Part 55 (2/2)

”I wish I could think there was happiness for her. Those whom the G.o.ds love, die young--I'm not sure that if I were the G.o.ds, I wouldn't choose that solution.”

”It is not for you to settle, fortunately, but for the Duke.”

”True; but he can only give her Gustav--and that may be a long, long way different from happiness.” He paused and with a slow smile added: ”This may affect you as well.”

”I am thinking of Gareth just now.”

”The same thing--from a different angle, Christabel, that's all. If this marriage is publicly recognized, Karl will be again the acknowledged heir; the axis of things will be s.h.i.+fted; and the motive for the Duke's promise to you last night will be gone. It will be hard if you should have done so great a right and yet pay the price. It is well that you are strong.”

”I have the Duke's word.”

”Can you keep water in an open funnel?”

I turned away with a sigh and looked out of the window. His Excellency came to my side and laid a hand very gently and kindly on my shoulder.

A touch of genuine sympathy.

”Almost, _I_ could hope, Christabel--but thank G.o.d, I am not the Duke.

I was a very presumptuous old man--only a day or two back---but you have made me care for you in a very different way. I am presumptuous no longer; and all that I am and all that I have shall be staked and lost before I see injustice done to you.”

”I know what a friend you are.”

”Pray Heaven, this may not be beyond our friends.h.i.+p.”

I could not answer him. I stood staring blankly out into the garden realizing all that was behind his words. I knew he might have spoken no more than the truth; and that in gaining Gareth's happiness, I had ventured my own future.

Not for a moment did I distrust Karl; but I knew the influences which might be brought to bear upon him. If Gustav was no longer to be preferred as the Duke's heir and Karl was not to be allowed to forego his rights as elder son, our marriage became impossible.

I had worked for this, I know; had planned that it should be; had forced it home upon Karl himself; and had even found pleasure in the thought of the sacrifice it involved.

But since then I had taken to my heart such different thoughts. The Duke had with his own hands swept away the barrier to our marriage; and Karl himself had shown me within the past hour how much it was to him.

It is one thing to stand outside the Palace of Delight and, in the knowledge that admission is impossible to you, be firm in a refusal to enter; but it is another and a very different thing, when the gates stand open and your foot is already on the very threshold and loving hands are beckoning to you with sweet invitation to enter, to find the portal closed in your face, and yourself shut again in the outer darkness.

It is little wonder, therefore, if my heart began to ache again in dread of the cold solitude which threatened to be the reward for my share in that day's doings.

It was all quite clear to me, as I stared out into the garden, seeing nothing that was actually there; nothing but the troubled forms which my thoughts a.s.sumed. And although I murmured and rebelled against it all, I knew in my heart that at the last neither Karl's desires nor mine would be allowed to decide what should be done.

My kind old friend, discerning the struggle that was taking place in my thoughts, left me at first to fight it out in my own way, but presently came, and in the same sympathetic way laid a hand on my arm.

”You must not take too black a view, Christabel,” he said. ”It may all be yet for the best. I thought only to prepare you.”

”It is over,” I said, with a smile. ”I have taken my decision. It shall be as the Duke decides.”

”I know how it must be with you,” he replied, very gently.

The kindness of his manner seemed in some strange way to hurt me almost; at least it made me conscious of the pain of everything; and I lowered my head and wrung my hands in silence.

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