“WALLS WE CANNOT BATTER DOWN”
“Why?” Helen asked. “Why isn’t Johnny here to-day, Joan?”
“I do not know,” Joan said. She had scarcely given a thought to Johnny
Everard that morning. All her thoughts had been of two men, the men she
had left in the darkness by the roadside. She blamed herself bitterly
now that she had left them; she trembled to think what might have
happened.
“Helen, if Johnny Everard does come, I wish to speak to him. I have a
good deal to say to him. I want to be alone with him for some time.”
“Of course, darling.” But there was anxious enquiry in Helen’s face.
Surely, surely there had been no quarrel between them? Johnny was not
one to quarrel with anyone, yet it was strange that he had not been
here for so many days, and that this being Sunday still he was not
here.
“When he comes,” Joan was thinking, “I shall tell him—everything.” She
knew she would hate it; she knew that she would feel that in some way
she was lowering herself. It would be a horrible confession for one
with her stubborn pride to have to make. Not of guilt and wrongdoing,
but that such should be ascribed to her.
Helen was watching from the window, her mind filled with worries and
doubts.
A man had turned in by the gates, was walking slowly up the winding
drive.
It was Johnny, of course. Helen saw it all. The car had gone wrong, but
Johnny, not to miss this Sunday, had walked.
“Joan, Johnny is coming,” she called out. “He is walking. He—” She
paused; it was not Johnny. She was silent; she stared for a moment. The
man looked familiar, then she knew who it was.
“Joan, it is Mr. Alston,” she said quietly. “What does he want here?”
And Helen’s voice was filled with suspicion.
“Thank Heaven,” Joan thought, “thank Heaven that he is here.”
For the first time Hugh Alston knocked for admission on the Starden
door. A score of times he had asked himself, “Shall I go?” And he could
find no answer. He had come at last.
“What can he want? I did not know he was here in Starden. I didn’t even
know that he knew where Joan was. I don’t understand this business at
all,” Helen was thinking.
A servant shewed him in. Joan shook hands with him. Helen did so, under
an air of graciousness which hid a cold hostility. What was this man
doing here? If he was nothing to Joan, and Joan was nothing to him, why
did he come? And how could he be anything to Joan when she was to marry
Johnny?
So this was her home! A fit setting for her loveliness, and yet he knew
of a fitter, of another home where she could shine to even greater
advantage. They talked of commonplace things, hiding their feelings
behind words, waiting, Joan and Hugh, till Helen should leave them. But
Helen lingered with less than her usual tact, lingered with a mind
filled with vague suspicions, wondering why Johnny had not come.
Sitting near the window she could see the drive, and presently a young
girl on an old bicycle coming up it. Helen stared.
“Why, here is Ellice Brand,” she said, and fears took possession of
her. There was something wrong! Johnny was ill, or had met with an
accident. Ellice had ridden over to tell them.
“I’ll go and see her, Joan,” she said, and so at last was gone.
Hugh closed the door after her.
“You’ve been anxious?” he said briefly.
“Naturally!”
“There was no need. I had to give him what I had promised him, one must
always keep one’s word. It was rather a brutal business, Joan, but I
had to go through with it. I’d sooner not tell you anything more. I am
not proud of it.”
“I—I understand, and you can understand that I was anxious.”
“For him?”
“For—for you.”
“For me?” He took two long strides to her. “Joan, are you going to let
your pride rear impassable walls between us for ever? Can’t you be
fair, generous, natural, true to yourself? Can’t you see how great, how
overwhelming my love for you is?”
“There is—is something more than pride between us, Hugh.”
“There is nothing—nothing that cannot be broken; that cannot be forced
and broken down,” he said eagerly. “You are to marry a man you do not
love. Why should you? Would it be fair to yourself? Would it be fair to
me? Would it be fair to your future? Think while there is time.”
“I cannot,” she said. “I have given him my promise—and I shall stand by
it.” She drew her hands away. “It is useless, Hugh. Useless now—if I
did rear walls of pride between you and myself. I confess it now, I
did; but they are so strong that we may not break them down.”
“They shall be broken down!” he said. “Answer me this—this question
truthfully, and from your soul. Look into my eyes, and answer me in one
word, yes or no?” He held her hands again; he held her so that she must
face him, and so holding her, looking into her eyes, he asked her: “Do
you love me? Have you given to me some of your heart, knowing that I
have given all of mine to you, knowing that I love you so, and need you
and long for you? Do you love me a little in return, Joan?”
She was silent; her eyes met his bravely enough, yet it seemed as if
she had no control upon her lips, the word would not come. Once before
she had lied to him, and knew that she could not lie again, not with
his eyes looking deep into hers, probing the very secrets of her soul.
“Joan, do you love me? My Joan, do you love me?” And then the answer
came at last—“Yes.”