CHAPTER XXVI
ON OTHER SHOULDERS
When he had knelt and kissed the hem of her garment, Scarsdale had meant it as an act of renunciation, as an acceptance of Kathleen's decision. He could not hope to fight against it. The truth of what she had said appealed to him. True he could take her away back to his own little domain at the farthest end of the earth. He could take her to a place where no one should know of her and his past. But he could not take her away from her own thoughts, the upbraiding of her own conscience. His love for her was a strange mixture of passion and reverence. Sometimes it was the one that was uppermost, at another time the other. Now it was reverence, respect for her purity that filled his heart. He put his passion away, for ever, he told himself. He would go back whence he came. He would take back with him his dreams and his memories and nothing else.
To-day was Saturday, his visit here would end on Monday. He would have ended it to-day, yet he felt that he might appear a coward in her sight if he ran away, besides, why should he cheat himself of these last few hours of her? She was nothing to him, never could be anything, but he could still watch her, still listen to her voice, still garner up in his brain memories of her on which he would draw presently when he had gone back to the old lonely, hopeless life.
No, he would not run away.
He found from one of the men servants, old Markabee it was, in which direction lay the golf course, to which Messrs. Coombe, Cutler and Jobson had repaired.
"Fower miles it be, fower good miles, sir," said Markabee, "through Stretton you du go, then turns to the left and——" And so on, Scarsdale listened to the directions and followed them and an hour later stood on the course and watched Mr. Coombe making wild and ineffective swipes at a small ball perched on a mound.
Mr. Coombe, bathed in perspiration, appealed to him.
"Never tried this game before, I haven't," he said, "and don't know as I'm going to spend sleepless nights before I try it again. I daresay it's all right for those who like it—play it yourself perhaps, Sir Harold?"
Scarsdale shook his head. "There's not much golf where I come from," he said briefly.