CHAPTER XI.

GOOD-BYE!

In the course of a few hours Theodore Trist was quite at home at Wyl's Hall. These three people had lived together before, and knew each other's little ways. Mrs. Wylie, the personification of comfort--Theo Trist, possessing no real comprehension of the word--Brenda, midway between them, with a youthful faculty for adapting herself to either. The narrow limits of a ship soon break down the smaller social barriers, and the memory of life on board the _Hermione_ knitted the inmates of Wyl's Hall in a close and pleasant familiarity. At times, indeed, the union of the three around the fireside or at table seemed to emphasize the absence of the fourth, to suggest the vacancy caused by the stillness of a pleasant voice, the absence of a fine old face. But this slight shadow was not unpleasant, because it had no great contrast to show it up. None of the three was hilarious, but there was a pleasant sociability, which for every-day use is superior to the most brilliant flashes of wit.

Very soon the old, semi-serious style of conversation found place again. Brenda fell into her former habit of listening (too silently, perhaps) to Mrs. Wylie and Theo, accusing them at times of cynicism and worldliness. Old questions came to life again--unfinished discussions were renewed. Everything seemed to suggest the _Hermione_.

Again and again Mrs. Wylie found herself watching the two young people thus thrown together, and on each occasion she remembered how she had watched them before to no purpose. Since the pleasant summer days spent in the Heimdalfjord many incidents had come with their petty influences, and yet these two were in no way altered towards each other. One great difference was ever before her eyes, and yet she could not detect its result. Alice Huston was now a free woman, and if Trist loved her, there was no reason why he should not win her in the end; indeed, there was great cause to suppose that the matter should be easy to him. And yet there was no change in his manner towards the girl who, in all human probability, was destined to be his sister-in-law. The old half-chivalrous, half-brotherly way of addressing her and listening to her reply was still noticeable; and it puzzled the widow greatly. But Brenda seemed to take it as a matter of course. This man was different to all other men in her estimation; it was only natural that his manner towards her should be unlike that of others. And now a subtle change took place in Mrs. Wylie's mind. On board the _Hermione_ she had been convinced that if any woman possessed an influence over Theo Trist, that woman was Alice Huston. (The widow was too experienced, too practical, too farsighted to attempt a definition of this fascination exercised by a woman of inferior intellect over a man infinitely her superior in every way.) Now she was equally sure that Trist was moved by no warmth of love towards the beautiful young widow who had so openly thrown herself in his path.

One trifling alteration seemed to present itself occasionally to the good lady's watchful eyes, and this was a well-hidden fear of being left alone together. Whether this emanated from Theo or Brenda it was impossible to say, but its presence was unmistakable, and, moreover, whatever its origin may have been it was now mutual. At one time they had possessed a thousand topics of common interest, and found in each other's conversation an unfailing pleasure. Now they both talked to her, using her almost as an intermediary.

On the Saturday morning, while dressing, the widow meditated over these things, and in the afternoon she deliberately sent her two guests out for a walk together. About three miles down the coast, in the very centre of the marsh lying to the south of Mizzen Heath Moor, was a ruined lighthouse, long since superseded by a lightship riding on the newly-formed sandbank four miles off the shore. In this ruin lived an old marshman, in whose welfare Mrs. Wylie appeared suddenly to have taken a great interest. For him, accordingly, a parcel was made up, and the two young people were despatched immediately after lunch.

Mention has already been made of Mrs. Wylie's nervous abhorrence of any interference in what she was pleased to consider other people's affairs. In this matter she had at last made up her mind to act, because she loved these two as her own children, and there was in her kindly heart a haunting fear that they were about to make a muddle of their lives.

A slight haze lay over the land as the two young people made their way across the moor towards the coastguard-path--a narrow footway forever changing its devious course before the encroaching sea. Before their eyes lay a vast plain, intersected here and there with watercourse or sluice; while away to the southward rose a blue barrier of distant hill. Inland, the meadows were green and lush; while nearer to the sea the grass grew sparsely, and there were small plots of sand and shingle nourishing nought but unsightly thistles.

Already the clouds were freeing themselves from winter heaviness, and in their manifold combinations there was that suggestion of still distance which is characteristic of our English summer days, and has its equal in no other land, over no other sea.

The yellow sun was high in the heavens, with nothing more formidable to obstruct its rays than a slight shimmering haze. The air was light and balmy--indeed, in earth and air and sea there was a subtle buoyancy which tells of coming spring, and creates in men's hearts a braver contemplation of life.

It was, I think, a dangerous hour to send two young people away across the lonesome marshland alone together. Nevertheless, Mrs. Wylie watched them depart without a pang of remorse or a sting of conscience. Indeed, she calculated the risk with equanimity.

'I think,' she reflected, 'that this walk to the old lighthouse will be one of those trifling incidents which seem to remain engraved in our hearts long after the memory of greater events has passed away. They are both self-contained and resolute, but no human being is quite beyond the influence of outward things.'

For some time the two young people spoke in a scrappy way, of indifferent topics. The narrow path only allowed one to pass at a time, and the moor was so broken that progression at the side of the path was almost impossible. After, however, the Mizzen Heath Coastguard Station had been left behind, and the precipitous slope descended, the sea-wall afforded better walking, and the conversation assumed a more personal vein.

'Tell me,' said Brenda pleasantly, 'your plans in case of war! We know absolutely nothing of your proposed movements.'

'I know nothing myself, except in a very general way. Of course, we shall be guided by circumstances.'

'We...?'

'Yes; I take two men with me. The campaign will be on too large a scale for one man to watch unaided. These two fellows act as my lieutenants. I have chosen them myself. One is a future baronet with a taste for sport and literature, which is a rare combination. The other is a soldier, twenty-five years older than myself. We shall be a funny trio; but I think it will be a success, for we mean to make it one. The two men are full of energy and as hard as nails. Our plans are almost as voluminous and as comprehensive as Moltke's. It will be a great war, and we intend our history of it to be the only one worth reading. The old soldier is a Frenchman, so we shall tell our story in two languages simultaneously.'

'And where will it be--where will the battles be fought?'

'It is hard to say, because so much depends upon the apathy of the Turks. They will probably allow them to cross the Danube before making an effort to stop them, and the thick of it may be in Bulgaria again. I shall be at the Danube to see the Russians cross--probably at Galatz. There are small towns south of the Danube of which the names will be historical by this time next year, and in all probability there are men who will have immortalized themselves before then, although they are quite unknown now. War is the path by which the world progresses.'

'I suppose the younger Skobeleff will do something wonderful. I know your admiration for him.'

'Yes. If he does not get killed before he is across the Danube. As a leader I admire him, but not as a strategist. There are other men I know of also who will come to the front, but in the Turkish army individuality is more important than in the Russian. The lower the standard of discipline the higher is the power of personal influence over an army. The Turks depend entirely upon the individual capabilities of a few men--Suleiman, Osman, Tefik, and a few others.'

Brenda was not listening with the attention she usually accorded to Theodore Trist, whatever the subject of his discourse might happen to be, and he knew it. She had a strange trick of lapsing into a stony silence at odd moments, and he rarely failed to detect the slight difference. Such fits of absorption were usually followed by the raising of some deep abstract question, or an opinion of personal bearing. It may have been mere chance that caused him to cease somewhat abruptly, and continue walking by her side in silence; or it is possible that he knew her humours as few people knew them. The question of a Russo-Turkish War had suddenly lost all interest, and he might as well have told his opinion to the winds as to this girl, who had, a moment earlier, been a most intelligent listener.

For some time they walked on without speaking. The soft turf of the so-called sea-wall, which was nothing else than an embankment, gave forth no sound beneath their feet. The tide was out, and the day being still, there came to their ears only a soft, murmuring, continuous song from the little waves.

At last Brenda turned a little and looked at him in her thoughtful, analytical way, as if to read on his features an answer to some question which had arisen in her mind.

'Yes,' said Trist, smiling at her gently. 'Go on. You are about to propound one of those very deep theories which invariably suggest themselves to you in the middle of my most interesting observations.'

She laughed rather guiltily as she shook her head in denial.

'No.... I was only ... wondering.'

'Wondering--?' he repeated interrogatively, but she omitted to answer his implied question, and he did not press it.

'Do you know, Theo,' she said, after a little pause, 'that you are the greatest puzzle I have ever come across?'

'I am sorry,' he murmured, with mock humility.

'Oh, don't apologize! I dare say it is entirely unintentional. What I cannot understand is your nonchalant way of talking of certain things. For instance, nothing seems to be farther from your thoughts at this moment than the possibility of your being ... killed.'

He chipped off the head of a withered thistle with his stick before replying in a low, steady voice, very deliberately:

'And yet nothing is nearer to them.'

'That is what I cannot understand. I think women look farther ahead. They seem to have the power of realizing at the beginning what the end may be--realizing it more fully than men, I mean.'

'I doubt it!' he answered. 'I have to make two sets of arrangements, two sets of plans. One takes it for granted that I shall come through it all safely, the other goes upon the theory that I shall be killed. Each is complete in itself, independent of its companion. When I say that I will do something at a certain time, or be in a certain place, there is a "D.V." understood, hidden between the lines. Everything is of course "Deo volente," but you would not have me drag it in obtrusively.'

'No ... naturally not. But what I cannot understand is your power of facing the two possibilities--or, at the least, the latter--with apparent indifference. Is that the difference that exists between the courage of a man and that of a woman?'

'No,' he replied, looking at her very gravely, and speaking in a tone which gave weight to words of apparently small importance; 'I think not, for women face possibilities and even certainties with equal pluck. It requires as much courage to remain at home and wait as it does to go out and face the danger, for danger is never so unpleasant as the anticipation of it.'

She remembered these words afterwards, and recognised then the fuller sense he had intended them to convey. In the meantime, however, she held to her point.

'It is not exactly in that way that I mean,' she murmured slowly. 'Not from a question of personal bravery at all. I meant...'

She hesitated in embarrassment, and he hastened to remove it.

'Yes--go on.'

'I was wondering whether you ever looked at it from a religious point of view.'

He did not reply at once, and in some way the pause gave a greater gravity to his words.

'Yes, Brenda. You must not think that. Every man has his religion, and I have mine. It may consist in faith more than in works, perhaps, but it is there, nevertheless.'

'But you are half a fatalist.'

'In some degree I am, but I do not go so far as to say that nothing matters. Everything matters! We are intended to do our best, to make the best of our lives; but there is undoubtedly a scheme which is beyond our reach and far above our petty influence or endeavour.'

Brenda was no mean theologist, and she now set to work to demolish Trist's system of fatalism, while half leaning towards it herself. Somewhat to her surprise she found that his knowledge upon certain points was equal to her own, and in some cases superior; his acquaintance with Eastern lore and Oriental creeds was quite beyond her depth.

In this manner they reached the lighthouse, passed a few minutes with its solitary inmate, and set off homewards again across the marsh. Mrs. Wylie would, perhaps, have been surprised could she have overheard their conversation, which was upon very different topics to what she had expected.

Before they reached the rising ground at the edge of the moor, the sun was low over the western plain. A faint mauve-coloured haze rose from the damp earth and hovered weirdly among the pollarded oaks and rank marsh grasses. The whole scene was terribly dismal, and the distant note of a jack-snipe seemed only to add to the lifelessness of the land.

As they passed through one of the swing-gates on the sea-wall, Brenda turned her head, and in a moment the characteristic beauty of the sunset caught her attention.

'Look!' she exclaimed in little more than a whisper.

He obeyed, closing the gate, and resting his arms upon it. Thus they stood, side by side, without speaking. She in her pure upright maidenhood, with the sunset glow warming her refined face with a hue of great beauty, for her eyes were deep and pensive as woman's eyes rarely are, while her sweet lips were parted with a simple faithful wonderment which was almost childlike. He rested his arms upon the gray, moss-grown oak of the gate, and looked upon the hopeless scene with meekly contemplative eyes. His square chin was thrust forward, and the indescribable incongruity of his face was absurdly prominent. There was a great strength and a wondrous softness, a mighty courage and a meek resignation, an indefatigable energy and a philosophic calm. All these were suggested at once in this strange Napoleonic face. So may the great Buonaparte have leant his arms upon yon low wall at Saint Helena, and wondered over the utter incomprehensibility of human existence.

It was Brenda who at last broke the silence, without moving limb or muscle.

'So you are going on Monday?'

'Yes ... I must.'

Something in his voice caused her breath to come quickly.

'But you will come back?' she whispered almost pleadingly.

He moved, and laid his strong bare hand over the small gloved fingers resting on the gate.

'Yes, Brenda. I will come back!'

Then they turned and walked home in silence.

That was their farewell. They never spoke together again in confidence before he left on the Monday morning. There was, indeed, a pressure of the hand and a cheery word of parting on the little platform of Wyvenwich Station; but their two souls went out unto each other, and stood face to face in one long agonized ecstasy of parting by that old oaken gate upon the sea-wall.