"Why, it's Sunday!" she exclaimed. "I had quite forgotten. We ought to
go to church."
Wingarde turned round.
"What an inspiration!" he said dryly.
His tone offended her. She drew herself up.
"Are you coming?" she asked coldly.
He looked at her with the same cynical smile with which he had received
her overture the night before.
"No," he said. "I won't bore you with my company this morning."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"As you please," she said, turning to the door.
He made no rejoinder. And as she passed out, she realized that he
believed she had suggested going to church in order to escape an hour of
his hated society. It was but a slight injustice and certainly not
wholly unprovoked by her. But, curiously, she resented it very strongly.
She almost felt as if he had insulted her.
She found him smoking in the garden when she returned from her solitary
expedition, and she hoped savagely that he had found his own society as
distasteful as she did; though on second thoughts this seemed scarcely
possible.
She decided regretfully, yet with an inner sense of expediency, that she
would spend the afternoon in his company. But her husband had other
plans.
"You have had a hot walk," he said. "You had better rest this afternoon.
I am going to do a little mountaineering; but I mean to be back by
tea-time. Perhaps when it is cool you will come for a stroll, unless you
have arranged to attend the evening service also."
He glanced at her and saw the indignant colour rise in her face. But she
was too proud to protest.
"As you wish," she said coldly.
Conversation during lunch was distinctly laboured. Wingarde's silences
were many and oppressive. It was an unspeakable relief to the girl when
at length he took himself off. She told herself with a wry smile that he
was getting on her nerves. She did not yet own that he frightened her.
The afternoon's rest did her good; and when he returned she was ready
for him.
He looked at her, as she sat in the garden before the tea-table in her
muslin dress and big straw hat, with a shade of approval in his eyes.
He threw himself down into a chair beside her without speaking.
"Have you been far?" she asked.
"To the top of the hill," he answered. "I had a splendid view of the
sea."
"It must have been perfect," she said.
"You have been there?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," she answered, "long ago; with Archie."
Wingarde turned his head and looked at her attentively. She tried to
appear unconscious of his scrutiny, and failed signally. Before she
could control it, the blood had rushed to her face.
"And you found it worth doing?" he asked.
The question seemed to call for no reply, and she made none.
But yet again she felt as if he had insulted her.
She was still burning with silent resentment when they started on their
walk. He strolled beside her, cool and unperturbed. If he guessed her
mood, he made no sign.
"Where are you taking me?" he asked presently.
"It is the road to the wishing-gate," she replied icily. "There is a
good view of the lake farther on."
He made no further enquiry, and they walked on in dead silence through
exquisite scenery.
They reached the wishing-gate, and the girl stopped almost
involuntarily.
"Is this the fateful spot?" said Wingarde, coming suddenly out of his
reverie. "What is the usual thing to do? Cut our names on the gate-post?
Rather a low-down game, I always think."
She uttered a sudden, breathless laugh. "My name is here already," she
said, pointing with a finger that shook slightly at some minute
characters cut into the second bar of the gate.
He bent and looked at the inscription--two names cut with infinite care,
two minute hearts intertwined beneath.
Nina watched him with a scornful little smile on her lips.
"Artistic, isn't it?" she said.
He straightened himself abruptly, and their eyes met. There was a
curious glint in his that she had never seen before. She put her hand
sharply to her throat. Quite suddenly she knew that she was afraid of
this monster to whom she had given herself--horribly, unreasonably
afraid.
But he did not speak, and her scare began to subside.
"Now I'm going to wish," she said mounting the lowest bar of the gate.
He spoke then, abruptly, cynically.
"Really," he said, "what can you have to wish for now?"
She looked back at him defiantly. Her eyes were on a level with his.
Because he had frightened her, she went the more recklessly. It would
never answer to let him suspect this power of his.
"Something that I'm afraid you will never give me," she said, a bitter
ring in her voice.
"What?" he asked sharply.
"Among other things, happiness," she said. "You can never give me
that."
She saw him bite his lip, but he controlled himself to speak quietly.
"Surely you make a mistake," he said, "to wish for something which,
since you are my wife, can never be yours!"
She laughed, still standing on the gate, and telling herself that she
felt no fear.
"Very well," she said, "I will wish for a Deliverer first."
"For what?"
His naked fist banged down upon the gate-post, and she saw the blood
start instantly and begin to flow. She knew in that moment that she had
gone too far.
Her fear returned in an overwhelming flood. She stumbled off the gate
and faced him, white to the lips.
A terrible pause followed, in which she knew herself to be fighting him
with every inch of her strength. Then suddenly, without apparent reason,
she gave in.
"I was joking," she said, in a low voice. "I spoke in jest."
He made her a curt bow, his face inflexibly stern.
"It is good of you to explain," he said. "With my limited knowledge of
your character and motives, I am apt to make mistakes."
He turned from her abruptly with the words, and, shaking the blood from
his hand, bound the wound with his handkerchief.
"Shall we go on?" he said then.
And Nina accompanied him, ashamed and afraid. She felt as if at the last
moment she had asked for quarter; and, contemptuously, because she was a
woman, he had given it.