But now, as she re-read the solemn phrase: _So long as ye both shall live_, she was seized with panic. To be married for ten, twenty, forty years, perhaps, with never the hand of happy chance--the wonderful, enthralling "might be" of life--to help her to endure it! With a little stifled cry she sprang up and began pacing the room restlessly--up and down, up and down, her slim hands clenching and unclenching as she walked.

Presently--she could, not have told whether it was five minutes or five hours later--she heard the click of a latch-key in the lock. At the sound, the imperative need for self-control rushed over her. Penelope, of all people, must never know--never guess that she wasn't happy in her engagement to Roger. She didn't intend to spoil Penny's own happiness by the faintest cloud of worry on her account.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the prayer-book she had let fall and switching off the lights, dropped down on the hearthrug just as Penelope came in, fresh and glowing, from her walk.

"All in the dark?" she queried as she entered. "You look like a kitten curled up by the fire." She stooped and kissed Nan with unwonted tenderness. Then she turned up the lights and drew the curtains across the window, shutting out the grey October twilight.

"Penny," said Nan, fingering the prayer-book, "have you ever read the marriage service?"

Penelope's face lightened with a sudden radiance.

"Yes, isn't it beautiful?"

Nan stared at her.

"Beautiful?" She gave an odd little laugh. "It sounds to me much more like a commination service. Doesn't it frighten you?"

"Not a bit." Penelope's serenely happy eyes confirmed her quick denial.

"Well"--Nan regarded her contemplatively--"it rubs in all the dreadful things that may happen to you--like ill-health, and poverty, and 'for worse'--whatever that may mean--and dins into your ears the fact that nothing but death can release you."

"You're looking at the wrong side of it, Nan. It seems to me to show just exactly _how much_ a husband and wife may be to each other, and how--together--they can face all the ills that flesh is heir to."

"Reminds one of a visit to the dentist--you can screw your courage up more easily if someone goes with you," remarked Nan grimly.

"You're simply determined to look on the ugly side of things,"

protested Penelope.

"And yet, Penny dear, at one time you used to scold me for being too idealistic in my notions!"

But Penelope declined to shift from her present standpoint.

"And now you're expecting so little that, when your turn comes, you'll be beautifully disappointed," she remarked as she left the room in order to finish some odds and ends of packing.

In her capacity of sole bridesmaid Nan followed Penelope's tall, white-clad figure up the aisle. Each step they made was taking her friend further away from her--nearer to the man whom the next half-hour would make her husband. With a swift leap of the imagination, she visioned herself in Penelope's place, leaning on Lord St. John's arm--and the man who waited for her at the chancel steps was Roger!

She swayed a moment, then by an immense effort forced herself back to the reality of things, following steadily once more in the wake of her uncle and Penelope.

There seemed to her something dream-like in their slow progression.

The atmosphere was heavy with the scent of flowers, a sea of blurred faces loomed up at her from the pews on either side, and the young, sweet voices of the choristers soared high above the organ. She stole a glance at her uncle. He looked frailer than usual, she thought, with a sudden pang of apprehension; perhaps the heat of the summer had told upon him a little. Then her gaze ran on to where the bridegroom stood, the tall altar-lights flickering behind him, his face turned towards the body of the church, and his eyes, very bright and steady, resting on Penelope as she approached.

He stepped forward quickly as she neared the chancel and Nan saw that a smile pa.s.sed between them as he took his place beside her. A feeling of rea.s.surance crept over her, quieting the sense of almost breathless panic which had for a moment overwhelmed her when she had pictured herself in Penny's place. There was dear old Ralph, looking quite ordinary and matter-of-fact, only rather sprucer than usual in his brand-new wedding garments. The feeling of rea.s.surance deepened.

Marriage wasn't so appalling. Good heavens! Dozens of people were married every day and she was quite sure they were not all wildly in love with each other.

Then the service commenced and the soft rise and fall of responsive voices murmured through the church a little s.p.a.ce. . . .

It was over very quickly--Nan almost gasped to find how astonishingly short a time it takes to settle one of the biggest things in life. In a few minutes the scented dimness of the church was exchanged for the pale gold of the autumn sunlight, the hush of prayer for the throb of waiting cars.

Later still, when the afternoon was spent, came the last handshakings and kisses. A rising chorus of good wishes, a dust of confetti, the closing of a door, and then the purr of a car as Penelope and Ralph, were borne away on the first stage of that new, untried life into which they were adventuring together.

Nan's face wore a queer look of strain as she turned back into the house. Once more the shadow of the future had fallen across her--the shadow of her marriage with Roger Trenby.

"My dear"--she looked up to meet Lord St. John's kindly gaze. "My dear, come into the dining-room. A gla.s.s of champagne is what you want. You're overdone."

He poured it out and mechanically Nan lifted it to her lips, then set it down on the table, untasted, with a hand that shook.

"I don't want it," she said. Then, unevenly: "Uncle, I can't--I can't ever marry--"

"Drink this," insisted St. John. He held out the champagne once more, quietly ignoring her stumbling utterance.

Nan pushed the gla.s.s aside. The whole of her misery was on the tip of her tongue.

"Listen Uncle David--you must listen!" she began rather wildly. "I don't care for Ro--"

"No, my dear. Tell me nothing." He checked the impending confession hastily. He guessed that it had some hearing upon her marriage with Trenby. If so, it would be better left unsaid. Just now she was tired and unstrung; later, she might regret her impulsive confidence. He wanted to save her from that.

"Don't tell me anything. What's done is done." He paused, then added: "Don't forget, Nan, a Davenant's word is his bond--always."

She responded to the demand in his voice as a thoroughbred answers to the touch of the whip. The champagne gla.s.s trembled a little in her fingers, as she took it from him, and clicked against her teeth. She swallowed the wine and replaced the gla.s.s on the table.

"Thank you," she said quietly. But it wasn't the wine for which she thanked him. She knew, just as he had known, that she had been on the verge of utter break-down. Her nerves, on edge throughout the whole marriage ceremony she had just witnessed, had almost given way beneath the strain, undermining the courage with which she had hitherto faced the future.

CHAPTER XIX

THE PRICE

A sense of bustle and mild excitement pervaded Trenby Hall. The hounds were to meet some distance away, and on a hunting morning it invariably necessitated the services of at least two of the menservants and possibly those of an observant maid--who had noted where last he had left his tobacco pouch--to get Roger off successfully.

"My hunting boots, Jenkins!" he demanded as he issued from the library.

"And look sharp with them! Flask and sandwich-case--that's right." He busied himself bestowing these two requisites in his pockets.

Nan, cool and unperturbed; joined him in the hall, a small, amused smile on her face. She had stayed at Trenby long enough by now to be well used to the cyclone which habitually accompanied Roger's departure to the meet, and the boyish unreasonableness of it--seeing that the well-trained servants invariably had everything in readiness for him--rather appealed to her. He was like a big, overgrown school-boy returning to school and greatly concerned as to whether his cricket-bat and tuck-box were safely included amongst his baggage.

"You, darling?" Roger nodded at her perfunctorily, preoccupied with the necessities of the moment. "Now, have I got my pipe?"--slapping his pockets to ascertain. To miss his customary pipe as he trotted leisurely home after the day's hunting was unthinkable. "Matches!

I've no matches! Here, Morton"--to the butler who was standing by with Roger's hunting-crop in his hand. "Got any matches?"

Morton produced a box at once. He had been in Roger's service from boyhood, fought side by side with him in Flanders, and no demand of his master's had yet found him unprepared. Nan was wont to declare that had Roger requested the Crown jewels, Morton would have immediately produced them from his pocket.

Outside, a groom was patiently walking a couple of horses up and down.

Quivering, velvety nostrils snuffed the keen air while gleaming black hoofs danced gently on the gravel drive, executing little side steps of excitement--for no hunting day comes round but that in some mysterious way the unerring instinct of the four-legged hunter acquaints him of the fact. Further along cl.u.s.tered the pack, the hounds padding restlessly here and there, but kept within bounds by the occasional crack of a long-lashed crop or a gruff command from one of the whips.

Nan was always conscious of a curious intermingling of feeling when, as now, she watched Roger ride away at the head of his hounds. The day she had almost lost her life at the kennels recurred to her mind inevitably--those moments of swift and terrible danger when it seemed as though nothing could save her. And with that memory came another--the memory of Roger flinging himself forward to the rescue, forcing back with bare hands the great hound which had attacked her. A quick thrill--the thrill of primitive woman--ran through her at the recollection. No woman can remain unmoved by physical courage--more especially if it is her own imperative need which has called it forth.