It had been some time since Derrick on his nightly walks homeward had
been conscious of the presence of the silent figure; but the very night
after the occurrence narrated in the last chapter, he was startled at
his first turning into the Knoll Road by recognizing Joan.
There was a pang to him in the discovery. Her silent presence seemed
only to widen the distance Fate had placed between them. She was ready
to shield him from danger, but she held herself apart from him even
in doing so. She followed her own path as if she were a creature of a
different world,--a world so separated from his own that nothing could
ever bridge the gulf between them.
To-night, Derrick was seized with an intense longing to speak to the
girl. He had forborne for her sake before, but to-night he was in one
of those frames of mind in which a man is selfish, and is apt to let his
course be regulated by his impulse. Why should he not speak, after all?
If there was danger for him there was danger for her, and it was absurd
that he should not show her that he was not afraid. Why should she
interpose her single strength between himself and the vengeance of a man
of whom he had had the best in their only encounter? As soon as they
had reached the more unfrequented part of the road, he wheeled round
suddenly, and spoke.
“Joan,” he said.
He saw that she paused and hesitated, and he made up his mind more
strongly. He took a few impetuous steps toward her, and seeing this, she
addressed him hurriedly.
“Dunnot stop,” she said. “If--if yo' want to speak to me, I'll go along
wi' yo'.”
“You think I'm in danger?”
He could not see her face, but her voice told him that her usual steady
composure was shaken--it was almost like the voice of another woman.
“Yo' nivver wur i' more danger i' yo're loife.”
“The old danger?”
“Th' old danger, as is worse to be feared now than ivver.”
“And you!” he broke out. “_You_ interpose yourself between that danger
and me!”
His fire seemed to communicate itself to her.
“Th' harm as is meant to be done, is coward's harm,” she said, “an' will
be done i' coward's fashion--it is na a harm as will be done yo' wi'
fair warnin', i' dayleet, an' face to face. If it wur, I should na
fear--but th' way it is, I say it shanna be done--it shanna, if I dee
fur it!” Then her manner altered again, and her voice returned to its
first tremor. “It is na wi' me as it is wi' other women. Yo' munnot
judge o' me as yo' judge o' other lasses. What mowtn't be reet fur
other lasses to do, is reet enow fur me. It has na been left to me to be
lass-loike, an' feart, an'--an' modest,” and she drew her breath hard,
as if she was forced to check herself.
“It has been left to you,” he burst forth, “it has been left to you to
stand higher in my eyes than any other woman God ever made.”
He could not have controlled himself. And yet, when he had said this,
his heart leaped for fear he might have wounded her or given her a false
impression. But strange to say, it proved this time that he had no need
for fear.
There was a moment's silence, and then she answered low.
“Thank yo'!”
They had gone some yards together, before he recovered himself
sufficiently to remember what he had meant to say to her.
“I wanted to tell you,” he said, “that I do not think any--enemy I
have, can take me at any very great disadvantage. I am--I have prepared
myself.”
She shuddered.
“Yo' carry--summat?”
“Don't misunderstand me,” he said quickly. “I shall not use any weapon
rashly. It is to be employed more as a means of warning and alarm than
anything else. Rigganites do not like firearms, and they are not used to
them. I only tell you this, because I cannot bear that you should expose
yourself unnecessarily.”
There was that in his manner which moved her as his light touch had
done that first night of their meeting, when he had bound up her wounded
temple with his handkerchief. It was that her womanhood--her hardly
used womanhood, of which she had herself thought with such pathetic
scorn--was always before him, and was even a stronger power with him
than her marvellous beauty.
She remembered the fresh bruise upon her brow, and felt its throb with
less of shame, because she bore it for his sake.
“Promise me one thing,” he went on. “And do not think me ungracious in
asking it of you--promise me that you will not come out again through
any fear of danger for me, unless it is a greater one than threatens me
now and one I am unprepared to meet.”
“I conna,” she answered firmly. “I conna promise yo'. Yo' mun let me do
as I ha' done fur th' sake o' my own peace.”
She made no further explanation, and he could not persuade her to alter
her determination. In fact, he was led to see at last, that there was
more behind than she had the will or power to reveal to him; something
in her reticence silenced him.
“Yo' dunnot know what _I_ do,” she said before they parted. “An'
happen yo' would na quoite understand it if yo' did. I dunnot do things
lightly,--I ha' no reason to,--an' I ha' set my moind on seein' that th'
harm as has been brewin' fur long enow, shanna reach wheer it's aimed.
I mun ha' my way. Dunnot ask me to gi'e it up. Let me do as I ha' been
doin' fur th' sake o' mysen, if fur no one else.”
The truth which he could not reach, and would not have reached if he had
talked to her till doomsday, was that she was right in saying that she
could not give it up. This woman had made no inconsequent boast when
she told her father that if deadly blows fell, they must fall first upon
herself. She was used to blows, she could bear them, she was fearless
before them,--but she could not have borne to sit at home, under any
possibility of wrong being done to this man. God knows what heavy
sadness had worn her soul, through the months in which she had never
for a moment flinched from the knowledge that a whole world lay
between herself and him. God knows how she had struggled against the
unconquerable tide of feeling as it crept slowly upon her, refusing to
be stemmed and threatening to overwhelm her in its remorseless waves.
She was only left endurance--yet even in this there was a gladness which
she had in nothing else. She could never meet him as a happier woman
might, but she could do for him what other women could not do--she could
brave darkness and danger, she could watch over him, if need be; if the
worst came to the worst, she could interpose herself between him and
violence, or death itself.
But of all this, Fergus Derrick suspected nothing. He only knew that
while she had not misinterpreted his appeal, some reason of her own held
her firm.