“You thought so once.” Her glance was friendly, full of affection and great liking; and so well had she been schooling herself to the new, passionate desire for sacrifice that Rupert read more in it than the old comradeship. “What have I done, that I cannot help you now?”
He was dizzied by the unexpectedness, the swiftness of this night surprise. Here was Nance, her face turned eagerly toward him, and she was reminding him of the devotion he had shown her in years past. He had no key to the riddle, could not guess how desperate she was in her wish to hide Will Underwood’s indignities under cover of this sacrifice for Rupert’s sake—Rupert, whom she liked so well and pitied.
“Shall I not sing to you now?” she repeated, with pleasant coquetry. “If you have no Stuart songs—why, let me sing you Martha’s doleful ballad of Sir Robert who rode over Devilsbridge, and came riding back again without his head. It was a foolish thing to do, but it makes a moving ballad, Rupert.”
Her mood would not be denied. Tender, gay, elusive, she tempted him to ask what she was ready—for sake of sacrifice—to give. There was reward here for the empty boyhood, the empty days of shame since the men of the house rode out. It was all unbelievable, unsteadying. He had only to cross to Nance’s side, it seemed, had only to plead, as he had done more than once in days past, for the betrothal kiss. He recalled how she had met these wild love-makings of his—with pity and a little laughter, and a heart untouched by any sort of love for him. And now—all that was changed.
The moment seemed long in passing. Within reach there was Nance, desirable beyond any speech of his to tell; and yet he could not cross to her. It was as if a sword divided them, with its keen edge set toward him. He did not know himself, could not understand the grip that held him back from her, though feet and heart were willing. Then it grew clear to him.
“Nance,” he said sharply, “do you remember the Brig o’ Tryst?”
“Why, yes,” she answered, with simple tenderness. “I remember that I hurt you there. You pleaded so well that day, Rupert—and now you’re dumb, somehow.”
“Because—Nance, there has war come since then, and it has proved us all.” He laughed, the old, unhappy laugh of irony and self-contempt. “There’s Simon Foster, bent with rheumatism, and Nat the Shepherd, too infirm to do anything but smoke his pipe and babble of the ’15 Rising, and—your fool, Nance. You’ve a gallant house of men about you.”
And Nance was silent. Some deeper feeling than pity or haphazard sacrifice was stirring her, for she saw Rupert as he was, saw him with a clearness, a knowledge of him, that would never leave her. In retreat, against his will, in utter darkness of hope and forward purpose, he had found the right way and the ready to Nance’s heart. His grip of honour was so resolute. There was nothing scholarly or fanciful about him now. Through temptation of her own making, through a desire extreme and passionate and easy to be read, he had won through to this starry sort of abnegation that set well on him. He was no proven man, and he disdained for that reason to claim a woman’s favours; and the breed of him showed clear.
The wind swept down from the moors with a snarl that set the windows shaking. And Rupert, without a backward glance, went into the hall and opened the main door. The wind came yelping in, powdering the threshold with driven sleet and chilling him to the bone. He was aware only of heart-sickness, of the fragrance that was Nance Demaine, of his need to get out into the open road; and there was something in the lash of the sleet across his face that was friendly as the moors he loved.