"You'll be a very welcome one," he answered. "There was never a time when I wanted you so much. I've finished my novel and I have a fit of the blues."

"It is your own fault," she said. "It is because you have not been to see me for a fortnight."

"And I wonder how much you have missed me all that fortnight. Tell me what you have been doing."

She looked at him sideways. He almost fancied that she was blushing.

"Tuesday night Mr. Drexley took me out to dinner, and we went to the Lyceum," she said.

He stopped short upon the pavement.

"What?"

She looked up at him demurely.

"Why, you don't mind, do you, Douglas? Mr. Drexley is a friend of yours, isn't he? He has been so kind."

"The devil he has!" Douglas muttered, amazed. "And how many more times have you seen him during the fortnight, I wonder?"

"Well--once or twice," she admitted.

"Any more dinner parties?"

"We went to Richmond one afternoon. Mr. Drexley rows so nicely. He introduced me to his sister."

"Never knew he had one," Douglas muttered.

"Here we are. Come in and sit down while I change."

Douglas was not long over his toilet. When he returned he was inclined to be thoughtful. For no earthly reason he could think of, Cissy's friendship with Drexley irritated him. He did not understand it. He had looked upon Drexley as a man whose emanc.i.p.ation was an impossibility, for whom there was no hope of any further social life.

Was it possible that he could be seriously attracted by Cicely? He watched her with this thought all through luncheon, and gradually there crept into his mind a fuller and more complete appreciation of her unmistakable charm. All the time she was chattering gaily to him, chasing away his gloom, forcing him to breathe the atmosphere of gaiety and light-heartedness which she seemed at once to create and to revel in. It occurred to him that if ever a girl in the world was created to save a man from despair, surely she was that one. Dainty, cheerful, unselfish, with a charming command of language and a piquant wit, Cicely had made vast strides in self-development since the days when they had sat together on the Feldwick Hills and talked of that future into which it seemed then so impossible that they should ever pa.s.s.

"Do you remember," he asked her, "what we used to call the pearl light, the soft crystalline glow before the sunrise, and how fresh and sweet the air was when we scrambled up the hill?"

She nodded thoughtfully.

"I think very often of those days, and the dreams we used to weave together. Sometimes I can scarcely believe how near we have come to realising them. What a wonderfully still, lonely country it was."

"We used to sit and watch the smoke curl upwards from the cottages one by one. The farm was always the first."

"Yes, Joan saw to that."

"And the nights. Do you remember how sweet the perfumes were--the heather and the wild thyme? Those long cool nights, Cissy, when we watched the lights flicker out one by one, and the corncrakes and the barn owl came and made music for us."

"It is like a beautiful picture, the memory," she murmured.

"Build a fence around and keep it," he said. "Life there was an abstraction, but a beautiful one. London has made man and woman of us, but are we any happier, I wonder?"

"I am," she answered simply.

"You are happy because you have not grasped at shadows," he said, bitterly. "You have taken the good which has come, and been thankful."

"And you," she replied, softly, "you are known already. In a few months' time you will be famous."

"Ay, but shall I be happy?" he asked himself, only half aloud.

"If you will," she answered. "If you have spent any of your time grasping at shadows, be thankful at least that you are man enough to realise it and put them from you. Life should be a full thing for you.

Douglas, I think that you are wonderful. All that we dreamed of for you has come true."

He looked into her face with a sudden intensity--a pretty face enough, flushed and earnest.

"Cissy, help me to realise one at least of those dreams. Will you?"

She looked at him suddenly white, bewildered, a little doubtful.

"What do you mean, Douglas?"

"You were very dear to me in those days, Cissy," he said, leaning over and taking her fingers into his. "You have always been dear to me. Our plans for the future were always large enough for two. Take me into yours--come into mine. Can you care for me enough for that?"

She was silent; her face was averted. They were alone, and his fingers tightened upon hers.

"We never spoke of it in words, Cissy," he went on, "but I think we understood. Will you help me to leave the shadows alone? Will you be my wife?"

"You care--enough for that?" she asked, raising her eyes to his suddenly.

A moment's wild revolt--a seething flood of emotions sternly repressed.

He met her eyes, and though there was no smile upon his lips, his tone was firm enough.

"I care--enough for that, Cissy," he answered.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE NET OF JOAN'S VENGEANCE

Success--complete, overpowering, unquestioned. Douglas Jesson's novel was more than the book of the season--it became and still remains a cla.s.sic. There is much talk nowadays by minor writers of the difficulty of making a name, of the inaccessibility of the public. As a matter of fact there never was a time when good work was so quickly recognised both by the press and the public, never a novel which sees the light of day but meets with appreciably more or less than its merits. There was never a second's hesitation about "The Destiny of Phillip Bourke." The critics praised and the public bought it. Edition followed edition.

Douglas Jesson took his place without an effort amongst the foremost writers of the day.

And this same success brought him face to face with one of the great crises of his life. It brought Joan to him, successful at last in her long search. Their interview, which, if unexpected, must surely have savoured of the dramatic, was reduced more or less to the commonplace, from the fact that she came to him prepared, already a.s.sured of his ident.i.ty, for who else could have immortalised so wonderfully the little hillside village where they had both been brought up? He walked into the waiting-room at the Courier equally prepared, for he had seen her pa.s.s the window. She turned and faced him as he entered, carefully closing the door behind him, with a grim smile of triumph about her thin, set lips.

"At last, then, Douglas Guest," she exclaimed, laying his book upon the table. "Are you not weary of skulking under a false name?"

"I chose it as much for your sake as mine, Joan," he gravely replied.

Her black eyes flashed hatred and disbelief upon him.

"You don't imagine that you can make me believe that," she answered, pa.s.sionately. "You have fooled many people, but I think your turn has come at last. I did not come here to listen to any fairy tales."