"Then why did he wish to see you?"
"It was to make an appeal. He thinks, of course, that I have made a failure of life, and that if I marry you I shall drag you down to poverty and disgrace."
She raised her head, proudly.
"But he knows that it is I who insist upon marrying you! I explained it all to him--how I had asked you. Of course he did not understand. He thinks, I suppose, that it is simply an infatuation."
In spite of the solemnity of the moment, Hodder smiled down at her, touched by the confession.
"That, my dear, doesn"t relieve me of responsibility. I am just as responsible as though I had spoken first, instead of you."
"But, John, you didn"t--?" A sudden fear made her silent.
He took her hand and pressed it rea.s.suringly.
"Give you up? No, Alison," he answered simply. "When you came to me, G.o.d put you in my keeping."
She clung to him suddenly, in a pa.s.sion of relief.
"Oh, I never could give you up, I never would unless you yourself told me to. Then I would do it,--for you. But you won"t ask me, now?"
He put his arm around her shoulders, and the strength of it seemed to calm her.
"No, dear. I would make the sacrifice, ask you to make it, if it would be of any good. As you say, he does not understand. And you couldn"t go on living with him and loving me. That solution is impossible. We can only hope that the time will come when he will realize his need of you, and send for you."
"And did he not ask you anything more?"
Hodder hesitated. He had intended to spare her that.... Her divination startled him.
"I know, I know without your telling me. He offered you money, he consented to our--marriage if you would give up St. John"s. Oh, how could he," she cried. "How could he so misjudge and insult you!"
"It is not me he misjudges, Alison, it is mankind, it is G.o.d. That is his terrible misfortune." Hodder released her tenderly. "You must see him--you must tell him that when he needs you, you will come."
"I will see him now, she said. You will wait for, me?"
"Now?" he repeated, taken aback by her resolution, though it was characteristic.
"Yes, I will go as I am. I can send for my things. My father has given me no choice, no reprieve,--not that I ask one. I have you, dear. I will stay with Mr. Bentley to-night, and leave for New York to-morrow, to do what I have to do--and then you will be ready for me."
"Yes," he said, "I shall be ready."
He lingered in the well-remembered hall.... And when at last she came down again her eyes shone bravely through her tears, her look answered the question of his own. There was no need for speech. With not so much as a look behind she left, with him, her father"s house.
Outside, the mist had become a drizzle, and as they went down the walk together beside the driveway she slipped her arm into his, pressing close to his side. Her intuition was perfect, the courage of her love sublime.
"I have you, dear," she whispered, "never in my life before have I been rich."
"Alison!"
It was all he could say, but the intensity of his mingled feeling went into the syllables of her name. An impulse made them pause and turn, and they stood looking back together at the great house which loomed the greater in the thickening darkness, its windows edged with glow. Never, as in this moment when the cold rain wet their faces, had the thought of its comfort and warmth and luxury struck him so vividly; yes, and of its terror and loneliness now, of the tortured spirit in it that found no rest.
"Oh, John," she cried, "if we only could!"
He understood her. Such was the perfect quality of their sympathy that she had voiced his thought. What were rain and cold, the inclemency of the elements to them? What the beauty and the warmth of those great, empty rooms to Eldon Parr? Out of the heaven of their happiness they looked down, helpless, into the horrors of the luxury of h.e.l.l.
"It must be," he answered her, "in G.o.d"s good time."
"Life is terrible!" she said. "Think of what he must have done to suffer so, to be condemned to this! And when I went to him, just now, he wouldn"t even kiss me good-by. Oh, my dear, if I hadn"t had you to take me, what should I have done?... It never was a home to me--to any of us.
And as I look back now, all the troubles began when we moved into it.
I can only think of it as a huge prison, all the more sinister for its costliness."
A prison! It had once been his own conceit. He drew her gently away, and they walked together along Park Street towards the distant arc-light at the corner which flung a gleaming band along the wet pavement.
"Perhaps it was because I was too young to know what trouble was when we lived in Ransome Street," she continued. "But I can remember now how sad my mother was at times--it almost seemed as though she had a premonition." Alison"s voice caught....
The car which came roaring through the darkness, and which stopped protestingly at their corner, was ablaze with electricity, almost filled with pa.s.sengers. A young man with a bundle changed his place in order that they might sit together in one of the little benches bordering the aisle; opposite them was a laughing, clay-soiled group of labourers going home from work; in front, a young couple with a chubby child. He stood between his parents, facing about, gazing in unembarra.s.sed wonder at the dark lady with the veil. Alison"s smile seemed only to increase the solemnity of his adoration, and presently he attempted to climb over the barrier between them. Hodder caught him, and the mother turned in alarm, recapturing him.
"You mustn"t bother the lady, Jimmy," she said, when she had thanked the rector. She had dimpled cheeks and sparkling blue eyes, but their expression changed as they fell on Alison"s face, expressing something of the wonder of the child"s.
"Oh, he isn"t bothering me," Alison protested. "Do let him stand."
"He don"t make up to everybody," explained the mother, and the manner of her speech was such a frank tribute that Alison flushed. There had been, too, in the look the quick sympathy for bereavement of the poor.
"Aren"t they nice?" Alison leaned over and whispered to Hodder, when the woman had turned back. "One thing, at least, I shall never regret,--that I shall have to ride the rest of my life in the streetcars. I love them.
That is probably my only qualification, dear, for a clergyman"s wife."
Hodder laughed. "It strikes me," he said, "as the supreme one."
They came at length to Mr. Bentley"s door, flung open in its usual wide hospitality by Sam. Whatever theist fortunes, they would always be welcome here.... But it turned out, in answer to their question, that their friend was not at home.
"No, sah," said Sam, bowing and smiling benignantly, "but he done tole me to say, when you and Miss Alison come, hit was to make no diffunce, dat you bofe was to have supper heah. And I"se done cooked it--ya.s.sah.
Will you kindly step into the liba"y, suh, and Miss Alison? Dar was a lady "crost de city, Ma.r.s.e Ho"ace said--ya.s.sah."
"John," said Alison with a questioning smile, when they were alone before the fire, "I believe he went out on purpose,--don"t you?--just that we might be here alone."
"He knew we were coming?"
"I wrote him."
"I think he might be convicted on the evidence," Hodder agreed. "But--?"
His question remained unasked.
Alison went up to him. He had watched her, absorbed and fascinated, as with her round arms gracefully lifted in front of the old mirror she had taken off her hat and veil; smoothing, by a few deft touches, the dark crown of her hair. The unwonted intimacy of the moment, invoking as it did an endless reflection of other similar moments in their future life together, was in its effect overwhelming, bringing with it at last a conviction not to be denied. Her colour rose as she faced him, her lashes fell.
"Did you seriously think, dear, that we could have deceived Mr. Bentley?
Then you are not as clever as I thought you. As soon as it happened I sent him a note? that very night. For I felt that he ought to be told first of all."
"And as usual," Hodder answered, "you were right."