"Nan, if I didn't care so much, I'd ask you to go away with me.

I--don't quite know what life will be like without you--h.e.l.l, probably.

But at least it's going to be my own little h.e.l.l and I'm not going to drag you down into it. I'm bound irrevocably. And you--you're bound, too. You can't play fast and loose with the promise you've given Trenby. So we've just got to face it out." He broke off abruptly.

Tiny beads of sweat rimmed his upper lip and his hands hung clenched at his sides. Even Nan hardly realised the effort his restraint was costing him.

"What--what do you mean, Peter?" she asked haltingly.

"I mean that I'm going away--that I mustn't see you any more."

A cry fled from her lips--denying, supplicating, and at the desolate sound of it a tremor ran through his limbs. It was as though his body fought and struggled against the compelling spirit within it.

"We mustn't meet again," he went on steadily.

"Not meet--ever--do you mean?" There was something piteous in the young, shaken voice.

"Never, if we can help it. We must go separate ways, Nan."

She tried to speak, but her lips moved soundlessly. Only her eyes, meeting his, held a mute agony that tortured him. All at once his self-control gave way, and the pa.s.sion of love and longing against which he had been fighting swept aside the barriers which circ.u.mstance had placed about it. His arms went round her, holding her close while he rained kisses on her throat and lips and eyes--fierce, desperate kisses that burned against her face. And Nan kissed him back, yielding up her soul upon her lips, knowing that after this last pa.s.sionate farewell there could he no more giving or receiving. Only a forgetting.

. . . At last they drew apart from one another, though Peter's arms still held her, but only tenderly as for the last time.

"This is good-bye, dearest of all," he said presently.

"Yes," she answered gravely. "I know."

"Heart's beloved, try not to be too sad," he went on. "Try to find happiness in other things. We can never be together--never be more than friends, but I shall be your lover always--always, Nan--through this world into the next."

Her hand stole into his.

"As I yours, Peter."

It was as though some solemn pledge had pa.s.sed between them--a spiritual troth which nothing in this world could either touch or tarnish. Neither Peter's marriage nor the rash promise Nan had given to Roger could impinge on it. It would carry them through the complex disarray of this world to the edge of the world beyond.

Some time pa.s.sed before either of them spoke again. Then Peter said quite simply:

"We must go home, dear."

She nodded, and together, hand in hand, they descended from the old castle which must have witnessed so many loves and griefs and partings in King Arthur's time, keeping them secret in its bosom as it would keep secret this later farewell.

They were very silent on the way back. Just at the end, before they turned the corner where the car awaited them, Peter spoke to her again, taking both her hands in his for the last time and holding them in a firm, steady clasp.

"Don't forget, Nan, what we said just now. We can each remember that--our troth. Hang on to it--_hard_, when life seems a bit more uphill than usual."

CHAPTER XVII

"THE KEYS OF HEAVEN"

Nan awoke the next morning to find the sunlight pouring into her room.

Outside, the notes of a bird's song lilted very sweetly on the air, while the creamy head of a rose tapped now and again at the window as though bidding her come out and share in the glory of the summer's day. She had slept far into the morning--the deep, dreamless slumber of utter mental and physical exhaustion. And now, waking, she stared about her bewilderedly, unable at first to recall where she was or what had happened.

But that blessed lack of realisation did not last for long. Almost immediately the recollection of all that had occurred yesterday rushed over her with stunning force, and the sunlight, the bird song, and that futile rose tapping softly there against the window-pane, seemed stupidly incongruous.

Nan felt she almost hated them. Only a few hours before she had said good-bye to the man she loved. Not good-bye for a month or a year, but for the rest of life. Possibly, at some distant time, they might chance to meet at the house of a mutual friend, but they would meet merely as acquaintances, never again as lovers. Triumphing in spirit over the desire of the heart, they had taken their farewell of love--bowed to the destiny which had made of that love a forbidden thing.

But last night, even through the anguish of farewell, they had been unconsciously upheld by a feeling of exultation--that strange ecstasy of sacrifice which sometimes fires frail human beings to live up to the G.o.d that is within them.

To-day the inevitable reaction had succeeded and only the bleak, bitter facts remained. Nan faced them squarely, though it called for all the pluck of which she was possessed. Peter had gone, and throughout the years that stretched ahead she saw herself travelling through life step by step with Roger, living the same dull existence year in, year out, till at last, when they were both too old for anything to matter very much--too supine for romance to send the quick blood racing through their veins, too dull of sight to perceive the glamour and glory of the world--merciful death would step in and take one or other of them away.

She shivered a little with youth's instinctive dread of the time when age shall quieten the bounding pulses, slowly but surely taking the savour out of things. She wanted to live first, to gather up the joy of life with both hands. . . .

Her thoughts were suddenly scattered by the sound of the opening door and the sight of Mrs. Seymour's inquiring face peeping round it.

"Awake?" queried Kitty.

With a determined mental effort Nan pulled herself together, prepared to face the world as it was and not as she wanted it to be. She answered promptly:

"Yes. And hungry, please. May I have some breakfast?"

"Good child!" murmured Kitty approvingly. "As a matter of fact, your brekkie is coming hard on my heels"--gesturing, as she spoke, towards the trim maid who had followed her into the room, carrying an attractive-looking breakfast tray. When she had taken her departure, Kitty sat down and gossiped, while Nan did her best to appear as hungry as she had rashly implied she was.

Somehow she must manage to throw dust in Kitty's keen eyes--and a simulated appet.i.te made quite an excellent beginning. She was determined that no one should ever know that she was anything other than happy in her engagement to Roger. She owed him that much, at least. So when Kitty, making an effort to speak quite naturally, mentioned that Peter had been obliged to return to town unexpectedly, she accepted the news with an a.s.sumption of naturalness as good as Kitty's own. Half an hour later, leaving Nan to dress, Kitty departed with any suspicions she might have had entirely lulled.

But her heart ached for the man whose haggard, stern-set face, when he had told her last night that he must go, had conveyed all, and more, than his brief words of explanation.

"Must you really go, Peter?" she had asked him wistfully. "I thought--you told me once--that you didn't mean to break off your friendship? . . . Can't you even be friends with her?"

His reply came swiftly and with a definiteness there was no mistaking.

"No," he said. "I can't. It's true what you say--I did once think I might keep her friendship. I was wrong."

There was a pause. Then Kitty asked quickly:

"But you won't refuse to meet her? It isn't as bad as that, Peter?"

He looked down at her oddly.

"It's quite as bad as that."

She felt herself trembling a little at the queer intensity of his tone.

It was as though the man beside her were keeping in check, by sheer force of will, some big emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. She hesitated, then spoke very quietly and simply:

"That was a perfectly selfish question on my part, Peter. Don't take any notice of it."

"How--selfish?" he asked, with a faint smile.

"Because, if you refuse to meet Nan, I shall always have to see you separately--never together. I love you both and I can't give up either of you, so it will be rather like cutting myself in half."