"Yours? You won't have any--except mine. You'll stop work then and live--not at Bridetown anyway."

"I was forgetting. It will be funny not to spin."

"You'll spin my happiness and my life and my fate and my children.

You'll have plenty of spinning. I'll spin for you and you'll spin for me."

"You darling boy! I know you'll spin for me."

"Work! What's the good of working for yourself?" he asked. "Who the devil cares about himself? It's because I don't care a b.u.t.ton for myself that I haven't bothered about the Mill. But when it comes to you--!

You're worth working for! I haven't begun to work yet. I'll surprise Daniel presently and everybody else, when I fairly get into my stride. I didn't ask for it and I didn't want it; but as I've got to work, I will work--for you. And you'll live to see that my brother and his ways and plans and small outlook are all nothing to the way I shall grasp the business. And he'll see, too, when I get the lead by sheer better understanding. And that won't be my work, Sabina. It will be yours.

Nothing's worth too much toil for you. And if you couldn't inspire a man to wonderful things, then no woman could."

This fit of exaltation pa.s.sed and the craving for her dominated him again and took psychological shape. He grew moody and abstracted. His voice had a new note in it to her ear. He was fighting with himself and did not guess what was in her mind, or how unconsciously it echoed to his.

At dusk the rain came and they ran before a sudden storm down the green hills back to West Haven. The place already sank into night and a lamp or two twinkled through the grey. It was past eight o'clock and Raymond decided for dinner.

"We'll go to the 'Brit Arms,'" he said, "and feed and get dry. The rain won't last."

"I told mother I should be home by nine."

"Well, you told her wrong. D'you think I'm going to chuck away an hour of this day for a thousand mothers?"

When they sauntered out into the night again at ten o'clock, the Haven had nearly gone to sleep and the rain was past. In the silence they heard the river rushing through the sluices to the sea; and then they set their faces homeward.

But they had to pa.s.s the old store-house. It loomed a black, amorphous pile heaved up against the stars, and the man's footsteps dragged as he came to the gaping gates and silent court.

He stopped and she stopped.

His voice was gruff and queer and half-choked.

"Come," he said, "I'm in h.e.l.l, and you've got to turn it to heaven."

She murmured something, but he put his arm round her and they vanished into the ma.s.s of silent darkness.

It was past midnight when they parted at the door of Sabina's home and he gave her the cool kiss of afterwards.

"Now we are one, body and soul, for ever," she whispered to him.

"By G.o.d, yes," he said.

CHAPTER XII

CREDIT

The mind of Raymond Ironsyde was now driven and tossed by winds of pa.s.sion which, blowing against the tides of his own nature, created unrest and storm. A strain of chivalry belonged to him and at first this conquered. He felt the magnitude of Sabina's sacrifice and his obligation to a love so absolute. In this spirit he remained for a time, during which their relations were of the closest. They spoke of marriage; they even appointed the day on which the announcement of their betrothal should be made. And though he had gone thus far at her entreaty, always recognising when with her the reasonableness of her wish, after she was gone, the cross seas of his own character, created a different impression and swept the pattern of Sabina's will away.

For a time the intrigue of meeting her, the planning and the plotting amused him. He imagined the world was blind and that none knew, or guessed, the truth. But Bridetown, having eyes as many and sharp as any other hamlet, had long been familiar with the facts. The transparent veil of their imagined secrecy was already rent, though the lovers did not guess it.

Then Raymond's chivalry wore thinner. Ruling pa.s.sions, obscured for a season by the tremendous experience of his first love and its success, began by slow degrees to rise again, solid and challenging, through the rosy clouds. His love, while he shouted to himself that it increased rather than diminished, none the less a.s.sumed a change of colour and contour. The bright vapours still shone and Sabina could always kindle ineffable glow to the fabric; but she away, they shrank a little and grew less radiant. The truth of himself and his ambitions showed through. At such times he dinned on the ears of his heart that Sabina was his life. At other times when the fading fire astonished him by waking a shiver, he blamed fate, told himself that but for the lack of means, he would make a perfect home for Sabina; worship and cherish her; fill her life with happiness; pander to her every whim; devote a large portion of his own time to her; do all that wit and love could devise for her pleasure--all but one thing.

He did not want to marry her. With that deed demanding to be done, the necessity for it began to be questioned sharply. He was not a marrying man and, in any case, too young to commit himself and his prospects to such a course. He a.s.sured himself that he had never contemplated immediate marriage; he had never suggested it to Sabina. She herself had not suggested it; for what advantage could be gained by such a step?

While a thousand disasters might spring therefrom, not the least being a quarrel with his brother, there was nothing to be said for it. He began to suspect that he could do little less likely to a.s.sure Sabina's future. He clung to his strand of chivalry at this time, like a drowning man to a straw; but other ingredients of his nature dragged him away.

Selfishness is the parent of sophistry, and Raymond found himself dismissing old rules of morality and inherited instincts of religion and justice for more practical and worldly values. He told himself it was as much for Sabina's sake as for his own that he must now respect the dictates of common-sense.

There came a day in October, when the young man sat in his office at the mills, smoking and absorbed with his own affairs. The river Bride was broken above the works, and while her way ran south of them, the mill-race came north. Its labour on the wheel accomplished, the current turned quickly back to the river bed again. From Raymond's window he could see the main stream, under a clay bank, where the martins built their nests in spring, and where rush and sedge and an over-hanging sallow marked her windings. The sunshine found the stickles, and where Bride skirted the works lay a pool in which trout moved. Water b.u.t.tercups shone silver white in this back-water at spring-time and the water-voles had their haunts in the bank side.

Beyond stretched meadow-lands and over the hill that rose behind them climbed the road to the cliffs. Hounds had ascended this road two hours before and their music came faintly from afar to Raymond's ear, then ceased. Already his relations with Sabina had lessened his will to pleasure in other directions. His money had gone in gifts to her, leaving no spare cash for the old amus.e.m.e.nts; but the distractions, that for a time had seemed so tame contrasted with the girl, cried louder and reminded how necessary and healthy they were.

Life seemed reduced to the naked question of cash. He was sorry for himself. It looked hard, outrageous, wrong, that tastes so sane and simple as his own, could not be gratified. A horseman descended the hill and Raymond recognised him. It was Neddy Motyer. His horse was lame and he walked beside it. Raymond smiled to himself, for Neddy, though a zealous follower of hounds, lacked judgment and often met with disaster.

Ten minutes later Neddy himself appeared.

"Come to grief," he said. "Horse put his foot into a rabbit hole and cut his knee on a flint. I've just taken him to the vet, here to be bandaged, so I thought I'd look you up. Why weren't you out?"

"I've got more important things to think about for the minute."

Neddy helped himself to a cigarette.

"Growing quite the man of business," he said. "What will power you've got! A few of us bet five to one you wouldn't stick it a month; but here you are. Only I can tell you this, Ray: you're wilting under it. You're not half the man you were. You're getting beastly thin--looking a worm in fact."

Raymond laughed.

"I'm all right. Plenty of time to make up for lost time."

"It's metal more attractive, I believe," hazarded Motyer. "A little bird's been telling us things in Bridport. Keep clear of the petticoats, old chap--the game's never worth the candle. I speak from experience."

"Do you? I shouldn't think any girl would have much use for you."

"Oh yes, they have--plenty of them. But once bit, twice shy. I had an adventure last year."

"I don't want to hear it."

Neddy showed concern.

"You're all over the shop, Ray. These blessed works are knocking the stuffing out of you and spoiling your temper. Are you coming to the 'smoker' at 'The Tiger' next month?"

"No."

"Well, do. You want bucking. It'll be a bit out of the common. Jack Buckler's training at 'The Tiger' for his match with Solly Blades. You know--eliminating round for middle-weight championship. And he's going to spar three rounds with our boy from the tannery--Tim Chick."

"I heard about it from one of our girls here--a cousin of Tim's. But I'm off that sort of thing."

"Since when?"