第60章

She passed her hands over her face, and hair, and dress.How long had it lasted? How long had they been out here? And she began slowly moving back towards the house.Thank God! She had not yielded to fear or pity, not uttered falsities, not pretended she could love him, and betrayed her heart.That would have been the one unbearable thing to have been left remembering! She stood long looking down, as if trying to see the future in her dim flower-beds; then, bracing herself, hurried to the house.No one was on the veranda, no one in the drawing-room.She looked at the clock.

Nearly eleven.Ringing for the servant to shut the windows, she stole up to her room.Had her husband gone away as he had come?

Or would she presently again be face to face with that dread, the nerve of which never stopped aching now, dread of the night when he was near? She determined not to go to bed, and drawing a long chair to the window, wrapped herself in a gown, and lay back.

The flower from her dress, miraculously uncrushed in those dark minutes on the grass, she set in water beside her at the window--Mark's favourite flower, he had once told her; it was a comfort, with its scent, and hue, and memory of him.

Strange that in her life, with all the faces seen, and people known, she had not loved one till she had met Lennan! She had even been sure that love would never come to her; had not wanted it--very much; had thought to go on well enough, and pass out at the end, never having known, or much cared to know, full summer.Love had taken its revenge on her now for all slighted love offered her in the past; for the one hated love that had to-night been on its knees to her.They said it must always come once to every man and woman--this witchery, this dark sweet feeling, springing up, who knew how or why? She had not believed, but now she knew.And whatever might be coming, she would not have this different.Since all things changed, she must change and get old and be no longer pretty for him to look at, but this in her heart could not change.

She felt sure of that.It was as if something said: This is for ever, beyond life, beyond death, this is for ever! He will be dust, and you dust, but your love will live! Somewhere--in the woods, among the flowers, or down in the dark water, it will haunt!

For it only you have lived!...Then she noticed that a slender silvery-winged thing, unlike any moth she had ever seen, had settled on her gown, close to her neck.It seemed to be sleeping, so delicate and drowsy, having come in from the breathless dark, thinking, perhaps, that her whiteness was a light.What dim memory did it rouse; something of HIM, something HE had done--in darkness, on a night like this.Ah, yes! that evening after Gorbio, the little owl-moth on her knee! He had touched her when he took that cosy wan velvet-eyed thing off her!

She leaned out for air.What a night!--whose stars were hiding in the sheer heavy warmth; whose small, round, golden moon had no transparency! A night like a black pansy with a little gold heart.

And silent! For, of the trees, that whispered so much at night, not even the aspens had voice.The unstirring air had a dream-solidity against her cheeks.But in all the stillness, what sentiency, what passion--as in her heart! Could she not draw HIMto her from those woods, from that dark gleaming river, draw him from the flowers and trees and the passion-mood of the sky--draw him up to her waiting here, so that she was no more this craving creature, but one with him and the night! And she let her head droop down on her hands.

All night long she stayed there at the window.Sometimes dozing in the chair; once waking with a start, fancying that her husband was bending over her.Had he been--and stolen away? And the dawn came; dew-grey, filmy and wistful, woven round each black tree, and round the white dove-cot, and falling scarf-like along the river.

And the chirrupings of birds stirred among leaves as yet invisible.

She slept then.