said Trevelyan.
"It’s beautiful," said Cary. "I always get near the moonlight when I
can."
"Do you? Well, it pays one. It is beautiful. I don’t believe I ever
quite appreciated the moon and the beach here when I was a little chap."
"Your aunt once told me how unhappy you were when they brought you
here—to Aberdeen county."
"I fancy that’s pretty straight. I never took kindly to the level
beach. I wanted my crags and my breakers and old Mactier. Mactier and
the crags and the breakers were always associated together in my small
mind."
He laughed.
"I suppose so; but it’s so peaceful here—" Cary broke off.
"Yes; but do you know I’ve a notion that some day or other, you’ll come
often to the old place in Argyll and you’ll love it as I love it now."
Cary looked up at him quickly. Could it be that he still hoped that
some day—
She shook her head.
"It’s beautiful," she said, "but it’s terrible! The beat of the sea on
the crags always seems to be chanting something that I can’t understand.
It’s a foolish idea, isn’t it?"
Trevelyan walked down to the water’s edge.
"It’s been chanting to me ever since I was born," he replied.
He looked out over the quiet waters.
"The sea here don’t talk to me," he went on. "It never did. It isn’t
like my Scotland! Come, we’d better walk a little; you’ll get cold
standing."
She gathered the cashmere that had slipped from her shoulders around
her, and brought it up, covering her head. Her face white as the white
moonlight looked out from its folds. Once a wave bolder than its
fellows, crept up and wet her feet and the edge of the long skirt she
was holding with one hand. She scarcely noticed it. Once she turned
her face away from Trevelyan’s and looked out across the shining sea, to
where it lay dark against the horizon. A great pity and a great awe, of
something she could not define, lay heavy upon her and made her silent.
It was as if this "good-bye" was to be the longest she had ever said.
From the house, showing through the trees, came a stream of light. It
was from the music room and it mingled with the white radiance that lay
across the sea. And then through the quiet, there stole the first,
faint notes of John’s flute. The music began softly and caressingly,
and rose and filled the spaces all around them. It sobbed and moaned
and called entreatingly to her, and then it sank into a marvelous
crescendo; only to throb again against the silence—still entreating her
to return, before it faded slowly and died away altogether.
The sobbing and the moaning of it pulsed in Trevelyan’s brain. This was
good-bye. It was good-bye as he had never dreamed it. He could have
fallen down before that white moon-touched face and cried the good-bye
out, clinging to her feet. He could have cried it out, his head upon
her breast; he could have cried it out, with her resting in his arms,
but silence laid its seal on him instead.
Out in India, with Mackenzie, in the awful shadow of the plague, he
would remember her so, with her white moon-touched face.
What had he done to hope for such a good-bye? Only a man who has won a
woman could cry out his heart’s fullness so; and he had lost her! What
right had he to tell her that he was going away, hoping so to wrest from
her some word of approbation or of pity? Might she not say something
that she would regret afterwards? He could go back home, and he could
write her briefly. Then she would remember this night. Then, whatever
he had said or left unsaid to-night or in the note, she would
understand.
As for him—out in India with Mackenzie, in the awful shadow of the
plague, he would remember her so, with her white moon-kissed face. He
would hear again, louder than the moans of sufferings, the wondrous love
music of Stewart’s flute and the song of the sea. It seemed to him he
would hear it and see her so, if he were dying. And yet, he told
himself, he would have given up his life right there before she should
think that he had done this thing because of her approbation or her
pity.
If he could only have been with the Highlanders at the assault!
If—well, death would never come to him so. He had fought that out in
the hospital and again the other night at home.
The music sobbed itself into silence.
"The old beach is a good deal prettier by night than I ever used to
fancy it could be, as a little chap," he said after awhile. "I’ll
remember it when I’m back in—Argyll."
"Why in the world are you in such a hurry to get back?" asked Cary.
"Oh, there are some things to be looked out for, and accounts to be gone
over with Mactier. I couldn’t do without him."
"No, indeed. You’re going to stay there during the winter, I suppose.
You’ll go back to London for the season?"
"I guess not this year," he said. "I’m not much on the society act."
"You’ll be lonely—won’t you?"
Trevelyan stopped and beat his foot against the sand and looked down at
it.
"Oh, I’ve been a lonely kind of a chap all my life," he said in a matter
of fact tone.
Cary caught her breath quickly, turning away that he might not see her
face.
"It’s all my own doing," he went on. "I know it. I never was very
sociable. I fancy I was born cross and horrid and crooked."
He laughed a little.
Cary turned to him and she put out her hand and for a moment it rested
on his sleeve. He looked down at her upturned face, on which the moon
was shining. A faint smile was folded around her mouth, hiding the pity
beneath. She shook her head.
"Oh, no, you’re not!" she said. "You’re brave and you’re strong, and
some day—"
He looked into her eyes.
"Yes—and ’some day’?"
"You’re going to do something fine!"
He shook his head in denial.
"I lost my chance," he said slowly.
"You will have another," she said, the hope of all the world in her
voice. "We all have our second chance."
"Not like that—not like those Highlanders—" he broke off and his hands
came up swiftly to either side of the lifted, moon-lit face. He could
have crushed it, white and radiant as it was, between his hands; he
could have kissed and kissed and kissed it!
And then his hands came up slowly, and he held her face as gently as the
Captain would have done.
"I am going to take you back to the house," he said, looking down at
her. "You are shivering. I might have known you would take cold."
She shrank back, trembling from the dumb anguish in his eyes, and
covered her own with her hands.
Why couldn’t he have been with the Highlanders?
He drew one of her hands slowly down.
"Don’t," he said; "Don’t act so. Did I hurt you?"
She shook her head.
He raised the hand he held to his lips and he kissed it passionately,
holding it close against his mouth for a moment, as though to seal the
kiss there.
"I’m awfully glad you believe in me," he said, "I’m awfully glad for
that ’some day’ you think of. Shall I tell you about a ’some day,’
too?"
She nodded in silence.
"Well, then, ’some day’ you’ll marry just like all the girls do, but
you’ll marry some out of sight fellow—" he broke off, and retraced his
steps to the house, adjusting his military walk to her slower one.
She pulled at the edge of her shawl. She was thinking if it had not
been for Trevelyan, Stewart would have been at the Dargai Hill.
She bent her head as she entered the strip of wood, and the twigs felt
out caressingly and touched her dress as she passed. The breath of the
one red rose on her bosom came up to her like the voice of love, and
over her white face there stole the faintest color of the rose, and she
breathed quicker, remembering the music of the flute.
Stewart turned from the long window. He could see them emerging from
the darkness of the wood into the moon-lit open. Trevelyan had spoken
to him of Cary but what if Cary cared for Trevelyan after all! And he
laid the silent flute away.
*X.*
At midnight Trevelyan stumbled blindly into the railway carriage,
without a backward glance at Stewart, who had insisted on taking the
long, dark drive to the station to see him off. Once in the darkness
Trevelyan had put his hand heavily on Stewart’s knee, and leaned back
and stared into the blackness ahead. All that Stewart had ever been to
him—all that they had ever been to each other, swept across him.
Out there with the plague and Mackenzie, his eyes would ache for a sight
of Stewart’s strong, kind face, but Stewart would not know. Out there,
in the shadow of death, he would remember Stewart, and his heart would
cry out passionately for him, but Stewart would not know. And he would
think of Cary—how he would think of her—of her and Stewart. He would
think of them together.
If he might only tell Stewart what this parting meant—that it was longer
than he dreamed—and that he was not merely seeing him off to Argyll.
But what right had he to speak? Stewart could not change his decision
now; nor his uncle, nor his aunt, nor his father, were he home, nor all
London, nor—Cary. They would grieve when the letters came to them, but
they would be spared the pain of parting. It was better so.
It was toward the evening of the next day when he reached home, and
after he had finished his dinner he went into the big library, walked
over to his desk and unlocked it.
"Now for it," he said briefly, and he sat down and began sorting papers,
preparatory to going over them the next day with Mactier and his
barrister, Mr. Granger, whom he had wired to come from Edinburgh and
meet him at home the next morning.
He worked far into the night, and the next day it was the same.
Literally he set his house in order. Granger returned to Edinburgh on
the evening train, and Mactier received his instructions—in silence,
shifting his old cap between his fingers, but not looking up to meet
Trevelyan’s eyes.
Then Trevelyan had dinner. After the meal was over he tried to rest but
he could not, and he went out into the hall and began to walk up and
down—swiftly. There was no other sound in all the house but his rapid
walking. Solitude enveloped him and the home of his people. Once he
stopped and looked at the armor on the wall; once he opened the front
door and stood on the steps staring into the night. The Pleiades were
brighter and further off he remembered, thinking afterwards, than he had
ever seen them; but the rest—the stretch of winding drive and lawn and
trees lay wrapped in profound shadow and appeared unreal; only the
Pleiades and the beating of the surf against the crags, seemed the
things that existed.
The night air was cold and he went in and back to the library, and put
another log upon the flickering blaze, and as the wood caught fire
warmed his hands with the heat. After awhile he lighted his candle and
went upstairs.
The next morning he said good-bye to the tenantry; in the afternoon he
packed his grip and the few things needed for the coming journey. In
the evening he wrote half a dozen letters—brief notes telling his father
and his aunt and uncle of his intended return to India. They were all
worded much the same. The old spirit of restlessness was on him. He
wanted excitement. He was running out to India for a time to watch
Mackenzie fight the cholera. They were not to worry. He expected to
have a great time of it. His note to John was even briefer, but it was
more serious in tone.
"DEAR OLD JOHNNY:—" it ran:
"Good-bye. I’m off for India again. You see I can’t keep away from it.
I suppose it’s on the order of a man wanting to return to the scene of
his murder.
"I’m a lucky dog, and of course I expect to return, but the plague isn’t
always considerate of persons, and there’s the hundredth chance. I
expect to come back and live at home myself. Still Granger has the will.
If I don’t you’re to have the old place. You’ll come to it
sometimes—hey; and have an eye on Mactier?
"I guess you were about right about my quitting the Service. I wasn’t
fit.
"After all, if I hadn’t turned coward and lost my grip on myself, you’d
have been with the Highlanders at the Dargai Hill, and Cary—
"Well, that don’t excuse me. I don’t mean it as an excuse. I’ve never
been worth a shilling or made anything of my life, but I’ve thought a
lot of you—always.
"Good-bye,
"ROB."
And then Trevelyan drew forth a clean sheet of paper and stared hard at
it. What was there to say to Cary!
He dipped his pen in the ink.
"My Love," he wrote, and then stopped short, and stared at the words.
Then he crumpled the sheet fiercely in his fingers and flung it into the
fire.
"My dear Cary," he wrote, trying again, and then he laid down his pen
and laughed harshly. The black letters stared back at him like small
demons, grinning derisively.
The third time he started without a heading.
"I’ve written to the rest," it began, "and they will tell you of my
plans. To you, however, I want to say something more. Now, that I am
writing, there seems little to say to you, and yet, I’m human enough—if
you will, coward enough still—to have you, at least, know that I have
not been altogether candid with the others. I understand the danger.
It is because of the danger that I am going. There’s no glory in it, and
I don’t want any fuss, but there are our men in want—it’s something for
the Service. You understand—don’t you?
"I was afraid of making you sad that night on the beach if I told you,
and I selfishly, too, wanted you to myself, as you always were, and
untouched by worry. I shall think of that walk with you, and the
moonlight on your face, and the music—! After all, Johnny’s the only
fellow fit for you. You don’t mind my saying so—do you?
"The sea was quiet that night—as quiet as you were, and my heart was the
only tempestuous thing on the beach; and your face, oh, Cary,—your face!
"There’s no telling, of course, but I’ve a queer notion I’m not coming
back—ever any more, as we used to say as children; but the sea will go
on beating against the crags here—home on the Scottish coast, and
perhaps by and by you’ll be able to understand the song?
"I love you, but I don’t love you as I did. It’s the Service, first,
somehow. Am I building up the broken pieces, do you suppose? It’s a
job—isn’t it?
"But my heart is breaking over this letter!
"There! I don’t want to make you sad. There’s nothing to be sad over.
The tangle is just getting unsnarled; and you know there’s an end to
every thread—
"There’s a big empty space on the wall of the gallery here. If you
would _let_ Johnny hang your picture there! If you’d give him the
right! And the sword—would you mind keeping my sword?
"It’s getting late. I make an early start to-morrow. I enclose
Mackenzie’s letter. I got it less than a week ago.
"I shall never forget you. I think that is all.
"ROBERT TREVELYAN."
*XI.*
After Trevelyan left, the household in Aberdeen settled back again into
its usual state of placidity.
The second day after his departure was threatening, and Cameron and
Maggie killed time by pretending to play billiards. Malcolm Stewart had
driven into the village in the morning to be gone all day; his wife was
busy writing to Kenneth, her youngest son, who was tramping it through
Normandy with a couple of old classmates. Cary was curled up in the
window seat in the library, absently watching McGuire, the gardener,
rake the path.
"Is the book so absorbing?"
Cary turned suddenly and met Stewart’s laughing eyes.
"Why, I didn’t know you were there!"
"So it seems. I’ve been sitting here for the last quarter of an hour
watching you—read!"
Cary flushed.
"It’s a stupid old story, anyway," she complained, tossing the book to
him. "What have you been doing?"
"Offered to help Tom and Maggie with billiards, but they were so deuced
ungrateful I left."
"You were a wise man," said Cary, and she laughed. Then she began to
drum on the window. "If you could do anything you liked what would you
do, just at this minute?"
Stewart twirled the book he held indifferently. "I’d kiss you," he
thought, but aloud he said meekly, "I’ll watch you, please ma’am."
"Nonsense!" answered Cary, turning her head uneasily and looking out of
the window at McGuire again.
She stifled a yawn.
"It’s a lazy day, isn’t it?"
"You’re sure it’s the day?"
"Of course! What a suggestion. Is it near lunch time?"
Stewart nodded.
"How about a walk afterwards," he said. "It’s clearing and the sun’s
coming out. We might go to the Point and watch it set," he added
quickly, seeing her waver.
Cary clapped her hands.
"Truly? You really mean it; you’ll take me to the Point at last?"
"You’ll go then?"
"Of course I’ll go! I’ll get on a short skirt this minute. See me
run!"
She jumped down from the window seat like a delighted child.
Stewart caught at her hand as she passed and detained her.
"I haven’t the right to ask," he said quickly, looking up into her face
with his grave Scotch eyes, "but were you thinking of Robert when I
spoke to you?"
"Yes," said Cary, not looking at him. "I’ve been thinking of him all
day."
Stewart let her hand drop suddenly, but Cary made no movement to be
gone.
"I—I can’t just tell you why," she said, pressing her hand tightly over
the one Stewart had held, and keeping her eyes fixed on a bust of Burns,
"but I feel—somehow, and I suppose it’s foolish—we—we won’t see him
again for a long time."
Stewart leaned forward, looking up again at her.
"I haven’t the right," he said, "and you needn’t answer me, but—_is_ it
Robert, Cary?"
A long shaft of breaking sunlight came through the window and touched
her shoulders and her hair. The quiet of the room was absolute. She
still pressed the hand he had held with the other.
"It isn’t Robert," she said, and her voice was lower than its wont, and
she did not meet Stewart’s eyes, "I—" and then she ran swiftly from the
room.
She would not meet his eyes all during lunch, and she insisted on
devoting herself to Cameron, much to Maggie’s inward amusement.
"There’s something in the air," Maggie confided to Cameron after lunch;
"I just feel it pricking—like pins. It’s something to do with John and
Cary. Now what _do_ you suppose it is?"
She laughed, meeting Cameron’s eyes.
"What _do_ you suppose it is!" he repeated banteringly. "I’m _sure_ I
don’t know!"
"Johnny’s taking her to the Point this afternoon!"
Cameron sighed heavily.
"Well, that means ’good-bye’ to Johnny!"
Maggie wheeled around suddenly on him.
"What a way to talk!"
Cameron pulled her to him gently by the shoulders, until he could look
down into her face.
"Perhaps—that is—will you go with me to the Point to-morrow, Maggie?" he
asked.
"Is it not too late in the year to try the Point?" asked John’s mother
anxiously, as he and Cary started out. "The days are shorter now, and
then there is the tide, and the danger of a mist, you know!"
Stewart studied the skies critically.
"It seems straight enough, but, of course, if you’re going to worry,
Little Madre—"
"Oh, of course not. I’m just foolish. Go along with you both," and she
pushed them gently away from her with a laugh.
"We won’t stay long on the Point," Stewart said when they were well on
their way. "It would be a nasty thing to be caught in a mist out
there."
Cary pushed a small stone along with the toe of her walking boot, and
was silent. Indeed she scarcely spoke all during the walk to the Point.
If he _had_ been at the Dargai Hill, she kept thinking, if—he—had!
She followed Stewart out to the extreme end of the peninsula, and she
stood quietly listening as he pointed out to her, how in high tide the
waters met across the narrow neck and isolated it from the mainland.
Sometimes, he told her, the waters swept across the island so left, and
he showed her where they had come up and left their mark upon the trunks
of the trees.
And then the spell of her silence fell upon him and they stood quiet and
motionless, looking out to sea.
They waited so, for the sun to sink slowly behind the distant line of
the horizon, and they watched the big white clouds change and clothe
themselves in the pink and purple of the coming sunset, like air nymphs
getting ready for a ball. The quietness of the day’s death was on them.
Once or twice they spoke.
"It reminds me of the Point, at home," said Cary once.
He smiled.
"I knew it would," he answered.
She sat down on a big rock at the end of the Point and looked up at the
changing clouds. He walked a little way down to the water’s edge and
then he came back slowly.
The vision of the Highlanders and the Dargai heights, that had haunted
him since Trevelyan had gone, faded. There seemed to be nothing in the
world that mattered except her sitting there on the big gray stone, with
the water lapping at her feet, and the glow of the sunset on her face.
He watched her as she looked toward the sinking sun, and after it had
disappeared he stole up behind her and stooped over her, calling her by
name, softly, as though afraid the sea and pines would hear.
She looked up, and then her eyes went back quickly to the afterglow.
The incoming tide lapped softly against the rocks on the shore, and drew
nearer. The pink and purple of the clouds changed to a delicate gray,
that deepened as the moments passed; and from the sea there stole
landward a thin white vapor, as exquisite as a bride’s veil, but growing
thicker and thicker as it came nearer.
Stewart, following the direction of her eyes, straightened himself
suddenly with the alertness that comes with the consciousness of danger.
"It’s the mist," he said, briefly. "Come."
He took her hand and held it, and when she would have drawn it away, he
tightened his hold.
"You need my help," he said sharply. "We’ve got to get out of this just
as quick as we can!"
The white vapor, grown thicker, crept up behind them, and Stewart
changed their rapid pace into a run, but the mist caught up with them,
and by and by surrounded them and hid the sea behind them and on either
side, and the narrow neck in front. He urged her on over the two miles
that lay between them and the mainland.
After awhile he felt her hold on his arm relax.
"I—can’t—go—so fast," she panted. "I—I—" and her voice trailed off and
was lost in the heaviness of the mist.
He stopped and began to talk rapidly, and he rubbed her cold hands as he
spoke.
"You must," he said sternly. "We can’t stop here. Don’t you know the
sea may cover the peninsula, and that the tide is coming in, and is
cutting off the neck?"
She nodded.
"I’ll try again, oh, I will try!"
She staggered on—blindly, clinging to him. He could feel the cold, tense
pressure of her fingers, and it thrilled him. She could feel the strong
touch of his hand, and it reassured her. Neither could see the face of
the other.
And still the tide crept in on either side of the narrow peninsula. It
was the only thing he was conscious of—except her presence and her
danger.
If he could lead her from out of this mist! If he could save her! If he
could reach the neck in time! His heart burnt within him, and cried out
in passionate protest that he seemed so powerless—he who loved her so!
He drew her hand closer and he bent over her for a moment, his face near
to her own. They could see each other’s faces so,—faintly.
"Dear," he whispered, and his heart was in his voice.
She clung to his hands, trembling.
If he would only tell her that he loved her, the waters might sweep over
the narrow neck before they two reached it! But he did not speak again.
The land tapered off, leading to the neck, and he felt the ground grow
moist beneath his feet. He went forward, keeping her at arm’s length,
but afraid to let go her hand, lest he should lose her in the mist. He
put down his foot and he could feel the water creeping up around his
boot and filling it.
"The tide is covering the neck," he said briefly, stooping down and
unfastening his boots, after which he stood upright, breathing deeply,
to gather all his strength. Then he came closer to her and stooped and
raised her in his arms and rose again, pressing forward.
She pressed her hands on his shoulders, and struggling, tried to push
herself free.
"Are you afraid of me?" he asked.
"Afraid of you!" and she laughed, but the laugh was swallowed up in the
mist.
"Then you must let me carry you across."
"What do you think I am?" she asked fiercely. "Let you carry me with
that wound in your back! I am as strong as you!"
She struggled again to free herself.
"Oh, no, you’re not," he cried gladly, "and you’ll be safer so!"
"What do I care for safety when your life is in danger? We’ll face it
together. Let me down and you—you—I’ll let you lead me through—" her
voice broke in a sob.
The silence of the years was broken by her sob. He let her slip down,
holding her closely still, and then he drew her face to his, and kissed
her.