Part 31 (2/2)

She broke off before the expression on the face before her--that face with the shadowless eyes, but with deep shadows beneath the eyes and a nameless look of physical strain and stress upon it--and a sudden pallor came to her own cheek.

”So he hasn't told you,” came the high voice half-fretfully, half-pitifully. ”That was very mean of him; but I thought, somehow, he couldn't by your coming here. Well! I suppose I must. Mrs. Erlton----”

Kate stepped back from her defiantly, angrily. ”He has told me all I need, all I care to know about this miserable business. Yes! he has!

You can see the letter if you like--there it is! I am not ashamed of it. It is a good letter, better than I thought he could write--better than you deserve. For he says he will marry you if I will let him! And he says he is sorry it can't be helped. But I deny that. It can, it must, it shall be helped! And then he says it's a pity for the boy's sake; but that it does not matter so much as if it was a girl----”

It was the queerest sound which broke in on those pa.s.sionate reproaches. The queerest sound. Neither a laugh nor a sob, nor a cry; but something compounded of all three, infinitely soft, infinitely tender.

”_And the other may be_,” said Alice Gissing in a voice of smiles and tears, as she pointed to the end of the sentence in the letter Kate had thrust upon her. ”Poor dear! What a way to put it! How like a man to think you could understand; and I wonder what the old Mai _would_ say to its being----”

What did she say? What were the frantic words which broke from the frantic figure, its spa.r.s.e gray hair showing, its shriveled bosom heaving unveiled, which burst into the room and flung its arms round that little be-frilled white one as if to protect and s.h.i.+eld it?

Kate Erlton gave a half-choked, half-sobbing cry. Even this seemed a relief from the incredible horror of what had dawned upon her, frightening her by the wild insensate jealousy it roused--the jealousy of motherhood.

”What is it? What does she say?” she cried pa.s.sionately, ”I have a right to know!”

Alice Gissing looked at her with a faint wonder. ”It is nothing about _that_,” she said, and her face, though it had whitened, showed no fear. ”It's something more important. There has been a row in the city--the Commissioner and some other Englishmen have been killed and she says we are not safe. I don't quite understand. Oh! don't be a fool, Mai!” she went on in Hindustani, ”I won't excite myself. I never do. Don't be a fool, I say!” Her foot came down almost savagely and she turned to Kate. ”If you will wait here for a second, Mrs. Erlton, I'll go outside with the Mai and have a look round, and bring my husband's pistol from the other room. You had better stay, really. I shall be back in a moment. And I dare say it's all the old Mai's nonsense--she is such a fool about me--nowadays.” Her white face; smiling over its own certainty of coming trouble, was gone, and the door closed, almost before Kate could say a word. Not that she had any to say. She was too dazed to think of danger to the little figure, which pa.s.sed out into the shady back veranda perched on the city wall, looking out into the peaceful country beyond. She was too absorbed in what she had just realized to think of anything else. So this was what he had meant!--and this woman with her facile nature, ready to please and be pleased with anyone--this woman content to take the lowest place--had the highest of all claims upon him. This woman who had no right to motherhood, who did not know----

G.o.d in Heaven! What was that through the stillness and the peace? A child's pitiful scream.

She was at the closed windows in an instant, peering through the slits of the jalousies; but there was nothing to be seen save a blare and blaze of sunlight on sun-scorched gra.s.s and sun-withered beds of flowers. Nothing!--stay!--Christ help us! What was that? A vision of white, and gold, and blue. White garments and white wings, golden curls and flaming golden crest, fierce gray-blue beak and claws among the fluttering blue ribbons. Sonny! His little feet flying and failing fast among the flower-beds. Sonny! still holding his favorite's chain in the unconscious grip of terror, while half-dragged, half-flying, the wide white wings fluttered over the child's head.

”_Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!_”

That was from the bird, terrified, yet still gentle.

”_Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!_”

That was from the old man who followed fast on the child with long lance in rest like a pig-sticker's. An old man in a faded green turban with a spiritual, relentless face.

Kate's fingers were at the bolts of the high French window--her only chance of speedy exit from that closed room. Ah! would they never yield?--and the lance was gaining on those poor little flying feet.

Every atom of motherhood in her--fierce, instinctive, animal, fought with those unyielding bolts....

What was that? Another vision of white, and gold, and blue, das.h.i.+ng into the sunlight with something in a little clenched right hand.

Childish itself in frills, and laces, and ribbons, but with a face as relentless as the old man's, as spiritual. And a clear confident voice rang above those discordant cries.

”All right, Sonny! All right, dear!”

On, swift and straight in the sunlight; and then a pause to level the clenched right hand over the left arm coolly, and fire. The lance wavered. It was two feet further from that soft flesh and blood when Alice Gissing caught the child up, turned and ran; ran for dear life to shelter.

”_Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!_”

The cry came after the woman and child, and over them, released by Sonny's wild clutch at sheltering arms, the bird fluttered, echoing the cry.

But one bolt was down at last, the next yielding--Ah! who was that dressed like a native, riding like an Englishman, who leaped the high garden fence and was over among the flower-beds where Sonny was being chased. Was he friend or foe? No matter! Since under her vehement hands the bolt had fallen, and Kate was out in the veranda. Too late!

The flying sunlit vision of white, and gold, and blue had tripped and fallen. No! not too late. The report of a revolver rang out, and the Cry of Faith came only from the bird, for the fierce relentless face was hidden among the laces, and frills, and ribbons that hid the withered flowers.

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