He lifted his hands to his neck, took hers by the wrists, and forcibly drew them down, stepping back a pace, so that she must lift her head.
Then, holding her hands against his breast: “Lady Ingleby,” he said, “lift your eyes, and look into my face.”
Slowly—slowly—Myra lifted her grey eyes. The fire of his held her; she felt the strength of him mastering her, as it had often done before. She could scarcely see the anguish in his face, so vivid was the blaze of his blue eyes.
“Lady Ingleby,” he said, and the grip of his hands on hers, tightened. “Lady Ingleby—we stood like this together, you and I, on a fast narrowing strip of sand. The cruel sea swept up, relentless. A high cliff rose in front—our only refuge. I held you thus, and said: ‘We must climb—or drown.’ Do you remember?—I say it now, again. The only possible right thing to do is steep and difficult; but we must climb. We must mount above our lower selves; away from this narrowing strip of dangerous sand; away from this cruel sea of fierce temptation; up to the breezy cliff-top, up to the blue above, into the open of honour and right and perfect purity. You stood there, until now; you stood there—brave and beautiful. I dragged you down—God forgive me, I brought you into danger—Hush! listen! You must climb again; you must climb alone; but when I am gone, your climbing will be easy. You will soon find yourself standing, safe and high, above these treacherous dangerous waters. Forgive me, if I seem rough.” He forced her gently backwards to the couch. “Sit there,” he said, “and do not rise, until I have left the house. And if ever these moments come back to you, Lady Ingleby, remember, the whole blame was mine.... Hush, I tell you; hush! And will you loose my hands?”
But Myra clung to those big hands, laughing, and weeping, and striving to speak.
“Oh, Jim—my Jim!—you can’t leave me to climb alone, because I am all your own, and free to be yours and no other man’s, and together, thank God, we can stand on the cliff-top where His hand has led us. Dearest—Jim, dearest—don’t pull away from me, because I must cling on, until you have read these telegrams. Oh, Jim, read them quickly! QQQ Sir Deryck Brand brought them down from town this afternoon. And oh, forgive me that I did not tell you at once.... I wanted you to prove yourself, what I knew you to be, faithful, loyal, honourable, brave, the man of all men whom I trust; the man who will never fail me in the upward climb, until we stand together beneath the blue on the heights of God’s eternal hills.... Oh, Jim——”
Her voice faltered into silence; for Jim Airth knelt at her feet, his head in her lap, his arms flung around her, and he was sobbing as only a strong man can sob, when his heart has been strained to breaking point, and sudden relief has come.
Myra laid her hands, gently, upon the roughness of his hair. Thus they stayed long, without speaking or moving.
And in those sacred minutes Myra learned the lesson which ten years of wedded life had failed to teach: that in the strongest man there is, sometimes, the eternal child—eager, masterful, dependent, full of needs; and that, in every woman’s love there must therefore be an element of the eternal mother—tender, understanding, patient; wise, yet self-surrendering; able to bear; ready to forgive; her strength made perfect in weakness.
At length Jim Airth lifted his head.