And then he found his voice.

"Oh! don't let us play with realities," he said. "I could not speak at first because, well! because I am not good at words. You must have realized that by this time; and you must have realized something else, Camilla, and that is that everything that concerns you is dear to me, so dear that I tremble at the thought that I am still outside your life." He left the fire and went nearer to her. "I came here to-day,"

he said, "because I found that I could not go through another twenty-four hours without seeing you. You mean so much to me. I had no idea whether you would care for me to come; indeed, the last time I saw you I tormented myself by imagining that you found me tedious, and dull, that you wanted to have no more to do with me. Still I had to come."

Camilla gave a sharp sigh and turned round, her face was blurred with tears, she hardly looked young or pretty.

"I know what you are going to say," she said, "I know what you are going to ask me, but I am afraid to listen."

"Afraid?" he said, and his brows met; "afraid of what?"

"Oh, you don't know me," said Camilla, with a broken sound in her voice; "you think me pretty, you like me. Perhaps I fascinate you, but you don't know me. I ... I am not going to refuse to be your wife," she said, she spoke with her teeth half closed; "but I don't want any false pretences, I don't want you to imagine things about me that do not exist. I am full of faults, I am not a bit good. You don't know," she opened her eyes for a minute, and looked at him, "you don't know how un-good I am, and you ... you are so good. You will want to make me like yourself."

"G.o.d forbid," said Rupert Haverford.

He was so near to her now that he almost touched her. She was trembling with excitement.

"Oh! I don't mean that you would do it unkindly, only that you look at things differently. I am so afraid you will be disappointed in me, but ..." the tears were running down her cheeks, "I know one thing about you. I know that you are true, and that if you give your word it will be your bond." Her lips quivered. "The children," she said brokenly; and then she was lying with her face pressed down on his breast, and his arms were folded about her.

What he said she hardly heard, she was only conscious in that moment of a great, a wonderful relief. It was as though some gnawing pain that had fretted into her very soul had been lulled; that a beautiful rest had followed on the pain.

She closed her eyes, and she nestled nearer to him. Then, little by little, she came back to the reality, and her heart leapt in her throat, she tried to free herself, but those strong arms held her tightly. Some one was kissing her brow, and close beside her she could feel the quick beating of a strong heart.

Once she had said to herself, "He will love me too much."

And now she had accepted this love; she had bartered her freedom for it....

The thought of the bondage burned her, yet it had come about so naturally.

"I did not seek him," she said to herself; "he came, he would have come a little later, but he came now ... just when I needed some one ...

something...."

How his heart beat!... How strong he was! When he kissed her brow and hair and eyes she could feel his lips quiver.

He would love her too much! He did not ask her to kiss him in return.

He was so good ... so generous! He had given her back her children. For that she could have knelt at his feet. But she almost prayed that he would not ask for her kisses ... not yet ... not yet....

CHAPTER X

On the following day the children and their governess went down to Yelverton. There was so much excitement and bustle in getting away that Caroline had little time to realize that she was tired. She saw nothing of Mrs. Lancing, who was in her room.

The children were told to keep very quiet because mother had a bad headache.

It was Dennis who had communicated the news to Caroline that she was to take Betty and Baby down to Mrs. Brenton's delightful country house by an early afternoon train.

It seemed to the girl that Dennis was in a great state of excitement about something. Also it was evident that the gloom that had appeared to settle so definitely on the little house the day before had been lifted.

When they were ready to go, the children crept into their mother's room to say "good-bye," but Caroline remained outside.

Betty brought out a message.

"Mother says we are to be as good as we know how, and to do everything we are telled."

It was very delightful to be welcomed by Mrs. Brenton so cordially.

Betty had dilated with enthusiasm on the joys that awaited them at Yelverton, and Caroline quickly realized that the child had exaggerated nothing.

The little people were installed in a wing of the house where there were any number of empty rooms and long pa.s.sages just made to be danced in and to echo with happy voices--a veritable playground; and Agnes Brenton, who had studied the art of making people comfortable all her life, took the children's governess into her first consideration.

There were no guests when they arrived, though plenty were expected for Christmas.

The mere thought of having her house full, and of arranging all sorts of treats for the children, made Mrs. Brenton quite happy.

"I am going to keep you tremendously busy," she said to Caroline; "we must furbish up this old house. This is the first year that Camilla has let me have the children with me for Christmas. But I intend to make a bargain with her now. I shall insist that she sends them here as much as possible. I know Rupert Haverford will join forces with me in this.

I suppose they will be married very soon."

Caroline looked so surprised that Mrs. Brenton laughed.

"Do you mean to tell me you have not heard the great news? It is known now to everybody," she said, "therefore I am not betraying confidences.

I am so delighted about it, for I confess I have been hoping for this for a long time past. You know how dear Camilla is to me, and I like him immensely. Don't you?" Then Mrs. Brenton laughed. "Oh, I forgot you don't know him! It is funny that you never came across him when you were with his mother!"

"He used to go very seldom to see Mrs. Baynhurst," Caroline answered.

She spoke slowly, as if her thoughts were occupied.

The engagement between Mrs. Lancing and Rupert Haverford was of course largely discussed at Yelverton, and was the favourite item of gossip elsewhere for the moment. As Camilla had prophesied, the world gave nearly all its congratulations to Haverford's betrothed. Mrs. Lancing was very delightful, very pretty--in every way a most charming woman; but there are any amount of charming and delightful and pretty women in the world, and rich men (rich, at least, in the great way that Haverford was) are so scarce.

Caroline was sharply startled when she heard that Mrs. Lancing was pledged to marry Rupert Haverford.

There was a suggestion of anxiety in the way her thoughts worked about the other woman.

Camilla had ceased utterly to be a stranger to her. If there had been nothing else to bind them together, that scene in the silence of the night would have put them into very close touch with one another.

Moreover, it was natural that the girl should sit and weave stories to herself out of the material that lay to her hands.

There was everything about Camilla Lancing to excite the imagination, to stimulate the appet.i.te for romance.

Agnes Brenton rejoiced frankly over the enormous material satisfaction this engagement signified, and Caroline joined with her in this; but she was unlike Mrs. Brenton in one respect, for whereas the older woman saw nothing but a certainty of happiness in this marriage, Caroline, young, unworldly as she was, felt from the very first that there was in this prospective union a doubtful element; that difficulties would most certainly present themselves--great difficulties, every whit as great, as black, and as heart shadowing as any that had belonged to Camilla in the past.

She needed very little now to convince herself that Haverford would meet those difficulties in a firm, a straightforward way. But what about the woman?

Although she had only seen him twice, Caroline had been instantly impressed with the restraint, even the coldness of Haverford's manner.

To her he seemed to be the very last man in the world who would be able to a.s.similate himself with Camilla's effervescent nature. Surely her fanciful inconsequence, her pretty conceits, her irresponsible ways, would never wed with his seriousness and restraint, his peculiar gravity?

That spell of definite heart anguish, witnessed and shared by herself, charged all memory now of the children's mother with pathos. She could not help a.s.sociating it with what had occurred.