They made their way quickly downstairs and out into the street.
Hailing a pa.s.sing taxi, Peter directed the man to drive to Maryon"s house, where he enquired for Rooke in a perfectly ordinary manner, as though expecting to find him in, and was told by the maid who opened the door that Mr. Rooke had only just arrived and had gone out again immediately, but that she expected him back at any moment.
"Then I"ll wait," said Peter, easily. "Miss Davenant"s waiting here, too, isn"t she?"
An odd look of surprise crossed the girl"s face. She had thought--well, what matter what she had thought since it was evident there was really no secret about the lady"s presence in her master"s house. These people obviously expected to meet her there. Perhaps there were others coming as well, to an appointed rendezvous for a restaurant supper party or something of the sort.
"Yes, sir," she answered civilly, "Miss Davenant is in the studio."
Sandy heard Peter catch his breath at the reply as though some kind of tension had been suddenly slackened. Then the maid threw open the studio door and they saw Nan sitting in a chair beside a recently lit fire, her hands clasped round her knees.
She turned at the sound of their entrance and, as her eyes fell upon Peter, she rose slowly to her feet, staring at him, while every drop of colour drained away from her face.
"Peter!" she cried wonderingly. "Peter!" Her hands groped for the back of the chair from which she had risen and clung to it.
But her eyes never left his face. There was an expression in them as of the dawning of a great joy struggling against amazed unbelief, so that Sandy felt as though he had seen into some secret holy place.
Turning, he stumbled out of the room, leaving those two who loved alone together.
"Peter, you"re asking me to do the hardest thing in the world," said Nan at last.
She had listened in heavy silence while he urged her to return.
"I know I am," he answered. "And do you think it"s--easy--for me to ask it? To ask you to go back? . . . If it were possible. . . . Dear G.o.d! If it were possible to take you away, would I have left it undone?"
"I can"t go back--I can"t indeed! Why should I? I"ve only made Roger either furious or wretched ever since we were engaged. It isn"t as if I could do any good by going back!"
"Isn"t it something good to have kept faith?" There was a stern note in his voice.
She looked at him wistfully.
"If it had been you, Peter. . . . It"s easy to keep faith when one loves."
"And are you being faithful--even to our love?" he asked quietly.
"To our love?" she whispered.
"There is a faithfulness of the Spirit, Nan--the only faithfulness possible to those who are set apart as we are."
He broke off and stood silent a moment, looking down at her with hard, hurt eyes. Presently he went on:
"That was all we might keep, you and I--our faith. Honour binds each of us to someone else. But"--his voice vibrating--"honour doesn"t bind you to Maryon Rooke! If you go with him, you betray our love--the part of it that nothing can touch or spoil if we so will it. You won"t do that, Nan. . . . You _can"t_ do it!"
She knew, then, that she would have to go back, go back and keep faith with Roger--and keep that deeper faith which love itself demanded.
Her head drooped, and she stretched out her hands as though seeking something of which they might lay hold. Peter took them into his and held them.
After a while a slight tremor ran through her body, and she drew herself away from him, relinquishing his hands.
"I"ll go back," she said. "You"ve won, Peter. I can"t . . .
hurt . . . our love."
To Sandy the time seemed immeasurably long as he waited on the further side of the closed door, but at last they came to him--Peter, stern and rather strained-looking, and Nan with tear-bright eyes and a face from which every vestige of colour had vanished.
"Get a taxi, will you, Sandy?" said Peter.
Perhaps Sandy"s face asked the question his lips dared not utter, for Nan nodded to him with a twisted little smile.
"Yes, Sandy boy, I"m going back."
"Thank G.o.d!"
He wrung her hands and then went off in search of a taxi. Nan glanced round her a trifle nervously.
"Maryon may be here at any moment," she said. "Something"s gone wrong with the car and he"s taken it round to the garage to get it put right."
"We shall be off directly," answered Peter. "See"--he pointed down the street--"here comes Sandy with a taxi for us." He spoke rea.s.suringly, as though to a frightened child.
In a few minutes they had started, the taxi slipping swiftly away through the lamp-lit streets. It had turned a corner and was out of sight by the time the parlourmaid, hearing the sound of the street door closing, had hurried upstairs only to find an empty studio. Nor could she give Rooke, on his return, the slightest information as to what had become of his guests--the lady, or the two gentlemen who, she told him, had called shortly afterwards, apparently expecting to find Miss Davenant there.
Meanwhile the taxi had carried them swiftly to Peter"s house, where he hurried Nan and Sandy up to his own sanctum, instructing the taxi-driver to wait below.
"We"ve just time for a few sandwiches before we start," he said. He rang the bell for his servant and gave his orders in quick, authoritative tones.
Nan shook her head. She felt as though a single mouthful would choke her. But Peter insisted with a quiet determination she found herself unable to withstand, and gradually the food and wine brought back a little colour into her wan face, though her eyes were still full of a dumb anguish and every now and then her mouth quivered piteously.
She felt dazed and bewildered, as though she were moving in a dream.
Was it really true that she had run away from the man she was to marry and was being brought back by the man who loved her? The whole affair appeared topsy-turvy and absurd. She supposed she ought to feel ashamed and overwhelmed, but somehow the only thing that seemed to her to matter was that she had failed of that high ideal of love which Peter had expected of her. She knew instinctively, despite the grave kindness of his manner, that she had hurt him immeasurably.
"And what are you going to do with me now?" she asked at last, with an odd expression in her face. She felt curiously indifferent about her immediate future.
Mallory glanced up at her from the time-table he was studying.
"There"s a ten o"clock express which stops at Exeter. We"re taking you home by that."
"There"s no connection on to St. Wennys," remarked Nan impa.s.sively.
It didn"t seem to her a matter of great importance. She merely stated it as a fact.
"No. But Sandy left his car in Exeter and we shall motor from there."
"We can all three squash in," added Sandy.
"We won"t be able to keep Roger ignorant of the fact I"ve been away,"
pursued Nan.
"He will know nothing about it," said Peter quietly.
She looked dubious.