CHAPTER XXXVII

“Stay here with me.”

Paddy lay on the drawing-room sofa at the Parsonage and watched the birds skimming over the loch with a strained, anxious expression in her usually laughing eyes. Her aunts had fetched her from Mourne Lodge that morning, and there had been a great scene of general weeping and embracing and exclaiming. The news had somehow got all round the neighbourhood in an incredibly short time, and when Miss Mary was watching casually for Paddy to come home on her bicycle about eleven, there came instead a boy with the news that she and Lawrence had been lost in the fog all night and carried home in the morning.

Instantly there was great consternation in the Parsonage, and the small boy sent flying off for the one conveyance available in Omeath, in which, immediately afterward, the two sisters set out for Mourne Lodge. They found Paddy still a little dazed and shaken, but otherwise none the worse for her adventure.

“Lawrence saved me,” she said as soon as they gave her time to speak. “If it had not been for him, I should probably have died of cold. He risked his life for me.”

That was quite enough, and away rushed Miss Jane, with Miss Mary hurrying after her, to look for Lawrence. They found him in his den, with newspapers lying round him, apparently reading calmly. Only could they have looked in unobserved a moment sooner, they would have seen the newspapers were all out of reach, and, with compressed lips and knitted forehead he was staring gloomily at the floor lost in thought. However, he heard footsteps, and snatched up a paper just as the door opened, and neither of them had good enough eyesight to see that the sheet he held before him was covered with advertisements for housemaids and cooks.

Miss Jane came up to him with an almost sublime expression of gratitude.

“Paddy says you saved her life, Lawrence,” she said simply. “I feel as if I must go down on my knees to you.”

“Pray don’t,” he answered in his usual manner. “I won’t answer for the floor being particularly clean. I simply hate the room being dusted, you know.”

He got up, and with a little laugh tried to change the conversation. But neither of the ladies had the least intention of being put off in this manner, and they tried his patience considerably before they had finished their outpouring of grateful thanks. Then they retired again, and Lawrence closed the door after them with a momentary relief, only to be quickly superseded by his previous gloom. It was as though he had aged since yesterday. Several times last night, and again this morning when he sat beside her a little while in her bedroom, his mother had watched him covertly, and wondered what there was in his face that seemed strange to her. Now, when left alone again, he threw the papers aside and, sitting down at his writing table, buried his face in his hands.

He had been up early in spite of his awful night, had seen George and the other three men, and sat with his mother, and sent the loveliest flowers Mourne Lodge could produce to Paddy’s bedroom; and now it was only mid-day, though it seemed half a life-time since he had sat in the hut holding Paddy, regardless of all things in heaven and earth but his precious burden. He went over everything again and again, moment by moment, unable to bring his mind to anything else. The night of such horror to all others was already to him the most precious memory of his life.

Only what was to come next? It was this thought that caused that moody, unheeding stare into vacancy.

“I will not live without her—she shall come to me,” he muttered half-fiercely, and dreamt of all he would say to win her when they met.

Meanwhile the aunties took Paddy back with them, insisting upon watching over her as if she were an invalid, and finally inveigling her to the drawing-room sofa to lie quietly with closed blinds.

In this Paddy was not sorry to acquiesce. She wanted to be alone, and the shaded light was soothing. Through a dim sense of confusion—a confusion that she felt incapable of unravelling as to what had, and what had not, taken place—there were certain recollections that made her cheeks burn, and caused her to hide shrinking eyes in the cushions. How, oh how, was she ever to face him with those recollections lying between them? She half knew that in the first moment she had clung to him, and she had an indistinct remembrance that he had kissed her hair, and spoken in a low, passionate voice, calling her soft, endearing names.

Afterward, certainly, they had regained their old footing, but what about that long sleep? Under what conditions had she been able to sleep thus peacefully in the midst of such discomfort? That was the question Paddy dare not face, remembering his pallid cheeks and blue lips, while the old coachman brought the circulation back into his cramped limbs. She half hoped he would come to-day, while she was lying in the darkened room. It would be easier to get through the interview in the dark. But he did not come, and she lay restlessly, puzzling out the enigma in which their adventure had placed her.

What about that hate of hers! Can one—_may_ one—hate one’s preserver! She half prayed he would let her thank him quietly, and then go away. For hate or no hate, she perhaps owed him her life, and gratitude was his due.

But two days passed, and Lawrence did not come, and as she recovered further from the shock, she rallied herself, and felt more equal to the interview. She believed it was consideration for her that kept him away, and was grateful. In two days more her holiday would be up and she must return to London, and once away the adventure could be put aside. If only it had not been so hard to go—

On the afternoon of the third day Paddy wandered alone to a little creek by the loch, and, sitting down on a fallen tree, sank her chin in her hands and gazed across the water with a whole world of yearning longing in her eyes at the thought of leaving it all and returning to the streets, and chimney-pots, and smuts. So rapt was she that she did not hear some one approach over the moss and stand silently beside her—some one who saw the yearning, and read it aright with mingled feelings of regret and gladness.

“I began to think I’d never find you,” he said at last in his quietest way, and Paddy started violently, and flushed to the roots of her hair, while she continued gazing across the loch, quite unable to meet his eyes.

He sat down on the log beside her, and leaned forward with his arms across his knees, playing idly with a twig he had picked up.

“I went to the Parsonage first,” he continued, “and they told me you had gone out directly after lunch, and they believed you were sailing. I went down to the beach and found the boat, and decided you had taken a walk instead, and came to look for you. I was lucky to find you in such an out-of-the-way corner. Are you quite all right again!”

He was still keeping his eyes from her, playing with the twig, and Paddy unconsciously clenched her hands hard in her effort to feel collected.

“Yes, thank you!” She hesitated, still looking hard at the loch. Then she gulped down a long breath and took the plunge. “I am glad you have come. I have been wanting to see you.” She noticed suddenly that he looked white and ill, and his face was a little drawn. “Have you been ill?”

“No, I have not been ill, only worried. I should have come sooner—only—” he hesitated.

“I wanted to see you to thank you,” she interrupted. “Of course I know you risked your life to save mine. I might easily have died up there with the cold—and you might easily have slipped into a bog looking for me. No—” as he tried to stop her, “I must go on. Don’t you see how it’s just strangling me to remember that you risked so much—after—after—” her voice died away, she could find no words. She knew all in a moment that the casual acquaintance of the last three weeks was once more the lover, and the further complication unnerved her.

“As if that made any difference,” a little harshly. “Haven’t I told you that your scorn and threats cannot in any way change me—and never will. Good God! do you suppose I care two straws about risking my twopenny-halfpenny life when it is for you?”

She shrank away visibly, and he changed his manner.

“There, I don’t want to worry you—but for Heaven’s sake don’t thank me. I can’t stand it. There can be no question of thanks between you and me.”

“But how can I help it?” she cried a little piteously. “Don’t you understand that I _must_ thank you—that it is the one and only return I can make?”

He looked into her face a moment and decided to humour her.

“Very well, only let us consider it finished. If it eases your mind, I will accept your gratitude; but I must be allowed to add it is absolutely uncalled-for, seeing I would risk a dozen lives for you cheerfully any day.”

Her eyes fell before his, and she clenched her hands yet harder. Then he quite suddenly changed the subject.

“They tell me you are going back to London in two days. Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“How you must hate it?” He looked round at the gleaming, beautiful loch and the mountains beyond. “It must be desperately hard to go back.” She could not trust herself to speak, and he continued in a voice that had suddenly grown dangerously sympathetic. “I always think it is harder for you than the others. Your mother and Eileen always have each other, and any one can see how much that means to both. But you, somehow—since the dear old General died—seem to have had no one to take his place.”

Great tears gathered in her eyes, and fell on her clasped hands. Why, or why, did he unman her! He was playing with the twig again, and pretending not to notice. “Isn’t that so?” he asked.

She caught her breath and steadied her voice with an effort.

“I have been very fortunate,” she said. “I might have had to go right away from everybody as a nursery governess, instead of having so many friends, and such a nice post, and plenty of liberty.”

“But it is still London, isn’t it? And after all, even friends are hardly to you what the mountains, and the loch, and the country life were. Be honest, Paddy,” suddenly looking into her face. “Don’t you just hate to have to go away and leave it all again?—don’t you just hate it like the devil?”

She threw back her head with a sudden jerk, as if from some unendurable thought.

“Oh, yes—yes,” she breathed, “like the devil, there is no other word. But what of it? I am going—I must go—I am not the only one who has had to give up a country home. Why do you make it harder for me? Why do you remind me of it at all?”

He leaned toward her, and she felt his eyes looking through into her soul. “I remind you, because I don’t want you to go. Do you think it doesn’t hurt me too—_now_? I, with all that I have—you with nothing—not even your own special chum since the General died.”

She drew her hand across her eyes hurriedly.

“And it isn’t as if you were obliged to go.” He was leaning nearer—nearer. “Paddy, dear little woman, don’t go. Give it all up and stay here with me.”

“No, no. It is impossible. Please leave off. Why won’t you understand?” and she wrung her hands together.

“It is _not_ impossible,” resolutely, “and it must be. It has got to be, Paddy. It is you who won’t understand.” Then he ran on whimsically, giving her time to collect herself: “Good Lord! it seems only the other day I was carrying you round on my shoulder, when I came home from Eton for the holidays. I remember I thought, you were the ugliest little creature I had ever set eyes on. You were so ugly, you fascinated; I couldn’t take my eyes off you. But even then you had a way with you. Every one always did exactly as you wanted. If they didn’t, you got into no end of a fury, and hit out right and left. It was awful sport making you wild, Paddy. Sometimes, when I’ve got hold of you, you’ve kicked at me as hard as you could with your fat little legs, but I always enjoyed the fun of it. I didn’t think I’d ever want to marry you, though,” with a whimsical smile; “it would have seemed too much like inviting a hurricane to one’s fireside. It’s quite the very last thing that would ever have entered my head, until—until—” he paused. “I don’t know when it began, Paddy, but now I want nothing else in heaven or earth.”

“Please don’t go on,” she managed to say; “please don’t.”

“Ah, but I want to; and after all it needn’t hurt you. It’s so good to have you all alone like this and tell you about it. Ever since the night on the mountain, I’ve been talking and smiling in my usual inane fashion, and all the time there was a seething volcano underneath. It hasn’t been a pleasant two days; I wouldn’t care about having them over again. Hour after hour I have longed to start off to the Parsonage; sometimes I have got as far as the lodge. But I felt I ought to give you time to recover thoroughly, and so I forced myself to turn back. When I awoke this morning I knew I should come to day. I had reached the utmost limit of my patience. Did you expect me? Did you, perhaps, hope I should come to-day!” She had put her hands up to her face, and now he tried to draw one of them away. “Why won’t you look at me, Paddy! Why won’t you let me see your face! Come, be your own bright self again. Chuck all this cursed nonsense about being impossible. Don’t you know that my arms are aching for you? Do you hear, Paddy!—_aching_ for you—and you sit there so silent and distant. Are you thinking of London and that beastly dispensary! Why, it’s all done with, little woman; your home is going to be here in the future. Mourne Lodge is yours, and the horses are yours, and the boats, and the shooting, and everything. Ah! I’ll make you so happy—”

She got up swiftly, suddenly, and thrust her hands out before her, as if warding off something. Her face was deathly white, and she looked only at the loch.

“Oh, stop! stop! Don’t you realise it is _impossible_?” He changed colour visibly.

“Perhaps I have been too sudden after all,” he said. “Perhaps by and by—”

“No, _newer_,” and she mustered all her powers for the final word.

He gave a queer little laugh.

“‘Never’ is a long time,” with a touch of the old cynical manner.

“I mean it,” resolutely.

“You mean you prefer London—and the dispensary—and the loneliness to Mourne Lodge, and the loch, and the mountains?”

She was silent.

“Is that what you mean, Paddy!”

She tried to evade the question, but he would not let her. He stood up close to her, his face a little stern, his lips rigid. “Look at me, Paddy,” in a tone of command.

She hesitated a second, then once again summoned all her courage, and looked steadily into his eyes.

“Now, why won’t you stay here and be happy, instead of going back?”

“Because I hate you,” and though her voice was low it contained no shadow of faltering.

Lawrence turned away sharply, and stood looking at the loch. His face grew, if anything, a little sterner, but showed no symptoms of defeat. Paddy could only wait, feeling vaguely wretched.

When he spoke his voice had changed somewhat. “You are candid as ever, but I am not convinced. It is because I believe I can turn your hate into love, I will not give in. Tell me one thing—is it the old bone of contention that stands between us!”

Paddy was silent.

“Tell me,” he reiterated.

She answered hesitatingly. “I—I—don’t want to be unkind after—”

“Spare me that,” with a slight sneer. “Try and pretend the mountain incident is a myth.”

She looked wretched.

“Well, what were you going to say? You needn’t mind about being unkind. You forget I am used to it.”

“I was going to say—” She hesitated again, searching about for words. “Oh, don’t you realise that I don’t trust you? Why do you put me in the difficult position of having to say this, just now of all times! Can’t we leave it at that? Won’t you believe I am grateful for the other night, and leave it there?”

“No. By God! I won’t,” and there was something almost fierce about him. The very fact that she shrank from him, only seemed to madden him, and it was as though he tried to soothe his own goaded feelings by goading hers. “The other night has only made it more impossible to leave it there. Why, when I found you, I took you in my arms—you know I did.” The colour flashed in her cheeks, and he ran on: “Just as if—feeling as I do—having once had you in my arms, I’m going to tamely let you go again. Why, I never took my eyes off you the whole time. When I couldn’t see your face, I watched your hair. It was freezingly cold, and I never knew it. It might just as well have been overpoweringly hot. I had got you—there—all alone—in my care—dependent on me—icebergs and volcanoes themselves couldn’t have crushed me.” He stopped as if he could hardly trust himself to say any more, and with a desperate attempt to bring him back to a commonplace level she said, “Please don’t go on. You’ve managed to be cold enough the last three weeks. Let us go back to that again.”

“You silly little goose!”—and he laughed harshly—“cold—to you! ah, ah! I was no more cold then than I am now, of course I wasn’t. When we have been together you haven’t said a word that I have not heard, nor moved an inch without my knowing. It was a subterfuge to see if you noticed; and you did. Ah, ah, Paddy, that’s one to me. You know you wanted me to quarrel, and I wouldn’t. Now own up.”

He tried to take her hand, but she drew away, and stood with them both clasped behind her. She began to feel that the whole situation was getting beyond her.

Then suddenly, with his customary variableness, Lawrence grew quiet again.

“You say you don’t trust me. Well, I will show you I can be trusted. I have never cared enough before. Is that altogether my fault? I care enough now, and I will show you. Is it that alone that stands between us? If you could trust me, you would let yourself go? Paddy!”—he moved suddenly nearer, and looked squarely into her eyes—“just as if I didn’t know that under ordinary circumstances I should win you easily enough. I’m not bragging. Heaven knows I’ve faults enough, but bragging is not among them. It’s because, somehow, I know that under ordinary circumstances it would be natural for your love to surrender to mine, before anyone else you know, that I snap my fingers when you protest that you hate me, and refuse to be daunted. If I could slay the spectre between us, and show you that I was to be trusted, would you marry me?”

Paddy looked hard at the loch, and said, “No.”

“Why not?”

“When I have said a thing, I have said it. I will not marry you, because I hate you.”

“Now you are merely absurd. Why do you hate me?”

“Because I cannot forget the past.”

He gave an impatient gesture. “Heroics! Heroics!—_you_ were never hurt. I tell you it is a spectre, and you ought to have the sense to slay it. Instead, you enlarge on it—positively drape it in visionary attributes, and offer yourself as a sort of burnt offering to it. You ought to have lived a few hundred years ago. By Gad! Paddy, you’d have made a fine Joan of Arc!” and he laughed with a touch of bitterness.

Paddy stared at the loch and remained silent.

“Patricia the Great at the head of an avenging army—leading on fools and knights-errant—devastating a peaceful, harmless land for the sake of a Dream—a Prejudice—a Chimera. I see it all.”

She looked helplessly unhappy, but he would not spare her.

“Listen to me, Patricia the Great. You shall keep your feud, and cling to your prejudice a little longer, but _I will not give in_. I want you. That at least is a plain, ungarnished truth. Perhaps if you knew me as well as some, you would realise that it is the sort of truth I have a little habit of making into a fact, in spite of dreams and prejudices. This thing has got to be, Paddy. I repeat what I said before. If I am worth my name, I will win you yet.”

“Ah, why will you talk like this, when it is so useless,” she cried. “Why will you not be friends? Lawrence, let us be friends. Let me thank you for the other night, and, for the sake of it, drop the old feud. I will try to do this to show you I am sincere in my gratitude.”

His face grew suddenly whiter than ever with concentrated passion and determination. “We will do nothing of the kind. I don’t want your friendship. You can take it back. Do you hear? I refuse your kindly pat on the shoulder, and your offer to be a good girl because you think you owe me thanks. You can keep your feud and your hatred—anything is better than a soppy middle course. It is my turn now, and I refuse your offer of sisterly affection, which is what it amounts to. I will have your love some day, but until then, your hate, please. As long as you go on hating I shall know at least that you are not indifferent, and that the sound of my name does not pass unheeded by your ears. And we will continue to cross swords—we will be as we were before. If you want to show this gratitude you talk of, show it that way; it is the only thing I ask of you.”

She shrank from him a little bewildered. The strength of his passion stirred every fibre of her being, and the thought crossed her—would she be able to withstand him for long? But Lawrence cooled suddenly. He had said his say; for the present, there was nothing further to be gained. In two minutes his face was almost as impassive as of old, as he remarked cynically:

“Trust an old fool for being a big fool. I am ranting like a street preacher. Well, I will go home and find my level again. Good-by, Paddy.” He gripped her hand with such force that she uttered a little cry.

“There, I didn’t mean to hurt you, only to show you how I can grip, if I make up my mind to anything. Remember I am your enemy. Go on hating as hard as you like, until I make you love. We shall meet again soon in London.”

Then he strode off through the wood, and left her by the loch alone.