The shadow of the East

by E. M. Hull

“Thank God for Peter,” she said fervently, and went back to her station by the window. It was considerably darker than before, but for some distance the double avenue leading to the stables was visible. As she watched, playing absently with the blind-cord, her mind dwelt on the long connection between Peter Peters and her family. Thirty years—the best of his life. And in exchange sorrow and an undying memory. The woman he loved had chosen not him but handsome inconsequent Barry Craven and, for her choice, had reaped misery and loneliness. And because he had known that inevitably a day would come when she would need assistance and support he had sunk his own feelings and retained his post. Her brief happiness had been hard to watch—the subsequent long years of her desertion a protracted torture. He had raged at his own helplessness. And ignorant of his love and the motive that kept him at Craven Towers she had come to lean on him and refer all to him. But for his care the Craven properties would have been ruined, and the Craven interests neglected beyond repair.

For some time before her sister-in-law's death Miss Craven had known, as only a woman can know, but now for the first time she had heard from his lips a half-confession of the love that he had guarded jealously for thirty years.

The unusual tears that to-day seemed so curiously near the surface rose despite her and she blinked the moisture from her eyes with a feeling of irritated shame.

Then a figure, almost indistinguishable in the gloom, coming from the stables, caught her eye and she gave a sharp sigh of relief.

He was walking slowly, his hands deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the storm of wind and rain that beat on his broad back. His movements suggested intense weariness, yet nearing the house his step lagged even more as if, despite physical fatigue and the inclement weather, he was rather forcing himself to return than showing a natural desire for shelter.

There was in his tread a heaviness that contrasted forcibly with the elasticity that had formerly been characteristic. As he passed close by the window where Miss Craven was standing she saw that he was splashed from head to foot. She thought with sudden compassion of the horse that he had ridden. She had been in the stables only a few weeks before when he had handed over another jaded mud-caked brute trembling in every limb and showing signs of merciless riding to the old head groom who had maintained a stony silence as was his duty but whose grim face was eloquent of all he might not say. It was so unlike Barry to be inconsiderate, toward animals he had been always peculiarly tender-hearted.

She hurried out to the hall, almost cannoning with a little dark-clad figure who gave way with a deep Oriental reverence. “Master very wet,” he murmured, and vanished.

“There's some sense in him,” she muttered grudgingly. And quite suddenly a wholly unexpected sympathy dawned for the inscrutable Japanese whom she had hitherto disliked. But she had no time to dwell on her unaccountable change of feeling for through the glass of the inner door she saw Craven in the vestibule struggling stiffly to rid himself of a dripping mackintosh. It had been no protection for the driving rain had penetrated freely, and as he fumbled at the buttons with slow cold fingers the water ran off him in little trickling streams on to the mat.

She had no wish to convey the impression that she had been waiting for him. She met him as if by accident, hailing him with surprise that rang genuine.

“Hallo, Barry, just in time for tea! I know you don't usually indulge, but you can do an act of grace on this one occasion by cheering my solitude. Peter looked in for ten minutes but had to hurry away for an engagement, and Gillian is not yet back.”