The Man and the Moment Part 34

Less than an hour later, the two men who loved this one woman met just over the causeway, where Henry awaited Michael's coming. It was a difficult moment for them both, but they clasped hands with a few ordinary words. Henry's walk in the wind had strengthened his nerves.

For some reason, he was now conscious that he was feeling no acute pain as he had expected that he would do, and that there was even some kind of satisfaction in the thought that, on this Christmas morning, he was able to bring great happiness to Sabine. He could not help remarking, as they crossed the drawbridge, that Michael looked a most suitable mate for her: he was such a picture of superb health and youth. As they entered the courtyard, Moravia and her little son came out of the main door.

The Princess greeted them gaily. She was going to show Girolamo the big waves from the causeway bridge before going on to church; they had a good half-hour. She experienced no surprise at seeing Michael, only asking about his night journey's uncomfortableness, and then she turned to Henry:

"Come and join us there by the high parapet, Henry, as soon as you have taken Mr. Arranstoun up to Sabine. She has not come out of her wing yet; but I know that she is dressed and in her sitting-room," and smiling merrily, she took Girolamo's little hand and went her way.

There was no sound when the two men reached Sabine's sitting-room door.

Henry knocked gently, but no answer came; so he opened it and looked in.

Great fires burned in the wide chimneys and his flowers gave forth sweet scent, but the Lady of Heronac was absent, or so it seemed.

"Come in, Michael, and wait," Henry said; and then, from the embrasure of the far window, they heard a stifled exclamation, and saw that Sabine was indeed there after all, and had risen from the floor, where she had been kneeling by the window-seat looking out upon the waves.

Her face was deadly pale and showed signs of a night's vigil, but when she caught sight of Michael it was as though the sun had emerged from a cloud, so radiant grew her eyes. She stood quite still, waiting until they advanced near to her down the long room, and then she steadied herself against the back of a tall chair.

"Sabine," Henry said, "I want you to be very happy on this Christmas day, and so I have brought your husband back to you. All these foolish divorce proceedings are going to be stopped, and you and he can settle all your differences, together, dear--" then, as a glad cry forced itself from Sabine's lips--his voice broke with emotion. She stretched out her hands to him, and he took one and drew her to Michael, who stood behind him.

Then he took also his old friend's hand, and clasped it upon Sabine's.

"I am not much of a churchman," he said, hoa.r.s.ely, "but this part of the marriage service is true, I expect. 'Those whom G.o.d hath joined together let no man put asunder.'" Then he dropped their hands, and turned toward the door.

"Oh! Henry, you are so good to us!" Sabine cried. "No words can say what I feel."

But Lord Fordyce could bear no more--and murmuring some kind of blessing, he got from the room, leaving the two there in the embrasure of the great window gazing into each other's eyes.

As the door shut, Michael spoke at last:

"Sabine--My own!" he whispered, and held out his arms.

When Henry left Sabine's sitting-room, he staggered down the stairs like one blind--the poignant anguish had returned, and the mantle of comfort fell from his shoulders. He was human, after all, and the picture of the rapture on the faces of the two, showing him what he had never obtained, stabbed him like a knife. He felt that he would willingly drop over the causeway bridge into the boiling sea, and finish all the pain. He saw Moravia's blue velvet dress in the distance down the road when he left the lodge gates, and he fled into the garden; he must be alone--but she had seen him go, and knew that another crisis had come and that she must conquer this time also. So apparently only for the gratification of Girolamo, she turned and entered the garden--the garden which seemed to be a predestined spot for the stratagems of lovers!--then she strolled toward the sea-wall, not turning her head in the direction where she plainly perceived Henry had gone, but taking care that Girolamo should see him, as she knew he would run to him. This he immediately did, and dragged his victim back to his mother in the pavilion which looked out over the sea. Girolamo was now three years old and a considerable imp; he displayed Henry proudly and boasted of his catch--while Moravia scolded him sweetly and asked Henry to forgive them for intruding upon his solitude.

"You know I understand you must want to be alone, dear friend, and I would not have come if I had seen you," she said, tenderly, while she turned and, leaning out, beckoned to the nurse, whom she could just see across the causeway on the courtyard wall, where the raised parapet was.

Then allowing her feelings to overcome her judgment, she flung out her arms and seizing Henry's hands, she drew them into her warm, huge m.u.f.f.

"Henry--I can't help it--!" she gasped. "It breaks my heart to see you so cold and white and numb--I want to warm and comfort and love you back to life again----!"

At this minute, the sun burst through the scudding clouds, and blazed in upon them from the archway; and it seemed to Henry as if a new vitality rushed into his frozen veins. She was so human and pretty, and young and real. Love for him spoke from her sparkling, brown eyes. The ascendancy she had obtained over him on the previous evening returned in a measure; he no longer wanted to get away from her and be alone.

He made some murmuring reply, and did not seek to draw away his hands--but a sudden change of feeling seemed to come over Moravia for she lowered her head and a deep, pink flush grew in her cheeks.

"What will you think of me, Henry?" she whispered, pulling at his grasp, which grew firmer as she tried to loosen it. "I"--and then she raised her eyes, which were suffused with tears. "Oh! it seems such horrid waste for you to be sick with grief for Sabine, who is happy now--and that only I must grieve----"

Girolamo had seen his nurse entering the far gate and was racing off to meet her, so that they were quite alone in the pavilion now, and Moravia's words and the tears in her fond eyes had a tremendous effect upon Henry. It moved some unknown cloud in his emotions. She, too, wanted comfort, not he alone--and he could bring it to her and be soothed in return, so he drew her closer and closer to him, and framed her face in his hands.

"Moravia," he said, tenderly. "You shall not grieve, dear child--If you want me, take me, and I will give you all the devotion of true friendship--and, who knows, perhaps we shall find the Indian summer, after all, now that the gates of my fool's paradise are shut."

In the abstract, it was not highly gratifying to a woman's vanity, this declaration! but, as a matter of fact, it was beyond Moravia's wildest hopes. She had not a single doubt in her astute American mind that, once she should have the right to the society of Henry--with her knowledge of the ways of man--that she would soon be able to obliterate all regrets for Sabine, and draw his affections completely to herself.

At this juncture, she showed a stroke of genius.

"Henry," she said, her voice vibrating with profound feeling, "I do want you--more than anything I have ever wanted in my life--and I will make you forget all your hurts--in my arms."

There was certainly nothing left for Lord Fordyce, being a gallant gentleman, to do but to stoop his tall head and kiss her--and, to his surprise, he found this duty turn into a pleasure--so that, in a few moments, when they were close together looking out upon the waves through the pavilion's wide windows, he encircled her with his arm--and then he burst into a laugh, but though it was cynical, it contained no bitterness.

"Moravia--you are a witch," he told her. "Here is a situation that, described, would read like pathos--and yet it has made us both happy.

Half an hour ago, I was wishing I might step over into that foam--and now----"

"And now?" demanded the Princess, standing from him.

"And now I realize that, with the New Year, there may dawn new joys for me. Oh! my dear, if you will be content with what I can give you, let us be married soon and go to India for the rest of the winter."

The Pere Anselme noticed that his only congregation from the Chateau consisted of Mr. Cloudwater and Madame Imogen; and he thanked the good G.o.d--as he sent up a fervent prayer for the absentees' happiness.

"It means that they two are near heaven, and that consolation will come to the disconsolate one, since all four remain at home," he told himself. This was a denouement worthy of Christmas Day, and of far more value in his eyes than the two pairs' mere presence in his church.

"The ways of the good G.o.d are marvellous," he mused, as he went to his vestry, "and it is fitting that youth should find its mate. We grieve and wring our hearts--and nothing is final--and while there is life there is hope--that love may bloom again. Peace be with them."

CHAPTER XXIV

When the first moment of ecstasy in the knowledge that they were indeed given back to each other was over, Michael drew Sabine to the window seat where she had been crouching only that short while before in silent misery.

"Sweetheart," he entreated, "now you have got to tell me everything--do you understand, Sabine--every single thing from the first moment in the chapel when we made those vows until now when we are going to keep them.

I want to know everything, darling child--all your thoughts and what you did with your life--and when you hated me and when you loved me----"

They sat down on the velvet cushions and Sabine nestled into his arms.

"It is so difficult, Michael," she cooed, "how can I begin? I was sillier and more ignorant than any other girl of seventeen could possibly be, I think--don't you? Oh! don't let us speak of that part--I only remember that when you kissed me first in the chapel some kind of strange emotion came to me--then I was frightened----"

"But not after a while," he interpolated, something of rapturous triumph in his fond glance, while he caressed and smoothed her hair, as her little head lay against his shoulder, "I thought you had forgiven me before I went to sleep."

"Perhaps I had--I did not know myself--only that there in the gray dawn everything seemed perfectly awful and horror and terror came upon me again, and I had only one wild impulse to rush away--surely you can understand--" she paused.

"Go on, sweetheart," he commanded, "I shall not let you off one detail.

I love to make you tell me every single thing"--and he took her hand and played with her wedding ring, but not taking it off, while Sabine thrilled with happiness.

"Well--you did not wake--and so presently I got into the sitting-room, and at last found the certificate--and just as I was going out of the door on to the balcony I heard you call my name sleepily--and for one second I nearly went back--but I did not, and got safely away and to the hotel!"

"Think of my not waking!" Michael exclaimed. "If only I had--you would never have been allowed to go--it is maddening to remember what that sleep cost--but how did you manage at the hotel?"

"It was after five o'clock and the side door was open into the yard. Not a soul saw me, and I carried out my original plan. I think when I was in the train I had already begun to regret bitterly, but it was too late to go back--and then next day your letter came to me at Mr. Parsons' and all my pride was up in arms!"

Here Michael held her very tight.