A minute or two later Rosemary was startled out of her day-dream by the
sound of Jasper's voice calling to her from somewhere in the near
distance. She had barely time to obliterate the traces of tears from her
eyes and cheeks before he appeared round the bend of the path. The next
moment he was by her side. Apparently he had been running, for he seemed
breathless and not quite so trim and neat in his appearance as he
usually was.
"I heard a scream," were the first words he said, as soon as he came in
sight of her. "It terrified me when I recognised your voice. Thank God
you are safe!"
He was obviously exhausted and, for him, strangely agitated. He threw
himself down on the carpet of moss at her feet; then he seized her hand
and covered it with kisses. "Thank God!" he kept on murmuring. "Thank
God you are safe!"
Then suddenly he looked up at her with an inquiring frown. "But what
made you scream?" he asked.
Rosemary by now had regained control over her nerves. She succeeded in
disengaging her hand, and in smiling quite coolly down upon him.
"It was very stupid of me," she said, with a light laugh. "I saw a pair
of eyes looking at me through the undergrowth. It startled me. I thought
that it was a wild cat--I had heard that there were some in these
parts--but it was only a homely one."
She tried to rise, but Jasper had recaptured her hand. He was engaged,
in kissing her finger-tips one by one, lingering over each kiss as if to
savour its sweetness in full. Now he looked up at her with a glance of
hungering passion. Rosemary felt herself flushing. She was conscious of
an intense feeling of pity for this man who had lavished on her all the
love of which he was capable, and hungered for that which she was not
able to give. He looked care-worn, she thought, and weary.
"You were not anxious about me, Jasper, were you?" she asked kindly.
He smiled. "I am always anxious," he said, "when I don't see you."
"But how did you find me?"
"Quite easily; I went to the hotel, you know. Not at all a bad little
place, by the way; rather primitive, but with electric light and plenty
of hot water. I engaged the rooms, and had a mouthful of breakfast. Then
I sallied forth in quest of you. A man in the village told me you had
been asking the way to the château, and I knew you would never stand
the dusty road. So when I found that there was a woodland path that went
through the same way as the road, I naturally concluded that you would
choose it in preference. You see," Jasper concluded, with a smile, "that
there was no magic in my quest."
Then he looked up at her again, and there was a gleam of suspicion in
his dark, questioning eyes. "You must have walked very slowly," he said.
"I started quite half an hour, probably more, after you did."
"I did walk very slowly. This path is enchanting, and this is not the
first time I have sat down to think and to gaze at this delicious little
stream. But," Rosemary went on briskly, "I think I had better be getting
on."
But Jasper put out his arms and encircled her knees. "Don't go for a
minute, little one. It is so peaceful here, and somehow I have had so
little of you these last days. I don't know, but it seems as if we had
taken to misunderstanding one another lately." Then, as she made an
involuntary movement of impatience, he continued gently: "Do I annoy you
by making love to you?"
Rosemary tried to smile. "Of course not, dear. What a question!"
"Then tell me if there is anything in the world I can do to make you
happier. You have not looked happy lately. I have been tortured with
remorse, for I feel somehow that it has been my fault."
"You are sweet and kind, Jasper, as always. But you must be a little
patient. I have gone through a great deal these last few days."
"I know, I know, little one. Don't let us talk any more about it."
He was wonderfully kind--kinder and gentler than he had been since the
first days of their married life. It almost seemed as if he had set
himself the task of making her forget all that he had involuntarily
revealed to her of his violent, unbridled temperament, and of that
lawless passion that lay at the root of his love for her.
He talked of the future, of their return to England, the home that he'
would make for her, which would be a fitting casket for the priceless
jewel which he possessed. Rosemary, who felt inexpressibly lonely, was
once more conscious of that feeling of gratitude towards him which she
had once hoped might be transmuted in days to come into something more
ardent than friendship. She had suffered so terribly in her love for the
one man who, with all his faults, had come very near to her ideals that
she felt a desperate longing to cherish and to cling to the husband whom
she had chosen half out of pique, the man on whom she had inflicted so
much cruelty by becoming his wife.