Part 130 (1/2)

Cleone sighed.

”And I am a discredited impostor, the--the jest of every club in London!”

Cleone's hand stole up, and she touched his grimly-set chin very gently with one white finger.

”I am become a thing for the Fas.h.i.+onable World to sharpen its wits upon,” he continued, keeping his stern gaze perseveringly averted.

”And so, my lady--because I cannot any longer cheat folks into accepting me as a--gentleman, I shall in all probability become a farmer, some day.”

Cleone sighed.

”But you,” Barnabas continued, a little harshly, ”you were born for higher and greater fortune than to become the wife of a humble farming fellow, and consequently--”

”But I can make excellent b.u.t.ter, Barnabas,” she sighed, stealing a glance up to him, ”and I can cook--a little.”

Now when she said this, he must needs look down at her again and lo!

there, at the corner of her mouth was the ghost of the dimple! And, beholding this, seeing the sudden witchery of her swift-drooping lashes, Barnabas forgot his stern resolutions and stooped his head, that he might kiss the glory of her hair. But, in that moment, she turned, swift and sudden, and yielded him her lips, soft, and warm, and pa.s.sionate with youth and all the joy of life. And borne away upon that kiss, it seemed to Barnabas, for one brief, mad-sweet instant that all things might be possible; if they started now they might reach London in the dawn and, staying only for Barrymaine, be aboard s.h.i.+p by evening! And it was a wide world, a very fair world, and with this woman beside him--

”It would be so--so very easy!” said he, slowly.

”Yes, it will be very easy!” she whispered.

”Too easy!” said he, beginning to frown, ”you are so helpless and lonely, and I want you so bitterly, Cleone! Yes, it would be very easy. But you taught me once, that a man must ever choose the harder way, and this is the harder way, to love you, to long for you, and to bid you--good-by!”

”Oh! Barnabas?”

”Ah, Cleone, you could make the wretchedest hut a paradise for me, but for you, ah, for you it might some day become only a hut, and I, only a discredited Amateur Gentleman, after all.”

Then Barnabas sighed and thereafter frowned, and so bore her to the chaise and setting her within, closed the door.

”Turn!” he cried to the postilion.

”Barnabas!”

But the word was lost in the creak of wheels and stamping of hoofs as the chaise swung round; then Barnabas remounted and, frowning still, trotted along beside it. Now in a while, lifting his sombre gaze towards a certain place beside the way, he beheld the dim outline of a finger-post, a very ancient finger-post which (though it was too dark to read its inscription) stood, he knew, with wide-stretched arms pointing the traveller:

TO LONDON. TO HAWKHURST.

And being come opposite the finger-post, he ordered the post-boy to stop, for, small with distance, he caught the twinkling lights of lanterns that swung to and fro, and, a moment later, heard a hail, faint and far, yet a stentorian bellow there was no mistaking.

Therefore coming close beside the chaise, he stooped down and looked within, and thus saw that Cleone leaned in the further corner with her face hidden in her hands.

”You are safe, now, my lady,” said he, ”the Bo'sun is coming, the Captain will be here very soon.”

But my lady never stirred.

”You are safe now,” he repeated, ”as for Ronald, if Chichester's silence can save him, you need grieve no more, and--”

”Ah!” she cried, glancing up suddenly, ”what do you mean?”