The hut was empty. The floor was deep in dust. The ceiling was meshed
with cobwebs. Nailed across the window, just as the soldiers had left
it, a dingy curtain hung. Striking a match, he held it above his head.
At the far end he made out signs of occupancy. On a shelf was a loaf of
bread and near by a pitcher. In a corner, spread on the bare boards for a
bed, was a wrap. He stooped; it was Santa's cloak of sables.
The match went out. He turned. “How long has she been here?”
“From the time she knew she was suspected.”
“She knew she was suspected at Plymouth. What made her motor all across
England to this?” He glanced round with pity at the poverty-stricken
forlornness.
“She wanted to be near.”
“What? It would be better to tell me.”
“To the road out.”
He lit a cigarette and considered. “So there are more people in it,” he
said at last, “than just the few that I have met! It's an organization.
I might have guessed. There are the people who helped the little old
lady to visit me undetected. There are the people who entered my room in
my absence. There's the foreign gentleman, who couldn't speak English,
who called for Santa in his car. But if this hut is on the road out, why
was she delaying?”
“For you, perhaps.”
“But she was risking her freedom every second. Why for me, Anna?”
Before he had given her time to answer, his mind had leaped to a new
conjecture. “What if she's captured?”
Suddenly the tragedy of this strange woman, temple-dancer,
revolutionary, avenger of children, became vivid. Her pain stung him as
though he had suffered it himself. He lived again the hunted hours
that must have been hers while she had listened in this dusty room. He
remembered her fascination, the grayness of her eyes, the fastidiousness
of her dress. What a contrast to these surroundings! How often she must
have crouched by that window, watching from behind the shabby curtain
for the approach of the pursuer! The men she had killed did not matter.
Probably they had deserved their death. His pity was reserved for
her. She had been the pampered darling of princes. Her whims had been
commands to lovers who themselves were rulers.
No present had been too costly to purchase the ecstasy of her
complaisance. Her body had been a jewel, guarded, coveted, irrepeatable
in its beauty. Crimes had been committed for its possession. And this
was her end! He heard in memory the hoarse pleading of her voice, trying
vainly to convince him that love could make her good.
The woman at his side was speaking. “We heard no sound. She was armed.
If they'd tried to take her, she'd have defended herself.”
His thoughts came back. “Last night. Yes. If they'd taken her in the
garden. But they might have known she would be armed. Perhaps they
followed her. If they traced her to this hut, they might have waited
till she was sleeping----”
She shook her head. “It isn't that. She's grown tired of delaying. She's
gone by the road out.”
He frowned. “That's the second time you've used the phrase. Can't you
tell me plainly?”
“If it's not too late, I'll show you.”
She darted out of the hut. When he joined her in the open, she was
waiting impatiently to secure the door behind him. The moment it was
fastened, she set off at a run. She raced like a boy, with none of a
woman's awkwardness. With an occasional backward glance, up the long
deserted avenue of the camp she fled. At first he was content to follow
for the pleasure he had in watching her. She was so swift and young.
She was like a deer in her slenderness. Sudden eagerness had transformed
her. The hood had slipped back to her shoulders; the wind of her going
fluttered in her hair.
Outside the camp she bore to the left in a direction leading further
afield. Over gorse and bracken dew had flung a silver net. The turf was
a tapestry sewn with jewels. Larks were springing up. The keen fragrance
of seaweed mingled with the honeyed perfumes of the land.
He caught up with her. “Why?” he panted.
She had no breath to waste in words. Turning on him a flushed and
laughing face, she pointed ahead.
Just short of the cliff-edge, where the sheer drop began, she sank to
her knees, clasping her breast. While she recovered, he gazed about
him. He discovered no sign of the thing she was pursuing. The sea was
blanketed in mist. Above the blurred horizon, the red eye of the sun
stared at him. From the foot of the cliff came the lapping of waves. No
other sound.
She had risen. He was about to speak. She pressed a finger to her lips.
Taking him by the hand, she led him to the edge.
At first, as he gazed down, he saw only the crumbling face of the chalk.
Then he made out a winding path descending; it seemed no broader than a
track that a goat might follow.
“What is it?”
“Listen.”
She dragged excitedly on his arm.
Distinctly, above the lapping of waves, he heard the click of oars
working in oar-locks. Beneath the fog a vessel was hiding. It had
dropped a boat which was pulling toward the land.
“The road out,” she whispered.
“But Santa----”
She nodded. “It's not so difficult as it looks. It was used by
smugglers. We use it----”
She broke off. Oars were being shipped. The prow grounded. There was a
muttering of men's voices. Some sort of discussion. A pause. Then oars
were put out again. The rowing recommenced, growing fainter and fainter.
X
Gone!”
She pressed against him in her gladness.
Seeing the relief in her eyes, he questioned, “What does this mean to
you, Anna?”
“Safety.”
“Anything else?”
“Freedom, perhaps.”
“You mean you think that Santa had received word of your husband and
that that was why----?”
“I don't want to think or mean; I only want to feel. It's as though I'd
been living in a prison and the door had been flung wide. I wasn't one
of them. They condemned me. In their hearts they despised me. I was too
weak. I couldn't bear their cross.” She clenched her hands against
her cheeks till the knuckles showed white. “What's the good of being
crucified? It's so much better to live and be glad for people.”
“And Santa,” he asked, “where she's going, what will happen to her?”
She raised her face. “Pain. She'll be hounded and hunted. She's getting
too well known. Prince Rogovich thought he recognized her. She'll be
always escaping, rushing from hiding to hiding, till one day---- To have
been loved so much and to be pushed out of life----”
Behind the mist they heard the creak of ropes running over pulleys.
A gasoline engine was started. For an instant the shadow of a trawler
loomed through the wall of opaqueness. The tiller was thrust over.
She vanished. They stood very silently, listening and watching. In
imagination Hindwood followed the vessel's course. It was not of the
vessel he was thinking, but of the woman on board her. “To have been
loved so much and to be pushed out of life----” If he had had the
chance, what could he have done for her? She had fascinated him; but
he had not loved her. She was past reclaiming. Love with a woman of
her kind would have meant passion--nothing more. A fierce flame,
self-consuming! A slow degrading of an emotion that was fine! Yet he
was filled with pity and unreasoning remorse. Some day her enemies would
overtake her--good, respectable men like Major Cleasby; the good men who
by the injustice of their prejudices had made her what she was.
“It's a chapter ended,” he said quietly.
Slipping his arm through hers, as though she already belonged to him,
he was turning inland toward the peace of the rolling country, when
his step was arrested. He caught the sound of labored breathing and
the rattle of sliding chalk. Hands groped above the edge of the cliff,
searching for a holding. They were followed by the head and shoulders
of a man with a face intensely white, in which a pair of pale green
eyes smoldered. Lower down and out of sight a woman spoke. The voice was
Santa's.