The Firing Line

They were very emotional, very unhappy, very, very much in love; but the truly pathetic part of it all lay in her innocent conviction that a marriage witnessed by the world was a sanctuary within the circle of which neither she nor he had any reason to fear each other or themselves.

The thing was done; hope slain. They, the mourners, might now meet in safety to talk together over the dead—suffer together among the graves of common memories, sadly tracing, reverently marking with epitaphs appropriate the tombs which held the dead days of their youth.

Youth believes; Age is the sceptic. So they did not know that, as nature abhors a vacuum, youth cannot long tolerate the vacuity of grief. Rose vines, cut to the roots, climb the higher. No checking ever killed a passion. Just now her inexperience was driving her into platitudes.

"Dear Garry," she said gently, "it is such happiness to talk to you like this; to know that you understand."

There is a regulation forbidding prisoners to converse upon the subject of their misdemeanours, but neither he nor she seemed to be aware of it.

Moreover, she was truly convinced that no nun in cloister was as hopelessly certain of safety from world and flesh and devil as was her heart and its meditations, under the aegis of admitted wedlock.

She looked down at the ring she wore, and a faint shiver passed over her.

"You are going to Mrs. Ascott?"

"Yes, to make her a Trianon and a smirking little park. I can't quarrel with my bread and butter, but I wish people would let these woods alone."

She sat very still and thoughtful, hands clasped on her knee.

"So you are going to Mrs. Ascott," she repeated. And, still thoughtful: "I am so fond of Alida Ascott.... She is very pretty, isn't she?"

"Very," he said absently.

"Don't you think so?"—warmly.

"I never met her but once."

She was considering him, the knuckle of one forefinger resting against her chin in an almost childish attitude of thoughtful perplexity.

"How long are you to remain there, Garry?"

"Where?"—coming out of abstraction.

"There—at Mrs. Ascott's?"

"Oh, I don't know—a month, I suppose."

"Not longer?"

"I can't tell, Shiela."

Young Mrs. Malcourt fell silent, eyes on the ground, one knee loosely crossed over the other, and her small foot swinging gently above its blue shadow on the gravel.

Some details in the eternal scheme of things were troubling her already; for one, the liberty of this man to come and go at will; and the dawning perception of her own chaining.

It was curious, too, to be sitting here so idly beside him, and realise that she had belonged to him so absolutely—remembering the thousand thrilling intimacies that bound them immortally together—and now to be actually so isolated, so beyond his reach, so alone, so miserably certain of her soul's safety!… And now, for the first time, she missed the pleasures of fear—the exquisite trepidation that lay in unsafety—the blessed thrill of peril warning her to avoid his eyes, his touch, his—lips.

She glanced uneasily at him, a slow side gaze; and met his eyes.

Her heart had begun beating faster; a glow grew in her veins; she closed her eyes, sitting there surprised—not yet frightened.

Time throbbed on; rigid, motionless, she endured the pulsing silence while the blood quickened till body and limbs seemed burning; and suddenly, from heart to throat the tension tightened as though a cry, echoing within her, was being strangled.

"Perhaps you had better—go—" she managed to say.

"Why?"

She looked down at her restless fingers interlacing, too confused to be actually afraid of herself or him.

What was there to fear? What occult uneasiness was haunting them? Where might lie any peril, now? How could the battle begin again when all was quiet along the firing line—quiet with the quiet of death? Do dead memories surge up into furies? Can dead hopes burn again? Is there any resurrection for the insurgent passions of the past laid for ever under the ban of wedlock? The fear within her turned to impatience—to a proud incredulity.

And now she felt the calm reaction as though, unbidden, an ugly dream, passing, had shadowed her unawakened senses for a moment, and passed away.

As long as they lived there was nothing to be done. Endurance could cease only with death. What was there to fear? She asked herself, waiting half contemptuously for an answer. But her unknown self had now subsided into the obscurity from whence it rose. The Phantom of the Future was laid.

CHAPTER XXIII

A CAPITULATION

As Hamil left the garden Malcourt sauntered into view, halted, then came forward.

"I'm glad to see you," he said pleasantly.

"Thank you."

Neither offered to shake hands; Malcourt, lightly formal, spoke of Hamil's illness in a few words, using that excellent taste which was at his command when he chose to employ it. He expressed his pleasure in Hamil's recovery, and said that he was ready at any time to take up the unfinished details of Portlaw's business, agreeing with Hamil that there remained very little to talk over.

"The main thing, of course, is to squelch William's last hopes of any Rhine castles," continued Malcourt, laughing. "If you feel like it to-day I'll bring over the plans as you sketched them."

"In a day or two," nodded Hamil.

"Or perhaps you will lunch with m—with us, and you and I can go over the things comfortably."

But he saw by the scarcely perceptible change in Hamil's face that there were to be no such relations between them, informal or otherwise; and he went on quietly, closing his own suggestion:

"Or, if you like, we'll get Portlaw some morning after his breakfast, and end the whole matter by laying down the law to him."

"That would be perfectly agreeable to me," said Hamil. He spoke as though fatigued, and he looked it as he moved toward his house, using his walking-stick. Malcourt accompanied him to the road.

"Hamil," he said coolly, "may I suggest something?"

The other turned an expressionless face toward him: "What do you wish to suggest?"

"That, some day when you feel physically better, I'd like to go over one or two matters with you—privately—"

"What matters?"

"They concern you and myself."