"Come for a walk, grandpa," Cicely went on. She took his arm and they
went away together, followed by the careful eyes of the nurse, who had
paused at the top of the ascent.
"This is a ruse, grandpa," Cicely said, after a while. "I wanted to take
a walk alone, and she wouldn't let me; but you will."
"Why alone, my child?"
"Because I'm always being watched; I'm just like a person in a cell,
don't you know, with one of those little windows cut in the door,
through which the sentinel outside can always look in; I am _never_
alone."
"It must be dreadful," the judge answered, with conviction.
"Wait till you have seen Priscilla Jane in her night-gown," said Cicely,
with equal conclusiveness.
"Heaven forbid!" said the judge, with a shrill little chuckle. Then he
turned and looked at her; she seemed so much like her old self.
"You will let me go, grandpa?" She put up her face and kissed him.
"If you will promise to come back soon."
"Of course I will."
He let her go on alone. She looked back and smiled once or twice; then
he lost sight of her; he returned to the beach by a roundabout way, in
order to deceive Priscilla Jane; he was almost as much pleased as Cicely
to outwit her.
Cicely went on through the forest; she walked slowly, not stopping to
gather flowers as usual. After a while her vague glance rested upon two
figures in the distance. She stopped, and as, by chance, she was
standing close beside the trunk of a large tree, her own person was
concealed. The two figures were coming in her direction, they drew
nearer, they paused; and then there followed a picture as old as Paris
and Helen, as old as Tristram and Isolde: a lover taking in his arms the
woman he adores. And it was Paul Tennant who was the lover; it was Eve
who looked up at him with all her heart in her eyes.
A shock passed over Cicely, the expression of her face changed rapidly
as her gaze remained fixed upon Eve: first, surprise; then a strange
quick anger; then perplexity. She left her place, and went rapidly
forward.
Eve saw her first, she drew herself away from Paul; but immediately she
came back to him, laying her hand on his shoulder as if to hold him, to
keep him by her side.
"Paul," said Cicely, still looking at Eve, "something has come to me;
Eve told me that she did a dreadful thing." And now she transferred her
gaze to Paul, looking at him with earnestness, as if appealing to him to
lighten her perplexity.
"Yes, dear; let us go back to the camp," said Paul, soothingly.
"Wait till I have told you all. She came to me, and asked--I don't know
where it was exactly?" And now she looked at Eve, inquiringly.
Eve's eyes met hers, and the deep antagonism of the expression roused
the dulled intelligence. "How you do hate me, Eve! It's because you love
Paul. I don't see how Paul can like you, when you were always so hard
to Ferdie; for from the first she was hard to him, Paul; from the very
first. I remember--"
Eve, terrified, turned away, thus releasing Cicely from the spell of her
menacing glance.
Cicely paused; and then went back to her former narrative confusedly,
speaking with interruptions, with pauses. "She came to me, Paul, and she
asked, 'Cicely, do you know how he died?' And I said, 'Yes; there were
two negroes.' And she answered me, 'No; there were no negroes--'"
"Dreams, Cicely," said Paul, kindly. "Every one has dreams like that."
"No. I have a great many dreams, but this was not one of them,"
responded Cicely. "Wait; it will come to me."
"Take her back to the camp; carry her," said Eve, in a sharp voice.
"Oh, she'll come without that," Paul answered, smiling at the peremptory
tone.
"You go first, then. I will bring her."
"Don't leave me alone with Eve," pleaded Cicely, shrinking close to
Paul.
"Take her back," said Eve. And her voice expressed such acute suffering
that Paul did his best to content her.
"Come," he said, gently, taking Cicely's hand.
"A moment," answered Cicely, putting her other hand on Paul's arm, as if
to hold his attention. "And then she said: 'Don't you remember that we
escaped through the woods to the north point, and that you tried to push
off the boat, and couldn't. Don't you remember that gleam of the candle
down the dark road?'"
Eve made an involuntary movement.
"I wonder what candle she could have been thinking of!" pursued Cicely,
in a musing voice. "There are a great many candles in the Catholic
churches, that I know."
Eve looked across at Paul with triumph in her eyes.
"And she said that a baby climbed up by one of the seats," Cicely went
on. "And that this man--I don't know who he was, exactly--made a dash
forward--" Here she lost the thread, and stopped. Then she began again:
"She took me away ever so far--we went in a steamboat; and Ferdie died
all alone! You _can't_ like her for that, Paul; you can't!" Her face
altered. "Why don't I see him over there on the other beach?" she asked,
quickly.
"You see?" said Eve, with trembling lips.
"Yes," answered Paul, watching the quivering motion. "We haven't had our
walk, Eve; remember that."
"I can come out again. After we have got her back."
Cicely had ceased speaking. She turned and searched Eve's face with eyes
that dwelt and lingered. "How happy you look, Eve! And yet I am sure you
have no right to be happy, I am sure there is some reason--The trouble
is that I can't remember what it is! Perhaps it will come to me yet,"
she added, threateningly.
Paul, drew her away; he took her back to the camp.
That evening, Eve came to him on the beach.
"Do you love me? Do you love me the same as ever?" she said.
He could scarcely hear her.
"Do you think I have had time to change since afternoon?" he asked,
laughing.
And then life came back to the woman by his side, came in the red that
flushed her cheeks and her white throat, in her revived breath.
"Paul," she said, after a while, "send Cicely home; send her home with
her grandfather, she can travel now without danger."
"I can't desert Cicely," said Paul, surprised.
"It wouldn't be desertion; you can always help her. And she would be
much happier there than here."
"She's not going to be very happy anywhere, I am afraid."
"The judge would be happier, too," said Eve, shifting her ground.
"I dare say. Poor old man!"
"A winter in Port aux Pins would kill him," Eve continued.
"I intended to take them south before the real winter, the deep snow."
"Mrs. Mile could go now. And--and perhaps Mr. Hollis."
"Kit? What could Kit do down there?"
"Marry Miss Sabrina," suggested Eve, with a sudden burst of wild
laughter, in which Paul joined.
"They are all to go, are they? But you and I are not to go; is that your
plan?" he went on.
"Yes."
He kissed her. "Paul Tennant and his wife will take Cicely south
themselves," he said, stroking her hair caressingly. "It's always
braided so closely, Eve; how long is it when down?"
But she did not hear these whispered words; she drew herself away from
him with passionate strength. "No, she must go with some one else; she
can go with any one you please; we can have two nurses, instead of one.
But you--you must not go; you must stay with me."
"Why, Eve, I hardly know you! Why do you feel so about poor little
Cicely? Why strike a person who's down?"
"Oh, yes--down; that is what you all say. Yet she has had everything,
even if she has lost it now; and some people go through all their lives
without one single thing they really care for. She shall not rob me of
this, I will not let her. I defy her; I defy her!"
"She shall go back to Romney," said Paul. What these disagreements
between the two women were about, he did not know. His idea was that he
would marry Eve as soon as possible--within the next ten days; and then,
after they were married, he would tell her that it was best that they
should take Cicely south themselves. She would see the good sense of his
decision, she would not dispute his judgment when once she was his wife;
she could not have any real dislike for poor little Cicely, that was
impossible.
Eve came back to him humbly enough. "I am afraid you do not like my
interfering with your plans?" she said.
"You may interfere as much as you like," answered Paul, smiling.