Through Welsh Doorways Part 15

"Aye, Catherine, what'll she be wishin' for, a new lover?" they laughed.

With shaking hand she tossed hers into the fire; the nut sputtered and blackened, and with a shriek Catherine bounded from the circle, threw open the door and sped into the dark. In consternation the company scrambled to their feet, gazing at the open door through which volleyed the wind and rain.

Old Pally was the first to speak: "'Tis a bad sign."

"Aye, poor Catherine's been called, it may be."

"It's the last time, I'm thinkin', we'll ever see her."

"Do ye think she saw somethin', Pally, do ye?"

"There's no tellin'; but it's bad, very bad, though her nut is burnin'

brightly enough now."

"She seemed downcast the night, not like herself."

"It can be nothin' at home, for Vavasour, they say, is treatin' her better nor ever, an' she's been that sweet-tempered the year long, which is uncommon for her."

As she fled homeward through the dark, little did Catherine think of what they might be saying at Pally's. When Vavasour heard feet running swiftly along the street, he straightened up, his eyes in terror upon the door.

"Catherine!" he cried, bewildered at her substantial appearance, "is it ye who are really come?"

There was a momentary suggestion of a rush into each other's arms checked, as it were, in mid-air by Vavasour's reseating himself precipitately and Catherine drawing herself up.

"Yes," said Catherine, seeing him there and still in the flesh, "it was--dull, very dull at Pally's; an' my feet was wet an' I feared takin'

a cold."

"Aye," replied Vavasour, looking with greed upon her rosy face and snapping eyes, "aye, it's better for ye here, dearie."

There was an awkward silence. Catherine still breathed heavily from the running, and Vavasour shuffled his feet. He opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again.

"Did ye have a fine time at Pally's?" he asked.

"Aye, it was gay and fine an'--na----" Catherine halted, remembering the reason she had given for coming home, and tried to explain. "Yes, so it was, an' so it wasn't," she ended.

Vavasour regarded her with attention, and there was another pause, in which his eyes sought the clock. The sight of that fat-faced timepiece gave him a shock.

"A quarter past eleven," he murmured; then aloud: "Catherine, do ye recall Pastor Evans's sermon, the one he preached last New Year?"

Catherine also had taken a furtive glance at the clock, a glance which Vavasour caught and wondered at.

"Well, Catherine, do----"

"Aye, I remember, about inheritin' the grace of life together."

"My dear, wasn't he sayin' that love is eternal an' that--a man--an'--an' his wife was lovin' for--for----"

"Aye, lad, for everlastin' life," Catherine concluded.

There was another pause, a quick glancing at the clock, and a quick swinging of two pairs of eyes towards each other, astonishment in each pair.

"Half-after eleven," whispered Vavasour, seeming to crumple in the middle. "An', dear," he continued aloud, "didn't he, didn't he say that the Lord was mindful of our--of our--difficulties, and our temptations, an' our--our----"

"Aye, an' our mistakes," ended Catherine.

"Do ye think, dearie," he went on, "that if a man were to--to--na--to be unkind a--a very little to his wife--an' was sorry an' his wife--his wife--died, that he'd be--be----?"

"Forgiven?" finished Catherine. "Aye, I'm thinkin' so. An', lad dear, do ye think if anythin' was to happen to ye the night,--aye, _this_ night,--that ye'd take any grudge away with ye against me?"

Vavasour stiffened.

"Happen to _me_, Catherine?"

Then he collapsed, groaning.

"Oh, dearie, what is it, what is it, what ails ye?" cried Catherine, coming to his side on the sofa.

"Nothin', nothin' at all," he gasped, slanting an eye at the clock. "Ow, the devil, it's twenty minutes before twelve!"

"Oh, lad, what is it?"

"It's nothin', nothin' at all, it's--it's--ow!--it's just a little pain across me."

Catherine stole a look at the timepiece,--a quarter before twelve, aye, it was coming to him now, and her face whitened to the colour of the ashes in the fireplace.

To Vavasour the whimpering of the wind in the chimney was like the bare nerve of his pain. Even the flickering of the flame marked the flight of time, which he could not stay by any wish or power in him. Only ten minutes more, aye, everything marked it: the brawl of the stream outside, the rushing of the wind, the scattering of the rain like a legion of fleeing feet, then a sudden pause in the downpour when his heart beat as if waiting on an unseen footstep; the very singing of the lazy kettle was a drone in this wild race of stream and wind and rain, emphasising the speed of all else. Vavasour cast a despairing glance at the mantel, oh! the endless _tick-tick, tick-tick_, of that round clock flanked by rows of idiotic, fat-faced, whiskered china cats, each with an immovably sardonic grin, not a whisker stirring to this merciless _tick-tick_. Aye, it was going to strike in a minute, and the clanging of it would be like the clanging of the gates of h.e.l.l behind him. He did not notice Catherine, that she, too, unmindful of everything, was gazing in horror at the mantel. Vavasour groaned; oh! if the clock were only a toad or a serpent, he would put his feet on it, crush it, and--oh!--Vavasour swore madly to himself, covering his eyes. Catherine cried out, her face in her hands--the clock was striking.

Twelve!

The last clang of the bell vibrated a second and subsided; the wind whimpered softly in the chimney, the tea-kettle sang on. Through a c.h.i.n.k in her fingers Catherine peered at Vavasour; through a similar c.h.i.n.k there was a bright agonised eye staring at her.

"Oh!" gulped Catherine.

"The devil!" exclaimed Vavasour.

"Lad!" called his wife, putting out a hand to touch him.

Then followed a scene of joy; they embraced, they kissed, they danced about madly, and having done it once, they did it all over again and still again.

"But, Katy, are ye here, really _here_?"

"Am _I_ here? Tut, lad, are _ye_ here?"

"Aye, that is, are we _both_ here?"

"Did ye think I wasn't goin' to be?" asked the wife, pausing.

"No-o, not that, only I thought, I thought ye was goin'--to--to faint. I thought ye looked like it," replied Vavasour, with a curious expression of suppressed, intelligent joy in his eyes.