I will go," was the answer, spoken very quietly. "And to-morrow morning I will return to London."
She moved away.
"Irene!"
"Yes----?"
"I have something to tell you before you go." Helen spoke with a set face, forcing herself to meet her friend's eyes. "Mr. Otway wants an opportunity of talking with you, alone. He hoped for it this morning. As he couldn't see you, he talked about you to me--you being the only subject he could talk about. I promised to be out of the way if he came this afternoon."
"Thank you--but why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because, as I said, things have got rather on my nerves." She took a step forward. "Will you overlook it--forget about it? Of course I should have told you before he came."
"It's strange that there should be anything to overlook or forget between _us_," said Irene, with wide pathetic eyes.
"There isn't really! It's not you and I that have got muddled--only things, circumstances. If you had been a little more chummy with me. There's a time for silence, but also a time for talking."
"Dear, there are things one _can't_ talk about, because one doesn't know what to say, even to oneself."
"I know! I know it!" replied Helen, with emphasis.
And she came still nearer, with hand held out.
"All nerves, Irene! Neuralgia of--of the common sense, my dear!"
They parted with a laugh and a quick clasp of hands.
CHAPTER XXXVII
For half an hour Irene sat idle. She was waiting, and could do nothing but wait. Then the uncertainty as to how long this suspense might hold her grew insufferable; she was afraid too, of seeing Helen again, and having to talk, when talk would be misery. A thought grew out of her unrest--a thought clear-shining amid the tumult of turbid emotions. She would go forth to meet him. He should see that she came with that purpose--that she put away all trivialities of prescription and of pride. If he were worthy, only the more would he esteem her. If she deluded herself--it lay in the course of Fate.
His way up from Redmire was by the road along which she had driven on the evening of her arrival, the road that dipped into a wooded glen, where a stream tumbled amid rocks and boulders, over smooth-worn slabs and shining pebbles, from the moor down to the river of the dale. He might not come this way. She hoped--she trusted Destiny.
She stood by the crossing of the beck. The flood of yesterday had fallen; the water was again shallow at this spot, but nearly all the stepping-stones had been swept away. For help at such times, a crazy little wooden bridge spanned the current a few yards above. Irene brushed through the long grass and the bracken, mounted on to the bridge, and, leaning over the old bough which formed a rail, let the voice of the beck soothe her impatience.
Here one might linger for hours, in perfect solitude; very rarely in the day was this happy stillness broken by a footfall, a voice, or the rumbling of a peasant's cart. A bird twittered, a breeze whispered in the branches; ever and ever the water kept its hushing note.
But now someone was coming. Not with audible footstep; not down the road at which Irene frequently glanced; the intruder approached from the lower part of the glen, along the beckside, now walking in soft herbage, now striding from stone to stone, sometimes lifting the bough of a hazel or a rowan that hung athwart his path. He drew near to the crossing. He saw the figure on the bridge, and for a moment stood at gaze.
Irene was aware of someone regarding her. She moved. He stood below, the ripple-edge of the water touching his foot. Upon his upturned face, dark eyes wide in joy and admiration, firm lips wistfully subduing their smile, the golden sunlight shimmered through overhanging foliage. She spoke.
"Everything around is beautiful, but this most of all."
"There is nothing more beautiful," he answered, "in all the dales."
The words had come to her easily and naturally, after so much trouble as to what the first words should be. His look was enough. She scorned her distrust, scorned the malicious gossip that had excited it. Her mind passed into consonance with the still, warm hour, with the loveliness of all about her.
"I haven't been that way yet." She pointed up the glen. "Will you come?"
"Gladly! I was here with Mrs. Borisoff this morning, and wished so much you had been with us."
Irene stepped down from the bridge down to the beckside. The briefest shadow of annoyance had caused her to turn her face away; there followed contentment that he spoke of the morning, at once and so frankly. She was able to talk without restraint, uttering her delight at each new picture as they went along. They walked very slowly, ever turning to admire, stopping to call each other's attention with glowing words. At a certain point, they were obliged to cross the water, their progress on this side barred by natural obstacles. It was a crossing of some little difficulty for Irene, the stones being rugged, and rather far apart; Piers guided her, and at the worst spot held out his hand.
"Jump! I won't let you fall."
She sprang with a happy girlish laugh to his side, and withdrew her hand very gently.
"Here is a good place to rest," she said, seating herself on a boulder. And Piers sat down at a little distance.
The bed of the torrent was full of great stones, very white, rounded and smoothed by the immemorial flow, by their tumbling and grinding in time of spate; they formed innumerable little cataracts, with here and there a broad plunge of foam-streaked water, perilously swift and deep. By the bank the current spread into a large, still pool, of colour a rich brown where the sunshine touched it, and darkly green where it lay beneath spreading branches; everywhere limpid, showing the pebbles or the sand in its cool depths. Infinite were the varyings of light and shade, from a dazzling gleam on the middle water, to the dense obscurity of leafy nooks. On either hand was a wood, thick with undergrowth; great pines, spruces, and larches, red-berried rowans, crowding on the steep sides of the ravine; trees of noble stature, shadowing fern and flower, towering against the sunny blue. Just below the spot where Piers and Irene rested, a great lichened hazel stretched itself all across the beck; in the upward direction a narrowing vista, filled with every tint of leafage, rose to the brown of the moor and the azure of the sky. All about grew tall, fruiting grasses, and many a bright flower; clusters of pink willow-weed, patches of yellow ragwort, the perfumed meadowsweet, and, amid bracken and bramble, the purple shining of a great campanula.
On the open moor, the sun blazed with parching heat; here was freshness as of spring, the waft of cool airs, the scent of verdure moistened at the root.
"Once upon a time," said Otway, when both had been listening to their thoughts, "I fancied myself as unlucky a man as walked the earth. I've got over that."
Irene did not look at him; she waited for the something else which his voice promised.
"Think of my good fortune in meeting you this afternoon. If I had gone to the Castle another way, I should have missed you; yet I all but did go by the fields. And there was nothing I desired so much as to see you somewhere--by yourself."
The
