She lifted her face to his, and their lips met in a kiss that was the seal of love and all love’s faithfulness.
“So is mine yours,” she said. “How and forever, in this world and the next. Oh, Blaise—beloved!”—she clung to him in a passion of love and anguish and straining belief—“Some day, surely, in that other world, God will give us freedom to take our happiness!”
CHAPTER XXXIII—THE RETURNING TIDE
TWO months had elapsed since Fate’s dividing sword had fallen, forever separating Jean from the man she loved, and the subsequent march of events, with the many changes involved and the bitter loneliness of soul entailed, had made the two months seem to her more like two years.
She had left Staple for Charnwood on the day following that of Madame de Varigny’s visit. It was no longer possible for her to remain under the same roof with Blaise, where the enforced strain of meeting each other daily, and of endeavouring to behave as though nothing more than mere commonplace friendship linked them together, would have been too great for either of them to endure even for the few remaining days which still intervened before the date originally planned for her departure.
Lady Anne, with her usual sympathetic insight, had made no effort to dissuade her, reluctant though she had been to part with her. For herself, the fact that Nesta was alive had come upon her in the light of an almost overwhelming blow. She had never liked the girl, whereas she had grown to look upon Jean as a beloved daughter, and no one had rejoiced more sincerely than his mother when Blaise had confided to her the news of his engagement. At last she would see that grey page in his life turned down for ever and the beginning of a newer, fairer page, illuminated with happiness! And instead, like a tide that has receded far out and then rushes in again with redoubled energy, the whole misery and sorrow of the past had returned upon him, a thousand times accentuated by reason of his love for Jean.
It was with a heavy heart, therefore, that Lady Anne, together with Nick, quitted Staple and established herself for the second time at the Dower House, retiring thither in favour of Nesta who was now installed once more at the Manor. And the thought of how gladly she would have effected the same change, had it been Jean whom Blaise was bringing home as his bride, added but a keener pang to her sorrow.
She watched with anxious eyes the progress of events at Staple. At the commencement of the new régime Nesta had appeared genuinely repentant and ashamed of her conduct in the past, and there was something disarming in the little, half-apologetic air with which she had at first reassumed her position of châtelaine of Staple, deferring eagerly to Blaise on every point and trying her utmost to please him and conform to his wishes. It held something of the appeal of a forgiven child who tries to atone for former naughtiness by an almost alarming access of virtue.