CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

"WHAT HAVE I DONE?"

There was a moment's silence, a moment which seemed like an hour. Then Stanor spoke--

"Thank you, Pixie!"

He put his arms round her, made as if to kiss her cheek, but the small hands held him off with unexpected strength.

"Not yet! Not yet! You haven't answered my question!"

"What question?"

"_If you want me_?" The grey eyes were very near his own. They seemed to search into his very soul. "_Do_ you want me, Stanor?"

"Pixie, what a question! You ... you _know_ the answer."

"I think I do." She nodded her head with a grave certainty. "I'm sure I do. ... You _don't_ want me, Stanor!"

He started at that, and his hands relaxed their hold. The dull red flush mounted once more to his forehead, his lips twitched, and twitched again. The man was suffering, and the marks of his pain were plain to read.

"Why ... should you say that? Pixie, what is it? I explained about that extra six months. ... You said you understood. It was part of the agreement that we were not to write except on occasions. Were my letters wrong? Didn't they please you? I was never a good hand at letter-writing. Was that it? What was it? What have I done, Pixie, to make you doubt me?"

"I don't think," said Pixie dreamily, "you have done anything." It seemed for a moment as if she had nothing more to say, then suddenly she asked another question: "Stanor! That day in Liverpool, on the landing-stage, did you notice a girl standing near me--a girl with a fur cap?"

"No, Pixie. I noticed only one girl--yourself!"

"She was parting from a man--her lover or husband--who was leaning over the rail and looking down at her. Stanor ... they ... _cared_! They loved each other. ... All these years I have had their faces in my heart. I looked at them, and I looked at you, and I understood the difference!"

"I was miserable enough, Pixie. All men do not show their feelings in the same way."

"I knew you were sorry. I was sorry, too. ... I'm not blaming you.

I've no right to blame you. I have waited for you, and you've come back. You have asked me to marry you. Stanor!" She clasped his arms with her hands, her eyes intently gazing into his. "I'll tell you the truth about myself.--I was a child when you went away. I didn't know how to love. Now I do! If you love me, Stanor, with your whole heart and soul, more than any one in the world, more than _anything_ in the world, then marry me, dear, and I'll make you happy! If you don't ...

if there is any doubt in your mind, if there is some one else who has grown nearer to you while you've been away--I shouldn't be angry, Stanor, only," her voice shook, a quiver pa.s.sed over the upturned face, "please tell me _now_! Be honest! It's for all our lives, remember.

... We've no right to spoil our lives. G.o.d gave them to us; we're responsible to Him. _It will_ spoil them, Stanor, if there's not real, real love between us. Now tell me ... look in my eyes and tell me, Stanor ... _do_ you want me?"

But he could not face her. He wrenched himself free of her grasp, turned towards the mantelpiece, and with a groan buried his face in his hands.

"Pixie, you ... you shame me ... you cover me with shame! I ought to have known that I could not deceive you. ... You are not the sort to be deceived. ... It's worse than you think. ... When the temptation came, I could have kept out of the way ... she wanted me to keep away, but I wouldn't do it. I followed her wherever she went--I--you'd better know the whole truth, and then you'll understand the kind of fellow I am.

It's not my fault that I wasn't married months ago, that you didn't read it in the papers without a word of preparation! That's what I wanted ... what I proposed. It was she who refused. It is her doing that I _am_ here to-day. She would have nothing to say to me till I had asked you first.--I wanted to stay on in America, settle down there, and keep out of the way--"

He had spoken with his face hidden; now, as he finished speaking, he remained in the same position, and not a sound came to his ears but the ticking of the clock in the corner. He might have been alone in the room; a miserable conviction seized him that he _was_ alone, that between himself and the girl by his side there had arisen an impenetrable wall.

As for Pixie she had promised not to be angry, but it appeared to her at that moment that she had never before known what anger meant. It burned within her--a flame of indignation and wounded faith, a throwing back on herself of all the arduous mental battles of the last few days. Never, even to herself, had Pixie acknowledged that she had learned to love Stephen Glynn. That it hurt her to know of his love for her; hurt intolerably to see him depart, were truths which could not be ignored, but while Stanor lived and was faithful it was impossible even to contemplate love for another man. Pixie had enough knowledge of her own nature to realise that she could be happy in giving Stanor a happiness which he could only gain through her. It was as natural to her to be happy as for a flower to lift its face in the sun, but for both the sun was needed. A more introspective soul would have realised that there were degrees in happiness, and that she would be missing the best; Pixie with characteristic simplicity accepted what seemed to her the right step, and shut her mind against vain regrets.

But--Stanor did not want her. He was _not_ faithful. He had had so little consideration for her feelings that he would have let her read of his marriage in a public print. He had appeared now only at the command of another.

"I think," said Pixie deeply, "you are a cowardly man. I am sorry for the girl you are going to marry. She seems to have a conscience, but it would have been kinder of her if she had made you tell me the truth without first trying to spoil my life. I suppose you _would_ have married me if I had said 'yes,' or was it only a form which you never intended to keep?"

"You are hard on me, Pixie, but I deserve it. I have no excuses to make. My only comfort is that I have not ruined your happiness. Like you, I have learnt my lesson, and I can see one thing clearly: You don't love me, Pixie!"

"No, I don't love you, but I have kept myself for you. I have closed my heart to every other thought. I _would_ have loved you if you had needed me. Nothing, nothing in the world could have made me deceive you!"

"I knew it! We both knew it! Honor said--"

"_Honor_!" Pixie's cry rang sharp. "Is it Honor? Honor Ward?"

Somehow the knowledge seemed an additional hurt; she sat down on a chair and clasped her cold hands. The brain flashed back memories of occasions dating back to the very beginning of Stanor's life in America, when his name and Honor's had been coupled together. "Honor Ward and I." "Stanor Vaughan and I." ... Memories of an earlier occasion still when Honor had said with _empress.e.m.e.nt_. "You can trust me, Pixie!"

Even then, had she foreseen what might happen--even then, with her knowledge of her own character and Stanor's, seen danger ahead? Well, Honor _had_ been loyal! From Stanor's manner, even more than his words, it was obvious that had there been no impediment in the way as regards her own wishes, yet she had refused him, had sent him home to keep his troth. After that first sharp moment Pixie had no coldness in her heart towards Honor Ward.

Stanor was talking, moving restlessly to and fro, telling the story of the past years in jerky, disconnected sentences, blaming himself, exonerating Honor. The sound of his words penetrated to Pixie's brain, but not the sense. It seemed to her useless to listen; there was nothing more to be said.

Suddenly she rose from her seat with an air of decision.

"I think you had better go. Bridgie, my sister--Mrs Victor--is here.

I would rather you didn't see her. She will be angry; they will all be angry. They are fond of me, you see; and they will think I have been humiliated. I am _not_ humiliated! No one can humiliate me but myself; but just at first they won't be reasonable. ... Will you please go?"

"Pixie, don't think about me ... think of yourself! I will leave it to you to tell your own story.--I have asked you to marry me, and you have refused. ... Tell them that ... tell them that _you_ refused, that it was _your_ doing, not mine--"

The glance of the grey eyes gave him a hot tingling of shame.

"You don't understand," said Pixie softly. "I am _proud_ of being the faithful one! You don't understand..." She laid her hand on the door, but Stanor stopped her with another question--

"And--Honor? What shall I say to Honor? She thinks so much of you.

She'll do nothing without your consent. Some day when she comes to London ... will you ... see her, Pixie?"

Pixie shook her head.

"It would hurt us both, and do no good. Give her my love. As for you-- I can't give her what is not mine. ... You belong to _her_, so there's nothing more to be said. ... I hope you will make her happy."

"I will--I will! At this moment I seem to you an unmitigated scoundrel, but things will be different. ... We shall settle in America. I will help her with her work. We'll work together. I'd give my life for her ... I _will_ give it! I'll make amends..." He stood still, waiting as if there were still more to be said. "My uncle will be angry, but it is his doing. If it had not been for him, we should have been married years ago. He shouldn't blame me for what he has brought about. His is the blame. If I see him--_when_ I see him--can I say anything from you?"

"Tell him," said Pixie clearly, "that I am grateful to him. _His is the praise_!"

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

HONOR'S LETTER.

Bridgie _was_ angry. It was rarely indeed that her placid nature was roused to wrath, but she did the thing thoroughly when she was about it.

In a flow of eloquence, worthy of Esmeralda herself, she revived incidents in Pixie's life, dating from babyhood onwards, to prove to the chairs and tables, and any odd pieces of furniture which might happen to be listening, the blameless and beautiful character of the maid who had even been spurned ("spurned" was the word used) by a recreant unworthy the name of scoundrel. She dived into the past, and pictured the feelings of those past and gone; she projected herself into the future, and bequeathed a Corsican legacy of revenge. She lavished blame on Joan, Geoffrey, herself, Jack and Sylvia, Pat and Miles, even the beloved d.i.c.k himself, and refused to hear a word in Honor's defence.

The only person who came unscathed through the ordeal was Stephen Glynn, whom, it would appear, had absorbed in himself the wisdom which every one else had so shamefully lacked.

When Bridgie ended Pat began. The news had had an unexpected effect, in rousing the invalid and restoring him to a feeling of health more powerfully than a hundred tonics could have done. For the first time for weeks past he forgot himself and his woes, and behold a new man, with a strength and vitality astounding to witness. Pat announced his intention of sallying forth and thrashing the beggar forthwith; he dealt bitterly with the squeamishness of the English law with regard to duels, declared in the same breath that he could never have believed in the possibility of such behaviour, and that he had prophesied it from the first. He adjured Pixie repeatedly, and with unction, to "Buck up!" and when the poor girl protested valiantly that she _was_ bucking, immediately adjured her to be honest, for pity's sake, and "let herself go!"

An ordinary person would have found such a form of comfort far from soothing, but Pixie was an O'Shaughnessy herself, and it _did_ soothe her. She understood that Bridgie and Pat were relieving themselves by saying all that they felt, _more_ than they felt, and that presently the storm would pa.s.s and the sun shine again. By to-morrow all bitterness would have pa.s.sed. She sat in her chair and submitted meekly to be lectured and cajoled, wrapped in a shawl, provided with a footstool, ordered to bed, supplied with smelling-salts, and even--tentatively-- with sal-volatile, but she made no attempt to still the storm. She knew that it would be useless!

Finally Pat stumped off to his bedroom, to draft a rough copy of a letter intended to be the most scathing communication which had ever pa.s.sed through the post; and Bridgie, very white and shaken, seated herself on a chair by her sister's side.