Part 4

He flushed with pleasure at her tone and words.

"Well, good-bye," she said, turning to Will Lockhart. "I hope the elements won't be too strong for you."

"Or for you."

Confidence here also, but of a different sort,--the sort which can give a reason for the faith that is in it. It seemed, however, as if Lady Maud's wish was not to be fulfilled; for as Rick Halmar and his companion set off across the moor, the southwest wind, even at that distance from the shore, sent a shower of spindrift in their faces.

"No leaving Carbost Bay for you tonight," shouted Rick against the wind. "You had better stay at our place. You used to know Aunt Will long ago, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I must get on. It may calm any moment, and the yacht sails as soon as possible."

Nevertheless when, after scudding with the wind at their backs for two miles, they came upon the ferry, one glance showed even Will Lockhart's inexperienced eye that the cockleshell of a boat, bobbing up and down in the backwater, could never fight its way through that mad mêlée of wind against tide in the middle of the narrow stream. Comparative calm reigned to one side in the inland loch, and to the other in the open sea; but here the waves leapt at each other in pyramids, sending jets of spray upwards with the very force of their meeting. A good thrower could easily have flung a stone across the channel; for all that, it was impassable till the tired tide should turn and join the wind in its race eastward. So, at any rate, said Rick, adding that his aunt would be delighted at a _contretemps_ which would procure her a visit from an old friend.

Why Will Lockhart should have hesitated, when it was raining cats and dogs, and it was two-and-twenty years since he had parted in anger from the hot-headed, quick-tongued chit of eighteen, who was now, by all accounts, a brisk, contented woman of forty, is not easy of explanation. Perhaps the thought of Lady Maud's triumph rankled; perhaps, when all was said and done, he was not quite indifferent to that possible future with the professor. But he did hesitate for a moment. That early love-affair had strangely enough been his first and last: not because it was in itself absorbing, but because other things more absorbing than Love had stepped in to take possession of his life. For a year or two, no doubt, resentment had lingered, not very keenly felt, but sufficiently so to prevent other love-affairs. Then he had painted his first successful picture, and that had been an end of all things, save Art, and a rather unreal remembrance that he had loved and lost.

However, common sense came to his aid, as it was bound to do in that drenching rain. And, after all, the professor was not in the well-remembered drawing-room whither Rick led him; neither was Miss Willina. Fortunately, perhaps, for her dignity, of which she was extremely tenacious, she had been in the potting-shed feeding a late brood of chickens presented to her that morning by an inexperienced young mother, who had preferred a bed of nettles behind the peat stack to the comforts of the hen-house nursery. So she had ample opportunity of seeing them pass up the ferry-path and of grasping the situation; to say nothing of smoothing her hair and washing her hands, before putting in an appearance; the which is a great support to most women in the crises of life. As a matter of fact, however, Miss Willina had never regarded this episode of her earliest years of conquest as one of supreme importance; perhaps some slight inkling that it really did mean more than she was prepared to admit was at the bottom of her deliberate want of romance on the subject. She had had many admirers, had them still for that matter; she was perfectly aware, for instance, of the professor's interest; but, for all that, she had never felt inclined to marry since those salad days when she had drowned her resentment in the knowledge that half the men who knew her were at her feet. Why should she marry? There was plenty of time and opportunity if she wished it; and then, when time passed, leaving her still Miss Macdonald, she told herself and every one else that it was of her own free will and pleasure. As it undoubtedly was. She scouted regrets, and only when the masterful current of her vitality slackened, as even hers had to do at times, did she wonder if that early love-affair had not been at the bottom of her cold-bloodedness.

Will Lockhart did not think her much changed. The daintiness and wilfulness he chiefly remembered were still there, and it was like old times to hear her order him up with Rick, to "change his feet," and see the swift touch with which she rescued an antimacassar from annihilation when he sate down. And this want of change depressed him, by emphasizing the long years which he could not forget.

There she was, much as he remembered her, and he--people told him also that he had changed but little. Yet in those old days it had seemed impossible to conceive of life apart, and here they were, both free, both unmarried, talking calmly, with a new generation for listener, about that past time. What had kept them separate except their own free will? Nothing! and yet had either of them deliberately anticipated this ending when they quarrelled over the bread and butter? And now she was thinking of the professor, or at any rate the professor was thinking of her. That was Lady Maud's account, and there was certainly a suspicion of consciousness when the learned man's name was mentioned; a palpable flush indeed, when a faint whistle overbore that of the wind, and she started from her chair.

"Rick! it can't surely be Mr. Endorwick!"

The blush made her look years younger, and Will Lockhart felt distinctly aggrieved at the fact.

"By George, it is, though," replied her nephew, after a glance through the field-glasses which hung ready for the purpose on the window-knob. "There he is on the other side of the stream. He has hoisted the flag, and is blowing away at the whistle like fits. His umbrella's inside out, and his mackintosh floating on the breeze. Do look, Aunt Will. It's awfully comic."

Miss Willina's face was a study of dignity and humour; the first prevailed. "Eric! I am surprised at your levity. The poor man will be drenched to the skin, and he so delicate; such a distinguished scholar too; we could ill afford to lose him."

"Give me the glass," said Will Lockhart grimly. The sight of his supposed successor signalling for the impossible gave him a thrill of satisfaction; for he, at least, was on the right side of the stream. And then to the keen little creature at his side came a mood well remembered.

"The born idiot! Any Christian would have stopped at the hotel even if he was wanting to come on. A fool for his pains! Ah! what's the use of blowing like a hooter with the wind and tide against you? Gracious goody! Rick, what's to be done? The gawk can't be left there like a windmill."

The comparison was not inapt; for the professor, seeing them, doubtless, against the firelight within, was waving his arms frantically.

"I'll go down and signal him to that bieldy bit behind the big rock. It's out of the wind anyhow, and the tide will be turning before he could walk back to shelter. And I'll stop in the boat-house; it will comfort him to see me smoking, especially if he has forgotten his matches. Besides, I must put new rowlocks to the four-oar. We'll want her, and the men too, if any one is to cross the stream tonight."

"That's a nice boy," said Will Lockhart, putting down the glasses as Rick's figure on its way to the boat-house blocked out the professor's increasing despair. "Just about the age I was when--" He paused and looked at his companion.

"Yes! You were twenty-one, and I was eighteen."

They were standing close together, the firelight throwing their shadows out faintly against the growing darkness, but on their faces the dull autumn twilight lingered, blotting out all traces of the passage of time.

He came a little nearer to her.

"I wonder why we quarrelled?" he said argumentatively. "I don't mean what we quarrelled about. That was never very difficult to find, was it? But why did we quarrel finally that last time? I don't recollect that you were more wilful than usual."

"No doubt you were more aggravating," she retorted quickly. "Do you wish to begin it all over again? I will if you've a mind to."

"Begin what?"

"The quarrel, of course."

"No, thank you. There's the professor hauling down his flag; he has seen Rick, and acknowledged his defeat. Good man! Don't you think, Miss Macdonald, that it would be more comfortable by the fire than here at the window?"

"More comfortable than the professor is, poor man. That is what you mean. How selfish all you men are, and then you expect me not to see through you!"

"I don't think I ever was quite so _exigeant_ as that, was I? And, do you know, I rather wish you would just cast your eye over my innermost thoughts at the present moment. It would save me beating about the bush."

Perhaps, despite her outward calm, she was a little excited; for she had taken up her knitting, half mechanically, and now the needles clashed fast and furious. He was leaning towards her, his elbows on his knees, his hands loosely clasped together, and something of his youth, not so much in its romance as in its imperious desire to know and understand, was in his face.

"Miss Macdonald, I've no right to ask, but are you going to marry--that man on the other side?"

She gave a little conscious laugh, half-nervous, half-gratified. "That is what you call beating about the bush, I suppose? Why--why should I marry anybody?"

For the life of him he could not tell, save that in a vague way that dead past seemed so pitiful: because it was dead and past. "Why did we quarrel?" he repeated. "If the _Clansman_ hadn't come in unexpectedly that evening after her time, and so given me an opportunity of going off in the sulks, we should have made it up as usual. It seems such a little thing to come between us."

She laid down her knitting and looked at him thoughtfully. A woman less truthful than Miss Willina might have allowed the inevitable satisfaction of being remembered to give an extra tinge of regret and romance to that past, which in sober fact had had little of either; but Miss Willina's sense of humour was of the rare kind which is not blunted by egotism.

"Ridiculously little. In the novels--I read dozens of them in the winter--it is always something pathetic. A letter left in a blotting book, or a wrong initial on the envelope, or a false announcement of marriage. Something not to be foreseen or helped. Or if it isn't the fault of fate, they get brain fever and forget their own names. But we! We just quarrelled, and didn't care to make it up. It isn't in the least romantic, I'm afraid."

"But we didn't forget," he said in the same argumentative tone. "At least I didn't."

"Of course not. Does any one ever forget,--absolutely?" Her voice trembled slightly. The pathos of memory was not to be ignored entirely.

"It seems such a pity--you and I leading such lonely lives."

"Lonely? You should see my Noah's Ark."

"Well! Don't scoff at me. I suppose it is absurd, but to-night somehow--"

She interrupted him with a soft hand laid on his. "Don't, please don't. It is like children trying to pretend that their shadows on the wall are alive. But they are shadows; nothing but shadows, and the light which throws them--" she pointed to the window with a laugh that was half a sob. "Poor man! he ought to be extinguished by this time."

"Perhaps you are right," he replied sadly, still holding her hand; "but it seems hard--the shadows were so pretty."

"Not so pretty as the reality."

"What is that?"

"That we have met and forgiven each other--without payment."

"Aunt Will," shouted Rick, bursting into the room, "there's the professor in the front hall dripping like a drowned rat. I got the men and ferried him over on the first chance; now they are waiting for Mr. Lockhart."

Miss Willina was on her feet in a moment. "Take him upstairs, Rick, and put him to bed--between the blankets. I'll come directly with gruel and mustard. And, Rick! give him a good scrub--all over--with the roughest--bath towel--you can find."

The last directions were called up the stairs as she went into the hall to see Will Lockhart put on his mackintosh properly.

"Good-bye, Miss Macdonald. I'm not in the least envious of the professor's immediate future," he said with smiling eyes, but with vague regrets still at his heart. "I'm glad, though, he was at the other side of the stream to-night. I liked the shadows."

"And the reality?" she asked quickly.

He stooped and kissed the pretty little hand browned by sun and wind. "It is like the breath of your sea. The memory of it will help to blow away the cobwebs until I come back--in the summer."

"The summer is over."

"Not St. Martin's, and one often has a spell of fine weather late in the year when the earlier portions have been stormy."

She shook her head.

V

"Well, Hooper, what is it?"

Lady Maud stood at bay once more, with that diffident-looking man at the door. Three weeks had passed since his first interview; only three weeks, and it seemed to her an eternity of fear and anxiety. But now the letters written in reply to hers had come from the American doctor, and she knew the worst. Mr. Wilson's case had at once been easy and difficult. Easy because of his singular lack of will power; difficult for the same reason, joined to a very bad ancestral record. So bad that his maternal uncle, from whom he had inherited his large fortune, being deeply resentful of the treatment his sister had endured from her drunken husband, had burdened his legacy with certain unusual conditions as to sobriety and control. Consequently, when, shortly after his release from the restraints of minority, the inherited tendency had shown itself in Mr. Wilson, he had voluntarily placed himself in Dr. Haddon's charge, urged to the step by his fear of pecuniary loss. That was, briefly, the whole story, save that he, Dr. Haddon, continued to have charge of the case and would be obliged if Lady Maud would co-operate with him in continuing a system which had hitherto been so successful, and which, he did not scruple to add, was Mr. Wilson's only chance of fulfilling the conditions under which he held his fortune. For himself, he believed there was no danger of a relapse; it might even be possible after some years to relax the supervision, and in any case he begged her to remember that the hereditary tendency must needs be weakened by a generation even of enforced sobriety. He had hoped that there might be no necessity for her to be made acquainted with these circumstances, as the whole affair had been dealt with in the strictest confidence, and the essence of his treatment lay in ignoring the difficulty; but now that the untoward event reported by Hooper had occurred, it was better she should clearly understand the position of affairs. Briefly, he was paid for keeping Mr. Wilson from losing a very large portion of his wealth. Apart from that, it was an interesting case. In regard to Hooper, he was thoroughly trustworthy and conscientious,--a most necessary thing when influence was easy to attain. At the same time, if Hooper failed to commend himself to Lady Maud, he could be replaced. In view of the heavy stake at issue, however, he would recommend extreme caution in making any change. As for his reasons for allowing Mr. Wilson to marry under the circumstances, they were manifold; and his belief in the system was so great that he felt confident Lady Maud would never find cause for blame in her husband's conduct. The letter, in its bald statement of fact, its assumption of a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs, carried with it a sort of cold comfort. And yet Lady Maud felt a wild revolt against it such as no verdict of disease or death would have aroused.

Like most women who marry men to whom they are indifferent, she had looked forward, odd as it may seem, to having children who would give a zest to an otherwise insipid life. And now the mere possibility was a terror: not in pity for those who might come handicapped into the race, but from sheer physical horror that they should be his and hers. And this terror came uppermost in the first few minutes of shock.

"I have heard from Dr. Haddon this morning, my lady. In future I am to take my orders from you; so I have come to ask for them."

The disapproval in his tone was audible. She felt a rash, resentful desire to bid him go and leave her free, but the doctor's warning checked the words. What if she should have burdened her life for nothing,--she who had refused money again and again because it seemed vulgar to her fastidiousness? She might appeal to her husband as a man, chance her influence against the Hooper-Haddon system; but what if she failed? During those last three weeks she had silenced the heart which, despite all her efforts, would have its way, by protestations that she was only awaiting the doctor's reply, that by and by she would no longer consent to be this man's wife on these terms. To live on as if she knew nothing; to give neither help nor condemnation; to acquiesce without a word in a future which filled her with shame and horror.

When she knew the facts, she would decide, and now she knew too much.

"I have no orders," she said in a low voice; "no new ones; you can go." Then suddenly a thought flashed through her and she arrested him with a gesture.

"Yes, my lady?"

Still she was silent, one hand gripping the edge of the table, her breath coming fast. "I do not think--this place--is good for Mr. Wilson."

"Indeed, your ladyship," broke in Hooper, relieved, "I have thought so myself,--the--the irregular habits in regard to spirits are trying."

"I think he would be better away."

"Exactly so, my lady; only I did not like--all the arrangements being, as it were, settled."

Her voice had gained in steadiness by this time. "There need be no alteration. I should remain here, of course." She paused, and Hooper shifted uneasily. "Mr. Wilson had an invitation to Perthshire yesterday. I should _like_ him to accept it. Do you understand?"

"But indeed, my lady, I cannot. To begin with, I am not allowed by Dr. Haddon--"

She stopped him angrily. "If you cannot obey me, there are others--so Dr. Haddon says. I consider this place is bad for Mr. Wilson, and it is my wish he should leave it. Do you hear?"

For the life of her, try after calmness as she would, entreaty and despair made her command falter. He must go--if only to give her time to think; time to settle what course she would choose.

"If your ladyship takes the responsibility--in regard to Dr. Haddon, I mean."

"I take it all--the responsibility for everything."

"Then I will suggest it. I may not succeed; but I will do my best, and if I fail, your ladyship must remember that I was not engaged for such work."

The grotesqueness of it all struck her sense of humour despite the turmoil of emotion in which she found herself.

"Yes, yes!" she said impatiently; "I will remember it was not your place!"

When he had gone, she stood for some time without moving, her hand still grasping the table, body and mind alike in a state of tension. Then her nerves seemed to slacken, the spirit to leave her. She walked listlessly towards the fire, and, leaning her arms on the mantelpiece, rested her head upon them. So standing, the little curls about her temples outlined themselves against the ugliness of Rick Halmar's devil.

"It is not all my fault," she muttered with a sort of sob; "not all my fault, surely. I must have time. I must have time."

The rest of the day was torture to her. She did not regret the sudden impulse which had decreed her husband's exile, if it could be managed, yet she dreaded to have him say the words which would proclaim the success of her treachery against him. He came over once to where she sate in the twilight pretending to read, and laid his hand affectionately on her shoulder. It was only some trivial remark he had to make, but she started so visibly that Eustace, watching her, as he had watched her every mood during those weeks, came to her afterwards with a frown.

"What is the matter, Maud? Why should you keep me at arm's length? Surely I know too much for that already."

"What do you know?" she asked with the recklessness which of late had crept into her manner.

"I know you are unhappy. Do you remember what I told you that night? You shall not suffer."

Her lips trembled, and she turned from him hastily to join a group gathered round the professor. He had come back from Eval House greatly depressed in spirits, and with a running cold in his head, which Cynthia Strong was treating with pulsatilla, as yet rather unsuccessfully; but it required time, she explained, when the first stages had been badly managed on the old methods. The group was engaged in examining the famous Rhine ring, with which gift, apparently, Miss Willina had tried to content the learned man; but even its possession failed to comfort him.

"I have deciphered the inscription," he said gloomily. "It is, briefly, 'Order, Truth, Honesty.' The last word bears many side meanings, and perhaps Purity would be a better translation. All the terminations being feminine, it may be inferred that the ring was worn by a woman; possibly one of unusual worth. It may even have been a badge of virtue; a tribute paid by the community to merit, or by the lover to his beloved."

If he had said a funeral memento to the dead, his voice could not have been more lugubrious.

"How interesting!" murmured Cynthia Strong. "Even in those days the mental qualities were deemed superior to mere physical attractions."

"I beg your pardon," retorted the professor quite tartly. "Order, as used here, means complete, perfect; according to our modern speech, beautiful. Truth has also a secondary meaning. A free, but at the same time accurate, translation would be 'Beautiful, constant, chaste.'"

Rick Halmar was twisting the ring about in his strong deft hands. "I expect some beggar gave it to his wife," he said cheerfully. "It must have been just as jolly then as now to have somebody to stick by you through thick and thin. To have the dinner ready, and not swear if you hadn't done what you ought to have done. Not brought in enough fish for the kids, for instance; though how they ever caught any with those bone hooks, I can't think. I couldn't."

"You must remember the great incentive of hunger," remarked the professor in the same tone. "Besides, in those days dexterity in the chase was the master key to a woman's affections."

"I say, Weeks, old man! why weren't you born then?" cried Rick, happily unconscious of all complications.

"Never had any luck," muttered the other, "except with the birds."

"Luck! I like that! You call it luck when you never miss; I assure you, Miss Strong," he continued, going up to where the despondent captain was standing, and addressing the nearest lady, "I was out with him yesterday, and he made me feel such a duffer. The prettiest shooting, and then he calls it luck!"

Cynthia Strong looked from one to the other of those two vigorous young faces before her, and then at the professor's pale one. A cold in the head is not becoming, and she sighed.

Rick, with the ring still in his possession, returned to Lady Maud.

"Isn't it quaint?" he said. "Don't you wish I could find another?"

"Why?"

"Because it would be yours, of course. How small it looks! I wonder if it would fit you."

"Miss Macdonald found it too large for her," remarked the professor, still more gloomily; "but it would be interesting, Lady Maud, to try whether it points to any improvement or deterioration--physical, of course--in the race."