Part 4 — CHAPTER VI THE RETURN

Out of a night of troubled sleeping and waking—a night that seemed as if it would never pass—Bobby came at length. The weariness of travelling and the subsequent strain and disappointment were still upon her, but she exerted herself to meet the new day with a brave spirit. As she dressed, putting her weakness resolutely behind her, she thought of Silas, and of all that he had been to her the previous night.

"How ungrateful I was!" she told herself reproachfully. "I wonder—did I hurt him?"

She had been terribly overwrought, had said things which should never have been uttered. Yet somehow she clung to the conviction that it did not matter what she said to Silas, because he always understood.

By the grey morning-light she brought herself to face the thought of Dick. All through the night she had as it were been hiding her eyes from it as a child that fears to look upon some awful apparition. But now she braced herself to meet it without shrinking. All the long years of waiting were over. Dick had returned. It seemed incredible that that fondly cherished vision of her youth could thus have been shattered at one devastating blow, so faithfully had she kept his memory in her heart. That Dick—her Dick who had worshipped her so—could ever have come to her thus with that cruel devil of mockery and scepticism in his eyes was a thing so monstrous, so beyond all possibility, that she questioned with herself if she had really seen it or if it could have been some dreadful nightmare with which fever and fatigue had seared her brain. And yet in her heart she knew that it was starkly true. Dick had come back to her with hatred in his soul. Dick no longer believed in her, no longer wanted her—had not wanted her during all those years that she had waited so patiently and trustfully for him. It was so amazing a thought that she could not cope with it. It had been so far easier to believe him dead. Ah well! He was indeed dead to her now. She was conscious of a sudden passionate hope in her heart that she would never see him again. Her dream had been so precious to her, so tenderly guarded. And now that he had wrenched it from her, she felt as if her very soul were bleeding.

"There is nothing left," she said to herself again. "Why am I still alive?"

She dressed mechanically, taking no note of time, until a quiet knock at her door aroused her.

She went and opened it, and found Silas, calm and purposeful as ever, waiting outside.

She greeted him with outstretched hand; she was in sore need of a friendly clasp just then.

"It would be you," she said, with her wistful little smile. "Have you come to call me to breakfast?"

"Wouldn't you like it upstairs?" said Silas.

She shivered a little. A window was half-open down the passage, and the raw cold of a winter morning in London was in the atmosphere.

"No. I'll come down with you," she said.

"Put on your coat then!" said Silas, and she turned back to obey, still feeling mechanical, strangely numbed on the surface, though aware of a dull gnawing of pain beneath.

As she joined him, he was stolidly shutting the window that had admitted the draught to her. They went on together to the lift.

He did not speak as they descended, but she noted with a dim wonder that his presence seemed to dispel the sense of being in an alien atmosphere. In some fashion she could not fathom, he dominated his surroundings. Entering the vast, dreary dining-room with its bewildering sea of tables, she drew instinctively nearer to him. There was a feeling of home about him that gave her comfort as physical warmth gives comfort to the half-frozen.

He conducted her to a table close to a roaring fire, and she went to it thankfully, stretching her hands to the blaze. There were but few people in the room, and she realized that it was early.

He did not ask her what she would have, but gave his orders with clear conciseness, and then joined her before the fire.

"Our train leaves at ten," he remarked.

She started a little. "Oh! Where are we going?" she said.

He pulled out a chair from the table and placed it for her straight in front of the fire. There was no one very near to them, and to Bobby it was as though they were isolated in the midst of a grey sea. She was definitely aware of no one but her companion. All the rest was but a dim impression of a dreariness so far-reaching that she had no desire to contemplate it.

"We are going home," said Silas.

The glow seemed to reach her heart, and she leaned nearer to it. "But we haven't found Rosemary," she said.

"Yes," said Silas rather curtly. "Rosemary is found. She is at Bode, waiting for you."

"At Bode!" She turned back to him eagerly, her face alight. "Oh, Silas, is she really there?"

He looked at her, and she thought his face was grim. "Yes," he said. "A message came through this morning. They had been to Staple Farm and found us gone. Young Ross rang up early. I spoke to him, and told them to stay where they were at The King's Head till we got back."

"Oh, Silas!" Bobby breathed again, and a great quiver of emotion went through her. She leaned her head on her hand. "I shall really see my darling to-day," she whispered. "Thank God—oh, thank God!"

Silas remained silent and immovable by her side—a dumb bulwark of strength—till presently she looked up again.

"Was that all he said, Silas? She is quite well, is she? Everything is all right?"

"Quite, I believe, so far as they are concerned," said Silas.

She thought his tone unsympathetic. "Why do you say that?" she asked, puzzled. "Isn't it all right for everybody? Shouldn't we be glad for their sakes—if they are happy?"

"Certainly," said Silas, in a voice that conveyed nothing whatever. "I am very glad that they are happy."

She did not understand his attitude but, concluding that it was probably in some fashion on her account that he refused to be enthusiastic over the turn of events, she pressed him no further. The vast relief of his news was such as almost to make her wonder that she retained her balance, but the fact remained that something held her back from being overwhelmed by it. Perhaps she had sat in darkness too long to realize the light now that it had come. Or perhaps the bitter disillusionment of yesterday had taken from her the power to feel acutely any more.

When breakfast came, she turned round to the table with a subdued sense of hope deferred. Her anxiety was lifted, but it had so bowed her down that she could not recapture her old buoyancy of spirit. When once she had held Rosemary again in her arms and satisfied herself that all was well with her, she felt that she could quite thankfully fold her hands and die.

"You're not eating anything," said Silas, and she roused herself and made an effort for his sake.

She knew that he watched her narrowly and she did her best, but she could not muster any appetite, and she was glad that there was no time for dallying. The brief space that remained seemed to pass like a dream. She went back to her room to put her things together, and Silas went to his. She had the feeling that he was watching over her the whole time. Did he fear that Dick Dynamo would reappear to waylay her, she wondered? She had no fear on her own account. Dick—her Dick—had gone into the past, and she would never see him again. The romance of her life was dead, and nothing could ever bring it back to life. The ruthless stranger of yesterday had no power to disturb her further. He had done his worst, and it was all over. No, she had no fear for herself. She had nothing left to lose.

She scarcely spoke on the way to the station, and Silas sat beside her in vigilant silence. It was raining, and the streets were grey. The cold pierced her, and again scarcely consciously she drew a little closer to him. He stooped without words and wrapped a travelling-rug more firmly round her.

"I shall be so glad to get home," she said, as they neared the terminus.

And he answered gravely, "Yes, it's the best place."

He made every possible provision for her comfort during the journey. There were not many people travelling, and he secured a compartment for her without difficulty.

He also obtained a luncheon-basket. "It will save you the trouble of moving," he said.

He made a cushion of his coat and persuaded her to lie down when the train started, and she lay with closed eyes while he went to the further corner and left her alone.

Perhaps it was the motion of the express that presently lulled her into a state of semi-consciousness that resembled the outskirts of slumber. All through the night her brain had been capable neither of rest nor of coherent thought, but lying thus, with the certain knowledge that she was really on the right track at last, a sense of repose came upon her which gradually restored the power to think. After more than an hour of complete inertia, her mentality began to awake and ideas to form again in more orderly array.

During their first stop, when Silas quietly crossed to the carriage-window by her side and blocked it with his bulk, she looked at him and spoke.

"Silas!"

He looked down at her. "Are you wanting anything? I could get you a cup of coffee."

"No, thank you," she said. "Don't let anyone get in if you can help it!"

"They're not going to," said Silas.

She smiled rather wanly. "And don't go away again when we start!" she said. "I—want to speak to you."

"All right," he said.

He continued to fill up the window until the train was once more on its way. Then he turned round to her again.

"What is it?" he said.

Her face of white exhaustion still sought to show him a smile. "Just sit down!" she said. "I'll tell you in a minute."

He sat down opposite to her as she desired, and she lay looking at him with great intensity for several seconds. He waited with a massive patience for her to speak.

She did so at last, slowly, as though choosing her words. "Silas," she said, "I know you will tell me the truth—because you always do. Silas, did you see any more of—Dick—last night, after I left you?"

He leaned quietly forward. He had known that sooner or later that question must come. Very steadily he answered it.

"Yes. I went back and saw him. But I can't tell you what passed between us. I'm sorry."

A faint sigh escaped her. "You didn't—quarrel?" she said.

"No," said Silas.

"I'm glad of that," she said, and was silent for a space, still looking at him with those intent blue eyes that seemed so large a part of her.

At last she spoke again. "I don't want to know all that passed. Only one thing! Silas, will you tell me one thing?"

"What is it?" he said.

She stretched out a hand to him in a pleading, pathetic gesture. "He hasn't made you hate me, has he?" she said, and her lips were trembling as she asked the question.

He took the hand and laid his face down upon it. "Nothing—nobody—not God Himself—could make me do that," he said in a voice that shook.

"Thank you," she whispered. And then, with an effort, "What I really wanted to ask was this. Was it because—because he told my Rosemary something that—turned her against me that she went away with him—like that?"

Her question went into silence and by silence he answered it, his head still bent over her hand.

A long, weary sigh came from Bobby, and then, "Thank you," she said gently and slipped her hand away.

When he looked at her at length, he saw that her eyes were closed; and he got up quietly and moved back to his own corner.