The Way of an Eagle Part 56

"If--if you mean to forgive me, you must know--everything."

"Tell me, if it helps you," he answered, and he spoke with the splendid patience that twenty weary months had wrought in him. "Only believe--before you begin--that I have forgiven you. For--before G.o.d--it is the truth."

And so presently, lying in his arms, her face hidden low on his breast, she told him all, suppressing nothing, extenuating nothing, simply pouring out the whole bitter story, sometimes halting, sometimes incoherent, but never wavering in her purpose, till, like an evil growth that yet clung about her palpitating heart, her sin lay bare before him--the sin of a woman who had almost forgotten that Love is a holy thing.

He heard her to the end with scarcely a word, and when she had finished he made one comment only.

"And so you gave him up."

She shivered with the pain of that memory. "Yes, I gave him up--I gave him up. Nick had made me see the hopelessness of it all--the wickedness. And he--he let me go. He saw it too--at least he understood. And on that very night--oh, Will, that awful night--he went to his death."

His arms grew closer about her. "My poor girl!" he said.

"Ah, but you shouldn't!" she sobbed. "You shouldn't! You ought to hate me--to despise me."

"Hush!" he said again. And she knew that with that one word he resolutely turned his back upon the gulf that had opened between them during those twenty months--that gulf that his love had been great enough to bridge--and that he took her with him, bruised and broken and storm-tossed as she was, into a very sheltered place.

When presently he turned her face up to his own and gravely kissed her she clung to his neck like a tired child, no longer fearing to meet his look, only thankful for the comfort of his arms.

For a while longer he held her silently, then very quietly he began to question her about her journey. Had she told him that she had been putting up at the dak-bungalow?

"Oh, only for a few hours," she answered. "We arrived this evening, Nick and I."

"Nick!" he said. "And you left him behind?"

"He is waiting to take me back," she murmured, her face hidden against his shoulder.

Again, very tenderly, his hand pressed her forehead. "He must come to us, eh, dear? I will sent the _khit_ down with a note presently. But you are tired out, and must rest. Lie here while I go and tell Sammy to make ready."

It was when he came back to her that she began to see wherein lay the change in him that had so struck her.

From her cushions she looked up at him, piteously smiling. "How thin you are, Will! And you are getting quite a scholarly stoop."

"Ah, that's India," he said.

But she knew that it was not India at all, and her face told him so, though he affected not to see it.

He bent over her. "Now, Daisy, I am going to carry you to bed as I used--do you remember?--at Simla, after the baby came. Dear little chap! Do you remember how he used to smile in his sleep?"

His voice was hushed, as though he stood once more beside the tiny cot.

She sat up, yielding herself to his arms. "Oh, Will," she said, with a great sob, "if only he had lived!"

He held her closely, and lying against his breast she felt the sigh he stifled. His lips were upon the silvered hair.

"Perhaps--some day--Daisy," he said, under his breath.

And she, clinging to him, whispered back through her tears, "Oh, Will,--I do hope so."

CHAPTER XLVII

IN THE NAME OF FRIENDSHIP

It was very hot down on the buzzing race-course, almost intolerably so in the opinion of the girl who sat in Lady Ba.s.sett's elegantly-appointed carriage, and looked out with the indifference of boredom upon the sweltering crowds.

"Dear child, don't look so freezingly aloof!" she had been entreated more than once; and each time the soft injunction had reached her the wide dark eyes had taken to themselves a more utter disdain.

If she looked freezing, she was far from feeling it, for the hot weather was at its height, and Ghawalkhand, though healthy, was not the coolest spot in the Indian Empire. Sir Reginald Ba.s.sett had been appointed British Resident, to act as adviser to the young rajah thereof, and there had been no question of a flitting to Simla that year. Lady Ba.s.sett had deplored this, but Muriel rejoiced. She never wanted to see Simla again.

Life was a horrible emptiness to her in those days. She was weary beyond expression, and had no heart for the gaieties in which she was plunged. Idle compliments had never attracted her, and flirtations were an abomination to her. She looked through and beyond them with the eyes of a sphinx. But there were very few who suspected the intolerable ache that throbbed unceasingly behind her impa.s.sivity--the loneliness of spirit that oppressed her like a crushing, physical weight.

Even Bobby Fraser, who saw most things, could scarcely have been aware of this; yet certainly it was not the vivacity of her conversation that induced him to seek her out as he generally did when he saw her sitting apart. A very cheery bachelor was Bobby Fraser, and a tremendous favourite wherever he went. He was a wonderful organizer, and he invariably had a hand in anything of an entertaining nature that was going forward.

He had just brought her tea, and was waiting beside her while she drank it. Lady Ba.s.sett had left the carriage for the paddock, and Muriel sat alone.

Had she had anything on the last race, he wanted to know? Muriel had not. He had, and was practically ruined in consequence--a calamity which in no way seemed to affect his spirits.

"Who would have expected a rank outsider like that to walk over the course? Ought to have been disqualified for sheer cheek. Reminds me of a chap I once knew--forget his name--Nick something or other--who entered at the last minute for the Great Mogul's Cup at Sharapura. Did it for a bet, they said. It's years ago now. The horse was a perfect brute--all bone and no flesh--with a temper like the foul fiend and no points whatever--looked a regular crock at starting. But he romped home on three legs, notwithstanding, with his jockey clinging to him like an inspired monkey. It was the only race he ever won. Every one put it down to black magic or personal magnetism on the part of his rider. Same thing, I believe. He was the sort of chap who always comes out on top. Rum thing I can't remember his name. I had travelled out with him on the same boat once too. Have some more tea."

This was a specimen of most of Bobby Fraser's conversation. He was brimful of anecdotes. They flowed as easily as water from a fountain.

Their source seemed inexhaustible. He never repeated himself to the same person.

Muriel declined his offer of more tea. For some reason she wanted to hear more of the man who had won the Great Mogul's Cup at Sharapura.

Bobby was more than willing to oblige. "Oh, it was sheer cheek that carried him through, of course. I always said he was the cheekiest beggar under the sun--quite a little chap he was, hideously ugly, with a face like a baked apple, and eyes that made you think of a cinematograph. You know the sort of thing. I used to think he had a future before him, but he seems to have dropped out. He was only about twenty when I had him for a stable-companion. I remember one outrageous thing he did on the voyage out. There was card-playing going on in the saloon one night, and he was looking on. One of the lady-players--well, I suppose I may as well call it by its name--one of them cheated. He detected it. Beastly position, of course. Don't know what I should have done under the circ.u.mstances, but anyhow he wasn't at a loss. He simply lighted a cigarette and set fire to the lady's dress."

Muriel's exclamation of horror was ample testimony to the fact that her keenest interest was aroused.

"Yes, awfully risky, wasn't it?" said Bobby. "We only thought at the time he had been abominably careless. I did not hear the rights of the case till afterwards, and then not from him. There was a fine flareup, of course--card-table overturned--ladies in hysterics--in the middle of the fray our gallant hero extinguishing the flames with his bare hands. He was profusely apologetic and rather badly scorched. The lady took very little harm, except to her nerves and her temper. She cut him dead for the rest of the voyage, but I don't think it depressed him much. He was the sort of fellow that never gets depressed. Hullo!

There's Mrs. Philpot making violent signs. I suppose I had better go and see what she wants, or be dropped for evermore. Good-bye!"

He smiled upon her and departed, leaving her thoughtful, with a certain wistful wonder in her eyes.

Lady Ba.s.sett's return interrupted her reverie. "You have had some tea, I hope, dear? Ah, I thought Mr. Bobby Fraser was making his way in this direction. So sweet of him not to forget you when he has so many other calls upon his attention. And how are you faring for to-night?

Is your programme full yet? I have literally not one dance left."

Lady Ba.s.sett had deemed it advisable to ignore the fact of Muriel's brief engagement to Captain Grange since the girl's return to India.

She knew, as did her husband, that it had come to an end before Grange's death, but she withheld all comment upon it. Her one desire was to get the dear child married without delay, and she was not backward in letting her know it. Life at Ghawalkhand was one continuous round of gaiety, and she had every opportunity for forwarding her scheme. Though she deplored Muriel's unresponsiveness, she yet did not despair. It was sheer affectation on the girl's part, she would tell herself, and would soon pa.s.s. And after all, that queenly, aloof air had a charm that was all its own. It might not attract the many, but she had begun to fancy of late that Bobby Fraser had felt its influence. He was not in the least the sort of man she would have expected to do so, but there was no accounting for taste--masculine taste especially. And it would be an excellent thing for Muriel.

She was therefore being particularly gracious to her young charge just then--a state of affairs which Muriel endured rather than appreciated.

She would never feel at her ease with Lady Ba.s.sett as long as she lived.

She was glad when they drove away at length, for she wanted to be alone. Those anecdotes of Bobby's had affected her strangely. She had felt so completely cut off of late from all things connected with the past. No one ever mentioned Nick to her now--not even her faithful correspondent Olga. Meteor-like, he had flashed through her sky and disappeared; leaving a burning, ineradicable trail behind him, it is true, but none the less was he gone. She had not the faintest idea where he was. She would have given all she had to know, yet could not bring herself to ask. It seemed highly improbable that he would ever cross her path again, and she knew she ought to be glad of this; yet no gladness ever warmed her heart. And now here was a man who had known him, who had told her of exploits new to her knowledge yet how strangely familiar to her understanding, who had at a touch brought before her the weird personality that her imagination sometimes strove in vain to summon. She could have sat and listened to Bobby's reminiscences for hours. The bare mention of Nick's name had made her blood run faster.

Lady Ba.s.sett did not trouble her to converse during the drive back, ascribing to her evident desire for silence a reason which Muriel was too absent to suspect. But when the girl roused herself to throw a couple of annas to an old beggar who was crouched against the entrance to the Residency grounds she could not resist giving utterance to a gentle expostulation.