V
LA MANCHE
THE bolts of the back door did not creak at all when, at twenty minutes to twelve, Edward Basingstoke let himself out. Tommy always saw to the bolts, for his own purposes, with a feather and a little salad oil.
The night was sweet and dark under the trees and in among the houses. In the village no lamp gleamed at any window. Beyond the village, the starshine and dew lent a gray shimmer to field and hedge, and the road lay before him like a pale ribbon. He crossed the meadow, climbed the wall, and dropped. The earth sounded dully under his feet, and twigs crackled as he moved. There was no other sound. She was not there. He dared not light a match to see his watch's face by. Perhaps he was early. Well, he could wait. He waited. He waited and waited and waited. He listened till his ears were full of the soft rustlings and movements which go to make up the silence of country night. He strained his eyes to see some movement in the gray park dotted with black trees. But all was still. It was very dark under the trees. And through all his listening he thought, thought. Did it do to trust to impulses—to instincts? Did it do, rather, to disregard them? A gipsy woman had said to him once, "Your first thoughts are straight—give yourself time to think twice and you'll think wrong." What he had felt that morning while he waited, vainly, for her to come had taught him that, fool as he might be for his pains, the feeling that possessed him was more like the love poets talked of than he would have believed any feeling of his could be. And, after all, love at first sight was possible—was it not the theme of half the romances in the world? He felt that at this, their second meeting, he must know whether he meant to advance or to retreat. Always when he had trusted his impulse his choice had been a wise one. But was a choice necessary now? His instincts told him that it was. This midnight meeting—planned by her and not by him—it was a meeting for "good-by." No girl would make an assignation at that hour just to tell a man that she intended to meet him again the next day. So he must know whether he meant to permit himself to be said good-by to. And he knew that he did not.
The day had been long, but it seemed to him that already the night had been longer than the day. Could he have mistaken the hour? No, it was certainly twelve—or thirteen. Then his heart leaped up. If it had been thirteen, that meant one o'clock. Perhaps it was not one yet. But he felt that he knew it to be at least three. Yet if it were three there would be the diffused faint illumination of dawn growing, growing. And there was no light at all but the changeless light of the stars. Again and again he thought he saw her, thought he heard her. And again and again only silence and solitude came to meet his thoughts.
When at last she did come he saw her very far off, and heard the rustle of her dress even before he saw her.
He would not go to meet her across the starlit space; that would be very dangerous. He stood where he was till she came into the shadow. Then he went toward her and said:
"At last!"