The Moving Finger Part 31

His fingers closed upon hers. They were walking uphill, and the pony took little guiding.

"You are sure, Pauline," he asked, "that you are not bored yet with the country?"

"I am quite sure," she answered.

Something in her tone puzzled him. He looked at her again, long and fixedly. Her eyes met his, they answered his unspoken question.

"I suppose," she said, "that I should look happier. I have been content. I am content still. I suppose it is all one ought to expect from life."

"There are other things," he answered, "but not for us, Pauline--not yet."

"Life is a very perplexing matter," she declared.

He shook his head.

"There is no perplexity about it," he declared. "Its riddle is easily enough solved. The trouble is that the fetters which bind us are sometimes beyond our power to break."

"If we were free," she murmured, "you and I know very well whither we should turn. And yet, Henry, are you sure, are you quite, quite sure that there is nothing in life greater even than love?"

"If there is," he answered, "we will go in search of it, hand in hand, you and I together."

"Yes," she echoed simply, "we will go in search of it. But first of all we must find someone to light our torch."

He shook the reins a little impatiently, but they were not yet at the top of the hill, and the pony crawled on, undisturbed.

"Dear Pauline," he said, "sometimes lately I fancied that you have seemed a little morbid. I have lived longer than you. I have lived long enough to be sure of one thing."

"And that is?" she asked.

"That all real happiness," he said, "even the everyday forms of content, is to be found amongst the simple truths of life. Love is the greatest of them. Look at me, Pauline. Don't you think that even though we live our lives apart, don't you think that to me the world is a different place when you are near?"

She looked into his face a little wistfully. Then she let her hand rest on his.

"You are so steadfast," she said--"so strong, and so certain of yourself. Forgive me if I seem a little restless. One loses one's balance sometimes, thinking and thinking and wondering."

They were at the top of the hill, and the pony paused. Rochester stepped out.

"Come," he said, "I will take you for a little walk. We will leave Peter here."

He unlocked a gate with a key which he took from his pocket, and hand in hand they ascended a steep path which led between a grove of pine trees. Out once more into the open, they crossed a patch of green turf and came to another gate, set in a stone wall. This also Rochester opened. A few more yards, and they climbed up to the ma.s.ses of tumbled rock which lay about on the summit of the hill.

"Turn round," he said. "You have seen this view many a time in the daylight. You can see it now fading away into nothingness."

They stood hand in hand, looking downwards. Mists rose from along the side of the river, and stood about in the valleys. The lights began to twinkle here and there. Afar off, like some nursery toy, they saw a train, with its line of white smoke, go stealing across the shadowy landscape.

Rochester's face darkened with a sudden reminiscence.

"It was here," he said, "that I first saw your friend the charlatan."

"My friend?" she murmured.

"More yours than mine, at any rate," he answered. "He sat with his back against that rock, and if ever hunger was written into a boy's face, it was there in his pale cheeks, burning in his eyes."

"He was very poor, then?" she asked.

"He was very poor," Rochester answered, "but it was not hunger for food, it was hunger for life that one saw there. He had been down at the Convalescent Home, recovering from some illness, and the next day he was going back to his work--work which he hated, which made him part of a machine. You know how many millions there are who live and die like that--who must always live and die like that. They are part of the great system of the world, and nine-tenths of them are content."

"You set him free," she murmured.

"I did," Rochester answered. "It was a mistake."

"You cannot tell," she said. "I know that you mistrust him. You are very, very English, dear Henry, and you have so little sympathy with those things which you do not understand--which do come, perhaps, a little near what you call charlatanism. Still, though you may deny it as much as you like, there are many, many things in the world--things, even, in connection with our daily lives, which are absolutely, wonderfully mysterious. There are new things to be learned, Henry.

Bertrand Saton may be a self-deceiver. He may even deserve all the hard things you can say of him, but there are cleverer people than you and I who do not think so."

"Dear," Rochester answered, "I did not bring you here to talk of Bertrand Saton. To tell you the truth," he added, "I even hate to hear his name upon your lips."

There was no time for her to answer. From the shadow of the rock against which they leaned, he rose with a subtle alertness which seemed somehow a little uncanny--as though, indeed, he had risen from under the ground upon which they stood.

"I heard my name," he said. "Forgive me if I am interrupting you. I had no wish to play the eavesdropper."

Pauline took a quick step backwards. Even in that tense moment of surprise, Rochester found himself able to notice the color fading from her cheeks. He turned upon the newcomer, and there was something like fury in his tone.

"What the devil are you doing here, Saton?" he asked.

Saton's tone was almost apologetic.

"I did not know," he said, "that I was forbidden to walk upon your lands. I am often here, and this is my favorite hour."

Rochester laughed, a little harshly.

"You like to come back," he said. "You like to sit here, perhaps, and think. Well, I do not envy you. You sat here and thought, years ago.

You built a house of dreams here, unless you lied. You come here now, perhaps, to compare it with the house of gewgaws which you have built, and in which you dwell."

Saton did not for a moment shrink. In his heart he felt that it was one of his inspired moments. There was confidence alike in his bearing and in his gentle reply.

"Why not?" he asked. "Why should you take it for granted that there is so much amiss in my life, that I have fallen so far away from those dreams? It may not be so," he continued. "Remember that the man who lives, and comes a little nearer toward knowledge, has nothing to be ashamed of. It is the man who lives, and eats and drinks and sleeps, and knows no more when his head presses the pillow at night than when the sun woke him in the morning, it is that man who is ign.o.ble. You have spoken of the past," he added, turning face to face with Rochester. "Once more I will remind you of your own words. _'The only crime in life is failure. If the crash comes, and the pieces lie around you, swim out to sea too far, and sink beneath the waves forever!_' Wasn't that your advice? Not your exact words, perhaps, but wasn't that what you told the boy who sat here and dreamed?"

Rochester shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"Youth," he said, "may be forgiven much. Manhood must accept its own responsibilities."

Saton smiled grimly.

"Always the same," he said. "All the time you play with the truth, Rochester, as though it were a gla.s.s ball committed into your keeping, and yours alone. Don't you know that the one inspired period of life is youth--youth before it is sullied with experience, youth which knows everything, fears nothing--youth which has the eyes of the clairvoyant?"

Rochester frowned.

"Your tongue goes glibly to-night," he remarked. "Talk to the shadows, my friend. Lady Marrabel and I are going."