The Odds Part 31

"You are hurting me," she said, and instantly his hold relaxed. But he did not let her go.

"Answer me!" he said.

"Why should I answer you?" It was the last resort of her weakening will.

He betrayed no impatience.

"You will answer me for your sister's sake," he told her grimly.

"What do you mean? You will follow her?"

"I shall follow her."

"And bring her back?"

"Back here? No, certainly not."

"You will hurt her, bully her, terrify her!" The words were quick with agitation.

He ignored them. "Tell me where she is."

She made a last effort.

"If I tell you--will you take me with you?"

"No," he said, "I will not."

"Then--then--" She was looking straight into those pitiless eyes. It seemed she could not help herself. "I will tell you," she said at last.

"But you will be kind to her? You will remember how young she is, and that--that you drove her to it?"

Her voice was piteous, her resistance was dead.

"I shall remember," he said very quietly, "one thing only."

"Yes?" she murmured. "Yes?"

"That she is my wife," he said, in the same level tone. "Now--answer me."

And because there was no longer any alternative course, she yielded.

Had he shown himself a raging demon she could have resisted him, and rejoiced in it. But this man, with his rigid self-control, his unswerving resolution, his deadly directness, dominated her irresistibly.

Without argument he had changed her point of view. Without argument or protestation of any sort, he had convinced her that it was no pa.s.sing fancy of his that had prompted him to choose Nan for his wife. She had vaguely suspected it before. Now she knew.

CHAPTER IX

It was very dark over the moors. The solitary lights of a cab crawling almost at a foot pace along the lonely road shone like a will-o'-the-wisp through the snow. It had been snowing for hours, steadily, thickly, and the cold was intense. The dead heather by the roadside had long been completely hidden under that ever-increasing load. It lay in great billows of white wherever the carriage lamps revealed it, stretching away into the darkness, an immense, untrodden desert, wrapped in a deathly silence, more terrible than any sound.

It seemed to Nan, shivering inside that cheerless cab, as if the world had stopped like a run-down watch, and that she alone, with her melancholy equipage, retained in all that vast stillness the power to move.

She wished heartily that she had permitted Jerry to come to the station to meet her, but for some reason not wholly intelligible to herself she had prohibited this. And he, ever obedient to her behests, had sent the conveyance to fetch her, remaining behind himself to complete the preparations for her reception upon which he had been engaged for the past two days at the tiny, incommodious shooting-box which his father had bequeathed to him, and of which not very valuable piece of landed property he was somewhat inordinately proud.

It had been a tedious cross-country journey, and the five miles from the station seemed to Nan interminable. Already deep down in her heart were stirring ghastly doubts regarding the advisability of this mad expedition of hers. Jerry, as she well knew, was fully prepared to enjoy the situation to the utmost. He was a trusty friend in need to her, no more, and she had not the smallest misgiving so far as he was concerned.

He would be to her what he had ever been, breezy comrade, merry friend--romantic cavalier, perhaps, but in such a fashion as to convince her that he was only playing at romance. It had always been his att.i.tude towards her, and she antic.i.p.ated no change. The boy's natural chivalry had moved her to accept his help, though she well knew that the step she had taken was a desperate one, even for one of the wild Everards. That it would fulfil its purpose she did not doubt. Her husband, she was fully convinced, would take no further steps to deprive her of her liberty. Her notions of legal procedure in such a case were of the haziest, but she had not the faintest doubt that this last, wildest escapade of hers would sooner or later procure her her freedom from the chain that so galled her.

And yet she started and shivered at every creak of the crazy vehicle that was bearing her to the haven of her emanc.i.p.ation. She was horribly, unreasonably afraid, now that she had taken this rash step. Would it upset her father very greatly, she wondered? But surely he would not think badly of her for making a way of escape for herself. He had been powerless to deliver her. Surely, surely he would understand!

The cab jolted to a standstill, and out of the darkness came an eager, boyish voice, bidding her welcome. An impetuous hand wrenched open the door, and she and Jerry were face to face.

She never recalled afterwards crossing the threshold of his little abode.

She was numbed and weary in mind and body. But she found herself at length seated before a bright fire, with a cup of steaming tea in her hand, and Jerry hovering about her in high delight; and the comfort of his welcome revived her at length to an active realization of her surroundings.

Clearly the adventure, mad, lawless as it undoubtedly was, was nothing but a picnic to him. He was enjoying himself immensely without a thought of any possible consequences, and it was plain that this was the att.i.tude in which he expected her to regard the matter.

With an effort she responded to his mood, but she could not shake off the burden of doubt and foreboding that oppressed her. She felt as if the long, bitter journey had in some fashion aged her. Jerry's gaiety was as the prattle of a child to her now. They had been children together till that day, but she felt that they could never be so again. Never before had she stopped in her headlong course to look ahead, to count the cost!

Now, for the first time, misgivings arose within her upon Jerry's score.

What if this boy who had lent himself so lightly, so absolutely freely, to her scheme for deliverance, were made in any way to suffer for his reckless generosity? For this it had been with him--and this only--as she well knew.

With sheer, boyish gallantry, he had offered his protection; with sheer, girlish recklessness, she had accepted it. And now--now she had in a few hours crossed the boundary between childhood and womanhood and she stood aghast, asking herself what she had done!

By what means understanding had come to her she did not stay to question. The tragic force of it overwhelmed all reasoning. She knew beyond all doubting that she had made the most ghastly mistake of her life. She had done it in blindness, but the veil had been rent away; and, horror-struck, she now beheld the accursed quicksand into which they had blundered.

"I say," said Jerry, "you're awfully tired, aren't you? You're positively haggard. I've got quite a decent little dinner for you, and I've done every blessed thing myself. There isn't a soul in the house except us two. I thought you'd like it best."

She smiled at him wanly, and thanked him. He was watching her with friendly, anxious eyes.

"Yes; well, drink that up and have some more. I'm afraid you'll think the accommodation rather poor. It's only a pillbox, you know. I'll show you round when you're ready. I've got my kennel in the kitchen. Best place for a watch-dog, eh? But you've only got to thump on the floor if you want anything. There, that's better. You don't look quite so frozen as you did. Come, it's rather a lark, isn't it?"

His boyish eyes pleaded with her, and again she made a valiant effort to respond. She knew what stupendous efforts he had been making to secure her comfort.

"Everything is perfect," she declared, "and you're the nicest boy in the world. I'm quite warm now. What a dear little hall, to be sure!"

"Hall!" said Jerry. "It's the living-room! But there's another one upstairs that you can sit in. I thought you would like the upper regions all to yourself. We can call on each other, you know, now and then. I say, it's rather a lark, isn't it? Come and see my preparations for dinner."

She went with him into the little bare kitchen, and bestowed lavish praise upon everything she saw.

Jerry's cooking was an accomplishment of which he had some reason to be proud. He was roasting a pheasant for his visitor's delectation.

"I always do the cooking when we camp out," he explained. "Just sit down while I finish peeling the potatoes."

He pointed to a truckle bedstead in the corner; and Nan seated herself and made a determined effort to banish her depression.

Jerry's preparations for his own comfort were anything but elaborate.