The Immortal Moment Part 47

"I don't know."

Jane Lucy's voice called her from the door. He swore under his breath.

"Let her come in. I want her."

He laid his hand upon the door.

"What are you going to do?" he reiterated.

"Oh, let her come to me."

"You haven't answered my question."

"Let me see her first. Leave me alone with her. Janey! Janey!" she called.

"Very well," he said.

He opened the door and bowed to Jane Lucy as she entered.

"I shall come back," he said, "for my answer."

CHAPTER XXII

"Did Robert send you?" she asked, when she was alone with Jane.

"Yes."

"It's no good. I can't do what he wants."

"What are you going to do, dear?"

"I don't know. I don't care. The terrible thing is that I've had to hurt him. I must go away somewhere."

"I'll come with you and see you through."

Kitty shook her head.

"Don't think about it now," said Jane.

"No; I can't think. I'm too tired, and my head's hot. But if I go away you'll understand why I did it?"

"Kitty"--Jane whispered it--"you won't go back?"

"No. I won't go back. You won't have to think that of me."

She had not looked at Jane as they talked. Now she turned to her with eyes of anguish and appeal.

"Janey--think. I've been wicked for years and years. I've only been good for one moment. One moment--when I gave Robert up. Do you think it'll count?"

"I think that, in the sight of G.o.d, such moments last forever."

"And that's what you'll think of me by?"

She lifted up her face, haggard and white, flame-spotted where her tears had scorched it. Jane kissed it.

"Do you mind kissing me?"

"My dear, my dear," said Jane, and she drew her closer.

There was a sound of footsteps in the pa.s.sage. Kitty drew back and listened.

"Where's Robert?"

"Upstairs with the children."

"They'll be asleep by this time, won't they?"

"Fast asleep."

The footsteps came again, approaching the door. They paused outside it a moment and turned back.

"Do you hear that?" said Kitty. "It's Wilfrid Marston walking up and down. He wants to get hold of me. I think he's mad about me. He asked me to marry him just now, and I wouldn't. He thinks I didn't mean it, and he's coming back for his answer. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do.

I shall go out quietly by the window and slip away, and he won't find me. I want you to be here when he comes, and tell him that he can't see me. Would you mind doing that?"

"No."

"You'll stay here all the time, and you won't let him go out and look for me?"

"Yes."

Kitty listened again for the footsteps.

"He's still there," she whispered.

"And you'll go to bed, Kitty?"

"Yes; of course I will."

She went out through the window on to the veranda, and so on into the garden.

It was cool out there and unutterably peaceful, with a tender, lucid twilight on the bare gra.s.s of the lawn; on the sea beyond it, and on the white gravel path by the low wall between. She saw it, the world that had held her and Robert, that, holding them, had taken on the ten days'

splendour of their pa.s.sion. It stood, divinely still in the perishing violet light, a world withdrawn and unsubstantial, yet piercingly, intolerably near.

Indoors Jane waited. It was not yet the half-hour. She waited till the clock struck and Marston came for his answer.