Part 15 (1/2)
For thought went wider and deeper than any deed; it was of the very order of the Powers intangible wherewith she had worked. Why, thoughts unborn and shapeless, that ran under the threshold and hid there, counted more in that world where It, the Unuttered, the Hidden and the Secret, reigned.
She knew now that her surrender of last night had been the ultimate deliverance. She was not afraid any more to meet Rodney; for she had been made pure from desire; she was safeguarded forever.
He had been gone about an hour when she heard him at the gate again and in the room below.
She went down to him. He came forward to meet her as she entered; he closed the door behind them; but her eyes held them apart.
”Did you not get my wire?” she said.
”Yes. I got it.”
”Then why ...”
”Why did I come? Because I knew what was happening. I wasn't going to leave you here for Powell to terrify you out of your life.”
”Surely--you thought they'd gone?”
”I knew they hadn't or you wouldn't have wired.”
”But I would. I'd have wired in any case.”
”To put me off?”
”To--put--you--off.”
”Why?”
He questioned without divination or forewarning. The veil of flesh was as yet over his eyes, so that he could not see.
”Because I didn't mean that you should come, that you should ever come again, Rodney.”
He smiled.
”So you went back on me, did you?”
”If you call it going back.”
She longed for him to see.
”That was only because you were frightened,” he said.
He turned from her and paced the room uneasily, as if he saw. Presently he drew up by the hearth and stood there for a moment, puzzling it out; and she thought that he had seen.
He hadn't. He faced her with a smile again.
”But it was no good, dear, was it? As if I wouldn't know what it meant.
You wouldn't have done it if you hadn't been ill. You lost your nerve.
No wonder, with those Powells preying on you, body and soul, for weeks.”