And so, at last, the outcome of the struggle which saw him go through so many different moments of revolt and sharp temptation, was that Berwick brought himself to envisage that immediate renunciation, which seemed so much more difficult to face than did the further, if less poignant, sacrifice which still lay in the distant future, when, to make Barbara his wife, he would give up so much that had hitherto, or so he had thought, made life worth living.
Slowly he made his way back to the Pavilion du Dauphin, there to set himself grimly to do all that was possible to make his decision, if not irrevocable, then most difficult of revocation. Mère Lecerf was abruptly told that as her master must leave the hunting lodge that night she must arrange to come and sleep there, in order that "Madame" should not be alone in the solitary building. But that, as Berwick well knew, was by no means enough, for Mère Lecerf would acquiesce in any change of plan with joyful alacrity.
So it was that six o'clock saw him passing into the Pavilion Henri IV., the famous hostelry which terminates the long Terrace of St. Germains. There he was well known, and could, in his present mood, have well spared the delight with which his orders were received, as also the few sentences in which the landlady's young daughter aired her English. "But how so! Of course! The most beautiful of our rooms shall be ready for Monsieur's occupation. Perhaps for three nights? La, la! What a short sojourn! A carriage now, at once? Another one to be at the Pavilion du Dauphin this evening? But yes, certainly!"
Barbara, stepping down from the high French railway carriage, looked about her with a strange shrinking and fear in her dark eyes. From the moment she had left the boat she had been reminded, and that intolerably, of another journey taken, not alone,—on the day of her marriage to Pedro Rebell. The last few months seemed obliterated, and Berwick for the moment forgotten. She was haunted by two very different presences,—that of her mother, and that of the West Indian planter, whose physical nearness, which had ever, from their marriage day onward, filled her with agonised revolt and terror, she seemed now to feel as she had not felt it for years, for he had soon tired of his victim. Had it not been that thoughts of Madame Sampiero, and of the duty she owed to the paralysed woman, restrained her, she would have been tempted to open the railway carriage door and step out into the rushing wind, and so end, for ever, the conflict in her mind.
There are women, more women than men, who are born to follow the straight way,—to whom crooked paths are full of unknown terrors. Such a woman was Barbara Rebell. And yet the sight of Berwick,—Berwick, pale indeed, but quiet, self-possessed and smiling, as they advanced towards each other across the primitive little station,—brought comfort, and even security, to her heart. It was so clearly impossible that he would wish to work her any ill—
No other passenger had got out at Poissy, and the station-master, who knew the owner of the Pavillon du Dauphin, looked with curiosity at the man and woman now going towards one another. The information given to Mère Lecerf had already reached him, "Cold types, these English!" but he cheered up when he saw Berwick suddenly bend down and kiss each of the traveller's pale cheeks, in French husbandly fashion. "Salut Monsieur! Salut Madame!" the familiar accents fell sweetly on Barbara's ear as she walked through to the town square, where a victoria was waiting to take them to the Pavillon du Dauphin.
As she sat, silent by his side, Berwick took her hand in his. Again and again he opened his lips to speak, to tell her of his decision. But something seemed to hold him back from doing so now. Later, when they were alone, would be time enough.
And Barbara? Still full of vague, unsubstantial fears, she yet felt free—absolutely free—from the presence which had journeyed by her side. Berwick now stood between herself and Pedro Rebell, but, during the long silent drive up the steep road leading from the valley to the forest plateau, Barbara's mother seemed to stand sentinel between herself and Berwick.