She sat down suddenly at the table, her elbows resting upon it, her
little fists clenched under her chin. Her eyes looked straight at Tod.
“Why have you come back?”
There was a fierceness in her voice, an attack in the abrupt words she
threw at him.
Tod took his chair and sat down opposite her, his elbows also on the
table.
“Because I have a right to come back.”
“Why?”
“I am free. I am no longer married.”
The eyes opposite him gave a kind of flicker, like a light blown by the
wind. She did not say anything, but sat there, waiting.
Tod felt in his coat pocket, brought out the little brown Testament and
laid it on the table between them.
“You remember?” he asked.
She bowed her head slightly.
“I remember, monsieur.”
“I have carried it—always. I thought I should never come back, that I
should never see you again. I was very unhappy then; I knew things that
I could not tell you. It would not have been fair. Was I wrong?”
“You were never wrong.”
The words were almost inaudible. Her fists had unclenched themselves,
and her hands were curved against her cheeks. She was looking at the
table now, and not at Tod, and her eyes were heavy with something deeper
than fear.
“I thought I should never come back,” he went on. “Then life changed for
me. And yet—I had to wait. The woman I had married had given herself to
another man. It had happened before I met you, but I had only guessed it
then.”
She stretched out a hand and fingered the little brown book.
“You did not—not love her, monsieur?”
“I did not love her.”
“Never?”
“Once, when I was a boy and did not know.”
She bent her head a little lower, to hide the wondering and melting
tenderness of her face.
“It was very hard for you, monsieur.”
One of Tod’s brown hands reached out and covered her hand that was lying
on the brown book.
“Claire, I am free.”
He felt a little trembling in the hand beneath his. And the love in Tod
blazed out and over her. He half rose, and leant across the table.
“Oh, beloved! is it possible that you care a little? All these months I
have been thinking and waiting for this day and for you. It’s just a
year ago.”
“A year ago——”
She hung her head, a woman trembling on the edge of her exultation, the
exultation of surrender.
“I rushed back. I couldn’t help it. You wouldn’t come down.”
“I couldn’t,” she said.
“But you gave me this. Oh, ma chérie, I love you—I love you.”
She raised her head suddenly and looked right into his eyes.
“I went to the school—after you had gone. I do not know what I taught
the children. I did not care.”
“Claire!”
“Yes, it is true. I knew you would never come back to me again, that you
could never come back—unless—and I am a woman, Tod!”
Tod bent over the table and took her face between his hands. There was
something sacramental in the great tenderness with which he touched her.
And thus they remained for a moment, Claire’s hands folded over his
wrists, her face dreaming up to his, her grey eyes the eyes of a woman
who gives herself utterly and without fear.
“God bless you for ever and ever,” said Tod.
And then he drew back a little.
“Claire!”
Her eyes waited.
“Will you marry me? Listen. I am English, you are French; my work is in
England. Would you go with me?”
She smiled up at him.
“I can speak a little English, mon chéri.”
Tod kissed her.