PART II

I

THE HURRICANE

Isma sat by the window in her cool drawing-room, looking out into the glaring, dust-laden atmosphere. A hot wind was blowing, bending the flowers in the garden and bruising them against one another. The scorching breeze rushed noisily through leaves, shook slender branches, made palm-trees rattle in angry defiance, and lifted grit and small pebbles high into the air and hurled them rudely at window-panes and doors.

But the girl scarcely noticed the fierce tempest. Her eyes were fixed on the road leading over the northern cape, where dense columns of sandy dust whirled along the track and finally hurled themselves over the steep bank sloping down toward the beach.

The girl watched the road expectantly.

Would Falcon come to see her to-day? She wanted him to come, and yet she shrank from meeting him. What did he think of her now, after the confession she had made him as they stood by the gate in the moonlight? He had been most kind, not uttered one word of reproach, yet she knew what such a disclosure would mean to a nature like his. He had shown signs of terrible agitation, her words had moved him deeply; but--had his emotion been merely due to wounded pride? It must have been a painful ordeal to listen to her degrading experience; yet had his agonized concern only been caused by anxiety for the family honor? What about the burning kiss still scorching her fingers?

The hot blood mounted to her face and her heart beat in a queer, uneven way.

Could he care, after all? But if so, why had he not told her before? They were both free and could have been happy years ago. The rich color in her cheeks paled a little. No, he could not love her. Still, why that desperate agitation?

Another thought darted into her mind. There had been a difference in his attitude toward her since the night of the ball. Could it be that she had betrayed her feelings to him then and that he was moved with deep pity for her?

She started visibly.

Could that be the reason for the change in him? She was painfully aware that for a short time she had lost control of her emotions during their one dance together. After those weeks of cold aloofness, the blinding sweetness of being so close to him, feeling his strong arm round her, had unnerved her and made her momentarily forget everything but the tortuous joy of his nearness! And during that brief yielding had he seen and understood?

She leaned suddenly back in her chair, her whole body aflame with shame.

If he had cared, he would have told her then--must have told her; it would have been inhuman to leave her in the throes of her emotion without relieving her by laying bare his own. No, it was clear he did not love her; he only pitied her and was distressed on her account.

She sat up straight again. She had been appallingly wanting in dignity and reserve; however, she must make amends immediately; she must drive her love into the background and show Falcon she cared for him only as a cousin who had been wonderfully kind to her and to whom she owed a debt of gratitude. Yes, she owed him much--what had he not saved her from the night before!

The awful scene by the river and everything connected with Lord Berriedale came back to her. He had written that morning and actually been thoughtless enough to send the letter by his impudent secretary and allowed such a man to know that he had private important communication with her. Had he not the least mercy, not the slightest consideration for her name!

The letter had been apologetic enough; still, of course, she could not trust him any more, and she had made up her mind never to enter The Bluff again. It would not be safe, for he would only trap her at the first opportunity.

Suddenly the toot of a motor-horn made her start. Could it be Falcon coming now? He had not come down the cliff road, but perhaps he had gone to The Bluff first and was calling at The Palms on his way back.

She rose tremblingly.

A machine crunched heavily on the gravel as it swung up to the front door. Falcon would be in the room in a moment. She sat down again, feeling choked with the violent throbbing of her heart.

The door opened, somebody entered. The turmoil within suddenly ceased and she felt herself turning to stone. The man coming into the room was not Falcon, but Lord Berriedale.

Miss Folkestone rose mechanically. She did not move toward her visitor, but stood motionless, measuring him with proud, angry eyes.

“How dare you come here!” she said, in tones quivering with suppressed fury.

“Isma,” began the man, his face white with tense emotion, “Beatrice is very ill. Something has happened this morning. I don’t know what it is, only it has upset her horribly and made her look awful. She was coming to see you this afternoon, but she nearly fainted at luncheon and had to be taken to bed at once. She wouldn’t let me touch her or do anything for her.”

“I am very sorry for Beatrice. Why didn’t you send for the doctor?”

“Send for the doctor, as if that would do any good! It is not medical treatment she needs. She looked much better this morning; but since then something has happened which is worrying her. It would be useless to try and make her confide in me at present. However, I am sure she would tell you all about it, and you could talk to her and put things right the way you always do and she would soon be better again.”

“There are some things I could never talk her out of--” said the girl, regarding him with cold, accusing eyes.

“You mean that she has found out--that she suspects--?”

“Very likely.”

“But it can’t be--that.” The man was gently caressing his short mustache.

“And why not--?”

“Because, Isma, I have taken special care that she should not be worried with--this. However, even if she imagines something is wrong, you could easily set her mind at rest.”

“Put her mind at rest--that she has a faithful husband?” Her eyes blazed out her contempt for him.

“Isma--don’t. I may deserve your scorn; still, this is hardly the time to express it--every moment is of importance.”

“But you don’t seriously think that I would ever enter your house again?”

“Isma, don’t waste time. Can’t you realize how every second might--?”

“And how am I to know this is not merely another trap you are setting for me?”

“Your own heart will tell you that I am sincere,” he replied, with profound earnestness. “I am not now pleading for myself, but for another who is in terrible need of you. Isma, you who are so strong and well, have pity on your suffering friend! Come at once. If you wait--you may be too late,” he urged, a tremor in his tones.

The girl wavered. “Is it really as serious as--that?”

“It may be. When any one in Beatrice’s state of health becomes as upset as she is at present one cannot be sure what will happen.”

Miss Folkestone did not answer at once. She stood looking up toward the big headland veiled in a glaring haze. What was she to do? Merciful Heavens! why was she always placed in these impossible situations! Was she never to be freed from the sordidness she loathed? Why must she, who had fought so desperately for security, be constantly plunged into new danger?

And if Falcon should come, what would he think if he were told she had gone to The Bluff again and with the man who had insulted her the night before? He could draw only one conclusion from such a course of action.

But Beatrice was ill and in trouble. Her frail body was already ravished with a dreadful disease and a worse calamity hung over her. What if she were already on the point of discovering her husband’s unfaithfulness? No, no, such a catastrophe must be prevented at all costs! She must go and avert this disaster. Surely, there was yet time to stay the hand of Fate? She must go to The Bluff--there was no help for it.

Lord Berriedale watched the silent girl as she gazed intently at the haze-covered cliff, and in his eyes smoldered a suppressed eagerness which was not unlike the glitter in the eyes of some jungle animal as it stalks its prey and watches its every movement from under cover.

“Isma,” he said, at length, “come! Don’t be afraid of me. The chauffeur is there. In any case, if you prefer it, I will walk back. Only come quickly, before it is too late!” he pleaded, with fevered anxiety.

“Very well, I will come this once,” replied the girl, very gravely, “but remember, it is only because Beatrice is so ill, and my coming does not mean that I will ever forgive last night.”

* * * * *

Half an hour after Isma and Lord Berriedale had gone another car sped up the avenue and stopped at the front door of The Palms.

Captain Folkestone sprang up the steps and pressed the bell emphatically.

As the maid opened the door the hot wind rushed into the hall and set the pictures rattling against the walls.

“Isn’t Miss Folkestone at home?” asked the visitor, as the servant did not invite him to enter the house.

“No, she went away with Lord Berriedale half an hour ago,” replied the maid, holding the door open with one hand and vainly trying to keep strands of hair from blowing across her eyes with the other.

A great change came over the soldier’s face. However, the girl was too much blinded by hair and wind to notice any difference in his appearance.

“Perhaps you would like to see Miss Livingston?” she asked, anxious to put an end to the interview and be able to close the door.

“No, thanks, I will not trouble her,” said Captain Folkestone, moving away.

After the door had closed the man stood by the car irresolute for a moment.

Good God! Had Isma taken leave of her senses or was she, after all--? He murmured something inarticulate under his breath and leaped into the motor. Then he plunged into the furnace-like breath of the gale. A cloud of dust enveloped him, showers of grit pelted him; but, heedless of the onslaught, he dashed down the avenue at a reckless speed, and when he reached the road he turned the car toward The Bluff.

II

PAYING TOLL

Miss Folkestone did not speak to Lord Berriedale during their drive to The Bluff. She sat away from him in a corner of the car, closely veiled, aloof and dignified. The hood of the motor was up and the side-curtains fastened, yet the hot, stifling air was laden with dust.

When they reached the house Isma went up to the invalid at once.

The green blinds were half drawn in Lady Berriedale’s room and below them a fiery glare came into the apartment, mixing oddly with its prevailing gloom.

The patient lay very still in the large blackwood bedstead; her face was pale and her lips compressed; one transparent hand clutched nervously at the embroidered counterpane and the dark eyes turned restlessly toward Isma as she entered.

“Are you better?” asked the elder woman, holding out her hand in a formal way.

Isma took the proffered hand and at the same time bent over the invalid and kissed the wasted cheek. “Yes, much better, thank you; but you are not well, dear. Tell me, what has gone wrong? Why are you so strange? You are not a bit glad to see me!” There was gentle hurt in the low, musical voice.

Instantly the face among the lacy pillows changed. “Oh, Isma, kiss me again! I know I am perfectly hateful and you are a saint to come to me. Darling, I am not worthy of your love!” she broke out, clasping the girl to her convulsively.

Miss Folkestone stroked the burning forehead soothingly. “Deary, what has upset you so?”

“I am really ashamed to tell you, for now when I hear your dear voice and look into your true, beautiful eyes I cannot forgive myself for having doubted you.”

“You have doubted me, Beatrice?” asked the girl, the pink bloom fading from her cheeks.

“Yes, I have been perfectly wicked all the morning. I have doubted both you and--”

Her companion drew back slightly.

The patient noticed the movement. “Sit down, please. You must not stand any longer; the heat is very trying to-day. Sit down; then we can talk.”

Miss Folkestone dropped into a chair, feeling suddenly limp with apprehension. So the blow she had paid such a price to avert was about to fall, after all! What evil powers had been at work? Who had sown these seeds of distrust and suspicion? But she would know all too soon. The thin voice trailed on.

“Isma, I feel so horrid, so absolutely brutal, telling you this. Still, it is best you should know; then you will see how nasty I really am and not a bit like what you and dear Neville think me--”

She stopped. How strange her companion looked! She was leaning back, with her eyes closed and lips set, as if preparing for some terrible ordeal.

When Lady Berriedale ceased speaking the girl looked up and in her eyes burned a pain which smote her friend with new penitence.

“Dearest, don’t look like that!” she exclaimed, beseechingly. “I know it has been most cruel to doubt you and no one hates hurting you more than I; but when I have told you all and you have denied it I will be so contrite and do all in my power to make up to you both for my horrible suspicions.”

Miss Folkestone leaned over the bed quickly. Perhaps the calamity could yet be prevented; perhaps even now, on the brink of disaster, there might be a way of escape. “Beatrice,” she said, grasping at the straw, “wouldn’t it be much better for you not to talk about it? It will only upset and exhaust you, and, now that you are feeling all right about it--”

“No, dear, I would much rather tell you,” replied her friend, firmly, “for then it gives you the opportunity of denying everything. It is not for my sake I want to give you this chance, but for your own and--his.”

The room all at once swam before Isma. So there was no escape, after all! The trusting little woman looking up at her with large, beseeching eyes must have her heart lacerated by the cruel truth she would have given life itself to keep from her! But, merciful God, why should she be called on to strike the death-blow to such confiding trust! Why must women always bear the brunt of men’s misdoings? Why had Beatrice not faced her husband with the slander? Why did she spare him and tax her, the innocent victim, with his cruel wrong?

“Isma,” went on the high-pitched voice, “I have been told that--that--Neville is not true to me and that--he cares for you.” She finished with an effort. “Of course it cannot be true, but Isma--tell me it is not?” and her eager black eyes looked pleadingly into the gray ones.

“Beatrice, why did you listen to such horrible gossip? Whoever could have told you such a thing?” replied the girl, desperately avoiding the direct denial.

Her friend noticed the evasion and her lips stiffened. “I have been told,” she continued, in more even tones, “that on the night of the ball you and Neville were seen on the landing after the rest of us had gone to bed, and he was pressing your hand to his heart.”

Miss Folkestone sat rigid in her chair. Whoever could have seen them? The world seemed to be tumbling about her. She glanced down at the rich peacock-green carpet, aghast.

“So you can’t deny it,” said the cold voice from the bed.

The girl pulled herself together quickly. She must say something to soothe the woman hiding her wounds under this icy exterior.

“Beatrice, I was coming up late after seeing to things down-stairs and we accidentally met on the landing. Lord Berriedale admired my gown. Oh, Beatrice, you know that men are often impulsive if one looks nice, just the way we are about flowers--”

“Yes, you looked bewildering that night. I don’t wonder you turn the head of every man who comes near you, and of course my husband admired you, too; he danced with you and talked to you a good deal. Still, there is a great difference between admiring a girl and--making love to her on the stairs late at night. You cannot deny that he pressed your hand to his heart?” her friend concluded, in a hard voice.

“Beatrice, such things may mean absolutely nothing,” said Isma, suddenly thinking of the way Falcon, who did not love her, had kissed her hand the night before.

“Very well, then, we will let that pass. But what about last evening? You certainly look tired to-day, but not ill. Were you ill? Was that the reason you went home? Isma, tell me honestly?”

The girl’s eyes wavered before the searching dark ones. “No,” she stammered, at last, “that was not the reason.”

“Why, then, did you go home? Tell me that?”

Miss Folkestone turned a full, large gaze upon her friend. “Beatrice,” she said, in gentle tones, “please don’t ask me all these questions. I would gladly tell you everything, only, believe me, it is far better not.”

“Better not tear the veil from my eyes and let me see I have lived on illusions all this time? But,” her voice became strangely weary, “I am tired of this hoodwinking. I would rather know the truth--rather hurt me, _my friend_, than _deceive_ me.”

Isma winced. Lady Berriedale had emphasized the words “my friend” and “deceive.” The situation was horrible--gruesome.

“Beatrice,” began the girl, her golden-gray eyes looking with desperate sincerity at her companion, “I am not deceiving you--truly I am not.”

“Then tell me what happened last night. Tell me why Neville wrote to you this morning, a letter so important that Rex had to be despatched with it before breakfast. What was in that letter?”

“Lord Berriedale had hurt me last night and he apologized this morning,” replied Isma, gazing steadily into the flushed face on the pillow.

“Have you destroyed that letter?”

“Not yet.”

“Will you let me see it?”

“No, I cannot do that; it wouldn’t be-- You wouldn’t understand.”

“Don’t you think it would be more correct to say that I would understand too well?” said the invalid, a grim smile twisting her thin lips.

“Beatrice, if only you would trust me!” Miss Folkestone had risen and stood, tall and beautiful, her face glowing with pitying love and yearning anxiety.

“Trust you, indeed! Haven’t I trusted you, and what is the result, that I have been most grossly, most appallingly deceived!”

“No, Beatrice, no!” cried the girl, in agony. Then, sinking on her knees beside the bed, she put out her arms to clasp her friend to her, but she drew coldly away. “Beatrice, I have not deceived you--I have not!” she protested, appealingly.

“Very well, if you are truly innocent, then look at me and swear by your mother’s memory that there never has been any talk of love between you and Neville.”

The kneeling figure drew a shuddering breath, but made no reply.

“Oh, I thought so,” muttered the harsh voice from the pillows. “You are guilty, terribly guilty, and--I trusted you so!”

For a moment Isma raised her head and opened her lips to speak--how easily she could clear herself! She need only tell Beatrice the whole truth, that Neville loved her and had pursued her with his devotion, but that she did not care for him and had never for a moment been disloyal to her friend. How easy to lay the blame on the one to whom it belonged! However, such a disclosure would only mean deeper anguish to his wife, so it was better she should think the guilt lay with her, Isma, and that her husband was not much to blame. The girl closed her lips again and her head sank dejectedly down on the bed. She would not speak, would not clear herself.

There was a pause so chilly that it seemed as if a wall of ice had risen up between them; then the invalid said: “Isma, I could have forgiven you more easily if you had come and told me the truth yourself. However, to deceive me and let others inform me, that is-- But never mind. I know at last. Still, to think that I, poor fool, who thought myself loved by husband and friend,” she went on, in a different tone, “should have thrown you together--how ludicrous! To think that I was actually encouraging you both, drawing you to him and almost pushing you into his arms--I, his devoted wife, who thought myself so secure in his love, who adored him with a passion which would have died a dozen times for him if it had been possible--I, who doted on every line of his form and the least touch of his hand--that _I_ should actually have been the one to keep you near him and put such a temptation in his way! Can’t you see the ghastly humor of it?” and Lady Berriedale laughed an ugly, harsh laugh which sounded hollow and weird, like the echo of footsteps in a vault.

Miss Folkestone shivered. She put her hand across her eyes as if something had blinded her. “Don’t!” she whispered, faintly; “don’t!”

“Surely, Isma, you see the comedy it has been, don’t you?” Beatrice added, with the same mirthless laughter.

Her companion lifted her head with a proud little movement. The red glare from the window fell on her wonderful hair. She stood tall, lovely, her face burning with a wordless pain and in her large eyes glistened a dumb agony.

“Good God! you are beautiful, Isma--your worst enemy could not deny that! I don’t wonder poor Neville has succumbed! However, I know now that your lofty beauty is only a shell and below it you are heartless, cruel, and false! But you are clever--oh, how clever! What a feat to accomplish, to make the husband your ardent lover and his wife your trusting friend--”

The girl had suddenly reeled, but she straightened quickly and stood motionless for a moment, her face ashen and her eyes looking long and intently at the woman who derided her. Then, without a word, she turned and walked slowly out of the room.

She saw nothing as she made her way down the thickly carpeted stairs. On reaching the hall she was not even aware that Falcon was there talking to Miss Brentford, that Lord Berriedale came out from the library and spoke to her. She did not notice that he opened the door for her and followed her to the motor. She was oblivious to everything but the cruel fact that up-stairs lay her friend, facing the worst agony any woman is called upon to bear, and that she, Isma, could do nothing to comfort her.

She sank down among the cushions in the car and was barely aware that the machine darted forward into the teeth of the fiendish hurricane.

Falcon had gone into the sitting-room and had been watching her from the nearest window. When Lord Berriedale helped Isma into the motor the man looking on clenched his hands and ground his teeth. What had they done between them to make his cousin look like that! He choked back the angry words rising to his lips.

He would follow her presently, after she had recovered a little from the ordeal she had been through up-stairs.

Captain Folkestone stood for some time looking out at the great dust-clouds flying before the pursuing blast. His face was set and grim, and though his blue eyes were following the dust-columns among the fig-trees of the avenue, yet Miss Brentford knew he did not see them, but that his brain was preoccupied, busily working at something which filled her with instinctive dread.

III

BARRED GATES

“I suppose Isma is in now?” inquired Captain Folkestone when he arrived at The Palms an hour after his cousin had returned from The Bluff.

“I am afraid you are going to be disappointed again,” replied Miss Livingston, sympathetically. “Something has upset Isma dreadfully this afternoon. She looked awfully white when she came home. I thought at first that the wind and heat had knocked her up, but it must have been something worse, for she would hardly say a word and went straight to her room, locked the door, and wouldn’t even have tea sent up to her. By the way,” she added, “you must need some refreshment after your hot drive in the gale. Would you like an iced drink or shall I get you some tea?”

“No, thank you, I had tea at The Bluff,” replied the soldier, and continued, in a different tone: “I am grieved--very grieved, about Isma. But would you mind telling her I am here and that I want to see her most urgently? And while you are away may I go and have a wash? I feel too horribly grimy and gritty to talk to either of you at present.”

When Falcon returned to the sitting-room some minutes later the governess told him that Isma was sorry, but she could not possibly see him that day.

Captain Folkestone stroked his smooth cheek thoughtfully, then he said: “I feel horribly selfish giving you all this trouble, Miss Livingston, but might I ask you to take my cousin one other message? Tell her that I am not in a hurry and if she wants to rest I can wait for hours. However, I must see her before I return home to-night.”

The old lady went up-stairs once more, and the second message had the desired effect, for Isma said she would be down presently.

When she entered the room a little later Falcon was alone.

“I am sorry to bring you down against your will,” he began, looking at the girl’s pale, set face, “but there is something I must say to you at once--it can’t even wait till to-morrow.”

“Yes,” replied Isma, listlessly, taking the chair by the window she had occupied earlier in the afternoon and glancing out into the hazy, dust-laden atmosphere.

Her companion regarded her gravely from the hearth-rug, and his somber expression deepened as he noticed the red rims round her eyes and that her curving lips were pressed together as if she were making some colossal effort to keep them from quivering.

The man standing by the mantelpiece breathed unevenly. For some moments there was a deep silence in the room, only broken by the rustle of leaves, the creaking of bending trees, and the muffled sobs of breaking waves.

Then Falcon went over to a small table, picked up a glass of egg and milk and passed it to his cousin as he said: “Drink this, Isma; it will do you good. You used to like that sort of thing when you were a little girl.”

She waved it aside, but he held it to her. “You must take it. I can’t talk to you till you do,” he persisted.

With a weary little sigh she took the glass and drank its contents.

When she had finished Falcon sat down on a small divan a short distance away from her. For some seconds he did not speak, but sat leaning forward, knees apart, looking thoughtfully at the carpet between his feet. Then he straightened suddenly and began: “I am not going to worry you by asking what took place this afternoon. Miss Brentford gave me some hints, and I can guess the rest.”

The girl by the window moved restlessly.

So Falcon knew already! Still, of course, he was bound to know in the end. Everybody would soon be told; Miss Brentford and Rex would see to that. Her character would be in shreds. If anything happened to Beatrice, it would be given out that the trusting wife had at last discovered her friend’s deceit and the shock had killed her. In any case her illness would be laid at her, Isma’s, door as a result of her heartless behavior. It would be said that-- The girl shivered visibly. She knew her world, knew what scandal it would make of the things which had happened, and that the name Falcon loved would be dragged into the mire! Society had not had any proof before; gossip had been started on surmises; but now when evidence was available it would not spare her. Every one knew of Beatrice’s devotion to her, and if she cast her off it could only be for most serious misconduct. There was no hope for her.

It would be terribly humiliating for Falcon, too, and he would feel the disgrace keenly. Of course he would try to vindicate the family honor. She was sure he had come to make some suggestion which he thought might mitigate the evil which had befallen her. But it would be useless; nothing could save their name now.

She turned and gazed into the wind-blown garden. How ugly it looked to-day! The leaves were all showing the wrong side; the flowers were disheveled and out of shape. Everything looked tattered and faded in the descending gloom. The sun had not yet set, but the haze hung like a glowering, hideous twilight. Life seemed all at once to have become ugly, colorless, and dark. It had been turned inside out and was showing seams, stains, and frays.

But her cousin’s voice roused her from her dismal thoughts.

“Isma, something must be done at once. Things can’t go on like this--they can’t.”

“No, I suppose you mean that I ought to go away, somewhere out of reach--in the jungle of Africa or in the desert, anywhere out of sight,” she replied, tonelessly, her eyes on the swaying branches beating against the window-panes.

“No, I did not mean that.”

“Anyhow, I think that is the best thing I can do; hide in a place where no one shall be able to find me.”

“That is impossible. There is no such place, for I know one man who will follow you wherever you go.”

Of course Falcon was thinking of Lord Berriedale.

“He will get tired in time, when he sees it is absolutely useless,” she said, a little coldly.

The man on the divan rose and went over to the mantelpiece again. “Is it really quite useless, Isma?” he asked, in a voice which sounded hard by the restraint he put on it.

“Of course it is--quite,” she answered, with decision.

There was rather a lengthy pause. Her cousin had turned away and picked up a small bronze elephant which he pulled at ferociously.

After some moments he put the ornament down and looked narrowly at his companion. Could this be the same woman who had driven beside him on the moonlit road the night before, who had leaned against his shoulder, spoken to him in rich, warm tones, looked at him with eyes so tender that they seemed to melt into utter yielding under his gaze, who now sat aloof and cold with scarcely a glance at him and told him, without a tremor of compunction, that it was absolutely useless to care for her!

He swallowed hard.

However, though Captain Folkestone was extremely sensitive, he was not easily thwarted, and to-day he was doubly determined, for his cousin’s honor as well as his own happiness was at stake.

“Very well,” he said, in a cool, measured way, “it is just as well to be clear on those points first.”

Isma turned and looked at him. But he did not see her glance. He was gazing across the room through an eastern window at the wind-swept, foam-flecked ocean.

His cold, distant manner gave her the impression he had not believed her. A sudden fire flashed into her eyes, but died away almost instantly. Could she blame him, after all? Had she not by her own actions that day made it impossible for him to believe in her? So, forcing back an angry retort, she said, quietly:

“But, Falcon, don’t you think you should have known before? I wanted you to understand, so that you would not-- I am so sorry if--”

“Don’t worry about that,” he replied, bruskly. “To be frank with you, I was not quite clear. Certain little things had made me think that perhaps--” He broke off, then after a slight pause he added, “Still, of course, I shall take your word for it.”

As he stood on the hearth-rug, his shoulders squared and hands clasped behind his back, his face white and lips set, he looked very much like a man who had just received a stunning blow and was taking it without flinching. But Isma’s senses were too numbed by all she had been through to comprehend.

“Well, I am glad you understand at last,” she said, still feeling uncomfortably certain he did not believe her and only out of pity made a pretense of thinking her innocent.

Falcon made no reply. He still gazed out of the window with narrowed, half-closed eyes.

“But if you don’t think it best for me to go away, what else am I to do?” asked Isma, breaking the lengthy pause.

Her companion suddenly braced himself as if preparing for some ordeal; then he said, in a low, even voice, “There is one thing you can do which will at once ease Lady Berriedale’s mind and remove all slander from you--”

“Yes?” she inquired, as he stopped.

Falcon turned and looked at her narrowly through half-closed lids as he had looked at the sea a moment ago, and said, with visible effort, “You can become engaged to--me.

“Isma,” he urged, “if you become engaged to me, I think we can save--the situation. There will be no scandal then; you will at once set your friend’s mind at rest and give me the chance to protect you better than I can do at present.”

The girl was still silent and she had turned her face quite away so that he could not see the expression in her eyes and the bitter smile curving her lips.

So her heart’s desire had come to her at last! After years of waiting the thing she most desired was within her reach. But, great Heavens! what a mangled, distorted thing it proved to be! It came to her shorn of beauty, a worn, wizened, lifeless thing! The man she loved was asking her to become engaged to him, in an unemotional, business-like way, without one thought of love, not even thinking it necessary to apologize for its absence, expecting her to understand he was making the proposal for her sake, to save her from an appalling situation, yet making it clear she must not expect any sentiment from him! The cruel, mocking irony of fate!

“Well?” he said, at last, as she still did not speak.

“You must know that such a thing is quite impossible,” she said, in a hard voice, her face still averted.

“Why impossible?”

“I simply couldn’t do it.”

No, she could not. This was too much to expect from her! Engaged to Falcon under such circumstances, being daily confronted with the meaningless, loveless bond, being hourly reminded of all it should have meant, moment by moment tortured by it, tantalized by it. No, no! she could not accept release on such terms. Rather a thousand times be disgraced and banished!

“I cannot, Falcon--I cannot,” she repeated, in broken tones.

Her companion winced. So that was the way she felt about becoming engaged to him! It was an intolerably painful thing--too horrible to be endured!

He winced again. Did not this indicate that she must be in love with some one else and found it abhorrent that another man should take his place? Did she care for Lord Berriedale, after all, and was she desperately fighting against this treacherous affection? Captain Folkestone clenched his hands and the veins in his neck swelled. For a moment he was tempted to walk out of the room and never again look on the woman who had brought this terrible thing into his life. But he fought back the temptation, for was there not an added reason why he must not forsake her, if this conjecture was right? He must stand by her and help her fight the awful odds against her.

“Isma,” he began, crushing back the vibration in his voice, “even if it is hard for you, try and put up with it. Can’t you see that it would set everything right? Think what poor Lady Berriedale is suffering at this moment. Do it to relieve her!”

The girl tossed her head in hot rebellion. Must she always suffer for this friend, always be called on to make greater and yet more impossible sacrifices for her sake!

“O God!” moaned Isma, half aloud, dropping back in her chair and closing her eyes.

The soldier changed color and bit his lip. He was at least finding out the truth now when she was off her guard, thrown off her balance by the terrible events of the day. The softness in her eyes and voice the evening before had meant nothing! Her show of emotion when his arm had held her as they danced together two nights ago had also been meaningless! All his dreams mere foam and bubble bursting into a stinging emptiness!

For some seconds the room reeled round him; then he pulled himself together sharply and said, “Isma, don’t you think you are just a little--needlessly--ungracious about it?” Though his tone was restrained, it held the merest suggestion of pain, which made the girl turn and look at him at once. However, the increased density of the atmosphere had made the room dusky, so she could not see that the handsome face was pale and drawn. Still, her voice was very gentle as she said:

“Falcon, I am sorry I have seemed so--ungrateful. Of course I know how noble you are in making such an--offer. Only you would have thought of such a thing! And believe me I value greatly your kind thought in wanting to help me. Still, of course, you must know I could not allow you to make such a--sacrifice.”

“How can you call it a--sacrifice?” he asked, almostly roughly.

“Of course it must be--under the circumstances, and I cannot let you make it--it would be too much for us both.”

“But, Isma, it is absolutely necessary. It is the only way out of the difficulty. Can’t you see that for yourself? Still, of course, our engagement can be just as--you like. We need not--treat each other any differently from--what we do now.”

The bitter smile came back to her lips. Falcon could be satisfied with--_that_! How little he cared! It was only the family name he was anxious to save. Well, she owed him her help in that. She was too tired to think out other plans, so there seemed nothing else to do but submit to his suggestion. Her cousin had a reputation for such punctilious honor that every one would know there could be no flaws in the character of the woman he intended to marry. And poor Beatrice would be comforted. Yes, it seemed the only solution of the difficulty. She must submit to the inevitable, even if it tore her heart to shreds.

“What is it to be?” asked Captain Folkestone, as he had not received any reply. “Of course you know,” he went on, as Isma still did not speak, “that you are not obliged to--marry me afterward.”

“No, of course not,” came the scornful rejoinder.

“Well, then?”

“I suppose I might as well consent. The farce need not last--long.”

“No, not very long,” he agreed, with a strange flatness in his voice.

Another silence fell between them.

Then Falcon said, “I may announce our--engagement?”

“If you like.” She was still peering into the red dusk in the garden.

“Very well. I must go now. I want to ring up Miss Brentford and tell her at once.”

Isma started. She knew how such news would affect Rita. “No, no, not to-night!” she pleaded, turning to him.

“For Lady Berriedale’s sake it ought to be done as soon as possible. If I tell Miss Brentford, she can pass the news on to--the others.”

Isma sighed in resignation.

Her cousin held out his hand. “Good-by, Isma,” he said, in a strained, low voice, his eyes upon her face in the gloom.

“Good-by,” she replied, tonelessly, placing a cold, lifeless hand in his.

She watched him walk across the room, listened to his footsteps in the hall, the opening and shutting of the front door. She heard his car leap into panting life and its crunching on the gravel as it sped down the drive, and then there was only the mournful soughing of the wind as, exhausted by its savage onslaughts, it sank moaningly to rest among the trees.

Isma left the window.

Falcon had come to the rescue again. Her reputation would be saved, Beatrice comforted, Lord Berriedale forced to retreat; but--but-- She groped her way blindly to the door and crept up-stairs to the sultry loneliness of her room.

IV

TRAMPLED FRIENDSHIP

When Miss Folkestone had left The Bluff Lord Berriedale went into his study and stood for some time looking up the dusty road as if his eyes were still following the car which had vanished from view some minutes before. After a while he turned from the window and began to pace the floor with even, regular steps. Between his brow was a deep furrow and now and again he stopped for a moment and listened, but no one came to summon him to his wife, and he continued to walk up and down the room with well-controlled restlessness.

What had happened between Beatrice and Isma? Evidently his wife had suspected something was wrong. Had she charged the girl with treachery? It was apparent when she came down-stairs a few minutes ago that she had been through a terrible ordeal. Why had Beatrice not sent for him? Had Isma told her the truth, that she was innocent and he alone guilty? No, she would not clear herself at his expense; she was too noble for that!

But how was it all going to end?

The furrow on his brow deepened and he stroked his fair mustache as he slackened his pace and listened again.

Up-stairs, Lady Berriedale lay in her elaborate bed, her narrow face pinched and ashen, her thin lips tightly drawn together, and a terrible light burning in her deep brown eyes. She was absolutely still. Only her eyes flitted from one object in the room to another, yet seeing none of them.

At times her furtive gaze strayed to the windows, and under the half-drawn blinds she could see the crumpled ocean which in the gale looked like a huge sheet of creased brown paper. She glanced absently at the stunted trees on the nearest cliff, their stems now bent and their leaves looking like tattered rags in the ferocious storm. She heard the weird moans of sea-gulls half stifled by the tempest and saw fragments of clouds flying toward the horizon as if they were being swept ruthlessly into the sea.

But Lady Berriedale had no thoughts for clouds, waves, wailing birds, or whining trees. Her whole consciousness was drawn within, centered on some awful theme which made her oblivious to everything else, and sometimes her lips moved as if she were talking inaudibly to herself.

At last she sat up very slowly and glanced furtively toward the door, then she very deliberately put on a pair of rose-red slippers, and with wavering footsteps crossed the floor and stood still before a full-length mirror, looking long and intently at herself in the glass. A bitter smile played about her rigid lips as she surveyed the reflection of her shriveled form in its rose-tinted _crêpe-de-Chine_ night attire. How pitiful that the luxurious elegance should only cover such an unsightly object! She picked at the ribbons at her breast as if she would have torn them to pieces. What business had such a creature with embroidered silks and dainty ribbons! She looked mercilessly at her scraggy neck, the wizened pallor of her skin, and her dark, sunken eyes encircled by those ghastly shadows.

Then suddenly she turned away from the mirror with a hasty, nervous movement, and her fevered glance sought a large photograph of Isma in a solid-gold frame standing in the center of the broad mantelpiece. It was a lifelike portrait, picturing the girl in all her subtle, vital loveliness. The camera had caught the full, rich gaze of her wonderful eyes, their lofty calm, undaunted courage, and tender sweetness.

Lady Berriedale stood transfixed, staring at the picture with sharp, severe scrutiny.

All at once she dashed across the room, tore down the picture, and threw it violently to the floor, the heavy frame and glass crashing loudly as they struck the tiled hearth.

Beatrice looked with defiant scorn at the splintered glass and Isma’s eyes with their magnificent tranquillity gazing at her now from the peacock-green tiles.

“False!” cried the angry woman, her cheeks ablaze and her white hands clenched; “utterly false! Your beauty is a mask--a mask,” she shrieked, “and you still dare to look me in the face with those deceptive eyes of yours. You are bold and heartless, you cruel, horrible creature!” and one of the small rose-slippered feet stamped all at once across the face of the lovely girl who still looked with untroubled serenity at the excited woman insulting her.

“How dare you look at me like that!” cried the shrill voice in suffocating fury, stamping on the photo again and again. “How--dare--”

Her words were suddenly choked by a violent fit of coughing, and a gush of warm fluid forced itself between her lips, poured down her gown, staining it with a streak of deeper red and running into a dark-crimson pool on the carpet.

A look of horror came into the wide, dark eyes. Was she bleeding to death?

She gasped noisily and turned a ghastly white. She was strangling.

Again she gasped, then swayed and fell heavily against the mantelpiece.

The blow against the hard wood roused her for a moment and she stood half dazed, leaning against the shelf, her eyes stiff and glassy. Good God! Was she--dying here alone!

Suddenly the black cross she had seen illumined in the picture the first morning they had spent at The Bluff flashed into her mind. She could see it standing out from the canvas, moving toward her. Yes, it was coming; it had been waiting for--her grave!

She gave a piercing shriek of terror.

Then something numbed her senses and everything began to fade from her consciousness. She scarcely noticed the door opening, her husband springing to her side and snatching her to him just as she was slowly sinking to the floor.

When she became conscious again it was evidently night, for the gas was alight. There were strangers in the room, a nurse in uniform, and a man came quickly toward her as she moved, bent over her, and she felt a prick in her arm. Then she caught sight of her husband standing at the foot of the bed, his face looking anxious and haggard, and farther away still Rita was huddled wearily in a low chair.

She glanced up at the man who had removed the needle from her forearm and recognized him. He was the doctor she had consulted in Sydney and who had arranged to come to The Bluff if she needed medical attention. It must be very late if he had come all the way from town.

She tried to think what made her ill, but a strange stupor began to steal over her. Why were all these people in her room? Why didn’t they go to bed and sleep? Sleep was so delicious--sleep--

The next time she woke there was faint daylight in the room. The people had all gone--no, the nurse was still there, sitting beside the bed with her eyes closed and her cap a little to one side. She must be asleep; it would be a pity to disturb her.

Lady Berriedale glanced about her wonderingly and gradually memory returned. She remembered Isma’s visit--everything. Her life was at a complete standstill--nothing would ever set it moving again.

She shuddered.

The nurse opened her eyes and spoke in a kind, gentle voice; then she went over to a small table and came back to the bed. There was another prick in her arm and soon afterward the ghastly thing which had happened did not matter, after all. Nothing mattered; the only important thing was this long, delicious sinking into oblivion.

* * * * *

In another wing of the house stood a slender, white-robed form by an open window, looking out into the stirring dawn. There was no wind; only a cool breath came from the pansy-colored hills. Beyond the grounds of The Bluff the long, wide plain lay wrapped in mystic shadows, but trees and bushes were beginning to disentangle themselves from the dusky meshes of night.

Rita Brentford laid her cool cheek against the window-frame and closed her tired eyes. The pale-gray light creeping into the room fell on her white, drawn face. What a night she had spent! A shudder ran through her. How had she lived through this ghastly nightmare! However, dawn had come at last and the black hours were ended, but what about the nightmare? She shivered again--that had not left her; it would never leave her. She knew it would follow her, dodge every footstep for the rest of her days. It seemed as if she had entered into a league with it, made a compact with it, by which she had given this phantom monster the right to shadow her life forever.

One of her cold, limp hands moved across her brow, yet it could not brush away the thing which tortured her. Though her body was weak and spent, her brain worked with pitiless activity. It was like the electric advertisements she had seen from the Sydney harbor flashing out one announcement after another with unvarying precision. Her mind worked with the same ruthless automacity; it brought one scene before her after another. She heard again the piercing shriek, felt herself rushing to her sister’s room, just in time to see Neville gathering the fainting, blood-stained figure in his arms. She could still see the big blotch of dark red on the green carpet, she lived again the endless, merciless hours before the doctor arrived, felt again the nerve-racking waiting for his verdict--hemorrhage of the lungs combined with a severe heart attack. Beatrice’s heart had been weak for some years, but it had never before given any active trouble; the syncope had been brought on by shock.

Rita leaned her head more heavily against the woodwork and a tremor passed through her closed eyelids; her face in the weird light of early dawn looked old and gray.

Her sister was still in a precarious condition; the doctor was not at all hopeful about saving her.

The girl at the window suddenly opened her eyes and there was a terrible glitter in the shadowy orbs. She had nearly killed Beatrice. The news she had imparted to her the day before might yet do the deadly work of taking her life.

A luminous rim appeared over the far-off horizon and gilded the trees and shrubs on the plain. The gold on the flats deepened, leaves shone, grass blades shimmered, and the flowers in the garden received color. But daylight brought no joy to the heart of the girl standing mute and limp, looking into its new-born radiance.

She pressed her hands against her throbbing eyes.

She was a murderess, a black, guilty murderess! She knew her sister could not stand shocks, yet she had deliberately imparted news which she knew might have a fatal effect, and all because-- Yes, she saw her action in its hideous selfishness, now the dark hours had revealed her deed in its naked ugliness and shown her that she had sacrificed her sister’s life for the sake of separating Captain Folkestone from his cousin and securing him for herself!

Beatrice still lingered, but she might yet die. In any case she, Rita, had committed the crime which could take her life. Murderess! Murderess! The dreadful word tolled in her brain with maddening persistence.

She lifted her arms as if to ward off a blow. Then she sank into a chair and closed her eyes. But instantly she opened them again and a malicious gleam shot into them. Her cold, proud rival was disarmed at last--her words had at least accomplished that! Captain Folkestone would never have any more to do with her when he knew all that had happened.

Yesterday he had not allowed her to say all she had meant to tell him. He had courteously, yet decidedly, changed the subject. Still, she had been able to throw out enough hints to show him how treacherous Isma had been to her friend!

However, even the thought that Miss Folkestone could no more stand in her way had no power to comfort her now. Her conscience cried loudly, vehemently, and would not be silenced. Again Rita could see the livid face with its gruesome, deathlike calm resting on the pillow. Would no smile again soften the tightly compressed lips? And would the shrunken form in a few days be laid under--

No! no! She could bear no more. Her thoughts in the lonely room would drive away her reason! She must get away from the stillness which held these awful specters. She would go to the sea, the ever-stirring, restless ocean. It was never silent, always roaring or muttering under its breath. Was it always noisy because, like herself, it could not endure the austere, accusing silence?

She snatched up a long coat, made her way hurriedly out of the house, down the garden path, till she reached a small track which led past the cliff to the beach.

As she approached a belt of weather-worn she-oaks she came upon Rex sitting on a bench, one knee across the other, and a cigarette between his lips.

His presence brought her a sudden sense of relief.

“Rex,” she exclaimed, stopping in front of him, “whatever brings you out so early?”

“My dear Miss Rita, I should be absolutely heartless if I could sleep when her ladyship is dy--so ill.” He corrected himself.

The girl winced, but sat down beside him.

“Rex, isn’t it appalling! I haven’t slept, of course, not closed my eyes once, and I didn’t sleep the night before, either. It is all too dreadful!” Her horror was beginning to find vent in words.

“Yes, indeed! But have you heard how the patient is this morning?”

“No, not yet. Nurse promised to let me know if there was any change, so apparently there is not.”

“That is a good sign. She is holding her own at present, then. All we can expect, isn’t it? I wonder,” he continued, with puckered brow, “what _could_ have given her such a nasty turn! Something must have done the mischief. I wonder could some meddling gossip have--”

He stopped and glanced at his companion, who had gripped the seat for support. “Miss Rita, I do believe you are ill, too!”

“Nonsense, Rex! I’m all right.”

He looked at her with indolent scrutiny as he added: “I suppose his lordship hasn’t told you the news yet. He wouldn’t have the heart. I mean he would not be able to think of such things just now--”

“What news?” asked the girl, sitting up quickly.

“Captain Folkestone rang up last night and asked for you, but as you were with her ladyship I couldn’t disturb you. However, Lord Berriedale was down-stairs just then, so I asked him to come to the ’phone, and Captain Folkestone evidently told him about his engagement, for I heard his lordship congratulate him--”

“Engagement!” stammered Miss Brentford, her pale face becoming grayer. “Who--?”

“Is there any need to ask? His beautiful cousin, of course. Who else could it be?”

Rita sank back against the seat, her bloodless lips uttering an inarticulate cry.

“Great Cæsar!” exclaimed the man beside her. “I believe you are going to faint. Let me take you indoors.”

“Don’t be an ass, Rex,” Rita almost screamed at the secretary. “Of course I am not going to faint. Still, are you really in earnest? Aren’t you just--?”

“As if I should joke on such a solemn subject--at such a serious time, I mean. How could you suggest I should be so brutal? But as soon as you can you must ring up the happy man and tell him how delighted you are. He will be in the tenth heaven to-day. Think what times they will have together now. Shouldn’t like to come upon them unexpectedly under the palms on a moonlit--”

He stopped suddenly, for the girl had risen and stood livid and trembling before him. “Rex, if you say another word, I’ll--I’ll--strangle you,” she shrieked.

Then the white, shaking form with the desperate black eyes turned suddenly and fled back to the house. She made her way hastily to her own room, locked the door, and, moaning loudly, threw herself on the bed.

So she had committed that hideous crime--for nothing! Her sister lay at death’s door--for nothing! Her life was endangered to no purpose! Her own nightmare, her future sufferings, would be for nothing! All her plans had been thwarted while the unscrupulous Miss Folkestone with her siren-like charm robbed her of the man she had become a--murderess to obtain!

V

THE FATAL KEY

A week after Lady Berriedale’s collapse Isma entered The Bluff once more. She mounted the wide staircase quickly. Her friend was much better and had sent for her. The rose-pink in her cheeks deepened.

The past week had been a ghastly one. Falcon had brought her the news of Lady Berriedale’s seizure the day after it had taken place, and the same afternoon a note had come from Lord Berriedale telling her of his wife’s critical condition and adding more details than her cousin could supply. The letter also told her that the patient had to be kept absolutely quiet; that she was under the influence of narcotics and asleep most of the time. Two days afterward Lord Berriedale had written again to say that his wife seemed to be rallying, her pulse was much stronger, and that as soon as she could bear his confession he was going to make a clean breast of everything, of course as briefly and mercifully as possible. He was very anxious Isma’s name should be cleared with his wife for the patient’s sake as well as her own, for he felt sure, once she knew her friend had been true and he only was to blame, the invalid would wish to have the girl beside her again and Isma’s presence would help her greatly to regain her hold on life. Lord Berriedale implored her to forgive and be merciful.

He did not know what had occurred that fatal afternoon, but he pleaded with her not to judge Beatrice’s words and actions too hardly.

That morning another note from him had arrived, saying he had told his wife everything, that she had most generously forgiven him, and that she sent a message asking the girl to come to her at once, as she was longing to see her and ask for her forgiveness. Lord Berriedale had not congratulated her on her engagement or made the slightest allusion to it in any of his letters.

Falcon had come over immediately after breakfast to take her to The Bluff. He always rang up early to inquire after Lady Berriedale, and when he was told she was much better that morning and had sent for Miss Folkestone he had gone to The Palms at once to drive his cousin to the invalid.

Now the girl entered her friend’s room, her face flushed and her eyes shining.

The nurse glanced with tense curiosity at the beautiful visitor and then quietly withdrew.

“Isma, you are a saint!” cried Lady Berriedale, stretching out her arms and pressing the girl to her heart. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“Don’t, Beatrice, don’t,” whispered Isma, trying to keep the patient from becoming excited. “There is nothing to forgive, deary. You simply made a mistake, and even the wisest and best make mistakes sometimes.”

“Darling, you are too good to me!” There were tears in the high-pitched voice.

“Beatrice dear, please don’t get upset, or nurse will never allow me to sit with you again.”

The elder woman made an instant effort to calm herself and said, in a different tone: “Neville has told me everything, and I know now how true and good you have been. But Isma”--the large black eyes looked up at her wistfully--“he loves you deeply--”

Miss Folkestone put out her hands protestingly.

“Beatrice, it can’t really be love--only a slight infatuation--”

“No, you are wrong about that,” replied the solemn voice from the pillows. “It is real love. He doesn’t only admire your outward beauty, but your nobility, courage, your intense sincerity and marvelous generosity. He--” She stopped suddenly and looked up at the girl with deep pain in her glance. “But how terrible of me to talk to you like this, when I ought to be congratulating you! Isma”--she stretched out her arms again--“kiss me and let me wish you all the happiness you so richly deserve--”

Her companion stooped over her quickly, interrupting the words with a caress.

“Darling, what is the matter? Why are you trembling so?” asked the elder woman, pushing the girl a little away from her so that she might look into her face. “Why, there are tears in your eyes, tears when you ought to be all smiles and joy. Why--?” she persisted, regarding the long, moist lashes with deep concern. Then all at once she exclaimed: “Oh, Isma, I know what has made you sad in the midst of your happiness. It is I--”

Her companion silenced the words with another kiss. “Beatrice, don’t let us speak of it again.”

“But now that everything is right between us and I am much better you won’t grieve any more, will you?”

“No, no; I shall feel much happier now.”

Still her friend missed the note of conviction in the voice and looked at Isma with troubled scrutiny.

The girl colored painfully and her head dropped.

“Isma,” began Lady Berriedale, with strange solemnity, “are you quite sure that you love Captain Folkestone?”

Instantly the flaxen head lifted and two steady gray eyes looked at her with intense sincerity from under the wet black lashes. “I love him with all my heart. I have never loved another man.”

The patient breathed a sigh of relief. “You have always loved him?”

“Yes, ever since I met him in London, when I came out and hadn’t seen him for some years.”

“So that is why no other man has been able to make an impression on you, why you have been immune to all love and wooing! But,” she went on, a little perplexedly, “why didn’t you marry him before? This long delay seems an awful waste!”

“He didn’t--care.”

“Not care! How absurd! But is it really only lately that he--?”

The fair head sank down on her friend’s breast. “I don’t know. I have not--asked him.”

“You strange girl! Fancy not asking your lover such an important question. I should have wanted to know the exact moment when he fell in love with me. I should like to know when your cousin first began to care; and if you won’t ask him I will.”

Her companion started. “Beatrice, for Heaven’s sake don’t do such a thing. Promise me you will not!” she cried, in panic.

“My dear child, you are quite incomprehensible. I believe you are afraid of him. But of course I won’t do it if you would rather I didn’t. By the way, I suppose he drove you over this morning?”

“Yes, and he is coming back for me presently.”

“What a dear he is to spare you! Darling,” she continued, looking up at her friend with a tremulous tenderness in her gaze, “I do hope you will be happy--as happy as I thought--I was.”

Miss Folkestone’s arms enfolded the shrunken form. “Beatrice, don’t say _was_--for you are going to be just as happy as you thought.”

Lady Berriedale looked away into space. “How do you think there could be any joy for me, when my husband cares for--another woman?”

“Deary, that is only a passing fancy. It is nothing, and, now that I am engaged, he will not think of--me at all. If only you knew how deeply distressed he has been during your illness you would know how much he really cares!”

The nurse came in just then. It was time for medicine and the patient was not allowed to talk any more.

The next morning Isma found her friend much better and awaiting her eagerly.

“Darling, I feel so much stronger to-day, and I am so glad, for I am longing to have a good talk.”

“Yes,” said the girl, settling down by the bedside when the nurse had left the room, “now we can enjoy ourselves.”

“Isma,” began the rasping voice, “I have been thinking such a lot lately--that is, of course, when I have not been under the influence of drugs.”

“Yes? What have you been thinking about?”

“Do you remember I told you that Neville and I were standing on the balcony on the first morning after our arrival, looking out on the great plains? It seemed to me then that this vast country was a place which compelled one to pray--no, not the stale, lifeless prayers so often uttered in churches, or the sentimental ones prompted by beautiful music, but the impetuous, volcanic prayers bursting from exploding souls. It seemed to me that souls living in this vastness would be strong, lofty, great, capable of majestic passion, and I felt my own life had been so small and mean by comparison. I longed for gigantic strength, to be able to pray like that, and I had a feeling that in this country I should learn. Isma,” she turned her face slightly away and her tones lowered as she said, “I am learning. The explosion has taken place--”

Her companion looked at her with troubled sympathy.

“Oh, Beatrice, if only I could have spared you--that!”

The black eyes looked up at her steadily.

“No, dear, it is a good thing you could not. You have been an angel standing between me and sorrow all this time, yet believe me it is best--this should have come. My soul was so weak and flabby before, it had no strength to rise, no power to look beyond the dust-heap on which it lay. It was a heap of gold-dust, still a dust-heap all the same. However, now, though the explosion has shattered my heart, it has shot my soul out of the dust, given it wings, and though it may still be in a feeble way, yet it is beginning to rise, beginning to mount with its own prayers, and no prayer can go very far unless the soul who prays ascends with it.”

“I am afraid I have never prayed like that,” murmured Isma, with downcast lashes.

“Then the explosion in your life has not taken place.”

“The explosion not taken place!” Miss Folkestone closed her eyes and her cheeks paled. Could her heart be more cruelly shattered than it was at present? She had prayed, too, at times, but prayer had seemed so useless, so ineffective; perhaps that was because, as Beatrice said, her own soul had not risen with the petitions. But her friend was speaking again.

“Isma,” she was saying, “I thought I was--dying--that afternoon. It really seemed as if I were; and even though I may get over this attack, still,” she added, in almost a whisper, “I shall not be--here for long.”

The girl pressed her hand silently; she could not speak.

“And, deary, I have been wondering where I am--going. It is so strange to think of leaving all which is familiar and known and not have the faintest idea where one is going and what the next life will be like. I have thought so much about it and wondered--”

“Perhaps the next world will not be very different from this.”

“In some respects perhaps not. It must at least have as many varieties of existence as this, only each one magnified in the same proportion as eternity is larger than time.”

“Do you mean to say you believe there would be as many grades of joy and happiness, sorrow and misery, as here, and each state magnified by the huge scale of eternity?”

“Yes, surely. Life there will be of colossal dimensions, whether it be a state of joy or--anguish.”

“That is very terrible to contemplate.”

“Everything can be terrible. Eternity is vaster than anything we have ever known, anything we could imagine, and its sorrows and joys must be on the same enormous scale.”

“In that case, it would be an appalling thing to strike a state of misery.”

“You say ‘strike’; do you really think it would be a case of chance, a mere coincidence, what state we reach? That would be too haphazard to fit in with the laws of a universe where everything is worked out with mathematical precision.”

“No, I don’t for a moment suppose our ultimate fate will be determined by chance; still, I wonder what will decide it?”

“It seems to me that in this life we must find the key which will unlock our destiny for us. And Isma,” the invalid turned to her quickly, “do you remember our talk some time ago about Death being an executioner and that only criminals are executed? If that is so, we shall have a very poor chance. Fancy entering eternity as criminals--”

The door opened quietly and the nurse entered.

“I suppose you have come to send me away?” queried Miss Folkestone.

“I am afraid so,” the woman in uniform replied, smilingly.

The girl stooped over her friend and kissed her.

“Don’t worry,” and lowering her voice, so that the nurse, who had gone to the other end of the room, could not hear her words, she added, “remember you can pray, and that will help you to find the right key.”

* * * * *

Every morning Falcon called for his cousin and drove her to The Bluff. He either returned to his own home and came for Isma late in the afternoon or he spent the day at The Bluff and waited till she was ready to go back to The Palms.

Lady Berriedale made rapid progress, and having Isma with her constantly helped her greatly toward recovery. She deeply regretted depriving Captain Folkestone of so much of his fiancée’s society; still, she comforted herself with the thought that the engaged couple would spend their evenings together, and she would have been greatly surprised had she known that Isma and her cousin separated as soon as they reached her gates, and that even during the brief drives they spoke very little to each other.

As strength returned the patient was able to walk into the drawing-room, where she and Isma spent long days together. Frequently Captain Folkestone joined them. He did not always take part in the conversation, but often sat at the other end of the room, occupied with a book or papers.

It was after Lady Berriedale had seen Isma and her cousin together in this way for nearly a week that she began to feel that all was not right between them. They treated each other with every courtesy, of course, still they seemed to avoid talking to each other, and the girl especially fought shy of being alone with her lover. Lady Berriedale had several times suggested they should go for a walk together. However, Isma always declined and insisted on remaining with her friend. Of course that might have been merely an act of unselfish devotion on her part; still, there were other disturbing symptoms which made the elder woman uneasy. The thing which troubled her most was that neither of them looked happy, and she could not understand why. She did not doubt that a deep love existed between them. Had not the girl herself told her how much she cared for the man whose ring she was wearing, and had she not sometimes surprised an expression in the soldier’s eyes when he looked at his fiancée and thought himself unobserved, which told her plainly enough that there was no lack of love on his side? Still, if they both really cared, why did they not seem happy?

One day Lady Berriedale thought she had discovered the reason. Isma was so reserved and she had such strict notions of propriety that perhaps she did not allow the man to whom she was engaged a lover’s privilege, and that this restraint was causing their unnatural attitude toward each other. The more she thought of this explanation of the difficulty the more she felt sure it was the correct one, and, being certain she had come to the right conclusion, she made up her mind to speak to the girl about it at once. So the same day, when the afternoon-tea things had been cleared away, and Captain Folkestone sat reading at the other end of the room, Lady Berriedale began:

“Isma, I am going to give you a good lecture. Do you know your lover does not look a bit happy, and as an engaged man he ought to be brimming over with happiness! I believe it is because you are too prudish and you won’t allow him to show you any--”

She stopped abruptly, for her companion made a violent gesture to silence her as she looked with a terrified expression toward Falcon, who, to her relief, was still reading and had apparently not heard the embarrassing words.

Lady Berriedale continued: “He can’t possibly hear over there, and I must say this, it is not right you should put such a strain on him. If a man loves a woman he naturally wants to--”

“Don’t--don’t--” cried the girl, in a frantic whisper, interrupting her again.

Still her hostess would not be silenced. “It is even hard on yourself--far too great a strain on you both; but on the man it is specially--”

“Beatrice, do be quiet. You don’t know what you are talking about. It is quite all right, I assure you. Falcon doesn’t like that sort of thing,” Isma murmured, in a frenzied undertone, looking fearfully toward her cousin, who was still so absorbed in his book that he did not appear to notice what was going on at the other end of the room.

“Nonsense!” replied Lady Berriedale, emphatically, lowering her voice a little, but its high-pitched quality still striking terror into the embarrassed girl beside her. “Now you are talking rank nonsense. All men like that ‘sort of thing,’ as you call it, when they are in love. Do you mean to tell me that you don’t let your fiancé kiss you when you are alone and--”

“Beatrice,” implored the distracted girl, “for Heaven’s sake don’t talk like that! He will hear you--”

“It doesn’t matter if he does. Isma, don’t be so absurd. I never heard anything like it. You are really most unnatural! When you are engaged to a man you certainly ought to allow him a lover’s privileges. It is cruel not to. Now don’t try to interrupt me all the time. Do you know the best thing to cure you of this silly shyness,” she added, with a flash of mischief in her dark eyes, “would be for me to ask your lover to kiss you here before me--”

There was a movement at the other end of the room. Falcon had risen and looked out of the window, contemplating the weather thoughtfully.

“Isma, if you are ready, I think we had better make a start. I have one or two things I must attend to before dinner. I believe this dry weather is going to last for ages,” he added, joining the ladies.

The girl rose quickly and left the room.

When she had gone Lady Berriedale said: “Isma will be glad to get away from me this afternoon. I have been lecturing her and she did not like it. On the way home you might ask her what I was scolding her about, I believe you will agree with me on the subject. But,” she continued, in a different tone, “I am afraid I have been horribly selfish keeping Isma so much with me. However, now that I am better you must assert your rights and see more of her; you have been far too kind and generous! Now I am going to suggest that you have her to yourself to-morrow; then you can take her out and have a good time together.”

On the way home Falcon did not ask Isma any questions about the lecture; he was rather more silent than usual. He had evidently not heard the embarrassing conversation, for he did not make the slightest reference to it, and his companion was greatly relieved. Not till they approached The Palms did he tell Isma that Lady Berriedale had suggested he should take her for a trip the following day, and added: “You have been in the house far too much lately; it will do you good to have a day in the open air. So may I call for you to-morrow morning?”

It seemed impossible to refuse, for Beatrice would be sure to ask when next they met if they had been out together, and if she had not it would only rouse her friend’s suspicion afresh. So she accepted the invitation and arranged that Falcon should call for her soon after breakfast the following day.

VI

THE FLAME GOD

“Are you quite sure you would like the same run we did before?” asked Captain Folkestone, when he and his cousin left The Palms the next morning.

“Yes. It was so beautiful. I should like a whole day exactly like the last one.”

“Exactly like it?” he inquired. “Don’t you think we might improve on it to-day?”

“I am afraid that is impossible.”

“Why it was only spring then; now it is summer.”

“Would that make any difference?”

“Certainly, for spring is only the promise; summer is the fulfilment.”

Isma did not answer, but looked doubtfully into the white haze quivering over the road.

Last time she and Falcon had driven this way together they had both been exuberantly happy; they had talked freely and looked at each other with shiny eyes. It was spring then. Nature had throbbed with vital life; it had been so gay, so irresponsible, so youthfully joyous, and she and her companion had been joyous, too. Hope had pulsated through her being. She had loved sitting next to her cousin while they were whirled into the radiant sunlight. Of course she still loved being beside him, yet there was a terrible difference in her feelings to-day, for there was no hope in her heart; youth and spring seemed to have died out of her life. Since that other delicious day together ghastly things had happened, and among them there was the farcical engagement to the man beside her. Now she knew for certainty that he did not care. He had made that quite clear on the afternoon when they had entered the meaningless bond; there could be no hope of happiness for her now.

Still, as she gazed into the illumined atmosphere the sorrow in her soul lightened.

It was a typical Australian summer day, both ethereal, mystically unreal, and at the same time throbbing with a sensuous, vital life. The golden sunlight of spring had ripened into the white radiance of summer, a radiance which had condensed into haze and hung shimmering over the road, between trees and bushes, as if it were a living, palpable thing.

“It is going to be very hot to-day,” observed Falcon, after a short pause. “I hope you will not mind.”

“No, not at all. I love the heat,” replied the girl, looking dreamily at the cliffs half hidden by the wistaria-tinted gossamer veil of summer.

Through the glimmering haze the sun peered down on the earth, its face strained and white with vehement intensity.

Isma looked up toward the pallid ball of fire and caught her breath a little. Yes, summer was the mysterious fulfilment of spring. The gay, hilarious season of youth had matured into this tense, pale thing. There was no light-hearted laughter in summer, no mischievous banter, no childish glee, but there were blinding heat, unswerving purpose, blazing passion.

Isma breathed more quickly. Summer held deeper joys than spring. She had never understood summer before. However, she was beginning to understand it now.

A strange elation began to stir within her. Sorrow and trouble fell away; there was no room for sadness in this vast whiteness. But there was room for joy. She was all at once aware that a fiery joy burned everywhere about her. It was not an exuberant, buoyant gladness, but a still, concentrated ecstasy, so fierce that it had blanched the earth and made it gasp by its violent intensity.

The day was passionately virile, it was pale with emotion, yet audaciously triumphant!

Isma felt its hot, tenacious life, and as she became aware of it, it seemed as if its trembling fingers touched chords in her being which had not been touched before.

She was suddenly conscious that she had been waiting as winter waits, as spring waits, and now all at once summer had come to her, bringing with it this luminous heat, breathless excitement, and luxuriant maturity. She felt something within her expand and enlarge, as life expands and enlarges under the powerful rays of the sun. What an extraordinary effect summer had on her to-day! It thrilled her and filled her with a peculiar anticipation.

She and the man she loved were going out together into this white beauty of the sun. They were going into the fiery radiance. They would be alone in the world which was heated and set throbbing by the great Flame God riding in majestic insolence through the burnished heavens! It was wonderful! The thought that Falcon did not care for her did not trouble her now. It was cast into the background, pushed out of sight, and with her was only the consciousness that she was near him, that they were speeding together into the burning splendor of summer!

They had driven in silence for some miles, but the silence between them held no embarrassment now; rather it appeared to hold a mute understanding. It seemed as if barriers, reserves, and the terrible constraint their empty engagement had caused had vanished and that they were now free to enjoy the long day which lay before them.

And what would this summer day bring?

Surely it could not pass without laying some gift at their feet. It was too vital, too richly laden with mystic treasures, for that!

Isma glanced again at the pulsating splendor enveloping the distant hills, half veiling the sea, descending on breakers and headlands, penetrating jungles, caressing leaves and flowers, folding trees in smothering embraces, and lying, panting and mute, on crescent beaches.

“Isma, what are you thinking about?” asked her companion, at last.

“I don’t know that I was thinking at all,” she replied. “I have just--_lived_.”

“Lived? What have you lived?”

“I am not sure, but just--summer.”

Her cousin glanced at her quickly. “Summer is the time when nature lives its hottest, its intensest, life. Were you living like that just now?” There was a peculiar quiet in his tone like the breathless quiet around them.

“One could not help it--to-day.”

“Isma”--he bent toward her--“I want us both to live like that to-day.”

“Yes,” she answered, with averted face and a curious softness in her voice.

For a while they sped on without speaking. It was exquisite to fly together through the illumined spaces by the glimmering, half-hidden sea!

After a time they left the coast-line and turned inland, dashing through great stretches of sun-bleached country, which gleamed in the fierce light like wastes of shimmering stars.

“Our sun-bleached Australia!” murmured the girl, her eyes on the creamy white plains. “Green fields are very good to look at, only they always seem to me very earthy and substantial. These,” she pointed to the grass-covered flats, “look so ethereal and spiritual--as if they were all soul.”

“Their greenness had been consumed by the sun. They are bleached with the pallor of death. Summer has done that.”

“Yes, I know the sun’s power can be terrible as well as beautiful. Still, it seems to me there is something grand about this bleaching into ethereal whiteness.” She spoke with exaltation. To her it appeared just then wonderful to be consumed by the hot passion of the sun. It seemed to her that the devouring heat was cleansing, that it had power to purify and make spiritual.

Her companion turned and looked at her. “You really think so?”

She did not meet his glance. “I do.”

He sighed a little. “You evidently don’t know how it can--hurt.”

She looked away into the luminous haze.

Not know how it could hurt--how little he understood! Was not her heart like these great sun-bleached plains, parched, laid waste by scorching powers! But she was not sorry; to-day she felt strangely glad because of it. It seemed a superb thing to be dominated by, wholly yielding to, these fiery emotions!

The elation within her increased. It was wonderful to feel her whole being aflame with the fire which burned in the dazzling splendor about her! And the warmth in her was all for the man beside her. She felt herself opening out to him in a new, extraordinary way, as if she had all at once received a wonderful gift for loving. She was nothing but love, every part of her a burning cinder, body and soul one leaping flame of love! Everything else had fallen away from her; the past was forgotten, the future did not exist; all beings save the man at her side had been wiped off the face of the earth; only Falcon and her great love lived; she herself did not exist any more except as one big, blazing fire.

The mortification she had felt before because of her emotion had died out of her heart. There was no need of shame for this exalted thing; she wondered now that she could ever have felt shame because of this heat that purified, that burned away not only selfishness, but the whole of the self-life with its detailed sordid smallness. It was something to revel in, feel proud of, even if the man she cared for should have discovered its existence.

But the more she was subjected to this immense power the more she was conscious that it would bring greater suffering into her life. It must bring deepest sorrow. Falcon did not love her, would never really care. She would have to love alone, suffer alone, feel parched with her need of him.

Still, even with this anguish staring her in the face, she was unspeakably glad she loved him. No thought of future pain could daunt her elation now.

They had turned toward the coast again, and all at once Falcon stopped the car.

“Look!” he cried; “there is a rifle-bird on that low branch over there,” and he leaned over Isma and directed her gaze to a bird the size of a magpie sitting on a low bough close to the road.

“Oh, isn’t it lovely!” exclaimed the girl, in an excited undertone so as not to frighten the gorgeous, timid thing. “I have never seen one before.”

“It is one of our birds of paradise.”

“What a wonderful black! It is like the richest plush and satin rolled into one, and look how it gleams fiery purple and emerald green--”

The bird suddenly moved from under some shading leaves into the opening, and the half-veiled sunlight fell on its plumes. It preened its feathers, opened and shut its wings, its luster varying with each new movement from a red metallic purple to the richest shades of green, and each riotous hue a mere ethereal sheen on its plushy black plumage.

Then, uttering a strange note, the winged thing of color and velvet flew away.

When Falcon had started the engine again he said, “Isma, do you know it is a good omen to see a bird of paradise?”

“Is it? Why?”

“Because it indicates you are close to--Eden.”

“Summer is generally close to Paradise, isn’t it?”

“Yes, except when it takes the wrong turning and leads to--drought.”

“It very often seems to do that. Still, if one has had the beauty of summer even for a little while, one oughtn’t to mind about the drought--afterward.” There was strong conviction in her voice.

“I quite agree with you--only, when Eden is so close, why not go straight on and reach it?”

“If it were possible, yes.”

“Isma, it is possible, and I hope to prove it to you before the day is over.” He spoke with sudden earnestness.

She looked away into the bush. What did he mean? Could he know what Paradise meant to her? Perhaps he only thought it meant giving her an enjoyable day!

However, it did not matter. Nothing mattered but being with him, being together, speeding into summer, losing themselves in the filmy haze which enveloped the hills, the bush, the sea, the breakers, and made all seem peculiarly soft and unreal.

Then through the veil of heat the hotel where they were to lunch appeared, the morning had already passed.

Captain Folkestone stopped the motor and once more they made their way into the quaint, long dining-room to the small table where they had sat before, which was now decorated with greeny-white flannel-flowers.

Isma took her seat as in a dream. Still, her dreamy state did not last long, for now when she sat opposite her cousin, when he looked full into her face and she met the strong light in his eyes, the elated loftiness she had felt out in the dense sunlight vanished. She became human again. Little things returned to her life. She was conscious of embarrassment once more. One look from Falcon could set her face aflame and make her strangely, sweetly confused. It had been glorious to feel the exaltation dominating her during the morning, but it was even more exquisite to realize how Falcon’s every glance, his movements, the least inflection of his voice, affected her. During the drive she had been wholly absorbed by her love for him; now she was wholly dominated by himself, and her joy was intensified.

* * * * *

After dinner they drove farther north till they reached the beach they had visited before.

They walked along the sand, looking for the spot where they had rested on their previous outing. It was not long before they found it. However, this time they went higher up among the sand-dunes in the shade of a thicket of bottle-brushes.

Isma did not want to lie down, but sat leaning against a sand-bank, while her companion threw himself down close beside her. He lay on his side, gazing at her with intent blue eyes.

She had thrown back her long, golden veil, and her hair, under the wide brim of her black hat, looked weighted with gold; her skin, fair as the petals of white magnolia-flowers, was strangely radiant, and her eyes, very golden in the suffused brightness, burned with a dazzling intensity. She seemed curiously, vitally alive as the day was fiercely, hotly alive.

She sat with her hands clasped round her knees, looking at the incoming waves breaking languidly on the shore.

The haze had thickened. It shut out the horizon, the hills and bush, everything, except the immediate foreground, and it gave the man and woman on the sands a sense of being peculiarly isolated and alone. Through the dense layers of gossamer the sun burned down with violent persistence, all the more powerful, perhaps, because the Fire God was entirely obscured from view and attacked from its safe fort in the heavens.

“Isma, tell me,” said Falcon, after a lengthy pause, “are you not happier to-day than you were--last time we were here?”

The girl began to sift the sand through her fingers. “Yes, I think so.”

“I wonder why?”

“I suppose because it is--summer.”

“Not because of--anything else?”

“Isn’t that enough? Summer means so much.”

“I wonder what it really means to you?”

She smiled as she picked up another handful of sand and allowed it to trail slowly back to the beach.

“Could one explain?”

“I think you could if you tried.”

She made no reply, and her companion, still regarding her intently, began to play with one end of her long veil.

After a while he released the silken texture, moved restlessly, and, turning over on his back, lay for some time with closed eyes.

Isma could feast her eyes on him now. She loved looking at his well-cut features, his firm but tender mouth, the resolute chin, his delightful hair. He was so close to her she could have stretched out her hand and touched him--if only she had the right! A great stillness crept into her soul, a wonderful awe. If only their engagement had been real, then at this very moment she might have-- But her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden smile curving the well-formed lips she was watching.

“Falcon, why are you smiling?” she asked, the sense of the intimacy which might have been still strong upon her.

He looked up at her quickly.

“Would you really like to know?”

“Yes. You looked as if your thoughts were interesting.”

“They were, I assure you,” he replied, the twinkle still in his eyes.

“Then tell me.”

He turned on his side again, facing her. “I was just wondering what would have happened if Lady Berriedale had carried out her threat yesterday afternoon--”

For a moment the girl did not stir. Yesterday was so far away it almost seemed as if it had not been. Whatever did Falcon refer to? She glanced at him wonderingly. “What--threat?” she asked, a sudden instinctive fear sending the blood to her cheeks.

“Why, the threat Lady Berriedale made, when I stood up and rescued you by asking if you were ready to go home-- Have you forgotten so soon?”

So Falcon had heard those awful remarks, after all! A wave of heat surged through her. She did not speak, but her eyes fell before his disconcerting gaze.

“I was wondering just now what you would have done if Lady Berriedale had asked me to--” He stopped a moment before adding, “For of course I should have had to do it--just to save the situation, you know.”

Isma turned her face away hastily. Still, he saw the deep flush creeping over her white throat and dyeing her perfectly shaped ear a vivid pink.

“I can’t make out what made you say I did not like that sort of thing. I never remember telling you that I did not.”

“No--but of course you wouldn’t,” she stammered, confusedly.

“I wouldn’t be quite so sure about that if I were you. By the way, I hope you have taken your friend’s advice to heart and that you will act on it.”

The girl made no reply; her face was still averted, but the color in her adorable ear had grown pinker.

Captain Folkestone sat up now. “Isma,” he said, in low tones, “you are wearing my ring. Don’t you think you might give me a few of the privileges such a ring generally bestows?”

She started, and the soft, rich curves of her breast rose and sank in fluttering confusion.

The light in his eyes deepened. He looked very alert, every muscle tense, ready to move at the least sign from her.

“Isma, tell me, would it really be so hateful to you if I--kissed you?”

In spite of her overwhelming shyness, she glanced up at him. It seemed as if he compelled her. But her eyes dropped instantly before his and she felt herself tremble as if he were already touching her lips. A dreadful weakness came over her. Falcon’s lips against her own, his arm round her folding her to him--

She turned giddy. It seemed impossible not to yield. She was almost swaying toward him, making the one movement, however slight, he was waiting for, watching for.

Then an awful thought arrested her. He had not spoken of love: he was merely asking for her kisses. Did he only ask because it was summer and the world was astir with passionate abandonment, because she was beautiful and her beauty appealed to him? Even in the days when he hated her her beauty had strangely affected him. Now when he no longer disliked her did he feel it would give him pleasure to caress her and enjoy her physical charm? After all he had done for her, did he consider she might grant him this intimacy? Were these his only reasons for wanting her kisses? Surely, for if he had cared would he not have told her that first?

She straightened involuntarily.

The man watching her with alert scrutiny paled as he saw the movement.

Or perhaps Falcon was testing her, the girl continued to reason. Perhaps he only wanted to see if she held her caresses cheap and was ready to give them to any fascinating man audacious enough to ask for them. Was he trying to see if she were temptable?

If this were so, good Heavens, what cruelty! How could any man be so merciless! But of course he could not know how desperately she cared; could not know that her whole being was quivering to give him what he desired.

She pulled frantically at some grass blades and broke them into small pieces. Then she made a colossal effort to speak calmly:

“You have no right to ask--under the circumstances--”

“Under the circumstances I have. We are engaged.”

“You know quite well that does not mean anything. It is only--”

There was a short, sharp pause.

The face of the man had undergone a great change. All at once he jumped up, took a few steps, bent down and examined a shell, straightened again, and walked still farther away.

Isma watched him with strange, wide eyes; her face, too, had become colorless.

Was he angry with her? No, he did not seem annoyed. He walked about as if leisurely contemplating the bunches of coral seaweed and the various flotsam on the beach.

The girl gazed after his tall, splendid form hungrily. Why had he left her--oh, why? Was he displeased in spite of his apparent nonchalance? Had he expected her to yield, to understand that he was a man and that he wanted what other men coveted? Somehow she had never thought of this before. Falcon had always seemed to her a being apart--made of different material from the other men she had known, a man who lived up to a punctilious standard of conduct; but did he, after all, yearn for the warm, soft things women could give? Of course if only he had cared, how gladly she would have given what he asked!

After a while he came back and suggested it was time to start for home.

As they got into the motor he said, “On the whole the advice Lady Berriedale gave you was excellent, and if you were wise you would take it.” With that he closed the subject and did not refer to it again.

On the way home Falcon talked in his brightest, most entertaining way. But he sat well away from her, and their shoulders did not touch as they had frequently done during the morning.

That was the worst of her cousin, he was such an adept at covering his tracks. If he retreated, no one knew if it were a retreat or if the move had not been part of his original plan.

As Isma listened to his easy conversation she felt confused and puzzled. Was this really the man who had asked for her kisses, whose eyes had looked so irresistibly into her own, who now talked in this nonchalant way as if nothing unusual had happened? But his eloquence saddened her, his amusing stories hurt her.

She looked at the many sand-dunes bordering the seaward side of the road with pensive eyes. She remembered that in the morning as they passed them they had seemed glimmering mountain-tops aglow with an exultant peace; now they appeared to her mere grotesque shapes, gloating monsters watching by the shore for prey.

The whole world had changed. The great white radiance round them held no breathless ecstasy now; it was only a huge, opaque void holding nothing but smarting disappointment.

Falcon had said earlier in the day that spring was the promise and summer the fulfilment--where was the fulfilment? The bird of paradise had not brought them to Eden. There was no Paradise; summer only led to--drought.

All at once the haze warmed and reddened as if some huge fire burned behind its gauzy entanglements. In the bush the white sheen had deepened to lavender and purple and hung with caressing softness between majestic trees and matted undergrowth. Opaline sun glints dipped into the reed-edged pools and motionless lagoons.

Then a faint breath of air came in from the sea. It blew very gently against the filmy, iridescent haze, which shivered perceptibly, then slowly drifted toward the heavily timbered hills.

Isma watched its hesitating, retreating footsteps. She saw the trees and shrubs creep out from the violet sheen in the forest and stand out with definite clearness. The red disk of the sun became visible in the smoky heavens and hung as a huge round furnace dropping slowly toward the western hills.

The breeze from the ocean gained strength; it grew cooler and stilled the throbbing fever in the sweltering atmosphere.

The cliffs near Isma’s home were in sight now and stood out, bulky, plum-colored shapes against the pale lavender-tinted distance.

As the car approached the last plain the girl could see the breeze moving among the trees and bushes. It appeared to her as if it were some distraught, demented thing let loose on the flats, seeking frantically for a lost treasure in the wild chaos of shrubbery.

The waves on the beach had grown noisy and hoarse and sounded as if moaning in sudden pain.

Isma became silent.

Did her companion notice her short replies or their entire absence? If so, he did not betray his observation by look or word.

They had crossed the plain and were ascending the last cliff. Would Falcon stop the motor where he had stopped it the other day? Surely he would give her another chance before they parted! If only he would, how gladly she would yield to him now!

But no, he rushed on without even glancing at the spot where they had stood together and watched the scenery and she had hummed to him “The Little Winding Road.”

Isma’s heart contracted in a suffocating anguish and her eyes filled with blinding tears. She turned her face away quickly, still not till her companion had seen something moist drop from her lashes to her cheeks. He paled and bit his lip, but a moment afterward he continued the conversation.

As they came in sight of her gates a terrible desperation seized her. It made her almost cry out for mercy, implore him to take what she so frantically yearned to give--for, after all, even if he had not spoken of love, were not her lips his? Had they not been kept for him all these years! Of course he had a right to them. How foolish she had been not to have realized this before!

However, he evidently did not want her kisses now. But was he so capricious that he ceased to wish for a thing if he could not have it the moment he asked for it? No, that was impossible; he must have merely been testing her. Still, why had his smiling eyes gazed so irresistibly into her own? Why had he said earlier in the day he wished them both to live summer, that they were on the road to Paradise?

The car stopped.

Her cousin helped her to alight. She thanked him for the beautiful drive, and then, as in some ghastly trance, she found herself walking away from him. But even as she went some awful power tugged at her and almost compelled her to return to him. She walked with difficulty; the violent force dragging at her made it almost impossible to proceed.

Then she heard the hum of the motor--he had gone! She stood still, feeling suddenly faint with longing and disappointment.

She had refused his request; but, merciful God, how he had punished her--how he had revenged himself!

As the man drove up the steep ascent he caught a glimpse of Isma among the palms, standing perfectly still, her head thrown back and her hands tightly clasped.

He gripped the steering-wheel ferociously and looked for a place to turn the car. However, what would be the use of going back? Hadn’t she already refused his love that day? Of course she knew that he cared, yet she chose to put this terrible strain on him. He gave up the idea of returning and proceeded up the headland, his face ashen and grim.

But on the other side of the cliff he stopped the machine and, suddenly covering his face with his hands, groaned aloud.

“Great God! Isma,” he muttered under his breath, “why are you torturing me like this--making us both suffer! You do care, I know it now--but why in Heaven’s name do you pretend you don’t! Is it your pride standing in the way, your shyness, or--what--? Isma, if you go on like this you will drive me to distraction--”

He sat for a long time bowed and unmovable; then at last, with another ejaculation, he set the motor throbbing down the headland.

VII

THE STARING CLIFF

Isma passed a wakeful, restless night.

When she came down to breakfast, rather late the next morning, she found a note from Falcon saying there had been serious trouble on one of his northern stations; that he would have to go and settle the difficulty himself, and would therefore be unable to see her that day. He also said that he had rung up and inquired after Lady Berriedale and explained that he and his cousin would be unable to see her till the following morning. In conclusion he begged her on no account to go to The Bluff in his absence. The note was very brief; he had evidently written it in a hurry before starting on his long journey, and sent it over by a special messenger.

The girl strolled out under the palms and read the letter again.

So she would not see Falcon for a whole day! The news brought a sickening dullness to her heart. How colorless the day stretched out before her! It seemed as if all light and warmth had gone out of it--it would only be to her now a succession of weary hours of clamoring emptiness. She looked into the sunlit atmosphere, which seemed to have paled. The world around her had all at once faded, its brightness departed; the big, fan-shaped palm leaves had grown uninteresting and dull; even the profusion of roses in the garden looked colorless and without beauty.

And Falcon’s absence had caused this terrible change in everything!

She rose suddenly, as if she would have fled from something which filled her with panic. But she sat down again. What was the use of running away? She could not escape. Months ago it had been possible to take flight. It had been awful to cut herself away from Falcon, but it had been possible--now it could no longer be done. The color ebbed away from her cheeks as she realized this. If her life depended on it she could not go away, could not leave him now. If even one day without the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, a look into his dear eyes, was a hideous blank, what would a lifetime away from him be like!

She shivered.

She could not live without him; he had become an absolute necessity. He was to her what the sun was to the world, the giver of light, warmth, and life itself. Falcon had become her _life_; she was utterly dependent upon him for everything which made existence tolerable.

She looked down on the diamonds glittering on the third finger of her left hand. She was wearing his ring. At present she and her cousin met constantly; they drove together to and from The Bluff, saw each other daily--the engagement which had caused her so much pain had at least brought her that; but this state of things could not go on forever. Some day soon she would have to return his ring. After that, of course, they would not meet. People who had been engaged and broken it off could not go on seeing each other; that was impossible. And even if in the distant future they might resume the intercourse afforded by their relationship, what comfort could such a cold, lifeless thing bring her?

She sat, pale and wide-eyed, looking unseeingly at the radiant world about her.

She thought again of the previous day--how beautiful it had been and how terrible! Every detail came back to her--her fancies, the deep exaltation she had felt as she and the man she loved sped into the quivering white heart of summer! Her own heart had been aflame with a heat as intense and white as the blazing force throbbing in the illumined spaces, and even when the thought came to her that it might bring anguish which blistered and blighted, her elation had not diminished. She had felt strong and able to bear, if need be, a sorrow which could crush a world. But Falcon had been with her then, and that had made all the difference!

She remembered, too, when they passed the sun-scorched plains she had remarked that it seemed a grand thing to be bleached into that spiritual whiteness, and her cousin had said, with a little sigh, that she could not know how such a scorching hurt. All at once it struck her, though it had not occurred to her at the time, that Falcon had spoken as if he knew, knew only too well what an experience of that kind meant. So Falcon had cared--cared like that!

She sat up quickly.

Of course she was quite aware he could not have reached his mature manhood without love having come into his life. She was used to seeing him extremely nice to women, and she had guessed that some one must at some time or other have touched his heart; but that he should have felt any emotion strong enough to make him connect it with powers that bleached and scorched had not suggested itself to her, and the thought made her suddenly feel cold.

Who could the woman be he had loved like that? Her mind ran quickly over his women friends in London; but she could not recall any one he had specially singled out. However, Falcon was so reserved and sensitive he would not show his feelings to others. In any case, the affair must have ended in disappointment, as he had not married. She had often wondered why he had remained single; this must be the reason. Poor Falcon, so he, too, had undergone this awful scorching, and was evidently suffering still, or why had he sighed? Yet, why had he spoken to her yesterday about Paradise and summer in the way he did? Why had he asked for her kisses? Why the burning kiss on her fingers weeks ago? Why so many other things?

She was deeply perplexed.

Perhaps he was trying to fill the aching void, trying to see if she could not bring him comfort and teach him to forget! There could be no other explanation of his conduct.

Isma drew a gasping breath. The pain within almost strangled her.

She got up and began to walk about among the palms; it was impossible to keep still.

And he was her summer, her light, warmth, her life--everything! She could not do without him, she could not! She clasped her hands together in anguish. What was she to do?

Her wonderful eyes looked suddenly blank with agony. Falcon loving another woman--like that! She felt giddy and faint.

She sank down on the seat in a heap, her face deathly white, her nostrils quivering. A half-stifled moan escaped her trembling lips. She could not bear this blinding pain--

She looked up as one dazed and stunned.

She was like the plains they had passed yesterday, helpless and powerless, lying passive and defenseless while the Flame God scorched her by his cauterizing power.

She groaned aloud and closed her eyes.

“Love bleached--love bleached,” she murmured under her breath in suffocating tones.

She had admired the spiritual whiteness of the flats yesterday. Green fields had seemed earthly and material in comparison with them. Falcon was right: the bleaching hurt, it was death-agony to have the green changed to white!

Then she suddenly thought of Beatrice. That frail little woman had suffered--this; had even said she was glad the grief had come, for it had been the explosion to propel her spirit upward; that before it came her soul had lain on a dust-heap, but the dynamite of sorrow had shot her out of the dust.

All at once Isma realized that her soul had also lain in the dust. It had reared its head once or twice and looked up wonderingly, but had soon lain down again and forgotten. However, was this splintering agony the explosion which would send her soul on its upward flight?

* * * * *

That night Isma went up to her favorite cliff.

She stood for some time gazing out to sea over the great expanse of soft, lilac-colored water, toward the misty, opal-tinted horizon. Ocean and sky seemed peculiarly blended into one. It looked as if the sky had descended and that the ocean was slowly rising out of itself, spiritualized into the unexplored dome of heaven.

The girl watched absently. Then she turned a little and glanced up the coast-line and caught sight of the distant bluff with its tinted face and its half-blind eyes gazing out to sea. She remembered watching it some months ago. Had it been lying staring into space ever since? Why was it so preoccupied? Other headlands stood complacently absorbed in themselves. But this far-away block of stone had turned its back entirely on earth and gazed beyond the coast-line and the heaving waves into the unfathomable spaces above.

Isma looked toward it with deeper interest. Had that silent, rocky monster found what it was seeking, what it had stared itself half blind to find, or was it still pursuing its quest with undaunted persistence? How bare, how uncompromising it looked! It seemed as if it had worn off every blade of grass, every vestige of foliage, in its relentless search.

Its crude barrenness suddenly fascinated her. She saw in it a resemblance to her own life. Had she not been stripped of everything that was dear to her, everything that could make her life glad and beautiful? She had possessed so much, but gradually everything had been torn from her till, naked and bare, her soul stood alone in a vast desolation.

Would her spirit, too, learn to turn its back on earth and stand ever gazing into the spaces beyond the boundary-line of time? What would she find in these mighty spaces?

What was the distant headland seeking? Or had it already obtained satisfaction? And was that the reason it could be so silent and unstirring, so oblivious to its own cruel nakedness, its austere isolation?

Would such a satisfaction come to her if she gazed long enough in the same direction? Was life only one incessant fumbling for something beyond the border-land of earth and sky? What was this elusive something which needed this terrible, concentrated seeking, this cruel stripping of earth glamours, before it could be found? It must be something colossal, something overwhelmingly satisfying, if it were worth the cruel rigors by which alone it could be obtained.

Then suddenly she knew that the great, majestic something hiding in the lofty spaces, who required this all-concentrating seeking, was the Infinite Himself.

She had not thought much about Him before; she had taken Him for granted, as she had taken great abstract things for granted. But now He became a person, a living reality. Her spirit had all at once pressed upward, seen Him, found Him!

She knew now that, all unconsciously to herself, she had been groping for Him all her life, that all souls fumble for Him even though they may not be aware of it; but that very few press up to Him until they had been bleached white by sorrow.

Now she knew He permeated all. His majesty hung like a trailing robe illumining the throbbing atmosphere. He was everywhere. He was everything. How dense she had been not to comprehend Him before!

As she looked into the shimmering spaces it seemed all at once as if her soul had become a filmy fragment of the luminous beauty above her and that it rose timidly, but eagerly, and touched the royal, majestic garments of the Infinite. And somehow she was aware that He felt her pressure and that for the rest of her life there would be some wonderful bond between them! He would never forget the touch, and she could not; it had been like touching the mainspring of life, coming in contact with the Power Station of the universe, the gigantic Power House that set all the machinery of stars, moons, suns, and comets in motion and kept them ever supplied with the forces they needed for their brain-reeling circuits. She had touched _That_, and it was not a that; it was a Person, a living, vital, magnetic Being, approachable, sensitive to touch, waiting for appeal, and eager to be sought!

She stood transfixed with wonder and amazement; so this was--God!

Why did not everybody talk about Him, rave about Him? Why had no one ever told her about Him!

And it was possible to lay a detaining hand on this great, wonderful Being and speak to Him. Yes, prayer was laying a detaining hand on God and speaking to Him--she--knew it now!

She lingered for some time on the cliff, then at last very reluctantly she turned to go.

VIII

THE DAWN

Isma began to descend the headland; in her heart burned a great exaltation and in her eyes shone an infinite peace. A solemn, majestic twilight crept up from the plain below, wrapping its dusky mantle about the far-away hills and the imposing cliffs.

It was getting late; she began to hurry down to the road which climbed from the flats over the lower shoulder of the headland.

As she was half-way down the steep slope she saw a tall figure coming up toward her.

Could Falcon have returned earlier than he expected? He did not think he could reach home till midnight or the next morning. Her heart gave a joyous bound. But no, this was not her cousin’s strong, broad-shouldered figure.

All at once she stood still, for she had recognized the man--it was Lord Berriedale.

For a moment a horrible fear seized her. The thought of the utter loneliness of the place, Falcon miles and miles away, not a house in sight, her home too far away for protection, no one able to hear her call, made her waver in alarm. But she shook her fears from her. Why should she be afraid? Were not the spaces above her filled with the Infinite to Himself, the God she had just discovered? Nothing could harm her in His presence. Her lofty peace returned.

The man had climbed rapidly and reached her now.

“Good evening, Isma,” he said, a little out of breath, and the girl noticed he looked strangely excited. “Isma,” he continued, with curious agitation, “I have come to--take you--away.”

She glanced at him quickly. “Is Beatrice worse?” she inquired, anxiously.

“No, she is not worse. But we are not going to The--Bluff--”

“Whatever do you mean?” the girl asked, perplexedly.

“Why, just this, that I can’t stand things as they are any longer and that I am going to--take you away.”

“Take me away?” she repeated, in uncomprehending astonishment.

“Yes, away from everything and everybody and have you all to myself,” he said, with feverish doggedness.

“But you surely can’t be in earnest--”

“Of course I am. I have never been so much in earnest about anything.”

“But--but--” she still spoke with vague bewilderment.

“There are to be no more ‘buts’; the car is here, our suit-cases in it. I have ordered rooms--”

“Our suit-cases--mine?” Her eyes had widened.

“Yes. Everything is arranged. I went to your house first, you know, saw Miss Livingston, who directed me here. I told her Beatrice was much worse and that I am going to take you back with me and asked her to put you up a few things, and she packed your suit-case, and your coat and hat and everything are in the car.”

“Lord Berriedale, have you gone quite mad?” she exclaimed, regarding him in utter amazement.

“Yes, I think I am mad, but it is all with love for you. I only know that I want you and that I am going to have you.”

Isma had turned very pale. She began to realize that the man before her was desperate. Whatever could she do with him?

However, before she could reply, he continued, rapidly: “Isma, if you will only come with me I promise to make you happy! I know you are afraid of a conventional law which binds me at present to--another. But I tell you conventions are nothing; they are only like obstacles in a race made to be leaped over by those who have courage and dash enough to take them! And you need not fear the censure of the world. Society always applauds those who audaciously clear the barriers placed to scare away the feeble from their desired goal.”

“You are quite mistaken, Lord Berriedale. Conventions are not like hurdles in a race; they are protecting fences, keeping people from slipping into horrible ditches.” She spoke evenly and calmly.

“Even pitfalls may be safely crossed. I will see that you do not get hurt. I swear it! We will soon be able to marry and in a few years go home, and then everything will be all right.”

“I absolutely refuse to believe you can be serious, that you really mean to insult me by making such an outrageous proposition!” Isma suddenly seemed to have grown taller.

“Of course I am serious--”

“But even if you have forgotten about Beatrice, your wife and my friend, there is--my cousin.”

He laughed mirthlessly. “Now don’t refer to that sham engagement of yours. Good Lor’! Isma, what do you take me for? Do you think I am taken in by that hoax! Why, any fool can see it is only a fake, one of your cousin’s ingenious devices to shield you from--scandal.”

“You have no right to say that.”

He took a step nearer and looked her full in the face. “You know it is the truth. Now, Isma, can you give me your word of honor that you are really going to _marry_ your cousin? Is your engagement a real one, with kisses and hot embraces?”

There was no sound in the dimness but the flutter of dusky wings and the deep thud of waves crashing against the rocks far below them on the seaward side of the cliff.

“So he has not even kissed you! I knew it!”

“I refuse to answer your impertinent questions.”

“They are not impertinent. I have a right to find out; for if you are not another man’s property, it is all the more reason why you should be mine.”

“Still, I do belong to my cousin, for I--love him.”

The man confronting her laughed again. “Do you really expect me to believe that, when you don’t even allow him to kiss you? No, Isma, women do not treat men they love the way you treat him.”

“All the same, I am speaking the truth. I love him with all my heart.” She made the confession with superb dignity.

“But, Isma, I can teach you to forget him. If you are taken from him, you will in time love me. I can always make women love me, if I try.”

“You could never make me forget him, and I could never love you in any case.”

“Isma, I can make you care. Only give me a chance. Come away with me where I can have you to myself--”

“Please don’t repeat that horrible insult.”

“And do you mean to say you blankly refuse to link your future with mine?”

“It is unnecessary to answer such a question. And now I really must go home.” She made a movement toward the road, but he stepped in front of her and blocked the way.

“You don’t suppose I shall let you go, do you? After all this waiting and these weeks of torment I mean to have what I want now, and if I cannot have it with your consent I must take it without. But, Isma”--he had spoken bruskly; now he added, in a softer tone--“I do not want to hurt you, do not want to use force.”

“Force?” she questioned, incredulously. “Nowadays a man cannot take a woman and run away with her against her will. It can’t be done.”

“I did not mean that. There are other ways of gaining my end.”

What could he mean? Would he embrace and caress her as he had commenced to do on the night of the picnic? Her heart beat with sudden alarm; the thought of his touch was revolting. Still almost instantly she grew calm again. God was there, brooding over the earth. He would protect her.

As there was no reply, her companion said, “Isma, don’t drive me to anything that might be--distasteful to you.”

“I don’t understand you,” she said, confident he was powerless to hurt her.

“Then I will explain. It comes to this. I mean to have you at any cost. If you will not do as I ask, I will keep you here all night, and when to-morrow comes--you will be glad enough to--comply with my terms.”

She drew a hard breath. “Lord Berriedale, is it possible you can be such a fiend as to deliberately set about ruining my reputation? Haven’t you hurt me enough already?”

“I don’t _want_ to do it; that is just what I am trying to make clear to you. But if you refuse my request--can’t you understand there is nothing else for me to do? You see,” he continued, “though that fool engagement of yours does not mean anything, it has annoyed me a good deal. I can’t stand seeing you regarded as another man’s property. You have dangled that confounded cousin of yours before me too long, and now the engagement must come to an end.”

“But--I should not break off my engagement because of--that.”

“No, but he will.”

“No, he will not. He would believe me when I told him the truth,” she cried, in panting anger.

“What truth?” inquired her companion, with a leering smile.

“That--that--”

“My dear Isma, when to-morrow comes you will not want to meet your cousin’s searching eyes.”

She gasped in the darkness. “Have you become a demon as well as a maniac?” she asked, her eyes wide and dark with horror.

“I may be both to-night; still I--love you! And Isma,” he went on, “if you want to know who loves you most you can find out now. After to-night your cousin will never come near you again; he will not touch you or have anything more to do with you--that is the extent of his affection! Now mine is different! I would take you stained, smirched, any way, anyhow, as long as I had you. Your cousin will only take you if he can have flower, bloom, and all. I would receive you even if all the bloom had been rubbed away. Still, of course--I would rather have you as you are--”

While he was speaking she had crushed back her dread. She refused to believe that God could forsake her; her soul had pressed up toward Him, she had touched Him, He would not forget that touch!

“But you cannot have--me at all.” There was no fear in her voice; it was serene and unwavering.

Lord Berriedale looked at her wonderingly. Was her courage unconquerable or did she fail to realize her imminent danger?

“What is to stop me? I am stronger than you.”

“God,” she said, raising her face suddenly. “Don’t you believe in Him?”

“God,” he repeated, taken aback. “I dare say there is such a Being. I wouldn’t refute the theory; but what has He got to do with it?”

“He will take care of me.”

“Do you think He has time to patrol these lonely shores looking after one woman? He is too much occupied with stars, suns, and millions of worlds.”

“He is everywhere,” she said, with quiet solemnity. “He is here filling these great spaces, bending over the world. I have found that out to-night. He is great enough to look after everybody. He has fought even for one woman who needs Him on these lonely shores.”

“Time will tell. However, I did not come here to talk theology; I have arranged a far more interesting program.”

The dusk had deepened; but even in the semi-darkness Isma looked beautiful. The suggestion of white skin, flashes of luminous eyes, the slender lines of her form, the grace of shoulders and hips, were made mystically alluring by the veiling shadows.

“Great Cæsar! you are lovely!” the man cried, a wild gleam in his eyes.

Then he made a movement as if he would have caught her to him, but she recoiled in horror, her face blanched to a deathlike pallor.

Was Lord Berriedale right? Had God no thought for one individual? Was He too much occupied with worlds and stars to notice her pitiless plight!

She heard the gulping of the waves on the other side of the headland. It seemed as if they were trying to attract her attention, hoarsely calling her to them.

If God would not protect her, the sea might; in its cold arms she would be safe. Of course that would mean she could never see Falcon again, yet if the Infinite did not send her help she would not be able to look into her cousin’s clean, questioning gaze in any case. There was no alternative but--the waves.

She turned quickly and rushed up the steep slope that led to the cone-shaped summit.

But her companion guessed her intention. In a moment he was beside her and laid hold of her arm.

“Isma,” he said, in a voice shaking a little, “you shall not do that, you shall not! Isma,” he went on, facing her, “would you really rather be embraced by the cold waves of death than by--me?”

For a moment her confidence had wavered, and in her desperation she would have thrown herself into the sea. Now her trust returned. God could not, would not leave her in the lurch. He must protect her!

The man before her repeated his question.

“A thousand times yes,” she answered, with a courage and dignity he could not comprehend.

“But you have no choice.” He laughed, in an ugly, blood-curdling way. “To-night we shall see who is the stronger, your--God or the demon in me.”

In the dimness his eyes suddenly glittered upon her with ungoverned rage and something even more hideous.

She shuddered and drew back, but he sprang forward and clutched her to him.

She closed her eyes in terror and everything reeled into an agonized blackness. But instantly she pulled herself together. No, she must not faint, must not lose courage; even on the brink of ruin help would be sent her; the man holding her in the strangling embrace would not be allowed to conquer.

She opened her eyes and as she looked over his shoulder her attention was arrested by two points of light rushing madly across the plain. It was a motor, driven at a frenzied speed toward the cliff.

Some human being was near, help was at hand! If only she could reach the road before the car passed the top of the track and turned down the other side of the headland! But how was she to get away from the iron grip which held her?

Another desperate prayer-rocket flashed from her soul.

In the struggle they had moved and Lord Berriedale suddenly stumbled over a large stone. His hold on Isma relaxed for a second. She wrenched herself away. He fell heavily to the ground and she ran frantically toward the road.

The car was mounting the steep ascent now. In a few minutes it would reach the summit of the hill; she rushed on faster. To call would be useless; no voice could be heard from a distance above the loud panting of the machine. She hastened her flying steps. She must not stumble; if she fell-- But no, she would not fall on the rough, uneven slope-- He who was helping her would see to that!

A few more steps and she had reached the road and stood, a white, ghostlike figure, a few yards in front of the rapidly approaching motor.

There was a quick clapping on of brakes, the car stopped almost instantly, and a well-known form leaped from the driver’s seat.

It was Falcon! She was safe!

She took a step forward, made a little appealing movement; then his arms caught her and gathered her to him.

“Oh, Falcon!” she moaned, piteously, the swift relief and the sense of the awful horror she had been through mingling in the cry.

“Good Heavens! Isma, whatever has happened?” her cousin asked, in terrible agitation.

But she did not reply. She stood leaning against him, her body shaking with long, sobbing breaths.

“Isma, what has happened? For God’s sake, tell me!” he implored, with frantic concern. “Is it--Berriedale again?”

She shuddered and suddenly clung to him.

He breathed in a tense, jerky way as he drew her closer and asked no more questions.

They stood for some time in deep, agitated silence, heart throbbing against heart, frenzied anxiety mingling with remembered terrors and quivering relief; a silence which held clinging arms, enfolding protection, a strength steadying weakness.

Then gradually into the stillness crept an exquisite peace. The girl’s shuddering sobs abated. The ghastly horrors, the hideous scene on the cliff receded, and Isma was conscious only of the man who held her. She was resting against his breast and in his embrace was something stronger than protection. A great joy stole into her heart; her breathing became deep, even, calm.

“Are you feeling better now?” asked Falcon, at length, bending over her.

He felt the long sigh of utter contentment that passed through her.

“You are--too good to me, Falcon,” she whispered, in a voice heavy with happiness.

“This has--comforted you?”

Something in his tone roused her.

“Oh, Falcon, you know it,” she breathed, tremulously, dropping her head to his shoulder.

His breast heaved as he strained her to him.

Her languorous serenity had gone. A wild joy rushed into her soul! He loved her! She knew it now! There was famine in his arms, an insatiable hunger. His touch reminded her of the drought-stricken plains, his words about the pain of being scorched came back to her. He had been terribly scorched; she could feel how cruelly he had burned and suffered. The knowledge strangely excited her and set her aflame with a desperate yearning to satisfy his parched emotions. And with her longing to comfort him she became more acutely conscious of his nearness; the delight of lying pressed against his breast grew into an agonized sweetness almost too intense to be borne! The strength went out of her limbs, her whole body trembled with an ecstasy of weakness.

“Good God! Isma, how shall I ever let you go!” he ejaculated, as he crushed her to him afresh.

He had drawn her away from the glare of the motor-lamps and the soft darkness enveloped and isolated them. They stood panting, moved with an agitated rapture, conquered by their emotions, cemented together by an anguish of love.

There were footsteps approaching, but in their delirious oblivion they had not heard them. Now Lord Berriedale spoke close beside them.

Dazed, they drew slowly apart.

“Sorry--very sorry to--disturb you,” he was saying, “but I am afraid I must trouble you to drive me home, Folkestone.”

Instantly Isma and her lover became conscious of their surroundings. They were standing on the cliff road beside the car. Their minds began to pick up the threads of the past. The horrible experience the girl had passed through came back to her, only softened and robbed of its power to hurt her.

Falcon remembered the long, harassing day he had spent, the terrible speed at which he had traveled all those hot sun-scorched hours, beset by fear and awful foreboding that urged him ever at a more frantic pace toward the girl who might need him! He had not stopped at his own home on the way, but was rushing straight on to The Palms when Isma’s terror-stricken form arrested him on the road.

But he must reply to the man who had just spoken.

“I wonder you dare to come near me, Berriedale,” he said, trying to control his anger. “Don’t you know that I am the last man you should encounter just now?”

“You are not a brute, Folkestone, and I am badly hurt--arm smashed, knee injured as well; can’t possibly drive my car back, and I am alone to-night.”

Isma came up to him quickly. “Lord Berriedale, did you get hurt--when you--fell?”

“No,” he answered her, hastily, “not then, only as I was trying to reach the track I must have got out of my course a bit, for I stepped into air and landed on some jagged rocks--that did the damage.”

“Come here into the lamplight and let us see what is the matter,” said Captain Folkestone, moving to the front of the motor.

But the injured man refused. “No, thanks,” he said, decidedly. “I am not going to have Miss Folkestone harassed with that sight. However, if you will be kind enough to let me sit down and take me home at once I shall be grateful.”

Falcon opened the door of his motor and Lord Berriedale limped into the nearest seat, and they noticed his left hand held the right arm bent against his chest.

Captain Folkestone started the engine quickly, Isma sat down beside him, and silently they stole down the steep descent.

The girl looked into the soft darkness where the cliffs stood out like phantom battlements against the dim summer-night sky. The air was warm and laden with languorous fragrance from the bush and the pungent odor from the sea. Far down in the swarthy gloom she could hear the passionate sighs of the waves as they cast themselves against the rocks.

As they approached The Palms, Isma said, without looking at her cousin: “Falcon, will you let me come with you to The Bluff? I may be of some use and--I--” she added, in a lower voice--“I want to come.”

“No, not to-night,” he said, reluctantly. “You see, I may be very late getting back. I must get Berriedale to bed and wait till the doctor arrives. It would be too much for you; you are tired--”

“But you are tired, too, after that long, strenuous day. Please let me come,” she urged, turning to him.

“No, I mustn’t be so selfish. You need a good sleep--”

They had reached the avenue.

Falcon sprang out to help the girl to alight and walked over to the gate with her. There she stopped him, saying: “Now don’t come any farther. I shall be all right. Take him home quickly. He is in great pain.”

“I think I had better come up to the house with you.”

“No, no, please don’t. Get Lord Berriedale home as soon as possible. He must be suffering dreadfully.”

She held out her hand to him as she said, in moved tones: “Falcon, I can’t express all I want to say to-night. I--”

“Neither can I--just now.”

He pressed her hand in a deep, intimate way in the darkness and his touch was an embrace.

“Good night,” she whispered.

“Good night,” he said, stooping over her. “Isma, I am coming to you to-morrow for my summer and--my Paradise.”

Isma was still by the gate when the throb of the machine had died into silence. She stood riveted to the spot where her lover’s hand had touched her and where he had bidden her the brief but significant good night. She felt dazed and numb, yet curiously alive. So much had happened since she left the palm avenue some hours before. The night had been crowded with events. First, there had been the exalted experience on the cliff--the never-to-be-forgotten finding of God! The headland had been a lofty temple, a sacred Bethel where the spaces had revealed to her the presence of the Infinite.

Then had come the horror of her encounter with Lord Berriedale. She shivered again as she thought of it. But the fearful wrestling with evil had given her new confidence in God. He had not forsaken her. He had sent Falcon to rescue her, save her! Her eyes suddenly shone in the darkness. This beautiful, dreadful evening had also brought her the revelation of her cousin’s love. Her breathing fluttered and one hand went up as if to steady her throbbing heart. The thought of their time together on the road overwhelmed and bewildered her.

Above her the palm leaves murmured drowsily and at intervals she heard the dull crash of sleepy waves as they tumbled headlong and confused on the dreaming sand.

The girl also began to feel oddly confused. She tried to think clearly, but could not. Everything had all at once become blurred and unreal; nothing was real any more except the burning pressure of Falcon’s arms and--her great trust in the Infinite.

She made her way slowly toward the house. She was very tired. She must go to bed, sleep long, and dream of her lover’s embraces and the watching, caring--God.

IX

CRUCIFIED!

It was nine o’clock. The sun streamed into Isma’s room, but the girl was still fast asleep, her long hair billowing like a cloud of flaxen gold around her.

Miss Livingston opened the door gently and entered the room with a breakfast tray.

“Still asleep, Baby?” she said, softly moving nearer the bed and gazing with admiring devotion on the fresh, luxuriant beauty of the sleeper.

“I brought your breakfast up, deary,” she said, a little louder, placing the tray on a small table near the bed, and as the girl stirred and opened her long-fringed eyelids, heavy with sleep, she continued, “so you came back, after all, last night. Minnie heard you come in. Here is a letter for you,” she added, as Isma, now awake, held out gleaming white arms for her morning embrace.

“You had better read the note, dearest. It came from The Bluff just now and the man--”

Her companion sat up, tore open the envelop, and read its contents hurriedly. As she read the rich bloom faded a little from her cheeks.

“Lord Berriedale had an accident on the cliff last night,” Isma explained to the elder woman when she had put down the note. “He stepped into one of those deep, rocky hollows and was very much hurt. Falcon drove him home. Beatrice says his right arm is badly fractured, a nerve is injured, and the doctor doesn’t think he will ever get the use of his arm again. Also one knee is sprained. Of course Beatrice is dreadfully upset. I must get up and go to her immediately. I won’t wait for breakfast.”

“You needn’t hurry so much as that. The chauffeur has to find Lord Berriedale’s car. It appears he left it somewhere up on the cliff road last night. That will take a little while, so you will have plenty of time for breakfast. By the way, I thought Falcon had gone up north. How did he happen to be in this neighborhood, too?”

“He must have hurried terribly to get back so early--”

“I suppose he came to look after you. Isma, I wonder do you half appreciate his wonderful care of you? It is really marvelous the way he watches over you. I have never seen such devotion! And you are so horribly cruel to him. Fancy, all the time you have been engaged you have not given him one single evening. It is a wonder he puts up with it!”

The girl laughed happily. “Are you going to lecture me on that subject, too! But there is no need now, I assure you. For the future I am not going to neglect him, I promise you!”

When Isma was ready to start she said to Miss Livingston: “If Falcon comes over this morning, please explain that Beatrice sent for me, and ask him to come back this afternoon. I shall be home by three o’clock; but tell him I don’t want him to come to The Bluff for me. I want to see him here.”

Lady Berriedale was lying on a couch in the sunny morning-room when Miss Folkestone arrived. She stretched her hand out to the girl and said, in a choked little voice: “You are a dear to come. I want you specially to-day, for you will be able to--comfort Neville. I--cannot.”

Isma bent and kissed the tremulous lips. “Beatrice dear, don’t say such things. Of course you can comfort--him.”

The frail, agitated woman took the girl’s cool hands between her own feverish ones and pressed them solemnly. “Isma, you don’t know what it means to see the man I worship suffering as Neville is suffering and being unable to make things easier for him! You can have no idea what it is like to stand aside helpless and inert--lie in here because I am not wanted--there.” She made a pathetic little gesture in the direction of her husband’s room. Then all at once she turned her large, burning eyes on her companion. “But _you_ can soothe him, _you_ can comfort him.” She waved the girl’s attempt at protest impatiently aside. “No, Isma, it is no use bolstering me up with false hope. I have had my eyes opened. Neville told me--this morning”--she lowered her eyes and the flush in her cheeks deepened--“what he--meant to--do-- All. Only, Isma”--she glanced up imploringly--“don’t judge him too harshly. Remember he was desperate, beside himself, mad with longing and love! Life had become unbearable without you. Can’t you understand? But he does love you, he does--in the same hot, impetuous way that I--love him.” She stopped suddenly, choking, then, making a great effort to control her voice, she continued, “Isma, do you really--love your cousin, for--if you don’t--”

The girl started. “You know I do, Beatrice.”

“You have said so, but you have not acted like it, and that made me think that if, after all--you didn’t--care for him, there might be--hope for--Neville--later,” she finished with supreme courage.

“Beatrice, how can you--suggest such a thing?” cried the girl, her eyes wide with pain. “It is too terrible! Besides, I swear to you I love Falcon. There was a misunderstanding between us, but it has been cleared away now--”

“Ah, I see. I am glad for your sake. Still--how I wish it might have been--otherwise for--Neville.”

“Beatrice, you surely can’t wish that!” Isma exclaimed, unutterably touched by the depths of her friend’s selfless devotion.

“I do wish it, Isma; I mean it. I should feel happier when I--go if only you might have--cared for him.”

Great tears sprang into the golden-gray eyes and splashed down the girl’s softly curving cheeks.

“Beatrice,” she whispered, “I can’t bear it--I can’t!”

“You see, I love him--and you,” said her companion, simply.

After a sad, tremulous pause Lady Berriedale continued: “Isma, will you go to him now? He--needs you.”

Miss Folkestone drew back quickly. “Not that, Beatrice--not that!” she pleaded, in alarm.

“Yes,” persisted the woman on the couch, eagerly. “I want you to do it, Isma. Do it for my sake if you will not do it for--his.”

“Oh no, Beatrice, don’t ask that,” she replied, still struggling against the inevitable.

“Now, Isma, be kind. You will have so much happiness in the future, can’t you at least spare him a little sympathy?”

Her companion saw it was useless to try to escape the ordeal. “Very well, if you insist on it, I will go, but only if you come with me.”

The invalid rose from among the cushions and, leaning on the arm of her tall, strong friend, they walked together to the injured man’s apartment.

On the threshold Lady Berriedale stood still and said, “Isma has come to see you, Neville”; then she pushed the girl gently into the room and closed the door behind her.

Lord Berriedale lay white and large-eyed among a pile of elaborate pillows, his damaged arm, bandaged and in splints, resting stiffly on the coverlet. His face was drawn and its pallor accentuated by his black eyes and his pale-blue silk sleeping-suit.

A light flittered over his features as Isma came toward him. The color had died out of her cheeks, but her face looked peculiarly calm.

The man on the bed moved his left hand as if he would have held it out to her, then suddenly checked himself.

“I suppose you would rather not shake hands,” he said, a little awkwardly.

“It is hardly necessary,” replied his visitor, in a voice that harmonized with the serenity of her expression.

He gazed at her with questioning scrutiny. “I wonder why you have come?” he reflected, aloud.

“Because Beatrice wished it and because you are in--pain.”

He laughed in a hollow, mocking way. “And so you are sorry for me because of--this.” He pointed scornfully to the bandaged arm. “A slight hurt like that will rouse your pity, but when I am racked body and soul in the inferno itself you pass me by unmoved!” He tried to raise himself, dragging at the injured arm in his effort to reach out and draw a chair nearer the bed.

“Don’t--please don’t move,” said Isma, hastily, moving the chair closer and sitting down beside him.

“What does it matter about these wretched limbs!” He laughed again. “The pain in them is a mere pin-prick, a pleasure, a delight, compared to--the other!”

“Please don’t refer to that,” replied the girl, looking away.

“I thought you had come to give me a little--sympathy!”

“So I have.”

“Then give it to me about the thing I need it most.”

The fierce appeal in his voice made her glance at him. He looked haggard and his eyes seemed strangely glazed.

Miss Folkestone sighed suddenly.

“Isma,” he began, regarding her intently, “are you--sorry at last?”

“I am,” she replied, steadily.

“You don’t--hate me quite as much as--usual?”

“I should never have hated you at all if--” She ceased speaking and looked down at her hands moving restlessly in her lap.

“I have been a consummate ass! I might have known _you_ were not won the way I have always tried to--gain you,” he said, bitterly. “Your cousin was wiser than I, after all. Last night I thought him a perfect fool for not making better use of his opportunities; but I see now he knew what he was about; he could wait, and that is where I have failed!”

“Is that the--_only_ thing you have--found out?” Her clear eyes looked questioningly into his.

“No,” he replied, a faint color creeping into his pallid face, “I have been more than a--fool--I have been--”

She stopped him with a gesture. “You need not say it.”

“Isma,” he said, after a silence, “I should like to ask you to--forgive me; but I suppose that is too much to expect--”

She did not reply at once, so he continued: “I meant to-- Well, you know what I--intended last night--but please remember that I was maddened with longing for you. I couldn’t endure the talk of your marrying your cousin, couldn’t tolerate seeing him near you--though he had little enough for an engaged man, Heaven knows! But you made it all up to him last night, didn’t you! Can you imagine what it meant to me to see you together--like that! The sight has been with me ever since. I can’t forget it; it has been burned into the very tissues of my brain! Isma, I am being punished--fearfully punished--”

“I am so--very sorry,” murmured his companion, confused and troubled.

But the man did not seem to hear her.

“I wonder,” he reflected, aloud, “how many men you have driven to distraction.”

“Lord Berriedale, I have not come to discuss these things with you,” she said, with gentle firmness.

Again he did not heed her. “Isma, why don’t you understand? Why have you no sympathy with the poor devils you are sending--to hell!”

The girl shivered. “How can you say that to me! I have never given men any--encouragement!”

“I know it. It is not your fault, of course. It is your magnetic, extravagant womanhood, your bewildering loveliness, which does the damage! You are no coquette; no one knows this better than I. You are the purest, the most noble woman I have ever come across; still, you draw us to our destruction all the same. Your personality is like champagne that goes to the head--”

“Lord Berriedale, please don’t talk like that or I shall have to leave you. You mentioned beauty of character. Why are you so blind? Why can’t you see that the most beautiful, most self-sacrificing woman who ever lived is the one linked to your life? She is the personification of selflessness and goodness! If you had heard what she said to me this morning, I think it would have touched even your heart and made you rejoice that you had been given such a wife!”

The man beside her sighed deeply. “Beatrice is good,” he assented, “and if I had only been her brother-- But her husband--” A shudder passed through his frame. “Isma, you can’t know what it means to be--that to a woman you feel toward as a--sister, while your whole vitalized manhood clamors for--some one else! Isma, it is--hell--_hell_!” He reiterated the last word in a voice which made the listening girl turn cold. She thought all at once what it would mean to surrender her womanhood to any one but Falcon. It would be ghastly! So the man beside her had suffered like _that_!

Instantly she stretched out her hand to him and he clasped it eagerly. “Isma, do you understand--at last?”

“I think so,” she replied, very softly.

Lord Berriedale released her hand and took a pocketbook from under his pillow, opened it, and took out a few loose papers on which were written some verses.

“This is a Danish poem,” he said, handing her the sheets. “A friend of mine translated it and gave me a copy. The translation is a very rough one, but the meaning is clear. Read it and you may understand a little more fully what I have been through.”

Isma read:

CRUCIFIED

As I looked over the earth I saw cross beside cross. I saw them raised, I heard them fall; Bloodstained were they all. Crosses for the living I saw they were. Crucified they hung, Pair beside pair. Strange moans rang into the air, Sobbing their torment by day and night. Crucified they hung To the same brutal wood, Man to woman, Soul to soul!

Not wedded by heart-bonds, Not tied by love’s rapture, Condemned to suffer lifelong years, Bleeding together, hand by hand! Blanched they hung on the same ghastly tree Hand to hand, Foot to foot, Knee to knee. Who suffered most God alone knew!

If one hand is clenched in rebellious revolt, And the pair struggle who are tied together, The nails cut deeper into the wound--! The flesh must be ripped If one will be freed. And yet forever the scar will burn! Man and woman, You _must_ learn Those nails will hold Till life shall end!

Never again the gap will heal, Never will close the bleeding wounds, Even after days and years. The torment you shared, The blood ye bled At the same moment, Will bind you together Till the slumbers of death!

Once bound, ye hang Hopelessly chained Foot to foot, Hand to hand, Bearing the nail-prints Till life’s solemn end-- Crucified! Crucified! To the same fatal wood Man to woman, Soul to soul!

For a long time she did not raise her eyes from the paper, but when at last she looked up tears glistened in her lashes and her lips trembled. “Is it like that?” she breathed, a sob in her voice.

“Yes,” he murmured, an odd glassiness in his gaze.

Impulsively the girl bent over him. “I forgive you--now,” she whispered.

“Because you have seen--the cross?”

“Yes,” she faltered.

Lord Berriedale looked out of one of the windows at the stirring, sunlit ocean, and the curious fixedness in his glance made Isma think suddenly of the bare cliff she had watched the night before, gazing abstractedly out to sea.

“Lord Berriedale,” she said, softly, “perhaps it is only from the cross that we learn to look beyond the scenes of earth--”

“Yes, perhaps so. But what do we find--there?” he asked, almost wearily.

A very bright color leaped into the girl’s face and she dropped her eyes for a moment in reverent shyness. Then she lifted them suddenly and said, in a low, clear voice, “There we find--God.”

The man turned to her. “And--God protected you, after all--last night. He did not fail you and--He was stronger than the demon in me. Isn’t it strange,” he continued, looking down on his bandaged limb, “that the arm which held you so cruelly will never be of--use to me--again.”

She gazed at him with dazzling tenderness.

“I am sorry--so very grieved. Still--perhaps from your cross you, too, will find--the Infinite.”

He shaded his eyes with his hand, and they were both silent for some minutes.

“Perhaps,” he murmured, at last.

Then with another gentle pressure on his fingers Isma stole softly out of the room.

X

MIGRATING BIRDS

When Isma left Lord Berriedale’s room she walked out on the balcony and stood looking over the vast country that stretched beyond the garden and avenue.

She wanted to be alone and have time to think. Her whole being was in a turmoil. She felt as if she had been standing at the foot of a cross and witnessed a terrible crucifixion. The man she had just left was hanging on the cruel wood; she had never realized his suffering before. Now her heart went out to him in burning pity. He had sinned, sinned hideously; he had made desperate attempts to tear away from the nails which held him; but each effort had only torn at the wounds and increased his pain.

And Beatrice? She was on the same cross, enduring fresh lacerations each time her husband tried to break away.

Isma sat down in one of the low balcony chairs.

The world was full of crosses; she could see them now. It seemed as if it held nothing but those instruments of torture--a whole vast globe full of them! Cross beside cross, rearing up their naked, cruel forms, as desolate sentinels on graves! The earth had been changed into a great cemetery--not a calm resting-place for the dead, but a graveyard for the living. This acre of the dead held alive men and women, who could moan, weep, laugh harsh, bitter laughter, abuse one another, tear at one another’s wounds, men and women who bled, who made themselves and one another bleed!

Isma pressed her hands, tightly against her eyes. So _this_ ghastly thing was--life!

Presently her hands dropped from her face and she looked into the cloudless blue spaces arching high above the endless sun-bleached plains.

For some time she sat motionless, gazing into the immense blueness. Out there was the Infinite and peace. But if He were all-powerful, living Himself in the region of calm, why did He allow this agonized suffering on the earth? Could He not bring peace there also? He had made the earth beautiful, ravishingly lovely! It was a vast, enchanting paradise ablaze with flowers, alive with chirping birds, humming with insects, shimmering with white, radiant sunlight. Why had this place of wonderful beauty been turned into a graveyard? Why--why?

Then suddenly as she glanced dreamily about her the bare, ugly crosses seemed to change. They were no longer instruments of torture, hewn together to rack their unfortunate victims. They had all at once become pillars which raised those who hung on them above the earth, so that they might have a clear vision of the Infinite who was trying to draw their attention to Himself.

The girl closed her eyes. Understanding had suddenly come to her.

“So here you are, Isma! I did not know you had left Neville. How is he? Were you able to comfort him?” asked Lady Berriedale, who had just come out on to the balcony.

“I don’t know about that, but don’t worry over him, Beatrice. All will come right. He is fighting through.”

A great tenderness welled up in Isma’s heart for the friend who loved so desperately, so selflessly, the man chained to her who had failed to satisfy her burning passion.

“Beatrice,” said the girl, taking the hot, restless hands, “I do feel all is going to come right between you--”

“How can you say that when you know everything as you do?” There was deep reproach in the rasping voice.

“I can’t explain, Beatrice, but I feel it. It came to me quite suddenly just now.”

“That all will come right?”

“Yes.”

Lady Berriedale sighed. “I don’t see how it can.”

“No, you may not see that; still, it will.” There was conviction in the words.

“Do you really think he will ever--love me?”

“Yes,” Isma replied, with a far-away look in her eyes. Apparently she was gazing at something so distant that it was beyond the scene spreading before her.

“Isma,” said her friend, with awe in her voice, “you are not thinking of--earth.”

“No, I was thinking of a beautiful experience I had early last evening,” and she told her eager listener about the staring bluff and the discovery she had made on the headland. “And do you know, Beatrice,” she continued, a flush in her cheeks and warmth in her voice, “that it has made everything different. On the way here this morning, as I looked at the sea, the coast-line, the breakers, the flowers, the hills, the clouds, it came to me that all the color, the exquisite outline of form, the grace, the radiance, were merely the shadow of His wonderful personality; that the tender loveliness here was only God’s shadow cast on the earth to remind us of Him and His gorgeous beauty.”

“Isma, how glorious! How I wish I had thoughts about God like that! Still,” she continued, perplexity coming in her voice once more, “I don’t see the connection between that and Neville loving me again.”

“Why, don’t you see when He is so close, when He has power to do everything, He can put things right for you? There was a terrible misunderstanding between Falcon and myself, but He put it right last night.”

“I am truly glad to hear that, but--I have only such a little time--left.” The big black eyes glistened with a dewy brilliance.

“Life for all of us is only brief. We are like birds that come here for the summer, build nests, and then migrate to another shore.”

Her companion shivered. “Isma--the migrating is so--terrible--the flight over the fathomless ocean with its engulfing water awful!” She trembled again. “If only, like the birds, we might migrate in flocks, have warm companionship, familiar forms taking the journey with us-- But for one solitary little bird to start alone across those heaving waters--”

There were footsteps in the hall. Now Rex appeared in the doorway. “Captain Folkestone is at the ’phone and wants to speak to you,” he said, addressing Isma.

The girl rose. The thought of Falcon suddenly overwhelmed her; she had been living in the sorrows of others. Now her own happiness returned to her with the suddenness of a delicious shock.

She hurried down-stairs, picked up the receiver and said a very breathless “Hullo!” into the instrument.

“Is that you, Isma?” came Falcon’s low, pleasant voice in her ear.

“Yes,” she answered, her heart beating so rapidly she could scarcely speak.

“How are you--terribly knocked up to-day?” There was keen anxiety in the words.

“No, splendid, thank you!” she assured him, with a sudden radiance in her tones. His tender concern had steadied her and brought her an exuberant joy.

“That sounded fine! I was so afraid you would be tired out.”

“Not at all; but--did you go over to The Palms this morning?”

“Of course. Do you think I could wait till this afternoon?”

Her happy laugh rippled into the ’phone. “How nice of you!”

“I should have come to The Bluff after you if it hadn’t been for your message telling me to wait. I really came to carry you off for the day. I wanted to take you a few miles up the coast and make you rest on the sands all day and--play with me.”

“That would have been--lovely! I am so sorry I have missed it; but there is still--to-morrow.”

“I have other plans for that.”

“Really? What are they?”

“I can’t explain just now--I will tell you this afternoon.”

“Is it something--nice?”

“Yes, heavenly!”

“Then I am longing to hear it.”

“You sha’n’t wait a moment longer than I can help! But I mustn’t keep you standing any longer. You won’t be late this afternoon, will you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Alas! I must say good-by till then,” he said, reluctantly.

“Never mind, time will soon pass and this afternoon will come--”

“This morning seems to be the longest I have ever spent--but I suppose three o’clock is bound to come round some time.”

“Yes--it won’t be long now--so good-by.”

“Good-by till--summer.”

XI

THISTLE-DOWN

Captain Folkestone had just finished speaking to Isma on the ’phone and had gone into his sitting-room and stood by the mantelpiece looking at a large bowl of sulphur-colored roses; his cheeks were flushed and in his eyes was still the strong light his talk with the girl had brought there.

The room was very charming with its high-paneled wainscoting of blackwood, its dark-brown felt carpet strewn with golden-brown rugs, its handsome blackwood furniture and long tusser curtains that hung in graceful folds by the large open windows through which the warm summer air, heavily perfumed by flowers, came softly into the room.

An excited bee shot in from the garden and darted noisily about the room.

Falcon watched it with detached interest. The bee made a sudden exit just as his attention was arrested by the buzzing of a motor.

He glanced out into the riot of sunshine and flowers, in the direction where the long drive lined with flame-trees opened into the garden, and saw a car making its way rapidly toward the house.

He started a little; it was Lord Berriedale’s big motor. It took the turning to the front door with an elegant swing and stopped abruptly.

The chauffeur opened the door and a small, closely veiled woman got out--it was Miss Brentford.

If Captain Folkestone was surprised, his face did not betray his feelings when presently the visitor was shown into the room and he greeted her in his usual courteous manner, which held graceful ease as well as a touch of formality.

“How very delightful of you to come and see me, Miss Brentford!” he said, taking her proffered hand. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”

The girl had thrown back her veil. “What a delightful room!” she exclaimed, looking round the sunlit, luxurious apartment with its valuable paintings, numerous books, fine bronze statues, and Persian rugs with their long silk fringes.

Captain Folkestone drew forward a low easy-chair and asked his guest to be seated.

Rita sank down among a profusion of yellow cushions, allowing herself a few minutes’ pleasant talk with her handsome host before disclosing the real object of her visit, which she knew would be distasteful to him.

For some time they chatted in their usual friendly way; then Miss Brentford caught sight of a clock on the mantelpiece and saw it was getting dangerously near lunch-time. She sat up with a jerk and her face looked all at once perturbed as she said:

“I suppose you are rather surprised I should come to you like this?”

“Not at all. It is the most natural thing for my friends to come to see me and they are always welcome here,” he assured her, graciously.

“It is very nice of you to be so cordial. However, I wouldn’t have come--unasked--unless there had been--serious issues at stake,” she ventured, heading in the direction of her goal.

Captain Folkestone smiled in his disarming way.

“Serious issues! Why, that sounds quite formidable, and formidable things are not for the summer. If I were you I wouldn’t worry about them on a day like this. Come out in the garden and let me show you my flowers; that is far more appropriate in this splendid weather.”

“No, thank you, I would rather stay indoors; the sun is very warm.”

“I am sure the drive must have been hot. Let me get you an iced drink.”

“Thank you, I don’t want anything like that. I only want to talk to you.”

“That is very charming of you; but let us leave serious things alone; they are only meant for dull climates and--winter.”

“But this one cannot wait. When winter comes it might be too late--”

“It is always wise to wait with formidable things till it is too late,” her companion observed, pleasantly.

“Now you are talking nonsense and you ought to be serious,” the girl replied, a little petulantly.

“My dear Miss Rita, I always find it such a good plan never to be what I ought to be,” he laughed.

“That is most tiresome of you.”

“Not at all. It is the people who are what they should be who are tiresome, for they have the annoying habit of expecting every one else to come up to their own immaculate perfection, and that is horribly aggravating of them! And, by the way, talking nonsense is most sensible, for then people do not believe you mean what you say.”

“Is that an advantage?”

“Certainly, for no one will stop to contradict you or argue with you, then.”

Miss Brentford looked toward the clock again. She moved uneasily. Too much time was being wasted before she disclosed her errand.

“Captain Folkestone,” she said, a little nervously, for it was very difficult to screw herself up to the point of attack when confronted by those smiling, dominating eyes, “I have come to speak to you on a very delicate matter this morning, and I do hope--you will not be offended with me--”

The man before her laughed genially. “I am never offended at anything people say to me. Why should I be? Words are only like thistle-down, and no one in their right mind will take thistle-down seriously. One only brushes it away and--forgets.”

“Still, if a friend came to warn you about some--awful danger--” said the girl, making a violent plunge toward her object.

“No friend ever comes to warn one; only enemies do that.”

“I cannot agree with you there. If you were on the point of making some terrible mistake, undoubtedly it would be your friend’s duty to try and prevent it--”

“My dear Miss Brentford, you surely wouldn’t be cruel enough to prevent any one from making a mistake, would you? Why, the only enjoyable thing in life is making mistakes.”

“And the consequences?” inquired his companion as one who had scored a point.

The Guardsman shrugged easily. “One is far too busy making other mistakes to bother about them.”

It was just dawning on the girl that her host was deliberately keeping her from accomplishing her plan, and a hot anger leaped up in her toward the woman who was so sacred to him that he courteously yet decidedly made it clear he refused to discuss her.

She drew herself up and her dark eyes flashed as she said, “Captain Folkestone, I believe you know what I have come to say this morning and you are trying to keep me from saying it.”

“In that case I suppose you will see that it is quite superfluous to--say it.” His quiet, agreeable tones held an underlying significance.

“No, indeed, for what I have to--tell you would open your eyes--”

“Open my eyes! Whoever wants his eyes open! Why, the reason the world is so interesting and people so fascinating is because one always looks at them with one’s eyes shut.”

“But if you marry with your eyes closed you will marry the wrong woman,” she retorted, making a desperate attempt to break through his wordy entanglements.

He laughed with unruffled serenity.

“And what man wants to marry the right woman? It is far more amusing and entertaining to marry--the wrong one.”

There was a knock at the door and a servant announced that luncheon was ready.

“Of course you will take pity on my loneliness and have lunch with me?” said Captain Folkestone, hospitably.

The girl stood for a moment, pale, irresolute, her face working, her hands moving nervously. She had been defeated, hopelessly defeated, and now there was nothing for her to do but to make as dignified a retreat as possible.

“No, thank you, the car has to be back in time to--take--your cousin home at two o’clock. It appears she has a very important engagement early this afternoon. The other motor has gone to town, so I must hurry back.”

Her host saw her to the car, shook hands elaborately, and then the girl was whirled hastily away from the flower-laden garden that gleamed in the midday sunlight as if it had been strewn with gorgeous jewels.

However, Rita did not notice the flowers. She leaned back in the mauve-colored, well-padded seat, feeling suddenly weak with impotent rage. She had been beaten, horribly beaten. The soldier had rendered her utterly powerless! It had cost her a good deal to make this attempt to save him from a disastrous fate; but her endeavor had been a failure, her purpose thwarted, and her thrust foiled. In fact, she had not even been permitted to strike; her smiling host had politely but uncompromisingly taken her weapon from her before she could use it.

She recognized her complete helplessness as she sped homeward under the glittering flame-trees. Why had she been so ineffectual? How was it her words never carried weight? No one took any notice of her opinion; she could not influence anybody, not even her sister. Why was it--why? But everybody listened to Miss Folkestone. She could sway all the people around her. Was this merely because of her beauty? Ah, that fatal fairness! It seemed to the girl like a dreadful juggernaut crunching its way relentlessly over all her plans and desires. If only she could see that vivid, colorous blondness lying cold and inert, deprived of its riotous vitality in the narrow bed of the dead! Then alone she would be safe and able to have her way!

A hard glint came into the black eyes burning behind the closely drawn veil as she looked unseeingly into the effulgent sunlight.

XII

SUMMER

I did not know, when first I took your hand, And felt a thrill I could not understand, How you would turn my world to wonderland-- I did not know!

Isma stood by the mirror in her room fastening some deep-pink roses into the corsage of her pastel-blue _crêpe-de-Chine_ gown. She had returned from The Bluff half an hour before; it was now five minutes to three and Falcon might arrive at any moment. Her fingers moved with nervous haste. She dropped a dawn-flushed bud, picked it up quickly and pinned it in more securely. Then she surveyed her superb reflection in the glass with absent-minded scrutiny. She had made her toilet carefully; on this day of days everything must harmonize with the greatness of the occasion. She had chosen this frock with its rich embroidery and girdle of tawny gold because Falcon had specially admired it.

“Captain Folkestone is in the drawing-room,” a maid announced and withdrew.

The color in Isma’s cheeks deepened. A strange, fierce excitement made her suddenly tremble, feel weak and unable to move. She stood gazing into the mirror with parted lips and unseeing eyes. The roses on her bosom shook. How was she to walk down-stairs and into that room? How was she to face her cousin, meet that intent blue gaze and greet him calmly? If only she could have rushed to him and buried her blushing face on his shoulder before he had time to look at her! She wanted to hide--must hide. Her shyness was overwhelming!

But she must not keep Falcon waiting. With a violent effort she pulled herself together and hurried down-stairs. However, as she opened the drawing-room door and entered, everything swam before her. She saw only a blurred vision of roses, masses of roses everywhere, dark red, pink, and cream, their perfume scenting the air with heavy sweetness. Amid this profusion of flowers a stalwart figure was coming toward her. One look into his eager, smiling eyes and her vision was blurred no longer; it cleared instantly. She lost consciousness of the flowers, their drowsy perfume, her own nervous shyness, and her whole attention became absorbed by the man approaching her. In one glance she took in every detail of his appearance. It seemed to her he had never looked so adorable as he did at that moment, his face flushed and his eyes shining with something which sent a riotous joy pulsating through her veins! Then very gently his dear hands were laid on her shoulders and, holding her at arm’s-length, he looked at her with an expression which made her feel completely in his power.

“Isma,” he said, “I have come for those--kisses you wouldn’t give me the other day--”

A hot wave of color mounted to her face and her glance fell before his.

As no answer came he went on: “Isma, why wouldn’t you give them to me? Why have you been pretending you did not--care? Did you want to see what I look like when I am demented?” He was still smiling, but his tone held a slight unsteadiness.

She looked up at him reproachfully. “Oh, Falcon, you know it wasn’t--that.”

“Then why in the name of wonder did you--?”

“I didn’t think--you wanted--”

“Isma, you couldn’t seriously have thought such a thing.”

“But I--did.”

“How could it be possible? And how was it your own feelings didn’t help you to understand mine? Tell me, Isma”--he bent over her now--“didn’t you ever want me--close? Want me to--?”

“Of course,” she breathed, in burning confusion.

“Then why on earth have you racked us both like this?”

“I--I--didn’t think you--cared,” she faltered.

He drew back in utter astonishment and his hands fell from her shoulder. “Not cared!” he exclaimed, incredulously. “After I had thrown up everything and followed you across the world, been at your beck and call ever since--simply lived for you! Besides, I told you myself on the day we became engaged--in this very room, don’t you remember?--that I would follow you wherever you went, and you said it was absolutely useless. You didn’t give me one ray of hope--”

“But you did not say _you_ would. You only said ‘one man,’ and I naturally thought you referred to--”

“Berriedale? And do you think I should be pressing his--unlawful suit?”

“I only thought you meant it as a--warning.”

He looked at her in perplexed amazement. “Good God! Isma, what a misunderstanding! Still,” he added, after a pause, “what a mercy I discovered you did care--a little bit, after all!” As he said the last words he laid his hands caressingly on her shoulders again.

His touch unnerved her and she was silent for some moments before asking, timidly, “When did you find out--last night?”

“No; I knew before then.”

The girl glanced up at him quickly. “Before--?”

“Two days ago I was certain.”

“What--made you certain--then?”

“Well, you didn’t seem--very happy on the way home--”

“And you guessed why?”

“I--couldn’t very well help it. Besides, there were other things that day. To be quite frank with you, there had been things all along which pointed--in that direction; for instance, on the night of the ball when my arm--touched you, you seemed to find it difficult to--”

“Oh, Falcon, I was so--miserable that night. I couldn’t help showing--it,” she said, brokenly.

He drew her a little closer. “Isma, what made you so--miserable that night?”

Her drooping lashes trembled.

“Tell me, Isma,” he pleaded, as she did not speak.

“Falcon, you know,” she breathed.

“Were you--wanting--me as much as I--wanted you?” he murmured, close to her ear.

“Of course,” she admitted, almost inaudibly.

He made no reply, but his breath came in short, panting gasps. Then suddenly he caught her to him.

For some minutes they stood without speaking, silenced, made motionless by the paralyzing sweetness of the contact.

At last Falcon said, “Tell me, how long have you--cared?”

The question roused her from the physical lassitude his embrace had produced in her. “Ever since we first met--in England,” she replied, in a low voice.

He started. “All that time! Heavens! If I had only known! Isma, how could you keep it from me so long?”

“Several times I was afraid you had guessed--”

“I did think now and again that-- But whenever you had given me the least ray of hope you always took such care to be specially indifferent and aloof afterward--that put me off the scent.”

“Anyhow, I gave my secret completely away the other day,” she said, her voice becoming faint again with the narcotic of his embrace.

“Yes, but I had to drag it from you--use horribly brutal methods--”

“You knew all the time you were--hurting me?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t help it. It seemed the only way of making you--surrender, and I assure you it hurt me more than it hurt you.”

At last she lifted her head slightly and said, “But Falcon, how could you--love me if you doubted me and thought that I--?”

“Isma, I never really doubted you. In my heart I knew all the time that you were the dearest, most unselfish little girl in the world!”

“But till quite lately you were always so sarcastic and contemptuous--”

“That was only because I was desperate. I saw how the world misjudged you, and I was just trying to sting you into prudence. Isma, can’t you understand how I felt about it? It was terrible to have such a slur cast on you--”

“Still, you knew all the time that I didn’t--”

“Of course I knew--knew that you were only sacrificing yourself, your reputation--everything for your friend. All the same, I was distracted with anxiety in case your courage might be the means of entrapping you. Isma, I was at my wit’s end to know how to guard you!”

She looked up at him with shiny eyes. “Oh, Falcon, you have been perfectly wonderful! No one in the world would have been so good to me!”

He stroked her soft cheek tenderly.

“Isma,” he said, after a pause, “when we are married and you have got used to me I want you to tell me about--last night--”

A tremor passed through her. “And--you don’t want to know--before?” she breathed into his coat.

“No, for whatever happened, it could not have been your fault.”

“Oh, Falcon,” she whispered, “you _do_ care as much as, or more than--he.”

He frowned. “Who dared to say I didn’t?”

“He said--”

“What did he say?”

“That--you wouldn’t have anything more--to do with--me if--if--”

He held her to him with bruising force. “He dared to talk to you about--such things--”

In the silence that followed he felt her burning humiliation and hastened to say, “Isma, don’t let us think of it just now--”

“But, Falcon, I must tell you this,” she whispered into his shoulder. “I was wonderfully protected last night. God sent you to me--”

“Heaven be praised I managed to reach you when I did!” he murmured, huskily.

The underlying depth of feeling in his tone made the girl all at once realize it would be lovely to confide to him her beautiful experience on the cliff; but she would wait a little. He was sure to stay for the rest of the day, and when twilight came they would stroll out under the palms. That would be the time to share with him her sacred things. The thought of telling him about God thrilled her suddenly; the intimacy it implied held a new, delicious sweetness!

“Falcon. I have something beautiful to tell you--”

“Yes, little girl,” he replied, in a low voice. “You don’t know how I long for your confidence, have you talk to me freely--open out to me, share everything--”

“But I think I would rather wait till to-night. You will stay all the evening, won’t you?--so after dinner we will go out under the palms and talk.”

“That will be perfectly delightful. What a gorgeous evening we shall have, and evening is the time for confidences, isn’t it?--and we have so much to say to each other, so much to make up!”

“But Isma,” he went on, after a pause, “do you know you haven’t given me those kisses yet?”

Her breathing grew perturbed and she pressed her face nervously against his shoulder.

“Isma, you are surely not shy with me again? Just give them to me at once and you will feel much better.” As he spoke he raised her head and she made no resistance.

For some moments he stood looking into the confused, upturned face, with its flushed cheeks, quivering nostrils, and long, downcast lashes. Then beneath his gaze the heavily fringed lids opened slowly and the golden-gray eyes lifted timidly to his. But the cloudy shyness vanished as their glances met, caressed, melted into one and clung together, and something which was half a gleam and half a mist came into the two pairs of eyes which held each other as if they could not tear apart.

“Good God! how I love you, Isma!” cried Falcon, in a voice stifled with emotion.

The girl paled and something blinded her.

The next moment their lips had met in a long, convulsive kiss.

Staggering and stunned, they drew apart, only to be swept together again and again.

“Oh, Falcon,” she half sobbed, reeling against him as his lips released her at last, “I can’t--”

His iron strength steadied her, and, leading her to a couch in a corner of the room, he sat down beside her and took her into his arms, pillowing her head on his breast. For some time he sat regarding the golden head resting against his heart with strange, glistening eyes; then he said, in a curious, vibrant tone: “Isma, do you know what happened just now? In those kisses you gave yourself to me body and soul.”

She stirred slightly. “Didn’t I do it--before?” she asked, faintly.

“Not fully. You gave me your love before. Now you have given me yourself, made that complete surrender it has been so hard for you to--”

She was fully roused again. “Falcon, it wasn’t hard, truly it was not. I--I--have just been longing to--” she assured him quickly, raising her head and looking up at him with eyes which were deep and dark with passionate yielding.

He bent over her and drank thirstily of the love-wine her soul poured out to him.

His kisses and the paroxysms of emotion which had swept over them had in some mysterious way brought them closer, and it seemed to Isma that every thread of obscuring garment had for the moment been torn aside and that he looked straight into her heart. Her shyness vanished as if by magic. It became a delight to lay her inmost feelings bare to him. She could have no secrets from him any longer; she did not wish to have any. She was his, every part of her belonged to him; he had a right to every emotion stirring in her soul. The passion of their lips had made them one. And the knowledge of this brought with it a deep elation, an overwhelming happiness. She could not repress it, could not keep it out of her eyes; they sparkled suddenly into his, brimmed with a reckless joy which dared to look at him with the triumphant right of a possessor. She regarded his immaculately shaved cheeks, the brown waves of his hair, the soft cleft in his firm chin with adoring scrutiny.

He responded at once to her changing mood.

“Well,” he said, at length, “and what do you think of--your property?”

She colored slightly, but met his probing gaze with dauntless approbation. “I think it is just the dearest, the most lovable thing God ever made!” Her golden eyes caressed his every feature.

He suddenly paled.

But the emotion he showed spurred her on to gayer abandonment, and she laughed the happiest, silvery laugh that had ever rippled over her scarlet lips. “Oh, Falcon, it is a perfect disgrace, the way I show you how much I love you--but I can’t help it!”

He caught her to him and there was fire in his embrace. “It is the most delicious thing you ever did, you adorable little summer witch!”

She leaned back in his arms and surveyed him laughingly, teasingly. “But you don’t really love me as much as I--”

He closed the red, tantalizing lips with his, and his kisses leaped through her like flames. “Take that back! If you dare to say these outrageous things and smile at me in that bewildering way, I shall--”

“Falcon,” she half cried and half laughed, “I am so happy I don’t know what I am doing or saying.”

“Isma, stop being so absolutely bewitching! Can’t you see you are making my brain reel, that you are confusing me, intoxicating me--with your alluring ways!”

“But, Falcon, it doesn’t really matter if we go quite mad over each other, does it?” she said, regarding him with eyes that smoldered with love and tenderness under their long, drooping lashes.

“No, it doesn’t matter in the least, provided we have enough sense left to go through the--marriage ceremony to-morrow.”

She sat up quickly. “What _are_ you talking about?”

“Your and my wedding, of course,” he replied, in a level voice.

She looked at him in breathless astonishment. “Falcon, you are not serious?”

“I was never more serious in my life. It is all being arranged--”

Her mood changed again. “But I can’t--” she whispered, in sudden consternation.

“My dear little girl, you can. All you have to do is to step into my car to-morrow morning and say--‘I will’ a little later on--”

A rich color dyed her face and throat. “Oh, not so soon!”

“Isma, don’t you love me well enough to want to be with me--all the time?”

The hurt in his tone touched her. “Of course, but, Falcon, you don’t understand--” she said, beginning to tremble.

“Of course I do,” he answered, his eyes eloquent with comprehension. “Don’t you think I knew you were shy and nervous when you came into the room this afternoon? But--wasn’t it all right? I didn’t overwhelm you too suddenly, did I--and don’t you think you can trust me to make everything all right for you to-morrow and--afterward?”

She clung to him suddenly. “You know I trust you absolutely. You always make everything easy for me, and you don’t know how much I love you for it!” she murmured, her lips close to his neck.

“So you want me to make love to you again!” he smiled, cuddling her to him. “Isma, when we are married I am going to show you what I really can do in that line.” Then he held her at arm’s-length and gazed at her with passionate adoration.

She laughed blushingly.

“Now don’t you look like that again or I shall have to-- Oh, Isma,” he broke off all at once, “why won’t you understand that I can’t possibly wait! First you dazzle and bewilder me till I go clean off my head with longing for you, then you wonder why I love you so frantically that I can hardly wait another day to have you!”

“But--I love you--as much--”

“Yet you don’t want to marry me!”

“Yes, I do--”

“So you do, do you! All I can say is you have a funny way of showing it.”

She leaned against him suddenly and there was utter abandonment in the movement.

“Then you will--come with me--to-morrow?”

“Of course--if you wish it,” she breathed, tremulously.

* * * * *

It was dark. But a mellow, roseate light found its way into the garden through one of the drawing-room windows and fell softly on Isma’s figure as she stood under an archway of creepers saying good night to her lover. Her black Ninon evening gown was sleeveless and in the semi-darkness her lovely shoulders and arms gleamed strangely white.

Falcon regarded her silently for some moments. Then all at once he folded her to him and buried his face against the sumptuous whiteness of her shoulder.

Her soft arms stole about his neck as she gently pressed him to her.

The soldier drew a long, blissful sigh. “Isma--this is--heaven,” he murmured, in tones laden with ecstasy.

After a pause he raised his head reluctantly. “But I must tear myself away. It is getting late and you must have a good sleep. But think of it--to-morrow about this time we shall be together at the Blue Mountains, and, Isma--I shall not need to--say good-by.” His voice held a curious exultation.

“Falcon,” she whispered, laying her cheek against his, “I can’t think-- It will all be too--wonderful--”

“You are glad now I arranged it so--soon?”

The glistening arms about his neck tightened. “After being with you like--this I couldn’t--bear it--if you--hadn’t--”

He crushed her to him. “Isma, only this one good-by and--then--”

In the warm, perfumed darkness two figures clung tremblingly together, while their lips met in a caress which held agonized longing as well as rapturous anticipation.

XIII

THE NETTLE

“Neville, what do you think has happened?” cried Miss Brentford, almost hysterically, as she swept into her brother-in-law’s room.

“My dear Rita, how can I guess what happens anywhere when I am a prisoner between these four walls?” replied the pale man on the bed, with a touch of irritation.

The girl began to pace the floor in frenzied excitement.

“What is it?” inquired the patient, realizing that something unusual had taken place.

Miss Brentford stood still and there was a wild, desperate look in her black eyes as she said: “Captain Folkestone has just rung up to say--good-by. He and Isma were just starting for Sydney. They are to be--married this afternoon. All is arranged.”

She stopped breathlessly, waiting for some fiery response, but none came; the man among the pillows did not stir.

“Neville, how can you lie there so quietly, staring into space as if this meant nothing to you? Stop acting--you don’t need to pretend with me.” She almost screamed at him in her exasperation.

Lord Berriedale’s dark eyes moved slowly from the windows through which long rays of sunlight streamed into the room and lay in large golden pools on the purple carpet, to the trembling form standing before him.

“Rita, I am not pretending. Only,” he sighed deeply, “I knew this had to--come--”

“How did you know that?” his companion demanded, fiercely. “She did not love him and--” She stopped, making a little choking sound in her throat.

“Didn’t love him, Rita! If ever a woman loved a man she loved--him!”

“I don’t believe it. She could not love anybody--doesn’t know the meaning of the word!” she flung at him, hotly.

An odd, ghostlike smile hovered for a moment about Lord Berriedale’s pale lips and his gaze seemed all at once fixed upon a scene which was not visible to the girl beside him. “Rita, you don’t know what you are talking about. In any case, do you think she could satisfy a man like Folkestone if she could not answer fire with fire? I used to think him cold, but, by Jove!--” Again his eyes looked abstractedly into space.

“Neville, I went to him two days ago to try and--make him give her up. I was going to tell him everything and open his eyes--”

Lord Berriedale’s abstraction had vanished. “Yes, and what did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. He simply refused to discuss her; wouldn’t even let me mention her name.”

“How could he prevent that?” One slim hand began to tug at his honey-colored mustache.

“Oh, you know his way! He just smiled, looked more handsome than ever, fenced and talked; everything I said he turned off--wouldn’t allow me to approach the subject.”

“Rita, that was because he knew you don’t understand his cousin.”

“Who can understand such depths of treachery!”

“You are absolutely wrong. There is no treachery about--Isma. She is the finest, grandest woman--”

“You ought to be the last man to say that, for you know better--” she interrupted him, vindictively.

“I know better than any one how utterly--untemptable she is.”

“You men always shield a beautiful woman!”

The girl began to pace the room again, her ungoverned despair sweeping over her once more. “Oh, Neville, I shall go absolutely crazy. I--I--can’t bear it--I can’t!”

Her companion sighed heavily, but he did not speak.

“I shall go mad--I know I shall--”

All at once she came over to the bed and threw herself into an easy-chair beside it and buried her face in the counterpane.

One long, slim hand was laid on the black, girlish head. “Poor little Rita!” whispered a voice so full of sympathy that she hardly recognized it as her brother-in-law’s. “If only I could make it easier for you!”

The girl lifted her face and looked long into the kind eyes regarding her. “Neville, do you think my going to him spurred him on to--?”

“No, dear, not at all. Folkestone would have done it, anyway. He has waited a long time, shown excellent self-control, and behaved with a restraint I envy him. But a man like that will not wait always, and when he does act he means business.”

Miss Brentford looked at him in amazement. “How can you bear to talk of it so--calmly! You speak as if it did not concern you in the least.”

“I am resigned--that is why,” he replied, meeting her glance calmly.

“Don’t you want to--kill the man and take her from him?” Her eyes held a fierce, merciless glitter, and the man beside her felt thankful that Isma was safely out of Rita’s way at present.

“What would be the use? I am helpless. I must stay--here, while another--”

The expression on his face made the girl all at once realize what he was passing through. “Poor Neville!” she murmured, for a moment forgetting her own grief in her realization of his.

“You need not pity me. I deserve it all; besides, I could never have made her happy.”

“Would that count as long as you--had her?”

“It didn’t count before. I would have taken her at all costs. But it counts now.”

“Why now?”

“I can hardly explain, only I have been thinking about--God.”

His companion, stared at him in astonishment. “Good gracious, Neville, you don’t mean to say you are turning religious!”

“Why not?” he asked, in level tones.

“Well--you are hardly a--suitable subject for--that kind of thing, are you?” she replied, with merciless candor.

“It is men like me who need religion most--”

“And what good can it do you?” she challenged him, scornfully.

“I don’t know yet. Perhaps religion may not help me, but God might.”

The girl had risen. She stood looking in cold defiance at her brother-in-law. Then she suddenly burst out laughing, a hideous, horrible laugh. “Neville, you are crazy already, absolutely dotty!” and with another ugly laugh she bolted out of the room.

* * * * *

“Rex, is the world coming to an end or what?” asked Miss Brentford, bursting into the library where she knew the secretary was comfortably installed with a novel and his cigarettes.

The man in the deep armchair put down the book he was reading and looked up in indolent anticipation. He had heard the girl’s conversation on the ’phone with Captain Folkestone and knew about the coming wedding, and looked forward to an interesting talk on the subject.

“Has anything else gone wrong?” He spoke with solemn intonation which seemed to refer to Lord Berriedale’s accident and that the secretary hoped no more calamities had taken place.

“Anything gone wrong indeed! What do you think, Neville has turned--religious!”

Rex showed distinct signs of disappointment.

“Is that all?” he said, indifferently, picking up his book again. “You really frightened me and made me think it was something serious.”

“Well, isn’t it serious that Neville is going mad?”

“Do you consider religion a madness?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

A light shot suddenly into the pale-blue eyes. The secretary saw a new excitement ahead of him, a fresh way of tormenting another being. “No, on the contrary, I think it shows jolly good sense,” he answered, settling down to enjoy himself.

“Rex!” exclaimed Miss Brentford, angrily, “you are only playing, and I am in no mood for jokes.”

“Indeed I mean what I say.”

“But you are not religious--far from it.”

“That doesn’t say I don’t approve of it. I don’t take exercise myself, yet I thoroughly believe in it, all the same.”

“You are too lazy,” commented his companion.

“Exactly. Most people are too lazy to be religious. It is too great a strain on their intelligence and too great a strain on their bodies.”

“Strain on their bodies?” queried the girl, in surprise.

“Yes, of course. When people become religious the body has to toe the line as well as the soul, and between ourselves I believe it is the strain on the body that keeps most people from religion. They don’t say so, naturally. They have far nicer little ways of explaining the situation. They are either assailed by doubts or they are too enlightened and clever or too large-minded to accept such old-fashioned ideas. But all the time it is the strain on the body it involves that frightens them off.”

“Still, if you believe in it, why aren’t you religious yourself?” interrogated the girl, uncertain whether her companion was in earnest or not.

“For the simple reason that others fight shy of it. I don’t want my habits interfered with. I like too many things religion condemns, so I keep away from it and stick to my habits.”

“Isn’t that rather foolish?” suggested Rita, with a veiled display of interest in spite of her scoffing tones.

“Of course, madly foolish. But then, with all our twentieth-century culture, cleverness, and knowledge, we are nothing but a set of innate fools! We know the great monster Death is after us, that sooner or later it will track us down. If we had one iota of sense, we would--”

“What would be the use--we can’t alter the fact,” interrupted Miss Brentford, impatiently.

“We certainly cannot alter the fact that Death is at our heels, yet we might alter--others.”

“What others?”

“Our fate Beyond.”

“Rex, do you really mean _you_ believe in a state Beyond?”

“Of course I do; no one with any reasoning power could help it. There is no waste in nature; life everywhere rises out of life; death is just a crisis, a horrible, disgusting crisis; still, merely a critical juncture--an autumn crisis in which decaying vestures are shed. But the real life is not cast off in autumn. It is left free to be robed again in fresh garments, and the new garments will be on the same pattern as the old.”

The girl regarded the secretary skeptically; however, in her skepticism smoldered a secret fascination. “That sounds very plausible; yet, after all, we don’t know--no one has told us.”

“No, but we have been given minds which can think, conjecture, reason. We were never told about the power of electricity, still, by conjecturing and reasoning it was found.”

Rita sat in silence for a while. Before her mind had risen a torturing vision of two people flying along in a car on dry, summerlit roads, and soon--soon-- No! She could not tolerate the idea; it was preposterous, unthinkable! She must make Rex talk again, anything to keep her brain from the picture it insisted on bringing before her. It was difficult to switch off her mental energy into another direction, yet these new thoughts and the astounding fact that Rex should expound them made them seem peculiarly interesting.

“Yes,” she admitted, half absently, “but we have got away from the main issue. I don’t see that that has anything to do with it. If there is an after-state, we shall arrive at it whether we are religious or not.”

“Certainly. All the same, religion has a great deal to do with it, for it makes people sow wheat and not tares; it is very insistent on that point. Now don’t you see the connection? The coming life must spring from the seed of this one, and, as a plant cannot one season be a nettle and the next a rose, it follows that if we are nettles here we must be nettles There and be _treated_ as obnoxious weeds.”

The girl rose hastily. _Nettle--nettle!_ The horrid little word pressed itself into the tissues of her brain.

A couple of days ago she had wondered why she had so little power over other people; why her words carried no weight; why she was ineffectual, influenced nobody; why no one had come very intimately into her life; why every one kept her at arm’s-length, and now she suddenly saw the reason--she was a nettle, a horrible nettle which stung anybody who touched it. She had nearly stung her sister to death; she wished to sting Isma into her grave; her words had been full of spite and venom, her actions obnoxiously selfish! She saw herself as a loathsome nettle stinging all who touched her life. And if there really was a state Beyond, what would happen to her? Would she still go on stinging so poisonously, so venomously, that she would be forever unloved and abhorred? What a terrible destiny!

“Some people think Death transforms us into angels,” Rita flung at the secretary, after a pause. “That is a much nicer theory than yours.”

Rex smiled ironically. “Yes, and almost as reasonable as the Santa Claus illusion.”

“And why shouldn’t it be true?” demanded Rita, defiantly.

“The Santa Claus myth?”

“No, no, you stupid man, not that--”

“Oh, I see; you mean the angel theory?”

“Of course.”

Rex sighed patiently. “Now do use your brains! How could Death transform one into an angel? Can the canker-worm develop the bud it attacks into a flower? Death has no power except to decay. It is like a moth getting into a garment; it doesn’t beautify--it destroys.”

“In that case it kills outright.”

“Yes, the garment, but not the wearer.”

Rita walked toward the window. However, the sight of the hot sunshine glistening on trees and flowers made her turn away hastily, for in this blinding radiance two people were driving--

“I hate all this sunlight!” she said, her cheeks all at once paling. “This is a horrid country; everything is ablaze; it is a land on fire that glitters and burns. I loathe it!” she cried, turning on the secretary with sudden vehemence.

“My dear girl, I assure you I had no hand in inventing or making Australia.”

“But you like it,” she protested, wrathfully.

“This certainly is a flame-land. It is vivid like fire. Its breath is like the breath of a furnace; even the wide spaces above are scorched by the heat from its great body; its voice is the roaring voice of flames! It is a land that sets people on fire, and, Miss Rita, if I stay here much longer”--Rex looked up at her with eyes that glowed with a sudden, mysterious light--“I shall be in flames myself.”

Australia was an extraordinary country. It had changed her whole world, made all familiar things crumble into dust and strange new ones take their place. Captain Folkestone had gone out of her life--she writhed again. Neville had become religious! Beatrice was dying! Rex talked like a bishop and said he was catching fire! And Australia was responsible for this horrible conglomeration of upheavals! Why had she come to this place of wild, abnormal things to be whirled like an atom into fathomless immensities, to be thrown into its flaming purgatory? Ah, why?

The girl stood still, regarding Rex for some moments in curious silence, then she turned and walked slowly out of the room.

XIV

BLOODWOOD

When tea was over that afternoon Lady Berriedale went to see her husband and sit with him for a while.

She had a nasty paroxysm of coughing as she sat down beside the bed. When the coughing had subsided she made a few preliminary remarks before saying, a little nervously:

“Neville, I have been so--sorry for you all day--”

Lord Berriedale made a restless movement as if he wished to check her, but she would not be interrupted. “Dear,” she continued, making a further effort, “I am going to say what I want, so just listen to me. I should like you to know that I had planned--everything so differently. I wanted you to have had what you--desired, after I had--gone. But now--” She hesitated.

The man’s left hand closed over his wife’s trembling one. “Beatrice, you have been far too generous,” he said, in a voice which shook slightly. “I have not deserved such--kindness.” Then he drew his hand away and moved it shadingly across his eyes as if to hide something he did not wish her to see.

Lady Berriedale turned her head away and her brimming glances searched the room for something to distract her attention and help her to composure. After a time her eyes lighted on some loose papers lying on a small table in front of her. Mechanically she picked up the sheets and saw that they held some verses written in a hand she did not recognize. Half absently she began to read “Crucified.”

Her attention became suddenly fixed, the hectic flush in her cheeks deepened, and she sat so still that her husband looked up, wondering what kept her so motionless.

A deep stain crept into his pallid face as he discovered what she was reading. “Beatrice, don’t; please don’t,” he said, in agitated tones. “It will only hurt you.”

She dropped the paper and met his disturbed gaze with eyes that held an unearthly calm, then she said: “Nothing can hurt me more than I am already hurt. I have lost--all; or, rather, found--I had nothing to--lose.”

She picked up the paper again and finished the verses, while the color in her husband’s cheeks faded to an ashen pallor.

For some time she sat with the thin sheets before her, staring fixedly at the words as if they had cast a hypnotic spell over her.

The stillness in the room was like the silence that follows the verdict of doom; it held an awful fatality, a sense of irrevocable destiny.

“Neville,” she said, at length, breaking the dreadful pause, “your life has been--like that?”

He made no answer, and his eyes evaded hers.

“Neville, why didn’t you--let me--know sooner and I would have--set you free?”

If she had spoken such words before, he would have assured her he did not want release; but now empty avowals were useless and the moment too solemn for prevarication. To have uttered an untruth just then would have been like uttering it before Eternity itself. Their naked souls stood face to face with each other at last; all veiling garments of falsehood and insincerity had fallen away.

“You could not,” he replied, after a short silence, forced to undeviating sincerity.

“Yes, I could. I would have--gone away, and after a time you could have had a--divorce on grounds of desertion.”

“That would have been--useless.”

“You mean she would not have--married a divorced man?”

“Yes, she wouldn’t have done that even if she had--cared: But,” he went on, in a different tone, “do not regret anything. It could not be--helped. Nothing could have altered it. Marriage binds till--death.”

Lady Berriedale sat looking vacantly before her as if her inner eyes were gazing into some terrible reality she must accustom herself to face. After a pause she repeated, absently:

“Hand to hand, Foot to foot, Man to woman, Soul to soul.”

The man on the bed shuddered. “Don’t, Beatrice, don’t,” he pleaded, closing his eyes.

For some time neither of them spoke and in the silence the wide, black chasm of despair stretched out before them in paralyzing desolation.

“The cross holds till--death,” she said at last, staring fixedly at the fatal verses; then after what seemed another interminable pause she rose and walked slowly out of the room.

* * * * *

It was midnight. Through Lord Berriedale’s wide-open windows gleamed the summer-night sky with its myriad host of tranquil stars.

The door opened gently, and a white-clad form moved softly toward the bed.

“Are you asleep, Neville?” whispered his wife, coming close to him.

The figure among the pillows shrank away a little, but the merciful darkness hid the sudden movement, also the hostile expression in the sleepless eyes.

“No,” he replied, in schooled tones, “I am not.”

Lady Berriedale hesitated, her fingers fidgeting with the silken bedspread, while her husband lay gazing at the white blur beside him, not choosing to assist her in overcoming her evident embarrassment.

“Neville, I want to--talk to you,” she said, with apparent effort.

“Couldn’t you talk to me--in the daytime? If you become--excited now, you know you will not be able to--sleep at all,” he said, with a distinctly uncompromising note in his voice.

“I shall not be able to--sleep, anyhow, and--it will help me to--talk to you. I have been thinking of those--verses and--everything,” she went on, more hurriedly. “How could I help it! It all seemed so hopeless, such an irremediable tragedy! Life, generally, appeared a fearful chaos, a cruel muddle, and I was almost distracted as I thought about it. Then all at once some talks with Isma came back to me. We were speaking about life and came to the conclusion it was only a prison-existence; that this planet was merely a prison-house for the criminals of the universe--the worst criminals, for every one sent here is executed. It seems to me this thought alone can explain all the suffering, misery, and heartache abounding on this earth. But, Neville, fancy entering the next world as criminals! Isn’t it awful! What chances of happiness could we have under such circumstances! And perhaps Death is not even the execution; it may merely be a door, a horrible door, that leads to--a worse doom. Neville, when I am so--near, when I shall enter it so--soon, can’t you understand that I should be terribly anxious?” She spoke rapidly, excitedly now.

Her husband clasped her hand in quick sympathy. “Of course, Beatrice, of course I can.”

After a slight hesitation she went on more calmly, a gentle hush coming into her tones. “But, Neville, I have been praying lately, not just offering formal petitions to some far-away, unheeding Being, but talking to a real Person--what Isma calls laying a detaining hand on God and speaking to Him. I have asked Him about--everything and to help me when all alone I shall enter the Great Beyond. I have been horribly afraid of it, Neville; but”--in the starlit gloom he saw the sudden light that came into her large, shadowy eyes--“I am not afraid any more, for all at once I remembered something I have not thought of for years, and it has taken away all my fears. It is this.” She lowered her voice before saying: “Neville, God so loved us that He sent His only Son down to this desolate prison-house to die for us poor criminals. Think of it--die for us! He was put on the scaffold of the cross for our sakes, and now--we can enter eternity, not as malefactors, but--free! Oh, Neville, you can’t imagine what this means to me!

“I unearthed my Bible to read about it, and do you know the first place my eyes lighted on as I opened the hook was the passage about the dying thief, and as I read it seemed to me he really represents the whole of suffering humanity--dying on the cross of sorrow and pain--yet unable to open the gates of--Paradise. It was only when the thief asked the Spotless One at his side to remember him when He came into His kingdom that he received the immediate promise of--Eden. And Neville, isn’t it wonderful! We can all ask Him--everybody can--to remember us; and He is not far away; He is beside us, and the moment we really ask we receive the promise that we shall be with Him in Paradise! Isn’t it beautiful!”

The soft darkness veiled the trembling form among the pillows and the moisture glistening in the black eyes.

There were some moments’ silence; then Lord Berriedale raised his wife’s emaciated hand to his lips and kissed it reverently before saying, brokenly, “And, Beatrice, it is only when we are on the cross ourselves that we learn to think of--the Crucified One and ask Him to--remember us.”

In the dimness he saw her face transfigured as she said, softly, “The cross is the trysting-place between heaven and earth; the cross is the ladder to--Paradise.”

* * * * *

Outside in the still, warm night a shuddering sigh went through the dreaming flowers in the garden and the stars gleamed as if they were smiling down on the earth through tears.