A WEEK later Jean sat at the foot of the stairs and surveyed with faint
amusement the motley collection of trunks and suit-cases which thronged
the hall.
She was still looking pale and worn, strung up to face her self-imposed
exile from the country which now held everything that was dear to
her, but no enormity of sorrow, would ever blind Jean for long to the
whimsical aspect that attends so many of the little things of daily
life.
“What a lot of useless lumber we women carry about with us wherever we
go!” she commented. “Five--six--_seven_ packages to supply the needs of
two solitary females--and Heaven only knows how many brown paper parcels
will be required at the last moment for all the things we shall find we
have forgotten when the time actually comes to start.” Claire, standing
on the flight of stairs above and viewing the assemblage in the hall
from over the top of the banister rail, giggled helplessly.
“Yes, they do look a lot,” she admitted. “However”--hopefully--“there’ll
be plenty of room for them all when we actually get to Beirnfels.”
“Oh, plenty,” agreed Jean. “But we’ve got to convey them half across
Europe first--two lone women and one miserable maid who will probably
combine train-sickness and home-sickness to an extent that will totally
incapacitate her for the performance of her duties.”
At this moment the front-door bell clanged violently through the house,
as though pulled by someone in a tremendous hurry. Claire hastily
withdrew her head from over the banister rail and disappeared upstairs,
while Jean relinquished the accommodation offered by the bottommost step
and sought refuge in the nearest of the sitting-rooms, closing the door
stealthily behind her.
A moment later Tucker, who had caught sight of her hurriedly retreating
figure, reopened it and announced imperturbably:
“Mr. Burke.”
Jean greeted him with surprise, but without any feeling of
embarrassment. So much had happened since the day she had eluded him on
the Moor, events of such intimate and tragic import had swept her path,
that the unexpected meeting failed to rouse any feeling either of anger
or dismay. Burke, and everything connected with him, belonged to another
period of her existence altogether--to that glorious care-free time when
it had seemed as though life were a deep, inexhaustible well bubbling
over with wonderful possibilities. Burke was merely a ghost--a
_revenant_ from that far distant epoch.
“I’m in time, then?” he said, when he had shaken hands. “In time? In
time for what?”
“In time to see you before you go.”
“Oh, yes.” Jean spoke lightly. “You’re in time for that. But who told
you I was going away? I didn’t know you were in England, even.”
“I came back a fortnight ago--to London. Judith wired me from home that
you were leaving Coombe Eavie.”
“I don’t see the necessity for her wiring you,” remarked Jean a little
coldly. “There was no need for you to see me.”
“There was--every need.”
She glanced at him keenly, detecting a new note in his voice, an
unexpected gravity and restraint.
“Every need,” he repeated. He paused, then went on quickly, with a
nervousness that was foreign to him. “Jean, I know everything that has
happened--that your engagement to Tormarin is at an end--and I have come
to ask you if you will be my wife. No--hear me out!”--as she would have
interrupted him. “I’m not asking you now as--as I did before. If you
will marry me, I swear I will ask for nothing that you are not willing
to give. I’m making no demands. I’ve learned now”--with a faint weary
smile--“that you cannot force love. It can only be given. And I want
nothing but just the right to take care of you, to shield you--to
keep the sharp corners of life away from you.” Then, as he read her
incredulous face, he went on gravely: “If I had wanted more than that,
Jean, if I had not learned something--just from loving you, I should not
have waited until now. I should have come at once--as soon as I learned
from Madame de Varigny that Tormarin’s wife was still alive.”
She looked at him curiously.
“Why didn’t you come then, Geoffrey? I sometimes wondered--you being
you!”--with a faint smile. “Because, of course, I knew why you had
rushed off to France. Madame de Varigny explained that.”
A dull flush mounted to his face.
“Did she? I expect she told you merely what was the truth. I went to see
her because she had assured me that she could stop your marriage with
Tormarin--could interfere in some way to prevent it. That was why I went
to France.... But when she told me her blackguardly scheme--how she
had planned and plotted to conceal the fact that Tormarin’s wife was
alive--_and why_ she had done it, I would have no hand in anything that
followed. I’m no saint”--a brief, ironical smile flitted across his
face--“but there are some methods at which even I draw the line.”
“So--that was why you stayed away?”
“That was why. I wanted you, Jean--God only knows how I wanted you!--but
I couldn’t try to force your hand at such a time. I couldn’t profit by a
damnable scheme like that.”
Jean’s eyes grew soft as she realised that beneath all the impetuous
arrogance and dominant demands of the man’s temperament there yet lay
something fine and clean and straight--difficult to get at, perhaps, but
which could yet rise, in answer to a sense of honour and fairness with
which she had not credited him, and take command of his whole nature.
“I’m glad--glad you didn’t come, Geoffrey,” she said gently. “Glad
you--couldn’t.”
“I don’t know that I’m glad about it,” he returned with a grim candour.
“I simply couldn’t do it, and that’s all there is to it. But I’ve come
now, Jean. I’ve come because I want you to give me just the right
to look after you. I’m not asking for anything. I only want to serve
you--if you’ll let me--just to be near you. If Tormarin were free, I
would not have come to you again. I know I should have no chance. But
he’s not free. Does that give me a chance, Jean? If it doesn’t, I’ll
take myself off--I’ll never bother you again. I’ll try Africa--big game
shooting”--with a short laugh. “But if it does----”
He paused and waited for her answer. The intensity of longing in his
eyes was the sole indication of the emotion that stirred within him--an
emotion held in check by a stern self-control that seemed to Jean to be
part of this new, changed lover of hers. Surely, in the months which had
elapsed since she had fled from him on Dartmoor, he had fought with his
devils and cast them out!
She held out her hands to him.
“Geoffrey, I’m so sorry--but I’m afraid it doesn’t. I wish--I wish I
could give you any other answer. But, you see, it isn’t marrying--it’s
love that matters. And all my love is given.”
He took her hands in his and held them gently with that strange, new
restraint he seemed to have learned.
“I see,” he said slowly. Then for a moment his calm wavered. The
underlying passion, so strongly held in leash, shook the even tones of
his voice. “Tormarin is a lucky man--in spite of everything! I’d give my
soul to have what he has--your love, Jean.”
His big hands closed round her slight ones and he lifted them to his
lips. Then, without another word, he went away, and Jean was left
wondering sorrowfully why the love that she did not want was offered her
in such full measure, hers to take at will, while the love for which she
craved, the love which would have meant the glory and fulfilment of life
itself, was denied her--shut away by all the laws of God and Man.