“You find it impossible to forgive me?”
“There is nothing I would not forgive you. That’s the essential difference between us,” she answered lightly.
“There is no essential difference; don’t say it.”
“The day has been something of a failure, don’t you think? But then so was the day when you cut yourself shaving.” She maintained the flippant tone. “That came right. Perhaps tomorrow when we meet we shall find each other wholly adorable again.” She would not be serious, was light, frivolous to the last. “Good-night. Don’t paint devils, don’t see ghosts. Tomorrow everything may be as before. Kiss me good-night. Sleep well!” He kissed her, hesitated, kept her in the shelter of his arms:
“Margaret....” She freed herself:
“No. I know that tone. It means more questions. You ought to have lived in the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Don’t you wish you could put me on the rack? There is a touch of the inquisitor about you. I never noticed it before.... Good-night!”
CHAPTER XV
Margaret slept ill that night. Round and round in her unhappy mind swirled the irrefutable fact that she had lied to her lover, and that he knew she had lied. Broken her promise, her oath; and he knew that she was forsworn. She passionately desired his respect; in all things he had been on his knees before her. If he were no longer there she would find the change of attitude difficult to endure. Yet in the watches of the night she clung to the hope that he could know nothing definitely. He might suspect or divine, but he could not know. She counted on Peter Kennedy, trusted that when the five hundred pounds were paid the woman would be satisfied, would go quietly away, that nothing more would ever be heard of her.
Wednesday next they were to be married. She told herself that if she had lost anything she would regain it then. Perhaps she would tell him, but not until after she had re-won him. She knew her power. If, too, she distrusted it, sensing something in him incorruptible and granite-hard, she took faint and feverish consolation by reminding herself that it was night-time, when all troubles look their worst. She resolutely refused to consider the permanent loss of that which she now knew she valued more than life itself. The possibility intruded, but she would not look.
In short snatches of troubled sleep she lived again through the scenes of the afternoon, saw him doubt, heard him question, gave flippant answers. In oases of wakefulness she felt his arms about her, and the restrained kisses that were like vows; conjured up thrilled moments when she knew how well he loved her. She began to dread those nightmare sleeps, and to force herself to keep awake. At four o’clock she consoled herself that it would soon be daylight. At five o’clock, after a desperate short nightmare of estrangement from which she awoke, quick-pulsed and pallid, she got up and put on a dressing-gown, drew up the blind, and opened wide the window. She watched the slow dawn and in the darkness heard the breakers on the stony beach. Nature calmed and quieted her. She began to think her fears had been foolish, to believe that she had not only played for safety but secured it, that the coming day would bring her the Gabriel she knew best, the humble and adoring lover. She pictured their coming together, his dear smile and restored confidence. He would have forgotten yesterday. The dawn she was watching illumined and lightened the sky. Soon the sun would rise grandly, already his place was roseate-hued. “Red sky in the morning is the shepherd’s warning,” runs the old proverb. But Margaret had never heard, or had forgotten it. To her the roseate dawn was all promise. The day before them should be exquisite as yesterday, and weld them with its warmth. She would withhold nothing from him, nothing of her love. Then peace would fall between them? and the renewal of love? At six o’clock she pulled down the blinds and went back to bed again, where for two hours she slept dreamlessly. Stevens woke her with the inevitable tea.