"Undoubtedly you did right--and that justifies my contention. In doing that which you did you gave voice to the opinion of all wholesome-minded people. That's exactly where it is. You felt the whole business to be outrageous. So it was. I heartily agree."--He paused, and the trees talked softly together, bending down a little to listen and to look.--"As you say, she wasn't in love. Poor child, how could she be? No woman ever will be--at least not in love of the n.o.bler sort--of the sort which, if one cannot have it, one had a vast deal better have no love at all."

"But I am not so sure of that," Honoria said stoutly. "You rush to conclusions. Isn't it rather a reflection on all the rest of us to take little Lady Constance as the measure of the insight and sensibility of the whole s.e.x? And then she had already lost all her innocent, little heart to Captain Decies. Indeed you're not fair to us.--Wait----"

"Like Ludovic Quayle?"

Miss St. Quentin straightened herself in the saddle.

"Oh! dear no, not the least like Ludovic Quayle!" she said.

Which enigmatic reply produced silence for a while on d.i.c.kie's part.

For there were various ways in which it might be interpreted, some flattering, some eminently unflattering, to himself. And from every point of view it was wisest to accept that last form of interpretation.

The whole conversation had been perilous in character. It had been too intimate, had touched him too nearly, taking place here in the clear glooms of the green-wood moreover which bore such haunting kinship to those singularly sincere, and yet mysterious, eyes. It is dangerous to ride across the floor of ocean with the whispering tide sweeping overhead, and in such gallant company, besides, that to ride thus forever could hardly come amiss!--Richard, in his turn, straightened himself up in the saddle, opened his chest, taking a long breath, carried his head high, said a stern "get thee behind me, Satan," to encroaching sentiment and emotion, and to those fair visions which his companion's presence and her somewhat daring talk had conjured up. He defied the earth-magic, defied those sylvan deities who as he divined, sought to enthral him. For the moment he confounded Honoria's influence with theirs. It was something of a battle, and not the first one he had fought to-day. For the great, white road which leads onward to Perfection looked dusty and arid enough--no reposeful shadow, no mystery, no beguiling green glooms over it! Stark, straight, hard, it stretched on endlessly, as it seemed, ahead. To travel it was slow and tedious work, in any case; and to travel it on crutches!--But it was worse than useless to play with such thoughts as these. He would put a stop to this disintegrating talk. He turned to Honoria and spoke lightly, with a return of self-mockery.

"Oh! your first instinct was the true one, depend upon it," he said.

"Though I don't deny it contributed, indirectly, to giving me a pretty rough time."

"Oh! dear me!" Honoria cried, almost piteously. Then she added:--"But I don't see, why was that?"

"Because, I suppose, I had a sort of unwilling belief in you," he said, smiling.--Oh! this accursed conversation, why would it insistently drift back into intimacy thus!

"Have I justified that belief?" she asked, with a certain pride yet a certain eagerness.

"More than justified it," d.i.c.kie answered. "My mother, who has a touchstone for all that is of high worth, knew you from the first. Like the devils, I--I believed and trembled--at least that is how I see it all now. So your action came as a rather searching revelation and condemnation. When I perceived all that it involved--oh, well! first I went to the dogs, and then----"

The horses walked side by side. Honoria stretched out her hand impulsively, laid it on his arm.

"Richard, Richard, for pity's sake don't! You hurt me too much. It's terrible to have been the cause of such suffering."

"You weren't the cause," he said. "Lies were the cause, behind which, like a fool, I'd tried to shelter myself. You've been right, Honoria, from first to last. What does it matter after all?--Don't take it to heart. For it's over now--all over, thank G.o.d, and I have got back into normal relations with things and with people."--He looked at her very charmingly, and spoke with a fine courtesy of tone.--"One way and another you have taught me a lot, and I am grateful. And, in the future, though the conditions will be altered, I hope you'll come back here often, Honoria, and just see for yourself that my mother is content; and give my schemes and fads a kindly look in at the same time. And perhaps give me a trifle of sound advice. I shall need it safe enough. You see what I want to get at is temperance--temperance all round, towards everything and everybody--not fanaticism, which, in some respects, is a much easier att.i.tute of mind."

Richard looked up into the whispering, green tide overhead.

"Yes, one must deny oneself the luxury of fanaticism, if possible," he said, "deny oneself the vanity of eccentricity. One must take everything simply, just in the day's work. One must keep in touch. Keep in touch with your world, the great world, the world which cultivates pleasure and incidentally makes history, as well as with the world of the dust-cart--I know that well enough--if one's to be quite sane. You see loneliness, a loneliness of which I am thankful to think you can form no conception, is the curse of persons like myself. It inclines one to hide, to sulk, to shut oneself away and become misanthropic. To hug one's misery becomes one's chiefest pleasure--to nurse one's grief, one's sense of injury. Oh! I'm wary, very wary now, I tell you," he added, half laughing. "I know all the insidious temptations, the tricks and frauds, and pitfalls of this affair. And so I'll continue to go to Grimshott garden parties as discipline now and then, while I gather my disabled and decrepit family very closely about me and say words of wisdom to it--wisdom derived from a mature and extensive personal experience."

There was a pause before Miss St. Quentin spoke. Then she said slowly.

"And you refuse to let any one help? You, you refuse to let any one share the cares of that disabled family?"

Again d.i.c.kie stared at her, arrested by her speech and doubtful of the intention of it. He could have sworn there were tears in her voice, that it trembled. But her face was averted, and he could see no more than the slightly angular outline of her cheek and chin.

"Isn't that a rather superfluous question?" he remarked. "As you pointed out a little while ago, mine is not a super-abundantly cheerful programme. No one would volunteer for such service--at least no one likely to be acceptable to my mother, or indeed likely to satisfy my own requirements. I admit, I'm a little fastidious, a little critical and exacting, when it comes to close quarters and--well--permanent a.s.sociation, even yet."

"I am very glad to hear that," Honoria said. Her face remained averted, but there was a change in her att.i.tude, a decision in the pose of her figure, suggestive both of challenge and of triumph.

Richard was nonplussed, but his blood was up. This conversation had gone far enough--indeed too far. Very certainly he would make an end of it.

"But G.o.d forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should ever fall to such a depth of selfishness as to invite any person who would satisfy my taste, my demands, to share my life! I mayn't amount to very much, but at least I have never used my personal ill luck to trade on a woman's generosity and pity. What I have had from women, I've paid for, in hard cash. In that respect my conscience is clear. It has been a bargain, fair and square and above board, and all my debts are settled in full.

You hardly think at this time of day I should use my proposed schemes of philanthropy as a bait?"

Richard sent his horse forward at a sharp trot.

"No, no, Honoria," he said, "let it be understood that side of things is over forever."

But here came relief from the green glooms of the green-wood and the dangerous magic of them. For the riders had reached the summit of the hill, and entered upon the levels of the great table-land at the head of which Brockhurst House stands. Here was the open, the fresh breeze, the long-drawn, sighing song of the fir forest--a song more austere, more courageous, more virile, than ever sung by the trees of the wood which drop their leaves for fear of the sharp-toothed winter, and only put them forth again beneath the kisses of soft-lipped spring. Covering all the western sky were lines of softly-rounded, broken cloud, rank behind rank, in endless perspective, the whole shaped like a mighty fan. The under side of them was flushed with living rose. The clear s.p.a.ces behind them paved with sapphire at the zenith, and palest topaz where they skirted the far horizon.

"How very beautiful it is!" Honoria cried, joyously. "Richard let us see this."

She turned her horse at the green ride which leads to the white Temple situate on that outstanding spur of hill. She rode on quickly till she reached the platform of turf before the Temple. Richard followed her with deliberation. He was shaken. His calm was broken up, his whole being in tumult. Why had she pressed just all those matters home on him which he had agreed with himself to cast aside and forget? It was a little cruel, surely, that temptation should a.s.sail him thus, and the white road towards Perfection be made so difficult to tread, just when he had re-dedicated himself and renewed his vows? He looked after her.

It was here he had met her first, after the time when, as a little maid, she had proved too swift of foot, leaving him so far behind that it sorely hurt his baby dignity and caused him to see her depart without regret. She was still swift of foot. She left him behind now.

For the moment he was ready to swear that, not only without regret, but with actual thankfulness he could again witness her departure.--Yes, he wanted her to go, because he so desperately wanted her to stay--that was the truth. For not only d.i.c.kie the natural man, but d.i.c.kie "the wild bull in a net," had a word to say just then.--G.o.d in heaven, what hard work it is to be good!

Miss St. Quentin kicked her left foot out of the stirrup, threw her right leg over the pommel, turned, and slipped straight out of the saddle. She stood there a somewhat severely tall, dark figure, strong and positive in effect, against the immense and reposeful landscape--far-ranging, purple distance, golden harvest-fields, silver glint of water in the hollows, all the ma.s.sive grandeur of the woods, and that superb pageant of sunset sky.

The groom rode forward, took her horse, led it away to the far side of the gra.s.s platform behind the Temple. Those ranks of rosy cloud in infinite perspective, with s.p.a.ces of clearest topaz and sapphire light between, converged to the glowing glory of the sun, the rim of which now touched the margin of the world. They were as ranks of worshippers, of blessed souls redeemed and sainted, united by a common act of adoration, every form clothed by reflection of His glory, every heart, every thought centred upon G.o.d.--Richard looked at all that, but it failed to speak to him. Then he saw Honoria resolutely turn her back upon the glory. She came directly towards him. Her face was very thin, her manner very calm. She laid her left hand on the peak of his saddle.

She looked him full in the eyes.

"Richard," she said, "be patient a minute and listen.--It comes to this, that a woman--your equal in position, of your own age, and not without money--does volunteer to share your work. It's no forlorn hope.

She is not disappointed. On the contrary she has, and can have, pretty well all the world's got to give. Only--perhaps very foolishly, for she doesn't know much about the matter, having been rather coldblooded as yet--she has fallen in love."

There was a silence, save that the wind came out of the west, out of the majesty of the sunset, and with it came the calling of the sea--not only of the blue water, or of those green tides that sweep above wandering mortals in the magic green-wood; but of the sea of faith, of the sea of love--love human, love divine, love universal--which circles not only this, but all possible states of being, all possible worlds.

Presently Richard spoke hoa.r.s.ely, under his breath.

"With whom?" he said.

"With you----"

d.i.c.kie went white to the lips. He sat absolutely still for a little s.p.a.ce, his hands resting on his thighs.

"Tell her to think," he said, at last.--"She proposes to do that which the world will condemn, and rightly, from its point of view. It will misread her motives. It won't spare disagreeable comment. Tell her to think.--Tell--tell her to look.--Cripple, dwarf, the last, as he ought to be, of an unlucky race--a man who's carried up and down-stairs like an infant, who's strapped to the saddle, strapped to the driving seat--who is cut off from most forms of activity and of sport.--A man who will never have any sort of career--who has given himself, in expiation of past sins, to the service of human beings a degree more unfortunate than himself.--No, no, stop--hear me out.--She must know it all!--A man who has lived far from cleanly, who has evil memories and evil knowledge of life--no--listen!--A man whom you,--yes, you yourself, Honoria,--have condemned bitterly, from whom, notwithstanding your splendid nerve and pluck, so repulsive is his deformity, you have shrunk a hundred times."

"She has thought of all that," Honoria answered calmly. "But she has thought of this too,--that, going up and down the world to find the most excellent thing in it, she has found this thing, love. And so to her, Richard, your crippling has come to be dearer than any other man's wholeness. Your wrong-doings--may G.o.d forgive her--dearer than any other man's virtue. Your virtues so wholly beautiful that--that----"

The tears came into her eyes, her lips quivered, she backed away a little from rider and horse.

"Richard," she cried fiercely, "if you don't care for me, if you don't want me, be honourable, tell me so straight out and let us have done with it! I am strong enough, I am man enough, for that. For heaven's sake don't take me out of pity. I would never forgive you. There's a good deal of us both, one way and another, and we should give each other a h.e.l.l of a time if I was in love and you were not. But"--she put her hand on the peak of that very ugly saddle again--"but, if you do care, here I am. I have never failed any one yet. I will never fail you. I am yours body and soul. Marry me," she said.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH RICHARD CALMADY BIDS THE LONG-SUFFERING READER FAREWELL

The midsummer dusk had fallen, drawing its soft, dim mantle over the face of the land. The white light walked the northern sky from west to east. A nightingale sang in the big, Portugal laurel at the corner of the troco-ground, and was answered by another singer from the coppice, across the valley, bordering the trout stream that feeds the Long Water. A fox barked sharply out in the Warren. Beetles droned, flying conspicuously upright, straight on end, through the warm air. The churring of the night-jars, as they flitted hither and thither over the beds of bracken and dog-roses, like gigantic moths, on quick, silent wings, formed a continuous accompaniment, as of a spinning-wheel, to the other sounds. And d.i.c.k Ormiston laughed consumedly, doubling himself together now and again and holding his slim sides in effort to moderate his explosive merriment. He was in uproarious spirits.--Back from school to-day, and that nearly a month earlier than could by the most favourable process of calculation have been antic.i.p.ated, thanks to development of measles on the part of some much-to-be-commended school-fellows. How he blessed those praiseworthy young sufferers! And how he laughed, watching the two heavy-headed, lolloping, half-grown, bull-dog puppies describe crazy circles upon the smooth turf in the deepening dusk. Seen thus in the half-light they appeared more than ever gnome-like, humorously ugly and awkward. They trod on their own ears, tumbled over one another, sprawled on the gra.s.s, panting and grinning, until their ecstatic owner incited them to further gyrations.

To d.i.c.k this was a night of unbridled licence. Had he not dined late?

Had he not leave to sit up till half-past ten o'clock? Was he not going out, bright and early, to-morrow morning to see the horses galloped?

Could life hold greater complement of good for a brave, little, ten-year-old soul, and slender, serviceable, little, ten-year-old body emulous of all manly virtues and manly pastimes?