incomprehension.
"Great Heavens! What an Adam to select!" thought Broomhurst
involuntarily, as Mrs. Drayton rose rather suddenly from the table.
"I'll come and help with that packing-case," John said, rising, in his
turn, lumberingly from his place; "then we can have a smoke--eh?
Kathie don't mind, if we sit near the entrance."
The two men went out together, Broomhurst holding the lantern, for the
moon had not yet risen. Mrs. Drayton followed them to the doorway,
and, pushing the looped-up hanging further aside, stepped out into the
cool darkness.
Her heart was beating quickly, and there was a great lump in her
throat that frightened her as though she were choking.
"And I am his _wife_--I _belong_ to him!" she cried, almost aloud.
She pressed both her hands tightly against her breast, and set her
teeth, fighting to keep down the rising flood that threatened to sweep
away her composure. "Oh, what a fool I am! What an hysterical fool of
a woman I am!" she whispered below her breath. She began to walk
slowly up and down outside the tent, in the space illumined by the
lamplight, as though striving to make her outwardly quiet movements
react upon the inward tumult. In a little while she had conquered; she
quietly entered the tent, drew a low chair to the entrance, and took
up a book, just as footsteps became audible. A moment afterwards
Broomhurst emerged from the darkness into the circle of light outside,
and Mrs. Drayton raised her eyes from the pages she was turning to
greet him with a smile.
"Are your things all right?"
"Oh yes, more or less, thank you. I was a little concerned about a
case of books, but it isn't much damaged fortunately. Perhaps I've
some you would care to look at?"
"The books will be a godsend," she returned with a sudden brightening
of the eyes; "I was getting _desperate_--for books."
"What are you reading now?" he asked, glancing at the volume that lay
in her lap.
"It's a Browning. I carry it about a good deal. I think I like to have
it with me, but I don't seem to read it much."
"Are you waiting for a suitable optimistic moment?" Broomhurst
inquired smiling.
"Yes, now you mention it, I think that must be why I am waiting," she
replied slowly.
"And it doesn't come--even in the Garden of Eden? Surely the serpent,
pessimism, hasn't been insolent enough to draw you into conversation
with him?" he said lightly.
"There has been no one to converse with at all--when John is away, I
mean. I think I should have liked a little chat with the serpent
immensely by way of a change," she replied in the same tone.
"Ah, yes," Broomhurst said with sudden seriousness, "it must be
unbearably dull for you alone here, with Drayton away all day."
Mrs. Drayton's hand shook a little as she fluttered a page of her open
book.
"I should think it quite natural you would be irritated beyond
endurance to hear that all's right with the world, for instance, when
you were sighing for the long day to pass," he continued.
"I don't mind the day so much--it's the evenings." She abruptly
checked the swift words and flushed painfully. "I mean--I've grown
stupidly nervous, I think--even when John is here. Oh, you have no
idea of the awful _silence_ of this place at night," she added, rising
hurriedly from her low seat, and moving closer to the doorway. "It is
so close, isn't it?" she said, almost apologetically. There was
silence for quite a minute.
Broomhurst's quick eyes noted the silent momentary clenching of the
hands that hung at her side as she stood leaning against the support
at the entrance.
"But how stupid of me to give you such a bad impression of the
camp--the first evening, too," Mrs. Drayton exclaimed presently, and
her companion mentally commended the admirable composure of her voice.
"Probably you will never notice that it is lonely at all," she
continued, "John likes it here. He is immensely interested in his
work, you know. I hope _you_ are too. If you are interested it is all
quite right. I think the climate tries me a little. I never used to be
stupid--and nervous. Ah, here's John; he's been round to the
kitchen-tent, I suppose."
"Been looking after that fellow cleanin' my gun, my dear," John
explained, shambling towards the deck-chair.
Later, Broomhurst stood at his own tent-door. He looked up at the
star-sown sky, and the heavy silence seemed to press upon him like an
actual, physical burden.
He took his cigar from between his lips presently and looked at the
glowing end reflectively before throwing it away.
"Considering that she has been alone with him here for six months, she
has herself very well in hand--_very_ well in hand," he repeated.
III
It was Sunday morning. John Drayton sat just inside the tent,
presumably enjoying his pipe before the heat of the day. His eyes
furtively followed his wife as she moved about near him, sometimes
passing close to his chair in search of something she had mislaid.
There was colour in her cheeks; her eyes, though preoccupied, were
bright; there was a lightness and buoyancy in her step which she set
to a little dancing air she was humming under her breath.
After a moment or two the song ceased, she began to move slowly,
sedately; and as if chilled by a raw breath of air, the light faded
from her eyes, which she presently turned towards her husband.
"Why do you look at me?" she asked suddenly.
"I don't know, my dear," he began, slowly and laboriously as was his
wont. "I was thinkin' how nice you looked--jest now--much better you
know--but somehow"--he was taking long whiffs at his pipe, as usual,
between each word, while she stood patiently waiting for him to
finish--"somehow, you alter so, my dear--you're quite pale again all
of a minute."
She stood listening to him, noticing against her will the more than
suspicion of cockney accent and the thick drawl with which the words
were uttered.
His eyes sought her face piteously. She noticed that too, and stood
before him torn by conflicting emotions, pity and disgust struggling
in a hand-to-hand fight within her.
"Mr. Broomhurst and I are going down by the well to sit; it's cooler
there. Won't you come?" she said at last gently.
He did not reply for a moment, then he turned his head aside sharply
for him.
"No, my dear, thank you; I'm comfortable enough here," he returned
huskily.
She stood over him, hesitating a second, then moved abruptly to the
table, from which she took a book.
He had risen from his seat by the time she turned to go out, and he
intercepted her timorously.
"Kathie, give me a kiss before you go," he whispered hoarsely. "I--I
don't often bother you."
She drew her breath in deeply as he put his arms clumsily about her,
but she stood still, and he kissed her on the forehead, and touched
the little wavy curls that strayed across it gently with his big
trembling fingers.
When he released her she moved at once impetuously to the open
doorway. On the threshold she hesitated, paused a moment irresolutely,
and then turned back.
"Shall I----Does your pipe want filling, John?" she asked softly.
"No, thank you, my dear."
"Would you like me to stay, read to you, or anything?"
He looked up at her wistfully. "N-no, thank you, I'm not much of a
reader, you know, my dear--somehow."
She hated herself for knowing that there would be a "my dear,"
probably a "somehow" in his reply, and despised herself for the sense
of irritated impatience she felt by anticipation, even before the
words were uttered.
There was a moment's hesitating silence, broken by the sound of quick
firm footsteps without. Broomhurst paused at the entrance, and looked
into the tent.
"Aren't you coming, Drayton?" he asked, looking first at Drayton's
wife and then swiftly putting in his name with a scarcely perceptible
pause. "Too lazy? But you, Mrs. Drayton?"
"Yes, I'm coming," she said.
They left the tent together, and walked some few steps in silence.
Broomhurst shot a quick glance at his companion's face.
"Anything wrong?" he asked presently.
Though the words were ordinary enough, the voice in which they were
spoken was in some subtle fashion a different voice from that in which
he had talked to her nearly two months ago, though it would have
required a keen sense of nice shades in sound to have detected the
change.
Mrs. Drayton's sense of niceties in sound was particularly keen, but
she answered quietly, "Nothing, thank you."
They did not speak again till the trees round the stone-well were
reached.
Broomhurst arranged their seats comfortably beside it.
"Are we going to read or talk?" he asked, looking up at her from his
lower place.
"Well, we generally talk most when we arrange to read, so shall we
agree to talk to-day for a change, by way of getting some reading
done?" she rejoined, smiling. "_You_ begin."
Broomhurst seemed in no hurry to avail himself of the permission, he
was apparently engrossed in watching the flecks of sunshine on Mrs.
Drayton's white dress. The whirring of insects, and the creaking of a
Persian wheel somewhere in the neighbourhood, filtered through the hot
silence.
Mrs. Drayton laughed after a few minutes; there was a touch of
embarrassment in the sound.
"The new plan doesn't answer. Suppose you read as usual, and let me
interrupt, also as usual, after the first two lines."
He opened the book obediently, but turned the pages at random.
She watched him for a moment, and then bent a little forward towards
him.
"It is my turn now," she said suddenly. "Is anything wrong?"
He raised his head, and their eyes met. There was a pause. "I will be
more honest than you," he returned. "Yes, there is."
"What?"
"I've had orders to move on."
She drew back, and her lips whitened, though she kept them steady.
"When do you go?"
"On Wednesday."
There was silence again; the man still kept his eyes on her face.
The whirring of the insects and the creaking of the wheel had suddenly
grown so strangely loud and insistent, that it was in a half-dazed
fashion she at length heard her name--"_Kathleen_!"
"Kathleen!" he whispered again hoarsely.
She looked him full in the face, and once more their eyes met in a
long grave gaze.
The man's face flushed, and he half rose from his seat with an
impetuous movement, but Kathleen stopped him with a glance.
"Will you go and fetch my work? I left it in the tent," she said,
speaking very clearly and distinctly; "and then will you go on
reading? I will find the place while you are gone."
She took the book from his hand, and he rose and stood before her.
There was a mute appeal in his silence, and she raised her head
slowly.
Her face was white to the lips, but she looked at him unflinchingly;
and without a word he turned and left her.
IV
Mrs. Drayton was resting in the tent on Tuesday afternoon. With the
help of cushions and some low chairs she had improvised a couch, on
which she lay quietly with her eyes closed. There was a tenseness,
however, in her attitude which indicated that sleep was far from her.
Her features seemed to have sharpened during the last few days, and
there were hollows in her cheeks. She had been very still for a long
time, but all at once with a sudden movement she turned her head and
buried her face in the cushions with a groan. Slipping from her place
she fell on her knees beside the couch, and put both hands before her
mouth to force back the cry that she felt struggling to her lips.
For some moments the wild effort she was making for outward calm,
which even when she was alone was her first instinct, strained every
nerve and blotted out sight and hearing, and it was not till the sound
was very near that she was conscious of the ring of horse's hoofs on
the plain.
She raised her head sharply with a thrill of fear, still kneeling, and
listened.
There was no mistake. The horseman was riding in hot haste, for the
thud of the hoofs followed one another swiftly.
As Mrs. Drayton listened her white face grew whiter, and she began to
tremble. Putting out shaking hands, she raised herself by the arms of
the folding-chair and stood upright.
Nearer and nearer came the thunder of the approaching sound, mingled
with startled exclamations and the noise of trampling feet from the
direction of the kitchen tent.
Slowly, mechanically almost, she dragged herself to the entrance, and
stood clinging to the canvas there. By the time she had reached it,
Broomhurst had flung himself from the saddle, and had thrown the reins
to one of the men.
Mrs. Drayton stared at him with wide bright eyes as he hastened
towards her.
"I thought you--you are not----" she began, and then her teeth began
to chatter. "I am so cold!" she said, in a little weak voice.
Broomhurst took her hand, and led her over the threshold back into the
tent.
"Don't be so frightened," he implored; "I came to tell you first. I
thought it wouldn't frighten you so much as----Your--Drayton is--very
ill. They are bringing him. I----"
He paused. She gazed at him a moment with parted lips, then she broke
into a horrible discordant laugh, and stood clinging to the back of a
chair.
Broomhurst started back.
"Do you understand what I mean?" he whispered. "Kathleen, for God's
sake--_don't_--he is _dead_."
He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, her shrill laughter ringing
in his ears. The white glare and dazzle of the plain stretched before
him, framed by the entrance to the tent; far off, against the horizon,
there were moving black specks, which he knew to be the returning
servants with their still burden.
They were bringing John Drayton home.
V
One afternoon, some months later, Broomhurst climbed the steep lane
leading to the cliffs of a little English village by the sea. He had
already been to the inn, and had been shown by the proprietress the
house where Mrs. Drayton lodged.
"The lady was out, but the gentleman would likely find her if he went
to the cliffs--down by the bay, or thereabouts," her landlady
explained, and, obeying her directions, Broomhurst presently emerged
from the shady woodland path on to the hillside overhanging the sea.
He glanced eagerly round him, and then with a sudden quickening of the
heart, walked on over the springy heather to where she sat. She turned
when the rustling his footsteps made through the bracken was near
enough to arrest her attention, and looked up at him as he came. Then
she rose slowly and stood waiting for him. He came up to her without a
word and seized both her hands, devouring her face with his eyes.
Something he saw there repelled him. Slowly he let her hands fall,
still looking at her silently. "You are not glad to see me, and I have
counted the hours," he said at last in a dull toneless voice.
Her lips quivered. "Don't be angry with me--I can't help it--I'm not
glad or sorry for anything now," she answered, and her voice matched
his for greyness.
They sat down together on a long flat stone half embedded in a wiry
clump of whortleberries. Behind them the lonely hillsides rose,
brilliant with yellow bracken and the purple of heather. Before them
stretched the wide sea. It was a soft grey day. Streaks of pale
sunlight trembled at moments far out on the water. The tide was rising
in the little bay above which they sat, and Broomhurst watched the
lazy foam-edged waves slipping over the uncovered rocks towards the
shore, then sliding back as though for very weariness they despaired
of reaching it. The muffled pulsing sound of the sea filled the
silence. Broomhurst thought suddenly of hot Eastern sunshine, of the
whirr of insect wings on the still air, and the creaking of a wheel in
the distance. He turned and looked at his companion.
"I have come thousands of miles to see you," he said; "aren't you
going to speak to me now I am here?"
"Why did you come? I told you not to come," she answered, falteringly.
"I----" she paused.
"And I replied that I should follow you--if you remember," he
answered, still quietly. "I came because I would not listen to what
you said then, at that awful time. You didn't know _yourself_ what you
said. No wonder! I have given you some months, and now I have come."
There was silence between them. Broomhurst saw that she was crying;
her tears fell fast on to her hands, that were clasped in her lap. Her
face, he noticed, was thin and drawn.
Very gently he put his arm round her shoulder and drew her nearer to
him. She made no resistance--it seemed that she did not notice the
movement; and his arm dropped at his side.
"You asked me why I had come? You think it possible that three months
can change one, very thoroughly, then?" he said in a cold voice.
"I not only think it possible, I have proved it," she replied wearily.
He turned round and faced her.
"You _did_ love me, Kathleen!" he asserted; "you never said so in
words, but I know it," he added fiercely.
"Yes, I did."
"And----You mean that you don't now?"
Her voice was very tired. "Yes--I can't help it," she answered, "it
has gone--utterly."
The grey sea slowly lapped the rocks. Overhead the sharp scream of a
gull cut through the stillness. It was broken again, a moment
afterwards, by a short hard laugh from the man.
"Don't!" she whispered, and laid a hand swiftly on his arm. "Do you
think it isn't worse for me? I wish to God I _did_ love you," she
cried passionately. "Perhaps it would make me forget that to all
intents and purposes I am a murderess."
Broomhurst met her wide despairing eyes with an amazement which
yielded to sudden pitying comprehension.
"So that is it, my darling? You are worrying about _that_? You who
were as loyal, as----"
She stopped him with a frantic gesture.
"Don't! _don't_!" she wailed. "If you only knew; let me try to tell
you--will you?" she urged pitifully. "It may be better if I tell
someone--if I don't keep it all to myself, and think, and _think_."
She clasped her hands tight, with the old gesture he remembered when
she was struggling for self-control, and waited a moment.
Presently she began to speak in a low hurried tone: "It began before
you came. I know now what the feeling was that I was afraid to
acknowledge to myself. I used to try and smother it, I used to repeat
things to myself all day--poems, stupid rhymes--_anything_ to keep my
thoughts quite underneath--but I--_hated_ John before you came! We had
been married nearly a year then. I never loved him. Of course you are
going to say: 'Why did you marry him?'" She looked drearily over the
placid sea. "Why _did_ I marry him? I don't know; for the reason that
hundreds of ignorant inexperienced girls marry, I suppose. My home
wasn't a happy one. I was miserable, and oh,--_restless_. I wonder if
men know what it feels like to be restless? Sometimes I think they
can't even guess. John wanted me very badly--nobody wanted me at home
particularly. There didn't seem to be any point in my life. Do you
understand?... Of course being alone with him in that little camp in
that silent plain"--she shuddered--"made things worse. My nerves went
all to pieces. Everything he said--his voice--his accent--his
walk--the way he ate--irritated me so that I longed to rush out
sometimes and shriek--and go _mad_. Does it sound ridiculous to you to
be driven mad by such trifles? I only know I used to get up from the
table sometimes and walk up and down outside, with both hands over my
mouth to keep myself quiet. And all the time I _hated_ myself--how I
hated myself! I never had a word from him that wasn't gentle and
tender. I believe he loved the ground I walked on. Oh, it is _awful_
to be loved like that, when you----" She drew in her breath with a
sob. "I--I--it made me sick for him to come near me--to touch me." She
stopped a moment.
Broomhurst gently laid his hand on her quivering one. "Poor little
girl!" he murmured.
"Then _you_ came," she said, "and before long I had another feeling to
fight against. At first I thought it couldn't be true that I loved
you--it would die down. I think I was _frightened_ at the feeling; I
didn't know it hurt so to love anyone."
Broomhurst stirred a little. "Go on," he said tersely.
"But it didn't die," she continued in a trembling whisper, "and the
other _awful_ feeling grew stronger and stronger--hatred; no, that is
not the word--_loathing_ for--for--John. I fought against it. Yes,"
she cried feverishly, clasping and unclasping her hands, "Heaven knows
I fought it with all my strength, and reasoned with myself, and--oh, I
did _everything_, but----" Her quick-falling tears made speech
difficult.
"Kathleen!" Broomhurst urged desperately, "you couldn't help it, you
poor child. You say yourself you struggled against your feelings--you
were always gentle. Perhaps he didn't know."
"But he did--he _did_," she wailed, "it is just that. I hurt him a
hundred times a day; he never said so, but I knew it; and yet I
_couldn't_ be kind to him--except in words--and he understood. And
after you came it was worse in one way, for he knew. I _felt_ he knew
that I loved you. His eyes used to follow me like a dog's, and I was
stabbed with remorse, and I tried to be good to him, but I couldn't."
"But--he didn't suspect--he trusted you," began Broomhurst. "He had
every reason. No woman was ever so loyal, so----"
"Hush," she almost screamed. "Loyal! it was the least I could do--to
stop you, I mean--when you----After all, I knew it without your
telling me. I had deliberately married him without loving him. It was
my own fault. I felt it. Even if I couldn't prevent his knowing that I
hated him, I could prevent _that_. It was my punishment. I deserved it
for _daring_ to marry without love. But I didn't spare John one pang,
after all," she added bitterly. "He knew what I felt towards him--I
don't think he cared about anything else. You say I mustn't reproach
myself? When I went back to the tent that morning--when you--when I
stopped you from saying you loved me, he was sitting at the table with
his head buried in his hands; he was crying--bitterly: I saw him--it
is terrible to see a man cry--and I stole away gently, but he saw me.
I was torn to pieces, but I _couldn't_ go to him. I knew he would kiss
me, and I shuddered to think of it. It seemed more than ever not to be
borne that he should do that--when I knew _you_ loved me."
"Kathleen," cried her lover again, "don't dwell on it all so
terribly----don't----"
"How can I forget?" she answered despairingly, "and then"--she lowered
her voice--"oh, I can't tell you--all the time, at the back of my mind
somewhere, there was a burning wish that he might _die_. I used to lie
awake at night, and do what I would to stifle it, that thought used to
_scorch_ me, I wished it so intensely. Do you believe that by willing
one can bring such things to pass?" she asked, looking at Broomhurst
with feverishly bright eyes. "No?--well, I don't know--I tried to
smother it. I _really_ tried, but it was there, whatever other
thoughts I heaped on the top. Then, when I heard the horse galloping
across the plain that morning, I had a sick fear that it was you. I
knew something had happened, and my first thought when I saw you alive
and well, and knew that it was _John_, was, _that it was too good to
be true_. I believe I laughed like a maniac, didn't I?... Not to
blame? Why, if it hadn't been for me he wouldn't have died. The men
say they saw him sitting with his head uncovered in the burning sun,
his face buried in his hands--just as I had seen him the day before.
He didn't trouble to be careful--he was too wretched."
She paused, and Broomhurst rose and began to pace the little hillside
path at the edge of which they were seated.
Presently he came back to her.
"Kathleen, let me take care of you," he implored, stooping towards
her. "We have only ourselves to consider in this matter. Will you come
to me at once?"
She shook her head sadly.
Broomhurst set his teeth, and the lines round his mouth deepened. He
threw himself down beside her on the heather.
"Dear," he urged still gently, though his voice showed he was
controlling himself with an effort. "You are morbid about this. You
have been alone too much--you are ill. Let me take care of you: I
_can_, Kathleen--and I love you. Nothing but morbid fancy makes you
imagine you are in any way responsible for--Drayton's death. You can't
bring him back to life, and----"