The Great Amulet

by Maud Diver

  CHAPTER XII.

  "How the world seems made for each of us; How all we perceive and know in it Tends to some moment's product,--thus, When the soul declares itself; to wit, By its fruit: the thing it does." --Browning.

  Quita lacked courage to appear again in public till the dinner buglesounded. Garth was her promised partner: and she found him awaitingher just outside her tent.

  "My turn now, dear lady," he said, pressing her fingertips against hisside, as she took his proffered arm. "It has been a blank afternoonfor me; but in revenge, I mean to keep you all the evening."

  "You are presumptuous, as always!" she answered with admirablelightness. "Your claim ends with dessert."

  "Quite so. But you are generous; and I can trust the rest to you,since you know how much I want it."

  She smiled, as in duty bound. But to-night the man's facile gallantryrevolted her as it had never yet done. She wondered how she hadendured it these many months.

  The instant they entered the long tent her eyes sought and found thething they craved: though the sight of Lenox in his accustomed placebetween the Desmonds reawakened her smouldering jealousy of Honor, andgave the lie to her amazing instant of revelation. But once during themeal she encountered her husband's eyes. It was as if he had put out ahand and touched her; and her partner's veiled love-making became ameaningless murmur at her ear. Yet the surface of her brain travelledmechanically along the beaten track of dinner-table talk: and Garth,finding her gentler and more serious than her wont, deemed his hour oftriumph very near at hand. Direct encouragement, in the face of hishidden knowledge, had strengthened his conviction that for many weeksshe had been stifling her true feelings; that one touch at the rightmoment would suffice to lift the veil, to bring her at last into hisarms. Beyond that moment of mastery he did not choose to look. Forto-night passion had elbowed prudence out of the field. He had claimedher for the evening; and he anticipated great things from the next twohours under the stars.

  At these informal camp dinners men and women left the table together;only habitual card-players remaining behind to tempt fortune until thesmall hours. Quita's hope had been that Desmond might come to her aid.But he had made up a rubber of whist; and to her dismay, she saw Lenoxand Honor depart without him. Garth, who also noted their movements,carefully led her round to the far side of a blazing bonfire, piled tenfeet high on this last night of Arcadia; and with a suppressed sigh sheresigned herself to an evening of comic songs and personalities; anddecided that a headache must rescue her, if no other champion wereforthcoming.

  It was a clear night of stars. The moon had not yet risen; though aherald brightness gave news of her coming. No least whisper of windstirred the tree-tops. Sun-baked fir branches crackled and snappedlike fairy musketry; and many-hued flames,--rose and saffron,heliotrope and sea-green,--played hide-and-seek among them, flinginginverted shadows on faces nearest the blaze.

  Human beings break into song round a bonfire as naturally as birdsafter a shower of rain, and for those who see in such a fire no mereholocaust of dead twigs, but the Red Flower of the Jungle, the symboland spirit of wild life, this spontaneous minstrelsy has a charmpeculiarly its own. A charm of the simplest, certainly; for atcamp-fires the banjo reigns supreme; and the aptest songs are thosethat 'rip your very heartstrings out' and offer fine facilities foreffervescing between the verses.

  Already a remarkable assortment of these had challenged the winkingstars; and Quita was encouraging the requisite headache, while Garthcontemplated the suggestion of a stroll towards the lake, when MichaelMaurice came up to them.

  "Quita, _cherie_, they have sent me to ask if you will sing. I have myfiddle here for accompaniment."

  She hesitated. A rare shyness, born of the afternoon's fiasco, wasstill upon her.

  "Who sent you?" she asked, smiling up at him.

  "Colonel Mayhew, and several others." He bent lower. "_Tu es tropfatiguee apres ce vilain polo_?"

  "_Non, ce n'est pas ca . . . mais . . ._"

  "Do, Miss Maurice, please, do," urged an enthusiastic young civilian onher left. "A woman's voice, especially yours, would be a rare treatafter our promiscuous shouting."

  And on her other side Garth, pressing closer, whispered his plea.

  "Don't disappoint me. It is ages since I last heard you sing."

  Without answering either, she touched her brother's arm. "Tune up,Michel," she said low and hurriedly. "I have thought of a song."

  Garth murmured his thanks with unusual _empressement_. Her instantacquiescence had both moved and flattered him; and his hopes rode high.As a matter of fact, she had not even heard his request. She hadsimply obeyed an impulse, as in most crises of her life;--an impulse soperemptory that it seemed almost a command from Beyond.

  "What song is it to be?" Maurice asked, when the tuning process wascomplete.

  "Swinburne's 'Ask Nothing More.'"

  He raised his eyebrows. "A man's song?"

  "Yes. But you know I often sing it; and I want to . . . to-night."

  "_Qu'y a-t-il, petite soeur_?" he asked, for her manner puzzled him.

  "_Rien . . . rien de tout_. Commence."

  And he played the soft chords, pregnant with pleading, that usher inthe song.

  A moment later, Lenox, leaning back in a canvas chair, sat upright, andtook the cigar from his lips.

  "A woman singing? Jove--it's Quita!" he added under his breath. Thenhe remained motionless, straining his eyes for a sight of her betweenthe dancing flames.

  Clear and unfaltering her voice soared into the night; and as the songswept on, through pleading to impassioned longing, the whole awakenedheart of her took fire from the poet's faultless phrases; till, in thelast verse, it spoke straightly and simply to her husband, as thoughthey two stood alone in the interstellar spaces of the universe.

  "I who have love, and no more, Give you but love of you, sweet; He that hath more, let him give; He that hath wings let him soar. Mine is the heart at your feet . . . Here that must love you . . . love you, to live!"

  The last stupendous chords crashed into silence; and the fall of acharred twig sounded loud in the pause that followed. Then there camefrom the shadowy circle of listeners no clatter of hands and voices,but a low disjoined murmur;--the very attar of applause.

  But by that time Quita was making her way blindly through the outskirtsof the crowd into the blessed region of darkness and stars.

  For, as the last words left her lips, the full apprehension of her actand its possible consequences submerged her in a red-hot wave of shameand self-consciousness; and before Garth had recovered himselfsufficiently to rise and make the request that hovered on his lips, shewas gone. For a space he sat still, lost in an amazement that swelledto exultation as the conviction grew in him that at last, after longand laudable repression, her heart had spoken, indirectly, yetunmistakably; that now, scandal or no scandal, he must make heraltogether his.

  And while he sat stunned to inaction by the vital issues at stake,Quita hurried on toward the temple, with no purpose in her going saveto escape from the consciousness of human presence. She stood still atlength, and wrung her hands together.

  "Oh, but it was folly--worse than folly! He will only think orhateful,--theatrical. He will never understand."

  Yet if, by miraculous chance, he did understand . . . what then? Sheheld her breath and waited; till the night seemed alive with voicesthat laughed her to scorn.

  The new-risen moon hung low as if caught and tangled among thetree-tops of the forest that broke up her golden disc in fantasticfashion. Away there by the bonfire some one else was singing now; asong with a boisterous chorus. Her mad impulse had simply been addedto the mass of ineffectual things that form the groundwork of our raresuccesses.

  Suddenly she started, and raised her head. The sound she desired yetdreaded was close at hand. He was coming to her. He must haveunderstood. And because she needed all her courage to face him, shedid it
at once; for nothing saps courage like hesitation.

  Then her heart stood still; a chill aura swept through her and sheshivered. The dark figure nearing her was not Lenox. It was Garth.

  But that all power of initiative seemed gone from her, she must haveturned and fled. Instead she stood her ground, without motion orspeech; and he, still misreading her, held out his arms.

  "Quita . . . darling . . ." he began, his voice thick with passion.

  But her name on his lips roused her like a pistol-shot.

  "Go back . . . please go back," she cried imperatively. "I came awaybecause I wanted . . . to be alone."

  "But I thought . . ."

  "I can't help what you thought! If you have any--respect for me atall, you will do what I ask."

  "Of course. Only I shall see you again to-night. I must."

  "No . . . no. Not to-night."

  "To-morrow then?"

  But she had already left him; and for his part, he must needs returnthe way he came,--frustrated, yet not enlightened; cursing, in nomeasured terms, the unfathomable ways of women. No doubt she wasupset, unstrung by the knowledge of all that her confession implied;and woman-like, showed small regard for his consuming impatience topossess her. But to-morrow he would ride home with her. And afterthat--the Deluge!

  Quita left alone again went forward with lagging feet, and a heartemptied of hope. Her own disappointment crowded out all thought ofGarth's unusual behaviour; till renewed steps behind her suggested theastonishing possibility that he had dared to disregard her request, andfollowed her, in spite of all. The suggestion roused not fear, butanger, and the militant spirit of independence that circumstances hadso fostered in her.

  She knew now that she hated him, as we only hate those whom we havewronged. It was intolerable that he should persecute her against herwish; and she swung round sharply, with words of pitiless truth on herlips.

  But the night seemed marked for the unexpected:--and now it was joyincredible that fettered her tongue and her feet, while her husbandhastened forward, his face clearly visible in the growing light.

  "I followed that fellow when he went after you," he said bluntly, angersmouldering in his tone. "And I saw him leave you. Did you send himaway?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I didn't want him."

  "Does that apply to me also?"

  "No . . . please stay."

  There fell a silence pregnant with things unutterable. Lenox camecloser.

  "What possessed you to sing that song,--in that way--Quita?"

  It was the first time he had spoken her name, and she turned from him,pressing her fingers against flaming cheeks.

  "Oh, I am burnt up with shame! I feel as if I had told all of them."

  "Told them--what?"

  "_Mon Dieu_! Will you compel me to say everything?"

  She flung out both hands, and he caught and crushed them till shewinced under the pressure. Then, holding her at arm's-length, helooked searchingly into her eyes.

  And while they stood so--in this their first instant of real union,that dwarfed the years between to a watch in the night--each was awareof the other's answering heart; and in each, love burnt with soflame-like a quality that neither speech nor touch was needed to sealthe intimacy of contact.

  At length he drew her nearer.

  "Does it frighten you now when I look right into you?" he asked, an oddvibration in his voice.

  "No . . . no. I am only afraid you may not see deep enough."

  He drew a great breath.

  "Thank God for that. But tell me,--for I am still in the dark,--how onearth has such a miracle come to pass?"

  Her low laugh had a ring of inexpressible content.

  "Dearest, and blindest! Did it never occur to you that you could nothave laid a surer trap to win me than by just keeping clear of me, andliving in . . . that Mrs Desmond's pocket?"

  He shook his head, smiling down at her. Her old subtle charm with thisstrange new tenderness superadded, was working like an elixir in hisveins.

  "But what does the _how_ of it matter, after all?" she went on, leaningcloser, and speaking low and fervently. "Isn't it enough that I loveyou with all there is of me . . . Eldred; that I ask you to believe me,and to make me . . . your very wife. There: you have compelled me tosay everything! Are you satisfied now?"

  To such a question he could find no answer in words. But his silencewas cardinal. He put an arm round her, straining her close, and with asigh of sheer rapture she lifted her face to his.

  Their eyes met. Then their lips; and Eldred Lenox entered into aknowledge that he dreamed not of. The whole soul of his wife came tohim in that kiss; and for a long minute ecstacy held them.

  Then he released her, slowly . . . reluctantly.

  "Shall we sit out here?" he said. "The whole camp will soon be asleep;but I can't let you go yet."

  She sank down, forthwith, upon the grassy slope, in which the fire of aJune sun still lingered; and clasping her hands about her knees, lookedup at him invitingly. By way of response he stretched himself fulllength, a little below her, resting on his elbow in such a position asafforded him a clear view of her profile, that gleamed, like a cameoagainst a background of deodars.

  "Smoke," she said softly.

  "No. I think not."

  His tone had a touch of constraint, and a lone silence fell.

  The strange solitude about them was no stranger than the enchantment ofbeing alone in it together; and there was that in their hearts thatmade speech difficult.

  They sat looking northward toward the moonlit hollow where the stationcamp clustered close to the forest's edge. Behind the camp--a mass ofunbroken shadow--it climbed up and upward to the mystery of a sky,powdered with the gold-dust of faint stars, on which its jagged outlinewas printed black as ink. Beyond that again, one majesticsnow-peak,--like a stainless soul rising out of a tomb,--gleamed in thelight of an increasingly brilliant moon. The crowd round the bonfirehad crumbled into a hundred insignificant seeming units; and the fireitself, no longer aspiring to the stars, glowed like an angry eye inthe dusky face of the glade.

  Presently Quita spoke.

  "There is so endlessly much to say, that I don't know where to begin.And after all, I am utterly content just to feel that you are there;that I have really got you back at last."

  "You have had me, body and soul, these five years," he answered simply."It is I who have gained you, by some miracle of your womanhood that Ishall never fathom."

  "If you set it down to your own manhood, you might be nearer the mark.You are very much too humble, Eldred; and I love you for it,--alwaysdid."

  "Always?"

  "I verily believe so."

  "Good God! I never misjudged you, did I? If you . . . cared _then_,why ever did you leave me?"

  "Because you gave me no time to take it in. But I am sure now that thegerm was there. I think your . . . kisses must have waked it intolife. That was why they upset me so. And when I came back, I meantto . . . Oh why should we rake it all up again? It hurts too much."

  "But I must know everything now, Quita. You meant to tell me,--wasthat it?"

  "Yes. Though I own it was rather late in the day. Then you sprang itupon me with that letter. I detest the man who wrote it, and I alwaysshall. There was just enough of truth in it, and in your bitterreproaches, to make me feel the hopelessness of lame explanations.Besides, your anger frightened me, though I didn't show it; and Isimply acted on a blind impulse to escape from the unknown thingsahead; to get back to the love and work I could understand."

  "My poor darling! What a blackguard I was to you!"

  "Hush! You are not to say that."

  "I will. It's true. But . . . didn't you care a great deal for theother chap?"

  "I imagined I did. Girls can't always analyse new feelings of thatsort. I can see now that it was chiefly mental sympathy between us, onmy side at least. But I only discovered that when the real thin
gcame--in a flash."

  "When was that?" he asked on a note of eagerness.

  "One May morning on the Kajiar road! I knew then that I must havecared always, without guessing it. But your coolness roused my pride;and I vowed that if you had wiped me out of your heart, I would diesooner than let you suspect my discovery. Yet all the while I longedfor you to know it; and in the end, goaded by your blindness, and yourastonishing want of conceit, I break my pride into a hundred littlebits. _Ai-je ete assez femme_?" she concluded with a whimsical smile.

  One of her hands lay on the grass beside him. He covered it with hisown.

  "And was the amazing discovery responsible for the Garth episode?" Histone had a hint of anxiety.

  "For the latter part of it, yes; though we have been friends all thewinter. He is at least moderately intelligent; and an intelligentegoist is always interesting. Besides, companionship is the breath oflife to me, you understand; and I seldom manage to make friends withwomen."

  "The other kind of friendship is an edged tool."

  "And therefore irresistible! It's like fencing with the buttons offthe foils."

  "You speak from much practical experience?"

  "Yes. I have had my share of it. But please believe me, Eldred,"--shehesitated,--"I have been as loyal to you in word and deed, all theseyears, as if I had borne your name, and lived under your roof. Inspite of my weakness for edged tools, I have never let any man tell methat he loved me since you told me so yourself, in the dark ages. Andif a few have wanted to do so, I could hardly help that, could I?"

  "No more than you could help breathing or sleeping," he answered with aslow strong pressure of her hand.

  "I know I ought not to have let Major Garth see so much of me after Isaw how it was with him, but--since it's the whole truth to-night--Iconfess your aloofness hurt me so, that I wanted to see if I couldrouse you to a spark of feeling by hurting you back, and I chose theweapon readiest to my hand."

  "You struck deep with it. Does the knowledge give you anysatisfaction?"

  "It fills my cup of shame to overflowing. Yet,--come to think ofthings, you did much the same without realising it."

  "Which makes a vast difference, surely?"

  "Not to me, _mon ami_. It is only God who judges by the intention;possibly because He never suffers from the action."

  "Quita! That's irreverent!"

  "Is it? I'm sorry if it sets your Scottish prickles on end! Areyou . . . a very religious man, Eldred?"

  "I believe in God," he answered simply.

  A short silence followed the statement. Then Quita spoke.

  "But you see, don't you, dear man, that I spoke truth. My pain wasnone the less sharp because you inflicted it unwittingly. It's one ofthe things people are apt to forget."

  "Your pain? Before God I never dreamed that any act of mine could giveyou a minute's uneasiness; though Mrs Desmond . . ."

  "Don't begin about Mrs Desmond, please!" She drew her hand away with atouch of impatience. "She is everything that is perfect, of course.But I hate her; and I believe I always shall."

  Lenox turned on his elbow and looked up into her face.

  "My dear . . . I can't let you speak so of my best friend. We owe hereverything, you and I. You shall hear about it all one of these days.And apart from that, she is . . ."

  "Yes, yes. I can see what she is, clearly enough. A superblybeautiful woman, outside and in, who possesses a good deal of influenceover you. I can be just to her, you see, if I am . . . jealous."

  "Jealous? Nonsense. The word is an insult to her, and to me."

  She reddened under the reproof in his tone.

  "Forgive me. I didn't mean it so. I am only afraid that after closeintimacy with her you will find--your wife rather a poor thing bycomparison. Just the 'eternal feminine' with all an artist's egoism,and more than the full complement of faults."

  She spoke so simply, and with such transparent sincerity, that again heturned on her abruptly; his smouldering passion quickened to a flame.

  "Quita . . . you dear woman . . . if I could only make yourealise . . . !"

  But long repression, and the knowledge that was poisoning his perfecthour, constrained him to reticence. He dared not let himself go.

  "I think I do realise . . . now . . ." she whispered, stirred to thedepths by the repressed intensity of his tone.

  "Then don't belittle yourself any more. I forbid it. You understand?"

  Again he heard the low laugh on which her soul seemed to ride. Then,leaning impulsively down to him, she put her bare arms round hisshoulders from behind, and rested her cheek upon his hair.

  The man held his breath, and remained very still, as if fearful lestword or movement should break the spell. After five years of unlovedloneliness, this first spontaneous caress from his wife, with itsdelicate suggestion of intimacy, seemed to break down invisiblebarriers and set new life coursing in his veins.

  "You forbid it?" she echoed, on a tremulous note of happiness. "Andyou have the right to. You, and no one else in all the world! Youlaughed at me in the old days--do you remember?--for clutching at myindependence. Well, I have had my surfeit of it now; and I amdesperately tired of standing alone . . . darling."

  She paused before the unfamiliar word, unconsciously accentuating itseffect, and Lenox, taking her two hands in one of his own, kissed themfervently. The moment he dreaded was upon him, and in the face of herimpassioned tenderness he scarcely knew how to meet it.

  "You should not stand alone one minute longer, if I could have mywill," he said in a repressed voice.

  She lifted her head and looked at him.

  "And why can't you have your will? What are we going to do about it,Eldred?"

  "Nothing in a hurry," he answered slowly. "We paid too dearly for thatlast time."

  "But, _mon cher_ . . . we have waited five whole years."

  "That is just the difficulty. Five years of overwork and bitterness ofspirit are not to be wiped out in a single hour; even such an hour asthis. The man you married had not gone through the fire, and beenbadly burned in the process."

  He paused. The irony of their reversed positions stung him to thequick, and she sat watching his face. The pallor of moonlightintensified its ruggedness, its deep indentations of cheek and brow.She began to be aware that the dropped stitches of life cannot alwaysbe picked up again at will; that there is no tyrant more pitiless thanthe Past; and a vague dread took hold of her, sealing her lips.

  "We have got to look facts in the face to-night," Lenox went on withthe doggedness of his race. "I'm a poor hand at discussing myself.It's an unprofitable subject. But I can't let you rush headlong into areunion that may prove disastrous . . . for you. To-night's revelationhas astounded me. It isn't easy to get one's bearings all at once; butbefore we take any further irretrievable step I am bound, inconscience, to tell you how the land lies. When you--repudiated me, Iaccepted your decision as final. I never dreamed of your coming back;and I acted accordingly. I took to work as I might have taken todrink, if I had been made that way; with the natural result thatI . . . smoked a great deal too much, and slept too little. I saw noearthly reason to husband my strength, or my life; and in consequence,I have gained something of a reputation for tackling dangerous anddifficult jobs. There's plenty more work of the kind ahead, with theforward policy in full swing; and one can't go back on all that hasbeen done. You see that, don't you?"

  "Yes. But couldn't I ever go with you?"

  He smiled. "I believe you have grit enough! But it would be unheardof. Besides . . . there is another trouble, and a very serious one,blocking the way."

  "You will tell me what it is?"

  He did not answer at once. To blacken himself deliberately in the eyesof the woman he loves is no light ordeal for a man; and Lenox shrankfrom it with the peculiar sensitiveness of a nature at once humble andproud; the more so since to-night had brought home to him theheart-breaking truth that in "the devil's wedl
ock of evil and pain" onecan never suffer alone.

  But a great love had been given him, and a force stronger than his willimpelled him to speak truth, even at the cost of losing it.

  "Yes . . . I will tell you what it is," he said slowly, lookingstraight before him. "You have the right to know."

  And in a few blunt words, unsoftened by excuse or justification, hetold her, not the fact only, but his dread of its far-reaching effect.

  "And it seems plain as daylight to me," he added bitterly, "that a manso cursed has no right to multiply misery by taking a woman into hislife. That was the real reason why I kept clear of you latterly, andtried to thank God that you did not care."

  He could not trust himself to look round at her face, but he felt herlean close to him again. For the unobtrusive strength of the man stoodrevealed in his confession; and it is woman's second nature to admirestrength.

  "Eldred, . . . my husband," she breathed, her voice breaking on theword. "How cruelly you must have suffered! And it was all _my_ fault."

  There spoke the woman!--intent upon the individual; blind--wilfully orotherwise--to the larger issues involved.

  "It was _not_ your fault," he answered with smothered vehemence. "Andin any case, don't you see, it's no question of blame, but ofconsequences. And we dare not shut our eyes to them. For thisbusiness of marriage is a complicated affair. What's more, I believethe wrench of immediate separation, with the comparative freedom itinvolves, would come less hard on you in the long-run, than actualmarriage with a man of my stamp.--Oh, you would find me a sorry bargainall round, I assure you," he concluded with a short, hard laugh. "Andyou will do well to think twice before you burn your boats for me!"

  She slid lower down the slope, and laid one hand on his knee.

  "I don't choose to think twice; and I _have_ burnt my boats as it is!Besides . . . you will be strong to conquer your trouble, now you knowthat all my happiness depends upon it." She paused for an appreciablemoment. "We seem to have changed places since that long-ago morning,Eldred. It is I who want--to begin now--on any terms."

  He put out his arm, and drew her very close to him.

  "Feckless as ever!" he chided without severity. "You dismissed me onan impulse; and now you would take me back again with the samestupendous disregard for results. It is very evident you need some oneto look after you, and teach you common-sense."

  "I have told you already _who_ it is that I need. Isn't that enough?"

  The thrill in her low tone set all the man in him on fire. Theinfluence of the hour was strong upon him.

  "My God!" he muttered under his breath. "How can mere flesh and bloodhold out against you?"

  "Must you hold out against me--even after what I said?"

  She nestled nearer, and stray tendrils of hair softly brushed hischeek. His lips whitened, but he set them close. Her touch, theperfume of her passion, had their exalting effect on him. Her weaknesschallenged his strength.

  "Yes; I must," he answered quietly. "For your sake, my dear, and formy own self-respect. I am fighting this thing, you understand, withevery weapon at my command. And until I see my way clear out on theother side, I will not--I dare not--take you back. Now come. It ishigh time you were asleep. We can't stay out here together all night."

  "We have every right to . . . if we choose," she murmured, stillrebellious.

  "You forget, I am to teach you common-sense! There is to-morrow to bethought of, and your long ride back to Dalhousie."

  A small shiver ran through her.

  "I am afraid of to-morrow. I shall wake up and feel as if all this hadbeen a dream. When shall I see you again . . . alone?"

  "I will come up and call on you the day after!" he said, assuming adeliberate lightness in sheer self-defence. "Don't let me find Garththere, though; or I warn you I shall not be accountable for mybehaviour!"

  He rose on the words, and lifted her to her feet. They descended theslope in silence, walking a little apart, as if accentuating the factthat their reunion in this June night of enchantment and faint starswas an incomplete thing after all.

  The moon was near her zenith; and, outside the formless dark of theforest, the great glade held her radiance as a goblet holds wine. Pastthe half-hidden temple of the holy lake they moved leisurely towardsthe cluster of tents that showed like a pallid excrescence at theforest's edge. To-night again, as on that earlier unforgettable day,they seemed the only living beings in a world of shadows and foldedwings; and the decree of separation, coming at such a moment, put asevere strain on their self-control.

  Fifty feet from Quita's tent they stood still.

  She held out her hands. He pressed them closely between his own, thatwere strangely cold, and lifted them to his lips. Then she swayedforward unsteadily; and in an instant her face was hidden against hisshoulder, her whole frame shaken with soundless sobs.

  A woman in tears sets even a case-hardened man at a disadvantage; andLenox, confronted with the phenomenon for the first time in his life,experienced a sense of helpless bewilderment, coupled with a vagueconviction of his own brutality in having brought this happy-heartedwife of his to such a pass. He could not guess that after a week ofceaseless tension, played out with no little fortitude, this moment ofunrestraint came as a pure relief to her overwrought nerves; a reliefthat verged upon ecstasy, since her husband's arm was round her, hishand mechanically stroking her hair.

  "Hold up, hold up," he urged her gently. "This sort of thing willnever do."

  But control, once lost, is ill to regain. His words produced novisible affect, for in her momentary abandonment, she could not see hisface; or guess at the struggle that was enacting behind its curtain ofself-mastery. And now, to discomfiture was added an overpoweringtemptation to trample on all scruples of conscience; to take that whichwas his, without further let or hindrance; and put an end to theirdistracting situation once for all.

  "Quita, . . . my darling wife . . . !" he broke out desperately. "ForHeaven's sake pull yourself together. You are torturing me pastendurance. Do you suppose it is an easy thing . . . to let you go?"

  She raised her head at that, compressing her lips to still their tremor.

  "Forgive me, . . . dearest. It was stupid of me to make a fuss. Iwill go now; and I promise not to behave like this again."

  She deliberately drew his head down to her own; and they kissed, once.Then she left him, something hurriedly; and he stood transfixed lookingafter her, till the falling flap of the tent hid her from view.

  There could be no thought of sleep for Eldred Lenox that night.

  Till the moon slipped behind the pines, and the sentinel snow-peak inthe North caught, and flung back, the first glimmer of dawn, he pacedthe empty glade from end to end. His mouth and throat were parched.His every nerve clamoured for the accustomed narcotic. But pipe andtobacco-pouch reposed in his breast-pocket--untouched.