CHAPTER X

“O Heart! O blood that freezes! blood that burns! Earth’s returns for whole centuries of folly, noise, and sin: Shut them in; with their triumphs and the glories and the rest— Love is best!” —ROBERT BROWNING.

VERY firm and self-reliant natures make sometimes the natural mistake of under-estimating the power of passion. Their full self-control and constant watchfulness ignore the possibility of the strange touch of sudden lawlessness—the betrayal of the blood. That one could be one moment standing reason-bound, content, a soul at peace, and in another swept over the verge of thought into a sea of feeling, was absurd to Muriel. Yet the swift flash takes place: the world, like a curtain, rolls up, and all the conventions, the safeguards, the stationary landscapes, disappear! It was such a moment which took possession of her the very night that she had decided to give her lover to another woman. The evening had passed pleasantly, and the still glory of the summer night drew the party out into the dusk of the garden. Muriel slipped away from the rest and wandered into a little wilderness some distance from the house, wondering how best to carry out her plans, when suddenly all the blood in her body rushed to her heart, for there beside her stood the man she loved. It had been possible for her in the calm of loneliness and heartache to dispose of Jack, but now—the moon’s gold and silver gliding through the clouds; the thrushes calling heart to heart their breathless rapture in a liquid continuity of song; all the passion and the pain rushing into beauty, thrilled and throbbing with the heart of night—it was difficult to resist now. And the stars, how they shone down on love, each one a light struck from the royal conquest of their queen, the moon! They were enwrapped in that dream so boundless and so limited which for one breathless moment holds all the world can teach, and then scatters and breaks into the hundred lesser lights of life. A sigh broke the charm, and Muriel, wondering, withdrew herself from his arms, abashed and yet elated at her defeat, so much more sweet than any of the triumphs life had held for her.

“Now,” said Jack, smiling down at her, “are you going to tell me that you don’t care?”

“I am afraid,” said Muriel, “that it would not be very convincing if I did. It seems to me,” she added breathlessly, “as if before I had been living only on the outskirts of life. I did not know it was like that!” She looked at him wistfully, and asked humbly, “Is it quite right, Jack, do you think?”

“What, my dearest?”

“To forget everything; to see nothing but the world a background, and that one great avowal drowning all the rest?”

“I think it must be,” said Jack. “Just because it’s so powerful it must be meant to be good—in itself, you know—only some of us poor chaps don’t know how to use it.”

Muriel shivered a little; there was dampness in the air; the trees seemed to quiver. She remembered Liz and the squalid scenes where the power which meant heaven to her had meant darkness and life-long misery to the other woman. Had she gained the world only to lose it? Jack wrapped her shawl tenderly over her shoulders.

“You must go in, little woman,” he said practically. “Now you’re mine you shan’t run any risks, not even summer ones. Shall I speak to your uncle?” he asked her as they neared the little artificial lights of the house.

“Not yet,” she whispered hoarsely, with a terrible fear in her eyes. Jack followed her glance. It rested on a young girl’s face. Gladys was standing close at the French window looking out into the night—desperate, wild, despairing.

“There’s something wrong with the child,” Muriel said quick to Jack—“bad news from home, I think,” for even at that moment she knew she must keep the other woman’s secret. “Let me go to her, darling—good-night! It’s awful, isn’t it,” she said, “to be so selfish and so happy!”

She caught her hand from him, hurrying into the house. “It’s wicked, it’s wicked,” she murmured, “to be happy at all.”

Gladys called out over the approaching figure, “There is a letter for Captain Hurstly!” He came unwillingly forward into the light about the window. Muriel stood now with her hand in the girl’s looking back at him. Gladys herself seemed unaware of the touch. She was smiling painfully; the “On Her Majesty’s Service” seemed to demand attention.

Jack opened it, read it, glanced for a moment to Muriel, and placed it in his pocket.

“What does it say?” said Gladys, and Jack, so absorbed by its purpose and the strangeness of the scene, never knew till afterwards that it was not Muriel who had spoken. He tried to make light of it.

“Oh, I’m called off sooner than I expected.”

“When?” They both spoke at once this time. Again he only heard Muriel.

“The fact is—well, to-night,” he owned unsteadily. Gladys stepped quickly forward; a little quivering light shone in her eyes; she caught her breath and half unconsciously held out her hands.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Captain Hurstly!” she cried; “and I wish you—I wish you the very best luck in the world.” He looked towards Muriel, but she was gone. He met the girl’s eyes again. His own felt unaccountably misty. Muriel was gone, and this little thing was wishing him the very best luck in the world. He pressed her hands gratefully.

“Thank you, thank you awfully,” he murmured. “I think I’ve got it to-night——”

“Oh, where’s that tiresome Jack Hurstly?” cried a voice from the window. “I left him my fan to take care of, and——”

“I’ve got it here, Mrs. le Mentier,” cried Jack hastily, stepping through the low French window with the missing fan in his hand.

When he drove off an hour later to catch the midnight train it was Edith le Mentier who, side by side with Muriel, stood at the door to see him off. Looking back he saw that it was with her he had left “the very best luck in the world.” He had quite forgotten all about Gladys. From her window she watched him go on fire with love and happiness. His last words rang in her ears. She never doubted that they were meant for her. He had no time to say more then; but when he came back, not Muriel in all her beauty, nor any other woman, nor any other thing could ever come between them again she thought. And he would come back! The moonlight and the soft fragrance of the dusky night, what were they any of them but the earth’s pledges to her that her heaven should come again to meet that other heaven in her heart?

“I have broken my fan,” said Edith le Mentier to Muriel as they went up to bed. “So stupid of me, wasn’t it; but at any rate I was not going to let Captain Hurstly have another one.” Muriel looked straight before her.

“Another one, Edith?” she repeated.

“Yes, stupid, didn’t you know men were in the habit of keeping people’s fans when they were—well, rather—don’t you know?”

“I am afraid I’m rather dense—good-night,” said Muriel wearily. She stopped outside Gladys’ door, but there was no light or sound. “She’s asleep,” she thought, “I won’t disturb her,” and went on to her own room. It seemed rather strange to her that anybody could sleep.