Part 39 (1/2)

In the pale saffron of the sky which was mysteriously darkening, sparks like deep-set brilliants were lighting themselves here and there. They sat and watched them together for long. But first Robin murmured something barely above her lowest breath. Coombe was not sure that she expected him to hear it.

”I want to be your little slave. Oh! Let me!”

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

This was what she had been thinking of. This had been the meaning of the tender thought for him he had recognised uncomprehendingly in her look: it had been the cause of her desire to enfold him in healing and restful peace. When he had felt that she drew so close to him that they were scarcely separated by physical being, it was because she had suddenly awakened to a new comprehension. The awakening must have been a sudden one. He had known at the church that it had taken all her last remnant of strength to aid her to lay her cold hand in his and he had seen shrinking terror in her eyes when she lifted them to his as he put on her wedding ring. He had also known perfectly what memory had beset her at the moment and he had thrown all the force of his will into the look which had answered her--the look which had told her that he understood.

Yes, the awakening must have been sudden and he asked himself how it had come about--what had made all clear?

He had never been a mystic, but during the cataclysmic hours through which men were living, many of them stunned into half blindness and then shocked into an unearthly clarity of thought and sight, he had come upon previously unheard of signs of mysticism on all sides. People talked--most of them blunderingly--of things they would not have mentioned without derision in pre-war days. Premonitions, dreams, visions, telepathy were not by any means always flouted with raucous laughter and crude witticisms. Even unorthodox people had begun to hold tentatively religious views.

Was he becoming a mystic at last? As he walked by Robin's side on the moor, as he dined with her, talked with her, sat and watched her at her sewing, more than ever each hour he believed that her dream was no ordinary fantasy of the unguided brain. She had in some strange way seen Donal. Where--how--where he had come from--where he returned after their meeting--he ceased to ask himself. What did it matter after all if souls could so comfort and sustain each other? The blessedness of it was enough.

He wondered as Dowie had done whether she would reveal anything to him or remain silent. There was no actual reason why she should speak. No remotest reference to the subject would come from himself.

It was in truth a new planet he lived on during this marvel of a week.

The child was wonderful, he told himself. He had not realised that a feminine creature could be so exquisitely enfolding and yet leave a man so wholly free. She was not always with him, but her spirit was so near that he began to feel that no faintest wish could form itself within his mind without her mysteriously knowing of its existence and realising it while she seemed to make no effort. She did pretty things for him and her gladness in his pleasure in them touched him to the core. He also knew that she wished him to see that she was well and strong and never tired or languid. There was, perhaps, one thing she could do for him and she wanted to prove to him that he might be sure she would not fail him.

He allowed her to perform small services for him because of the dearness of the smile it brought to her lips--almost a sort of mothering smile.

It was really true that she wanted to be his little slave and he had imagination enough to guess that she comforted herself by saying the thing to herself again and again; childlike and fantastic as it was.

She taught him to sleep as he had not slept for a year; she gave him back the power to look at his food without a sense of being repelled; she restored to him the ability to sit still in a chair as though it were meant to rest in. His nerves relaxed; his deadly fatigue left him; and it was the quiet nearness of Robin that had done it. He felt younger and knew that on his return to London he should be more inclined to disbelieve exaggerated rumours than to believe them.

On the evening before he left Darreuch they sat at the Tower window again. She did not take her sewing from its basket, but sat very quietly for a while looking at the purple folds of moor.

”You will go away very early in the morning,” she began at last.

”Yes. You must promise me that you will not awaken.”

”I do not waken early. If I do I shall come to you, but I think I shall be asleep.”

”Try to be asleep.”

He saw that she was going to say something else--something not connected with his departure. It was growing in her eyes and after a silent moment or so she began.

”There is something I want to tell you,” she said.

”Yes?”

”I have waited because I wanted to make sure that you could believe it.

I did not think you would not wish to believe it, but sometimes there are people who _cannot_ believe even when they try. Perhaps once I should not have been able to believe myself. But now--I _know_. And to-night I feel that you are one of those who _can_ believe.”

She was going to speak of it.

”In these days when all the forces of the world are in upheaval people are learning that there are many new things to be believed,” was his answer.

She turned towards him, extending her arms that he might see her well.