The Bars of Iron Part 45

"Not to the full," Avery answered, her voice very low. "Then I was too young. Mine was just a child's rapture and it was simply extinguished when I came to know the kind of burden I had to bear. It all faded so quickly, and the reality was so terribly grim. Now--now I look on the world with experienced eyes. I am too old."

"You think experience destroys romance?" said Tudor.

She looked at him. "Don't you?"

"No," he said. "If it did, I do not think you would be afraid to marry me. Don't think I am trying to persuade you! I am not. But are you sure that in refusing me you are not sacrificing substance to shadow?"

"I don't quite understand you," she said.

He shrugged his shoulders slightly. "I can't be more explicit. No doubt you will follow your own instincts. But allow me to say that I don't think you are the sort of woman to go through life unmated; and though I may not be romantic, I am sound. I think I could give you a certain measure of happiness. But the choice is yours. I can only bow to your decision."

There was a certain dignity in his speech that gave it weight. Avery listened in silence, and into silence the words pa.s.sed.

Several seconds slipped away, then without effort Tudor came back to everyday things. "Sit down, won't you? Your tea is getting cold."

Avery sat down, and he handed it to her, and after a moment turned aside to the table.

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I have just come back from the Vicarage."

"Oh, have you?" Avery looked round quickly. "You went to see Jeanie?"

"Yes." Tudor spoke gravely. "I also saw the Vicar. I told him the child must go away. That cough of hers is tearing her to pieces. She ought to go to the South Coast. I told him so."

"Oh! What did he say?" Avery spoke with eagerness. She had been longing to suggest that very proposal for some time past.

Tudor smiled into his cup. "He said it was a total impossibility. That was the starting-point. At the finish it was practically decided that you should take her away next week."

"I!" said Avery.

"Yes, you. Mrs. Lorimer will manage all right now. The nurse can look after her and the little ones without a.s.sistance. And the second girl--Olive isn't it?--can look after the Reverend Stephen. It's all arranged in fact, unless it fails to meet with your approval, in which case of course the whole business must be reconsidered."

"But of course I approve," Avery said. "I would do anything that lay in my power. But I don't quite like the idea of leaving Mrs. Lorimer."

"She will be all right," Tudor a.s.serted again. "She wouldn't be happy away from her precious husband, and she would sooner have you looking after Jeanie than anyone. She told me so."

"She always thinks of others first," said Avery.

"So does someone else I know," rejoined Tudor. "It's just a habit some women have,--not always a good habit from some points of view.

We may regard it as settled then, may we? You really have no objections to raise?"

"None," said Avery. "I think the idea is excellent. I have been feeling troubled about Jeanie nearly all the winter. This last cold has worn her out terribly."

Tudor nodded. "Yes."

He drank his tea thoughtfully, and then spoke again. "I sounded her this afternoon. The left lung is not in a healthy condition. She will need all the attention you can give her if she is going to throw off the mischief.

It has not gone very far at present, but--to be frank with you--I am very far from satisfied that she can muster the strength." He got up and began to pace the room. "I have not said this plainly to anyone else. I don't want to frighten Mrs. Lorimer before I need. The poor soul has enough to bear without this added. Possibly the change will work wonders. Possibly she will pull round. Children have marvellous recuperative powers. But I have seen this sort of thing a good many times before, and--" he came back to the hearth--"it doesn't make me happy."

"I am glad you have told me," Avery said.

"I had to tell you. I believe you more than half suspected it." Tudor spoke restlessly; his thoughts were evidently not of his companion at that moment. "There are of course a good many points in her favour. She is a good, obedient child with a placid temperament. And the summer is before us. We shall have to work hard this summer, Mrs. Denys." He smiled at her abruptly. "It is like building a sea-wall when the tide is out.

We've got to make it as strong as possible before the tide comes back."

"You may rely on me to do my very best," Avery said earnestly.

He nodded. "Thank you. I know I may. I always do. Hence my confidence in you. May I give you some more tea?"

He quitted the subject as suddenly as he had embarked upon it. There was something very friendly in his treatment of her. She knew with unquestioning intuition that for the future he would keep strictly within the bounds of friendship unless he had her permission to pa.s.s beyond them. And it was this knowledge that emboldened her at parting to say, with her hand in his: "You are very, very good to me. I would like to thank you if I could."

He pressed her hand with the kindness of an old friend. "No, don't thank me!" he said, smiling at her in a way that somehow went to her heart. "I shall always be at your service. But I'd rather you took it as a matter of course. I feel more comfortable that way."

Avery left him at length and trudged home through the mud with a curious feeling of uncertainty in her soul. It was as though she had been vouchsafed a far glimpse of destiny which had been too fleeting for her comprehension.

CHAPTER XXVII

SHADOW

The preparations that must inevitably precede a departure for an indefinite length of time kept Avery from dwelling overmuch on what had pa.s.sed on that gusty afternoon when she had taken shelter in the doctor's house.

Whether or not she believed the rumour concerning Piers she scarcely asked herself. For some reason into which she did not enter she was firmly resolved to exclude him from her mind, and she welcomed the many occupations that kept her thoughts engrossed. No word from him had reached her since that daring letter written nearly three months before, just after his departure. It seemed that he had accepted her answer just as she had meant him to accept it, and that he had nothing more to say. So at least she viewed the matter, not suffering any inward question to arise.

She saw Lennox Tudor several times before the last day arrived. He did not seek her out. It simply came about in the ordinary course of things.

He was plainly determined that neither in public nor private should there be any secret sense of embarra.s.sment between them. And for this also she was grateful, liking him for his blunt consideration for her better than she had ever liked him before.

It was on the evening of the day preceding her departure with Jeanie that she ran down in the dusk to the post at the end of the lane with a letter. Her Australian friend had written to propose a visit, and she had been obliged to put him off.

There was a bitter wind blowing, but she hastened along hatless, with a cloak thrown round her shoulders. Past the church with its sheltering yew-trees she ran, intent only upon executing her errand in as short a time as possible.

Her hair blew loose about her face, and before she reached her goal she was ashamed of her untidiness, but it was not worth while to return for a hat, and she pressed on with a girl's impetuosity, hoping that she would meet no one.

The hope was not to be fulfilled. She reached the box and deposited her letter therein, but as she turned from doing so, there came the fall of a horse's hoofs along the road at the end of the lane.

She caught the sound, and was pierced by a sudden, quite unaccountable suspicion. Swiftly she gathered her cloak more securely about her, and hastened away.

Instantly it seemed to her that the hoof-beats quickened. The lane was steep, and she realized in a moment that if the rider turned up in her wake, she must very speedily be overtaken. She slackened her pace therefore, and walked on more quietly, straining her ears to listen, not venturing to look back.

Round the corner came the advancing animal at a brisk trot. She had known in her heart that it would be so. She had known from the first moment of hearing those hoof-beats, that Fate, strong and relentless, was on her track.

How she had known it she could not have said, but the wild clamour of her heart stifled any reasoning that she might have tried to form. Her breath came and went like the breath of a hunted creature. She could not hurry because of the trembling of her knees. Every instinct was urging her to flee, but she lacked the strength. She drew instead nearer to the wall, hoping against hope that in the gathering darkness he would pa.s.s her by.

Nearer and nearer came the hammering hoofs. She could hear the horse's sharp breathing, the creak of leather. And then suddenly she found she could go no further. She stopped and leaned against the wall.

She saw the animal pulled suddenly in, and knew that she was caught. With a great effort she lifted a smiling face, and simulated surprise.

"You! How do you do?"

"You knew it was me," said Piers rather curtly.