Part 85 (1/2)

She laughed softly. ”I shall leave everything to you.”

”Then I choose Sunday,” Nap said, without an instant's consideration, ”as early in the morning as possible. I shall go straight to the padre and arrange it right now.”

”Very well,” she said. ”I'll try to be ready.”

He threw up his head with the old arrogant gesture. ”You must be ready,”

he said imperiously. ”I shall come and fetch you myself.”

She laughed again at that. ”Indeed you will not. I shall go with Mrs. Errol.”

He conceded this point, albeit grudgingly. ”And afterwards?” he said.

”The afterwards shall be yours, dear,” she answered.

”You mean that?”

”Of course I mean it.”

”Then, Anne”--he bent his face suddenly, his lips moved against her forehead--”will you come with me to Bramhurst?”

”Bramhurst!” She started a little. The name to her was no more than a bitter memory among the many other bitter memories of her life.

”Will you?” he said.

”If you wish it,” she answered gently.

”I do wish it.”

”Then--so be it,” she said.

He bent his head a little lower, kissed her twice pa.s.sionately upon the lips, held her awhile as if he could not bear to let her go, then tore himself almost violently from her, and went away, swift and noiseless as a shadow over the gra.s.s.

CHAPTER XXI

THE POWER THAT CASTS OUT DEVILS

It was late on the evening of her wedding-day that Anne entered once more the drawing-room of the little inn at Bramhurst and stopped by the open window.

There was a scent of musk in the room behind her, and an odour infinitely more alluring of roses and honeysuckle in the garden in front. Beyond the garden the common lay in the rosy dusk of the afterglow under a deep blue sky. The clang of a distant cow-bell came dreamily through the silence.