Part 18 (1/2)
”At last I consulted a great specialist, who is also a trusted friend. He ordered me a rest-cure. Not to be shut up within four walls with my own worries, but to go right away alone; to leave my own ident.i.ty, and all appertaining thereto, completely behind; to go to a place to which I had never before been, where I knew no one, and should not be known; to live in the open air; fare simply; rise early, retire early; but, above all, as he quaintly said: 'Leave Lady Ingleby behind.'
”I followed his advice to the letter. He is not a man one can disobey. I did not like the idea of taking a fict.i.tious name, so I decided to be 'Mrs. O'Mara,' and naturally entered her address in the visitors' book, as well as her name.
”Oh, that evening of arrival! You were quite right, Jim. I felt just a happy child, entering a new world of beauty and delight--all holiday and rest.
”And then--I saw you! And, oh my beloved, I think almost from the first moment my soul flew to you, as to its unquestioned mate! Your vitality became my source of vigour; your strength filled and upheld everything in me which had been weak and faltering. I owed you much, before we had really spoken. Afterwards, I owed you life itself, and love, and all--ALL, Jim!”
Myra paused, silently controlling her emotion; then, bending forward, laid her lips upon the roughness of his hair. It might have been the stirring of the breeze, for all the sign he made.
”When I found at first that you had come from the war, when I realised that you must have known Michael, I praised the doctor's wisdom in making me drop my own name. Also the Murgatroyds would have known it immediately, and I should have had no peace, As it was, Miss Murgatroyd occasionally held forth in the sitting-room concerning 'poor dear Lady Ingleby,' whom she gave us to understand she knew intimately. And then--oh, Jim! when I came to know my cosmopolitan cowboy; when he told me he hated t.i.tles and all that appertained to them; then indeed I blessed the moment when I had writ myself down plain 'Mrs. O'Mara'; and I resolved not to tell him of my t.i.tle until he loved me enough not to mind it, or wanted me enough, to change me at once from Lady Ingleby of Shenstone Park, into plain Mrs. Jim Airth of--anywhere he chooses to take me!
”Now you will understand why I felt I could not marry you validly in Cornwall; and I wanted--was it selfish?--I wanted the joy of revealing my own ident.i.ty when I had you, at last, in my own beautiful home. Oh, my dear--my dear! Cannot our love stand the test of so light a thing as this?”
She ceased speaking and waited.
She was sure of her victory; but it seemed strange, in dealing with so fine a nature as that of the man she loved, that she should have had to fight so hard over what appeared to her a paltry matter. But she knew false pride often rose gigantic about the smallest things; the very unworthiness of the cause seeming to add to the unreasonable growth of its dimensions.
She was deeply hurt; but she was a woman, and she loved him. She waited patiently to see his love for her arise victorious over unworthy pride.
At last Jim Airth stood up.
”I cannot face it yet,” he said, slowly. ”I must be alone. I ought to have known from the very first that you were--are--Lady Ingleby. I am very sorry that you should have to suffer for that which is no fault of your own. I must--go--now. In twenty-four hours, I will come back to talk it over.”
He turned, without another word; without a touch; without a look. He swung round on his heel, and walked away across the lawn.
Myra's dismayed eyes could scarcely follow him.
He mounted the terrace; pa.s.sed into the house. A door closed.
Jim Airth was gone!
CHAPTER XVII
”SURELY YOU KNEW?”
Myra Ingleby rose and wended her way slowly towards the house.
A stranger meeting her would probably have noticed nothing amiss with the tall graceful woman, whose pallor might well have been due to the unusual warmth of the day.
But the heart within her was dying.
Her joy had received a mortal wound. The man she adored, with a love which had placed him at the highest, was slowly slipping from his pedestal, and her hands were powerless to keep him there.
A woman may drag her own pride in the dust, and survive the process; but when the man she loves falls, then indeed her heart dies within her.
She had loved to call Jim Airth a cowboy. She knew him to be avowedly cosmopolitan. But was he also a slave to vulgar pride? Being plain Jim Airth himself, did he grudge n.o.ble birth and ancient lineage to those to whom they rightfully belonged? Professing to scorn t.i.tles, did he really set upon them so exaggerated a value, that he would turn from the woman he was about to wed, merely because she owned a t.i.tle, while he had none?