Why wouldn't he? It was the question he himself was asking. He had done
nothing humane in preventing her. He had merely spared his own feelings.
If she had succeeded, he would have found himself in an ugly situation.
He would have been suspected of a crime similar to hers. There would
have been no evidence to hang him, but he could never have established
his innocence. He looked down at the woman shuddering in his arms, for
all the world as though he were her lover. He had been within an ace of
inheriting her isolation.
“I didn't let you do it--” He hesitated. Then he took the plunge.
“Because I intend to save you.”
She stirred. She glanced up at him. As her eyes met his, their
expression of wonder gave way to one of gratitude. She strove to reach
his lips, but he restrained her.
“Promise me you'll live.”
“If you'll help me.”
How much she implied oy “help me,” he did not stop to question.
“We've no time to lose.” He spoke hurriedly. “Where's the safest place
of hiding?”
“My old one. A hut----”
“I know,” he interrupted. “I'll go ahead to make sure the way is clear;
you follow at a distance. Keep me in sight. If I look back, take cover.”
Without more ado, he turned away, retracing his steps to the camp.
He attempted to walk jauntily, like a nature-lover who had risen early
to enjoy the first freshness of the morning. Here and there he stooped
to pluck a blackberry. He pulled a sprig of heather for his lapel.
He flattered himself that, if he were being watched, his conduct was
artistically normal.
For all his display of carelessness, he advanced warily. There was
nothing in the billowy expanse of greenness that escaped him. Somewhere
within a radius of four miles the Major was waiting to make his pounce.
He might be crouched in the next patch of bracken. He might be lying
behind the nearest mound. The dapper, gallant-appearing old gentleman,
who bore such a striking resemblance to Lord Roberts, assumed the terror
of nemesis in his imagination. He seemed everywhere and nowhere. He
would pop up, suave and neatly bespatted, at the moment when he was
least expected.
He gazed straight before him, not daring to look back, but he never lost
consciousness of the fateful woman following him stealthily as a shadow.
And always there was the memory of the other woman with the gentle eyes
and shining hair.
He reached the camp. It looked lonely as a graveyard. Rows of hutments,
bleached to a bluish whiteness, gleamed in the morning sunshine. The
downs curled above it like an emerald wave on the point of breaking.
Passing along the bare avenue of silent dwellings he pushed open the
door of Santa's place of refuge. Tiptoeing across the dusty floor, he
knelt by the window, peering out.
Seconds ticked into minutes. Ten minutes elapsed, twenty, half an hour.
There was no sign of life. He strove to calm his fears. If she had been
caught, it simplified matters. But such arguments failed to pacify him.
He pictured her as he had seen her on the _Ryndam_--a splendid animal,
proud, fastidious, mildly contemptuous; and then as he had seen her that
morning, broken, desperate, defiant.
Out there in the happy sunshine they might be carrying her away. They
would drag her through the public streets as a criminal. They would lock
her in a cell. They would hale her to a court to be gaped at. They would
paw over her private life. They would pry into the intimacies of her
love-affairs. Nothing that was hers would be sacred. Then, when
the sport grew tedious, an old man, turned moralist by reason of
decrepitude, would don a black cap and intrust her to the mercy of
Almighty God.
He staged her arrest as though he had seen it happen. He had strolled
straight through her pursuers' ambush. They had let him pass. Directly
she had appeared, they had risen out of the brush. Twisting her arms
behind her, they had snapped handcuffs on her slender wrists. She had
struggled, sinking to the ground, faint with terror. They had jerked her
to her feet, half carrying her, pushing her forward.
He raged impotently. What brutes men were! Nothing that she had done
to his sex was bad enough. He thrust the vision from him. Each time it
returned.
The door creaked. He leaped as if he had been shot. She pressed a finger
to her lips. Coming close, so that he could feel the rise and fall of
her bosom, “He's here,” she whispered.
V
Who?”
She was puzzled by his stupidity. Then, “You know,” she murmured. “He
saw me in the distance and started to run toward me. I dropped to my
knees and circled, approaching the hut from the back.”
“But he couldn't have recognized you.”
“He's on my track.”
“Alone?”
“I saw no one else.”
Hindwood's forehead wrinkled as he reckoned the cost. “If he comes
alone, we can deal with him.”
“You mean--?” She did not finish her sentence.
He smiled sternly, thinking how far he had drifted from his moorings.
“Scarcely. What made you ask?”
“He's my husband.” Her answer was enigmatic.
They held their breath. She was clinging to him. There had been no
sound, nothing that could have warned them. Pushing her from him, he
stole toward the window. Not fifty yards away, rigid like a hound
at fault, stood the Major. Slowly, scarcely turning his head, he was
running his eye along the double line of hutments. There was nothing in
his expression that would tell what he had found. As though he sensed
that he was watched, he started forward at a rambling pace. He tried
no doors. He peered through no panes. His bearing was that of a mildly
interested tourist who had stumbled on the camp by accident. He passed
out of sight inoffensively, idly slashing at the grass.
It was some time before either of them dared to whisper. Then Hindwood
straightened himself and drew back.
“He's gone.”
“To return,” she said tragically.
“If he returns alone, what of it?”
“He may catch me.”
“That doesn't follow. We may catch him instead.”
Her eyes grew long and narrow like a cat's. “What would we do with him?”
she asked softly.
He regarded her warily. “He told me he loved you,” he said irrelevantly.
“Love wouldn't stand in his way--nothing personal. For what he holds to
be right, he'd mutilate himself. He'd kill the thing he loved best.” She
sank her voice. “We all would.”
“All--” He paused and began again. “With idealists like the Major,
yourself and Varensky, human relations don't count. That was what you
were trying to tell me, wasn't it? To achieve individual ideals, you'd
sacrifice your own and everybody's happiness.”
Her expression became wooden as an idol's.
“You'd sacrifice mine, for instance?”
When she refused to answer, he made his inquiry more intrusive.
“My life, perhaps? No obligation of loyalty or gratitude would hinder
you? Be honest.”
He recognized the struggle which his words had occasioned. Her sleepy
look had vanished. She believed he was preparing to desert her. She
was mustering the courage to invent a falsehood. Already her hands were
lying. They were wandering over him, patting and caressing. He clasped
them in his own, holding her at arm's length. Her eyes met his; they
grew steady and absorbed him.
“Even though you were all I had, if your life caused suffering to
children, I would kill you.”
He laughed at her solemnity over having told the truth.
“With you it's children; with the Major it's patriotism; with Varensky
it's freedom. With me it's nothing. I follow no will-o'-the-wisp--which
is lucky for you. You're terribly tired; get some rest while you can.
I'll watch. I'm no idealist; you can trust me.”