Part 13 (2/2)

”What has happened? He's not coming back, of course! What a brute!

Didn't I always say he was a brute?”

Faith s.h.i.+vered.

There were moments when she still clung pa.s.sionately to the hope that there was some mistake--that when he came back he would be able to explain and put matters right. And there were other times when she shrank from the very thought of him, and only wished to be able to forget those few days of delirium.

She would not even confide in Peg. All she would do was to beg her to ask no questions.

”It's all over and done with,” she said tremblingly. ”You said he would not come back. I hope he never will.”

”I said I should not be at all surprised if he didn't,” Peg answered.

”But, of course, he may do. Sometimes in novelettes the villain of the story turns out to be the hero after all, you know.”

Faith did not think it was at all likely in this case, and the days began slowly to creep away.

When a fortnight had gone and the seventeenth day drew near, panic closed about her heart. Supposing he came after all?

She had had no word from him, and she hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. Perhaps it meant that he never would come back. She wished she could believe this.

At other times, lying awake at night in her little room with its sloping roof, against her will she was forced to remember every word the Beggar Man had said to her, every kindly action that he had done, and there was always a great unanswered question in her mind.

”Why did he marry me if he was bad, as they say he is? He need not have married me. There are heaps of other girls in the world.”

Mr. Shawyer wrote and begged her to go and see him, but she neither went nor answered the letter.

She spent as much of her time with Peg as possible, and the elder girl once more resumed her role of friend and protector.

”If you're worrying about that good-for-nothing!” she said to Faith one day in her blunt manner, ”you're a little fool. There are as good fish in the sea as any that were caught, my girl, and don't you make any mistake. Let old Scammel stay in America. Jolly good riddance, I say!”

Faith did not answer, but her nerves were tearing her to pieces. Every time a man's voice sounded in the pa.s.sages of the factory or a door opened suddenly she was sure it was the Beggar Man come back to find and claim her. Every time she heard the sound of a motor coming up the street her heart beat so fast she could hardly breathe. She never knew how she dragged through the seventeenth day, but it pa.s.sed somehow, and the eighteenth and nineteenth and twentieth, and still there was no sign of Nicholas Forrester.

She began to pluck up courage. He would not come now, she was sure. If he had returned to England he had found her wedding ring and the returned money and had understood what she meant. Perhaps even he had repented as much as she, long before he got back home.

Or perhaps he was still abroad! That would be best of all, if she could only be sure that the sea was still dividing them.

Five days after Nicholas was due to return Mrs. Ledley spoke of him.

”He'll never come back, Faith.” There was triumphant thankfulness in her voice. ”Somehow I felt all along that he would never come back.”

Faith could not answer. Though her fear had decreased it was not yet dead, and only last night she had dreamed of the Beggar Man, dreamed that she was on one side of a locked door on which he knocked, knocked ceaselessly. It was early evening, and Faith had come home from work to find Mrs. Ledley dressed to go out.

”You won't be long, mother, will you?” she urged. She dreaded being alone in the house. Though it was early evening, the twins were in bed and asleep, and everything seemed very still.

”I shan't be long,” her mother answered, ”but I must have a breath of air. The house has stifled me all day. I can't breathe at all sometimes.”

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