"I'm sorry. But if he were ten times your brother, I'd say the same.

He had no business to try and set you against me like that." He caught her unresisting hands now, and held them fast.

"You take Michael's word against mine . . is that so?" he asked, a dull flush rising in his face; and he tried to look into her eyes. But she would not have it.

"Oh, my dear, can't you see it's not," she said, so low that he scarcely heard her. "It's . . your own actions, contradicting your own words, that make me feel he must be right."

Lenox stood aghast at this new and unanswerable aspect of the case; at the knowledge that, in respect of practical proof to the contrary, his hands were tied.

"Good G.o.d! what can a man do to convince you?" he demanded on a note of smothered pa.s.sion. "Quita . . my very wife, look me in the eyes, and answer me straight. Do you honestly believe that I have been insulting you with mere lip-service all this while?"

He stood before her in mingled dignity and humility, trying to master himself, to find some admissible outlet for the tumult of feeling that was undermining the foundations of his will. But she did not answer at once; nor did she look up.

"Think how I welcomed you a week ago," he urged.

"I do think of it. But . . since then . . ." She hesitated; and a slow wave of colour crimsoned her neck and face, even to her forehead.

"I . . I don't know what to believe," she added very low.

The words struck away his last defences, and he caught her in his arms; straining her to him, and kissing her almost roughly on lips and eyes and throat. She submitted at first, in sheer amazement and half-frightened joy at having roused him thus. Then she tried to free herself; but he held her close, and hard.

"Do you believe now," he asked, his lips at her ear, "that I want you . . that I love you . . with every part of me, heart, and mind, and body?"

For all answer she leaned her head against him with a broken sob.

"Oh, Eldred," she rebuked him through her tears. "I never knew you could behave . . like that!"

"No more did I," he answered bluntly. "Forgive me, darling, if you can. I was a brute to lose control of myself. But you pushed me too far. There are things no man of human pa.s.sions can put up with; and if you are going to begin by doubting my sincerity, all hope of real union between us is at an end."

"Dear love, I promise I'll never doubt it again," she whispered fervently. "I'll go away, and stay away . . without any fuss, if only I can see things straight and clear; if only you won't quite shut me out from the best part of yourself."

"I've no notion of shutting you out from any part of myself, you precious woman. But the habit of half a lifetime is not easy to break through; and I suppose that when two people marry they have to learn one another bit by bit, like a new language; except in such a rare case as the Desmonds, where love and understanding are not two things, but one, like the man and woman themselves. There . . did you ever guess I had thought all that about marriage!"

She laughed contentedly.

"No. How could I? And it's your thoughts I want, Eldred;--the hidden you, that belongs to no one but me."

"Do you, though? It sounds rather wholesale! But I'll do my best."

"Come over and sit on the steps; and I'll try to tell you just how matters stand, and how I feel about it all."

He led her back to the verandah, and establishing her on the topmost step, seated himself lower down, one arm pa.s.sed behind her, his left hand covering hers that lay folded in her lap. Quita, looking down upon it in a flutter of happiness, noted and approved it as an epitome of the man; large, without clumsiness, nervous and full of character.

Then he told her, simply and straightly, a part of what he had told Desmond; and more, that was for herself alone. Through all he said, and left unsaid, Quita felt the force of his ascetic personality, of a strong man, stern with himself and his own pa.s.sion; and, womanlike, thrilled at thought of her dominion over him; her power to set him vibrating by a word, a look, a touch. Yet she listened without movement or interruption; for the which he blessed her in his heart.

"I suppose there are numbers of men who would take . . what I refuse without a twinge of conscience," he said finally. "But the fact that I should be acting dead against the right, as I see it, would make capitulation wrong for me, . . if not for them. Besides, one dare not trifle with an inherited evil. One's only chance lies in taking strong measures on the spot. You understand?"

"Yes, I understand . . now; though I didn't at first. And I wouldn't have you different by one hair's-breadth, though your strength and single-mindedness does make things harder for both of us."

He pressed her hands.

"It's worth all I've been through, and more, to hear you say that.

Only remember, la.s.s, it's not simply a question of principles that may seem to you high-flown, but of bedrock facts. I don't want to enlarge on the ugly or painful side of a very ugly subject; but I do want you to understand that not only my career, but our whole future happiness depends upon my crushing out this habit before it degenerates to a craving; before my conscience gets blunted, my will-power undermined.

Opium is worse than drink in both respects: and if things ever reached such a pa.s.s--which G.o.d forbid--it would mean losing my commission; just going under, like dozens of ill-fated chaps, and sinking in the scale: or at best sc.r.a.ping along in the army by means of constant subterfuges, at the hourly risk of discovery and disgrace. A nice sort of life for you, my proud little woman. And for----" he broke off short.

She tried to speak, but tears were clutching at her throat; and after a moment's pause, he went on: "There is a great black something deep down in me, Quita, that rises up now and then, like a spiritual fog, and blots all the light and colour out of life. This, and the dread of those hideous possibilities I spoke of, made me feel, a month ago, as if it might be better for you to be left in comparative freedom, than chained to a man with a devil inside him. But your coming down here has put all that out of the question."

"Thank G.o.d I came, then."

"Yes. Thank G.o.d you came," he echoed fervently. "Though I was afraid you didn't quite realise . . ."

"Dear, I did. More than you imagine. But I wanted . . to help you in spite of yourself; and I hoped we could fight it out together."

He shook his head.

"Don't think me brutal, Quita, but a man's got to fight out this sort of thing alone with his own soul . . and G.o.d. You can only help just by . . loving me, and believing that I shall pull through. Dear old Desmond has done about as much for me as one human being seems permitted to do for another in big contingencies; and, by the way, he said rather a charming thing to-night."

"He has a gift for that. What was it?"

"He said I won the great talisman that put failure out the question."

She laughed again, softly.

"Oh, how I love that man, and his incurable idealism!"

"You do? You lawless young woman! How many more?"

"Only one more . . I think!"

And freeing her left hand she slipped it round his head, that was on a level with her shoulder, drew it close against her, and ran her fingers lightly through his thick hair.

"I'm going to weave a magic over your head to make you sleep, and reward you for giving up the opium, you poor, poor darling."

And with a sigh Lenox yielded himself to the ecstasy of her touch.

Their talk grew fitful, and fragmentary; intimate lover's talk, interspersed with luminous pauses, that were but hidden channels of speech; till Quita felt the walls within walls giving way under her 'magic,' and knew that she had reached the shy, inmost heart of the man at last. That enchanted hour lifted them beyond the ardours of pa.s.sion, to the mastery of spirit; to a pa.s.sing revelation of the eternal beauty underlying earth's tragedies and complexities: and both were conscious of an exalted strength.

The harsh clanging of the police gong, twelve times repeated, brought them back to the iron facts of life. With a murmur of reluctance they rose; and Lenox escorted his wife to the door of her room.

"Shall I let down your 'chick' for you?" he asked.

"Please."

He untied the strings that held it up. Then, as the curtain fell between them and the lamplit room, Quita turned, and with a gesture all tenderness, laid both arms round his neck.

"I shall never forget to-night, Eldred," she whispered, "even if we live to be cross prosaic old people together. You may go to the other end of the world, now, and stay there as long as you like! I am sure of you; and I feel in every fibre of me that we are going to win through in the end."

CHAPTER XXV.