"Yes, just so," Ulick replied, laughing. "Mongan asked for three days'

delay to consider the dreadful dilemma in which the Bard's threat had placed him. And during that time Mongan sat with his wife consoling her, saying, "A man will come to us, his feet are already upon the western sea." And at the time when the Bard stood up to claim the wife, a strange warrior came into the encampment, holding a barbless spear. He said that he was Caolte, one of Fin's famous warriors, that the king whose place of death was in dispute was killed where Mongan had said, that if they dug down into the earth they would find the spear-head, that it would fit the shaft he held in his hand, that it was the spear-head that had killed the king."

"Go on, and tell me some more stories. I love to listen to you--you are better than any play."

And she wondered if he were indeed an ancient Druid come to life again, and that the instinct of the ancient rites lingered in him. However this might be, he could answer all her questions, and she was much interested when at the end of another tale he told her of Blake's visions and prophetic books. She knew little about Blake, and listened to Ulick's account of his visions and prophecies. Evelyn thought of Owen, and to escape from the thought she spoke of a legend which Ulick had once mentioned to her.

"You did not tell it to me, only the end; the very last phrase is all I know of it, 'and the further adventures of Bran are unknown.'"

"Bran, the son of Feval, is the story of a man who went to the great plain, the land over the sea, the land of the children of Dana. He was sitting in his court when a beautiful woman appeared, and she told him to man his ship and sail to the land of the G.o.ds, the land where no one dies, where blossoms fall for ever.... I have forgotten the song, what a wonderful song it is. Ah, I remember, 'Where music is not born, but continually is there, where' ... no, I can't remember it. Bran sails away, and after sailing for some days he meets a man driving a chariot over the waves. This man says, 'To my eyes you are sailing over the tops of a forest,' and in many other ways makes clear to him that all things are but appearances, and change with the eye that sees them."

"How true that is. At Lady Ascott's ball I was enjoying myself, delighted with the brilliancy of the dresses, the jewellery and the flowers, and in a moment they all pa.s.sed away; I only saw a little triviality and heard a voice crying within me, 'Why are you here, why are you doing these things? This ball means nothing to you.'"

"That was the voice of your destiny; your life is no longer with Owen."

"With whom is it, Ulick? Tell me, you can see into the future."

"I know no more than I told you last night. I am your destiny for to-day."

They looked at each other in fear and sadness--and though both knew the truth, neither could speak it.

"Then what happens to Bran, the son of Feval?"

"Bran visits many islands of many delights, but wishing to see his native land once more, he sails away, but the people of those islands have told him that he must not set foot on any earthly sh.o.r.e, or he will perish. So he sails close to his native land, but does not leave the ship. The inhabitants ask him who he is; he tells them, and they reply, 'The voyage of Bran, son of Feval, is among our most ancient stories.'

One man swims ash.o.r.e, and the moment his foot touches earth he becomes a heap of dust. Bran sails away, and the story ends with a phrase which you already know--'The further adventures of Bran are unknown.'"

"How true! how true! the stories of our lives are known up to a certain point, and our further adventures are unknown."

They were glad of a little silence, and Evelyn sat striving to read her own destiny in the legend. Bran visited many islands of many delights, but when he wished to return to his native land he was told that he must do no more than to sail along its coast, that if he set foot on any earthly sh.o.r.e he would perish. But what did this story mean, what meaning had it for her? She had visited many islands of many delights, and had come home again! What meaning had this story for her? why had she remembered the last phrase? why had she been impelled to ask Ulick to tell her this story? She looked at him--he sat with his eyes on the ground absorbed in thought, but she did not think he was thinking of the legend, but of how soon he would lose her, and she shuddered in the warm summer evening as from a sudden chill. It was now nearly seven o'clock--she would soon have to go home to dress for dinner. They were dining out, she and Lady Duckle, and she would meet once more Lady Ascott, Lady Summersdean, those people whose lives she had begun to feel had no further concern for her.

The hour was inexpressibly calm and alluring; the blue pallor of the sky and the fading of the sunset behind the tall Bayswater houses raised the soul with a tingling sense of exalted happiness and delicious melancholy? She did not ask herself if she loved Ulick better than Owen; she only knew that she must act as she was acting--that the moment had not come when she would escape from herself. They walked by the water's edge, their souls still like the water, and like it, full of calm reflections. They were aware of the evening's sad serenity, and the little struggling pa.s.sions of their lives. Very often Nature seemed on the very point of whispering her secret, but it escaped her ears like an echo in the far distance, like a phantom that disappears in the mist.

"Will you come and see me to-morrow?" he asked suddenly.

"We had better not see each other every day," she said; "still, I don't see there would be any harm if you came to see me in the afternoon."

Her conscience drowsed like this heavy, somnolent evening, and a red moon rose behind the tall trees.

"The time will come," he said, "when you will hate me, Evelyn."

"I don't think I shall be as unjust as that. Good-bye, dear, the afternoon has pa.s.sed very pleasantly."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Owen had telegraphed to her and she had come at once. But how callous and unsympathetic she was. If people knew what she was, no one would speak to her. If Owen knew that she had desired his mother's death ...

But had she? She had only thought that, if Lady Asher were not to recover, it were better that she died before she, Evelyn, arrived at Riversdale. As the carriage drove through the woods she noticed that they were empty and silent, save for the screech of one incessant bird, and she thought of the dead woman's face, and contrasted it with the summer time.

The house stood on the side of some rising ground in the midst of the green park. Cattle were grazing dreamily in the gra.s.s, which grew rich and long about a string of ponds, and she could see Owen walking under the colonnade. As the carriage came round the gravel s.p.a.ce, his eyes sought her in the brougham, and she knew the wild and perplexed look on his face.

"No, don't let's go into the house unless you're tired," he said, and they walked down the drive under the branches, making, they knew not why, for the open park. "This is terrible, isn't it? And this beautiful summer's day too, not a cloud in the sky, not a wind in all the air. How peaceful the cattle are in the meadow, and the swans in the pond. But we are unhappy. Why is this? You say that it is the will of G.o.d. That is no answer. But you think it is?"

Fearing to irritate him, she did not speak, but he would not be put off, and she said--

"Do not let us argue, Owen, dear. Tell me about it. It was quite unexpected?"

"She had been in ill-health, as you know, for some time. Let us go this way."

He led her through the shrubbery and through the wicket into the meadows which lay under the terrace, and, thinking of the dead woman, she wondered at the strange, somnolent life of the cattle in the meadows and the swans on the pond. The willows, as if exhausted by the heat, seemed to bend under the stream, and their eyes followed the lines of the woods and looked into the burning blue of the sky, striving to read the secret there. A rim of moist earth under their feet, and above their heads the infinite blue! The stillness of the summer was in every blade of gra.s.s, in every leaf, and the pond reflected the sky and willows in hard, immovable reflections. An occasional ripple of the water-fowl in the reeds impressed upon them the mystery of Nature's indifference to human suffering.

"In that house behind that colonnade she lies dead. Good G.o.d! isn't it awful! We shall never see her. But you think we shall?"

"Owen, dear, let as avoid all discussion. She was a good woman. She was very good to me."

"I haven't told you that it was by her wish that I sent for you. She wanted to ask you to promise to marry me.... I told her that I had asked you, and that in a way we were engaged. I could not say more. You seemed unsettled, you seemed to wish to get out of your promise--is not that so?"

Evelyn thought of the scene by Lady Asher's bedside that an accident had saved her from. Marriage was more than ever impossible. What should she have said if Lady Asher had not died before she arrived? The dying woman's eyes, the dying woman's voice! Good heavens! what would she have said? But she had considered nothing. After glancing at the telegram, she had told Merat to pack a few clothes, and had rushed away. She pondered the various excuses she might have sent. She might have said she was not in when the telegram came, she had only just caught the train as it was; if she had not got the telegram before eleven o'clock she would have been safe. But all that was past now, Lady Asher had died before she arrived. It were better that she had died--anything were better rather than that scene should have taken place; for she could not have promised to marry Owen. What would she have done? Refused while looking into her dying eyes, or run out of the room?

"You don't answer me, Evelyn."

"Owen, don't press me. Enough has been said on that subject. This is no time to discuss such questions."

"But it is Evelyn--it was her dearest wish.... Is it then impossible?

Have you entirely ceased to care?"

"No, Owen, I'm very fond of you. But you don't really want to marry me, it is because your mother wished it."

His face changed expression, and she knew that he was not certain on the point himself.

"Yes, Evelyn, I do, indeed I do;" and convinced for the moment that what he said was true, he took her hands, and looking at her he added, "It was her wish, and if what you believe be true, she is listening now from behind that blue sky."

Both were trembling, and while the swans floated by, they considered the depth of blue contained in the sky. He was taken with a little dread, and was surprised to find in himself a vague, haunting belief in the possibility of an after life. Suddenly his self-consciousness fell from him, was merged in his instinct of the woman.

"Evelyn, if I don't marry you I shall lose you. I cannot lose you, that would be to lose everything. I don't ask any questions, whether you like Ulick Dean, nor even what your relations are. I only want to know if you will marry me."

He read in her eyes that the tale of their love was ended, and heard his future life ring hollow. It seemed strange that at such a moment the serene swans should float about them, that the water-fowl should move in and out of the reeds, and that the green park and the cloudless sky were like painted paper.

"Then everything is over, everything I had to live for, all is a blank.

But when you sent me away before, you had to take me back; you're not a woman who can live without a lover."

"It is difficult, I know."

"What has come between us, tell me? This fellow Ulick Dean or religious scruples?"

"I have no right to talk about religious scruples."