Part 20 (1/2)

Low as the light is, it is light enough to show that there is no answering smile on his face.

'So you escaped at last!' he says, with a sort of groan. 'I watched to see how long you could stand it.'

The shadow that the star-beams, and the violet breath, and Heaven knows what other gentle influence, have chased from her features, settles down on them again.

'I am never fond of comic songs,' she answers stiffly; 'and I do not think that that was a particularly favourable specimen.'

He makes a gesture of disgust.

'Pah!' Then adds: 'I should have followed you before, only that I wanted to get Prue away. I knew that you would be glad if I could; but it was impossible!'

He has never spoken of her as 'Prue' before; but in his present agitation--an agitation for which Peggy is at a loss to account--he has obviously clean forgotten the formal prefix.

She is too much touched by his thoughtfulness for her to answer.

'My chief motive for following you,' continues he, speaking in an unusual and constrained voice, 'was that I thought I might possibly not have another opportunity of giving you _this_.'

As he speaks he puts a small parcel into her hands.

'It is only the ladder for the birds.'

She breaks into a laugh.

'They are in no such great hurry for it,' says she gaily; 'they could have waited until to-morrow.'

He sighs.

'I am afraid that they would have had to wait longer than until to-morrow!'

'Well, I daresay that they might have made s.h.i.+ft until Wednesday,'

returns she.

The entire unsuspiciousness of her tone makes his task a tenfold harder one than it would otherwise have been.

'It is--it is better that you should take it yourself to them,' he says, hesitating and floundering. 'I--I--might be prevented after all from coming. There is a chance of my--my--being obliged after all to go to-morrow!'

The star and moonlight are falling full on her face, lifted and attentive: he can see it as plainly as at high noonday. It seems to him that a tiny change pa.s.ses over it. But still she does not suspect the truth.

'What!' says she; 'has your chief telegraphed for you? What a thing it is to be so indispensable!'

Shall he leave her in her error? Nothing would be easier! Leave her in the belief that a legitimate summons to honourable work has called him away; leave her with a friendly face turned towards him, expecting and perhaps lightly hoping his return. The temptation is strong, but he conquers it.

'No,' he says, trying to speak carelessly; 'my chief is innocent this time of breaking into my holiday. I expect that he is enjoying his own too much; I am not going Londonwards; but--but--other reasons compel me to leave to-morrow.'

How unutterably flat and naked it sounds! There is no mistake now as to the change in her face--the change that he has dreaded and yet known would come--the hardening of eye and tightening of lip. Well, it is better that it should come! And yet, do what he may, he cannot leave her in the belief that, as he sees, has in one moment stolen all the frank sweetness out of her eyes.

'I--I--am not going north, either,' he cries, in miserable, eager stammering. 'I--I--do not know where I am going!'

'You are compelled to go, and yet you do not know where you are going!