CHAPTER XVI
SACRED TROTH
The tide was at its full when Peter began the ascent to King Arthur's Castle—the sea a vast stretch of quivering silver fringed with a mist of flying spray. In the strange, sharp lights and shadows cast by the round moon overhead, the great crags of the promontory jutted out like the turrets of some ancient fortress—blackly etched against the tender, irresolute blue of the evening sky.
But Peter went on unheedingly. The mystic charm had no power to hold him to-night. The only thing that mattered was Nan—her safety. Was she lying hurt somewhere within the crumbling walls of the castle? Or had she missed her footing and plunged headlong into that sea which boomed incessantly against the cliffs? It wasn't scenery that mattered. It was life—and death!
Very swiftly he mounted to the castle door, looking from side to side as he went for any trace which might show that Nan had passed this way. As he climbed the last few feet he shouted her name: "Nan! Nan!" But there came no answer. Only the sea still thundered below and a startled gull flew out from a cranny, screaming as it flew.
Mallory's hand shook a little as he thrust the key into the heavy lock.
Practically all that remained of hope lay behind that closed door.
Then, as it opened, a great cry broke from him, hoarse with relief from
the pent-up agony of the last hour.
She lay there just like a child asleep, snuggled against the wall, one arm curved behind her head, pillowing it. At the sound of his voice she stirred, opening bewildered, startled eyes. In an instant he was kneeling beside her.
"Don't be frightened, Nan. It's I—Peter. Are you hurt?"
"Peter?" She repeated the name dreamingly, hardly yet awake, and her voice held almost a caress in its soft tones.
Mallory bit back a groan. To hear her speak his name on that little note of happiness hurt incredibly.
"Nan—wake up!" he urged gently.
She woke then—came back to a full sense of her surroundings.
"You, Peter?" she murmured surprisedly. She made an effort to sit up, then sank back against the wall, uttering a sharp cry of distress.
"Where are you hurt?" asked Mallory with quick anxiety.
She shook her head at him, smiling reassuringly.
"I'm not hurt. I'm only stiff. You'll have to help me up, Peter."
He stooped and raised her, and at last she stood up, ruefully rubbing the arm which had been curled behind her head while she slept.
"My arm's gone to sleep. It's all pins and needles!" she complained.
Slung over his shoulders Peter carried an extra wrap for her. Whatever had happened, whether she were hurt or merely stranded somewhere, he knew she would not be warmly enough clad to meet the sudden coolness of the evening.
"You must be nearly perished with cold—asleep up here! Put this on," he said quickly.
"No, really"—she pushed aside the woollen coat he tendered. "I'm not cold. It was quite sheltered here under this wall."
"Put it on," he repeated quietly. "Do as I tell you—little pal."
At that she yielded and he helped her on with the coat, fastening it carefully round her.
"And now tell me what possessed you to go to sleep up here?" he demanded.
In a few words she related what had happened, winding up:
"Afterwards, I suppose I must have fainted. Oh!"—with a shiver of remembrance—"It was simply ghastly! I've never felt giddy in my life before—and hope I never may again! It's just as if the bottom of the world had fallen out and left you hanging in mid-air! . . . I knew I couldn't face the climb down again, so—so I just went to sleep. I thought some of you would be sure to come to look for me."
"You knew I should come," he said, a sudden deep insistence in his voice. "Nan, didn't you know it?"
She lifted her head.
"Yes. I think—I think I knew you would come, Peter," she answered unsteadily.
The moonlight fell full upon her—upon a white, strained face with passionate, unkissed lips, and eyes that looked bravely into his, refusing to shirk the ultimate significance which underlay his question.
With a stifled exclamation he swept her up into his arms and his mouth met hers in the first kiss that had ever passed between them—a kiss which held infinite tenderness, and the fierce passion that is part of love, and a foreshadowing of the pain of separation.
"My beloved!" He held her a little away from him so that he might look into her face. Then with a swift, passionate eagerness; "Say that you love me, Nan?"
"Why, Peter—Peter, you know it," she cried tremulously. "It doesn't need telling, dear. . . . Only—it's forbidden."
"Yes," he assented gravely. "It's forbidden us. But now—just this once—let us have a few moments, you and I alone, when there's no need to pretend we don't care—when we can be ourselves!"
"No—no—" she broke in breathlessly.
"It's not much, to ask—five minutes together out of the whole of life! Roger can't grudge them. He'll have you—always." His arms closed jealously round her.
"Yes—always," she repeated. With a sudden choked cry she clung to him despairingly.
"Peter, sometimes I feel I can't bear it! Oh, why were we allowed to care like this?"
"God knows!" he muttered.
He released his hold of her abruptly and began pacing up and down—savagely, like some caged beast. Nan stood staring out over the moon-washed sea with eyes that saw nothing. The five minutes they had snatched together from the rest of life were slipping by—each one a moment of bitter and intolerable anguish.
Presently Peter swung round and came to her side. But he did not touch her. His face looked drawn, and his eyes burned smoulderingly—like fire half-quenched.
"Nan, if I didn't care so much, I'd ask you to go away with me. I—don't quite know what life will be like without you—hell, probably. But at least it's going to be my own little hell and I'm not going to drag you down into it. I'm bound irrevocably. And you—you're bound, too. You can't play fast and loose with the promise you've given Trenby. So we've just got to face it out." He broke off abruptly. Tiny beads of sweat rimmed his upper lip and his hands hung clenched at his sides. Even Nan hardly realised the effort his restraint was costing him.
"What—what do you mean, Peter?" she asked haltingly.
"I mean that I'm going away—that I mustn't see you any more."
A cry fled from her lips—denying, supplicating, and at the desolate sound of it a tremor ran through his limbs. It was as though his body fought and struggled against the compelling spirit within it.
"We mustn't meet again," he went on steadily.
"Not meet—ever—do you mean?" There was something piteous in the young, shaken voice.
"Never, if we can help it. We must go separate ways, Nan."
She tried to speak, but her lips moved soundlessly. Only her eyes, meeting his, held a mute agony that tortured him. All at once his self-control gave way, and the passion of love and longing against which he had been fighting swept aside the barriers which circumstance had placed about it. His arms went round her, holding her close while he rained kisses on her throat and lips and eyes—fierce, desperate kisses that burned against her face. And Nan kissed him back, yielding up her soul upon her lips, knowing that after this last passionate farewell there could he no more giving or receiving. Only a forgetting.
. . . At last they drew apart from one another, though Peter's arms still held her, but only tenderly as for the last time.
"This is good-bye, dearest of all," he said presently.
"Yes," she answered gravely. "I know."
"Heart's beloved, try not to be too sad," he went on. "Try to find happiness in other things. We can never be together—never be more than friends, but I shall be your lover always—always, Nan—through this world into the next."
Her hand stole into his.
"As I yours, Peter."
It was as though some solemn pledge had passed between them—a spiritual troth which nothing in this world could either touch or tarnish. Neither Peter's marriage nor the rash promise Nan had given to Roger could impinge on it. It would carry them through the complex disarray of this world to the edge of the world beyond.
Some time passed before either of them spoke again. Then Peter said quite simply:
"We must go home, dear."
She nodded, and together, hand in hand, they descended from the old castle which must have witnessed so many loves and griefs and partings in King Arthur's time, keeping them secret in its bosom as it would keep secret this later farewell.
They were very silent on the way back. Just at the end, before they turned the corner where the car awaited them, Peter spoke to her again, taking both her hands in his for the last time and holding them in a firm, steady clasp.
"Don't forget, Nan, what we said just now. We can each remember that—our troth. Hang on to it—hard, when life seems a bit more uphill than usual."