Chapter 10

When he released her, she moved at once impetuously to the open doorway. On the threshold she hesitated, paused a moment irresolutely, and then turned back.

“Shall I--does your pipe want filling, John?” she asked, softly.

“No, thank you, my dear.”

“Would you like me to stay, read to you, or anything?”

He looked up at her wistfully. “N-no, thank you; I’m not much of a reader, you know, my dear--somehow.”

She hated herself for knowing that there would be a “my dear,” probably a “somehow,” in his reply, and despised herself for the sense of irritated impatience she felt by anticipation, even before the words were uttered.

There was a moment’s hesitating silence, broken by the sound of quick, firm footsteps without. Broomhurst paused at the entrance, and looked into the tent.

“Aren’t you coming, Drayton?” he asked, looking first at Drayton’s wife and then swiftly putting in his name with a scarcely perceptible pause. “Too lazy? But you, Mrs. Drayton?”

“Yes, I’m coming,” she said.

They left the tent together, and walked some few steps in silence.

Broomhurst shot a quick glance at his companion’s face.

“Anything wrong?” he asked, presently.

Though the words were ordinary enough, the voice in which they were spoken was in some subtle fashion a different voice from that in which he had talked to her nearly two months ago, though it would have required a keen sense of nice shades in sound to have detected the change.

Mrs. Drayton’s sense of niceties in sound was particularly keen, but she answered quietly, “Nothing, thank you.”

They did not speak again till the trees round the stone well were reached.

Broomhurst arranged their seats comfortably beside it.

“Are we going to read or talk?” he asked, looking up at her from his lower place.

“Well, we generally talk most when we arrange to read; so shall we agree to talk to-day for a change, by way of getting some reading done?” she rejoined, smiling. “_You_ begin.”

Broomhurst seemed in no hurry to avail himself of the permission; he was apparently engrossed in watching the flecks of sunshine on Mrs. Drayton’s white dress. The whirring of insects, and the creaking of a Persian wheel somewhere in the neighbourhood, filtered through the hot silence.

Mrs. Drayton laughed after a few minutes; there was a touch of embarrassment in the sound.

“The new plan doesn’t answer. Suppose you read, as usual, and let me interrupt, also as usual, after the first two lines.”

He opened the book obediently, but turned the pages at random.

She watched him for a moment, and then bent a little forward toward him.

“It is my turn now,” she said, suddenly; “is anything wrong?”

He raised his head, and their eyes met. There was a pause. “I will be more honest than you,” he returned; “yes, there is.”

“What?”

“I’ve had orders to move on.”

She drew back, and her lips whitened, though she kept them steady.

“When do you go?”

“On Wednesday.”

There was silence again; the man still kept his eyes on her face.

The whirring of the insects and the creaking of the wheel had suddenly grown so strangely loud and insistent that it was in a half-dazed fashion she at length heard her name--“_Kathleen!_”

“Kathleen!” he whispered again, hoarsely.

She looked him full in the face, and once more their eyes met in a long, grave gaze.

The man’s face flushed, and he half rose from his seat with an impetuous movement; but Kathleen stopped him with a glance.

“Will you go and fetch my work? I left it in the tent,” she said, speaking very clearly and distinctly; “and then will you go on reading? I will find the place while you are gone.”

She took the book from his hand, and he rose and stood before her.

There was a mute appeal in his silence, and she raised her head slowly.

Her face was white to the lips, but she looked at him unflinchingly; and without a word he turned and left her.

Mrs. Drayton was resting in the tent on Tuesday afternoon. With the help of cushions and some low chairs, she had improvised a couch, on which she lay quietly with her eyes closed. There was a tenseness, however, in her attitude which indicated that sleep was far from her.

Her features seemed to have sharpened during the last few days, and there were hollows in her cheeks. She had been very ill for a long time, but all at once, with a sudden movement, she turned her head and buried her face in the cushions with a groan. Slipping from her place, she fell on her knees beside the couch, and put both hands before her mouth to force back the cry that she felt struggling to her lips.

For some moments the wild effort she was making for outward calm, which even when she was alone was her first instinct, strained every nerve and blotted out sight and hearing, and it was not till the sound was very near that she was conscious of the ring of horse’s hoofs on the plain.

She raised her head sharply, with a thrill of fear, still kneeling, and listened.

There was no mistake. The horseman was riding in hot haste, for the thud of the hoofs followed one another swiftly.

As Mrs. Drayton listened her white face grew whiter, and she began to tremble. Putting out shaking hands, she raised herself by the arms of the folding-chair and stood upright.

Nearer and nearer came the thunder of the approaching sound, mingled with startled exclamations and the noise of trampling feet from the direction of the kitchen tent.

Slowly, mechanically almost, she dragged herself to the entrance, and stood clinging to the canvas there. By the time she had reached it Broomhurst had flung himself from the saddle, and had thrown the reins to one of the men.

Mrs. Drayton stared at him with wide, bright eyes as he hastened toward her.

“I thought you--you are not--” she began, and then her teeth began to chatter. “I am so cold!” she said, in a little, weak voice.

Broomhurst took her hand and led her over the threshold back into the tent.

“Don’t be so frightened,” he implored; “I came to tell you first. I thought it wouldn’t frighten you so much as--Your--Drayton is--very ill. They are bringing him. I--”

He paused. She gazed at him a moment with parted lips; then she broke into a horrible, discordant laugh, and stood clinging to the back of a chair.

Broomhurst started back.

“Do you understand what I mean?” he whispered. “Kathleen, for God’s sake--_don’t_--he is _dead_.”

He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, her shrill laughter ringing in his ears. The white glare and dazzle of the plain stretched before him, framed by the entrance to the tent; far off, against the horizon, there were moving black specks, which he knew to be the returning servants with their still burden.

They were bringing John Drayton home.

One afternoon, some months later, Broomhurst climbed the steep lane leading to the cliffs of a little English village by the sea. He had already been to the inn, and had been shown by the proprietress the house where Mrs. Drayton lodged.

“The lady was out, but the gentleman would likely find her if he went to the cliffs--down by the bay, or thereabouts,” her landlady explained; and, obeying her directions, Broomhurst presently emerged from the shady woodland path on to the hillside overhanging the sea.

He glanced eagerly round him, and then, with a sudden quickening of the heart, walked on over the springy heather to where she sat. She turned when the rustling his footsteps made through the bracken was near enough to arrest her attention, and looked up at him as he came. Then she rose slowly and stood waiting for him. He came up to her without a word, and seized both her hands, devouring her face with his eyes. Something he saw there repelled him. Slowly he let her hands fall, still looking at her silently. “You are not glad to see me, and I have counted the hours,” he said, at last, in a dull, toneless voice.

Her lips quivered. “Don’t be angry with me--I can’t help it--I’m not glad or sorry for anything now,” she answered; and her voice matched his for grayness.

They sat down together on a long flat stone half embedded in a wiry clump of whortleberries. Behind them the lonely hillsides rose, brilliant with yellow bracken and the purple of heather. Before them stretched the wide sea. It was a soft, gray day. Streaks of pale sunlight trembled at moments far out on the water. The tide was rising in the little bay above which they sat, and Broomhurst watched the lazy foam-edged waves slipping over the uncovered rocks toward the shore, then sliding back as though for very weariness they despaired of reaching it. The muffled, pulsing sound of the sea filled the silence. Broomhurst thought suddenly of hot Eastern sunshine, of the whir of insect wings on the still air, and the creaking of a wheel in the distance. He turned and looked at his companion.

“I have come thousands of miles to see you,” he said; “aren’t you going to speak to me now I am here?”

“Why did you come? I told you not to come,” she answered, falteringly. “I--” she paused.

“And I replied that I should follow you--if you remember,” he answered, still quietly. “I came because I would not listen to what you said then, at that awful time. You didn’t know _yourself_ what you said. No wonder! I have given you some months, and now I have come.”

There was silence between them. Broomhurst saw that she was crying; her tears fell fast on to her hands, that were clasped in her lap. Her face, he noticed, was thin and drawn.

Very gently he put his arm round her shoulder and drew her nearer to him. She made no resistance; it seemed that she did not notice the movement; and his arm dropped at his side.

“You asked me why I had come. You think it possible that three months can change one very thoroughly, then?” he said, in a cold voice.

“I not only think it possible; I have proved it,” she replied, wearily.

He turned round and faced her.

“You _did_ love me, Kathleen!” he asserted. “You never said so in words, but I know it,” he added, fiercely.

“Yes, I did.”

“And--you mean that you don’t now?”

Her voice was very tired. “Yes; I can’t help it,” she answered; “it has gone--utterly.”

The gray sea slowly lapped the rocks. Overhead the sharp scream of a gull cut through the stillness. It was broken again, a moment afterward, by a short hard laugh from the man.

“Don’t!” she whispered, and laid a hand swiftly on his arm. “Do you think it isn’t worse for me? I wish to God I _did_ love you!” she cried, passionately. “Perhaps it would make me forget that, to all intents and purposes, I am a murderess.”

Broomhurst met her wide, despairing eyes with an amazement which yielded to sudden pitying comprehension.

“So that is it, my darling? You are worrying about _that_? You who were as loyal as--”

She stopped him with a frantic gesture.

“Don’t! _don’t!_” she wailed. “If you only knew! Let me try to tell you--will you?” she urged, pitifully. “It may be better if I tell some one--if I don’t keep it all to myself, and think, and _think_.”

She clasped her hands tight, with the old gesture he remembered when she was struggling for self-control, and waited a moment.

Presently she began to speak in a low, hurried tone: “It began before you came. I know now what the feeling was that I was afraid to acknowledge to myself. I used to try and smother it; I used to repeat things to myself all day--poems, stupid rhymes--_anything_ to keep my thoughts quite underneath--but I--_hated_ John before you came! We had been married nearly a year then. I never loved him. Of course you are going to say, ‘Why did you marry him?’” She looked drearily over the placid sea. “Why _did_ I marry him? I don’t know; for the reason that hundreds of ignorant, inexperienced girls marry, I suppose. My home wasn’t a happy one. I was miserable, and oh--_restless_. I wonder if men know what it feels like to be restless? Sometimes I think they can’t even guess. John wanted me very badly; nobody wanted me at home particularly. There didn’t seem to be any point in my life. Do you understand? . . . Of course, being alone with him in that little camp in that silent plain”--she shuddered--“made things worse. My nerves went all to pieces. Everything he said, his voice, his accent, his walk, the way he ate, irritated me so that I longed to rush out sometimes and shriek--and go _mad_. Does it sound ridiculous to you to be driven mad by such trifles? I only know I used to get up from the table sometimes and walk up and down outside, with both hands over my mouth to keep myself quiet. And all the time I _hated_ myself--how I hated myself! I never had a word from him that wasn’t gentle and tender. I believe he loved the ground I walked on. Oh, it is _awful_ to be loved like that when you--” She drew in her breath with a sob. “I--I--it made me sick for him to come near me--to touch me.” She stopped a moment.

Broomhurst gently laid his hand on her quivering one. “Poor little girl!” he murmured.

“Then _you_ came,” she said, “and before long I had another feeling to fight against. At first I thought it couldn’t be true that I loved you--it would die down. I think I was _frightened_ at the feeling; I didn’t know it hurt so to love any one.”

Broomhurst stirred a little. “Go on,” he said, tersely.

“But it didn’t die,” she continued, in a trembling whisper, “and the other _awful_ feeling grew stronger and stronger--hatred; no, that is not the word--_loathing_ for--for--John. I fought against it. Yes,” she cried, feverishly, clasping and unclasping her hands; “Heaven knows I fought it with all my strength, and reasoned with myself, and--oh, I did _everything_, but--” Her quick-falling tears made speech difficult.

“Kathleen!” Broomhurst urged, desperately, “you couldn’t help it, you poor child. You say yourself you struggled against your feelings. You were always gentle; perhaps he didn’t know.”

“But he did--he _did_,” she wailed; “it is just that. I hurt him a hundred times a day; he never said so, but I knew it; and yet I _couldn’t_ be kind to him,--except in words,--and he understood. And after you came it was worse in one way, for he knew--I _felt_ he knew--that I loved you. His eyes used to follow me like a dog’s, and I was stabbed with remorse, and I tried to be good to him, but I couldn’t.”

“But--he didn’t suspect--he trusted you,” began Broomhurst. “He had every reason. No woman was ever so loyal, so--”

“Hush!” she almost screamed. “Loyal! it was the least I could do--to stop you, I mean--when you--After all, I knew it without your telling me. I had deliberately married him without loving him. It was my own fault. I felt it. Even if I couldn’t prevent his knowing that I hated him, I could prevent _that_. It was my punishment. I deserved it for _daring_ to marry without love. But I didn’t spare John one pang after all,” she added, bitterly. “He knew what I felt toward him; I don’t think he cared about anything else. You say I mustn’t reproach myself? When I went back to the tent that morning--when you--when I stopped you from saying you loved me, he was sitting at the table with his head buried in his hands; he was crying--bitterly. I saw him,--it is terrible to see a man cry,--and I stole away gently, but he saw me. I was torn to pieces, but I _couldn’t_ go to him. I knew he would kiss me, and I shuddered to think of it. It seemed more than ever not to be borne that he should do that--when I knew _you_ loved me.”

“Kathleen,” cried her lover, again, “don’t dwell on it all so terribly--don’t--”

“How can I forget?” she answered, despairingly. “And then,”--she lowered her voice,--“oh, I can’t tell you--all the time, at the back of my mind somewhere, there was a burning wish that he might _die_. I used to lie awake at night, and, do what I would to stifle it, that thought used to _scorch_ me, I wished it so intensely. Do you believe that by willing one can bring such things to pass?” she asked, looking at Broomhurst with feverishly bright eyes. “No? Well, I don’t know. I tried to smother it,--I _really_ tried,--but it was there, whatever other thoughts I heaped on the top. Then, when I heard the horse galloping across the plain that morning, I had a sick fear that it was _you_. I knew something had happened, and my first thought when I saw you alive and well, and knew it was _John_, was _that it was too good to be true_. I believe I laughed like a maniac, didn’t I? . . . Not to blame? Why, if it hadn’t been for me he wouldn’t have died. The men say they saw him sitting with his head uncovered in the burning sun, his face buried in his hands--just as I had seen him the day before. He didn’t trouble to be careful; he was too wretched.”

She paused, and Broomhurst rose and began to pace the little hillside path at the edge of which they were seated.

Presently he came back to her.

“Kathleen, let me take care of you,” he implored, stooping toward her. “We have only ourselves to consider in this matter. Will you come to me at once?”

She shook her head sadly.

Broomhurst set his teeth, and the lines round his mouth deepened. He threw himself down beside her on the heather.

“Dear,” he urged, still gently, though his voice showed he was controlling himself with an effort, “you are morbid about this. You have been alone too much; you are ill. Let me take care of you; I _can_, Kathleen,--and I love you. Nothing but morbid fancy makes you imagine you are in any way responsible for--Drayton’s death. You can’t bring him back to life, and--”

“No,” she sighed, drearily, “and if I could, nothing would be altered. Though I am mad with self-reproach, I feel _that_--it was all so inevitable. If he were alive and well before me this instant, my feeling toward him wouldn’t have changed. If he spoke to me he would say ‘my dear’--and I should _loathe_ him. Oh, I know! It is _that_ that makes it so awful.”

“But if you acknowledge it,” Broomhurst struck in, eagerly, “will you wreck both of our lives for the sake of vain regrets? Kathleen, you never will.”

He waited breathlessly for her answer.

“I won’t wreck both our lives by marrying again without love on my side,” she replied, firmly.

“I will take the risk,” he said. “You _have_ loved me; you will love me again. You are crushed and dazed now with brooding over this--this trouble, but--”

“But I will not allow you to take the risk,” Kathleen answered. “What sort of woman should I be to be willing again to live with a man I don’t love? I have come to know that there are things one owes to _one’s self_. Self-respect is one of them. I don’t know how it has come to be so, but all my old feeling for you has _gone_. It is as though it had burned itself out. I will not offer gray ashes to any man.”

Broomhurst, looking up at her pale, set face, knew that her words were final, and turned his own aside with a groan.

“Ah,” cried Kathleen, with a little break in her voice, “_don’t!_ Go away, and be happy and strong, and all that I loved in you. I am so sorry--so sorry to hurt you. I--” her voice faltered miserably; “I--I only bring trouble to people.”

There was a long pause.

“Did you never think that there is a terrible vein of irony running through the ordering of this world?” she said, presently. “It is a mistake to think our prayers are not answered--they are. In due time we get our heart’s desire--when we have ceased to care for it.”

“I haven’t yet got mine,” Broomhurst answered, doggedly, “and I shall never cease to care for it.”

She smiled a little, with infinite sadness.

“Listen, Kathleen,” he said. They had both risen, and he stood before her, looking down at her. “I will go now, but in a year’s time I shall come back. I will not give you up. You shall love me yet.”

“Perhaps--I don’t think so,” she answered, wearily.

Broomhurst looked at her trembling lips a moment in silence; then he stooped and kissed both her hands instead.

“I will wait till you tell me you love me,” he said.

She stood watching him out of sight. He did not look back, and she turned with swimming eyes to the gray sea and the transient gleams of sunlight that swept like tender smiles across its face.

End of Project Gutenberg’s Stories by English Authors: Orient, by Various