"Ah, but I do not understand!" she said. "He is very stern and very quiet, but he is a just man. I have never known him to find fault where there was none."

"There are faults enough in my life," Saton answered. "I have never denied it. But I have had to fight with my back to the wall. I shall win. I am not afraid of a thousand Mr. Rochesters. I am gathering to my hands--no, I will not talk to you about that! Lois, I am more anxious about you than Mr. Rochester. I am afraid that you will hate me for always now."

"No!" she said. "I cannot do that, I cannot hate you. But I do not wish to see you any more. As long as I live, I shall see you kneeling there, with your finger upon the trigger of that gun. I shall see the flash, I shall see him throw up his hands and fall. It was hideous!"

Saton pa.s.sed his hand across his forehead. Her words had touched his keen imagination. The horror of the scene was upon him, too, once more.

"Don't!" he begged--"don't! Lois!"

"Well?" she asked.

"You will not speak of this to anyone?"

"No!" she answered, sadly, leaning a little forward, with her head resting upon her clasped hands. "I don't suppose that I shall. If he had died, it would have been different. Now that he is going to get well, I suppose I shall try to forget."

"To forget," he murmured, trying to take her hand.

She drew it away with a shiver.

"No!" she said. "That is finished. I had to see you. I had to talk to you. Go away, please. I cannot bear to see you any more. It is too terrible--too terrible!"

A born cajoler of women, he forced into play all his powers. He whispered a flood of words in her ear. His own voice shook, his eyes were soft. He pleaded as one beside himself. Lois--Lois whom he had found so sensitive, so easily moved, so gently affectionate--remained like a stone. At the end of all his pleadings she simply looked away.

"Do you mind," she asked, "leaving me? Please! Please!"

He got up and went. Defeat was apparent enough, although it was unexpected. Lois stole back to the house--stole back to her room and locked the door.

Saton walked home across the hills, with white face and set eyes. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, and when he arrived at Blackbird's Nest, he walked straight into the long, old-fashioned room on the ground floor, which he called his library, and where Rachael generally sat.

She was there, crouching over the fire, when he entered, and looked around with frowning face.

"Bertrand," she said, "I hate this country life. Even the sunshine mocks. There is no warmth in it, and the winds are cold. I must have warmth. I shall stay here no longer."

He threw a log on to the fire, and turned around.

"Listen," he said. "The girl Lois Champneyes--I have lost my hold of her. She knows something about the accident to Rochester."

"Bungler!" the woman muttered. "Go on. Tell me how you lost your power."

"I cannot tell," he answered. "I was in an unsettled mood. I think that I was a little afraid. She spoke of that afternoon. It all came back to me. I am sure that I was afraid," he added, pa.s.sing his hand across his forehead.

She leaned toward him and her eyes glittered, hard and bright, from their parchment-like setting.

"Bertrand," she said, "you talk like a coward. What are you going to do?"

"To bring her here," he answered hoa.r.s.ely. "She has gone back to Beauleys. She is pa.s.sing up through the plantation, on her way to the house, perhaps, at this very moment. She wore white, and she carried her hat in her hand. There were rims under her eyes. She walks slowly. She is afraid--a little hysterical. You see her?"

He pointed out of the window. The woman nodded.

"Sit down," she muttered. "We shall see."

He sank into a low chair, with his face turned toward the window. No further words pa.s.sed between them. They sat there till the sun sank behind the hills, and the dusk began to cast shadows over the land.

A servant came and said something about dinner. Rachael waved her away.

"In an hour, or an hour and a half," she said.

The shadows grew deeper. Rachael's face seemed unchanged, but Saton had grown so pale that his fixed eyes seemed to have become unnaturally large. Sometimes his lips moved, though the sounds which he uttered never resolved themselves into speech. At last Rachael rose to her feet. She pointed out of the window. Saton gave a little gasp.

"She is there?" he asked, breathlessly.

"She comes," Rachael answered. "See that you do not lose your power again. I am exhausted. I am going to rest."

She pa.s.sed out of the room. Saton went and stood before the low window. Slowly, and with hesitating footsteps, Lois came up the path, lifted the latch of the little gate, and stood in the garden, close to a tall group of hollyhocks.

Saton went out to her.

"You have come to tell me that you are sorry?" he said.

"Yes!" she answered.

"You did not mean what you said?"

"No!"

"Come in," he whispered.

He laid his fingers upon her hand, and she followed him into the room.

She was very pale, and she was breathing as though she had been running. He pa.s.sed his arm around her waist.

"You are not angry with me any longer?" he whispered in her ear. "You will kiss me?"

"If you wish," she answered.

He looked into her eyes for a moment. Then he took her into his arms.

"Dear Lois," he whispered, "you must never be so unkind to me again."

CHAPTER XXIII

AN UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTER

Rochester and Pauline were driving through the country lanes in a small, old-fashioned pony carriage. Westward, the clouds were still stained by a brilliant sunset. The air was clear and brisk, chill with the invigorating freshness of the autumn evening. Already the stillness had come, the stillness which is the herald of night. The laborers had deserted the fields, the wind had dropped, a pleasant smell of burning weeds from a bonfire by the side of the road crept into the air. The silence was broken for a moment by the cry of a lonely bird, drifting homewards on wings that seemed almost motionless.

Rochester was quite convalescent now, and with the aid of a stick was able to walk almost as far as he chose. Pauline had remained at Beauleys, and her presence had divested those last few weeks of all their irksomeness. He stole a glance at her as she leaned back in the carriage. She was a little pale, perhaps, and her eyes were thoughtful, but the lines of her mouth were soft. There was no shadow of unhappiness in her face, none of that look which in London had driven him almost to madness.