She extended her hand, thinking he had brought one back.

"Ah, I knew I'd missed one," she said. She shook a lean forefinger at him reprovingly: "So 'twas you run off with it! I'm obliged to you for bringing it again, sir. I couldn't rightly remember whether 'twas a young lady or gentleman who'd had it. There's so many comes for a key and--"

"It was a lady. She's up there now, we think. And I want another key to get in with. She may have been taken ill."

Peter's curt explanation stemmed her ready stream of talk abruptly.

s.n.a.t.c.hing the key which she took down from a peg on the wall he returned to the car with it. Barry was still sitting behind the steering wheel. He bent forward, as Peter approached.

"You go," he said, with a bluntness that masked an infinite understanding. "There's the brandy flask"--bringing it out of a side pocket. "If you want help, blow this hooter." He had detached one of the horns from the car. "If not--well, I shall just wait here till you come back."

CHAPTER XVI

SACRED TROTH

The tide was at its full when Peter began the ascent to King Arthur's Castle--the sea a vast stretch of quivering silver fringed with a mist of flying spray. In the strange, sharp lights and shadows cast by the round moon overhead, the great crags of the promontory jutted out like the turrets of some ancient fortress--blackly etched against the tender, irresolute blue of the evening sky.

But Peter went on unheedingly. The mystic charm had no power to hold him to-night. The only thing that mattered was Nan--her safety. Was she lying hurt somewhere within the crumbling walls of the castle? Or had she missed her footing and plunged headlong into that sea which boomed incessantly against the cliffs? It wasn't scenery that mattered. It was life--and death!

Very swiftly he mounted to the castle door, looking from side to side as he went for any trace which might show that Nan had pa.s.sed this way.

As he climbed the last few feet he shouted her name: "Nan! Nan!" But there came no answer. Only the sea still thundered below and a startled gull flew out from a cranny, screaming as it flew.

Mallory's hand shook a little as he thrust the key into the heavy lock.

Practically all that remained of hope lay behind that closed door.

Then, as it opened, a great cry broke from him, hoa.r.s.e with relief from the pent-up agony of the last hour.

She lay there just like a child asleep, snuggled against the wall, one arm curved behind her head, pillowing it. At the sound of his voice she stirred, opening bewildered, startled eyes. In an instant he was kneeling beside her.

"Don't be frightened, Nan. It's I--Peter. Are you hurt?"

"Peter?" She repeated the name dreamingly, hardly yet awake, and her voice held almost a caress in its soft tones.

Mallory bit back a groan. To hear her speak his name on that little note of happiness hurt incredibly.

"Nan--wake up!" he urged gently.

She woke then--came back to a full sense of her surroundings.

"You, Peter?" she murmured surprisedly. She made an effort to sit up, then sank back against the wall, uttering a sharp cry of distress.

"Where are you hurt?" asked Mallory with quick anxiety.

She shook her head at him, smiling rea.s.suringly.

"I'm not hurt. I'm only stiff. You'll have to help me up, Peter."

He stooped and raised her, and at last she stood up, ruefully rubbing the arm which had been curled behind her head while she slept.

"My arm's gone to sleep. It's all pins and needles!" she complained.

Slung over his shoulders Peter carried an extra wrap for her. Whatever had happened, whether she were hurt or merely stranded somewhere, he knew she would not be warmly enough clad to meet the sudden coolness of the evening.

"You must be nearly perished with cold--asleep up here! Put this on,"

he said quickly.

"No, really"--she pushed aside the woollen coat he tendered. "I'm not cold. It was quite sheltered here under this wall."

"Put it on," he repeated quietly. "Do as I tell you--little pal."

At that she yielded and he helped her on with the coat, fastening it carefully round her.

"And now tell me what possessed you to go to sleep up here?" he demanded.

In a few words she related what had happened, winding up:

"Afterwards, I suppose I must have fainted. Oh!"--with a shiver of remembrance--"It was simply ghastly! I've never felt giddy in my life before--and hope I never may again! It's just as if the bottom of the world had fallen out and left you hanging in mid-air! . . . I knew I couldn't face the climb down again, so--so I just went to sleep. I thought some of you would be sure to come to look for me."

"You knew I should come," he said, a sudden deep insistence in his voice. "Nan, didn't you _know_ it?"

She lifted her head.

"Yes. I think--I think I knew you would come, Peter," she answered unsteadily.

The moonlight fell full upon her--upon a white, strained face with pa.s.sionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his, refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which underlay his question.

With a stifled exclamation he swept her up into his arms and his mouth met hers in the first kiss that had ever pa.s.sed between them--a kiss which held infinite tenderness, and the fierce pa.s.sion that is part of love, and a foreshadowing of the pain of separation.

"My beloved!" He held her a little away from him so that he might look into her face. Then with a swift, pa.s.sionate eagerness; "Say that you love me, Nan?"

"Why, Peter--Peter, you know it," she cried tremulously. "It doesn't need telling, dear. . . . Only--it's forbidden."

"Yes," he a.s.sented gravely. "It's forbidden us. But now--just this once--let us have a few moments, you and I alone, when there's no need to pretend we don't care--when we can be _ourselves_!"

"No--no--" she broke in breathlessly.

"It's not much, to ask--five minutes together out of the whole of life!

Roger can't grudge them. He'll have you--always." His arms closed jealously round her.

"Yes--always," she repeated. With a sudden choked cry she clung to him despairingly.

"Peter, sometimes I feel I can't bear it! Oh, why were we _allowed_ to care like this?"

"G.o.d knows!" he muttered.

He released his hold of her abruptly and began pacing up and down--savagely, like some caged beast. Nan stood staring out over the moon-washed sea with eyes that saw nothing. The five minutes they had s.n.a.t.c.hed together from the rest of life were slipping by--each one a moment of bitter and intolerable anguish.

Presently Peter swung round and came to her side. But he did not touch her. His face looked drawn, and his eyes burned smoulderingly--like fire half-quenched.