CHAPTER XVII
Falloden had just finished a solitary luncheon in the little dining-roomof the Boar's Hill cottage. There was a garden door in the room, andlighting a cigarette, he passed out through it to the terrace outside. Alandscape lay before him, which has often been compared to that of theVal d'Arno seen from Fiesole, and has indeed some common points withthat incomparable mingling of man's best with the best of mountain andriver. It was the last week of October, and the autumn was still warmand windless, as though there were no shrieking November to come.Oxford, the beautiful city, with its domes and spires, lay in the hollowbeneath the spectator, wreathed in thin mists of sunlit amethyst. Behindthat ridge in the middle distance ran the river and the Nuneham woods;beyond rose the long blue line of the Chilterns. In front of the cottagethe ground sank through copse and field to the river level, the hedgelines all held by sentinel trees, to which the advancing autumn hadgiven that significance the indiscriminate summer green denies. Thegravely rounded elms with their golden caps, the scarlet of the beeches,the pale lemon-yellow of the nearly naked limes, the splendid blacks ofyew and fir--they were all there, mingled in the autumn cup of mistysunshine like melting jewels. And among them, the enchanted city shone,fair and insubstantial, from the depth below; as it were, the spiritualword and voice of all the scene.
Falloden paced up and down the terrace, smoking and thinking. That wasOtto's open window. But Radowitz had not yet appeared that morning, andthe ex-scout, who acted butler and valet to the two men, had broughtword that he would come down in the afternoon, but was not to bedisturbed till then.
"What lunacy made me do it?" thought Falloden, standing still at the endof the terrace which fronted the view.
He and Radowitz had been nearly three weeks together. Had he been of theslightest service or consolation to Radowitz during that time? Hedoubted it. That incalculable impulse which had made him propose himselfas Otto's companion for the winter still persisted indeed. He washaunted still by a sense of being "under command"--directed--by a forcewhich could not be repelled. Ill at ease, unhappy, as he was, andconscious of being quite ineffective, whether as nurse or companion,unless Radowitz proposed to "throw up," he knew that he himself shouldhold on; though why, he could scarcely have explained.
But the divergences between them were great; the possibilities offriction many. Falloden was astonished to find that he disliked Otto'slittle fopperies and eccentricities quite as much as he had ever done incollege days; his finicky dress, his foreign ways in eating, histendency to boast about his music, his country, and his forebears, onhis good days, balanced by a brooding irritability on his bad days. Andhe was conscious that his own ways and customs were no less teasing toRadowitz; his Tory habits of thought, his British contempt for vaguesentimentalisms and heroics, for all that _panache_ means to theFrenchman, or "glory" to the Slav.
"Then why, in the name of common sense, are we living together?"
He could really give no answer but the answer of "necessity"--of aspiritual need--issuing from a strange tangle of circumstance. Thehelpless form, the upturned face of his dying father, seemed to make thecentre of it, and those faint last words, so sharply, and, as it were,dynamically connected with the hateful memory of Otto's fall and cry inthe Marmion Quad, and the hateful ever-present fact of his maimed life.Constance too--his scene with her on the river bank--her letter,breaking with him--and then the soft, mysterious change in her--and thatpassionate, involuntary promise in her eyes and voice, as they stoodtogether in her aunts' garden--all these various elements, bitter andsweet, were mingled in the influence which was shaping his own life. Hewanted to forgive himself; and he wanted Constance to forgive him,whether she married him or no. A kind of sublimated egotism, he said tohimself, after all!
But Otto? What had really made him consent to take up daily life withthe man to whom he owed his disaster? Falloden seemed occasionally to beon the track of an explanation, which would then vanish and evade him.He was conscious, however, that here also, Constance Bledlow was somehowconcerned; and, perhaps, the Pole's mystical religion. He asked himself,indeed, as Constance had already done, whether some presentiment ofdoom, together with the Christian doctrines of forgiveness and vicarioussuffering, were not at the root of it? There had been certain symptomsapparent during Otto's last weeks at Penfold known only to the oldvicar, to himself and Sorell. The doctors were not convinced yet of thepresence of phthisis; but from various signs, Falloden was inclined tothink that the boy believed himself sentenced to the same death whichhad carried off his mother. Was there then a kind of calculated charityin his act also--but aiming in his case at an eternal reward?
"He wants to please God--and comfort Constance--by forgiving me. I wantto please her--and relieve myself, by doing something to make up to him.He has the best of it! But we are neither of us disinterested."
* * * * *
The manservant came out with a cup of coffee.
"How is he!" said Falloden, as he took it, glancing up at a stillcurtained window.
The man hesitated.
"Well, I don't know, sir, I'm sure. He saw the doctor this morning, andtold me afterwards not to disturb him till three o'clock. But he rangjust now, and said I was to tell you that two ladies were comingto tea."
"Did he mention their names?"
"Not as I'm aware of, sir."
Falloden pondered a moment.
"Tell Mr. Radowitz, when he rings again, that I have gone down to thecollege ground for some football, and I shan't be back till after six.You're sure he doesn't want to see me?"
"No, sir, I think not. He told me to leave the blind down, and not tocome in again till he rang."
Falloden put on flannels, and ran down the field paths towards Oxfordand the Marmion ground, which lay on the hither side of the river. Herehe took hard exercise for a couple of hours, walking on afterwards tohis club in the High Street, where he kept a change of clothes. He foundsome old Marmion friends there, including Robertson and Meyrick, whoasked him eagerly after Radowitz.
"Better come and see," said Falloden. "Give you a bread and cheeseluncheon any day."
They got no more out of him. But his reticence made them visibly uneasy,and they both declared their intention of coming up the following day.In both men there was a certain indefinable change which Falloden soonperceived. Both seemed, at times, to be dragging a weight too heavy fortheir youth. At other times, they were just like other men of their age;but Falloden, who knew them well, realised that they were bothhag-ridden by remorse for what had happened in the summer. And indeedthe attitude of a large part of the college towards them, and towardsFalloden, when at rare intervals he showed himself there, could hardlyhave been colder or more hostile. The "bloods" were broken up; the donshad set their faces steadily against any form of ragging; and the storyof the maimed hand, of the wrecking of Radowitz's career, together withsinister rumours as to his general health, had spread through Oxford,magnifying as they went. Falloden met it all with a haughty silence; andwas but seldom seen in his old haunts.
And presently it had become known, to the stupefaction of those who wereaware of the earlier facts, that victim and tormentor, the injured andthe offender, were living together in the Boar's Hill cottage whereRadowitz was finishing the composition required for his second musicalexamination, and Falloden--having lost his father, his money and hisprospects--was reading for a prize fellowship to be given by Mertonin December.
* * * * *
It was already moonlight when Falloden began to climb the long hillagain, which leads up from Folly Bridge to the height on which stood thecottage. But the autumn sunset was not long over, and in the mingledlight all the rich colours of the fading woodland seemed to be suspendedin, or fused with, the evening air. Forms and distances, hedges, trees,moving figures, and distant buildings were marvellously though dimlyglorified; and above the golds and reds and purples of the misty earth,shone broad and large--an Achilles sh
ield in heaven--the autumn moon,with one bright star beside it.
Suddenly, out of the twilight, Falloden became aware of a pony-carriagedescending the hill, and two ladies in it. His blood leapt. Herecognised Constance Bledlow, and he supposed the other lady was Mrs.Mulholland.
Constance on her side knew in a moment from the bearing of his head andshoulders who was the tall man approaching them. She spoke hurriedly toMrs. Mulholland.
"Do you mind if I stop and speak to Mr. Falloden?"
Mrs. Mulholland shrugged her shoulders--
"Do as you like, my dear. Only don't expect me to be very forthcoming!"
Constance stopped the carriage, and bent forward.
"Mr. Falloden!"
He came up to her. Connie introduced him to Mrs. Mulholland, who bowedcoldly.
"We have just been to see Otto Radowitz," said Constance. "We foundhim--very sadly, to-day." Her hesitating voice, with the note of wistfulappeal in it, affected him strangely.
"Yes, it has been a bad day. I haven't seen him at all."
"He gave us tea, and talked a great deal. He was rather excited; but helooked wretched. And why has he turned against his doctor?"
"Has he turned against his doctor?" Falloden's tone was one of surprise."I thought he liked him."
"He said he was a croaker, and he wasn't going to let himself bedepressed by anybody--doctor or no."
Falloden was silent. Mrs. Mulholland interposed.
"Perhaps you would like to walk a little way with Mr. Falloden? I canmanage the pony."
Constance descended. Falloden turned back with her towards Oxford. Thepony-carriage followed at some distance behind.
Then Falloden talked freely. The presence of the light figure besidehim, in its dark dress and close-fitting cap, seemed to thaw the chillof life. He began rapidly to pour out his own anxieties, his own senseof failure.
"I am the last man in the world who ought to be looking after him; Iknow that as well as anybody," he said, with emphasis. "But what's to bedone? Sorell can't get away from college. And Radowitz knows very fewmen intimately. Neither Meyrick nor Robertson would be any betterthan I."
"Oh, not so good--not nearly so good!" exclaimed Constance eagerly. "Youdon't know! He counts on you."
Falloden shook his head.
"Then he counts on a broken reed. I irritate and annoy him a hundredtimes a day."
"Oh, no, no--he does count on you," repeated Connie in her soft,determined voice. "If you give up, he will be much--much worse off!"Then she added after a moment--"Don't give up! I--I ask you!"
"Then I shall stay."
They moved on a few steps in silence, till Connie said eagerly--
"Have you any news from Paris?"
"Yes; we wrote in the nick of time. The whole thing was just being givenup for lack of funds. Now I have told him he may spend what he pleases,so long as he does the thing."
"Please--mayn't I help?"
"Thank you. It's my affair."
"It'll be very, very expensive."
"I shall manage it."
"It would be kinder"--her voice shook a little--"if I might help."
He considered it--then said doubtfully:
"Suppose you provide the records?--the things it plays? I don't knowanything about music--and I have been racking my brains to think ofsomebody in Paris who could look after that part of it."
Constance exclaimed. Why, she had several friends in Paris, in the verythick of the musical world there! She had herself had lessons all onewinter in Paris at the Conservatoire from a dear old fellow--a Pole--apupil of Chopin in his youth, and in touch with the whole Polish colonyin Paris, which was steeped in music.
"He made love to me a little"--she said, laughing--"I'm sure he'd doanything for us. I'll write at once! And there is somebody at theEmbassy--why, of course, I can set all kinds of people to work!"
And her feet began to dance along the road beside him.
"We must get some Polish music"--she went on--"there's that marvellousyoung pianist they rave about in Paris--Paderewski. I'm sure he'd help!Otto has often talked to me about him. We must have lots of Chopin--andLiszt--though of course he wasn't a Pole!--And Polish nationalsongs!--Otto was only telling me to-day how Chopin loved them--how heand Liszt used to go about the villages and farms and note them down.Oh, we'll have a wonderful collection!"
Her eyes shone in her small, flushed face. They walked on fast, talkingand dreaming, till there was Folly Bridge in front of them, and thebeginnings of Oxford. Falloden pulled up sharply.
"I must run back to him. Will you come again?"
She held out her hand. The moonlight, shining on his powerful face andcurly hair, stirred in her a sudden, acute sense of delight.
"Oh yes--we'll come again. But don't leave him!--don't, please, think ofit! He trusts you--he leans on you."
"It is kind of you to believe it. But I am no use!"
He put her back into the carriage, bowed formally, and was gone, runningup the hill at an athlete's pace.
The two ladies drove silently on, and were soon among the movement andtraffic of the Oxford streets. Connie's mind was steeped in passionatefeeling. Till now Falloden had touched first her senses, then her pity.Now in these painful and despondent attempts of his, to adjust himselfto Otto's weakness and irritability, he was stirring sympathies andenthusiasms in her which belonged to that deepest soul in Connie whichwas just becoming conscious of itself. And all the more, perhaps,because in Falloden's manner towards her there was nothing left of thelover. For the moment at any rate she preferred it so. Life was alldoubt, expectation, thrill--its colour heightened, its meaningsunderlined. And in her complete uncertainty as to what turn it wouldtake, and how the doubt would end, lay the spell--the potent tormentingcharm--of the situation.
She was sorry, bitterly sorry for Radowitz--the victim. But she lovedFalloden--the offender! It was the perennial injustice of passion, theeternal injustice of human things.
* * * * *
When Falloden was half-way up the hill, he left the road, and took ashort cut through fields, by a path which led him to the back of thecottage, where its sitting-room window opened on the garden and theview. As he approached the house, he saw that the sitting-room blindshad not been drawn, and some of the windows were still open. The wholeroom was brilliantly lit by fire and lamp. Otto was there alone, sittingat the piano, with his back to the approaching spectator and the moonlitnight outside. He was playing something with his left hand; Fallodencould see him plainly. Suddenly, he saw the boy's figure collapse. Hewas still sitting, but his face was buried in his arm which was lying onthe piano; and through the open window, Falloden heard a sound which,muffled as it was, produced upon him a strange and horrible impression.It was a low cry, or groan--the voice of despair itself.
Falloden stood motionless. All he knew was that he would have givenanything in the world to recall the past; to undo the events of thatJune evening in the Marmion quadrangle.
Then, before Otto could discover his presence, he went noiselessly roundthe corner of the house, and entered it by the front door. In the hall,he called loudly to the ex-scout, as he went upstairs, so that Radowitzmight know he had come back. When he returned, Radowitz was sitting overthe fire with sheets of scribbled music-paper on a small table beforehim. His eyes shone, his cheeks were feverishly bright. He turned withforced gaiety at the sight of Falloden--
"Well, did you meet them on the road?"
"Lady Constance, and her friend? Yes. I had a few words with them. Howare you now? What did the doctor say to you?"
"What on earth does it matter!" said Radowitz impatiently. "He is just afool--a young one--the worst sort--I can put up with the old ones. Iknow my own case a great deal better than he does."
"Does he want you to stop working?" Falloden stood on the hearth,looking down on the huddled figure in the chair; himself broad and talland curly-haired, like the divine Odysseus, when Athene had breathedambrosial youth upon
him. But he was pale, and his eyes frownedperpetually under his splendid brows.
"Some nonsense of that sort!" said Radowitz. "Don't let's talk aboutit."
They went into dinner, and Radowitz sent for champagne.
"That's the only sensible thing the idiot said--that I might have thatstuff whenever I liked."
His spirits rose with the wine; and presently Falloden could havethought what he had seen from the dark had been a mere illusion. Areview in _The Times_ of a book of Polish memoirs served to let loose aflood of boastful talk, which jarred abominably on the Englishman. Underthe Oxford code, to boast in plain language of your ancestors, or yourown performances, meant simply that you were an outsider, not sure ofyour footing. If a man really had ancestors, or more brains than otherpeople, his neighbours saved him the trouble of talking about them. Onlythe fools and the _parvenus_ trumpeted themselves; a process in any casenot worth while, since it defeated its own ends. You might of course beas insolent or arrogant as you pleased; but only an idiot tried toexplain why.
In Otto, however, there was the characteristic Slav mingling of quickwits with streaks of childish vanity. He wanted passionately to makethis tough Englishman feel what a great country Poland had been andwould be again; what great people his ancestors had been; and what aleading part they had played in the national movements. And the more hehit against an answering stubbornness--or coolness--in Falloden, themore he held forth. So that it was an uncomfortable dinner. And againFalloden said to himself--"Why did I do it? I am only in his way. Ishall bore and chill him; and I don't seem to be able to help it."
But after dinner, as the night frost grew sharper, and as Otto sat overthe fire, piling on the coal, Falloden suddenly went and fetched a warmScotch plaid of his own. When he offered it, Radowitz received it withsurprise, and a little annoyance.
"I am not the least cold--thank you!"
But, presently, he had wrapped it round his knees; and some restrainthad broken down in Falloden.
"Isn't there a splendid church in Cracow?" he asked casually, stretchinghimself, with his pipe, in a long chair on the opposite side ofthe fire.
"One!--five or six!" cried Otto indignantly. "But I expect you'rethinking of Panna Marya. Panna means Lady. I tell you, you Englishhaven't got anything to touch it!"
"What's it like?--what date?" said Falloden, laughing.
"I don't know--I don't know anything about architecture. But it'sglorious. It's all colour and stained glass--and magnificent tombs--likethe gate of heaven," said the boy with ardour. "It's the church thatevery Pole loves. Some of my ancestors are buried there. And it's thechurch where, instead of a clock striking, the hours are given out by awatchman who plays a horn. He plays an old air--ever so old--we call itthe 'Heynal,' on the top of one of the towers. The only time I was everin Cracow I heard a man at a concert--a magnificent player--improvise onit. And it comes into one of Chopin's sonatas."
He began to hum under his breath a sweet wandering melody. And suddenlyhe sprang up, and ran to the piano. He played the air with his lefthand, embroidering it with delicate arabesques and variations, catchinga bass here and there with a flying touch, suggesting marvellously whathad once been a rich and complete whole. The injured hand, which hadthat day been very painful, lay helpless in its sling; the otherflashed over the piano, while the boy's blue eyes shone beneath hisvivid frieze of hair. Falloden, lying back in his chair, noticed theemaciation of the face, the hollow eyes, the contracted shoulders; andas he did so, he thought of the scene in the Magdalen ballroom--theslender girl, wreathed in pearls, and the brilliant foreignyouth--dancing, dancing, with all the eyes of the room upon them.
Presently, with a sound of impatience, Radowitz left the piano. He coulddo nothing that he wanted to do. He stood at the window for some minuteslooking out at the autumn moon, with his back to Falloden.
Falloden took up one of the books he was at work on for his fellowshipexam. When Radowitz came back to the fire, however, white and shivering,he laid it down again, and once more made conversation. Radowitz was atfirst unwilling to respond. But he was by nature _bavard_, and Fallodenplayed him with some skill.
Very soon he was talking fast and brilliantly again, about his artisticlife in Paris, his friends at the Conservatoire or in the QuartierLatin; and so back to his childish days in Poland, and the uprising inwhich the family estates near Warsaw had been forfeited. Falloden foundit all very strange. The seething, artistic, revolutionary world whichhad produced Otto was wholly foreign to him; and this patriotic passionfor a dead country seemed to his English common sense a waste of force.But in Otto's eyes Poland was not dead; the White Eagle, torn andblood-stained though she was, would mount the heavens again; and inthose dark skies the stars were already rising!
At eleven, Falloden got up--
"I must go and swat. It was awfully jolly, what you've been telling me.I know a lot I didn't know before."
A gleam of pleasure showed in the boy's sunken eyes.
"I expect I'm a bore," he said, with a shrug; "and I'd better go tobed."
Falloden helped him carry up his books and papers. In Otto's room, thewindows were wide open, but there was a bright fire, and Bateson, theex-scout, was waiting to help him undress. Falloden asked some questionsabout the doctor's orders. Various things were wanted from Oxford. Heundertook to get them in the morning.
When he came back to the sitting-room, he stood some time in a brownstudy. He wondered again whether he had any qualifications at all as anurse. But he was inclined to think now that Radowitz might be worse offwithout him; what Constance had said seemed less unreal; and his effortof the evening, as he looked back on it, brought him a certain bittersatisfaction.
* * * * *
The following day, Radowitz came downstairs with the course of thesecond movement of his symphony clear before him. He worked feverishlyall day, now writing, now walking up and down, humming and thinking, nowgetting but of his piano--a beautiful instrument hired for thewinter--all that his maimed state allowed him to get; and passing hourafter hour, between an ecstasy of happy creation, and a state ofimpotent rage with his own helplessness. Towards sunset he was worn out,and with tea beside him which he had been greedily drinking, he wassitting huddled over the fire, when he heard some one ride up to thefront door.
In another minute the sitting-room door opened, and a girl's figure in ariding habit appeared.
"May I come in?" said Connie, flushing rather pink.
Otto sprang up, and drew her in. His fatigue disappeared as though bymagic. He seemed all gaiety and force.
"Come in! Sit down and have some tea! I was so depressed five minutesago--I was fit to kill myself. And now you make the room shine--you docome in like a goddess!"
He busied himself excitedly in putting a chair for her, in relightingthe spirit kettle, in blowing up the fire.
Constance meanwhile stood in some embarrassment with one hand on theback of a chair--a charming vision in her close fitting habit, and thesame black _tricorne_ that she had worn in the Lathom Woods, atFalloden's side.
"I came to bring you a book, Otto, the book we talked of yesterday." Sheheld out a paper-covered volume. "But I mustn't stay."
"Oh, do stay!" he implored her. "Don't bother about Mrs. Grundy. I'm sotired and so bored. Anybody may visit an invalid. Think this is anursing home, and you're my daily visitor. Falloden's miles away on adrag-hunt. Ah, that's right!" he cried delightedly, as he saw that shehad seated herself. "Now you shall have some tea!"
She let him provide her, watching him the while with slightly frowningbrows. How ill he looked--how ill! Her heart sank.
"Dear Otto, how are you? You don't seem so well to-day."
"I've been working myself to death. It won't come right--this beastly_andante_. It's too jerky--it wants _liaison_. And I can't hear it--Ican't hear it!--that's the devilish part of it."
And taking his helpless hand out of the sling in which it had beenresting, he struck it bitterly
against the arm of his chair. The tearscame to Connie's eyes.
"Don't!--you'll hurt yourself. It'll be all right--it'll be all right!You'll hear it in your mind." And bending forward under a suddenimpulse, she took the maimed hand in her two hands--so small andsoft--and lifting it tenderly she put her lips to it.
He looked at her in amazement.
"You do that--for me?"
"Yes. Because you are a great artist--and a brave man!" she said,gulping. "You are not to despair. Your music is in your soul--yourbrain. Other people shall play it for you."
He calmed down.
"At least I am not deaf, like Beethoven," he said, trying to please her."That would have been worse. Do you know, last night Falloden and I hada glorious talk? He was awfully decent. He made me tell him all aboutPoland and my people. He never scoffed once. He makes me do what thedoctor says. And last night--when it was freezing cold--he broughta rug and wrapped it round me. Think of that!"--he looked ather--half-shamefaced, half-laughing--"_Falloden!_"
Her eyes shone.
"I'm glad!" she said softly. "I'm glad!"
"Yes, but do you know why he's kind--why he's here at all?" he asked herabruptly.
"What's the good of silly questions?" she said hastily. "Take it as itcomes."
He laughed.
"He does it--I'm going to say it!--yes, I am--and you are not to beangry--he does it because--simply--he's in love with you!"
Connie flushed again, more deeply, and he, already alarmed by his ownboldness, looked at her nervously.
"You are quite wrong." Her tone was quiet, but decided. "He did it,first of all, because of what you did for his father--"
"I did nothing!" interposed Radowitz.
She took no notice.
"And secondly"--her voice shook a little--"because--he was sorry.Now--now--he is doing it"--suddenly her smile flashed out, with itstouch of humour--"just simply because he likes it!"
It was a bold assertion. She knew it. But she straightened her slightshoulders, prepared to stick to it.
Radowitz shook his head.
"And what am I doing it for? Do you remember when I said to you Iloathed him?"
"No--not him."
"Well, something in him--the chief thing, it seemed to me then. I felttowards him really--as a man might feel towards his murderer--or themurderer of some one else, some innocent, helpless person who had givenno offence. Hatred--loathing--abhorrence!--you couldn't put it toostrongly. Well then,"--he began poking at the fire, while he went onthinking aloud--"God brought us together in that strange manner. By theway"--he turned to her--"are you a Christian?"
"I--I don't know. I suppose I am."
"I am," he said firmly. "I am a practising Catholic. Catholicism with usPoles is partly religion, partly patriotism--do you understand? I go toconfession--I am a communicant. And for some time I couldn't go toCommunion at all. I always felt Falloden's hand on my shoulder, as hewas pushing me down the stairs; and I wanted to kill him!--just that!You know our Polish blood runs hotter than yours. I didn't want thecollege to punish him. Not at all. It was my affair. After I saw you intown, it grew worse--it was an obsession. When we first got toYorkshire, Sorell and I, and I knew that Falloden was only a few milesaway, I never could get quit of it--of the thought that someday--somewhere--I should kill him. I never, if I could help it, crosseda certain boundary line that I had made for myself, between our side ofthe moor, and the side which belonged to the Fallodens. I couldn't besure of myself if I had come upon him unawares. Oh, of course, he wouldsoon have got the better of me--but there would have been a struggle--Ishould have attacked him--and I might have had a revolver. So for yoursake"--he turned to look at her with his hollow blue eyes--"I kept away.Then, one evening, I quite forgot all about it. I was thinking of thetheme for the slow movement in my symphony, and I didn't notice where Iwas going. I walked on and on over the hill--and at last I heard a mangroaning--and there was Sir Arthur by the stream. I saw at once that hewas dying. There I sat, alone with him. He asked me not to leave him. Hesaid something about Douglas, 'Poor Douglas!' And when the horriblething came back--the last time--he just whispered, 'Pray!' and I saidour Catholic prayers that our priest had said when my mother died. ThenFalloden came--just in time--and instead of wanting to kill him, Iwaited there, a little way off, and prayed hard for myself and him!Queer, wasn't it? And afterwards--you know--I saw his mother. Then thenext day, I confessed to a dear old priest, who was very kind to me, andon the Sunday he gave me Communion. He said God had been very graciousto me; and I saw what he meant. That very week I had a hemorrhage, thefirst I ever had."
Connie gave a sudden, startled cry. He turned again to smile at her.
"Didn't you know? No, I believe no one knew, but Sorell and the doctors.It was nothing. It's quite healed. But the strange thing was howextraordinarily happy I felt that week. I didn't hate Falloden any more.It was as though a sharp thorn had gone from one's mind. It didn't lastlong of course, the queer ecstatic feeling. There was always myhand--and I got very low again. But something lasted; and when Fallodensaid that extraordinary thing--I don't believe he meant to say it atall!--suggesting we should settle together for the winter--I knewthat I must do it. It was a kind of miracle--one thing afteranother--driving us."
His voice dropped. He remained gazing absently into the fire.
"Dear Otto"--said Constance softly--"you have forgiven him?"
He smiled.
"What does that matter? Have you?"
His eager eyes searched her face. She faltered under them.
"He doesn't care whether I have or not."
At that he laughed out.
"Doesn't he? I say, did you ask us both to come--on purpose--thatafternoon?--in the garden?"
She was silent.
"It was bold of you!" he said, in the same laughing tone. "But it hasanswered. Unless, of course, I bore him to death. I talk a lot ofnonsense--I can't help it--and he bears it. And he says hard, horridthings, sometimes--and my blood boils--and I bear it. And I expect hewants to break off a hundred times a day--and so do I. Yet here we stay.And it's you"--he raised his head deliberately--"it's you who are reallyat the bottom of it."
Constance rose trembling from her chair.
"Don't say any more, dear Otto. I didn't mean any harm. I--I was sosorry for you both."
He laughed again softly.
"You've got to marry him!" he said triumphantly. "There!--you may gonow. But you'll come again soon. I know you will!"
She seemed to slip, to melt, out of the room. But he had a last visionof flushed cheeks, and half-reproachful eyes.