He noticed the movement. Of late she had always averted her face when he came near her. He wished that he could see her more plainly, but she was wrapped in shadow, and the room was almost dark.

He asked after her health as usual, and whether Lettice had been and gone. Then silence fell between them, but he felt that Nan was looking at him intently, and he did not dare to turn away.

"Sydney," she said at last. "Will you come here? Close to me. I want to say something----"

"Yes, Nan?"

He bent down over her, with something like a new hope in his heart. What was she going to say to him?

"Sydney--will you take me to Switzerland?"

"Certainly." Was that all? "When shall we go?"

"When can you leave London?"

"To-morrow. Any time."

"You really would give up all your engagements, all your prospects, for me?"

"Willingly, Nan."

"I begin to believe," she said, softly, "that you do care for me--a little."

"Nan! Oh, Nan, have you doubted it?"

Her hand stole gently into his; she drew him down beside her.

"Dear Sydney, come, here. Put your arm right round me--so. Now I can speak. I want to tell you something--many things. It is Lettice that has made me think I ought to say all this. Do you know, I have felt for a long, long time as if you had killed me--killed the best part of me, I mean--the soul that loved you, the belief in all that was good and true.

That is why I have been so miserable. I did not know how to bear it. I thought that I did not love you; but I have loved you all the time; and now--now----"

"Now?" said Sydney. She felt that the arm on which she leaned was trembling like a leaf.

"Now I could love you better than ever--if I knew one thing--if I dared ask----"

"You may ask what you like," he said, in a husky voice.

"It is not such a very great thing," she said, simply; "it is only what you yourself think about the past: whether you think with me that it is something to be sorry about, or something to be justified. I feel as if I could forget it if I knew that you were sorry; and if you justified it--as some men would do--oh, I should never reproach you, Sydney, but I would much rather die!"

There was a silence. His head was on the cushion beside her, but his face was hidden, and she could gather only from his loud, quick breathing that he was deeply moved. But it was some time before he spoke. "I don't try to justify myself," he said, at last. "I was wrong--I know it well enough--and--well if you must have me say it--G.o.d knows that I am--sorry."

"Ah," she said, "that is all I wanted you to say. Oh Sydney, my darling, can anything now but death come between you and me?"

And she drew his head down upon her bosom and let it rest there, dearer in the silent shame that bowed it before her than in the heyday of its pride.

So they were reconciled, and the past sin and sorrow were slowly blotted out in waters of repentance. Before the world, Sydney Campion is still the gay, confident, successful man that he has always been--a man who does not make many friends, and who has, or appears to have, an overweening belief in his own powers. But there is a softer strain in him as well. Within his heart there is a chamber held sacred from the busy world in which he moves: and here a woman is enshrined, with all due observance, with lights burning and flowers blooming, as his patron saint. It is Nan who presides here, who knows the inmost recesses of his thought, who has gauged the extent of his failures and weakness as well as his success, who is conscious of the strength of his regrets as well as the burdensome weight of a dead sin. And in her, therefore, he puts the trust which we can only put in those who know all sides of us, the worst side even as the best: on her he has even come to lean with that sense of uttermost dependence, that feeling of repose, which is given to us only in the presence of a love that is more than half divine.

CHAPTER XLI.

A FREE PARDON.

St. James' Hall was packed from end to end one summer afternoon by an eager mob of music lovers--or, at least, of those who counted themselves as such. The last Philharmonic Concert of the season had been announced; and as one of its items was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the crowd was, as usual on such an occasion, a great and enthusiastic one.

Even the dark little gallery near the roof, fronting the orchestra, was well filled, for there are music lovers (mostly those whose purse is lean) who declare that, though the shilling gallery is hot, and close, and dark, there is in all the room no better place for hearing the great waves of sound rolled out by the orchestra from the Master's mighty scores. And it was for this reason that Lettice Campion came up the narrow stairs that afternoon at ten minutes to three, and found, as she might have expected, that only a few seats against the wall remained empty. Into the nearest of these she dropped, rather exhausted by her climb and the haste that she had made; and then she noticed, as her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, that some one beside her had half turned round, and was looking earnestly into her face.

"Alan!"

The color sprang into Lettice's face: the roll of music that she carried dropped from her lap as she held out her hand. Alan returned her greeting, and then dived for her music, thus giving her a moment in which to recover her self-possession. When he came up again, she was still a little flushed, but she was smiling tranquilly.

"I am so glad to see you," she said simply.

"I don't know what impelled me to come this afternoon. I never thought that I should have this happiness." Then in a lower tone, "You don't mind my being here? You don't want me to go away?"

"No, no, why should I? It does not matter--here."

They had not seen each other at all for weeks, and had met only two or three times, and then for a few minutes only, since Alan left Bute Lodge in December. They corresponded freely and frankly, but Lettice had decreed, in spite of some murmurs from Alan, that they should not meet.

Scandal had been busy with her name, and, until Alan obtained his divorce, it seemed better to her to live a very retired life, seeing almost n.o.body, and especially guarding herself against accusations of any close a.s.sociation with Alan Walcott.

"I had just posted a letter to you before I came out," he said. They were at the end of the last row of seats and could talk, before the music began, without any fear of being overheard. "It is as I expected, Lettice. There are great difficulties in our way."

She looked an interrogation.

"The length of time that has elapsed is an obstacle. We cannot find any proof of worse things than drunkenness and brawling during the last year or two. And of the events before that time, when I know that she was untrue to me, we scarcely see how to obtain absolute proof. You must forgive me for mentioning these things to you, but I am obliged."

"Yes, and there is no reason why you should not tell me everything," she said, turning her quiet eyes upon him with a look of such perfect trust that the tumult in Alan's mind was suddenly stilled. "But you knew that there would be difficulties. Is there anything else?"

"I hardly know how to tell you. She has done what I half expected her to do--she has brought a counter charge against me--against----"

"Ah, I understand. All the more, reason, Alan, why we should fight it out."

"My love," he said, in the lowest possible tone that could reach her ears, "if you knew how it grieves me that you should suffer!"

"But I am suffering with you," she answered tenderly; "and don't you think that I would rather do that than see you bear your suffering alone?"

Here the first notes of the orchestra fell upon their ear, and the conversation had to cease. For the next hour or so they had scarcely time to do more than interchange a word or two, but they sat side by side rapt in a strange content. The music filled their veins with intoxicating delight; it was of a kind that Lettice rejoiced in exceedingly, and that Alan loved without quite knowing why. The Tannhauser Overture, the Walkuren-Ritt, two of Schubert's loveliest songs, and the less exciting but more easily comprehensible productions of an earlier cla.s.sical composer, were the chief items of the first part of the concert. Then came an interval, after which the rest of the afternoon would be devoted to the Choral Symphony. But during this interval Alan hastened to make the most of his opportunity.

"We shall have a bitter time," he murmured in her ear, feeling, nevertheless, that nothing was bitter which would bring him eventually to her side.

She smiled a little. "Leave it alone then," she said, half mockingly.

"Go your own way and be at peace."

"Lettice! I can never be at peace now without you."

"Is not that very unreasonable of you?" she asked, speaking lightly because she felt so deeply. The joy of his presence was almost oppressive. She had longed for it so often, and it had come to her for these two short hours so unexpectedly, that it nearly overwhelmed her.