第110章 The Ancient Law (4)

He held her hand an instant, and then letting it fall, withdrew his gaze slowly from her exalted look.The pure heights of her fervour were beyond the reach of his more earthly level, and as he turned from her some old words of her own were respoken in his ears: "Faith and doubt are mere empty forms until we pour out the heart's blood that vivifies them." It was her heart's blood that she had put into her dreams, and it was this, he told himself, that gave her mystic visions their illusive appearance of reality.Beauty enveloped her as an atmosphere; it softened her sternest sacrifice, it coloured her barest outlook, it transformed daily the common road in which she walked, and hourly it sustained and nourished her, as it nourished poor, crippled Tucker on his old pine bench.The eye of the spirit was theirs--this Christopher had learned at last; and he had learned, also, that for him there still remained only the weak, blurred vision of the flesh.

"You make me feel the veriest hypocrite," he said at the end of the long pause.

She shook her head."And that you are surely not.""So you still believe in me?"

"It's not belief--I KNOW in you."

"Well, don't praise me; don't admire me; don't pretend, for God's sake, that I'm anything better than the brute you see.""I don't pretend anything better," she protested; "and when you talk like this it only makes me feel the more keenly your wonderful courage.""I haven't any," he burst out almost angrily."Not an atom, do you hear? Whatever I may appear on top, at bottom I am a great skulking coward, and nothing more.Why, I couldn't even stay and take my punishment the other day.I sneaked off like a hound.""Your punishment?" she faltered, and he saw her lashes tremble.

"For the other day--for the afternoon by the poplar spring.I've been wanting to beg your pardon on my knees."Her lashes were raised steadily, and she regarded him gravely while a slight frown gathered her dark brows.She was still humanly feminine enough to find the apology harder to forgive than the offense.

"Oh, I had forgotten," she said a little coldly."So that was, after all, why you ran away?""It was not the only reason."

"And the other?"

He closed his eyes suddenly and drew back.

"I ran away because I knew if I stayed I should do it again within two seconds," he replied.

A little blue flower was growing in the red clay wheel-rut at her feet, and, stooping, she caressed it gently without plucking it.

"It was very foolish," she said in a quiet voice; "but I had forgotten it, and you should have let it rest.Afterward, you did such a brave, splendid thing.""I did nothing but run from you," he persisted, losing his head.

"If I hadn't gone to Uncle Isam I'd have done something equally reckless in a different way.I wanted to get away from you--to escape you, but I couldn't--I couldn't.You were with me always, night and day, in those God-forsaken woods.I never lost you for one instant, never.I tried to, but I couldn't.""You couldn't," she repeated, and, rising, faced him calmly.Then before the look in his eyes her own wavered and fell slowly to the ground, and he saw her quiver and grow white as if a rough wind blew over her.With an effort he steadied himself and turned away.

"There is but one thing to do," he said, holding his breath in the pause; "it's a long story, but if you will listen patiently--and it is very long--I will tell you all." Following him, she crossed the carpet of pine needles and sat down upon the end of a fallen log.

"Tell me nothing that you do not care to," she answered, and sat waiting.

"It began long ago, when we were both little children," he went on, and then going back from her into the lane he stood staring down upon the little blue flower blooming in the wheel-rut.She saw his shadow, stretching across the road, blurred into the pale dusk of the wood, uncertain, somber, gigantic in its outline.His hat was lying on the ground at her feet, and, lifting it, she ran her fingers idly along the brim.

For a time the silence lasted; then coming back to her, he sat down on the log and dropped his clasped hands between his knees.

She heard his heavy breathing, and something in the sound drew her toward him with a sympathetic movement.

"Ah, don't tell me, don't tell me," she entreated.

"You must listen patiently," he returned, without looking at her, "and not interrupt--above all, not interrupt."She bent her head."I will not speak a word nor move a finger until the end," she promised; and leaning a little forward, with his eyes on the ground and his hands hanging listlessly between his knees, he began his story.

The air was so still that his voice sounded strangely harsh in the silence, but presently she heard the soughing of the pine trees far up above, and while it lasted it deadened the jarring discord of the human tones.She sat quite motionless upon the log, not lifting a finger nor speaking a word, as she had promised, and her gaze was fixed steadily upon a bit of dried fern growing between the roots of a dead tree.

"It went on so for five years," he slowly finished, "and it was from beginning to end deliberate, devilish revenge.I meant from the first to make him what he is to-day.I meant to make him hate his grandfather as he does--I meant to make him the hopeless drunkard that he is.It is all my work--every bit of it--as you see it now."He paused, but her eyes clung to the withered fern, and so quiet was her figure that it seemed as if she had not drawn breath since he began.Her faint smile was still sketched about the corners of her mouth, and her fingers were closed upon the brim of his harvest hat.

"For five years I was like that," he went on again."I did not know, I did not care--I wanted to be a beast.Then you came and it was different."For the first time she turned and looked at him.

"And it was different?" she repeated beneath her breath.