"Why don't you marry too?" I said. "It would make all the difference to
you, as it has to me."
We seemed suddenly very near to each other, as we had been in the old
days; nearer than we had ever been since he had made trouble between
Mildred and me.
He looked at me with a kind of forlorn envy.
"I cannot find her," he said again.
The words fell into the silence of the large, dimly lighted room.
And perhaps because we had been at school together, perhaps because I
had no longer a grudge against him, perhaps because I was not quite so
repellent to confidences as heretofore, and he was conscious of some
undefinable change in me, Sinclair said his say.
"I fell in and out of love fairly often when I was young," he said.
"You've seen me do it. But at the back of my mind there was always a
deep-rooted conviction that I was only playing at it, and the real thing
was to come, that there was the one woman waiting somewhere for me. I
wasn't in any hurry for her. I supposed she would turn up at the right
moment. But the years passed. I reached thirty. As I got older I began
to have sudden horrible fits of depression that she wasn't coming after
all. They did not last, but they became more severe as I gradually
realised that I could not really live without her, that I was only
marking time till she came.
"And one summer night, or rather morning, ten years ago, something
happened. You need not believe it unless you like, Chipps. It's all one
to me whether you do or you don't. I came home from a ball, and I found
among my letters one dictated by my young sister saying she was very ill
and wishing to see me. She was always ill, poor little thing, and always
wanting to see me. She was consumptive, and she lived in the summer
months with her nurse in a shooting-box high up on the Yorkshire moors,
the most inaccessible place, but she liked it, and the doctor approved
of it. I used to go and see her there when I had time. But that was not
often. I had made provision for her comfort, but I seldom saw her.
"I laid the letter down, and wondered whether I ought to go. I did not
want to leave London at that moment. I had been dancing all night with
Mildred, and was very much _épris_ with her. Then I saw there was a
postscript in the same handwriting, no doubt that of the nurse. "Miss
Sinclair is more ill than she is aware."
"That settled it. I must go. Once before I had been warned her condition
was serious, and had hurried up to Yorkshire to find her almost as
usual. But, nevertheless, I supposed I ought to go. I felt irritated
with the poor little thing. But as my other sister Anna was married and
out in India, I was the only relation she had left in England. I decided
to go.
"In that case it was not worth while to go to bed. I sat down by the
open window, and watched the dawn come up behind Westminster. And as I
sat with the letter in my hand a disgust of my life took hold of me. It
looked suddenly empty and vain and self-seeking, and cumbered with
worldly squalid interests and joyless amusements. And where was the one
woman of whom I had had obscure hints from time to time? Other women
came and went. But she who was essential to me, who became more
essential to my well-being with every year--she never came. I felt an
intense need of her, a passionate desire to find her, to seek her out.
But where?
"And as I sat there I felt in my inmost soul a faint thrill, a vibration
that gradually flooded my whole being, and then slowly ebbed away. And
something within me, something passionate surrendered myself to it, and
was borne away upon it as by an outgoing tide. It ebbed farther and
farther. And I floated farther and farther away with it in a golden
mist. And in a wonderful place of peace I saw a young girl sitting alone
in the dawn. I could not see her face, but I recognised her. She was the
one woman in the world for me, my mate found at last. And I was consumed
in an agony of longing. And I ran to her, and fell on my knees at her
feet, and hid my face in her gown. And she bent over me, and raised me
in her arms and held my head against her breast. And she said, 'Do not
be distressed, I love you, and all is well.'
"And we spoke together in whispers, and my agitation died away. I did
not see her face, but I did not need to. I knew her as I had never known
anyone before. I had found her at last.
"I had never guessed, I had never dreamed, I had never read in any book
that anything could be so beautiful. It was beyond all words. It was
more wonderful than dawn at sea. I leaned my head against her and cried
for joy. And she soothed me as a mother soothes her child. But she was
crying too, crying for sheer joy. I felt her tears on my face. She
needed me as I needed her. That was the most wonderful of all, her need
of me. We had been drawn to each other from the ends of the earth, and
we were safe in each other's arms at last.
"And then gradually, imperceptibly, a change came. The same tide which
had brought me to her feet began to draw me away again, and sudden
terror seized me that I was going to lose her. I clung convulsively to
her, but my arms were no longer round her. We were apart, stretching out
our hands to each other. Her figure was growing dimmer and dimmer in a
golden mist. In an agony I cried to her. 'Where shall I find you? Tell
me how to reach you?' And she laughed, and her voice came serene and
reassuring. 'We shall meet. You are on your way to me. You will find me
on the high road.'
"And we were parted from each other, and I came slowly back over immense
distances and moving waveless tides of space; back to this room, and the
dawn coming up behind the tower of Westminster."
"You awoke in fact," I said.
"No. I had not been asleep. I returned. And an immense peace enveloped
me. But gradually that too, ebbed away as I began to realise that I had
not seen her face. She was in the world, she was waiting for me. Thank
God that was no delusion. But which of all the thousands of women in the
crowd was she? How was I to know her? 'You are on your way to me, you
will find me on the high road.' That was what she had said, and it
flashed through my mind that she might be Mildred. 'You are on your way
to me.' I was to motor Mildred to Burnham Beeches that very afternoon. I
had arranged to take her there before I had received the letter about my
sister. Chipps, I dare say you will think me heartless, perhaps you
often have, but I simply dared not start off to Yorkshire that morning,
even if my sister was dangerously ill. I had a feeling that my whole
future was at stake, that I must see Mildred again, that nothing must
come between her and me. I went with her to Burnham Beeches. We spent
the afternoon together."
"I have not forgotten that fact," I said.
"And I found I was mistaken," he said. "She knew nothing. The same
evening I went to Yorkshire, but I did not find my sister. She had died
suddenly that afternoon."
"You would have been in time to see her if you had let Mildred alone," I
said brutally.
He did not answer for a long time.
"For ten years I looked for her, now in one person now in another, but I
could not find her. I tried to go to her again in that waking dream, but
I could not find the way. I could not discover any clue to her. For ten
years she made no sign. At last I supposed she was dead, and I gave her
up.
"That was last autumn. Gout had been increasing on me, and I had been up
to Strathpeffer to take the waters there. And my other sister Anna, now
a widow, pressed me to stay a few days with her at the little house on
the moors where my younger sister had lived, and which I allowed Anna to
use as her home as she was extremely poor. The air was bracing and I
needed bracing, so I went, dropping down from Strathpeffer by easy
stages in my motor. I was glad I went. The heat was great, but on those
uplands there was always a fresh air stirring. Anna, who had hardly seen
me for years, made much of me, and though she had no doubt become
rather eccentric since her husband's death, that did not matter much on
a Yorkshire moor. I spent some happy days with her, and it turned out to
be fortunate that I had come, for on the third afternoon of my visit,
she had found out--she found out everything--that an old servant of
mine, the son of my foster mother, had got into difficulties, and was
being sold up next day at a distant farm. She urged me to motor over
very early in the morning and stop the sale and put him on his legs
again. I rather liked the idea of a thirty mile drive across the moors
before the sun was up, and I agreed to go. I had no objection to acting
Providence and pleasing Anna at the same time.
"I shall never forget that afternoon. We had tea together in the
verandah, overlooking the great expanse of the heathered, purple moors.
And the thunder which had hung round us all day rolled nearer and
nearer. The moors looked bruised and dark under the heavy sky. The long
white road grew whiter and whiter. My sister left me to shut all the
windows, and I lay in my long deck chair and looked at the road.
"And as I looked the words came back to my mind. 'You will find me on
the high road.' Lies! Lies! Ten years I had been seeking her. I should
never find her. And far, far away on the empty highway I saw a woman
coming. My heart beat suddenly, but I remembered that I had been
deceived a hundred times, and this was no doubt but one more deception.
I watched her draw nearer and nearer. She came lightly along towards the
house under the livid sky with the heather on each side of her. She had
a little knapsack on her shoulder. And as she drew near the breathless
stillness before the storm was broken by a sheet of lightning and a clap
of thunder. My sister rushed up and dragged the chairs farther back.
Then her eye caught sight of the tall grey figure now close below us on
the road. A few great drops fell.
"Anna ran down to the gate and called to the woman to take shelter. She
walked swiftly towards us, and then ran with my sister up the steps,
just as the storm broke.
"'Magnificent,' she said, easing her shoulder of the strap of her
knapsack while her eyes followed the driving rain cloud. 'How kind of
you to call me in. There is not another house within miles.'
"She was a very beautiful woman of about thirty, with a small head and a
clear-cut grave face. Her dark, parted hair had a little grey in it on
the temples. She smoothed it with slender, capable, tanned hands. She
had tea with us, my sister welcoming her as if she were her dearest
friend. That was Anna all over.
"The thunderstorm passed, but not the rain. It descended in sheets.
"The stranger looked at it now and then, and at last rose and put out
her hand for her knapsack.
"'I must be going,' she said.
"But Anna would not hear of it. There was not another house within
miles. She insisted on her stopping the night. A room was got ready, and
presently we all three sat down to a nondescript meal which poor Anna
believed to be dinner.
"I was attracted by our guest, but not more than I had often been before
by other women. She had great beauty, but I had seen many beautiful
women during the last twenty years. She was gay, and I like gaiety. And
she had the look of alertness and perfect health which often accompanies
a happy temperament. She and Anna talked incessantly, at least, Anna
did. I did not join in much. My cure had left me languid. When we had
finished our meal we found the rain had ceased, and the moon shone high
in heaven over a world of mist. The moors were gone. The billows of mist
drifted slowly past us like noiseless waves upon a great sea. The house
and terraced garden rose above it like a solitary island. The night was
hot and airless, and we sat out on the verandah, and talked of many
things.
"Of course, Anna is eccentric. There is no doubt about it. But the
worst of her is that her form of eccentricity is infectious. She is
extremely impulsive and confidential, and others follow suit if they are
with her. I have known her once (at a luncheon party of eight people
whom she had never met before) say, as a matter of course, that she
remembered a previous existence, and sleeping seven in a bed in an
underground cellar. I was horrified, but no one else was. And a grave
man beside her, a minister, told her that when first he went to Madeira
he remembered living there in a little Portuguese cottage with a row of
sugar canes in front of it. He said he recognised the cottage the moment
he saw it, and said to himself, 'At any rate, I am happier now than I
was then.' A sort of barrier seemed always to go down in Anna's
presence. People momentarily lost their fear of each other, and said
things which I have no doubt they regretted afterwards.
"I need hardly say that as Anna looked at the moonlight and the mist she
became recklessly indiscreet. I could not stop her. I did not try. I
shut my eyes, and pretended to be asleep. And she actually told this
entire stranger all about her first meeting with her late husband, which
it seemed had taken place on an expedition to Nepal. Anna was always
wandering over the globe with Lamas, or sailing on inflated pigskins
with wild Indians, or things of that kind. I had only known the bare
fact of her marriage with a distinguished but impecunious soldier who
had died some years later, and I was amazed what a dramatic story she
made of her first encounter with him on the mountains of Nepal, and how
his coolies had all run away, and she let him join on to her party. And
how they walked together for three days through a land of rose-coloured
rhododendrons; without even knowing each other's name, and how she
cooked their meals at the doors of the little mud rest-houses. There was
something very lovable after all in the way Anna told it. I realised for
the first time that she, too, had lived, that she had been touched by
the sacred flame, and that it was natural to her to speak of her great
happiness, the memory of which dwelt continually with her.
"I saw through my half-closed eyes the strange woman's hand laid for a
moment on Anna's hand.
"'You were very fortunate,' she said gently.
"'Was I?' said Anna. 'I suppose everyone else is the same. We all see
that light once in our lives, don't we? I am sure you have too.'
"'I am unmarried,' said the stranger, 'and thirty years of age, and
nothing of that kind has ever happened to me. I was once engaged to be
married for a short time. But I had to break it off. It was no good. I
suppose,' she said, with a low laugh, 'that the reason we are both
talking so frankly is because we are entire strangers to each other.'
"'I do believe the world would go all right, and that we should all be
happy if only we did not know each other,' said Anna earnestly.
"I felt sure the stranger would think her mad, but she answered
tranquilly:
"'There are two ways of living absolutely happily with our fellow
creatures, I think. When you know nothing about them and have no tie to
them, and when you know them through and through. But on the long road
between where all the half-way houses are, there seems to be a lot of
trouble and misunderstanding and disappointment.'
"'We can never know anyone through and through until we love them,' said
Anna.
"'No,' said the stranger, 'Love alone can teach that. Even I know that,
I who have never seen love except once--in a dream.'
"'Tell me about it,' said Anna.
"'I have never spoken of it,' she said with the same tranquillity; her
face as I took one glance at it serene and happy in the moonlight,
'except to my sister. And it is curious that I should speak of it here;
for it was in this house it happened to me.'
"'You have been here before?' said Anna.
"'Yes. Ten years ago. That was why I went out of my way on my walking
tour to-day just to look at the little place again. I stayed a month
here, and I helped a friend of mine who is now dead, a trained nurse, to
nurse a Miss Sinclair who was dying here.'
"'We are her brother and sister,' said Anna.
"'I thought it possible when I saw you on the verandah. You are both
like her in a way. My friend, who was in charge, was over-taxed, and I
came down to help her. Two nurses were necessary, but she did not like
to complain, and the family seemed rather inaccessible. Miss Sinclair
liked me, and I did the night work till she died. I left directly she
was gone.'
"'My brother was too late,' said Anna.
"'Yes,' she said. 'I was grieved for him. I added a postscript unknown
to her, to her last letter to him which I wrote at her dictation. My
postscript would have alarmed him and brought him at once. But the
letter must have been delayed in the post. The last night before the end
I was sitting here on the verandah. I had just been relieved, and I
ought to have gone to bed, but I came and sat here instead and watched
the dawn come up, 'like thunder,' behind the moors. And as I sat I
became very still, as if I were waiting in a great peace. And gradually
I became conscious as at an immense distance of someone in trouble. I
was not asleep, and I was not fully awake. And from a long, long way off
a man came swiftly to me, and threw himself on his knees at my feet,
and hid his face in my gown. He was greatly agitated, but I was not. And
I wasn't surprised either. I raised him in my arms, and held him to my
breast, and said, "Do not be distressed, for I love you, and all is
well." It was quite true. I did love him absolutely, boundlessly, as I
love him still. And gradually his agitation died away, and he rested in
my arms, and ecstasy such as I had never thought possible enfolded us
both. We both cried for sheer joy, and for having found each other. It
was beyond anything I had ever dreamed. It was as beautiful as the
dawn.'
"'It _was_ the dawn,' said Anna.
"'If it was the dawn, the day it spoke of never came,' said the stranger
quietly, 'and presently we were parted from each other, and he began to
be frightened again. And he called to me, 'Tell me how to find you,' and
I laughed, for I saw he could not miss me. I saw the way open between
him and me. Such a short little way, and so clear. I said, 'You are on
your way to me now. You will find me on the high road.' It was such a
plain road, that even a blind man could not miss it. And we were parted
from each other and I came back to the other dawn, the outer dawn. For
days and weeks I walked like one in a dream. I felt so sure of him, I
would have staked my life upon his coming--that is ten years ago--but he
never came.'
"Chipps, I thought the two women must have heard the mad hammering of my
heart. She was there before me in the moonlight, found at last--my
beautiful, inaccessible mate. And she was free, and we loved each other
as no one had loved since the world began. I could neither speak nor
move. Though it was joy, it was the sharpest pain I had ever known. I
did not know how to bear it.
"'My dear, he will come still,' said Anna.
"'Will he?' said the stranger, and she shook her head. She rose and
stood in the moonlight, a tall, noble figure. And for the first time
there was a shade of sadness on her serene, happy face.
"'I saw the road so clear,' she said, 'but I am afraid he has somehow
missed it. I have an intuition that he will not come now, that he is
lost.'
"Sitting far back in the shadow, I looked long at her, at my wonderful
dream came true; and I swore that I would never lose sight of her again
once found. I would take no risks; I would bind her to me with hooks of
steel.
"And then, in a few minutes, it was bedtime, and Anna aroused me, and
she and her guest went off together hand in hand. I dragged myself to my
room, too. I was shaking from head to foot, and Brown, my valet, said
'You aren't fit, sir, to start at six in the morning.'
"I had clean forgotten that I had arranged to drive early across the
moors to stop the sale of my foster brother's farm. It was impossible to
go now. I might come back in the afternoon and find my lady flown. There
was no telegraph office within miles; I must think of some other plan.
It was too late to countermand the motor, which put up several miles
away. So I told Brown to send it back when it arrived at six, and to
tell the chauffeur to bring it round again at eleven. Then, perhaps, my
lady would deign to drive with me, and I might have speech with her.
"'On the high road'--that was where she had said we should meet. Yes,
when we were on the high road alone together, I would prove to her that
I was her lover. I would boldly claim her. She would never repulse me,
for she needed me as I needed her.
"I did not sleep that night. It seemed so impossible, so amazing, that
we had met at last. I felt transformed, younger than I had ever been.
Waves of joy passed over me, and yet I was frightened, too. There was a
sort of warning voice at the back of my mind telling me that I should
lose her yet. But that was nonsense. My nerves were shaken. I could not
lose her again. I would see to that.
"Very early, long before six, I heard Anna stirring. I remembered with
compunction that she had only one servant, and that she had said she
would get up and cook my breakfast for me herself before I started. Anna
was an excellent cook. I heard her rattling the kitchen grate and
singing as she laid the breakfast and presently there were two voices,
Anna's and another. I knew it was the voice of my lady. I felt unable to
lie still any longer, and when the motor came round at six I was already
half dressed. There was a momentary turmoil, and an opening and shutting
of doors, and then the motor went away again. I finished dressing and
went into the garden into the soft September sunshine. There was no one
about. I went back to the house and found the servant clearing away a
meal and relaying the table for me. I asked her where her mistress was,
and she said she had gone in the motor with the other lady and had left
a note for me. Sure enough, there was a scrawl stuck up on the
mantelpiece.
"'So sorry you are not well enough to start, but don't worry your
kind heart about it. I have gone in your place and will arrange
everything. Take care of yourself, and don't wait luncheon.'
"I got through the morning as best I could. I was abominably tired after
my sleepless night and getting up so early, and a horrible anxiety grew
and grew in me as the hours passed and Anna did not return. I had
luncheon alone, and still no Anna. Could there have been an accident? I
thought of my careful chauffeur and my new Daimler. Nothing ever
happened to Anna, but I could not tolerate the idea of any risk to my
lady. At last I heard the motor, and Anna came rushing in.
"'It's all right,' she cried joyfully. 'Brian's farm is saved, and he
and his old mother can't thank you enough. I told them both it was all
your doing, and you had sent me as you were not well enough to go
yourself. Brown told me how poorly you were. And it was only a hundred
and fifty pounds, after all. I gave my cheque for it, as I didn't like
to wake you for a blank one. They were almost paralysed with surprise.
They could hardly thank me--I mean you--at first. Old Nancy cried, poor
old darling, and called down blessings on you.'
"'Did your guest enjoy the drive?' I said at last.
"'She did,' said Anna. 'And, oh! how I wished you had been well enough
to be driving with her instead of me. The world was all sky. Such a
pageant I had never seen--such vistas and fastnesses and citadels of
light. She said she should remember it always.'
"'She is not tired, I hope?' I said.
"'Tired! She said she was never tired. She said she would have walked
the whole way if there had been time; but of course she was delayed by
last night's storm. So she was glad of the lift, and I dropped her at
the cross roads above Riffle station. That was a splendid woman,
Gerald.'
"I turned cold.
"'Do you mean to say she's gone?'
"'Yes. She sails for South America on Tuesday. I forget why she said she
was going.'
"'And what was her name?'
"'I haven't an idea.'
"'Anna, you don't mean to say you let her go without finding out her
name and address?'
"'I never thought of such a thing. She never asked any questions about
me, and I didn't ask any about her. Why should I? What does her name
matter?'"
Sinclair groaned.
"I lost her absolutely just when I thought I was sure of her," he said.
"She walked into my life and she walked out of it again, leaving no
trace. I haven't had the ghost of a chance."
"Perhaps you will meet her again," I said at last, somewhat lamely. "She
may turn up suddenly, just when you least expect her."
He shook his head.
"I shall never find her," he said. "She's gone for ever, I know it. She
knew it. Lost! Lost! Lost!"