She made a swift gesture that had in it something of recoil, but the next moment, without a word, she began to walk down the slope.
He trod through the growth beside her, barefooted, unfaltering. His blue eyes looked straight before him; they were unwavering and resolute as the man himself.
They reached the cottage. He made her enter it before him, and he followed, but he did not close the door. Instead, he stopped and deliberately hooked it back.
Then, with the low call of the sea filling the humble little room, he turned round to the girl, who stood with her head bent, awaiting his pleasure.
"Columbine," he said, and the name came with an unaccustomed softness from his lips, "I"ve something to say to you. You"ve been hiding yourself from me. I know. I know. And you needn"t. Them flowers--I gathered "em and I sent "em up to you every day, because I wanted you to understand as you"ve nothing to fear from me. I wanted you to know as everything is all right, and I mean well by you. I didn"t know how to tell you, and then I saw the roses growing outside the door, and I thought as maybe they"d do it for me. They made me think of you somehow.
They were so white--and pure."
"Ah!" The word was a wrung sound, half cry, half sob. His roses fell suddenly and scattered upon the floor between them. Columbine"s hands covered her face.
She stood for a second or two in tense silence, then under her breath she spoke. "You don"t believe--that--of me!"
"I do, then," a.s.serted Rufus, in his deep voice a note that was almost aggressive.
She lifted her face suddenly, even fiercely, showing him the shamed blush that burned there. "You didn"t believe it--that night!" she said.
His eyes met hers with a certain stubbornness. "All right. I didn"t," he said.
Her look became a challenge. "Then why--how--have you come to change your mind?"
He faced her steadily. "Maybe I know you better than I knew you then,"
he said slowly.
She made a sharp gesture as if pierced by an intolerable pain. "And that--that has made a difference to your--your intentions!"
He moved also at that. His red brows came together. "You"re quite wrong," he said, his voice very low. "That night--I know--I was beyond myself, I was mad. But since then I"ve some to my senses. And--I love you too much to harm you. That"s the truth. I"d love you anyway--whatever you were. It"s just my nature to."
His hands clenched with the words; he spoke with strong effort; but his eyes looked deeply into hers, and they held no pa.s.sion. They were still and quiet as the summer sea below them.
Columbine stood facing him as if at bay, but she must have felt the influence of his restraint, for she showed no fear. "There"s no such thing as love," she said bitterly. "You dress it up and call it that.
But all the time it"s something quite different. And I tell you this"--recklessly she flung the words--"that if it hadn"t been for that tidal wave I"d be just what you took me for that night, what Aunt Liza thinks I am this minute. I wasn"t keeping back--anything, and"--she uttered a sudden wild laugh--"if I"ve kept my virtue, I"ve lost my innocence. I know--I know now--just what the thing you call love is worth! And nothing will ever make me forget it!"
She stopped, quivering from head to foot, pa.s.sionate protest in every line.
But the blue eyes that watched her never wavered. The man"s face was rock-like in its steadfast calm. He did not speak for a full minute after the utterance of her wild words. Then very steadily, very forcibly, he answered her. "I"ll tell you, shall I, what the thing I call love is like?" He turned with a sweep of the arm and pointed out to the harbour beyond the quay. "It"s just like that. It"s a wall to keep off the storms. It"s a safe haven where nothing hurtful can reach you.
You"re not bound to give yourself to it, but once given you"re safe."
"Not bound!" Sharply she broke in upon him. "Not bound--when you made me promise--"
He dropped his arm to his side. "I set you free from that promise," he said.
Those few words, sombrely spoken, checked her wild outburst as surely as a hand upon her mouth. She stood gazing at him for a s.p.a.ce in utter amazement, but gradually under his unchanging regard her look began to fail. She turned at length with a little gasp, and sat down on the old horsehair sofa, huddling herself together as if she desired to withdraw herself from his observation.
He did not stir, and a long, long silence fell between them, broken only by the ticking of the grandfather-clock in the corner and the everlasting murmur of the sea.
The deep, warning note of the bell-buoy floated presently through the summer silence, and as if in answer to a voice Rufus moved at last and spoke. "You"d better go, la.s.s. They"ll be wondering about you. But don"t be afraid of me after this! I swear--before G.o.d--I"ll give you no cause!"
She started a little at the sound of his voice, but she made no movement to go. Her face was hidden in her hands. She rocked herself to and fro, to and fro, as if in pain.
He stood looking down at her with troubled eyes, but after a while, as she did not speak, he moved to her side and stood there. At last, slowly and ma.s.sively, he stooped and touched her.
"Columbine!"
She made no direct response, only suddenly, as if his action had released in her such a flood of emotion as was utterly beyond her control, she broke into violent weeping, her head bowed low upon her knees.
"My dear!" he said.
And then--how it came about neither of them ever knew--he was on his knees beside her, holding her close in his great arms, and she was sobbing out her agony upon his breast.
It lasted for many minutes that storm of weeping. All the torment of humiliation and grief, which till then had found no relief, was poured out in that burning torrent of tears. She clung to him convulsively as though she even yet struggled in the deep waters, and he held her through it all with that sustaining strength that had borne her up safely against the Death Current on that night of dreadful storm.
Possibly the firm upholding of his arms brought back the memory of that former terrible struggle, for it was of that that she first spoke when speech became possible.
"Oh, why didn"t you leave me to die? Why--why--why?"
He answered her in a voice that seemed to rise from the depths of the broad chest that supported her.
"I wanted you."
She buried her face deeper that he might not see the cruel burning of it. "So did he--then."
"Not he!" The deep voice held unutterable contempt. "He wanted to make his fortune out of you, that"s all. He didn"t care whether you lived or died, the d.a.m.n" cur!"
She shrank at the fierce words, and was instantly aware of the jealous closing of his arms about her.
"You aren"t going to break your heart for a dirty swab like that," he said, with more of insistence than interrogation in his voice. "Look you here, Columbine! You"re too honest to care for a beast like that.
Why--though I pulled him out of the quicksand and saved him from the sea--I"d have wrung his neck if he"d stayed another day. I would that."
She started at the fiery declaration, and raised her head. "Oh, it was you who sent him away, then?"
Her look held almost desperate entreaty for a moment, but he met it with the utmost grimness and it quickly died.
"I didn"t then," he said, with rough simplicity. "He made up his mind without any help from me. He knew he couldn"t face you again. It"s not a mite of good trying to deceive yourself now you know the truth. He"s gone, and he won"t come back. Columbine, don"t tell me as you want him to!"
His expression for the moment was formidable. She caught an ominous gleam in the stern eyes, but almost immediately they softened. He uttered a sigh that ended in a groan. "Now I"m being a brute to you, when there"s nothing that I wouldn"t do for your sake." His voice shook a little. "You won"t believe it, but it"s true--it"s true."
"Why shouldn"t I believe it?" she said swiftly. She had begun to tremble in his hold.
He looked at her with an odd wistfulness. "Because I"m too big an oaf--to make you understand," he said.
"And that is why you have set me free?" she questioned.
He bent his head, almost as if the sudden question embarra.s.sed him.
"Yes, that," he said after a moment. "And because I care too much about you to--marry you against your will."
"And you call that love?" she said.