An hour later Berwick was driving away from the Pavillon du Dauphin, not to the station as Mère Lecerf believed, but to St. Germains, within easy, tantalising distance of the woman he had just left,—a very tearful, a very radiant, a most adoring, and alas! a most adorable Barbara.
Looking out with absent eyes across the great moonlit plain to his left, Berwick thought over the strange little scene which had taken place. He hardly knew what he had said,—in any case far less than he had meant. Not a word, for instance, of what Boringdon had told him,—how could he have spoilt, with the image of death, such an evening as had just been theirs? Heavens! how strangely Barbara had altered, even before that whispered assurance that he would never, never ask her to do that which she thought wrong.
When he had first brought her into the Pavilion, there had been something tragic, as well as touching, in her still submissiveness of manner. But afterwards—ah, afterwards!—he had been privileged to see a side of her nature—ardent, yet spiritual, passionate, yet pure,—which he felt that he alone had the power to awaken, which had manifested itself only for him. How happy each had been in the feeling of nearness to the other, in the knowledge that they were at last free from watching, even if kindly, eyes, and listening ears,—what happiness they promised each other for the morrow! They would give themselves, so Berwick told Barbara, three days in this sylvan fairy land, and then he would take her to Paris, and go himself back to England.
Barbara Rebell never knew that those three days, of to her unalloyed bliss, held dark hours for her companion—hours when he cursed himself for a quixotic fool. But, even in the midst of that strange experience, Berwick was able to write in all honesty to his sister, the only human being to whom he confided the fact that he was in France,—might she not already have learnt it from some less trustworthy source?—certain cryptic words, to which she could then attach no meaning: "One word more. I wish to remind you that appearances are deceitful, and also to tell you that I have at last found that it is possible to be good, to be happy, and also to have a good time."
CHAPTER XXII.
"There are moments struck from midnights!"