The Lamp of Fate Part 57

Davilof made a gesture of despair.

"Is it true you're going into some sisterhood?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"Yes."

"And it is I--I who have driven you to this! _Dieu_! I've been mad--mad!"

His hands were clenched, his face working painfully. The hazel eyes--those poet's eyes of his which she had seen sometimes soft with dreams and sometimes blazing with love's fire--were blurred by misery.

They reminded her of the contrite, tortured eyes of a dog which, maddened by pain, has bitten the hand of a beloved master. Her anger died away in the face of that overwhelming remorse. She herself had learned to know the illimitable bitterness of self-reproach.

"Antoine----" Her voice had grown very gentle.

He swung round on her.

"And I can't undo it!" he exclaimed desperately. "I can't undo it! . . .

Magda, will you believe me--will you _try_ to believe that, if my life could undo the harm I've done, I'd give it gladly?"

"I believe you would, Antoine," she replied simply.

With a stifled exclamation he turned away and, dropping into a chair, leaned his arms on the table and hid his face. Once, twice she heard the sound of a man's hard-drawn sob, and the dry agony of it wrung her heart. All that was sweet and compa.s.sionate in her--the potential mother that lies in every woman--responded to his need. She ran to him and, kneeling at his side, laid a kind little hand on his shoulder.

"Don't Antoine!" she said pitifully. "Ah, don't, my dear!"

He caught the hand and held it against his cheek.

"It's unforgivable!" he muttered.

"No, no. I do forgive you."

"You can't forgive! . . . Impossible!"

"I think I can, Antoine. You see, I need forgiveness so badly myself.

I wouldn't want to keep anyone else without it. Besides, Michael would have been bound to learn--what you told him--sooner or later." She rose to her feet, pus.h.i.+ng back the hair from her forehead rather wearily.

"It's better as it is--that he should know now. It--it would have been unbearable if it had come later--when I was his wife."

Antoine stumbled to his feet. His beautiful face was marred with grief.

"I wish I were dead!"

The words broke from him like an exceeding bitter cry. To Magda they seemed to hold some terrible import.

"Not that, Antoine!" she answered in a frightened voice. "You're not thinking--you're not meaning----"

He shook his head, smiling faintly.

"No," he said quietly. "The Davilofs have never been cowards. I shan't take that way out. You need have no fears, Magda." The sudden tension in her face relaxed. "But I shall not stay in England. England--without you--would be h.e.l.l. A h.e.l.l of memories."

"What shall you do, then, Antoine? You won't give up playing?"

He made a fierce gesture of distaste.

"I couldn't play in public! Not now. Not for a time. I think I shall go to my mother. She always wants me, and she sees me very little."

Magda nodded. Her eyes were wistful.

"Yes, go to her. I think mothers must understand--as other people can't ever understand. She will be glad to have you with her, Antoine."

He was silent for a moment, his eyes dwelling on her face as though he sought to learn each line of it, so that when she would be no more beside him he might carry the memory of it in his heart for ever.

"Then it is good-bye," he said at last.

Magda held out her hands and, taking them in his, he drew her close to him.

"I love you," he said, "and I have brought you only pain." There was a tragic simplicity in the statement.

"No," she answered steadily. "Never think that. I spoiled my own life.

And--love is a big gift, Antoine."

She lifted her face to his and very tenderly, almost reverently, he kissed her. She knew that in that last kiss there was no disloyalty to Michael. It held renunciation. It accepted forgiveness.

"Did you know that Dan Storran was in front to-night?" asked Gillian, as half an hour later she and Magda were driving back to Hampstead together. She had already confided the fact of her former meeting with him in the tea-shop.

Magda's eyes widened a little.

"No," she said quietly. "I think I'm glad I didn't know."

She was very silent throughout the remainder of the drive home and Gillian made no effort to distract her. She herself felt disinclined to talk. She was oppressed by the knowledge that this was the last night she and Magda would have with each other. To-morrow Magda would be gone and one chapter of their lives together ended. The gates of the Sisters of Penitence would close upon her and Friars' Holm would be empty of her presence.

Everything had been said that could be said, every persuasion used. But to each and all Magda had only answered: "I know it's the only thing for me to do. It probably wouldn't be for you, or for anyone else. But it is for me. So you must let me go, Gillyflower."

Gillian dreaded the morrow with its inevitable moment of farewell. As for Virginie, she had done little else but weep for the last three days, and although Lady Arabella had said very little, she had kissed her G.o.d-daughter good-bye with a brusqueness that veiled an inexpressible grief and tenderness. Gillian foresaw that betwixt administering comfort to Lady Arabella and Virginie, and setting Magda's personal affairs in order after her departure, she would have little time for the indulgence of her own individual sorrow. Perhaps it was just as well that these tasks should devolve on her. They would serve to occupy her thoughts.

The morning sunlight, goldenly gay, was streaming in through the windows as Magda, wrapped in a soft silken peignoir, made her way into the bathroom. Virginie, her eyes reddened from a night's weeping, was kneeling beside the sunken bath of green-veined marble, stirring sweet-smelling salts in to the steaming water. Their fragrance permeated the atmosphere like incense.

"My tub ready, Virginie?" asked Magda, cheerfully.

Virginie scrambled to her feet.

"_Mais oui, mademoiselle_. The bath is ready."

Then, her face puckering up suddenly, she burst into tears and ran out of the room. Magda smiled and sighed, then busied herself with her morning ablutions--prolonging them a little as she realised that this was the last occasion for a whole year when she would step down into a bath prepared and perfumed for her in readiness by her maid.

A year! It was a long time to look forward to. So much can happen in a year. And no one can foresee what the end may bring.