LOVE THAT THINKETH NO EVIL
Wat stood silent, his face turning slowly from red to ashen white.
What an arrant fool he had been, not to tell her all in those sweet
hours on the island of Fiara--a score of Little Maries had mattered
nothing to her then. Then everything would have been plain and easy.
His conscience was indeed perfectly clear. But, partly because with the
willing forgetfulness of an ardent lover he had forgotten, and partly
because he had shrunk from marring with the name of another those
precious hours of blissful communion of which he had hitherto enjoyed
so few, he had neglected to tell Kate the tale. He saw his mistake now.
"Tell them, Wat," urged Kate, confidently, "tell them all."
"Aye, tell them all," repeated Barra, grimly, between his teeth, "tell
them all your late love did for you, beginning with the favors of which
your cousin Will and I were witnesses in the gilded room of the Hostel
of the Coronation. Begin at the bottom--with the lady's shoe and the
toast you drank out of that most worthy cup!"
Wat still stood silent before them. Kate dropped his hand perplexed,
looking into his tragic face with bewildered, uncomprehending eyes.
"Why, Wat, what is the matter, dear love--tell them everything,
whatever it is. Do not fear for me," whispered Kate, her true, earnest
eyes, full of all faith and love, bent upon him without doubt or
question.
"I cannot," he said, hoarsely, at last; "I ought to have told you
before--it is so difficult now. But I will tell you all--there is no
shame in it when all is told. No, do not take my hand till I have
finished."
Then quite clearly and briefly Wat recounted all that had happened
to the Little Marie--not sparing himself in the matter of the Inn of
the Coronation, where he had been found by Will Gordon and Barra, but
chiefly insisting upon the noble self-sacrifice of the girl and her
death, welcome and sweet to her because of her love and repentance.
But the tale was told on board the _Sea Unicorn_ under a double burden
of difficulty. For the teller was conscious that he ought long ago to
have confessed all this to his love; and then the story itself, simple
and beautiful in its facts, was riddled and blasted by the bitter
comments of Barra, and tinctured to base issues by his blighting sneers.
As Wat went on Kate drooped her head on her breast and clasped her
hands before her. Even the love-light was for the moment dimmed in her
proud eyes, but only with indignant tears, that her love should so be
put to shame before those whom she would have given her life to see
compelled to hold him in honor.
The heavy weight of unbelief against which he felt himself pleading in
vain, gradually proved too much for Wat Gordon. He stopped abruptly and
flung his hand impatiently out.
"I cannot go on," he said; "my words are not credited--of what use is
it?"
"As you say, my Lord Lochinvar, of what use is it?" sneered
Barra. "_That_ you know best yourself. You were asked a plain
question--whether the maid who accompanied you on the first part of
your wondrous Ulysses wanderings was the same with whom you arrived on
board the _Sea Unicorn_. To that plain question you have only returned
a very crooked answer. Have you nothing else that you can say to finish
the lie in a more workmanlike fashion?"
"Jack Scarlett--Scarlett, come hither!" Wat cried, suddenly.
And the master-at-arms, who very characteristically had gone forward to
berth with the sailors, came aft as the men on deck passed the word for
him.
"Will you tell this lady," said Wat, "what you know of my acquaintance
with the Little Marie?"
Whereupon, soberly and plainly, like a soldier, John Scarlett told his
tale. But for all the effect it had upon the listeners he might just as
well have spoken it to the solan-geese diving in the bay. Wat saw the
unbelief settle deeper on the face of Roger McGhie, and the very demon
of jealousy and malice wink from under the eyelids of my Lady Wellwood.
"I have a question to ask you, my noble captain of various services,"
said Barra, "a question concerning this girl and your gallant
companion. What did you first think when this Marie joined you with
the horses--in page's dress, as I have heard you say--and what when
she told you that she had stabbed your friend's enemy and hers to the
death?"
"I thought what any other man would think," answered Scarlett,
brusquely.
"And afterwards among the sand-dunes of Lis you discovered that all
this devotion arose merely from noble, pure, unselfish, platonic love?"
The old soldier was more than a little perplexed by Barra's phrases,
which he did not fully understand.
"Yes," he answered at last, with a hesitation which told more against
his story than all he had said before.
Barra was quick to seize his advantage.
"You see how faithfully these comrades stick to each other--how
touching is such fidelity. The intention is so excellent, even when
truth looks out in spite of them through the little joins in the
patchwork."
"God!" cried Scarlett, fiercely. "I would I had you five minutes at
a rapier's end for a posturing, lying knave--a pitiful, putty-faced
dog! I cannot answer your words, though I know them to be mere
tongue-shuffling. But with my sword--yes, I could answer with that!"
Barra pointed to his side.
"Had your friend--your friend's friend, I should say--not had me at her
dagger's end, I should have been most honored. But the lady has spoilt
my attack and parry for many a day. Nevertheless, I suffered in a good
cause. For without that our general lover had hardly been allowed to
enjoy the Arcadian felicities of the sand-dunes of Lis, nor yet his
more recent, and I doubt not as agreeable, retirement to the caves and
sea-beaches of my poor island of Fiara."
"You are the devil," cried Scarlett, writhing in fury. "But I shall
live to see you damned one day!"
But Barra only smiled as he turned to confer apart a while with Roger
McGhie and my lady.
Kate walked to the bulwarks and looked over. Wat stood his ground on
the spot on which he had told his story; but Scarlett, as soon as he
had finished, stalked away with as much dignity as upon short notice he
could import into a pair of very untrustworthy sea-legs.
When the conference was over it was Roger McGhie who spoke, very
quietly and gently, as was ever his ancient wont.
"Kate, my lass," he said, "I have never compelled you to aught all my
life--rather it hath been the other way, perhaps too much. And I will
not urge you now. Do you still wish to forsake your father for this
man, whose tale you have heard--a tale which, whatever of truth may
be in it, he hath certainly hid from you as long as possible? Or will
you return to your own home with me, your father, and with this noble
lady, to whom I give you as a daughter?"
Kate stood clasping her hands nervously and looking from one to the
other of them.
But it was to Wat that she spoke.
"My true-love, I do not distrust you--do not think that," she said,
with her lips pale and trembling, her color coming and going. "I
believe every word in spite of them all. Aye, and shall always believe
you. For, indeed, I cannot do otherwise and live. But oh, my lad" (here
for the first time she broke into a storm of sobs), "if you had only
trusted me--only told me--I should not have cared. She could not help
loving you--but it was I whom you loved all the while."
Wat came nearer to her. She gave him her hand again.
"Nevertheless, for this time I must go with my father, since he bids
me. But be brave, Wat, dear lad," she went on; "I believe in you
always. The good days will come, and good day or bad day, remember that
I shall be ready for you whenever you call me to come to you!"
In a moment they were in each other's arms.
"I will come!" whispered Wat Gordon in her ear; "if I be alive, as God
sees me, I will come to you when and where you need me."
Roger McGhie had turned his back on them. My lady's eyes glittered with
malice and jealousy, but only my Lord Barra found a word to say.
"Most touching!" he sneered, "much more so indeed than facts--but
perhaps hardly so convincing."
* * * * *
Kate had gone below. The others still remained upon the deck. The _Sea
Unicorn_ was heading directly for the main-land.
Barra pointed to the blue hills which were slowly changing into gray
olive on the lower slopes as the ship neared the land.
"We are honored," he said, "with the company of so brave a lover and
one so successful. But we would not keep him from other conquests. So,
since I, Murdo of Barra, do not use the daggers of harlots, nor yet
the crumbling walls of towers, to crush those who hate me, I give you,
sir, your liberty, which I hope you will use wisely, in order that you
may retrieve a portion of that honor which by birth is yours. I will
set your companion and yourself on shore at the nearest point of land
without any conditions whatsoever."
Wat bowed. He did not pay much attention. He was thinking rather of
Kate's last words. Barra went over to the captain and entered into
earnest talk with him.
It was the turn of the lady of Balmaghie. She came over to where Wat
was standing by the side of the ship.
"You thought me beautiful once, or at least you told me so, Lochinvar,"
she said, laying her hand on his.
"I think you as beautiful to-day as ever I thought you," answered Wat,
with a certain weary diplomacy. If the Mammon of Unrighteousness must
have the care of the Beloved, it might be as well to make a friend of
Mammon.
"Yet you have sought other and younger loves"--she purred her words
softly at him--"you have been unfaithful to the old days when it was
not less than heaven for you to kiss my hand or to carry my fan."
"Unfaithful!" said Wat, laughing a little hard laugh; "yet your
ladyship hath twice been wedded to men of your own choice, whilst I
remain lonely, a wanderer, companionless."
"You will ever be welcome at the House of Balmaghie," she said, laying
her hand on his.
Wat looked up eagerly. It was not an invitation he had looked for from
the duchess on this side the grave.
"Ever most welcome," repeated my lady, looking tenderly at him.
"Indeed, gladly would I endeavor to comfort you if ever you come to us
in sore trouble."
Wat turned away disappointed. He would certainly look for his
consolation from another source, if ever he came within reach of the
House of Balmaghie.
"I thank you, my lady," said Wat. "At present my heart is too heavy to
permit me more fully to express my gratitude."
He spoke the words mechanically, without setting a meaning to them. He
listened to his own lips speaking as if they had been another's, and
wondered what they found to say.
It was the afternoon when at last the boat was lowered to put Wat and
Scarlett ashore. They were already stepping across the deck to the
ship's side when Kate appeared at the top of the ladder which led up
from the cabin. She walked straight to where Wat was standing and held
out both her hands.
"I am yours; remember, I shall ever be ready," she said, quite clearly.
"And I," he said, more softly, "will come to you were it across the
world. Only in your hour of need send me once again the heart of gold
for a sign."
And he took her token from his neck, touched it with his lips, and gave
it back to her.
"Till you need me, keep it!" he said, and so stooped and kissed her on
the forehead before them all.
Then, without looking back, he followed Scarlett down the ladder into
the boat.