The Heart of Penelope

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Now and again, however, a softened glance from the powerful lined face, a muttered word expressive of deep measureless feeling, the feel of his hand grasping hers, would suddenly seem to prove that everything was indeed as she wished it to be between them, and for a few hours she would feel, if not content, at least at peace.

But even then there was always the haunting thought that some extraneous circumstance—sometimes she wondered if it could have been any foolish, careless word said by Wantley—had modified the close intimacy of their relation.

II

There had been a week of this strain and strange chill between them, when one night Penelope, feeling intolerably sore and full of vague misgivings, suddenly determined to seek Downing out in the Beach Room. It fell about in this wise. After the quiet evening had at last come to an end, she went upstairs with Cecily and old Miss Wake, dismissed Motey, and then returned to the studio, hoping he would come to her there.

But an hour wore itself away, and he did not come.

Mrs. Robinson went out on to the moonlit terrace, and for awhile paced up and down, watching the lights in the villa being put out one by one. She knew that her old nurse would not go to sleep till she, Penelope, were safe in bed; and she felt, though she could not see them, Mrs. Mote's eyes peering down at her, watching this impatient walking up and down in the bright moonlight. But what would once have so keenly annoyed her no longer had power to touch her. She even smiled when the candle in Mrs. Mote's room was extinguished, and the blind carefully and ostentatiously drawn down. She knew well that the old woman would sit behind it, waiting impatiently, full of suspicious anger, till she saw her mistress return from the place whither she was now bound.

As she went down the steps leading to the shore, Penelope, her eyes cast down, pitied herself with the frank self-pity of a child deprived of some longed-for happiness; she had so looked forward to these days with Downing, spent in this beloved place, which she was about to give up, perhaps never to see again, for his sake.

At last, when standing on the strip of dry sand heaped above the wet, glittering expanse stretching out to the dark sea, Penelope came upon the circle of bright light, warring with the moonlit shore below, thrown by Downing's lamp through the window of the Beach Room.

The sight affected her curiously. For a moment she felt as if she must turn back; after all, he was engaged upon matters of great moment, perhaps of even greater moment to himself than the question of their relation the one to the other. She suddenly felt ashamed of disturbing him at his work—real work which she knew must be done before he went back to town.

But the window, through which streamed out the shaft of greenish-white light, was wide open, and soon Downing heard, mingling with the surge of the sea, the sound, the unmistakable dragging sound, of a woman's long clinging skirt.