Ailsa Paige Part 44

She stood looking at the floor for a moment. Then: "Why have you changed your name?"

"It's not a permanent change," he said carelessly.

"Oh. You wish to remain unrecognised in your regiment?"

"While my service lasts."

Her lips formed the question again; and he understood, though she had not spoken.

"Why? Yes, I'll tell you," he said with a reckless laugh. "I'll tell you why I wear a new name. It's because I love my old one-and the mother who bore it-and from whom I received it! And it's because I won't risk disgracing it. You have asked, and that's why! Because-I'm afraid in battle!-if you want to know!-afraid of getting hurt-wounded-killed! I don't know what I might do; I don't know! And if the world ever sees Private Ormond running away, they'll never know it was Constance Berkley's son. And that's why I changed my name!"

"W-what?" she faltered. Then, revolted. "It is not true! You are not afraid!"

"I tell you I am," he repeated with a mirthless laugh. "Don't you suppose I ought to know? I want to get out of bullet range every time I'm shot at. And-if anybody ever turns coward, I prefer that it should be trooper Ormond, not trooper Berkley. And that is the truth, Ailsa."

She was scarcely able to suppress her anger now. She looked at him, flushed, excited, furious.

"Why do you say such untruthful things to me! Who was it that fairly kicked his fellow troopers into charging infantry with nothing but lances against bullets?"

Amazed for a second, he burst into an abrupt laugh that rang harshly in the room.

"Who told you such c.o.c.k-and-bull stories, Ailsa?"

"Didn't you do it? Isn't it true?"

"Do what? Do what the Government pays me for doing? Yes, I happened to come up to the scratch that time. But I was scared, every inch of me-if you really want the truth."

"But-you did it?"

He laughed again, harshly, but apparently puzzled by her att.i.tude.

She came nearer, paler in her suppressed excitement.

"Private Ormond," she faltered, "the hour that you fail under fire is the hour when I-shall be able to-forget-you. Not-until-then."

Neither moved. The slow, deep colour mounted to the roots of his hair; but she was white as death.

"Ailsa."

"Yes."

And suddenly he had dropped to one knee, and the hem of her gray garb was against his lips-and it was a thing of another age that he did, there on one knee at her feet, but it became him as it had become his ancestors. And she saw it, and, bending, laid her slim hands on his head.

After a long silence, her hands still resting on his dark hair, she found voice enough to speak.

"I know you now."

And, as he made no answer:

"It is there, in you-all that I believed. It was to that I-yielded-once."

She looked intently down at him.

"I think at last you have become-my champion... . Not my-destroyer. Answer me, Philip!"

He would not, or could not.

"I take you-for mine," she said. "Will you deny me?"

"No, Ailsa."

She said, steadily: "The other-the lesser happiness is to be-forgotten. Answer."

"It-must be."

She bent lower, whispering: "Is there no wedlock of the spirit?"

"That is all there ever was to hope for."

"Then-will you-Philip?"

"Yes. Will you, Ailsa?"

"I-will."

He rose; her fingers slipped from his hair to his hands, and they stood, confronted.

She said in a dull voice: "I am engaged to-be-married to Captain Hallam."

"I know it."

She spoke again, very white.

"Can you tell me why you will not marry me?"

"No, I cannot tell you."

"I-would love you none the less. Don't you believe me?"

"Yes, I do now. But I-cannot ask that of you."

"Yet-you would have-taken me without-marriage."

He said, quietly:

"Marriage-or love to the full, without it-G.o.d knows how right or wrong that may be. The world outlaws those who love without it-drives them out, excommunicates, d.a.m.ns... . It may be G.o.d does, too; but-I-don't-believe it, Ailsa."

She said, whiter still: "Then I must not think of-what cannot be?"

"No," he said dully, "it cannot be."