A spasm of fear ran through her veins.

"It's the nearest approach to happiness I've ever known."

"Nevertheless," he said firmly, "it shall not go on. We have no right to murder your joy. Help me through the next few months, and then, whatever happens, we start afresh!"

"But if I want to stay?"

He shook his head with a finality from which she knew there was no appeal. What Geoffrey Sterne said he meant, to the last letter of the word, and there was no turning him from a decision. Meriel felt the terror of one who, playing among flowers, sees a sudden vision of a serpent's head. A moment before their lives had seemed indefinitely linked, now, in a few months, must come separation, as complete as though they were at opposite ends of the world, for Sterne now lived entirely in his country home, and shunned the society of his fellows.

She searched his face for some sign of grief, even of regret, but the stern features were set in a mask-like composure. The terrible suspicion stabbed her that he might be _glad_; that he was wearied of the burden of grat.i.tude!

For the next few days Meriel and Sterne mutually avoided being left alone, which was the more easily accomplished, as Flora was showing signs of renewed restlessness and irritability. The novelty of the voyage had worn off, the heat of the Ca.n.a.l had tried her endurance, and dreaded symptoms called for renewed vigilance on the part of her attendants. Now they were out on the Indian Ocean; but for once the change brought little relief and the nerves of the travellers were tried still further by a slight accident to the engines, which involved a slackening of speed. They were within three days' sail of Colombo when the gla.s.s fell sharply after a period of intense heat--a danger signal, which to the understanding was rendered more alarming by the sound of hammerings from below, denoting fresh mischief in the machinery. A cyclonic storm was upon them, and the boat altered her course to avoid its centre--a perilous business in face of the long chain of reefs stretching southward from the Laccadives. At nightfall there came up a grey swell accompanied by almost unbearable heat, the wind rapidly increased, and in an hour the gale burst upon them in all its fury.

That night was a nightmare of horror, for although the boat was headed for the open sea, the crippled engines were unable to support the strain, and she was therefore driven back into the danger zone. The waters were lashed into a churning fury, the wind yelled with a deafening menace. Flora cowered in bed in a panic of terror, but to Meriel the tumult of the elements brought relief rather than dread.

They voiced the tumult of her own mind; the shriek of the wind was as the shriek of her own tortured heart.

The dawn was breaking when the crash came, a thunderous crash of rock and steel as the great vessel struck the reef, shook herself free, and struck again, her stern grinding deep into the rock. In that moment every soul on board looked death in the face, and it seemed, indeed, as though death were inevitable. The heroic efforts of the crew succeeded in launching the boats, but several of the number were swamped before the eyes of the beholders, and for the rest the chance of survival on such a sea seemed small indeed. Even so, there was a fight for a place, for to remain on the ship meant a certainty of death, and the wildest chance is precious in such a plight, but among the men and women who fought and struggled was no member of Geoffrey Sterne's party.

Flora's panic of terror had been so violent that it had been necessary to drug her with a strong sleeping draught, and the faithful maid refused to leave her side. Sterne had, indeed, made an attempt to persuade Meriel to try for a place, but she had flamed into bitter anger, and he had not persisted. He saw her seated with the other waiting ones in the stern of the vessel, already tilted high above the bow, and turned in silence to make his way to his wife.

That moment for Meriel was the bitterest of all. The act of death itself had for her no terror; it was the parting from Geoffrey Sterne which wrung her heart. So inextricably had her life become woven with his that she had no wish to live in a world from which he was absent, and if she lived on, separation was bound to come. Only one unutterable regret filled her soul--she was going out into eternity a maimed, stunted thing, from whom had been withheld the meaning of life, the deepest part of whose nature had been persistently starved.

"If for even one minute I could have said, '_I am happy_!' I could have died content. But I have never known happiness, and now death is coming, and I am waiting for it alone."

In that last word lay the sting. She was alone; the solitary unit among the crowd who had no one to comfort her, and to comfort in return; to whose hand no one clung as to the one sure support. She was alone!

At that moment she saw him coming, edging his way along the sloping deck, with the sure foot, the calm, deliberate movements, which were so emblematic of his strength. Cautiously, slowly, as he came, there was never a moment of wavering in his course. His mind had registered her position among the crowd of waiting figures; quietly, steadily, he was making his way to her side.

Meriel looked around. Surrounded as she was, she was yet in a solitude as vast as s.p.a.ce. To right and left the mummied figures crouched in hypnotised calm, oblivious of everything but themselves and their own peril. She was alone on the great deck,--alone, but for that other figure, climbing step by step to her side.

The early light shone on him as he came, lighting up his figure with an unearthly distinctness. She saw the grey streaks in the dark hair, the furrows which sorrow had carved upon his brow, yet despite them all there was about the whole figure an air of youth, an alertness and confidence of bearing, which she had never before beheld. He bore himself like a freed man, from whose limbs the fetters have fallen.

Another moment and he was beside her, crouched on the deck with his face close to her own. The freed look was in his eyes.

"She is still sleeping," he said; "she will not wake. It is better so.

I can do no more for her. And so--at last!--I can come to you."

"Yes," a.s.sented Meriel breathlessly. There was more to come, she read it in his face, in the thrilling tone of his voice. She waited, her being strung with an agony of longing.

"There are only a few minutes left, and we have waited so long! We must not waste them now that they are here... Come to me, Meriel!"

He held out his arms and she swayed into them; his lips were on hers; they clung together with the stored-up pa.s.sion of years. For a minute the communion of touch brought a fullness of joy, then the craving arose to hear the wonder put into words.

"You love me? It is true? Oh, Geoffrey--how long?"

"Since the moment we met. How could I help it? It was inevitable. We belong!" He held her face between his hands, bending so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek. "You have been my star and my sun; sunshine of noon; light in the darkness. You have been comfort and rest; deliverance from despair. You have been my love, and my queen, and my inspiration; the one beautiful strong thing that stood fast among the ruins. Everything that a woman could be to a man you have been to me for four long years!"

"Thank G.o.d!" she sobbed. "Oh, thank G.o.d! It is worth it all to hear you say that. But, oh, Geoffrey, there were times--so many times! when I would have given my life a hundred times over to have lain like this, to have felt your arms. It was hard to struggle on, fighting one's heart, and now at last when we have come together, to be obliged to part! Oh, Geoffrey, to say good-bye so soon!"

"No," he said deeply. "Not that. We'll say no good-bye. We have stuck to our posts, but where we are going there can be no tie but the one which binds your heart to mine. We belong! Nothing can part us. Shut your eyes, beloved! rest against me. It's the night that is coming,--a short night, and a nightmare dream, and then, for you and me"--his voice swelled to a note of triumphant expectation--"_the morning_!"

"Oh, I'm so happy!" cried Meriel, trembling. "Oh, I'm so happy!"

The deck shivered and reeled. From every side rose a shrilling of voices. The great ship reared herself on end, and plunged headlong into the deep.

So the barrier fell!

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE MAN WHO WISHED FOR DANGER.

Val Lessing's thirtieth birthday found him strong, handsome, prosperous, and--discontented. This is unfortunately a common combination, but Val acknowledged to himself that if other men in like position had small cause to grumble, he himself had less, for while they ungraciously demanded of fate still more than they had received, his one annoyance was that he had enjoyed so much.

He had never desired to find himself at thirty a director of a prosperous City firm; the thing had come about through a succession of unforeseen events. The death of his father had made it necessary that he should take up business immediately after leaving Oxford; that was blow number one, for he had been promised a tour round the world before settling down to work, and in its place found himself obliged to look forward to yearly fortnights lengthening, as a reward of merit, to a possible three weeks.

Val hated the work, but he set himself to it with characteristic dash and energy. He possessed a bull-dog inability to let go of any scheme once undertaken, which marked him out sharply from the ordinary more or less mechanical employees, and endeared him to the princ.i.p.als of the firm.

The "Chief" singled him out for special service. His salary rose steadily year by year, and on the date on which this history begins, he had been formally presented with a proportion of shares, and advanced to the dignity of a Director in the Company.

"And now," said the Chief in congratulation, "your foot is safely planted on the ladder of fortune. You can count on at least fifteen hundred a year."

Walking towards his home that night Val grudgingly considered those words. As a sane, sensible man, he must of course rejoice that his work had brought him so good a reward, yet there was something in the wording of that sentence which chafed an old sore. _Safe_! That was the sting.

A man of thirty years, and--_safe_! Secured from anxiety, lapped round with comforts--nothing to do now but keep steadily along the beaten rut.

Eight-fifty Tube in the morning; six o'clock Tube at night; two-thirty Tube on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, always the same black-coated, tall-hatted figure growing, with the pa.s.sage of years, a thought heavier, a thought wider, but always sleek, always composed--always _safe_!

Val Lessing reviewed the prospect, and once again, more wildly than ever, his vagrant heart cried out in protest. Oh! it had been a different life to which he had looked forward in the days that were gone--the mad, glad, foolhardy days when all he had asked of fate was a pa.s.sage through that highway of adventure, where a thrill lay behind every bush, and a danger at every turn.

Danger--danger--the very word brought exhilaration; the ring of it, the thrill of it, the wild, sweet savour which it bore! Oh, to be out on the highway, away from the treadmill of City life; oh, to wake in the morning, to pull aside a flapping canvas, inhale the clean air blowing over great plains, and across frowning ridges of mountains, to step forth on the day's quest, sure of nothing, nothing in all the world, but of danger to overcome!

Val Lessing's home was represented by a bachelor flat, presided over by a respectable middle-aged couple. The mother for whose sake he had resigned himself to a business career had died some years before, but he was still responsible for a young brother and sister, and obliged to make a home for them during holiday seasons. The noisy incursion was not always welcome, all the same the flat became a very dreary place when the lively pair had taken themselves schoolwards once more, and a solitary dinner was a thing to be avoided.

Lessing, as a bachelor, had grown into the habit of taking the evening meal in town, and had discovered a certain very Bohemian restaurant where most excellent cooking was supplied to as odd a looking company as ever a.s.sembled within four walls. He found a never-ending interest in watching his fellow diners and pondering over the secrets of their existence. It was at least safe to conclude that they did not share his own ground for complaint! Dinner over, Lessing frequently succ.u.mbed to an impulse which drew him towards a large corner house in a square adjoining his flat, wherein a particularly happy family party lived, and loved, and laughed, and extended the most cordial of welcomes to uninvited guests.

Mr Gordon was a business man, who, having acc.u.mulated a modest "pile,"

had promptly retired from the City, and now devoted himself to the performance of good works for the benefit of others, and the collection of old china for the satisfaction of himself. Mrs Gordon was a matron of the plump and complacent order, an excellent manager, who did not know the meaning of fuss, and whose servants invariably stayed with her for years, and then departed, laden with spoils, to espouse a local baker or grocer, and live happily ever afterwards.

Delia, the daughter, was a minx. She was slim and tall, and had crinkly dark eyebrows, and an oval face, and misty grey eyes with a dreamy, faraway expression, and fringed with a double row of preposterously long eyelashes. She looked particularly dreamy and inaccessible when young men came in to call, and they mentally abased themselves before her, gazing with dazzled eyes at the pinnacle on which she stood, in maiden meditation,--exquisitely, wondrously, crystally unconscious of their own rough existence. And all the time there was not a line of their features, not a kink in their neckties, that that minx Delia did not see with the minuteness of a microscope!

Terence, the son, was walking the hospitals, kept a collection of bones in his coat pocket, and looked upon life as a huge jest organised for his special benefit; loyally returning the compliment by playing jests himself on every available opportunity. In holiday time, he was most useful as a companion to the two scholars with whom he was a prime favourite, but in term time Lessing regarded him with mitigated favour.

As a conversationalist he preferred the father; as a confidante, the mother; where Delia was concerned he preferred a _tete-a-tete_. Terence was a very good sort, but he was apt to be decidedly _de trop_.

On the evening of the day on which he had been made a director of his company, Lessing took his way to the corner house, and found the amiable quartette disporting themselves after their separate ways in the comfortable sitting-room which was their favourite evening resort. Mr Gordon was reading the latest treatise on Oriental china. Mrs Gordon was knitting m.u.f.flers for deep-sea fishermen, and lending an appreciative ear to Delia, who, seated at the grand piano, was singing ballads in a very small but penetratingly sweet voice. It was part of Delia's minxiness that she elected to sing songs intended for masculine lovers, wherein were set forth panegyrics which might most aptly be applied to herself. On this occasion she was declaiming that "My love is like a red, red rose that's newly blown in June. Oh, my love's like a mel-o-dy that's sweetly played in tune"; and so sweet was the air, so sweet the rose-like bloom of her own youth, that her father's eyes strayed continuously from his pages, and rested on her with an admiration reverent in its intensity. "She is too beautiful, too pure for this world"; his eyes seemed to say. "Can it be possible that she is really my own daughter?" The mother's eyes strayed also, but there was no reverence in her gaze. She had been a minx herself.

Terence was reading the latest popular thriller, and from time to time diversifying the entertainment by kicking one of his patent leather pumps into the air, and adroitly fitting his toes into it on its return journey, an accomplishment on which he had wasted golden hours.

They all looked up and smiled a welcome as Val Lessing entered and went round the room greeting each member of the family in turn.

"Good evening, Mrs Gordon. Good evening, sir. Delia, please! Don't let me interrupt."