Her Own Free Will

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Title:     Her Own Free Will
Author: Ethel May Dell [More Titles by Dell]

CHAPTER I

"Well, it's all over now, for better, for worse, as they say. And I hope very much as it won't be for worse."

A loud sniff expressive of grave misgiving succeeded the remark. The speaker--one of a knot of village women--edged herself a little further forward to look up the long strip of red baize that stretched from the church porch to the lych gate near which she stood. The two cracked bells were doing their best to noise abroad the importance of the event that had just taken place, which was nothing less than the marriage of Colonel Everard's daughter to Piet Cradock, the man of millions. Of the latter's very existence none of the villagers had heard till a certain day, but a few weeks before, when he had suddenly appeared at the Hall as the accepted suitor of Nan Everard, whom everyone loved.

She was only twenty, prettiest, gayest, wildest, of the whole wild tribe. Three sons and eight daughters had the Colonel--a handsome, unruly family, each one of them as lavish, as extravagant, and as undeniably attractive as he was himself.

His wife had been dead for years. They lived on the verge of bankruptcy, had done so as long as most of them could remember; but it was only of late that matters had begun to look really serious for them. It was rumoured that the Hall was already mortgaged beyond its value, and it was common knowledge that the Colonel's debts were accumulating with alarming rapidity. This marriage, so it was openly surmised, had been arranged in haste for the sole purpose of easing the strain.

For that Nan Everard cared in the smallest degree for the solemn, thick-set son of a Boer mother, to whom she had given herself, no one ever deemed possible for an instant. But he was rich, fabulously rich, and that fact counterbalanced many drawbacks. Piet Cradock owned a large share in a diamond mine in the South African Republic, and he was a person of considerable importance in his native land in consequence. He had visited England on business, but his time there had been limited to a bare six weeks. This fact had necessitated a brief wooing and a speedy marriage.

He had met the girl of his choice by a mere accident. He had chanced to be seated on her right hand at a formal dinner-party in town. Very little had passed between them then, but later, through the medium of his host, he had sought her out, and called upon her. Within a week he had asked her to be his wife. And Nan Everard, impulsive, dazzled by the prospect of unbounded wealth, and feverishly eager to ease the family burden, had accepted him.

He was obliged to sail for South Africa within three weeks of his proposal, and preparations for the marriage had therefore to be hurried forward with all speed. They were to leave for Plymouth immediately after the ceremony, and to sail on the following day.

So at breathless speed events had raced, and no one knew exactly what was the state of Nan's mind even up to the morning of her wedding-day. Perhaps she scarcely knew herself, so madly had she been whirled along in the vortex to which she had committed herself. But possibly during the ceremony some vague realisation of what she was doing came upon her, for she made her vows with a face as white as death, and in a voice that never once rose above a whisper.

But when she came at last down the church-yard path upon her husband's arm, she was laughing merrily enough. Some enthusiast had flung a shower of rice over his uncovered head, to his obvious discomfiture.

He did not laugh with her. His smooth, heavy-jawed face was absolutely unresponsive. He was fifteen years her senior, and he looked it to the full. The hair grew far back upon his head, and it had a sprinkling of grey. His height was unremarkable, but he had immensely powerful shoulders, and a bull-like breadth of chest, that imparted a certain air of arrogance to his gait. His black brows met shaggily over eyes of sombre brown. Undeniably a formidable personage, this!

Nan, glancing at him as she entered the carriage, harboured for a moment the startled reflection that if he had a beard nothing could have restrained her just then from screaming and running away. But, fortunately for her quaking dignity, his face, with the exception of those menacing eyebrows, and the lashes that shaded his gloomy eyes, was wholly free from hair.

Driving away from the church with its two clanging bells, she made a resolute effort to shake off the scared feeling that had so possessed her when she had stood at the altar with this man. If she had made a mistake, and even now she was not absolutely certain that she had--it was impossible in that turmoil of conflicting emotions to say--but if she had, it was past remedy, and she must face the consequences without shrinking. She had a conviction that he would domineer over her without mercy if she displayed any fear.

So, bravely hiding her sinking heart, she laughed and chatted for the benefit of her taciturn bridegroom with the gayest inconsequence during the brief drive to her home.

He scarcely replied. He seemed to have something on his mind also. And Nan breathed a little sigh of relief when they reached their destination, and he gravely handed her out.

A litter of telegrams on a table in the old-fashioned hall caught the girl's attention directly she entered. She pounced upon them with eager zest.

"Ah, here's one from Jerry Lister. I knew he would be sure to remember. He's the dearest boy in the world. He would have been here, but for some horrid examination that kept him at Oxford."

She opened the message impetuously, and began to read it; but suddenly, finding her husband at her side, she desisted, crumpling it in her hand with decidedly heightened colour.

"Oh, he's quite ridiculous. Let us open some of the others."

She thrust a sheaf into his hand, and busied herself with the remainder.

He did not attempt to open any of them, but stood silently watching her glowing face as she opened one after another and tossed them down.

Suddenly she raised her eyes, and met his look fully, with a certain pride.

"Is anything the matter?"

He pointed quite calmly to the scrap of paper she held crumpled in her hand.

"Are you not going to read that?" he asked, in slow, rather careful English.

Her colour deepened; it rose to her forehead in a burning wave.

"Presently," she returned briefly.

His eyes held hers with a curious insistence.

"You need not be afraid," he said very quietly; "I shall not try to look over."

Nan stared at him, too amazed for speech. The hot blood ebbed from her face as swiftly as it had risen, leaving her as white as the orange-blossoms in her hair.

At length suddenly, with a passionate gesture, she thrust out her hand to him with the ball of paper on her palm.

"Pray take it and read it," she said, her voice quivering with anger, "since it interests you so much."

He made no movement to comply.

"I do not wish to read it, Anne," he said gravely.

Her lip curled. It was the first time he had ever called her by her Christian name, and there was something exceedingly formal in the way he uttered it now. Moreover, no one ever called her anything but Nan. For some reason she was hotly indignant at this unfamiliar mode of address. It increased her anger against him tenfold.

"Take it and read it!" she reiterated, with stubborn persistence. "I wish you to do so!"

The first carriage-load of guests was approaching the house as she spoke. Cradock paused for a single instant as if irresolute, then, without more ado, he took her at her word. He smoothed the paper out without the smallest change of countenance, and read it, while she stood quivering with impotent fury by his side. It was a long telegram, and it took some seconds to read; but he did not look up till he had mastered it.

"Good-bye, sweetheart, good-bye," so ran the message--"It is no red-letter day for me, but I wish you joy with all my heart. Spare a thought now and then for the good old times and the boy you left behind you.--Your loving Jerry."

Amid a buzz of congratulation, Piet Cradock handed the missive back to his bride with a simple "Thank you!" that revealed nothing whatever of what was in his mind.

She took it, without looking at him, with nervous promptitude, and the incident passed.

The guests were many, and Nan's attention was very fully occupied. No casual observer, seeing her smiling face, would have suspected the turmoil of doubt that underlay her serenity.

Only Mona, her favourite sister, had the smallest inkling of it, but even Mona was not in Nan's confidence just then. No intimate word of any sort passed between them up in the old bedroom that they had shared all their lives during the fleeting half-hour that Nan spent preparing for her journey. They could neither of them bear to speak of the coming separation, and that embodied everything.

The only allusion that Nan made to it was as she passed out of the room with her arm round her sister's shoulders, and whispered:

"Don't sleep by yourself to-night, darling. Make Lucy join you."

They descended the stairs, holding closely to each other. Old Colonel Everard, very red and tearful, met them at the foot, and folded Nan tightly in his arms, murmuring inarticulate words of blessing.

Nan emerged from his embrace pale but quite tearless.

"Au revoir, dad!" she said, in her sprightliest tone. "You will be having me back like a bad half-penny before you can turn round."

Still laughing, she went from one to another of her family with words of careless farewell, and finally rah the gauntlet of her well-wishers to the waiting carriage, into which she dived without ceremony to avoid the hail of rice that pursued her.

Her husband followed her closely, and they were off almost before he took his seat beside her.

"Thank goodness, that's over!" said Nan, with fervour. "I'll never marry again if I live to be a hundred! I am sure being buried must be much more fun, and not nearly so ignominious."

She leaned forward with the words, and was on the point of letting down the window, when there was a sudden, deafening report close to them. The carriage jerked and swerved violently, and in an instant it was being whirled down the drive at the top speed of two terrified horses.

Instinctively Nan turned to the man beside her.

"It's the boys!" she exclaimed. "They said they should fire a salute! But--but--"

She broke off, amazed to find his arms gripping her tightly, forcing her back in her seat, holding her pressed to him with a strength that took her breath away.

It all came--a multitude of impressions--crowded into a few brief seconds; yet every racing detail was engraved with awful distinctness upon the girl's mind, never to be forgotten.

She struggled wildly in that suffocating hold, struggled fruitlessly to lift her face from her husband's shoulder into which it was ruthlessly pressed, and only ceased to struggle when the end of that terrible flight came with a jolt and a jar and a final, sickening crash that flung her headlong into a dreadful gulf of emptiness into which no light or echo of sound could even vaguely penetrate.

 

CHAPTER II

Nan opened her eyes in her own sunny bedroom, and gazed wonderingly about her, dimly conscious of something wrong.

The doctor, whom she had known from her earliest infancy, was bending over her, and she smiled her recognition of him, though with a dawning uneasiness. Vague shapes were floating in her brain that troubled and perplexed her.

"What happened?" she murmured uneasily.

He laid his hand upon her forehead.

"Nothing much," he told her gently. "Lie still like a good girl and go to sleep. There is nothing whatever for you to worry about. You'll be better in the morning."

But the shapes were obstinate, and would not be expelled. They were, moreover, beginning to take definite form.

"Wasn't there an accident?" she said restlessly. "I wish you would tell me."

"Well, I will," the doctor answered, "if you will keep quiet and not vex yourself. There was a bit of an accident. The carriage was overturned. But no one was hurt but you, and you will soon be yourself again if you do as you're told."

"But how am I hurt?" questioned Nan, moving her head on the pillow with a dizzy feeling of weakness. "Ah!" with a sudden frown of pain. "It--it's my arm."

"Yes," the doctor said. "It's your arm. It went through the carriage window. I have had to strap it up pretty tightly. You will try to put up with it, and on no account must it be moved."

She looked at him with startled eyes.

"Is it very badly cut, then?"

"Yes, a fragment of glass pierced the main artery. But I have checked the bleeding--it was a providential thing that I was at hand to do it--and if you keep absolutely still, it won't burst out again. I am telling you this because it is necessary for you to know what a serious matter it is. Any exertion might bring it on again, and then I can't say what would happen. You have lost a good deal of blood as it is, and you can't afford to lose any more. But if you behave like a sensible girl, and lie quiet for a few days, you will soon be none the worse for the adventure."

"For a few days!" Nan's eyes widened. "Then--then I shan't be able to go with--with--" She faltered, and broke off.

He answered her with very kindly sympathy.

"Poor little woman! It's hard lines, but I am afraid there is no help for it. You will have to postpone your honeymoon for a little while."

"Have you--have you--told--him?" Nan whispered anxiously.

"Yes, he knows all about it," the doctor said. "You shall see him presently. But I want you to rest now. You have had a nasty shock, and I should like you to sleep it off. Just drink this, and shut your eyes."

Nan obeyed him meekly. She was feeling very weak and tired. And, after a little, she fell asleep, blissfully unconscious of the fact that her husband was seated close to her on the other side of the bed, silent and watchful, and immobile as a statue.

She did not wake till late on the following morning, and then it was to find her sister Mona only in attendance.

"Have you been up all night?" was Nan's first query.

Mona hesitated.

"Well, not exactly. I lay down part of the time."

"Why in the world didn't you go to bed?" questioned Nan.

"I couldn't, dear. Piet was here."

"Who?" said Nan sharply; then, colouring vividly, "All night, Mona? How could you let him?"

"I couldn't help it!" said Mona. "He wouldn't go."

"What nonsense! He's gone now, I suppose?" Nan spoke irritably. The tightness of the doctor's bandages was causing her considerable pain.

"Oh, yes, he went some time ago," Mona assured her. "But he is sure to come back presently, and say good-bye."

"Say good-bye!" Nan echoed the words slowly, a dawning brightness in her eyes. "Is he--is he really going, then?" she whispered.

"He says he must go--whatever happens. It was a solemn promise, and he can't break it. I don't understand, of course, but he is wanted at Kimberley to avert some crisis connected with the mines."

"Then--he will have to start soon?" said Nan.

"Yes. But he won't leave till the last minute. He has chartered a special to take him to Plymouth."

"He knows I can't go?" said Nan quickly.

"Oh, yes; the doctor told him that last night."

"What did he say? Was he angry?"

"He looked furious. But he didn't say anything, even in Dutch. I think his feelings were beyond words," said Mona, with a little smile.

Nan asked no more, but when the doctor saw her a little later, he was dissatisfied with her appearance, and scolded her for working herself into a fever.

"There's no sense in fretting about it," he said. "The thing is done, and can't be altered. I have no doubt your husband will be back again in a few weeks to fetch you, and we will have you quite well again by then."

But Nan only shivered in response, as though she found this assurance the reverse of comforting. The shock of the accident, succeeding the incessant strain of the past few weeks, had completely broken down her nerve, and no amount of reasoning could calm her.

When a message came from her husband an hour later, asking if she would see him, she answered in the affirmative, but the bare prospect of the interview threw her into a ferment of agitation.

She lay panting on her pillows like a frightened child when at length he entered.

He came in very softly, but every pulse in her body leapt at his approach. She could not utter a word in greeting.

He stood a moment in silence, looking down at her, then, stooping, he took her free hand into his own.

"Are you better?" he asked, his deep voice hushed as if he were in church.

She could not answer him for the fast beating of her heart. He waited a little, then sat down by the bed, his great hand still holding her little trembling one in a steady grasp.

"The doctor tells me," he said, "that it would not be safe for you to travel at present, so I cannot of course, think of allowing you to do so."

Nan's eyes opened very wide at this. It was an entirely novel idea that this man should take upon himself to direct her movements. She drew a deep breath, and found her voice.

"I should certainly not dream of attempting such a thing without the doctor's permission."

His grave face did not alter. His eyes looked directly into hers and it seemed to Nan for the first time that they held something of a domineering expression.

She turned her head away with a quick frown. She also made a slight, ineffectual effort to free her hand. But he did not appear to notice either gesture.

"Yes," he said, in his slow way, "it is out of the question, and so I have asked your father to take care of you for me until my return--for, unfortunately, I cannot postpone my own departure."

Nan's lips quivered. She was beginning to feel hysterical. With an effort she controlled herself.

"How long shall you be away?" she asked.

"It is impossible for me to say. Everything depends upon the state of affairs at the mines. But you may be quite sure, Anne"--a deeper note crept into his voice--"that my absence will be as short as I can possibly make it."

She turned her head towards him again.

"You needn't hurry for my sake," she said abruptly. "I shall be perfectly happy here."

"I am glad to hear it," he answered gravely. "I have made full provision for you. The interest upon the settlement I have made upon you will be paid to you monthly. Should you find it insufficient, you will, of course, let me know. I could cable you some more if necessary."

A great blush rose in Nan's face at his words, spreading upwards to her hair.

"Oh," she stammered, "I--I--indeed, I shan't want any money! Please don't--"

"It is your own," he interposed quietly, "and as such I beg that you will regard it, and spend it exactly as you like. Should you require more, as I have said, I shall be pleased to send it to you."

He uttered the last sentence as if it ended the matter, and Nan found herself unable to say more. To have expressed any gratitude would have been an absolute impossibility at that moment.

She lay, therefore, in quivering silence until he spoke again.

"It is time for me to be going. I hope the injury to your arm will progress quite satisfactorily. You will not be able to write to me yourself at present, but your sister Mona has promised to let me hear of you by every mail. Dr. Barnard will also write."

He paused. But Nan said nothing whatever. She was wondering, with a fiery embarrassment, what form his farewell would take.

After a brief silence he rose.

"Good-bye, then!" he said.

He bent low over her, looking closely into her unwilling face. And then--it was the merest touch--for the fraction of a second his lips were on her forehead.

"Good-bye!" he said again, under his breath, and in another moment she heard his soft tread as he went away.

Her heart was throbbing madly; she felt as if it were leaping up and down within her. For a space she lay listening, every nerve upon the stretch. Then at last there came to her the sound of voices raised in farewell, the crunch of wheels below her window, the loud banging of a door. And with a gasp she turned her face into her pillow, and wept for sheer relief.

He had come and gone like an evil dream, and she was left safe in her father's house.

 

CHAPTER III

Three weeks after her wedding, Nan Cradock awoke to the amazing discovery that she was a rich woman; how rich it took her some time to realise, and when it did dawn upon her she was startled, almost dismayed.

Her recovery from the only illness she had ever known was marvellously rapid, and with her return to health her spirits rose to their accustomed giddy height. There was little in her surroundings to remind her of the fact that she was married, always excepting the unwonted presence of these same riches which she speedily began to scatter with a lavish hand. Her life slipped very easily back into its accustomed groove, save that the pinch of poverty was conspicuously absent. The first day of every month brought her a full purse, and for a long time the charm of this novelty went far towards quieting the undeniable sense of uneasiness that accompanied it.

It was only when the novelty began to wear away that the burdened feeling began to oppress her unduly. No one suspected it, not even Mona, who adhered rigorously to her promise, and wrote her weekly report of her sister's health to her absent brother-in-law long after Nan was fully capable of performing this duty for herself. Mona had always been considered the least feather-brained of the family, and she certainly fulfilled her trust with absolute integrity.

Piet Cradock's epistles were not quite so frequent, and invariably of the briefest. They were exceedingly formal at all times, and Nan's heart never warmed at the sight of his handwriting. It was thick and strong, like himself, and she always regarded it with a little secret sense of aversion.

Nevertheless, as time passed, and he made no mention of return, her dread of the future subsided gradually into the back of her mind. It had never been her habit to look forward very far, and she was still little more than a child. Gradually the fact of her marriage began to grow shadowy and unreal, till at length she almost managed to shut it out of her consideration altogether. She had accepted the man upon impulse, dazzled by the glitter of his wealth. To find that he had drifted out of her life, and that the wealth remained, was the most blissful state of affairs that she could have desired.

Slowly spring merged into summer, and more and more did it seem to Nan that the past was nothing but a dream. She returned to her customary pursuits with all her old zest, rising early in the mornings to follow the otter-hounds, tramping for miles, and returning ravenous to breakfast; or, again, spending hours in the saddle, and only returning at her own sweet will. Colonel Everard's household was one of absolute freedom. No one ever questioned the doings of anyone else. From the earliest they had one and all been accustomed to go their own way. And Nan was the freest and most independent of them all.

It was on a splendid morning in July that as she splashed along the marshy edge of a stream in hot pursuit of one of the biggest otters she had ever seen, a well-known voice accosted her by name.

"Hullo, Nan! I wondered if you would turn up when they told me you were still at home."

Nan whisked round, up to her ankles in mud.

"Hullo, Jerry, it's you, is it?" was her unceremonious reply. "Pleased to see you, my boy. But don't talk to me now. I can't think of anything but business."

She was off with the words, not waiting to shake hands. But Jerry Lister was not in the least discouraged by this treatment. He was accustomed to Nan and all her ways.

He pounded after her along the bank and joined her as a matter of course. A straight, good-looking youth was Jerry, as wild and headstrong as Nan herself. He was the grand-nephew of old Squire Grimshaw, Colonel Everard's special crony, and he and Nan had been chums from their childhood. He was only a year older than she, and in many respects he was her junior. "I say, you are all right again?" was his first question, when the otter allowed them a little breathing-space. "I was awfully sorry to hear about your accident, you know, but awfully glad, too, in a way. By Jove, I don't think I could have spent the Long here, with you in South Africa! What ever possessed you to go and marry a Boer, Nan?"

"Don't be an idiot!" said Nan sharply. "He isn't anything of the sort."

Jerry accepted the correction with a boyish grimace.

"I'm coming to call on you to-morrow, Mrs. Cradock," he announced.

Nan coloured angrily.

"You needn't trouble yourself," she returned. "I don't receive callers."

But Jerry was not to be shaken off. He linked an affectionate arm in hers.

"All right, Nan old girl, don't be waxy," he pleaded. "Come on the lake with me this afternoon instead. I'll bring some prog if you will, and we'll have one of our old red-letter days. Is it a promise?"

She hesitated, still half inclined to be ungracious.

"Well," she said at length, moved in spite of herself by his persuasive attitude, "I will come to please you, on one condition."

"Good!" ejaculated Jerry. "It's done, whatever it is."

"Don't be absurd!" she protested, trying to be stern and failing somewhat ignominiously. "I will come only if you will promise not to talk about anything that you see I don't like."

"Bless your heart," said Jerry, lifting her fingertips to his lips, "I won't utter a syllable, good or bad, without your express permission. You'll come, then?"

"Yes, I'll come," she said, allowing the smile that would not be suppressed. "But if you don't make it very nice, I shall never come again."

"All right," said Jerry cheerily. "I'll bring my banjo. You always like that. Come early, like a saint. I'll be at the boat-house at eleven."

He was; and Nan was not long after. The lake stretched for about a mile in the squire's park, and many were the happy hours that they had spent upon it.

It was a day of perfect summer, and they drifted through it in sublime enjoyment. Jerry soon discovered that the girl's marriage and anything remotely connected with it were subjects to be avoided, and as he had no great wish himself to investigate in that direction he found small difficulty in confining himself to more familiar ground. Without effort they resumed the old friendly intercourse that the girl's rash step had threatened to cut short, and long before the end of the afternoon they were as intimate as they had ever been.

"You mustn't go in yet," insisted Jerry, when a distant clock struck seven. "Wait another couple of hours. There's plenty of food left. And the moonrise will be grand to-night."

Nan did not need much persuading. She had always loved the lake, and Jerry's society was generally congenial. He had, moreover, been taking special pains to please her, and she was quite willing to be pleased.

She consented, therefore, and Jerry punted her across to her favourite nook for supper. She thoroughly enjoyed the repast, Jerry's ideas of what a picnic-basket should contain being of a decidedly lavish order.

The meal over, he took up his banjo and waxed sentimental. Nan lay among her cushions and listened in sympathetic silence. Undeniably Jerry knew how to make music, and he also knew when to stop--a priceless gift in Nan's estimation.

When the moon rose at last out of the summer haze, he had laid his instrument aside and was lying with his head on his arms and his face to the rising glory. They watched it dumbly in the silence of goodfellowship, till at last it topped the willows and shone in a broad, silver streak across the lake right up to the prow of the boat.

After a long time Jerry turned his dark head.

"I say, Nan!" he said, almost in a whisper.

"Yes?" she murmured back, her eyes still full of the splendour. The boy raised himself a little.

"Do you remember that day ever so long ago when we played at being sweethearts on this very identical spot?" he asked her softly.

She turned her eyes to his with a doubtful, questioning look.

"We weren't in earnest, Jerry," she reminded him.

He jerked one shoulder with a sharp, impatient gesture, highly characteristic of him.

"I know we weren't. I shan't dream of being in earnest in that way for another ten--perhaps twenty--years. But there's no harm in making believe, is there, just now and then? I liked that game awfully, and so did you. You know you did."

Nan did not attempt to deny it. She sat up instead with her hands clasped round her knees and laughed like an elf.

Her wedding-ring caught the moonlight, and the boy leaned forward with a frown.

"Take that thing off, won't you, just for to-night? I hate to think you're married. You're not, you know. We're in fairyland, and married people never go there. The fairies will turn you out if they see it."

Very gently he inserted one finger between her clasped ones and began to draw the emblem off.

Nan made no resistance whatever. She only sat and laughed. She was in her gayest, most inconsequent mood. Some magic of the moonlight was in her veins that night.

"There!" said Jerry triumphantly. "Now you are safe. Jove! Did you hear that water-sprite gurgling under the boat? It must be ripping to be a water-sprite. Can't you see them, Nan, whisking about down there in couples along the stones? Give me your hand, and we'll dive under and join them."

But Nan's enthusiasm would not stretch to this. She fully understood his mood, but she would only sit in the moonlight and laugh, till presently Jerry, infected by her merriment, began to laugh too, and spun the ring he had filched from her high into the moonlight.

How it happened neither of them could ever afterwards say; but just at that critical moment when the ring was glittering in mid-air, some wayward current, or it might have been the water-sprite Jerry had just detected, lapped the water smartly against the punt and bumped it against the bank. Jerry exclaimed and nearly overbalanced backwards; Nan made a hasty grab at her falling property, but her hand only collided with his, making a similar grab at the same moment, and between them they sent the ring spinning far out into the moonlit ripples.

It disappeared before their dazzled eyes into that magic bar of light, and the girl and the boy turned and gazed at one another in speechless consternation.

Nan was the first to recover. She drew a deep breath, and burst into a merry peal of laughter.

"My dear boy, for pity's sake don't look like that! I never saw anything so absolutely tragic in my life. Why, what does it matter? I can buy another. I can buy fifty if I want them."

Thus reassured, Jerry began to laugh too, but not with Nan's abandonment. The incident had had a sobering effect upon him.

"But I'm awfully sorry," he protested. "All my fault. You must let me make it good."

This suggestion added to Nan's mirth. "Oh, I couldn't really. I should feel as if I was married to you, and I shouldn't like that at all. Now you needn't look cross, for you know you wouldn't either. No, don't be silly, Jerry. It doesn't matter the least little bit in the world."

"But, I say, won't the absent one be savage?" suggested Jerry.

Nan tossed her head. "I'm sure I don't know. Anyhow it doesn't matter."

"Do you really mean that?" he persisted. "Don't you really care?"

Nan threw herself back in the boat with her face to the stars.

"Why, of course not," she declared, with regal indifference. "How can you be so absurd?"

And in face of such sublime recklessness, he was obliged to be convinced.

 

CHAPTER IV

Nan's picnic on the lake was not concluded much before ten o'clock.

She ran home through the moonlight, bareheaded, whistling as carelessly as a boy. Night and day were the same thing to her in the place in which she had lived all her life. There was not one of the village folk whom she did not know, not one for whom the doings of the wild Everards did not provide food for discussion. For Nan undoubtedly was an Everard still, her grand wedding notwithstanding. No one ever dreamed of applying any other title to her than the familiar "Miss Nan" that she had borne from her babyhood. There was, in fact, a general feeling that the unknown husband of Miss Nan was scarcely worthy of the high honour that had been bestowed upon him. His desertion of her on the very day succeeding the wedding had been freely criticised, and in many quarters condemned out of hand. No one knew the exact circumstances of the case, but all were agreed in pronouncing Miss Nan's husband a defaulter.

That Miss Nan herself was very far from fretting over the situation was abundantly evident, but this fact did not in any way tend to justify the offender, of whom it was beginning to be opined round the bars of the village inns that he was "one o' them queer sort of cusses that it was best for women to steer clear of."

Naturally these interesting shreds of gossip never reached Nan's ears. She was, as she had ever been, supremely free from self-consciousness of any description, and it never occurred to her that the situation in which she was placed was sufficiently peculiar to cause comment. The Everards had ever been a law unto themselves, and it was inconceivable that anyone should attempt to apply to them the conventional rules by which other people chose to let their lives be governed. Of course they were different from the rest of the world. It had been an accepted fact as long as she could remember, and it certainly had never troubled her, nor was it ever likely to do so.

She was sublimely unconscious of all criticism as she ran down the village street that night, nodding carelessly to any that she met, and finally turned lightly in at her father's gates, walking with elastic tread under the great arching beech trees that blotted the moonlight from her path.

The front door stood hospitably open, and she entered to find her father stretched in his favourite chair, smoking.

He greeted her with his usual gruff indulgence.

"Hallo, you mad-cap! I was just wondering whether I would scour the country for you, or leave the door open and go to bed. I think it was going to be the last, though, to be sure, it would have served you right if I had locked you out. Had any dinner?"

"No, darling, supper--any amount of it." Nan dropped a kiss upon his bald head in passing. "I've been with Jerry," she said, "on the lake the whole day long. We watched the moon rise. It was so romantic."

The Colonel grunted.

"More rheumatic than romantic I should have thought. Better have a glass of grog."

Nan screwed up her bright face with a laugh.

"Heaven forbid, dad! And on a night like this. Oh, bother! Is that a letter for me?"

Colonel Everard was pointing to an envelope on the mantelpiece. She crossed the hall without eagerness, and picked it up.

"I've had one, too," said the Colonel, after a brief pause, speaking with a jerk as if the words insisted upon being uttered in spite of him.

"You!" Nan paused with one finger already inserted in the flap. "What for?"

Her father was staring steadily at the end of his cigar, or he might have seen a hint of panic in her dark eyes.

"You will see for yourself," he said, still in that uncomfortable, jerky style. "He seems to think--Well, I must say it sounds reasonable enough since he can't get back at present; but you will see for yourself."

A little tremor went through Nan as she opened the letter. With frowning brows she perused it.

It did not take long to read. The thick, upright writing was almost arrogantly distinct, recalling the writer with startling vividness.

He had written with his accustomed brevity, but there was much more than usual in his letter. He saw no prospect, so he told her, of being able to leave the country for some time to come. Affairs were unsettled, and likely to remain so. At the same time, there was no reason, now that her health was restored, that she should not join him, and he was writing to ask her father to take her out to him. He would meet them at Cape Town, and if the Colonel cared to do so he would be very pleased if he would spend a few months with them.

The plan was expressed concisely but with absolute kindness. Nevertheless there was about the letter a certain tone of mastery which gave Nan very clearly to understand that the writer thereof did not expect to be disappointed. It was emphatically the letter of a husband to his wife, not of a lover to his beloved.

She looked up from it with a very blank face.

"My dear dad!" she ejaculated. "What can he be thinking of?"

Colonel Everard smiled somewhat ruefully.

"You, apparently," he said, with an effort to speak lightly. "What shall we say to him--eh, Nan? You'll like to go on the spree with your old dad to take care of you."

"Spree!" exclaimed Nan. And again in a lower key, with a still finer disdain: "Spree! Well"--tearing the letter across impulsively, with the action of a passionate child--"you can go on the spree if you like, dad, but I'm going to stay at home. I'm not going to run after him to the ends of the earth if he is my husband. It wasn't in the bargain, and I won't do it!"

She stamped like a little fury, scattering fragments of the torn letter in all directions.

Her father attempted a feeble remonstrance, but she overrode him instantly.

"I won't listen to you, dad!" she declared fiercely. "I tell you I won't do it! The man isn't living who shall order me to do this or that as if I were his slave. You can write and tell him so if you like. When I married him, he gave me to understand that we should only be out there for a few months at most, and then we were to settle in England. You see what a different story he tells now. But I won't be treated in that way. I won't be inveigled out there, and made to wait on his royal pleasure. He chose to go without me. I wasn't important enough to keep him in England, and now it's my turn. He isn't important enough to drag me out there. No, be quiet, daddy! I tell you I won't go! I won't go, I swear it!"

"My dear child," protested the Colonel, making himself heard at length in her pause for breath. "No one wants you to go anywhere or do anything against your will. Piet Cradock isn't so unreasonable as that, if he is a Dutchman. Now don't distress yourself. There isn't the smallest necessity for that. I thought it just possible that you might like the idea as I was to be with you. But as you don't--well, there's an end of it. We will say no more."

Nan's arm was around his neck as he ended, her cheek against his forehead.

"Dear, dear daddy, don't think I'm cross with you. You're just the sweetest old darling in the world, and I'd go to Kamschatka with you gladly--in fact, anywhere--anywhere--except South Africa. Can't we go somewhere together, just you and I? Let's go to Jamaica. I'm sure I can afford it."

"No, no, no!" protested the Colonel. "Get away with you, you baggage! What are you thinking of? Miss the cubbing season? Not I. And not you either, if I know you. There! Run along to bed, and take my blessing with you. I'll send a line to Piet, if you like, and tell him you don't object to waiting for him a bit longer under your old father's roof. Come, be off with you! I'm going to lock up."

He hoisted himself out of his chair with the words, looked at her fondly for a moment, took her pretty face between his hands, and kissed her twice.

"She's the worst pickle of the lot," he declared softly.

He did not add that she was also his darling of them all, but this was a perfectly open secret between them, and had been such as long as Nan could remember. She laughed up at him with tender impudence in recognition of the fact.

 

CHAPTER V

The letter from Piet Cradock was not again referred to by either Nan or her father. The latter answered it in his own way after the lapse of a few weeks. He was of a peaceable, easy-going nature himself, and he did not anticipate any trouble with Nan's husband. After all, the child's reluctance to leave her home was perfectly natural. He, for his part, had never fully understood the attraction which his son-in-law had exercised upon her. He had been glad enough to have his favourite daughter provided for, but the actual parting with her had been a serious trouble to him, the most serious he had known for years, and he had been very far from desiring to quarrel with the Fate that had restored her to him.

He was comfortably convinced that Piet would understand all this. Moreover, the fellow was clearly very busy. All his energies seemed to be fully occupied. He would have but little time to spare for his wife, even if he had her at his side. No, on the whole, the Colonel was of opinion that Nan's decision was a wise one, and it seemed to him that, upon reflection, his son-in-law could scarcely fail to agree with him.

Something of this he expressed in his letter when he eventually roused himself to reply to Piet's invitation, and therewith he dismissed all further thought upon the subject from his mind. His darling had pleased herself all her life, and naturally she would continue to do so.

His letter went into silence, but there was nothing surprising in this fact. Piet was, of course, too busy to have any leisure for private affairs. The whole matter slid into the past with the utmost ease. No doubt he would come home some day, but very possibly not for years, and the Colonel was quite content with this vague prospect.

As for Nan, she flicked the matter from her with the utmost nonchalance. Since her father had undertaken to explain things, she did not even trouble herself to write an answer to her husband's letter. That letter had, in fact, very deeply wounded her pride. It had been a command, and Nan was not accustomed to such treatment. Never, in all her unruly life, had she yielded obedience to any. No discipline had ever tamed her. She had been free, free as air, and she had not the vaguest intention of submitting herself to the authority of anyone. The bare idea was unthinkably repugnant to her, foreign to her whole nature.

So, with a fierce disgust, she cast from her all memory of that brief message that had come to her from the man who called himself her husband, who had actually dared to treat her as one having the right to control her actions. She could be a thousand times more arrogant than he when occasion served, and she had not the faintest intention of allowing herself to be fettered by any man's tyranny.

Swiftly the days of that splendid summer flew by. She scarcely knew how she spent them, but she was always in the open air, and almost invariably with Jerry. She missed him considerably when he returned to Oxford, but the hunting season was at hand, and soon engrossed all her thoughts. Old Squire Grimshaw was the master, and Nan and her father followed his hounds three days in every week. People had long since come to acquiesce in the absence of Nan's husband. Many of them had almost forgotten that the girl was married, since Nan herself so persistently ignored the fact. Gossip upon the subject had died down for lack of nourishment. And Nan pursued her reckless way untrammelled as of yore.

The week before Christmas saw Jerry once more at the Hall. He was as ardent a follower of the hounds as was Nan, and many were the breakneck gallops in which they indulged before a spell of frost put an end to this giddy pastime. Christmas came and went, leaving the lake frozen to a thickness of several inches, leaving Nan and the ever-faithful Jerry cutting figures of extraordinary elaboration on the ice.

The Hunt Ball had been fixed to take place on the sixth of January, and, in preparation for this event, Nan and some of her sisters were busily engaged beforehand in decking the Town Hall of the neighbourhood with evergreens and bunting. Jerry's assistance in this matter was, of course, invaluable, and when the important day arrived, he and Nan spent the whole afternoon in sliding about the floor to improve the surface.

So absorbing was this occupation that the passage of time was quite unnoticed by either of them till Nan at length discovered to her dismay that she had missed the train by which she had meant to return.

To walk back meant a trudge of five miles. To drive was out of the question, for all the carriages in the place had been requisitioned.

"What in the world shall I do?" she cried. "If I walk back, I shall never have time to dress. Oh, why haven't I got a motor?"

Jerry slapped his leg with a yell of triumph.

"My dear girl, you have! The very thing! I'll be your motor and chauffeur rolled into one. My bicycle is here. Come along, and I'll take you home on the step."

The idea was worthy of them both. Nan fell in with it with a gay chuckle. It was not the first time that she had indulged in this species of gymnastics with Jerry's co-operation, though, to be sure, some years had elapsed since the last occasion on which she had performed the feat.

She had not, however, forgotten her ancient prowess, and Jerry was delighted with his passenger. Poised on one foot, and holding firmly to his shoulders, Nan sailed down the High Street in the full glare of the lamps. It was not a dignified mode of progression, but it was very far from being ungraceful.

She wore a little white fur cap on her dark hair, and her pretty face laughed beneath it like the face of a merry child. The danger of her position was a consideration that never occurred to her. She was in her wildest mood, and enjoying herself to the utmost.

The warning hoot of a motor behind her dismayed her not at all.

"Hurry up, Jerry! Don't let them pass!" she urged.

And Jerry put his whole heart into his pedalling and bore her at the top of his speed.

It was an exciting race, but ending, as such races are bound to end, in the triumph of the motor. The great machine overtook them steadily, surely. For three seconds they were abreast, and Nan hammered her cavalier on the back with her muff in a fever of impatience. Then the motor glided ahead, leaving only the fumes of its petrol to exasperate the already heated Nan.

"Beasts!" she ejaculated tersely, while Jerry became so limp with laughter, that he nearly ceased pedalling altogether.

No further adventure befell them during the five-mile journey. The roads were in excellent condition, and the moon was high and frostily bright.

"It's been lovely," Nan declared, as they turned in at her father's gates. "And you're a brick, Jerry!"

"How many waltzes shall I get for it?" was Jerry's prompt rejoinder.

The girl's gay laugh rang silvery through the frosty air. Jerry had been asking the question at intervals all the afternoon.

"I'll give you all the extras," she laughed as she sprang lightly to the ground.

Jerry did not even dismount. His time also was limited.

"Yes?" he called over his shoulder, as he wheeled round and began to ride away. "And?"

"And as many more as I can spare," cried Nan, and with a wave of her hand turned to enter the house.

The laugh was still on her lips as she mounted the steps. The hall-door stood open, and her father's voice hailed her from within.

"Hallo, Nan, you scapegrace! What mad-cap trick will you be up to next, I wonder?"

There was a decided note of uneasiness behind the banter of his tone which her quick ear instantly detected. She looked up sharply and in a second, as if at a touch of magic, the laughter all died out of her face.

A man was standing in the glow of the lamp-light slightly behind her father, a man of medium height and immense breadth, with a clean-shaven, heavy-browed face, and sombre eyes that watched her silently.

 

CHAPTER VI

Nan was ever quick in all her ways, and it was very seldom that she was disconcerted. Between the moment of her reaching the top step and that in which she entered the hall, she flashed from laughing childhood to haughty womanhood. The dignity with which she offered her hand to her husband was in its way superb.

"An unexpected pleasure!" was her icy comment.

He took the hand, looking closely into her eyes. He made no attempt to draw her nearer, and Nan remained at arm's-length. Yet something in his scrutiny affected her, for a shiver went through her, proudly though she met it.

"It is cold," she said, by way of explanation. "It is freezing hard, and we came all the way by road."

"Yes," he said, in his deep, slow voice. "I saw you."

"You saw me?" Nan's eyebrows went up; she was furiously conscious that she blushed.

"I passed you in a motor," he explained.

"Oh!" She withdrew her hand, and turned to the fire with a little laugh, raging inwardly at the fate that had betrayed her.

Standing by the hearth, she pulled off her gloves, and spread her hands to the blaze. It was a mere pretence, for she was hot all over by that time, hot and quivering and fiercely resentful. There was another feeling also behind her resentment, a feeling which she would not own, that made her heart thump oddly, as it had thumped only once before in her life--when this man had touched her face with his lips.

"Well," she said, standing up after a few minutes, "I must go and dress, and so must you, dad. We are going to the Hunt Ball to-night," she added, with a brief glance in her husband's direction.

He made no reply of any sort. His eyes were fixed upon her left hand. After a moment she became aware of this, and slipped it carelessly into her pocket. Whistling softly, she turned to go.

At the foot of the stairs she heard her father's voice, and paused.

"You had better come, too," he was saying to his son-in-law.

Nan wheeled sharply, almost as if she would protest, but she checked her words unspoken.

Quietly Piet Cradock was making reply:

"Thank you, Colonel. I think I had better."

Across the hall Nan met his gaze still unwaveringly fixed upon her, and she returned it with the utmost defiance of which she was capable. Did he actually fancy that she could be coerced into joining him, she asked herself--she who had always been free as the air? Well, he would soon discover his mistake. She would begin to teach him from that moment.

With her head still held high, she turned and mounted the stairs.

Mona was waiting for her in much disturbance of spirit.

"He arrived early this afternoon," was her report. "We were all so astonished. He has come for you, Nan, and he says he must start back next week without fail. Isn't it short notice? I wish he had written to say he was coming. He sat and talked to dad all the afternoon. And then, as you didn't come, he started off in his motor to find you. He must have gone to the station first, or he would have met you sooner."

To all this Nan listened with a set face, while she raced through her dressing. She made no comment whatever. The only signs that she heard lay in her tense expression and unsteady fingers.

They did not descend till the last minute, just as the carriage containing the Colonel and three more of his daughters was driving away.

Piet was standing like a massive statue in the hall. As the two girls came down, he moved forward.

"I have kept the motor for you," he said.

Mona thanked him. Nan did not utter a word. She would not touch the hand that would have helped her in, and she kept her lips firmly closed throughout the drive.

When she entered the ballroom at length her husband was by her side, but neither by word nor look did she acknowledge his presence there.

Jerry spied her instantly, and came towards her. She went quickly to meet him.

"For goodness' sake," she whispered urgently, "help me to get away from that man!"

"Of course," said Jerry, promptly leading her away in the opposite direction till the crowd swallowed them. "Who the dickens is he?"

She looked at him with a small, piteous smile.

"His name is Piet Cradock," she said.

"Great Scotland!" ejaculated Jerry; and added fiercely: "What the devil has he come back for? What does he want?"

Nan threw back her head with a sudden wild laugh.

"Guess!" she cried.

But Jerry knew without guessing, and swore savagely under his breath.

"But you won't go with him--not yet, anyhow?" he urged. "He can't hurry you off without consulting your convenience. You won't submit to that?"

An imp of mischief had begun to dance in Nan's eyes.

"I am told he has to sail next week," she said. "But I think it possible that by that time he won't be quite so anxious to take me with him. Time alone will prove. How many waltzes did you ask for?"

"As many as I can get, of course," said Jerry, taking instant advantage of this generous invitation.

She laughed recklessly, and gave him her card.

"Take them then, my dear boy. I am ready to dance all night long."

She laughed again still more recklessly when he handed her card back to her.

"You are very daring!" she remarked.

He looked momentarily disconcerted.

"You don't mind, do you?"

"I mind? It's what I meant you to do," she answered lightly. "Shall I say you are very daring on my behalf?"

Jerry flushed a deep red.

"I would do anything under the sun for you, Nan," he said, in a low voice.

Whereat she laughed again--a gay, sweet laugh, and left him.

 

CHAPTER VII

Piet Cradock spent nearly the whole of that long evening leaning against a doorpost watching his wife dancing with Jerry Lister. They were the best-matched couple in the room, and, as a good many remarked, they seemed to know it.

Through every dance Nan laughed and talked with a feverish gaiety, conscious of that long, long gaze that never varied. She felt almost hysterical under it at last. It made her desperate--so desperate that she finally quitted the ballroom altogether in Jerry's company, and remained invisible till people were beginning to take their departure.

That feeling at the back of her mind had grown to a definite sensation that she could not longer ignore or trample into insignificance. She was horribly afraid of that silent man with his gloomy, inscrutable eyes. His look frightened, almost terrified her. She felt like a trapped creature that lies quaking in the grass, listening to the coming footsteps of its captor.

In a vague way Jerry was aware of her inquietude, and when they rose at length to leave their secluded corner, he turned and spoke with a certain blunt chivalry that did him credit.

"I say, Nan, if things get unbearable, you'll promise to let me know? I'll do anything to help you, you know--anything under the sun."

And Nan squeezed his arm tightly in acknowledgment, though she made no verbal answer.

Amid a crowd of departing dancers they came face to face with Piet. He was standing in an attitude of immense patience near the door. Very quietly he addressed her.

"Colonel Everard and your sisters have gone. The motor is waiting to take you when you are ready."

She started back sharply. Her nerves were on edge, and the news was a shock. Her hand was still on Jerry's arm. Impulsively she turned to him.

"I haven't had nearly enough yet," she declared. "Come along, Jerry! Let's dance to the bitter end!"

Jerry took her at her word on the instant, and began to thread the way back to the ballroom. But before they reached it a quiet hand fastened upon his shoulder, detaining him.

"Pardon me," said Piet Cradock, "but my wife has had more than enough already, and I am going to take her home!"

Jerry stopped, struck silent for the moment by sheer astonishment.

Without further words Piet proceeded to transfer Nan's hand from the boy's arm to his own. He did it with absolute gentleness, but with a resolution that admitted of no resistance--at least Nan attempted none.

But the action infuriated Jerry, and in the flurry of the moment he completely lost his head.

"What the devil do you mean?" he demanded loudly.

An abrupt silence fell upon the buzzing throng about them. Through it, with unfaltering composure, fell Piet Cradock's reply.

"I mean exactly what I have said. If you have any objection to raise, I am ready to deal with it, either now or later--as you shall choose."

The words were hardly uttered when Nan did an extraordinary thing. She lifted a perfectly colourless face with a ghastly smile upon it, and held out her free hand to Jerry.

"All right, Jerry," she said. "I think I'll go after all. I am rather tired. Good-night, dear boy! Pleasant dreams! Now, Piet"--she turned that quivering smile upon her husband, and it was the bravest thing she had ever done--"don't keep me waiting. Go and get your coat, and be quick about it; or I shall certainly be ready first."

He turned away at once, and the incident was over, since by this unexpected move Nan had managed to convey to her too ardent champion that she desired it to be so.

He departed sullenly to the refreshment-room, mystified but obedient and she dived hurriedly into the cloakroom in search of her property.

She found Piet waiting for her when she came out, and she passed forth with him to the waiting motor with a laugh and a jest for the benefit of the onlookers.

But the moment the door closed upon them she fell into silence, drawn back from him as far as possible, her cold hands clenched tight under her cloak.

He did not attempt to speak to her during the quarter of an hour's drive, sitting mutely beside her in statuesque stillness; and it was she who, when he handed her out, broke the silence.

"I have something to say to you."

He bent before her stiffly.

"I am at your service."

There was something in his words that sounded ironical to her, something that sent the blood to her face in a burning wave. She turned in silence and ascended the steps in front of him.

She found the door unlocked, but the hall was empty, and lighted only by the great flames that spouted up from the log-fire on the open hearth.

Clearly the rest of the family had retired, and a sudden, sharp suspicion flashed through Nan that her husband had deliberately laid his plans for this private interview with her.

It set her heart pounding again within her, but she braced herself to treat him with a high hand. He must not, he should not, assume the mastery over her.

Silently she waited as he shut and bolted the great door, and then quietly crossed the shadowy hall to join her.

She had dropped her cloak from her shoulders, and the firelight played ruddily over her dress of shimmering white, revealing her slim young beauty in every delicate detail. Very pale, but erect and at least outwardly calm, she faced him.

"What I have to say to you," she said, "will make you very angry; but I hope you will have the patience to listen to me, because it must be said."

He did not answer. He merely stooped and stirred the fire to a higher blaze, then turned and looked at her with those ever-watching eyes of his.

Nan's hands were clenched unconsciously. She was making the greatest effort of her life.

"It has come to this," she said, forcing herself with all her quivering strength to speak quietly. "I do not wish to be your wife. I have realized for some time that my marriage was a mistake, and I thought it possible, I hoped with all my heart, that you would see it, too. I suppose, by your coming back in this way, that you have not yet done so?"

He was standing very quietly before her with his hands behind him. Notwithstanding her wild misgiving, she could not see that he was in any way angered by her words. He seemed to observe her with a grave interest. That was all.

A tremor of passion went through her. His passivity was not to be borne. In some curious fashion it hurt her. She felt as though she were beating and bruising herself against bars of iron.

"Surely," she said, and her voice shook in spite of her utmost effort to control it--"surely you must see that you are asking of me more than I can possibly give. I own that I am--nominally--your wife, but I realize now that I can never be anything more to you than that. I cannot go away with you. I can never make my home with you. I married you upon impulse. I did you a great wrong, but you will admit that you hurried me into it. And now that--that my eyes are open, I find that I cannot go on. Would it--would it--" She was faltering under that unchanging gaze, but she compelled herself to utter the question--"be quite impossible to--to get a separation?"

"Quite," said Piet.

He did not raise his voice, but she shrank at the brief word, shrank uncontrollably as if he had struck her.

He went on quite steadily, but his eyes gave her no rest. They seemed to her to gleam red in the glancing firelight.

"I do not admit that our marriage was a mistake. I was always aware that you married me for my money. But on the other hand I was willing to pay your price. I wanted you. And--I want you still. Nothing will alter that fact. I am sorry if you think you have made a bad bargain, for you will have to abide by it. Perhaps some day you will change your mind again. But it is not my habit to change mine. That is, I think, all that need be said upon the subject."

There was not the faintest hint of vehemence in his tone, but there was unmistakable authority. Having spoken, he stood grimly waiting for her next move.

As for Nan, a sudden fury entered into her that possessed her more completely than any fear. To be thus mastered in a few curt sentences was more than her wild spirit would endure. Without an instant's hesitation she flung down the gauntlet.

"It is true," she said, speaking quickly, "that I married you for your money, but since you knew that, you were as much to blame as I. Had I known then what sort of man you were, I would sooner have gone into the workhouse. I am quite aware that it is thanks to you that my father is not a ruined man, but I--I protest against being made the price for your benefits. I will never touch another penny of your money myself, and neither shall any of my family if I can prevent it. As to abiding by my bargain, I refuse absolutely and unconditionally. I do not acknowledge your authority over me. I will be no man's slave, and--and, sooner than live with you as your wife, I--I will die in a ditch!"

Furiously she flung the words at him, too much carried away by her own madness to note their effect upon him, too angry to see the sudden, leaping flame in his eyes; too utterly reckless to realize that fire kindles fire.

Her fierce wrath was in its way sublime. She was like a beautiful, wild creature raging at its captor, too infuriated to be afraid.

"I defy you," she declared proudly, "to make me do anything against my will!"

There was scorn as well as defiance in her voice--scorn because he stood before her so silently; scorn because the fierce torrent of her anger had flowed unchecked. She had only to stand up to him, it seemed, and like the giant of the fable he dwindled to a pigmy. She was no longer hurt by his passivity. She despised him for it.

But it was for the last time in her life. As she turned contemptuously to pick up her cloak, he moved.

With a single stride he had reached her, and in an instant his hand was on her arm, his face was close to hers. And then she saw, what she had been too self-engrossed to see before, that fire had kindled fire indeed, and that those rash words of hers had waked the savage in him.

She made a sharp, instinctive effort to free herself, but he held her fast. She had outrun his patience at last.

"So," he said, "you defy me, do you? You defy me to take what is my own? That is not very wise of you."

He spoke under his breath, and as he spoke he drew her to him suddenly, violently, with a strength that was brutal. For a moment his eyes compelled hers, terrible eyes alight with a passion that scorched her with its fiery intensity. And then abruptly his arms tightened. She was at his mercy, and he did not spare her. Savagely, fiercely, he rained burning kisses upon her shrinking face, upon her neck, her shoulders, her hands, till, after many seconds of vain resistance, spent, quivering, terrified, she broke into agonized tears against his breast.

His hold relaxed then, but tightened again as her trembling limbs refused to support her. He held her for a while till her agitation had in some degree subsided; then at last he took her two shaking hands into one of his, and turned her face upwards.

Once more his eyes held hers, but the fire in them had died down to a smoulder. His mouth was grim.

"Come!" he said quietly, "you won't defy me after this?"

Her white lips only quivered in reply. She made no further effort to resist him.

Very slowly he took his arm from her, still holding her hands.

"You have married a savage," he said, "but you would never have known it if you had not taunted me with your defiance. Let me tell you now--for it is as well that you should know it--that there is nothing--do you hear?--nothing in this world that I cannot make you do if I so choose! But if you are wise, you will not challenge me to prove this. It is enough for you to know that as I have mastered myself, so I can--and so I will--master you!"

His words fell with a ring of iron. The old inflexibly sombre demeanour by which alone till that night she had always known him clothed him like a coat of mail. Only the grasp of his hand was vital and close. It seemed to burn her flesh.

"I have done!" he said, after a pause. "Have you anything further to say to me?"

She found it within her power to free herself, and did so. She was shaking from head to foot. The untamed violence of the man had appalled her, but his abrupt resumption of self-control was almost more terrible. She felt as if his will compassed and constrained her like bands of iron.

She stood before him in panting silence, a shrinking woman, striving vainly to raise from the dust the shield of pride that he had so rudely shattered and flung aside. She could not speak to him. She had no words. From the depths of her soul she hated him. But--it had come to this--she did not dare to tell him so.

He waited quietly for a few seconds; then unexpectedly, but without vehemence, he held out his hand to her.

"Anne," he said, a subtle change in his deep voice, "fight against me, and you will be miserable, for I am bound to conquer you. But come to me--come to me of your own free will--and I swear before Heaven that I will make you happy."

But Nan held back with horror, almost with loathing, in her eyes. She did not utter a word. There was no need.

His hand fell. For a second the fire that smouldered in his eyes shot upwards to a flame, but it died down again instantly. He turned from her in silence and picked up her cloak.

He did not look at her as he handed it to her, and Nan did not dare to look at him. Dumbly she forced her trembling body into subjection to her will. She crossed the hall without faltering, and went without sound or backward glance up the stairs. And the man was left alone in the flickering firelight.

 

CHAPTER VIII

To Mona fell the task of making preparation for Nan's departure, for Nan herself did not raise a finger to that end. Three days only remained to her of the old free life--three days in which to bid farewell to everybody and everything she knew and loved.

Her husband did not attempt to obtrude his presence upon her during those three days. The man's patience was immense, cloaking him as with a garment of passive strength. He was merely a guest in Colonel Everard's house, and a silent guest at that.

No one knew what had passed between him and his young wife on the night of the Hunt Ball, but it was generally understood that he had asserted his authority over her after a fashion that admitted of no resistance. Only Mona could have told of the white-faced, terrified girl who had lain trembling in her arms all through the dark hours that had followed their interview, but Mona knew when to hold her peace, though it was no love for her brother-in-law that sealed her lips.

So, with a set face, she packed her sister's belongings, never faltering, scarcely pausing for thought, till on the very last day she finished her task, and then sat musing alone in the darkness of the winter evening.

Nan had been out all the afternoon, no one knew exactly where, though it was supposed that she was paying farewell visits. The Colonel, whose courteous instincts would not suffer him to neglect a guest, had been out shooting with his son-in-law all day long. Mona heard them come tramping up the drive and enter the house, as she sat above in the dark. She listened without moving, and knew that one of her sisters was giving them tea in the hall.

Two hours passed, but Nan did not return. Mona rose at last to dress for dinner. Her face shone pale as she lighted her lamp, but her eyes were steadfast; they held no anxiety.

Descending the stairs at length she found Piet waiting below before the fire. He looked round as she came down, looked up the stairs beyond her, and gravely rose to give her his chair.

Mona was generally regarded as hostess in her father's house, though she was not his eldest daughter. She possessed a calmness of demeanour that was conspicuously lacking in all the rest.

She sat down quietly, her hands folded about her knees. "Have you had good sport?" she asked, her serene eyes raised to his.

There was a slight frown between Piet's brows. Hitherto he had always regarded this girl as his friend. To-night, for the first time, she puzzled him. There was something hostile about her something he felt rather than saw, yet of which from the very moment of her coming, he was keenly conscious.

He scarcely answered her query. Already his wits were at work.

Suddenly he asked her a blunt question. "Has Anne come in yet?"

She answered him quite as bluntly, almost as if she had wished for his curt interrogation. "No."

He raised his brows for an instant, then in part reassured by her absolute composure, he merely commented: "She is late."

Mona said nothing. She turned her quiet eyes to the blaze before her. There was not the faintest sign of agitation in her bearing.

"Do you know what she is doing?" He asked the question slowly, half reluctantly it seemed.

Again she looked at him. Clear and contemptuous, her eyes met his.

"Yes, I know."

The words, the look, stabbed him with a swift suspicion. He bent towards her, his hand gripped her wrist.

"What do you mean? Where is she?"

She made no movement to avoid him. A faint, grim smile hovered about her calm mouth.

"I can tell you what I mean," she said quietly. "I cannot tell you where she is."

"Then tell me what you mean," he said between his teeth.

His face was close to hers, and in that moment it was terrible. But Mona did not flinch. The small, bitter smile passed, that was all.

"I mean," she said, speaking very steadily and distinctly, "that you will go back to South Africa without her after all. I mean that by your hateful and contemptible brutality you have driven her from you for ever. I mean that you have forced her into taking a step that will compel you to set her free from your tyranny. I mean that simply and solely to escape from you she has run away with--another man."

A quiver of pain went over her face as she ended. With a swift, passionate movement she rose, flinging her mask of composure aside. The hand that gripped her wrist was bruising her flesh, but she never felt it.

"Yes," she said, with abrupt vehemence. "That is what you have done--you--you! You would not stoop to win her. You chose to take her by force, and force is the one thing in the world that she will never tolerate. You bullied her, frightened her, humiliated her. You drove her to do this desperate thing. And you face me now, you dare to face me, because I am a weak woman. If I were a man, I would kick you out of the house. I--I believe I would kill you! Even Nan cannot hate you or despise you one-tenth as much as I do!"

She ceased, but her eyes blazed their hatred at him as her heart cursed him. She was furious as a tigress that defends her young.

As for the man, his hand was still clenched upon her wrist, but no violent outburst escaped him. He was white to the lips, but he was absolutely sane. If he heard her wild reproaches, he passed them over.

"Who is the man?" he said, and his voice fell like a word of command, arresting, controlling, compelling.

It was not what she had expected. She had been prepared for tempestuous, for overwhelming, wrath. The absence of this oddly disconcerted her. Her own tornado of indignation was checked. She answered him almost involuntarily.

"Jerry Lister."

He frowned as if trying to recall the owner of the name, and again without her conscious will she explained.

"You saw him that night at the ball. They were together all the evening."

The frown passed from his face.

"That--cub!" he said slowly. "And"--his eyes were searching hers closely; he spoke with unswerving determination--"where have they gone?"

She withstood his look though she felt its compulsion.

"I refuse to tell you that."

"You know?" he questioned.

"Yes, I know."

"Then you will tell me." He spoke with conviction. She felt as if his eyes were burning her.

"Then you will tell me," he repeated, as if she had not heard him.

"I refuse," she said again; but she said it with a wavering resolution. Undoubtedly there was something colossal about this man. She began to feel the grip of his fingers upon her wrist. The pain of it became intense, yet she knew that he was not intentionally torturing her.

"You are hurting me," she said, and instantly his hold relaxed. But he did not let her go.

"Answer me!" he said.

"Why should I answer you?" It was the last resort of her weakening will.

He betrayed no impatience.

"You will answer me for your sister's sake," he told her grimly.

"What do you mean? You will follow her?"

"I shall follow her."

"And bring her back?"

"Back here? No, certainly not."

"You will hurt her, bully her, terrify her!" The words were quick with agitation.

He ignored them. "Tell me where she is."

She made a last effort.

"If I tell you--will you take me with you?"

"No," he said, "I will not."

"Then--then--" She was looking straight into those pitiless eyes. It seemed she could not help herself. "I will tell you," she said at last. "But you will be kind to her? You will remember how young she is, and that--that you drove her to it?"

Her voice was piteous, her resistance was dead.

"I shall remember," he said very quietly, "one thing only."

"Yes?" she murmured. "Yes?"

"That she is my wife," he said, in the same level tone. "Now--answer me."

And because there was no longer any alternative course, she yielded.

Had he shown himself a raging demon she could have resisted him, and rejoiced in it. But this man, with his rigid self-control, his unswerving resolution, his deadly directness, dominated her irresistibly.

Without argument he had changed her point of view. Without argument or protestation of any sort, he had convinced her that it was no passing fancy of his that had prompted him to choose Nan for his wife. She had vaguely suspected it before. Now she knew.

 

CHAPTER IX

It was very dark over the moors. The solitary lights of a cab crawling almost at a foot pace along the lonely road shone like a will-o'-the-wisp through the snow. It had been snowing for hours, steadily, thickly, and the cold was intense. The dead heather by the roadside had long been completely hidden under that ever-increasing load. It lay in great billows of white wherever the carriage lamps revealed it, stretching away into the darkness, an immense, untrodden desert, wrapped in a deathly silence, more terrible than any sound.

It seemed to Nan, shivering inside that cheerless cab, as if the world had stopped like a run-down watch, and that she alone, with her melancholy equipage, retained in all that vast stillness the power to move.

She wished heartily that she had permitted Jerry to come to the station to meet her, but for some reason not wholly intelligible to herself she had prohibited this. And he, ever obedient to her behests, had sent the conveyance to fetch her, remaining behind himself to complete the preparations for her reception upon which he had been engaged for the past two days at the tiny, incommodious shooting-box which his father had bequeathed to him, and of which not very valuable piece of landed property he was somewhat inordinately proud.

It had been a tedious cross-country journey, and the five miles from the station seemed to Nan interminable. Already deep down in her heart were stirring ghastly doubts regarding the advisability of this mad expedition of hers. Jerry, as she well knew, was fully prepared to enjoy the situation to the utmost. He was a trusty friend in need to her, no more, and she had not the smallest misgiving so far as he was concerned.

He would be to her what he had ever been, breezy comrade, merry friend--romantic cavalier, perhaps, but in such a fashion as to convince her that he was only playing at romance. It had always been his attitude towards her, and she anticipated no change. The boy's natural chivalry had moved her to accept his help, though she well knew that the step she had taken was a desperate one, even for one of the wild Everards. That it would fulfil its purpose she did not doubt. Her husband, she was fully convinced, would take no further steps to deprive her of her liberty. Her notions of legal procedure in such a case were of the haziest, but she had not the faintest doubt that this last, wildest escapade of hers would sooner or later procure her her freedom from the chain that so galled her.

And yet she started and shivered at every creak of the crazy vehicle that was bearing her to the haven of her emancipation. She was horribly, unreasonably afraid, now that she had taken this rash step. Would it upset her father very greatly, she wondered? But surely he would not think badly of her for making a way of escape for herself. He had been powerless to deliver her. Surely, surely he would understand!

The cab jolted to a standstill, and out of the darkness came an eager, boyish voice, bidding her welcome. An impetuous hand wrenched open the door, and she and Jerry were face to face.

She never recalled afterwards crossing the threshold of his little abode. She was numbed and weary in mind and body. But she found herself at length seated before a bright fire, with a cup of steaming tea in her hand, and Jerry hovering about her in high delight; and the comfort of his welcome revived her at length to an active realization of her surroundings.

Clearly the adventure, mad, lawless as it undoubtedly was, was nothing but a picnic to him. He was enjoying himself immensely without a thought of any possible consequences, and it was plain that this was the attitude in which he expected her to regard the matter.

With an effort she responded to his mood, but she could not shake off the burden of doubt and foreboding that oppressed her. She felt as if the long, bitter journey had in some fashion aged her. Jerry's gaiety was as the prattle of a child to her now. They had been children together till that day, but she felt that they could never be so again. Never before had she stopped in her headlong course to look ahead, to count the cost! Now, for the first time, misgivings arose within her upon Jerry's score. What if this boy who had lent himself so lightly, so absolutely freely, to her scheme for deliverance, were made in any way to suffer for his reckless generosity? For this it had been with him--and this only--as she well knew.

With sheer, boyish gallantry, he had offered his protection; with sheer, girlish recklessness, she had accepted it. And now--now she had in a few hours crossed the boundary between childhood and womanhood and she stood aghast, asking herself what she had done!

By what means understanding had come to her she did not stay to question. The tragic force of it overwhelmed all reasoning. She knew beyond all doubting that she had made the most ghastly mistake of her life. She had done it in blindness, but the veil had been rent away; and, horror-struck, she now beheld the accursed quicksand into which they had blundered.

"I say," said Jerry, "you're awfully tired, aren't you? You're positively haggard. I've got quite a decent little dinner for you, and I've done every blessed thing myself. There isn't a soul in the house except us two. I thought you'd like it best."

She smiled at him wanly, and thanked him. He was watching her with friendly, anxious eyes.

"Yes; well, drink that up and have some more. I'm afraid you'll think the accommodation rather poor. It's only a pillbox, you know. I'll show you round when you're ready. I've got my kennel in the kitchen. Best place for a watch-dog, eh? But you've only got to thump on the floor if you want anything. There, that's better. You don't look quite so frozen as you did. Come, it's rather a lark, isn't it?"

His boyish eyes pleaded with her, and again she made a valiant effort to respond. She knew what stupendous efforts he had been making to secure her comfort.

"Everything is perfect," she declared, "and you're the nicest boy in the world. I'm quite warm now. What a dear little hall, to be sure!"

"Hall!" said Jerry. "It's the living-room! But there's another one upstairs that you can sit in. I thought you would like the upper regions all to yourself. We can call on each other, you know, now and then. I say, it's rather a lark, isn't it? Come and see my preparations for dinner."

She went with him into the little bare kitchen, and bestowed lavish praise upon everything she saw.

Jerry's cooking was an accomplishment of which he had some reason to be proud. He was roasting a pheasant for his visitor's delectation.

"I always do the cooking when we camp out," he explained. "Just sit down while I finish peeling the potatoes."

He pointed to a truckle bedstead in the corner; and Nan seated herself and made a determined effort to banish her depression.

Jerry's preparations for his own comfort were anything but elaborate.

"Oh, I could sleep on bare boards," he lightly said, when she commented upon the hardness of his couch. "I know the furniture isn't up to much, but it isn't a bad little shanty when you're used to it. My pater and mater spent their honeymoon here years ago, and I stayed here with two other fellows for three weeks' grouse-shooting a couple of years back. Rare sport we had, too. Do you mind passing over that saucepan? Thanks! I say, Nan, I hope you don't mind it being a bit rough."

"My dear boy," Nan said impulsively, "if it were a palace I shouldn't like it half so well."

Jerry grinned serenely.

"Yes, it's snug, anyhow, and I think you'll like that pheasant. There's another one in the larder, so we shall have something to eat if we're snowed up. That cupboard leads upstairs. Perhaps you would like to go and explore. Dinner in half an hour."

Nan availed herself of this suggestion. She was frankly curious to know what Jerry's ideas of feminine comfort might be. She ascended the steep cottage stairs that wound up to the first floor, looking about her with considerable interest. The narrow staircase was lighted from above, and she finally emerged into a little room in which a fire burned brightly. A sofa had been drawn in front of it, and was piled with cushions. There were one or two basket-chairs, and a small square table bearing a paper-shaded lamp, and a newspaper, a "Punch," Jerry's banjo, and a cigarette case.

The window was covered with a red curtain, and the cosy warmth of the place sent a glow of comfort through Nan. Jerry's efforts had not been in vain.

From this apartment she passed into another beyond, the door of which stood half open, and found herself in a bedroom. A small stove burned in a corner of this, and upon it a kettle steamed merrily. There was room for but little furniture besides the bed, but the general effect was exceedingly comforting to the girl's oppressed soul. She sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned her aching head against the back.

What was happening at home she wondered? Her departure must be known by this time. Mona would have told Piet. She tried to picture the man's untrammelled wrath when he heard. How furious he would be! She shivered a little. She was quite sure he would never want to see her again.

And yet, curiously, there still ran in her brain those words he had uttered on that night that she had defied him--that dreadful night when he had held her in his arms and forced her to endure his hateful kisses!

She could almost hear his deep voice speaking: "Anne, fight against me and you will be miserable, for I am bound to conquer you. But come to me--come to me of your own free will--and I swear before Heaven that I will make you happy!" Make her happy! He! She could not imagine it. And yet it was true that, fighting against him, she was miserable.

With a great sigh, she rose at last and began to remove her outdoor things. It was done--it was done. What was the use of stopping on the wrong side of the hedge to think? She had taken the leap. There could never be any return for her. The actual mistake had been committed long, long ago, when she had married this man for his money. That had been monstrous, contemptible! She realized it now. But that, too, was beyond remedy. Her only hope left was that in his fury he would set her free, and that without injury to Jerry. She had not the faintest notion how he would set about it; but doubtless he would not keep her long in ignorance. He would be more eager now than she had ever been to snap asunder the chain that bound them to each other. Yes, she was quite, quite sure that he would never want to see her again.

 

CHAPTER X

Jerry's dinner was not, for some reason, quite the success he had anticipated.

Nan made no complaint of the cooking, but she ate next to nothing, to the grief of his hospitable soul. She was tired, of course, but there was something in her manner that he could not fathom. She was silent and unresponsive. There was almost an air of tragedy about her that made her so unfamiliar that he felt as if he were entertaining a stranger. He did not like the change. His old domineering, impetuous playfellow was infinitely easier to understand. He did not feel at ease with this quiet, white-faced woman, who treated him with such wholly unaccustomed courtesy.

"I say," he said, when the meal was ended, "let's go upstairs and have a smoke. I can clear away after you have gone to bed. Or do you want to go to bed now? It's nearly nine, so you may if you like."

She thanked him, and declined.

"I shouldn't sleep if I did," she said with a shiver. "No; I will help you wash up, and then we will go upstairs and have some music."

Jerry fell in eagerly with this idea. He loved his banjo. He demurred a little at accepting her assistance in the kitchen, but finally yielded, for she would not be refused. She seemed to dread the thought of solitude.

When they went upstairs at length, she made a great effort to shake off her depression. She even sang a little to one or two of Jerry's melodies, but her customary high spirits remained conspicuously absent, and after a while Jerry became impatient, and laid the instrument down.

"What's the matter?" he asked bluntly.

Nan was sitting with her feet on the fender, her eyes upon the flames. His question did not seem to surprise her.

"You wouldn't understand," she said, "if I were to tell you."

"Well, you might as well give me the chance," he responded. "My intelligence is up to the average, I dare say."

She looked round at him with a faint smile.

"Oh, don't be huffy, dear boy! Why should you? You want to know what is the matter? Well, I'll tell you. I'm afraid--I'm horribly afraid--that I've made a great mistake."

"You have?" said Jerry. "How? What do you mean?"

"I knew you would ask that," she said, with a little, helpless gesture of the shoulders. "And it is just that that I can't explain to you. You see, Jerry, I've only just begun to realize it myself."

Jerry was staring at her blankly.

"Do you mean, that you wish you hadn't come?" he said.

She nodded, rising suddenly from her chair.

"Oh, Jerry, don't be vexed, though you've a perfect right. I've made a ghastly, a perfectly hideous mistake. I--I can't think how I ever came to do it. But--but I wouldn't mind so frightfully if it weren't for you. That's what troubles me most--to have made a horrible mess of my life, and to have dragged you into it." Her voice shook, and she broke off for a moment, biting her lips. Then: "Oh, Jerry," she wailed, "I've done a dreadful thing--a dreadful thing! Don't you see it--what he will think of me--how he will despise me?"

The last words came muffled through her hands. Her head was bowed against the chimney-piece.

Jerry was nonplussed. He rose somewhat awkwardly, and drew near the bowed figure.

"But, my dear girl," he said, laying a slightly hesitating hand upon her shoulder, "what the devil does it matter what he thinks? Surely you don't--you can't care--care the toss of a half-penny?"

But here she amazed him still further.

"I do, Jerry, I do!" she whispered vehemently. "He's horrid--oh, he's horrid. But I can't help caring. I wanted him to think the very worst possible of me before I came. But now--but now--Then too, there's you," she ended irrelevantly. "What could they do to you, Jerry? Could they put you in prison?"

"Great Scott, no!" said Jerry. "You needn't cry over me. I always manage to fall on my feet. And, anyhow, it isn't a hanging matter. I say, cheer up, Nan, old girl! Don't you think you'd better go to bed? No? Well, let me play you something cheerful, then. I've never seen you in the dumps before. And I don't like it. I quite thought this would be one of our red-letter days. Look up, I say! I believe you're crying."

Nan was not crying, but such was the concern in his voice that she raised her head and smiled to reassure him.

"You're very, very good to me, Jerry," she said earnestly. "And oh, I do hope I haven't got you into trouble!"

"Don't you worry your head about me," said Jerry cheerfully. "You're tired out, you know. You really ought to go to bed. Let's have something rousing, with a chorus, and then we'll say good-night."

He took up his banjo again, and dashed without preliminary into the gay strains of "The Girl I Left Behind Me."

He sang with a gaiety that even Nan did not imagine to be feigned, and, lest lack of response should again damp his spirits, she forced herself to join in the refrain. Faster and faster went Jerry's fingers, faster and faster ran the song, his voice and Nan's mingling, till at last he broke off with a shout of laughter, and sprang to his feet.

"There! That's the end of our soiree, and I'm not going to keep you up a minute longer. I wonder if we're snowed up yet. We'll have some fun to-morrow, if we are. I say, look at the time! Good-night! Good-night!"

He advanced towards her. She was standing facing him, with her back to the fire. But something--something in her eyes--arrested him, sending his own glancing backwards over his shoulder. She was looking, not at him, but beyond him.

The next instant, with a sharp oath, Jerry had wheeled in his tracks. He, too, stood facing the door, staring wide-eyed, dumbfounded.

There, at the head of the stairs, quite motionless, quite silent, facing them both, stood Piet Cradock.

 

CHAPTER XI

Nan was the first to free herself from the nightmare paralysis that bound her. Swiftly, as though in answer to a sudden inner urging, she moved forward. She almost pushed past Jerry in her haste. She was white, white to the lips with fear, but she never faltered till she stood between her husband and the boy she had chosen to protect her. The first glimpse of Piet had revealed to her in what mood he had come. In his right hand he was gripping her father's heaviest hunting-crop.

He came slowly forward, ignoring her. His eyes were upon Jerry, who glared back at him like a young panther. He did not appear to be aware of Nan.

Suddenly he spoke, briefly, grimly every word clean as a pistol-shot.

"I suppose you are old enough to know what you are doing?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Jerry, in fierce response. "What are you doing here? And how the devil did you get in? This place belongs to me!"

"I know." Piet's face was contemptuous. He seemed to speak through closed lips. "That is why I came. I wanted you."

"What do you want me for?" flashed back Jerry, with clenched hands. "If you have anything to say, you'd better say it downstairs."

"I have nothing whatever to say." There was a deep sound in Piet's voice that was something more than a menace. Abruptly he squared his great shoulders, and brought the weapon he carried into full view.

Jerry's eyes blazed at the action.

"You be damned!" he exclaimed loudly. "I'll fight you with pleasure, but not before--"

"You will do nothing of the sort!" thundered Piet, striding forward. "You will take a horse-whipping from me here and now, and in my wife's presence. You have behaved like a cur, and she shall see you treated as such."

The words were like the bellow of a goaded bull. Another instant, and he would have been at hand grips with the boy, but in that instant Nan sprang. With the strength of desperation, she threw herself against him, caught wildly at his arms, his shoulders, clinging at last with frenzied fingers to his breast.

"You shan't do it!" she gasped, struggling with him. "You shan't do it! If--if you must punish anyone, punish me! Piet, listen to me! Oh listen! I am to blame for this! You can't--you shan't--hurt him just because he has stood by me when--when I most wanted a friend. Do you hear me, Piet? You shan't do it! Beat me, if you like! I deserve it. He doesn't!"

"I will deal with you afterwards," he said, sweeping her hands from his coat at a single gesture.

But she caught at the hand that sought to brush her aside, caught and held it, clinging so fast to his arm that without actual violence he could not free himself.

He stood still, then, his eyes glowering ruddily over her head at Jerry, who stamped and swore behind her.

"Anne," he said, and the sternness of his voice was like a blow, "go into the next room!"

"I will not!" she gasped back. "I will not!"

Her face was raised to his. With her left hand she sought and grasped his right wrist. Her whole body quivered against him, but she stood her ground.

"I shall hurt you!" he said between his teeth.

"I don't care!" she cried back hysterically. "You--you can kill me, if you like!"

He turned his eyes suddenly upon her, flaming them straight into hers mercilessly, scorchingly. She felt as though an electric current had run through her, so straight, so piercing was his look. But she met it fully, with wide, unflinching eyes, while her fingers still clutched desperately at his iron wrists.

"Nan! Nan! For Heaven's sake go, and leave us to fight it out!" implored Jerry. "This can't be settled with you here. You are only making things worse for yourself. You don't suppose I'm afraid of him, do you?"

She did not so much as hear him. All her physical strength was leaving her; but still, panting and quivering, she met those fiery, searching eyes.

Suddenly she knew that her hold upon him was weaker than a child's. She made a convulsive effort to renew it, failed, and fell forward against him with a gasping cry.

"Piet!" she whispered, in nerveless entreaty. "Piet!"

He put his arm around her, supporting her; then as he felt her weight upon him he bent and gathered her bodily into his arms. She sank into them, more nearly fainting than she had ever been in her life; and, straightening himself, he turned rigidly, and bore her into the inner room.

He laid her upon the bed there, but still with shaking, powerless fingers she tried to cling to him.

"Don't leave me! Don't go!" she besought him.

He took her hands and put them from him. He turned to leave her, but even then she caught his sleeve.

"Piet, I--I want to--to tell you something," she managed to say.

He wheeled round and bent over her. There was something of violence in his action.

"Tell me nothing!" he ordered harshly. "Be silent! Anne, do you hear me? Do you hear me?"

Under the compulsion of his look and voice she submitted at last. Trembling she hid her face.

And in another moment she heard his step as he went out, heard him close the door and the sharp click of the key as he turned it in the lock.

 

CHAPTER XII

For many, many seconds after his departure she lay without breathing, exactly as he had left her, listening, listening with all the strength that remained to her for the sounds of conflict.

But all she heard was Piet's voice pitched so low that she could not catch a word. Then came Jerry's in sharp, staccato tones. He seemed to be surprised at something, surprised and indignant. Twice she heard him fling out an emphatic denial. And, while she still listened with a panting heart, there came the tread of their feet upon the stairs, and she knew that they had descended to the lower regions.

For a long, long while she still crouched there listening, but there came to her straining ears no hubbub of blows--only the sound of men's voices talking together in the room below her, with occasional silences between. Once indeed she fancied that Jerry spoke with passionate vehemence, but the outburst--if such it were--evoked no response.

Slowly the minutes dragged away. It was growing very late. What could be happening? What were they saying to each other? When--when would this terrible strain of waiting be over?

Hark! What was that? The tread of feet once more and the sound of an opening door. Ah, what were they doing? What? What?

Trembling afresh she raised herself on the bed to listen. There came to her the sudden throbbing of a motor-engine. He had come in his car, then, and now he was going, going without another word to her, leaving her alone with Jerry. The conviction came upon her like a stunning blow, depriving her for the moment of all reason. She leapt from the bed and threw herself against the door, battering against it wildly with her fists.

She must see him again! She must! She must! She would not be deserted thus! The bare thought was intolerable to her. Did he hold her so lightly as this, then--that, having followed her a hundred miles through blinding snow, he could turn his back upon her and leave her thus?

That could only mean but one thing, and her blood turned to fire as she realized it. It meant that he would have no more of her, that he deemed her unworthy, that--that he intended to set her free!

But she could not bear it! She would not! She would not! She would escape. She would force Jerry to let her go. She would follow him through that dreadful wilderness of snow. She would run in the tracks of his wheels until she found him.

And then she would force him--she would force him--to listen to her while she poured out to him the foolish, the pitiably foolish truth!

But what if he would not believe her? What then? What then? She had sunk to her knees before the door, still beating madly upon it, and crying wildly at the keyhole for Jerry to come and set her free.

In every pause she heard the buzzing of the engine. It seemed to her to hold a jeering note. The outer door was open, and an icy draught blew over her face as she knelt there waiting for Jerry. She broke off again to listen, and heard the muffled sounds of wheels in the snow. Then came the note of the hooter, mockingly distinct; and then the hum of the engine receding from the house. The outer door banged, and the icy draught suddenly ceased.

With a loud cry she flung herself once more at the unyielding panels, bruising hands and shoulders against the senseless wood.

"Jerry! Jerry!" she cried, and again in anguished accents, "Jerry! Come to me, quick, oh, quick! Let me out! Let me out!"

She heard a step upon the stairs. He was coming.

In a frenzy she beat and shook the door to make him hasten. She was ready to fly forth like a whirlwind in the wake of the speeding motor. For she must follow him, she must overtake him; she must--Heaven help her! She must somehow make him understand!

Oh, why was Jerry so slow? Every instant was increasing the distance between her and that buzzing motor. She screamed to him in an agony of impatience to hurry, to hurry, only to hurry.

He did not call in answer, but at last, at last, his hand was on the door.

She stumbled to her feet as the key grated in the lock, and dragged fiercely at the handle. It resisted her, for there was another hand upon it, and with an exclamation of fierce impatience she snatched her own away.

"Oh, be quick!" she cried hysterically. "Be quick! He is miles away by this time. I shall never catch him, and I must, I must!"

The door opened. She dashed forward. But a man's arm barred her progress, and with a cry she drew back. The next moment she reeled as she stood, reeled gasping till she slipped and slid to the floor at his feet. The man upon the threshold was her husband!

 

CHAPTER XIII

In silence he lifted her and laid her again upon the bed. His touch was perfectly gentle, but there was no kindness in it, no warmth of any sort. And Nan turned her face into the pillow and sobbed convulsively. How could she tell him now?

He began to walk up and down the tiny room, still maintaining that ominous silence. But she sobbed on, utterly unstrung, utterly hopeless, utterly spent.

He paused at last, and poured some water into a glass.

"Drink this," he said, stopping beside her. "And then lie quiet until I speak to you."

But she could neither raise herself nor take the glass. He stooped and lifted her, holding the water to her trembling lips. She leaned against him with closed eyes while she drank. She was painfully anxious to avoid his look. And yet when he laid her down, the sobbing began again, though she struggled feebly to repress it.

He fetched a chair at last and sat down beside her, gravely waiting till her breathing became less distressed. Then, finding her calmer, he finally spoke:

"You need not be afraid of me, Anne. I shall not hurt you."

"I am not afraid," she whispered back.

He sat silent for a space, not looking at her. At last:

"Can you attend to me now?" he asked her formally.

She raised herself slowly.

"May I say something first?" she said.

He turned his brooding eyes upon her.

"If you can say it quietly," he said.

She pressed her hand to her throat.

"You--will listen to me, and--and believe me?"

"I shall know if you lie to me," he said.

She made a sharp gesture of protest.

"I don't deserve that," she said. "You know it."

His grim lips relaxed a very little.

"I shouldn't talk about deserts if I were you," he said.

His tone scared her again, but she made a valiant effort to compose herself.

"You say that," she said, "because you are very angry with me. I don't dispute your right to be angry. I know I've made a fool of you. But--but after all"--her voice began to shake uncontrollably; she forced out the words with difficulty--"I've made a much bigger fool of myself. I think you might consider that."

He did consider it with drawn brows.

"Does that improve your case?" he asked at length.

She did not answer him. She was trying hard to read his face, but it told her nothing. With a swift movement she slipped to her feet and stood before him.

"I don't know," she said, speaking fast and passionately, "what you have in your mind. I don't know what you think of me. But I suppose you mean to punish me in some way, to--to give me a lesson that will hurt me all my life. You have me at your mercy, and--and I shall have to bear it, whatever it is. But before--before you make me hate you, let me say this: I am your wife. Hadn't you better remember that before you punish me? I--I shan't hate you so badly so long as I know that you remember that."

She stopped. She was wringing her hands fast together to subdue her agitation.

Piet had risen with her, but she could no longer search his face. She had said that she did not fear him, but in that moment she was more horribly afraid than she had ever been in her life.

She thought that he would never break his silence. Had she angered him even further by those words of hers, she wondered desperately? And if so--oh! if so--Suddenly he spoke, and every pulse in her body leaped and quivered.

"Since when," he said, "have you begun to remember that?"

"I have never forgotten it," she said, in a voiceless whisper.

He took her hands, separated them, held up the left before her eyes.

"Never?" he said. "Be careful what you say to me."

She looked up with a flash of the old quick pride.

"I have spoken the truth," she said. "Why should I be careful?"

He dropped her hand.

"What have you done with your wedding-ring?"

"I--lost it." Nan's voice and eyes sank together. "It was an accident," she said. "We dropped it in the lake."

"We?" said Piet.

She made a little hopeless gesture.

"Yes, Jerry and I. It's no good telling you how it happened. You won't believe me if I do."

He made no comment. Only after a moment he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Have you anything else to say?" he asked.

She shook her head without speaking. She was shivering all over.

"Very well, then," he said. "Come into the other room--you seem cold."

She went with him submissively. The fire had sunk low, and he replenished it. The hunting crop that he had brought from her father's house lay on the table with Jerry's banjo. He picked it up and put it away in a corner.

"Sit down," he said.

She sank upon the sofa, hiding her face. He took up his stand on the rug, facing her.

"Now," he said quietly, "do you remember my telling you that you had married a savage? I see you do. And you are afraid of me in consequence. I am a savage. I admit it. I hurt you that night. I meant to hurt you. I meant you to see that I was in earnest. I meant you to realize that you were my wife. I meant--I still mean--to master you. But I did not mean to terrify you as you were terrified, as you are terrified now. I made a mistake, and for that mistake I desire to apologize."

He stooped and drew one of her hands away from her face.

"You defied me," he said. "Do you remember? And I am not accustomed to defiance. Nor will I bear it from anyone--my wife least of all. I am not threatening you; I am simply showing you what you must learn to expect from me, from the savage you have married. It is not my intention to frighten you. I am no longer angry with either you or the young fool whom you call your friend. By the way, I have not done him any violence. He has merely gone to find a lodging for himself and for the motor in the village. Yes, I turned him out of his own house, but I might have done worse. I meant to do much worse."

"Yes?" murmured Nan. "Why--why didn't you?"

"Because," he answered grimly, "I found that I had only fools to deal with."

He paused a moment.

"Well, now for your punishment," he said. "As you remarked just now, I have you absolutely at my mercy. How much mercy do you expect--or deserve? Answer me--as my wife."

But she could not answer him. She only bowed her head speechlessly against the strong hand that still held hers.

She could feel his fingers tightening to a grip. And she knew herself beaten, powerless.

"Listen to me, Anne!" he said suddenly; and in his voice was something that she had only heard once before, and that but vaguely. "I am going to give you a fair chance, in spite of your behaviour to me. I am willing to believe--I do believe--that, to a certain extent, I drove you to this course. I also believe that you and your friend Jerry are nothing but a pair of irresponsible children. I should like to have caned him, but I had nothing but a loaded horse-whip to do it with, so I was obliged to let him off. Now listen! I am going downstairs and I shall stay there for exactly half an hour. If between now and the end of that half-hour you come to me with any good and sufficient reason for letting you go back and live apart from me in your father's house, I will let you go. You have asked me to remember that you are my wife. Precisely what you meant by that you have left me to guess. You will make that request of yours quite plain to me within the next half-hour."

He relinquished his hold with the words, and would have withdrawn his hand, but she made a sharp movement to stay him.

"Do you--really--mean that?" she asked him, a catch in her voice, her head still bent.

"I have said it," he said.

But still with nervous fingers she sought to detain him.

"What--what would you consider a good and sufficient reason?"

The hand she held clenched slowly upon itself.

"If you can convince me," he said, his voice very deep and steady, "that to desert me would be for your happiness, I will let you go for that."

"But how can I convince you?" she said, her face still hidden from him, her hands closed tightly upon his wrist.

"You will be able to do so," he said, "if you know your own mind."

"And if--if I fail to satisfy you?" she faltered.

He was silent. After a moment he deliberately freed himself, and turned away.

"Those are my terms," he said. "If you do not come to me in half an hour I shall conclude that you leave the decision in my hands--in short, that you wish to remain my wife. Think well, Anne, before you take action in this matter. I do not seek to persuade you to either course. Only let me warn you that, whatever your choice, I shall treat it as final. You must realize that fully before you choose."

He was at the head of the stairs as he ended. Without a pause he began to descend, and she counted his footsteps with a wildly beating heart till they ceased in the room below.

 

CHAPTER XIV

She was alone. In a silence intense she lifted her head at last, and knew that for half an hour she was safe from interruption.

Far away over the snow she heard a distant church clock tolling midnight. It ceased, and in the silence she thought she heard her stretched nerves cracking one by one. Soon--very soon--she would have to go down to him and fight the final battle for her freedom. But she would wait till the very last minute. She would spend the whole of the brief time accorded to her in mustering all her strength. He had swept her pride utterly out of her reach. But surely that was not her only weapon.

What of her hatred--that hatred that had driven her to this mad flight with Jerry? Surely out of that she could fashion a shield that all his savagery could not pierce. Moreover, he had given her his word to abide by her decision whatever it might be, so long as she could convince him of that same hatred that had once blazed so fiercely within her.

But what had happened to it, she wondered? It had wholly ceased to nerve her for resistance. How was it? Was she too physically exhausted to fan it into flame, or had he torn this also from her to wither underfoot with her dead pride? Surely not! With all his boasts of mastery, he had not mastered her yet. She would never submit to him--never, never! Crush her, trample her as he would, she would never yield herself voluntarily to him. It was only when he began to spare her that she found herself wavering. Why had he spared her? she asked herself. Why had he given her that single chance of escape?

Or, stay! Had he, after all, been generous? Had he but affected generosity that he might the more completely subjugate her? He had said that she must convince him that freedom from her chain would mean happiness to her. And how could she ever convince him of this? How? How? Would he ever see himself as she saw him--a monster of violence whose very presence appalled her? The problem was hopeless, hopeless! She knew that she could never make him understand.

Swiftly the time passed, and with every minute her resolution grew weaker, her agitation more uncontrollable. She could not do it. She could not face him with another challenge. It would kill her to resist him again as she had resisted him on Jerry's behalf. And yet she must do something. For, if she did not go to him, he would come to her. The half-hour he had given her was nearly spent. If she did not make up her mind soon it would be too late. It might be that already he was repenting his brief generosity, if generosity it had been. It might be that at any moment she would hear his tread upon the stairs.

She started up in a panic, fancying that she heard it already. But no sound followed her wild alarm, and she knew that her quivering nerves had tricked her. Shuddering from head to foot, she stood listening, debating with herself.

Her time was very short now; only three minutes to the half-hour--only two--only one!

With a gasp, she gathered together all the little strength she had left. But she could not descend those gloomy stairs. She dared not go to him. She stood halting at the top.

Ah, now he was moving! She heard his step in the room below, and she was conscious of an instant's wild relief that the suspense was past.

Then panic rushed back upon her, blotting out all else. She saw his shadow on the stairs, and she cried to him to stop.

"I am coming down to you! Wait for me! Wait!"

He stepped back, and she stumbled downwards, nearly falling in her haste. At the last stair she tripped, recovering herself only by the arm he flung out to catch her.

"I was coming!" she gasped incoherently. "I would have come before, but the stairs were dark--so dark, and I was frightened!"

"There is nothing to frighten you," he said gravely.

"I can't help it!" she wailed like a child. "Oh, Piet--Piet, be kind to me--just this once--if you can! I--I'm terrified!"

He put his arm round her.

"Why?" he said.

She could not tell him. But in a vague fashion his arm comforted her; and that also was beyond explanation.

"You are not angry?" she whispered.

"No," he said.

"You will be," she said, shivering, "when I have told you my decision."

"What is your decision?" he asked.

She did not answer him; she could not.

He moved, and very gently set her free. There was a chair by the table from which he had evidently just risen. He turned to it and sat down, watching her under his hand.

"What is your decision?" he asked again.

She shook her head. Her agony of fear was passing, but still she could not tell him yet.

He waited silently, his face so shaded by his hand that she could not read its expression.

"Why don't you answer me?" he said at last.

"I--can't!" she said, with a sob.

"You leave the decision to me?" he questioned.

She did not answer.

He straightened himself slowly, without rising.

"My decision is made," he said. "Give me your hand; not that one--the left."

She obeyed him trembling. He had taken something from his pocket. With a start she saw what it was.

"Oh, no, Piet--no!" she cried.

But he had his way, for he would not suffer her resistance to thwart him. Very gravely and resolutely he slipped a gold ring on to her finger.

"And you will give me your word to keep it there," he said, looking up at her.

Her lips were quivering; she could not speak.

"Never mind," he said; "I can trust you."

He released her hand with the words, and there followed a brief silence while Nan stood struggling vainly for self-control.

Failing at length, she sank suddenly down upon her knees at the table hiding her face and crying as if her heart would break.

"My dear Anne!" he said. And then in a different tone, his hand upon her bowed head: "What is it child? Don't cry, don't cry! Is it so hard for you to be my wife?"

She could not answer him. His kindness was so strange to her. She could only sob under that gentle, comforting hand.

"Hush!" he said. "Hush! Don't be so distressed. Anne, listen! I will never be a savage to you again. I swear it on my honour, on my faith in you, and on the love I have for you. What more can I do?"

Still she could not answer him, but her tears were ceasing. Yielding to the pressure of his hand, she had drawn nearer to him. But she did not raise her head.

After a long, quivering silence she spoke.

"Piet, I--I want you to--forgive me; not just for this, but for--a thousand things. Piet, I--I didn't know you really loved me."

"I have always loved you, Anne," he said, in his deep, slow voice.

"And you--forgive me," she said faintly.

"I have forgiven you," he answered gravely.

She made a slight, shy movement, and he took his hand from her head. But in an instant impulsively she caught at it, drawing it down against her burning face.

"And you are not angry with me any more?" she murmured.

"No," he said again.

She was silent for a space, not moving, still tightly holding his hand.

He could not see her face, nor did he seek to do so. Perhaps he feared to scare away her new-found courage.

At length, in a very small voice, she broke the silence.

"Piet!"

He leaned forward.

"What is it, Anne?"

He could feel her breath quick and short upon his hand. She seemed to be making a supreme effort.

"Piet!" she said again.

"I am listening," he responded, with absolute patience.

She turned one cheek slightly towards him.

"If I loved anybody," she said, rather incoherently, "I--I'd find some way of letting them know it."

He leaned his head once more upon his hand.

"I am a rough beast, Anne," he said sadly. "My love-making only hurts you."

Nan was silent again for a little, but she still held fast to his hand.

"Were you," she asked hesitatingly at length, "were you--making love to me--that night?"

"After my own savage fashion," he said.

"Well," she said, a slight quiver in her voice, "it didn't hurt me, Piet."

Piet was silent.

"I mean," she said, gathering courage, "if--if I had known that it meant just that, I--well, I shouldn't have minded so much."

Still Piet was silent. His hand shaded his eyes, but she knew that he was watching her.

"Do you understand?" she asked him doubtfully.

"No," he said.

"Don't you--don't you know what I want you to do?" she said, rather Breathlessly.

"No," he said again.

"Must I--tell you?" she asked, with a gasp.

"I think you must," he said, in his grave way.

She lifted her head abruptly. Her eyes were very big and shining. She stretched her hands out to him with a little, quivering laugh.

"I hate you for making me say it!" she declared, with a vehemence half passionate, half whimsical. "Piet, I--I want you--to--to--take me in your arms again, and--and--kiss me--as you did--that night."

The last words were uttered from his breast, though she never knew how she came to be there. It was as though a whirlwind had caught her away from the earth into a sunlit paradise that was all her own--a paradise in which fear had no place. And the chain against which she had chafed so long and bitterly had turned to links of purest gold.

[The end]
Ethel May Dell's short story: Her Own Free Will

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