PART II (continued 3)

He responded at once to her changing mood.

“Well,” he said, at length, “and what do you think of—your property?”

She colored slightly, but met his probing gaze with dauntless approbation. “I think it is just the dearest, the most lovable thing God ever made!” Her golden eyes caressed his every feature.

He suddenly paled.

But the emotion he showed spurred her on to gayer abandonment, and she laughed the happiest, silvery laugh that had ever rippled over her scarlet lips. “Oh, Falcon, it is a perfect disgrace, the way I show you how much I love you—but I can’t help it!”

He caught her to him and there was fire in his embrace. “It is the most delicious thing you ever did, you adorable little summer witch!”

She leaned back in his arms and surveyed him laughingly, teasingly. “But you don’t really love me as much as I—”

He closed the red, tantalizing lips with his, and his kisses leaped through her like flames. “Take that back! If you dare to say these outrageous things and smile at me in that bewildering way, I shall—”

“Falcon,” she half cried and half laughed, “I am so happy I don’t know what I am doing or saying.”

“Isma, stop being so absolutely bewitching! Can’t you see you are making my brain reel, that you are confusing me, intoxicating me—with your alluring ways!”

“But, Falcon, it doesn’t really matter if we go quite mad over each other, does it?” she said, regarding him with eyes that smoldered with love and tenderness under their long, drooping lashes.

“No, it doesn’t matter in the least, provided we have enough sense left to go through the—marriage ceremony to-morrow.”

She sat up quickly. “What are you talking about?”

“Your and my wedding, of course,” he replied, in a level voice.

She looked at him in breathless astonishment. “Falcon, you are not serious?”

“I was never more serious in my life. It is all being arranged—”

Her mood changed again. “But I can’t—” she whispered, in sudden consternation.

“My dear little girl, you can. All you have to do is to step into my car to-morrow morning and say—‘I will’ a little later on—”

A rich color dyed her face and throat. “Oh, not so soon!”

“Isma, don’t you love me well enough to want to be with me—all the time?”

The hurt in his tone touched her. “Of course, but, Falcon, you don’t understand—” she said, beginning to tremble.

“Of course I do,” he answered, his eyes eloquent with comprehension. “Don’t you think I knew you were shy and nervous when you came into the room this afternoon? But—wasn’t it all right? I didn’t overwhelm you too suddenly, did I—and don’t you think you can trust me to make everything all right for you to-morrow and—afterward?”

She clung to him suddenly. “You know I trust you absolutely. You always make everything easy for me, and you don’t know how much I love you for it!” she murmured, her lips close to his neck.

“So you want me to make love to you again!” he smiled, cuddling her to him. “Isma, when we are married I am going to show you what I really can do in that line.” Then he held her at arm’s-length and gazed at her with passionate adoration.

She laughed blushingly.

“Now don’t you look like that again or I shall have to— Oh, Isma,” he broke off all at once, “why won’t you understand that I can’t possibly wait! First you dazzle and bewilder me till I go clean off my head with longing for you, then you wonder why I love you so frantically that I can hardly wait another day to have you!”

“But—I love you—as much—”

“Yet you don’t want to marry me!”

“Yes, I do—”

“So you do, do you! All I can say is you have a funny way of showing it.”

She leaned against him suddenly and there was utter abandonment in the movement.

“Then you will—come with me—to-morrow?”

“Of course—if you wish it,” she breathed, tremulously.

It was dark. But a mellow, roseate light found its way into the garden through one of the drawing-room windows and fell softly on Isma’s figure as she stood under an archway of creepers saying good night to her lover. Her black Ninon evening gown was sleeveless and in the semi-darkness her lovely shoulders and arms gleamed strangely white.

Falcon regarded her silently for some moments. Then all at once he folded her to him and buried his face against the sumptuous whiteness of her shoulder.

Her soft arms stole about his neck as she gently pressed him to her.

The soldier drew a long, blissful sigh. “Isma—this is—heaven,” he murmured, in tones laden with ecstasy.

After a pause he raised his head reluctantly. “But I must tear myself away. It is getting late and you must have a good sleep. But think of it—to-morrow about this time we shall be together at the Blue Mountains, and, Isma—I shall not need to—say good-by.” His voice held a curious exultation.

“Falcon,” she whispered, laying her cheek against his, “I can’t think— It will all be too—wonderful—”

“You are glad now I arranged it so—soon?”

The glistening arms about his neck tightened. “After being with you like—this I couldn’t—bear it—if you—hadn’t—”

He crushed her to him. “Isma, only this one good-by and—then—”

In the warm, perfumed darkness two figures clung tremblingly together, while their lips met in a caress which held agonized longing as well as rapturous anticipation.

XIII THE NETTLE

“NEVILLE, what do you think has happened?” cried Miss Brentford, almost hysterically, as she swept into her brother-in-law’s room.

“My dear Rita, how can I guess what happens anywhere when I am a prisoner between these four walls?” replied the pale man on the bed, with a touch of irritation.

The girl began to pace the floor in frenzied excitement.

“What is it?” inquired the patient, realizing that something unusual had taken place.

Miss Brentford stood still and there was a wild, desperate look in her black eyes as she said: “Captain Folkestone has just rung up to say—good-by. He and Isma were just starting for Sydney. They are to be—married this afternoon. All is arranged.”

She stopped breathlessly, waiting for some fiery response, but none came; the man among the pillows did not stir.

“Neville, how can you lie there so quietly, staring into space as if this meant nothing to you? Stop acting—you don’t need to pretend with me.” She almost screamed at him in her exasperation.

Lord Berriedale’s dark eyes moved slowly from the windows through which long rays of sunlight streamed into the room and lay in large golden pools on the purple carpet, to the trembling form standing before him.

“Rita, I am not pretending. Only,” he sighed deeply, “I knew this had to—come—”

“How did you know that?” his companion demanded, fiercely. “She did not love him and—” She stopped, making a little choking sound in her throat.

“Didn’t love him, Rita! If ever a woman loved a man she loved—him!”

“I don’t believe it. She could not love anybody—doesn’t know the meaning of the word!” she flung at him, hotly.

An odd, ghostlike smile hovered for a moment about Lord Berriedale’s pale lips and his gaze seemed all at once fixed upon a scene which was not visible to the girl beside him. “Rita, you don’t know what you are talking about. In any case, do you think she could satisfy a man like Folkestone if she could not answer fire with fire? I used to think him cold, but, by Jove!—” Again his eyes looked abstractedly into space.

“Neville, I went to him two days ago to try and—make him give her up. I was going to tell him everything and open his eyes—”

Lord Berriedale’s abstraction had vanished. “Yes, and what did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. He simply refused to discuss her; wouldn’t even let me mention her name.”

“How could he prevent that?” One slim hand began to tug at his honey-colored mustache.

“Oh, you know his way! He just smiled, looked more handsome than ever, fenced and talked; everything I said he turned off—wouldn’t allow me to approach the subject.”

“Rita, that was because he knew you don’t understand his cousin.”

“Who can understand such depths of treachery!”

“You are absolutely wrong. There is no treachery about—Isma. She is the finest, grandest woman—”

“You ought to be the last man to say that, for you know better—” she interrupted him, vindictively.

“I know better than any one how utterly—untemptable she is.”

“You men always shield a beautiful woman!”

The girl began to pace the room again, her ungoverned despair sweeping over her once more. “Oh, Neville, I shall go absolutely crazy. I—I—can’t bear it—I can’t!”

Her companion sighed heavily, but he did not speak.

“I shall go mad—I know I shall—”

All at once she came over to the bed and threw herself into an easy-chair beside it and buried her face in the counterpane.

One long, slim hand was laid on the black, girlish head. “Poor little Rita!” whispered a voice so full of sympathy that she hardly recognized it as her brother-in-law’s. “If only I could make it easier for you!”

The girl lifted her face and looked long into the kind eyes regarding her. “Neville, do you think my going to him spurred him on to—?”

“No, dear, not at all. Folkestone would have done it, anyway. He has waited a long time, shown excellent self-control, and behaved with a restraint I envy him. But a man like that will not wait always, and when he does act he means business.”

Miss Brentford looked at him in amazement. “How can you bear to talk of it so—calmly! You speak as if it did not concern you in the least.”

“I am resigned—that is why,” he replied, meeting her glance calmly.

“Don’t you want to—kill the man and take her from him?” Her eyes held a fierce, merciless glitter, and the man beside her felt thankful that Isma was safely out of Rita’s way at present.

“What would be the use? I am helpless. I must stay—here, while another—”

The expression on his face made the girl all at once realize what he was passing through. “Poor Neville!” she murmured, for a moment forgetting her own grief in her realization of his.

“You need not pity me. I deserve it all; besides, I could never have made her happy.”

“Would that count as long as you—had her?”

“It didn’t count before. I would have taken her at all costs. But it counts now.”

“Why now?”

“I can hardly explain, only I have been thinking about—God.”

His companion, stared at him in astonishment. “Good gracious, Neville, you don’t mean to say you are turning religious!”

“Why not?” he asked, in level tones.

“Well—you are hardly a—suitable subject for—that kind of thing, are you?” she replied, with merciless candor.

“It is men like me who need religion most—”

“And what good can it do you?” she challenged him, scornfully.

“I don’t know yet. Perhaps religion may not help me, but God might.”

The girl had risen. She stood looking in cold defiance at her brother-in-law. Then she suddenly burst out laughing, a hideous, horrible laugh. “Neville, you are crazy already, absolutely dotty!” and with another ugly laugh she bolted out of the room.

“Rex, is the world coming to an end or what?” asked Miss Brentford, bursting into the library where she knew the secretary was comfortably installed with a novel and his cigarettes.

The man in the deep armchair put down the book he was reading and looked up in indolent anticipation. He had heard the girl’s conversation on the ’phone with Captain Folkestone and knew about the coming wedding, and looked forward to an interesting talk on the subject.

“Has anything else gone wrong?” He spoke with solemn intonation which seemed to refer to Lord Berriedale’s accident and that the secretary hoped no more calamities had taken place.

“Anything gone wrong indeed! What do you think, Neville has turned—religious!”

Rex showed distinct signs of disappointment.

“Is that all?” he said, indifferently, picking up his book again. “You really frightened me and made me think it was something serious.”

“Well, isn’t it serious that Neville is going mad?”

“Do you consider religion a madness?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

A light shot suddenly into the pale-blue eyes. The secretary saw a new excitement ahead of him, a fresh way of tormenting another being. “No, on the contrary, I think it shows jolly good sense,” he answered, settling down to enjoy himself.

“Rex!” exclaimed Miss Brentford, angrily, “you are only playing, and I am in no mood for jokes.”

“Indeed I mean what I say.”

“But you are not religious—far from it.”

“That doesn’t say I don’t approve of it. I don’t take exercise myself, yet I thoroughly believe in it, all the same.”

“You are too lazy,” commented his companion.

“Exactly. Most people are too lazy to be religious. It is too great a strain on their intelligence and too great a strain on their bodies.”

“Strain on their bodies?” queried the girl, in surprise.

“Yes, of course. When people become religious the body has to toe the line as well as the soul, and between ourselves I believe it is the strain on the body that keeps most people from religion. They don’t say so, naturally. They have far nicer little ways of explaining the situation. They are either assailed by doubts or they are too enlightened and clever or too large-minded to accept such old-fashioned ideas. But all the time it is the strain on the body it involves that frightens them off.”

“Still, if you believe in it, why aren’t you religious yourself?” interrogated the girl, uncertain whether her companion was in earnest or not.

“For the simple reason that others fight shy of it. I don’t want my habits interfered with. I like too many things religion condemns, so I keep away from it and stick to my habits.”

“Isn’t that rather foolish?” suggested Rita, with a veiled display of interest in spite of her scoffing tones.

“Of course, madly foolish. But then, with all our twentieth-century culture, cleverness, and knowledge, we are nothing but a set of innate fools! We know the great monster Death is after us, that sooner or later it will track us down. If we had one iota of sense, we would—”

“What would be the use—we can’t alter the fact,” interrupted Miss Brentford, impatiently.

“We certainly cannot alter the fact that Death is at our heels, yet we might alter—others.”

“What others?”

“Our fate Beyond.”

“Rex, do you really mean you believe in a state Beyond?”

“Of course I do; no one with any reasoning power could help it. There is no waste in nature; life everywhere rises out of life; death is just a crisis, a horrible, disgusting crisis; still, merely a critical juncture—an autumn crisis in which decaying vestures are shed. But the real life is not cast off in autumn. It is left free to be robed again in fresh garments, and the new garments will be on the same pattern as the old.”

The girl regarded the secretary skeptically; however, in her skepticism smoldered a secret fascination. “That sounds very plausible; yet, after all, we don’t know—no one has told us.”

“No, but we have been given minds which can think, conjecture, reason. We were never told about the power of electricity, still, by conjecturing and reasoning it was found.”

Rita sat in silence for a while. Before her mind had risen a torturing vision of two people flying along in a car on dry, summerlit roads, and soon—soon— No! She could not tolerate the idea; it was preposterous, unthinkable! She must make Rex talk again, anything to keep her brain from the picture it insisted on bringing before her. It was difficult to switch off her mental energy into another direction, yet these new thoughts and the astounding fact that Rex should expound them made them seem peculiarly interesting.

“Yes,” she admitted, half absently, “but we have got away from the main issue. I don’t see that that has anything to do with it. If there is an after-state, we shall arrive at it whether we are religious or not.”

“Certainly. All the same, religion has a great deal to do with it, for it makes people sow wheat and not tares; it is very insistent on that point. Now don’t you see the connection? The coming life must spring from the seed of this one, and, as a plant cannot one season be a nettle and the next a rose, it follows that if we are nettles here we must be nettles There and be treated as obnoxious weeds.”

The girl rose hastily. Nettle—nettle! The horrid little word pressed itself into the tissues of her brain.

A couple of days ago she had wondered why she had so little power over other people; why her words carried no weight; why she was ineffectual, influenced nobody; why no one had come very intimately into her life; why every one kept her at arm’s-length, and now she suddenly saw the reason—she was a nettle, a horrible nettle which stung anybody who touched it. She had nearly stung her sister to death; she wished to sting Isma into her grave; her words had been full of spite and venom, her actions obnoxiously selfish! She saw herself as a loathsome nettle stinging all who touched her life. And if there really was a state Beyond, what would happen to her? Would she still go on stinging so poisonously, so venomously, that she would be forever unloved and abhorred? What a terrible destiny!

“Some people think Death transforms us into angels,” Rita flung at the secretary, after a pause. “That is a much nicer theory than yours.”

Rex smiled ironically. “Yes, and almost as reasonable as the Santa Claus illusion.”

“And why shouldn’t it be true?” demanded Rita, defiantly.

“The Santa Claus myth?”

“No, no, you stupid man, not that—”

“Oh, I see; you mean the angel theory?”

“Of course.”

Rex sighed patiently. “Now do use your brains! How could Death transform one into an angel? Can the canker-worm develop the bud it attacks into a flower? Death has no power except to decay. It is like a moth getting into a garment; it doesn’t beautify—it destroys.”

“In that case it kills outright.”

“Yes, the garment, but not the wearer.”

Rita walked toward the window. However, the sight of the hot sunshine glistening on trees and flowers made her turn away hastily, for in this blinding radiance two people were driving—

“I hate all this sunlight!” she said, her cheeks all at once paling. “This is a horrid country; everything is ablaze; it is a land on fire that glitters and burns. I loathe it!” she cried, turning on the secretary with sudden vehemence.

“My dear girl, I assure you I had no hand in inventing or making Australia.”

“But you like it,” she protested, wrathfully.

“This certainly is a flame-land. It is vivid like fire. Its breath is like the breath of a furnace; even the wide spaces above are scorched by the heat from its great body; its voice is the roaring voice of flames! It is a land that sets people on fire, and, Miss Rita, if I stay here much longer”—Rex looked up at her with eyes that glowed with a sudden, mysterious light—“I shall be in flames myself.”

Australia was an extraordinary country. It had changed her whole world, made all familiar things crumble into dust and strange new ones take their place. Captain Folkestone had gone out of her life—she writhed again. Neville had become religious! Beatrice was dying! Rex talked like a bishop and said he was catching fire! And Australia was responsible for this horrible conglomeration of upheavals! Why had she come to this place of wild, abnormal things to be whirled like an atom into fathomless immensities, to be thrown into its flaming purgatory? Ah, why?

The girl stood still, regarding Rex for some moments in curious silence, then she turned and walked slowly out of the room.

XIV BLOODWOOD

WHEN tea was over that afternoon Lady Berriedale went to see her husband and sit with him for a while.

She had a nasty paroxysm of coughing as she sat down beside the bed. When the coughing had subsided she made a few preliminary remarks before saying, a little nervously:

“Neville, I have been so—sorry for you all day—”

Lord Berriedale made a restless movement as if he wished to check her, but she would not be interrupted. “Dear,” she continued, making a further effort, “I am going to say what I want, so just listen to me. I should like you to know that I had planned—everything so differently. I wanted you to have had what you—desired, after I had—gone. But now—” She hesitated.

The man’s left hand closed over his wife’s trembling one. “Beatrice, you have been far too generous,” he said, in a voice which shook slightly. “I have not deserved such—kindness.” Then he drew his hand away and moved it shadingly across his eyes as if to hide something he did not wish her to see.

Lady Berriedale turned her head away and her brimming glances searched the room for something to distract her attention and help her to composure. After a time her eyes lighted on some loose papers lying on a small table in front of her. Mechanically she picked up the sheets and saw that they held some verses written in a hand she did not recognize. Half absently she began to read “Crucified.”

Her attention became suddenly fixed, the hectic flush in her cheeks deepened, and she sat so still that her husband looked up, wondering what kept her so motionless.

A deep stain crept into his pallid face as he discovered what she was reading. “Beatrice, don’t; please don’t,” he said, in agitated tones. “It will only hurt you.”

She dropped the paper and met his disturbed gaze with eyes that held an unearthly calm, then she said: “Nothing can hurt me more than I am already hurt. I have lost—all; or, rather, found—I had nothing to—lose.”

She picked up the paper again and finished the verses, while the color in her husband’s cheeks faded to an ashen pallor.

For some time she sat with the thin sheets before her, staring fixedly at the words as if they had cast a hypnotic spell over her.

The stillness in the room was like the silence that follows the verdict of doom; it held an awful fatality, a sense of irrevocable destiny.

“Neville,” she said, at length, breaking the dreadful pause, “your life has been—like that?”

He made no answer, and his eyes evaded hers.

“Neville, why didn’t you—let me—know sooner and I would have—set you free?”

If she had spoken such words before, he would have assured her he did not want release; but now empty avowals were useless and the moment too solemn for prevarication. To have uttered an untruth just then would have been like uttering it before Eternity itself. Their naked souls stood face to face with each other at last; all veiling garments of falsehood and insincerity had fallen away.

“You could not,” he replied, after a short silence, forced to undeviating sincerity.

“Yes, I could. I would have—gone away, and after a time you could have had a—divorce on grounds of desertion.”

“That would have been—useless.”

“You mean she would not have—married a divorced man?”

“Yes, she wouldn’t have done that even if she had—cared: But,” he went on, in a different tone, “do not regret anything. It could not be—helped. Nothing could have altered it. Marriage binds till—death.”

Lady Berriedale sat looking vacantly before her as if her inner eyes were gazing into some terrible reality she must accustom herself to face. After a pause she repeated, absently:

The man on the bed shuddered. “Don’t, Beatrice, don’t,” he pleaded, closing his eyes.

For some time neither of them spoke and in the silence the wide, black chasm of despair stretched out before them in paralyzing desolation.

“The cross holds till—death,” she said at last, staring fixedly at the fatal verses; then after what seemed another interminable pause she rose and walked slowly out of the room.

It was midnight. Through Lord Berriedale’s wide-open windows gleamed the summer-night sky with its myriad host of tranquil stars.

The door opened gently, and a white-clad form moved softly toward the bed.

“Are you asleep, Neville?” whispered his wife, coming close to him.

The figure among the pillows shrank away a little, but the merciful darkness hid the sudden movement, also the hostile expression in the sleepless eyes.

“No,” he replied, in schooled tones, “I am not.”

Lady Berriedale hesitated, her fingers fidgeting with the silken bedspread, while her husband lay gazing at the white blur beside him, not choosing to assist her in overcoming her evident embarrassment.

“Neville, I want to—talk to you,” she said, with apparent effort.

“Couldn’t you talk to me—in the daytime? If you become—excited now, you know you will not be able to—sleep at all,” he said, with a distinctly uncompromising note in his voice.

“I shall not be able to—sleep, anyhow, and—it will help me to—talk to you. I have been thinking of those—verses and—everything,” she went on, more hurriedly. “How could I help it! It all seemed so hopeless, such an irremediable tragedy! Life, generally, appeared a fearful chaos, a cruel muddle, and I was almost distracted as I thought about it. Then all at once some talks with Isma came back to me. We were speaking about life and came to the conclusion it was only a prison-existence; that this planet was merely a prison-house for the criminals of the universe—the worst criminals, for every one sent here is executed. It seems to me this thought alone can explain all the suffering, misery, and heartache abounding on this earth. But, Neville, fancy entering the next world as criminals! Isn’t it awful! What chances of happiness could we have under such circumstances! And perhaps Death is not even the execution; it may merely be a door, a horrible door, that leads to—a worse doom. Neville, when I am so—near, when I shall enter it so—soon, can’t you understand that I should be terribly anxious?” She spoke rapidly, excitedly now.

Her husband clasped her hand in quick sympathy. “Of course, Beatrice, of course I can.”

After a slight hesitation she went on more calmly, a gentle hush coming into her tones. “But, Neville, I have been praying lately, not just offering formal petitions to some far-away, unheeding Being, but talking to a real Person—what Isma calls laying a detaining hand on God and speaking to Him. I have asked Him about—everything and to help me when all alone I shall enter the Great Beyond. I have been horribly afraid of it, Neville; but”—in the starlit gloom he saw the sudden light that came into her large, shadowy eyes—“I am not afraid any more, for all at once I remembered something I have not thought of for years, and it has taken away all my fears. It is this.” She lowered her voice before saying: “Neville, God so loved us that He sent His only Son down to this desolate prison-house to die for us poor criminals. Think of it—die for us! He was put on the scaffold of the cross for our sakes, and now—we can enter eternity, not as malefactors, but—free! Oh, Neville, you can’t imagine what this means to me!

“I unearthed my Bible to read about it, and do you know the first place my eyes lighted on as I opened the hook was the passage about the dying thief, and as I read it seemed to me he really represents the whole of suffering humanity—dying on the cross of sorrow and pain—yet unable to open the gates of—Paradise. It was only when the thief asked the Spotless One at his side to remember him when He came into His kingdom that he received the immediate promise of—Eden. And Neville, isn’t it wonderful! We can all ask Him—everybody can—to remember us; and He is not far away; He is beside us, and the moment we really ask we receive the promise that we shall be with Him in Paradise! Isn’t it beautiful!”

The soft darkness veiled the trembling form among the pillows and the moisture glistening in the black eyes.

There were some moments’ silence; then Lord Berriedale raised his wife’s emaciated hand to his lips and kissed it reverently before saying, brokenly, “And, Beatrice, it is only when we are on the cross ourselves that we learn to think of—the Crucified One and ask Him to—remember us.”

In the dimness he saw her face transfigured as she said, softly, “The cross is the trysting-place between heaven and earth; the cross is the ladder to—Paradise.”

Outside in the still, warm night a shuddering sigh went through the dreaming flowers in the garden and the stars gleamed as if they were smiling down on the earth through tears.