The Vision of Desire Part 43

"To cut you?" he repeated dully. He brushed his hand across his forehead.

"No, of course I wasn't trying to cut you."

He looked shockingly ill. His face was grey and lined, and his shoulders sagged as though he were physically played out. The boots and leggings he wore were caked with mud, and his coat had little torn ends of wool sticking up over it, as if he had been walking blindly ahead, careless of direction, and had forced his way through thickets of bramble rather than turn aside to seek an easier path.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she asked rather breathlessly.

In every nerve of her she felt that something terrible had happened. "You look"--trying to summon up a smile--"as if you'd been having a battle."

"I've been walking."

"Far?"

He gave a sudden laugh.

"To h.e.l.l and back. I don't know the mileage."

"Eliot, what do you mean?"

He looked down at her, and now that dreadful glare which had so frightened her had gone out of his eyes. They were human once more, but the naked misery in them shocked her into momentary silence. She would have liked to run away--to escape from those eyes. They were the windows of a soul enduring torture that was almost too intolerable to be borne. It was only by a strong effort of will that she at last forced her voice to do her bidding.

"What has happened, Eliot?" she said, speaking very gently. "Can't you tell me?"

He stared at her a moment. Then:

"Why, yes," he said. "I think I could tell you--part of it. It might amuse you. I've found you were not the only woman in the world who counts the shekels. You wouldn't marry me because I was poor. Now another woman is ready to marry me just because I'm rich. There's only one drawback."

"Drawback?"

"Yes. Quite a drawback. You see, it doesn't appeal to me to be married because I've a decent income, any more than it appealed to me ten years ago to be turned, down for the opposite reason."

Cara shrank from this bitter reference to the past.

"You can be very cruel, Eliot," she said unsteadily.

"Cruelty breeds cruelty," he replied with indifference. "Still, I'm beginning to think I was too hard on you, Cara, in the past. It seems finance plays an amazingly strong hand in the game of love. But it's taken two women to teach me the lesson thoroughly"--with a short laugh.

"Two?"

"You--and Ann."

"Ann! I don't believe it!" The words burst from her with impulsive vehemence.

His face darkened.

"While I can believe no other. In fact"--heavily--"your poor little sin shows white as driven snow beside--hers."

"You're wrong. I'm sure you're wrong," insisted Cara. "I don't know why you believe what you do--nor all that you believe. I don't ask to know. It wouldn't make any difference if you told me. I know Ann. And however black things looked against her, nothing would ever make me believe she was anything but dead straight."

"Most touching faith!" jeered Eliot. "Unfortunately, I have a preference in favour of believing the evidence of my own senses."

She drew nearer to him, her hands pressed tightly together.

"Eliot, you're deliberately going to throw away your happiness if you distrust Ann," she urged, beseechingly, "I've told you, she's not like me.

She's different."

"She's no better and no worse than other women, I suppose," he returned implacably. "Ready to take whatever goods the G.o.ds provide--and then go on to the next."

Cara turned aside in despair. She could not tell--could not guess--what had happened. She only knew that the man whose happiness meant more to her than her own, and the woman she had learned to love as a friend, had somehow come to irretrievable misunderstanding and disaster. At last she turned back again to Eliot.

"Would you have believed this of her--whatever it is you do believe--if it had not been for me?"

He reflected a moment.

"Perhaps not," he said.

She uttered a cry that was half a sob. So the price of that one terrible mistake she had made was not yet paid! Fate would go on exacting the penalty for ever--first the destruction of her own happiness, then that of Eliot and of Ann. All must be hurled into the bottomless well of expiation.

There was no forgiveness of sins.

It was useless to plead with Eliot--to reason with him. It was she herself who had poisoned the very springs of life for him, and now she was powerless to cleanse them. With a gesture of utter hopelessness she turned and left him, and made her way despondently homeward through the gathering dusk.

She reached the Priory just in time to encounter Robin coming out of the gates. He sprang off his horse and greeted her delightedly.

"I came over to bring you a brace of pheasants," he explained. "As you were out, I deposited them in the care of your parlourmaid."

Cara thanked him cordially, and then, as he still lingered, she added:

"Won't you turn back and come in for a cup of tea? Have you time?"

"I should think I have!" The mercurial rise in Robin's spirits betrayed itself in the tones of his voice. "I was hoping for an invitation to tea--so you can imagine my disappointment when I found that you weren't home."

She laughed, and they walked up to the house together, Robin leading his horse. A cheery fire burned on the hearth in the square, old-fashioned hall which Cara had converted into a living-room. As they entered she switched on the lights, revealing panelled walls, thick dim-hued rugs breaking an expanse of polished floor, and, by the fire, big, cushioned easy chairs which seemed to cry aloud for some one to rest weary limbs in their soft, capacious embrace.

"Ann's always envious of your electric light," remarked Robin. "Being only cottage folk"--smiling--"we have to content ourselves with lamps, and they seem p.r.o.ne to do appalling things in the way of smoking and covering the whole room with greasy soot the moment you take your eye off them."

"I know. They're a frightful nuisance," said Cara, ringing the bell for tea. "But lamp-light is the most becoming form of illumination, you know--especially when you're getting on in years, like me!"

Robin helped her off with her coat, lingering a little over the process, and gazed down at her with adoring eyes.

"Don't--talk--rubbish!" he said, softly and emphatically.

Perhaps he might have gone on to say something more, but at that moment a trim parlourmaid came in and began to arrange the tea-table beside her mistress's chair, and for some time afterwards Cara skilfully contrived to keep the conversation on impersonal lines. It was not until tea was over that Robin suddenly struck a more intimate note again. He had been watching her face in silence for a little while, noticing that it looked very small and pale to-day in its frame of night-dark hair, and that there were faint, purplish shadows beneath her eyes.

"You look awfully tired!" he remarked with concern. "And sad," he added.

"Is anything bothering you?"

She was silent for a moment, staring into the heart of the fire where the red and blue flames played flickeringly over the logs.

"I've been taking a look into the past," she said, at last, "It's--it's rather a dreary occupation."