"Beloved, it shall be as you wish.
Whether I am right or wrong in taking this great gift you offer me--G.o.d knows! If I am wrong--then, please Heaven, whatever punishment there be may fall on me alone."
CHAPTER XXIII
A SUMMER IDYLL
The summer, of all seasons of the year, is very surely the perfect time for lovers, and to Sara the days that followed immediately upon her engagement to Garth Trent were days of unalloyed happiness.
These were wonderful hours which they pa.s.sed together, strolling through the summer-foliaged woods, or lazing on the sun-baked sands, or, perhaps, roaming the range of undulating cliffs that stretched away to the west from the headland where Far End stood guard.
During those hours of intimate companionship, Sara began to learn the hidden deeps of Garth"s nature, discovering the almost romantic delicacy of thought that underlay his harsh exterior.
"You"re more than half a poet, my Garth!" she told him one day.
"A transcendental fool, in other words," he amended, smiling.