Part 78 (2/2)

He nodded. ”Just that. Also, Lucas is a good man. He will set your happiness first all his life. While I--while I”--he stooped a little, still staring downwards as if he watched something--”while I, Lady Carfax,” he said, speaking very quietly, ”might possibly succeed in making you happy, but it wouldn't be the same thing. You would have to live my life--not I yours. I am not like Lucas. I shouldn't be satisfied with--a little.”

”And you think that is all I can offer him?” she said.

He made a sharp gesture of repudiation. ”I have no theories on that subject. I believe you would satisfy him. I believe--ultimately--you would both find the happiness we are all hunting for.”

”And you?” Anne said, her voice very low.

He straightened himself with a backward fling of the shoulders, but still he did not look at her. ”I, Lady Carfax!” he said grimly. ”I don't fit into the scheme of things anyway. I was just pitchforked into your life by an accident. It's for you to toss me out again.”

Anne was silent. She stood with her face to the sinking sun. She seemed to be gathering her strength.

At last, ”What will you do?” she asked in the same hushed voice. ”Where will you go?”

He turned slowly towards her. ”I really don't know. I haven't begun to think.”

His eyes looked deeply into hers, but they held no pa.s.sion, no emotion of any sort. They made her think with a sudden intolerable stab of pain of that night when he had put out the fire of his pa.s.sion to receive her kiss. He had told her once that that kiss was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. Did he remember it now, she wondered, as she met those brooding eyes, still and dark and lonely as they had been then, unfathomable as a mountain pool. She did not fear to meet them. Only a vast, surging pity filled her soul. She understood him so well--so well.

”Nap,” she said tremulously, ”what can I say to you? What can I do?”

He put out a quiet, unfaltering hand and took hers. ”Don't be too good to me,” he said. ”Don't worry any on my account. If you do, maybe Luke will notice and misunderstand. He's so d.a.m.nably shrewd.” A brief smile crossed his face. ”I'll tell you what to do, Lady Carfax, and when it's done you'll feel better. Come with me now to Lucas--it's his own idea--and tell him you've no use for me. Put it how you like. Women can always do these things. Make him know that he comes first with you still and always will. Tell him you know all the truth and it hasn't made you change your mind. Tell him you'd rather belong to a man you can trust. He'll believe you, Anne. We all do.”

He spoke insistently. He had begun to draw her towards the path. But as they reached it, his hand fell from hers. He walked beside her, close beside her, but not by word or touch did he seek further to persuade her.

And Anne walked steadily forward as one in a dream. It was the only thing to do, since he had told her plainly that he desired it, since with both of them Luke must for ever come first. He had drawn them together, he had linked their hands, but he stood between them to do it, and neither of them would suffer him to go.

She supposed they would be friends again, she and Nap. She did not fear that he would ever again cross the boundary line. His love for his brother ran like a purifying current through his veins. It was the one streak of greatness in him. Its very selflessness made it stronger than his love for her. She knew with a certainty that nought could ever shake that he would be true to Lucas, that never again by word or sign would he betray that for which he had not scrupled to play her false.

And because she was a woman and understood him she forgave him this. For she knew that the greater loyalty had done for him that which she had failed to do. She knew that in uttermost self-sacrifice Nap Errol, the savage, the merciless, the treacherous, had found his soul.

So side by side in silence they went back to the house.

The evening was very still; pa.s.sing in from the terrace they seemed to enter an enchanted palace wherein nothing stirred.

”He may be asleep,” Nap said. ”Shall I go first?”

She a.s.sented without speaking. Somehow the spell of silence seemed to hold her also.

Tawny Hudson was on guard as usual in the outer room. He looked up with resentful eyes as they entered, but he said nothing. The door into his master's room stood half open. Nap paused at it a moment to listen. He turned to Anne, and she fancied just for a second that there was a shade of anxiety on his face. But it was gone instantly, if indeed it had been there.

”Follow me in a minute,” he said, ”if I don't come back.”

And with that he glided through the narrow s.p.a.ce and pa.s.sed from sight.

A minute later, absolute silence reigning, Anne softly pushed back the door and entered.

She found Nap crouched motionless with outflung arms across the foot of the bed.

And drawing nearer, she saw that Lucas Errol was lying asleep with his face to the sky, all the lines of pain smoothed utterly away, and on his lips that smile which some call the Stamp of Death, and others the s.h.i.+ning reflection of the Resurrection Glory which the pa.s.sing soul has left behind.

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