The Great Amulet Part 75

"I'll show you the letter. Such a charming one. He began, 'Dear Friend,' which wasn't like him. It puzzled me. And he ended by saying he felt sure I should be glad to know how much of his present happiness he owed to his intimacy with me. So you see, dearest, I did no irretrievable harm."

"No, mercifully not, thanks to d.i.c.k's uprightness, and his happy temperament. But he might have been quite another sort; like myself, for instance. By the time I had known you two weeks, Quita, the damage was permanent. Even if there had been no word of love between us, I should never have given a thought to another woman--after that."

The quietness of his tone carried conviction, and her arms went out to him.

"Bless you, bless you, my own man," she murmured into the lapel of his coat. "I can never thank G.o.d enough that I came out to India and won you back."

Weak as he still was from the pain and prostration of his terrible illness, the exquisite completeness of her surrender almost unmanned him; and she felt him tremble through all his big frame. That roused the mother in her.

"Darling, how thoughtless of me! You are not strong enough yet for this sort of thing. Let me get you some wine--please."

"Wine? Nonsense, I'm all right. Desmond gave me a peg."

"Come to a chair, then."

She drew him towards one; but he gently forced her into it, sinking on one knee beside her, with a sigh of satisfaction.

"That's good. I begin to realise that I am actually home!"

"And I begin to realise what a wreck of yourself you are, _mon pauvre_.

Wait till I've tyrannised over you for a month or so! Then we must get long leave."

And taking his head between her hands, she cherished it, smiling into his eyes; the pa.s.sion of the wife deepened and hallowed by the protective tenderness of the mother. When and how should she tell him?

That was the question in her mind. A paralysing shyness, for which she spurned herself, suffused her at the thought; and behind the shyness lurked a great longing to know how he would receive her culminating revelation. But in his present state she dreaded a shock for him,--even a shock of joy. She would wait a little longer for the given moment; and then . . . .

"The hair on your temples has gone quite silver," she lamented, caressing it with light finger-tips. "It is all those terrible mountains; and I hope you've had enough of them now to keep you quiet for a time. But I begin to dread Sir Henry Forsyth. He hasn't got another 'mission' up his sleeve, has he?"

She spoke laughingly, but his eyes were grave; and taking her two hands he prisoned them in his own.

"Quita, my brave la.s.s," he said gently. "After all that has just pa.s.sed between us, I can tell you no less than the truth, and leave you to give the casting vote. I am afraid the mountains are bound to play a big part in our immediate future, unless you seriously prefer that I should give up all idea of political work in those parts, and stick to the Battery."

"And if I _do_ seriously prefer it?"

"Your decision will be mine."

He spoke so steadily that she would fain have believed in his indifference as to the result. But the art of self-deception was not one of her accomplishments. She suppressed a sigh.

"Dear, there is only one decision possible. But for me you might never have put your hand to that plough. It was the one good that came to you through my crowning act of folly; and I'll not undo it, whatever it may mean--for me."

He thanked her with his eyes; and the mute homage in them was dearer to her than a score of kisses. When he tried to speak, she forestalled him.

"You have said it all, Eldred. I understand. I only want--more facts.

Is it Gilgit? And when?"

"Next year, I'm afraid. They want us to re-establish the Agency--Travers and myself. I was up there, you see, before I found you again. We should be quite alone, at the start, with just a doctor and our Kashmiri soldiers."

"And I--it would be impossible?"

He pressed her hands.

"For the first few years--certainly. Everything would be raw; and the work incessant and absorbing. But later on, who can tell? We might see what could be done."

"And the nearest I could get to you, so as to live more or less within reach?"

"Srinagar. That's about twenty days' march from Gilgit. I could do it in ten, to get to you!" he added, smiling. "Spare time would be scarce, though; and in the winter we should be quite cut off by snow."

"Oh, Eldred!"

"I should hate that no less than you, be sure. But when things got a bit more settled, some sort of arrangement might be possible, at least for part of the summer; if you could really stand the isolation and the life."

"Stand it? Of course I could. I should love it."

His eyes lit up.

"You have pluck enough for half a dozen! But you don't look as strong as you did. There's a fragile air about you that troubles me. I never saw it before."

The faint colour in her cheeks invaded her temples. It was the given moment; long enough delayed in all conscience. Yet it found her palpitating--unprepared.

"You mustn't be troubled." She plunged desperately; unsure of what would come next. "It will pa.s.s. I am growing stronger every day."

"Stronger? Good Lord! You haven't been ill too, and I never knew it?"

"No--oh, no! Not ill--that is . . . not exactly. I mean . . ."

Confusion submerged her. His shoulder--the woman's legitimate refuge--was conveniently close; and she buried her blushes in it. At that a suspicion of the truth thrilled through him, like an electric current.

"Quita--look up--speak to me!" he besought her; his voice low, and not quite steady. "Is it possible . . ?"

"Darling, of course it is," she whispered back, without stirring.

"Only--will you ever forgive me? I've saddled you with two women now, as if one wasn't bother enough!"

For answer he strained her closer; and so knelt for the s.p.a.ce of many seconds; stunned, momentarily, by that deep-rooted, elemental joy in the transmission of life, which, in men of fine fibre, is tempered with amazement and awe; a sense of poignant, personal contact with the Open Secret of the world.

At last he spoke; and his words held no suggestion of the emotion that uplifted him.

"When? How old . . . how long ago?"

"Seven weeks ago. The second of October."

"Great Heaven! The day I was nearly done for; the day I crossed the Pa.s.s. And I never dreamed . . . how it was with you."

Then, very gently, she found her head lifted from its resting-place; his eyes searching her own with an insistence not to be denied.

"Quita, you must have realised--all this before I started?"

"Yes."

"And you let me go without a word! By the Lord, I think I had the right to know."