He stiffened at her action, and for a single moment she wondered if she could have made a mistake. And then as suddenly he relaxed. He took the hand that rested on his arm and squeezed it hard.

And Dot knew that in some fashion, by a means which she scarcely understood, she had gained a victory.

They went on together along the mossy, winding path. A fleeting shower was falling, and the patter of it sounded on the leaves.

Nap walked with his face turned up to the raindrops, sure-footed, with the gait of a panther. He did not speak a word to the girl beside him, but his silence, did not disconcert her. There was even something in it that rea.s.sured her.

They were approaching the farther end of the wood when he abruptly spoke.

"So you think it makes no difference?"

Was there a touch of pathos in the question? She could not have said.

But she answered it swiftly, with all the confidence--and ignorance--of youth.

"Of course I do! How could it make a difference? Do you suppose--if it had been Bertie--I should have cared?"

"Bertie!" he said. "Bertie is a law-abiding citizen. And you--pardon me for saying so--are young."

"Oh, yes, I know," she admitted. "But I've got some sense all the same.

And--and--Nap, may I say something rather straight?"

The flicker of a smile shone and died in his eyes. "Don't mind me!" he said. "The role of an evangelist becomes you better than some."

"Don't!" said Dot, turning very red.

"I didn't," said Nap. "I'm only being brotherly. Hit as straight as you like."

"I was going to say," she said, taking him at his word, "that if a man is a good sort and does his duty, I don't believe one person in a million cares a rap about what his parents were. I don't indeed."

She spoke with great earnestness; it was quite obvious that she meant every word. It was Dot's straightforward way to speak from her heart.

"And I'm sure Lady Carfax doesn't either," she added.

But at that Nap set his teeth. "My child, you don't chance to know Lady Carfax as I do. Moreover, suppose the man doesn't chance to be a good sort and loathes the very word 'duty'? It brings down the house of cards rather fast, eh?"

An older woman might have been discouraged; experience would probably have sadly acquiesced. But Dot possessed neither age nor experience, and so she only lost her patience.

"Oh, but you are absurd!" she exclaimed, shaking his arm with characteristic vigour. "How can you be so disgustingly flabby? You're worse than old Squinny, who sends for Dad or me every other day to see him die. He's fearfully keen on going to heaven, but that's all he ever does to get there."

Nap broke into a brief laugh. They had reached the stile and he faced round with extended hand. "After that--good-bye!" he said. "With your permission we'll keep this encounter to ourselves. But you certainly are a rousing evangelist. When you mount the padre's pulpit I'll come and sit under it."

Dot's fingers held fast for a moment. "It'll be all right, will it?" she asked bluntly. "I mean--you'll be sensible?"

He smiled at her in a way she did not wholly understand, yet which went straight to her quick heart.

"So long, little sister!" he said. "Yes, it will be quite all right. I'll continue to c.u.mber the ground a little longer, if you call that being sensible. And if you think my chances of heaven are likely to be improved by your kind intervention, p'r'aps you'll put up a prayer now and then on my behalf to the Power that casts out devils--for we are many."

"I will, Nap, I will!" she said very earnestly.

When he was gone she mounted the stile and paused with her face to the sky. "Take care of him, please, G.o.d!" she said.

CHAPTER XVI

DELIVERANCE

Notwithstanding her largeness of heart, Mrs. Errol was something of a despot, and when once she had a.s.sumed command she was slow to relinquish it.

"I guess you must let me have my own way, dear Anne," she said, "for I've never had a daughter."

And Anne, to whom the burden of life just then was more than ordinarily heavy, was fain to submit to the kindly tyranny. Mrs. Errol had found her alone at the inn at Bramhurst on the night of the storm, and in response to her earnest request had taken her without delay straight back to her home. Very little had pa.s.sed between them on the circ.u.mstances that had resulted in this development. Scarcely had Nap's name been mentioned by either. Mrs. Errol seemed to know him too well to need an explanation.

And Anne had noted this fact with a sick heart.

It meant to her the confirmation of what had already become a practical conviction, that the man she had once dreamed that she loved was no more than a myth of her own imagination. Again and yet again she had been deceived, but her eyes were open at last finally and for all time.

No devil's craft, however wily, however convincing, could ever close them again.

Lying in her darkened room, with her stretched nerves yet quivering at every sound, she told herself over and over that she knew Nap Errol now as others knew him, as he knew himself, a man cruel, merciless, unscrupulous, in whose dark soul no germ of love had ever stirred.

Why he had ever desired her she could not determine. Possibly her very faith in him--that faith that he had so rudely shattered--had been the attraction; possibly only her aloofness, her pride, had kindled in him the determination to conquer. But that he had ever loved her, as she interpreted love, she now told herself was an utter impossibility. She even questioned in the bitterness of her disillusionment if Love, that True Romance to which she had offered sacrifice, were not also a myth, the piteous creation of a woman's fond imagination, a thing non-existent save in the realms of fancy, a dream-goal to which no man might attain and very few aspire.

All through the long day she lay alone with her problem, perpetually turning it in her mind, perpetually asking by what tragic influence she had ever been brought to fancy that this man with his violent, unrestrained nature, his fierce egoism, his murderous impulses, had ever been worthy of the halo her love had fashioned for him. No man was worthy! No man was worthy! This man least of all! Had not he himself warned her over and over again, and she had not listened? Perhaps he had not meant her to listen. Perhaps it had only been another of his devilish artifices for ensnaring her, that att.i.tude of humility, half-scoffing, half-persuasive, with which he had masked his inner vileness.

Oh, she was sick at heart that day, sick with disappointment, sick with humiliation, sick with a terrible foreboding that gave her no rest.

Slowly the hours dragged away. She had despatched her urgent message to Lucas immediately upon her arrival at the Manor, and his prompt reply had in a measure rea.s.sured her. But she knew that he was ill, and she could not drive from her mind the dread that he might fail her. How could he in his utter physical weakness hope to master the demons that tore Nap Errol's turbulent soul? And if Lucas failed her, what then? What then?

She had no city of refuge to flee unto. She and her husband were at the mercy of a murderer. For that he would keep his word she did not for a moment doubt. Nap Errol was not as other men. No second thoughts would deter him from his purpose. Unless Lucas by some miracle withheld him, no other influence would serve. He would wreak his vengeance with no hesitating hand. The fire of his savagery was an all-consuming flame, and it was too strongly kindled to be lightly quenched.

Her thoughts went back to her husband. The date of his return had not been definitely fixed. The letter had suggested that it should take place some time in the following week. She had not yet replied to the suggestion. She put her hand to her head. Actually she had forgotten!

Ought she not to send a message of warning? But in what terms could she couch it? Lucas might even yet succeed. It might be that even now he was fighting the desperate battle.

Inaction became intolerable. She had promised Mrs. Errol that she would take a long rest, but there was no rest for her. She knew that she would hear from Lucas the moment he had anything definite to report; but a new and ghastly fear now a.s.sailed her. What if Nap had not returned to Baronmead? What if he had gone direct to the asylum, there to s.n.a.t.c.h his opportunity while his fury was at its height?

The thought turned her sick. She rose, scarcely knowing what she did, and moved across the room to her escritoire. The vague idea of penning some sort of warning was in her mind, but before she reached it the conviction stabbed her that it would be too late. No warning would be of any avail.

If that had been Nap Errol's intention, by this time the deed was done.

And if that were so, she was in part guilty of her husband's murder.

Powerless, she sank upon her knees by the open window, striving painfully, piteously, vainly, to pray. But no words came to her, no prayer rose from her wrung heart. It was as though she knelt in outer darkness before a locked door.

In that hour Anne Carfax went down into that Place of Desolation which some call h.e.l.l and some the bitter school of sorrow--that place in which each soul is alone with its agony and its sin, that place where no light shines and no voice is heard, where, groping along the edge of destruction, the wanderer seeks its Maker and finds Him not, where even the Son of G.o.d Himself once lost His faith.

And in that hour she knew why her love lay wounded unto death, though not then did she recognise the revelation as a crowning mercy. She saw herself bruised and abased, humbled beyond belief. She saw her proud purity brought low, brought down to the very mire which all her life she had resolutely ignored, from the very though of which she had always withdrawn herself as from an evil miasma that bred corruption. She saw herself a sinner, sunk incredibly low, a woman who had worshipped Love indeed, but at a forbidden shrine, a woman moreover bereft of all things, who had seen her sacrifice crumble to ashes and had no more to offer.

Through her mind flashed a single sentence that had often and often set her wondering: "From him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he seemeth to have." She knew its meaning now. It scorched her inmost soul. Such an one was she. No effort had she ever made to possess her husband's love. No love had she ever offered to him; duty and submission indeed, but love--never. Her heart had been unwarmed, nor had she ever sought to kindle within it the faintest spark. She had hated him always. She knew it now. Or perhaps her feeling for him had been something too cold for even hatred. If he had made her drink the waters of bitterness, she had given him in return the icy draught of contempt.

There had been a time when his pa.s.sion for her might have turned to love, but she had let it slide. She had not wanted love. Or else--like so many fevered souls--she had yearned for the full blossom thereof, neglecting to nourish the parched seed under her feet.

She had committed sacrilege. That was why Love had come to her at last with a flaming sword, devastating her whole life, depriving her of even that which she had seemed to have. That was why she now knelt impotent before a locked door. That was why G.o.d was angry.