The pain and despair in her voice alarmed him. It was so keen and poignant, and went to his heart like a knife.
"Oh!" he gasped in surprise, as he strove to call his pride to his a.s.sistance. It was so unlike what he had antic.i.p.ated that it amazed him to have such a disappointing reply. Then, recovering somewhat:--"Very well!" with great deliberation, while his voice sounded unnaturally strained. Then the effort failing, and his pride breaking down: "Oh, Mysie, Mysie," he burst out in poignant agony again relapsing into the pleading wooing tones that were so difficult to withstand, "How I hae loved you! I thocht you cared for me. I hae built mysel" up in you, an"
I"ll never, never be able to forget you! Oh, think what it is! You hae been life itsel" to me, Mysie, an" I canna think that you dinna care!
Oh, Mysie!"
He turned away, his heart sore and his soul wounded, and strode from the copse out on to the moor, a thousand thoughts driving him on, a thousand regrets pursuing, and a load of pain in his heart that was bearing his spirit down.
"Oh, dear G.o.d!" moaned Mysie, kneeling down, her legs unable to support her longer, "Oh, dear G.o.d, my heart"ll break!" and a wild burst of sobbing shook her frame, and her grief overpowering flowed through the tears--a picture of utter despair and terrible hopelessness.
Robert tore away from the dell, his whole calculation of things upset.
To think that Mysie could not love him had never entered his head. What was wrong with her? What was the nature of her terrible grief?
He kicked savagely at a thistle which grew upon the edge of the pathway, his pride wounded, but now in possession of the citadel of his heart; and on he strode, still driven by the terrible pa.s.sion raging within him; resolving already, as many have done under like circ.u.mstances, that his life was finished. Hope had gone, dreams were unreal and vanishing as the mist that crawled along the bog-pools at night.
At the crest of the little hill, just where it sloped down to the village, he stood and looked back.
Good G.o.d! Was he seeing aright! The figure of a man, who in the gray gloaming looked well-dressed, was approaching Mysie, and she was slowly moving to meet him. A few steps more, and the man had the girl, he thought, in his arms, and was kissing her where they stood.
Was he dreaming? What was the meaning of all this? "Oh, Christ!" he groaned. "What does it all mean?" and he rubbed his eyes and looked again, then sat down, all his pride and anger raging within him as he watched, kindling the jungle instinct within him into a raging fire, to fight for his mate--his by right of cla.s.s and a.s.sociation. He doubled back, as the two figures turned in the direction of the copse--the resolve in his mind to go back and forcibly tear Mysie from this unknown stranger. He would fight for her. She was his, and he was prepared to a.s.sert his right of possession before all the world.
In a mad fury he started forward, a raging anger in his heart, striding along in quick, determined, relentless steps, his blood jumping and his energy roused, and all the madness of a strong nature coursing through him; but after a few yards he hesitated, stopped, and then turned back.
After all, Mysie must have made an appointment with this man. She evidently wanted him, and that was her reason for asking to be left alone.
"Oh, G.o.d!" he groaned again, sitting down. "This is h.e.l.lish!" and he began to turn over the whole business in his mind once more.
Long he sat, and the darkness fell over the moor, matching the darkness that brooded over his heart and mind. He heard the moor-birds crying in restlessness, and saw the clouds piling themselves up, and come creeping darkly over the higher ground, bringing a threat of rain in their wake.
The moan in the wind became louder, presaging a storm; but still he sat or lay upon the rough, withered gra.s.s, fighting out his battle, meeting the demons of despair and gloom, and the legions of pain and misery, in greater armies than ever he had met them before.
Again he groaned, as his ear caught the plaintive note of a widowed partridge, which sat behind him upon a gra.s.sy knoll of turf, crying out on the night air, an ache in every cry, the grief and sorrow of his wounded, breaking heart.
It seemed to Robert that there was a strange sort of kinship between him and the bird--a kinship and understanding which touched a chord of ready feeling in his heart. The ominous hoot of an owl in the wood startled him, and he rose to his feet. He could not sit still. Idleness would drive him mad. He strode off on to the moor, away from the track, his whole being burning in torture, and his mind a ma.s.s of unconnected fancies and pains.
Over the bogs and through the marshes, the madness of despair within him, he heeded not the deep ditches and the bog-pools. They were the pits of darkness, the sty-pools, which his soul must either cross, or in which he must perish. He tore up the hills into the mists and the rising storm, the thick clouds, full of rain, enveloping him, and matching the terrible fury of his breast.
On, ever on, in the darkness and the mire, through clumps of whin and stray bushes of wild briar. On, always on, driven and lashed into action by the resistless desire to get away from himself. He knew not the direction he had taken. He had lost his bearings on the moor; the darkness had completely hidden the landmarks, and even had he been conscious of his actions, he could not have told in which part of the moor he was.
"Oh, G.o.d!" he groaned again, almost falling over a bush of broom; and sitting down, he buried his face in his hands, and, forgetful of the wind and the rain, which now drove down in torrents, sat and brooded and thought, his mind seeking to understand the chaos of despair.
What was the meaning of life? What was beyond it after death? Would immortality, if such there were, be worth having? Men in countless, unthinkable millions, had lived, and loved, and lost, and pa.s.sed on. Did immortality carry with it pain and suffering for them? If not, did it carry happiness and balm? To h.e.l.l with religions and philosophies, he thought; they were all a parcel of fairy tales to drug men"s minds and keep them tame; and he glared impotently at the pitiless heavens, as if he would defy G.o.ds, and devils, and men. He would be free--free in mind, in thought, and unhampered by unrealities!
No. Men had the shaping of their own lives. Pride would be his ally. He would lock up this episode in his heart, and at the end of time for him, there would be an end of the pain and the regret, when he was laid among the myriad millions of men of all the countless ages since man had being.
This was immortality; to be forever robed in the dreamless draperies of eternal oblivion, rather than have eternal life, with all its torments--mingling with the legions of the past, and with mother earth--the dust of success and happiness indistinguishable from the dust of failure and despair. Time alone would be his relief--the great physician that healed all wounds.
The wind blew stronger and the rain fell heavier, the one chasing, the other in raging gusts, and both tearing round and lashing the form of the man who sat motionless and unaware of all this fury. The wind G.o.d tried to shake him up by rushing and roaring at him; but still there was no response. Then, gathering re-inforcements, he came on in a mad charge, driving a cloud of rain in front of him as a sort of spear-head to break the defense of fearlessness and unconcern of this unhappy mortal. Yet the figure moved not.
Baffled and still more angry, the wind G.o.d retired behind the hills again to rest; then, driving a larger rain-cloud before him, with a roar and a crash he tore down the slope, raging and tearing in a wild tumult of anger, straight against the lonely figure which sat there never moving, his head sunk upon his breast.
Beaten and sullen, the G.o.d again retired to re-collect his strength. He moaned and growled as he retired, frightening the moor-birds and the hares, which lay closer to earth, their little hearts quivering with fear. Young birds were tucked safely under the parent wing, as terror strode across the moor, striking dread into every fluttering little heart and shivering body. Low growled the wind, as he ran around his broken forces, gathering again new forces in greater and greater mult.i.tudes.
Just then, with an oath, the figure rose and faced the storm, striding again up the slope, as if determined to carry the war into the camp of the enemy.
A low growl came rumbling from the hills, as the wind G.o.d rushed along, encouraging his legions, threatening, coaxing, pleading, commanding them to fight, and so to overcome this figure who now boldly faced his great army.
The advance guard of the storm broke upon him in wild desperation, rushing and thundering, howling and yelling, sputtering and hissing, spitting and hitting at him, and then the main body struck him full in the face, all the bulk and the force of it hurled upon him with terrible impetuous abandon, and Robert"s foot striking a tuft at the moment, he went down, down into a bog-pool among the slush and moss, and decaying heather-roots, down before the mad rush of the wind-G.o.d"s army, who roared and shouted in glee, with a voice that shook the hills and called upon the elements to laugh and rejoice.
And the widowed partridge out upon the moor, creeping closer to the lee side of his tuft of moss, cried out in his pain, not because of the fury of the blast, but because of the heart that was breaking under the little shivering body for the dead mate, who had meant so much of life and happiness to him--cried with an ache in every cry, and the heart of the man responded in his great, overpowering grief.
CHAPTER XV
PETER MAKES A DECISION
Peter Rundell often wondered what had become of Mysie. For a day or two after the evening of the day of the games, he had shunned the possibility of meeting her, because of the shame that filled his heart.
His face burned when his thoughts went back to the evening in the grove on the moor. He wondered how it had all happened. He had not meant anything wrong when he suggested the walk. He could not account for what had occurred, and so he pondered and his shame rankled.
Then an uneasy feeling took possession of him and he felt he would like to see Mysie.
A week slipped away and he tried to find a way of coming in contact with her, but no real chance ever presented itself.
A fortnight pa.s.sed and he grew still more uneasy. He grew anxious and there was a hot fear p.r.i.c.king at his heart. Then at last, one day he caught a glimpse of her, and his heart was smitten with dread.
She was changed. Her appearance was altered. She was thinner, much thinner and very white and listless. The old air of gayety and bubbling spirits was gone. Her step seemed to drag, instead of the bright patter her feet used to make; and his anxiety increased and finally he decided that he must talk with her.
There was something wrong and he wanted to know what it was. He tried to make an excuse for seeing her alone but no chance presented itself, and another week went past and he grew desperate. Then luck almost threw her into his arms one day in the hall.
"Mysie," he whispered, "there is something I want to discuss with you.
Meet me in the grove to-night about ten. I must see you. Will you come?"
She nodded and pa.s.sed on, not daring to raise her eyes, her face flaming suddenly into shame, and the color leaving it again, gave her a deeper pallor; and so he had to be content with that.
All day he was fidgety and ill at ease, torn by a thousand dreads, and consumed by anxiety, waiting impatiently for the evening, and puzzling over what could be the matter. He felt that for one moment of mad indiscretion, when allowing himself to be cast adrift upon the sea of pa.s.sion, the frail bark of his life had set out upon an adventure from which he could not now turn back. He was out upon the great ocean current of circ.u.mstances, where everything was unknown and uncharted, so far as he was concerned. What rocks lay in his track, he did not know; but his heart guessed, and sought in many ways of finding a course that would bring his voyage to an end in the haven of comfort and respectability. Respectability was his G.o.d, as he knew it was the G.o.d of his parents. Money might save him; but there was something repugnant in the thought of leaving the whole burden of disgrace upon Mysie. For, after all, the fault was wholly his, and it was his duty to face the consequences. Still if a way could be found of getting over it in an easy way it would be better. But he would leave that till the evening when he had learned from Mysie, whether his fears were correct or not, and then a way might be found out of the difficulty.
But the day seemed long in pa.s.sing, and by the time the clock chimed nine he was in a fever of excitement, and pained and ill with dread.
Yet he was late when it came the hour, and Mysie was there first and had already met Robert before he reached the grove.
When Robert had gone away, and she sat crying upon the moor, she felt indeed as if the whole world was slipping from her and that her life was finished. Only ruin, black, unutterable, stared her in the face. Oh, if only Robert had spoken sooner, she thought. If only that terrible beautiful night with its moonlight witchery had not been lived as it had been! If only something had intervened to prevent what had happened!
And she sobbed in her despair, knowing what was before her and learning all too late, that Robert was the man she loved and wanted.
Then when her pa.s.sionate grief had spent itself, she rose as she saw Peter coming hurriedly to meet her.
"What is the matter, Mysie?" he asked with real concern in his voice, noting the tear-stained face and her over-wrought condition. "What is it, Mysie?"