The Pines of Lory Part 15

"Certainly."

"Could they have sailed by this bay and missed us?"

"Not unless they were idiots. Everybody on the steamer knew we sailed into a bay to get here."

"Still, they may have missed us."

"Well, suppose they did go by us, once or twice, or several times; people don't abandon their best friends and brothers in that off-hand fas.h.i.+on."

After a pause he added, "Something may have happened to Father Burke or to Louise."

"But even then," said Elinor, turning toward him, "wouldn't they try and discover why I had not arrived? And wouldn't they hunt _you_ up?"

"No, I was to be a surprise. None of them knew I was coming. They think I am still in South Africa."

There was a long silence, broken at last by Pats. "What a hideous practical joke I have turned out! In the first place I strand you here and--"

"No! I was very unjust that day and have repented--and tried to atone."

"Atone! You! Angels defend us! If atonement was due from you, where am I? Instead of getting you away, I go out of my head and have a fever--and am fed--like a baby."

She smiled. "That is hardly your fault."

"Yes, it is. No _man_ would do it. Pugs and Persian cats do that sort of thing. For men there are proper times for giving out. But there is one thing I should like to say--that is, that my life is yours. This skeleton belongs to you, and the soul that goes with it. Henceforth I shall be your slave. I do not aspire to be treated as your equal; just an abject, reverent, willing slave."

She smiled and played with the ears of the sleeping Solomon.

"I am serious," and Pats raised himself on one elbow. "Just from plain, unvarnished grat.i.tude--if from nothing else--I shall always do whatever you command--live, die, steal, commit murder, scrub floors, anything--I don't care what."

"Do you really mean it?"

"I do."

"Then stop talking."

With closed eyes he fell back into his former position. But again, partially raising himself, he asked, "May I say just one thing more?"

"No."

Again he fell back, and there was silence.

For a time Elinor sat with folded hands gazing dreamily beyond the point over the distant gulf, a dazzling, vivid blue beneath the July sun. When at last she turned with a question upon her lips and saw the closed eyes and tranquil breathing of the convalescent, she held her peace. Then came a drowsy sense of her own fatigue. Cautiously, that the sleeper might not awake, she also reclined, at full length, and closed her eyes.

Delicious was the soft air: restful the carpet of pine-needles. No cradle-song could be more soothing than the m.u.f.fled voices of the pines: and the lady slept.

But Pats was not asleep. He soon opened his eyes and gazed dreamily upward among the branches overhead, then moved his eyes in her direction. For an easier study of the inviting creature not two yards away, he partially raised himself on an elbow. The contemplation of this lady he had found at all times entrancing; but now, from her unconscious carelessness and freedom she became of absorbing interest. Her dignity was asleep, as it were: her caution forgotten. With captivated eyes he drank in the graceful outlines of her figure beneath the white dress, the gentle movement of the chest, the limp hands on the pine-needles.

Some of the pride and reserve of the clean-cut, patrician face--of which he stood in awe--had melted away in slumber.

Maybe the murmur of the pines with the drowsy, languorous breeze relaxed his conscience; at all events the contours of the upturned lips were irresistible. Silently he rolled over once--the soft carpet of pine-needles abetting the manoeuvre--until his face was at right angles to her own, and very near. Then cautiously and slowly he pressed his lips to hers. This contact brought a thrill of ecstasy--an intoxication to his senses. But the joy was brief.

More quickly than his startled wits could follow she had pushed away his face and risen to her feet. Erect, with burning cheeks, she looked down into his startled eyes with an expression that brought him sharply to his senses. It was a look of amazement, of incredulity, of contempt--of everything in short that he had hoped never to encounter in her face again. For a moment she stood regarding him, her breast heaving, a stray lock of hair across a hot cheek, the most distant, the most exalted, and the most beautiful figure he had ever seen. Then, without a word, she walked away. Across the open, sunlit s.p.a.ce his eyes followed her, until, through the doorway of the cottage, she disappeared.

For a moment he remained as he was, upon the ground, half reclining, staring blankly at the doorway. Then, slowly, he lowered himself and lay at full length along the ground, his face in his hands.

Of the flight of time he had no knowledge: but, at last, when he rose to his feet he appeared older. He was paler. His eyes were duller. About the mouth had come lines which seemed to indicate a painful resolution.

But to the shrunken legs he had summoned a sufficient force to carry him, without wavering, to the cottage door. He entered and dropped, as a man uncertain of his strength, into the nearest chair--the one beside the doorway. Solomon, who had followed at his heels, looked up inquiringly into the emaciated face. Its extraordinary melancholy may have alarmed him. But Pats paid no attention to his dog. He looked at Elinor who was ironing, at the heavy table--the dining-table--in the centre of the room. Her sleeves were rolled back to the elbow; her head bent slightly over as she worked.

The afternoon sun flooded the s.p.a.ce in his vicinity and reached far along the floor, touching the skirt of her dress. Behind her the old tapestry with the two marble busts formed a stately background. To the new arrivals she paid no attention.

After a short rest to recover his breath, and his strength, Pats cleared his throat:

"Miss Marshall, you will never know, for I could not begin to tell you--how sorry--how, how ashamed I am for having done--what I did. I don't ask you to forgive me. If you were my sister and another man did it, I should--" He leaned back, at a loss for words.

"I don't say it was the claret. I don't try to excuse myself in any way.

But one thing I ask you to believe: that I did not realize what I was doing."

He arose and stood with his hand on the back of the chair. As he went on his voice grew less steady. "Why, I look upon you as something sacred; you are so much finer, higher, better than other people. In a way I feel toward you as toward my mother's memory; and that is a holy thing. I could as soon insult one as the other. And I realize and shall never forget all that you have done for me."

In a voice over which he seemed to be losing control, he went on, more rapidly:

"And it's more than all that--it's more than grat.i.tude and respect. I--"

For an instant he hesitated, then his words came hotly, with a reckless haste. "I love you as I never thought of loving any human being. It began when I first saw you on the wharf. You don't know what it means.

Why, I could lay down my life for you--a thousand times--and joyfully."

From Elinor these words met with no outward recognition. She went quietly on with her ironing.

Pats drew a deep breath, sank into his chair and muttered, in a lower tone, "I never meant to tell you that. Now I--I--have done it."

During the pause that followed these last words she said, quietly, without looking up:

"I knew it already."

He straightened up. "Knew what already?"

She lifted a collar she was ironing and examined it, but made no reply.

"You knew what already?" he repeated. "That I was in love with you?"

She nodded, still regarding the collar.

"Impossible!"

She laid the collar beside other collars already ironed and took up another; but he heard no answer.

"How did you know?" he asked. "From what?"

"From various things."

"What things?"