"Forgive me. I didn't mean it so. I am only afraid that after close intimacy with her you will find--your wife rather a poor thing by comparison. Just the 'eternal feminine' with all an artist's egoism, and more than the full complement of faults."

She spoke so simply, and with such transparent sincerity, that again he turned on her abruptly; his smouldering pa.s.sion quickened to a flame.

"Quita . . . you dear woman . . . if I could only make you realise . . . !"

But long repression, and the knowledge that was poisoning his perfect hour, constrained him to reticence. He dared not let himself go.

"I think I do realise . . . now . . ." she whispered, stirred to the depths by the repressed intensity of his tone.

"Then don't belittle yourself any more. I forbid it. You understand?"

Again he heard the low laugh on which her soul seemed to ride. Then, leaning impulsively down to him, she put her bare arms round his shoulders from behind, and rested her cheek upon his hair.

The man held his breath, and remained very still, as if fearful lest word or movement should break the spell. After five years of unloved loneliness, this first spontaneous caress from his wife, with its delicate suggestion of intimacy, seemed to break down invisible barriers and set new life coursing in his veins.

"You forbid it?" she echoed, on a tremulous note of happiness. "And you have the right to. You, and no one else in all the world! You laughed at me in the old days--do you remember?--for clutching at my independence. Well, I have had my surfeit of it now; and I am desperately tired of standing alone . . . darling."

She paused before the unfamiliar word, unconsciously accentuating its effect, and Lenox, taking her two hands in one of his own, kissed them fervently. The moment he dreaded was upon him, and in the face of her impa.s.sioned tenderness he scarcely knew how to meet it.

"You should not stand alone one minute longer, if I could have my will," he said in a repressed voice.

She lifted her head and looked at him.

"And why can't you have your will? What are we going to do about it, Eldred?"

"Nothing in a hurry," he answered slowly. "We paid too dearly for that last time."

"But, _mon cher_ . . . we have waited five whole years."

"That is just the difficulty. Five years of overwork and bitterness of spirit are not to be wiped out in a single hour; even such an hour as this. The man you married had not gone through the fire, and been badly burned in the process."

He paused. The irony of their reversed positions stung him to the quick, and she sat watching his face. The pallor of moonlight intensified its ruggedness, its deep indentations of cheek and brow.

She began to be aware that the dropped st.i.tches of life cannot always be picked up again at will; that there is no tyrant more pitiless than the Past; and a vague dread took hold of her, sealing her lips.

"We have got to look facts in the face to-night," Lenox went on with the doggedness of his race. "I'm a poor hand at discussing myself.

It's an unprofitable subject. But I can't let you rush headlong into a reunion that may prove disastrous . . . for you. To-night's revelation has astounded me. It isn't easy to get one's bearings all at once; but before we take any further irretrievable step I am bound, in conscience, to tell you how the land lies. When you--repudiated me, I accepted your decision as final. I never dreamed of your coming back; and I acted accordingly. I took to work as I might have taken to drink, if I had been made that way; with the natural result that I . . . smoked a great deal too much, and slept too little. I saw no earthly reason to husband my strength, or my life; and in consequence, I have gained something of a reputation for tackling dangerous and difficult jobs. There's plenty more work of the kind ahead, with the forward policy in full swing; and one can't go back on all that has been done. You see that, don't you?"

"Yes. But couldn't I ever go with you?"

He smiled. "I believe you have grit enough! But it would be unheard of. Besides . . . there is another trouble, and a very serious one, blocking the way."

"You will tell me what it is?"

He did not answer at once. To blacken himself deliberately in the eyes of the woman he loves is no light ordeal for a man; and Lenox shrank from it with the peculiar sensitiveness of a nature at once humble and proud; the more so since to-night had brought home to him the heart-breaking truth that in "the devil's wedlock of evil and pain" one can never suffer alone.

But a great love had been given him, and a force stronger than his will impelled him to speak truth, even at the cost of losing it.

"Yes . . . I will tell you what it is," he said slowly, looking straight before him. "You have the right to know."

And in a few blunt words, unsoftened by excuse or justification, he told her, not the fact only, but his dread of its far-reaching effect.

"And it seems plain as daylight to me," he added bitterly, "that a man so cursed has no right to multiply misery by taking a woman into his life. That was the real reason why I kept clear of you latterly, and tried to thank G.o.d that you did not care."

He could not trust himself to look round at her face, but he felt her lean close to him again. For the un.o.btrusive strength of the man stood revealed in his confession; and it is woman's second nature to admire strength.

"Eldred, . . . my husband," she breathed, her voice breaking on the word. "How cruelly you must have suffered! And it was all _my_ fault."

There spoke the woman!--intent upon the individual; blind--wilfully or otherwise--to the larger issues involved.

"It was _not_ your fault," he answered with smothered vehemence. "And in any case, don't you see, it's no question of blame, but of consequences. And we dare not shut our eyes to them. For this business of marriage is a complicated affair. What's more, I believe the wrench of immediate separation, with the comparative freedom it involves, would come less hard on you in the long-run, than actual marriage with a man of my stamp.--Oh, you would find me a sorry bargain all round, I a.s.sure you," he concluded with a short, hard laugh. "And you will do well to think twice before you burn your boats for me!"

She slid lower down the slope, and laid one hand on his knee.

"I don't choose to think twice; and I _have_ burnt my boats as it is!

Besides . . . you will be strong to conquer your trouble, now you know that all my happiness depends upon it." She paused for an appreciable moment. "We seem to have changed places since that long-ago morning, Eldred. It is I who want--to begin now--on any terms."

He put out his arm, and drew her very close to him.

"f.e.c.kless as ever!" he chided without severity. "You dismissed me on an impulse; and now you would take me back again with the same stupendous disregard for results. It is very evident you need some one to look after you, and teach you common-sense."

"I have told you already _who_ it is that I need. Isn't that enough?"

The thrill in her low tone set all the man in him on fire. The influence of the hour was strong upon him.

"My G.o.d!" he muttered under his breath. "How can mere flesh and blood hold out against you?"

"Must you hold out against me--even after what I said?"

She nestled nearer, and stray tendrils of hair softly brushed his cheek. His lips whitened, but he set them close. Her touch, the perfume of her pa.s.sion, had their exalting effect on him. Her weakness challenged his strength.

"Yes; I must," he answered quietly. "For your sake, my dear, and for my own self-respect. I am fighting this thing, you understand, with every weapon at my command. And until I see my way clear out on the other side, I will not--I dare not--take you back. Now come. It is high time you were asleep. We can't stay out here together all night."

"We have every right to . . . if we choose," she murmured, still rebellious.

"You forget, I am to teach you common-sense! There is to-morrow to be thought of, and your long ride back to Dalhousie."

A small shiver ran through her.

"I am afraid of to-morrow. I shall wake up and feel as if all this had been a dream. When shall I see you again . . . alone?"

"I will come up and call on you the day after!" he said, a.s.suming a deliberate lightness in sheer self-defence. "Don't let me find Garth there, though; or I warn you I shall not be accountable for my behaviour!"

He rose on the words, and lifted her to her feet. They descended the slope in silence, walking a little apart, as if accentuating the fact that their reunion in this June night of enchantment and faint stars was an incomplete thing after all.

The moon was near her zenith; and, outside the formless dark of the forest, the great glade held her radiance as a goblet holds wine. Past the half-hidden temple of the holy lake they moved leisurely towards the cl.u.s.ter of tents that showed like a pallid excrescence at the forest's edge. To-night again, as on that earlier unforgettable day, they seemed the only living beings in a world of shadows and folded wings; and the decree of separation, coming at such a moment, put a severe strain on their self-control.

Fifty feet from Quita's tent they stood still.

She held out her hands. He pressed them closely between his own, that were strangely cold, and lifted them to his lips. Then she swayed forward unsteadily; and in an instant her face was hidden against his shoulder, her whole frame shaken with soundless sobs.