SACRED TROTH
The tide was at its full when Peter began the ascent to King Arthur's
Castle--the sea a vast stretch of quivering silver fringed with a mist
of flying spray. In the strange, sharp lights and shadows cast by the
round moon overhead, the great crags of the promontory jutted out like
the turrets of some ancient fortress--blackly etched against the
tender, irresolute blue of the evening sky.
But Peter went on unheedingly. The mystic charm had no power to hold
him to-night. The only thing that mattered was Nan--her safety. Was
she lying hurt somewhere within the crumbling walls of the castle? Or
had she missed her footing and plunged headlong into that sea which
boomed incessantly against the cliffs? It wasn't scenery that
mattered. It was life--and death!
Very swiftly he mounted to the castle door, looking from side to side
as he went for any trace which might show that Nan had passed this way.
As he climbed the last few feet he shouted her name: "Nan! Nan!" But
there came no answer. Only the sea still thundered below and a
startled gull flew out from a cranny, screaming as it flew.
Mallory's hand shook a little as he thrust the key into the heavy lock.
Practically all that remained of hope lay behind that closed door.
Then, as it opened, a great cry broke from him, hoarse with relief from
the pent-up agony of the last hour.
She lay there just like a child asleep, snuggled against the wall, one
arm curved behind her head, pillowing it. At the sound of his voice
she stirred, opening bewildered, startled eyes. In an instant he was
kneeling beside her.
"Don't be frightened, Nan. It's I--Peter. Are you hurt?"
"Peter?" She repeated the name dreamingly, hardly yet awake, and her
voice held almost a caress in its soft tones.
Mallory bit back a groan. To hear her speak his name on that little
note of happiness hurt incredibly.
"Nan--wake up!" he urged gently.
She woke then--came back to a full sense of her surroundings.
"You, Peter?" she murmured surprisedly. She made an effort to sit up,
then sank back against the wall, uttering a sharp cry of distress.
"Where are you hurt?" asked Mallory with quick anxiety.
She shook her head at him, smiling reassuringly.
"I'm not hurt. I'm only stiff. You'll have to help me up, Peter."
He stooped and raised her, and at last she stood up, ruefully rubbing
the arm which had been curled behind her head while she slept.
"My arm's gone to sleep. It's all pins and needles!" she complained.
Slung over his shoulders Peter carried an extra wrap for her. Whatever
had happened, whether she were hurt or merely stranded somewhere, he
knew she would not be warmly enough clad to meet the sudden coolness of
the evening.
"You must be nearly perished with cold--asleep up here! Put this on,"
he said quickly.
"No, really"--she pushed aside the woollen coat he tendered. "I'm not
cold. It was quite sheltered here under this wall."
"Put it on," he repeated quietly. "Do as I tell you--little pal."
At that she yielded and he helped her on with the coat, fastening it
carefully round her.
"And now tell me what possessed you to go to sleep up here?" he
demanded.
In a few words she related what had happened, winding up:
"Afterwards, I suppose I must have fainted. Oh!"--with a shiver of
remembrance--"It was simply ghastly! I've never felt giddy in my life
before--and hope I never may again! It's just as if the bottom of the
world had fallen out and left you hanging in mid-air! . . . I knew I
couldn't face the climb down again, so--so I just went to sleep. I
thought some of you would be sure to come to look for me."
"You knew I should come," he said, a sudden deep insistence in his
voice. "Nan, didn't you _know_ it?"
She lifted her head.
"Yes. I think--I think I knew you would come, Peter," she answered
unsteadily.
The moonlight fell full upon her--upon a white, strained face with
passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his,
refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which underlay his question.
With a stifled exclamation he swept her up into his arms and his mouth
met hers in the first kiss that had ever passed between them--a kiss
which held infinite tenderness, and the fierce passion that is part of
love, and a foreshadowing of the pain of separation.
"My beloved!" He held her a little away from him so that he might look
into her face. Then with a swift, passionate eagerness; "Say that you
love me, Nan?"
"Why, Peter--Peter, you know it," she cried tremulously. "It doesn't
need telling, dear. . . . Only--it's forbidden."
"Yes," he assented gravely. "It's forbidden us. But now--just this
once--let us have a few moments, you and I alone, when there's no need
to pretend we don't care--when we can be _ourselves_!"
"No--no--" she broke in breathlessly.
"It's not much, to ask--five minutes together out of the whole of life!
Roger can't grudge them. He'll have you--always." His arms closed
jealously round her.
"Yes--always," she repeated. With a sudden choked cry she clung to him
despairingly.
"Peter, sometimes I feel I can't bear it! Oh, why were we _allowed_ to
care like this?"
"God knows!" he muttered.
He released his hold of her abruptly and began pacing up and
down--savagely, like some caged beast. Nan stood staring out over the
moon-washed sea with eyes that saw nothing. The five minutes they had
snatched together from the rest of life were slipping by--each one a
moment of bitter and intolerable anguish.
Presently Peter swung round and came to her side. But he did not touch
her. His face looked drawn, and his eyes burned smoulderingly--like
fire half-quenched.
"Nan, if I didn't care so much, I'd ask you to go away with me.
I--don't quite know what life will be like without you--hell, probably.
But at least it's going to be my own little hell and I'm not going to
drag you down into it. I'm bound irrevocably. And you--you're bound,
too. You can't play fast and loose with the promise you've given
Trenby. So we've just got to face it out." He broke off abruptly.
Tiny beads of sweat rimmed his upper lip and his hands hung clenched at
his sides. Even Nan hardly realised the effort his restraint was
costing him.
"What--what do you mean, Peter?" she asked haltingly.
"I mean that I'm going away--that I mustn't see you any more."
A cry fled from her lips--denying, supplicating, and at the desolate
sound of it a tremor ran through his limbs. It was as though his body
fought and struggled against the compelling spirit within it.
"We mustn't meet again," he went on steadily.
"Not meet--ever--do you mean?" There was something piteous in the
young, shaken voice.
"Never, if we can help it. We must go separate ways, Nan."
She tried to speak, but her lips moved soundlessly. Only her eyes,
meeting his, held a mute agony that tortured him. All at once his
self-control gave way, and the passion of love and longing against
which he had been fighting swept aside the barriers which circumstance
had placed about it. His arms went round her, holding her close while
he rained kisses on her throat and lips and eyes--fierce, desperate
kisses that burned against her face. And Nan kissed him back, yielding
up her soul upon her lips, knowing that after this last passionate
farewell there could he no more giving or receiving. Only a forgetting.
. . . At last they drew apart from one another, though Peter's arms
still held her, but only tenderly as for the last time.
"This is good-bye, dearest of all," he said presently.
"Yes," she answered gravely. "I know."
"Heart's beloved, try not to be too sad," he went on. "Try to find
happiness in other things. We can never be together--never be more
than friends, but I shall be your lover always--always, Nan--through
this world into the next."
Her hand stole into his.
"As I yours, Peter."
It was as though some solemn pledge had passed between them--a
spiritual troth which nothing in this world could either touch or
tarnish. Neither Peter's marriage nor the rash promise Nan had given
to Roger could impinge on it. It would carry them through the complex
disarray of this world to the edge of the world beyond.
Some time passed before either of them spoke again. Then Peter said
quite simply:
"We must go home, dear."
She nodded, and together, hand in hand, they descended from the old
castle which must have witnessed so many loves and griefs and partings
in King Arthur's time, keeping them secret in its bosom as it would
keep secret this later farewell.
They were very silent on the way back. Just at the end, before they
turned the corner where the car awaited them, Peter spoke to her again,
taking both her hands in his for the last time and holding them in a
firm, steady clasp.
"Don't forget, Nan, what we said just now. We can each remember
that--our troth. Hang on to it--_hard_, when life seems a bit more
uphill than usual."