CHAPTER XI

.

NEWS OF ADRIAN.

“Talk of monkeys,” Levallion said to himself on the morning after their return, “they’re not a quarter as imitative as women!” and he looked at his wife across the table with a tenderness no other woman could have got from him. Who would think it had been a raw schoolgirl he had married three months ago when they saw his wife.

For, if she looked very little happier than when he had carried her off from Sylvia, she had gained a manner, an assured self-possession that made him proud of her. And by this time Lord Levallion was used to that curious, pathetic look she had about the eyes.

“You are a lazy wretch!” she said, looking up. “You’ve not opened one letter or one paper out of all that heap.”

“You’re very truthful,” he said lazily. “How many women do you suppose would call me an old wretch to my face?”

The greatest charm he had found in her was that, let him be as cynically outspoken as he liked, she never cared; so that her answer surprised him.

“I wasn’t truthful; it was a silly joke. I think, if you want to know, that you’re a thousand times too good for me.” Lord Levallion walked around the table, his handsome, worn face curiously soft.

“To tell a man he is too good for you is a fatal mistake,” he remarked gravely. “It makes him presume on you--like this!” kissing her slim hand: “I shall make a note that, to keep you contented and superior, I must beat you once a week. By the way, Ravenel, why do you never wear any of your rings? If you’re going about without your wedding-ring, you really ought to paste your marriage lines on your back.”

“I haven’t found a certificate of respectability necessary in your society!” hastily. “And--I hate all rings!” with a vicious glance at her slim, bare hands. “You’re changing the subject, Levallion. I was saying I was an odious wretch to marry you. I had no right to do it, just to get away from Sylvia!” It was the first time she had ever uttered the self-reproach that grew on her each day, with each fresh proof that Levallion’s love was real. That other thought of revenge on Adrian Gordon that had been so quick in her once, was dead enough now, if repentance could kill it. Not for Adrian’s sake, but for the petty meanness of it. She hated herself for having made Levallion a tool for her own ends, a convenient escape from Sylvia and a support for Tommy.

“You might engage a father confessor, if it would ease your mind.” His lordship returned to his place and lowered his eyes to his plate. For it seemed to him that his indifferent wife was beginning to care, which meant heaven opening before his incredulous middle-aged eyes. “I assure you, I’m quite satisfied with the result of your motives, however low they were, my dear child. You don’t propose I should read all these, do you?” with a nod at his pile of letters.

“Every one. It’s your own fault there are so many. You should have let your letters be forwarded while you were away. Now you must turn them over, and begin at the oldest.”

For, kind as he was, his very goodness fretted her, just as Levallion Castle, that she had stolen from Adrian Gordon, felt like a prison. She could never bear the long days here unless Levallion interested himself in something that was not dependent on her. She pushed away her plate, and was strolling to the open window, as if she longed for air, when something in his attitude caught her attention--with an utterly senseless dread.

He had opened the first letter on the pile, and was staring at it, his face quite vacant.

“You haven’t bad news!” she cried involuntarily. She who never had been known to ask him anything of his private affairs. She glanced at the blue paper that crackled in his hand.

“Yes--poor devil!” he spoke just half his thoughts; the other half was that, after all, it had done no one any wrong for him to marry, and might be the saving of the name. “This is from the War Office--my cousin, Adrian Gordon--I think you knew him?--is----”

Lady Levallion stretched out her hand and deliberately picked a late rose that hung in the window. It pricked her finger, but not sharply enough to steady her as a hat-pin once had done. Her voice shook as she answered:

“Is he dead?” She knew she was muttering, but, for once, Levallion scarcely heard her.

That Adrian had been in all the fighting on the northwest frontier in India idle talk had long ago told her; and she had said to herself that she did not care; had never read a newspaper, lest she might find herself hunting for his name in despatches.

“Dead? Yes, poor soul, by this time!” said Levallion absently. “This says he is missing. He went out of the fort with a small party that was surprised by the Afrides and nearly destroyed. He carried one man in and went back for another, and that’s the last they ever saw of either. It’s the best men who go like that,” grimly. “They would have given him the Victoria Cross, they say, but for that trifle of his never coming back.”

“I”--would she never find her voice? To her horror, the next instant she knew she was turning on Levallion furiously, insistently.

“Why do you say he’s dead?” she cried. “That letter doesn’t say so.”

“Because it means it,” gently; “far more! The women in the hill tribes come out and butcher wounded or strayed men. Usually there’s not enough left of them even to prove who they were----”

“Oh!” said Ravenel; she covered her eyes. “Don’t tell me,” wildly. “I hate blood. I----” In sheer panic terror of what mad thing she might cry out, she ran straight to Levallion. “Never tell me awful things,” she panted. “I wake up in the night and think about them. And he--oh, Levallion, he was young! It’s wicked, wicked, that people should die young!”

“I forgot you had known him!” said Levallion, reproaching himself for a fool that must needs draw out raw head and bloody bones before her. “This letter’s three months old,” he said. “I will wire to see if they know nothing more. Or--if you wouldn’t mind, I would go to town myself this morning and find out about this at the War Office.”

She nodded silently, and, to Levallion’s surprise, all the shocked, strained look was gone from her face.

“He was your heir,” she said slowly. “Of course, you had better go and inquire about him.”

“Yes. Will you come, or stay here?”

“Oh, stay here!” said Lady Levallion, with a shudder breaking through that queer calmness born of conviction that Adrian Gordon was dead. When Levallion was gone, she noted dully that he had only read that one letter of all that waited for him, and wondered if he would be so concerned about Adrian if he knew all about him. And then, with a curious feeling of returning to consciousness, she realized with a rush that she was glad--glad!--that Adrian was dead. She need no longer reproach herself that she had stolen his inheritance, and never shrink with shame at the remembrance of how she had sold herself, body and soul, to be even with him.

“He’s dead!” she said to herself, with an inexpressible peace. “Dead and happy, and some day I shall be like him. Not for a long time, for I’m young and tough, but every day will bring it a little closer. But if only he and I were lying in the same grave now, I would not care how long God put off the Judgment Day.” And there was no grief in her face as she thought it; only the deadly longing that saps a woman’s soul more than tears.

That strange, uncanny peace was still on her as she sat that afternoon on the lawn under the yellowing trees. She had forgiven Adrian everything she had against him, as she had no fear that he would not forgive her sin when she should stand beside him in her very flesh on the day of doom; for there would be no space wide enough to keep her from him when the earth gave up its motley crowd of men and women, of whom none would creep more gladly to the side of the love they had forgiven than she.

She looked up, clear-eyed, from the book she was not reading--and saw Adrian Gordon standing in front of her. Adrian, whose bones were whitening in the Afghan hills!

##