"Let"s drop it, Stephen," he begged. "We both know the facts. She is going to marry him, and that"s the end of it. Fill your gla.s.s up again.
Here"s mine untouched. I"ll drink your toast with you, if you"ll leave out the little girl who was kind to me. I"ll give it to you myself--confusion to all women!"
"Confusion to--" Stephen began. "What on earth is that?"
They both heard it at the same time--the faint beating of a motor-engine in the distance. John set down his gla.s.s. There was a strange look in his eyes.
"There are more cars pa.s.sing along the road now than in the old days,"
he muttered; "but that"s a queer sound. It reminds one--good Heavens, how it reminds one!"
There was a look of agony in his face for a moment. Then once more he raised his gla.s.s to his lips.
"It"s pa.s.sed out of hearing," Stephen said. "It"s some one on the way to the castle, maybe."
Still their gla.s.ses remained suspended in mid air. The little garden gate had opened and closed with a click; there were footsteps upon the flinty walk.
"It"s some one coming here!" John cried hoa.r.s.ely. "Why can"t they keep away? It"s two years ago this week since I brought her up the drive and you met us at the front door. Two years ago, Stephen! Who can it be?"
They heard the front door open, they heard Jenning"s voice raised in unusual and indignant protest. Then their own door was suddenly flung wide, and a miracle happened. John"s gla.s.s slipped from his fingers, and the wine streamed out across the carpet. He shrank back, gripping the tablecloth. Stephen turned his head, and sat as if turned to stone.
"John!"
She was coming toward him exactly as he had dreamed of her so many times, her hands outstretched, her lips quivering, with that sweet look in her face which had dwelt there once for a few days--just a few days of her life.
"John," she faltered, "it isn"t the car this time--it is I who have broken down! I cannot go on. I have no pride left. I have come to you.
Will you help me?"
He found himself upon his feet. Stephen, too, had risen. She stood between the two men, and glanced from one to the other. Then she looked more closely into John"s face, peering forward with a little start of pain, and her eyes were filled with tears.
"John," she cried, "forgive me! You were so cruel that morning, and you seemed to understand so little. Don"t you really understand, even now?
Have you ever known the truth, I wonder?"
"The truth!" he echoed hoa.r.s.ely. "Don"t we all know that? Don"t we all know that he is to give you your rights, that you are coming--"
"Stop!" she ordered him.
He obeyed, and for a moment there was silence--a tense, strained silence.
"John," she continued at last, "I have no rights to receive from the Prince of Seyre. He owes me nothing. Listen! Always we have seen life differently, you and I. To me there is only one great thing, and that is love; and beyond that nothing counts. I tried to love the prince before you came, and I thought I did, and I promised him at last what you know, because I believed that he loved me and that I loved him, and that if so it was his right. Look down the road, John! On that night I was on my way to the castle, to give myself to him; but I broke down, and in the morning the world was all different, and I went back to London. It has been different ever since, and there has never been any question of anything between the prince and me, because I knew that it was not love."
John was shaking in every limb. His eyes were filled with fierce questioning. Stephen sat there, and there was wonder in his face, too.
"When you came to me that morning," she went on, "you spoke to me in a strange tongue. I couldn"t understand you, you seemed so far away. I wanted to tell you the whole truth, but I didn"t. Perhaps I wasn"t sure--perhaps it seemed to me that it was best for me to forget, if ever I had cared, for the ways of our lives seemed so far apart. You went away, and I drifted on; but it wasn"t true that I ever promised to marry the prince. No one had any right to put that paragraph in the newspaper!"
"But what are you doing here, then?" John asked hoa.r.s.ely. "Aren"t you on your way to the castle?"
She came a little nearer still; her arms went around his neck.
"You dear stupid!" she cried. "Haven"t I told you? I"ve tried to do without you, and I can"t. I"ve come for you. Come outside, please! It"s quite light. The moon"s coming over the hills. I want to walk up the orchard. I want to hear just what I"ve come to hear!"
He pa.s.sed out of the room in a dream, under the blossom-laden boughs of the orchard, and up the hillside toward the church. The dream pa.s.sed, but Louise remained, flesh and blood. Her lips were warm and her arms held him almost feverishly.
"In that little church, John, and quickly--so quickly, please!" she whispered.
Jennings hastened in to where Stephen was sitting alone.
"Mr. Stephen," he cried, "what"s coming to us? There"s that French hussy outside, and a motor-car in the drive, and the chauffeur"s asking where he"s to sleep. The woman wants to know whether she can have the same bedroom for her mistress as last time!"
"Then why don"t you go and see about it, you old fool?" Stephen replied.
"Pick up those pieces of gla.s.s there, lay the cloth, and get some supper ready."
Jennings gazed at his master, dumbfounded. No power of speech remained to him.
Through the open doorway they heard Aline"s voice in the hall.
"Meester Jennings, will you please come and help me with the luggage?"
"Get along with you!" Stephen ordered. "You"d better hurry up with the supper, too. The boy Tom can see to the luggage."
The old man recovered himself slowly.
"You"re taking "em in, sir--taking "em into the house?" he gasped. "What about that toast?"
Stephen refilled two gla.s.ses.
"We"d better alter it a little," he declared. "Here"s confusion to most women, but luck to John and his wife!"
"Mr. John and his wife!" Jennings repeated, as he set his gla.s.s down empty. "I"ll just see that them sheets is aired up-stairs, sir, or that hussy will be making eyes at Tom!"
He departed, and Stephen was left alone. He sat and listened to the sound of luggage being taken upstairs, to Aline"s little torrent of directions, good-humored but profuse, to the sound of preparations in the kitchen. In the room the tall clock ticked solemnly; a fragment of the log every now and then fell upon the hearth.
Presently he rose to his feet. He heard the click of the garden gate, the sound of John and Louise returning. He rose and stood ready to welcome them.
THE END