"Claire-Anne!"

She stood up as he took her lovely, pale hands. There was no shame to her glance, nothing but a wonderful frankness, her eyes going to his like brave winged things.

"Claire-Anne, I want to ask you something."

"Yes ... Lover...."

"Claire-Anne, when will you marry me?"

Her hands never quivered, but he was aware that her mouth did, in the high diluted starlight.

"Why do you want to marry me? Is it because ...? Do you feel bound?...

or ... just why?"

"I want to be with you, Claire-Anne."

"Then--dearest, does it matter to go before the mayor and arrange about property? And to go before a priest and make promises--to G.o.d!... Sit down, lover; sit down with me here, in the dusk, under the tree."

She still clasped both his hands. He might have been talking to some beautiful disembodied spirit, as Pontius Pilate was a poor panic-stricken spirit, or to something he had conjured out of his head, but for her firm, warm hands. To-night it was she had strength....

"Dearest, promises are so easy to make. I have made promises, oh, so many promises!... And life or destiny.... And when you can't keep them, your heart breaks. You know nothing of me--Shane...."

"I don't want to know; I just want you, Claire-Anne!"

"You must know something. I was just a girl, well brought up, well educated.... I dreamed of being a great actress. I was an actress, but I was ... _manquee_ ... didn't succeed, get success.... And then I married, and my husband died.... And here I am.... And there are other things you mustn't know.... Not that they are dear to me; oh, no!... but you must never hear them.... O Shane, if seven years ago.... But Destiny or life wouldn't let us. And now we can only cheat him, and that only for a while.... Because Destiny is all-seeing and jealous and cruel....

Only for a while, a sweet while...."

"But, Claire-Anne, I don't understand--"

"Don't understand, don't, my lover. Don't anything.... Only let me give all I have, can give to you, and let me take what you care to give in return, only that.... O Shane, we are two people in a dark wood, and it is lonely and terrifying.... And we have met, and our hands ... _se sont serrees_ ... gripped and held.... And we aren't lonely any more, or afraid. And you have a picture in your mind of me, a beautiful, warm picture.... But if the night pa.s.sed, and we came to the meadow-lands....

O Shane, don't let's go into the light--not into the open, not into the light.... Oh, no! no!"

"But, Claire-Anne...."

"Come closer, Shane. The night is empty. There are only we two in the world.... Come close. Closer. Closer still...."

-- 7

He was sitting in her garden one sunset, under the mulberry-tree, and she had gone into the house for a minute, moving with the firm, gracious walk of hers that was like the firm swimming of swans. In the little hush of sunset, and she gone, there came a sudden knowledge to him....

For a s.p.a.ce of time, how long he knew not, he was in an Antrim study....

Without, the sun had gone down, and there was the purple, twilight water, and the gentle calling of the cricket.... And within was a gray head that had fallen on a book ... fallen ... fallen as the sun went down.

"Why, Uncle Robin!" he called.

Then came a great gush of tears to his heart and eyes....

She came from the house, as again he became cognizant of the Midi garden instead of the Antrim glen, of the Mediterranean instead of the waters of Moyle. She came down the dusky pathway. At a little distance she saw his face. She stopped short, her face white....

"Shane! Shane! what is wrong? Are you hurt? Ill?"

"My Uncle Robin is dead, Claire-Anne."

She looked at him for a little instant, not quite understanding. She came to him swiftly as a swallow. She sat close beside him. Her arm went through his. Her hands clasped his hands.

"Why didn't you tell me, heart?" she whispered.

"I just knew this instant. I felt, saw.... We were that close ... my Uncle Robin! _Beannacht De ar a anam!_ G.o.d's blessing on his soul!"

She never spoke. She never stirred. She hardly breathed. She was just there, her hands, firm and strong, on his, did he want her.

"Was it ... a hard death, Shane?"

"No; I seemed to see him, asleep, among his books."

"His books were his friends ... you told me....

"Yes, dear. His life was with them."

"And he wasn't a young man, your Uncle Robin?"

"Eight and sixty years of age."

"Is it so ill, heart, to go quickly, quietly, with your friends about you, on an autumn afternoon?"

"No, dear, not ill. Very rightly ... I think. But there is something....

Something is gone from the world, like a fine tree from a garden....

And he was awful' dear to me, my Uncle Robin.... It will be a hard thing to go home, and he not there to come and ask: 'Are you all right, laddie? You're no sick?' Claire-Anne, I'll be thinking long...."

She sat with him in silence in the garden, and after a little while got up and went without a word.... And he sat in the garden thinking to himself, had he been lax to Uncle Robin in any way? He might have written oftener. It wasn't fair to have kept the old man worried and he an apprentice at sea. Yes, he could have written, could have written oftener. And thought more. And there were books he might have brought the old man--books from 'Frisco and New York and Naples. The book-stores were so far from the quays, and he had put it off. And he could have so easily.... When one is young, one is so thoughtless.... A message from somewhere ran into his consciousness like a ripple of code-flags: 'It doesn't matter, dear laddie. Don't be taking on. Don't be blaming yourself. You were the dear lad ... and I'm happy....'

Ah, yes, but a great tree was gone from the garden. An actuality had been converted into thought and emotion, and thought and emotion may be all that endure, and an actuality be unreal ... but an actuality is so warm ... so rea.s.suring....

He rose and went toward the house, and as he walked he met her....

"Claire-Anne, do you mind if I go back to the ship?... Somehow, I'm a little lost...."

"There is a carriage waiting for you outside."

For the first time it occurred to him that in this occult experience she had not uttered one jarring note. She had not asked questions, nor had she tried to argue with him, as other women would have, telling him he fancied all this. Nor had she bothered him with vain, unwelcome sentiment. She had just--stood by, as at sea. And how swiftly she had divined his need of privacy, of his own ship!

"There are none like you in this world, Claire-Anne," he told her.

"I am what you make me, Shane--what you need of me." Her hand sought his in the stilly dusk. "Come back only when you are ready dearest ...

dearest ... I am here! Always here!"

-- 8