Ivor looked steadily at the sharp features and cold glittering eyes, not unconscious of the cynical tolerant contempt expressed in the thin, tight-drawn lips, and was quite sure.
Perhaps, after all, he was having better luck at the game of life than he had hoped or deserved; perhaps, after all, she had picked him out of the gutter, though she would not risk the slightest splash on her own white raiment to save him. Perhaps. His head went round dizzily as he walked blindly from the usurer's house, trying to realize what this meant for both of them. She had set him free; had already done it yesterday, when she had seemed so hard and pitiless, and upbraided him so hotly and sternly; she had set him free at the sacrifice of her one earthly treasure, her little fortune, at the cost of who knows what repulsion and disgust in dealing with the notorious Spider. Could she have approached the man personally? Yet how else could she have effected this? She had loved those jewels; they had meant so much for her; their history, their associations, the tradition of good fortune they brought to their owner—all had been discussed and laughed over and made a handle for teasing, many and many a time, from the days when they were children at play. Then a cold shiver went through him at the sudden thought that she was herself in straits—working for money—she might have pledged them for her own needs. But they had not been pledged, unless to Mosson. Yes, that might be; Mosson was such a beast, they being pledged to him and unredeemed, he might have realized his debt upon them. Again, no—what need could she possibly have of such a sum of money as that? Oh no, there could be no doubt, none whatever. The necklace had been sold for him. De Konski knew; but there was no time to get at him. He sat on a bench under a palm, with his face in his hands, staring into the clear brook that rippled among water-lilies and maidenhair over an artificial rock-bed, and thought.
Hard work this thinking to the poor, light-hearted lad. He had thought more in the last few days than ever in his life before, and it had taken the rounded outlines of youth from his face, deepened his eyes, made shadows under them, and given firmness to a too facile mouth. What a beast he had been yesterday in the gardens when the storm was coming up over Bordighera; no wonder she had been repelled; no wonder such selfish madness had been flouted and condemned. He seemed to be waking out of a long, fantastic dream or some wild, prolonged delirium to a sober, sane view of life. Tears came into his eyes, and dropped slowly on the gravel between his feet. A memory of the countess yesterday, with glowing eyes and thrilling voice, made him shiver; the thought of her beauty gave him a sensation of physical nausea. But yesterday, as yesterdays sometimes are, was long and long ago. And here he was, with scarcely two hours to spare before catching the last possible train home. And there was only one thing to be done, and that was impossible.
Agatha, in the meantime, had no suspicion of what was passing in her prodigal's mind. She had made her last throw for him and lost. She could only bow her head before an unsearchable dispensation and wait. Her first fierce participation in the execution of the unfortunate Dorris had soon given place to a compunction which prompted her to withdraw, after a vain attempt to stem the torrent of the long-pent wrath of the hotel. She therefore had a quieter conscience than some of the rest, and quickly dismissed the business from her mind. She had quieted Mrs. Boundrish's fears of spotted fever by persuading her that the sweet child was only a little hysterical, a view of the case shortly afterwards confirmed by Mrs. Allonby, who recommended solitude and cheerfully prophesied slumber. This charitable office accomplished, the woman of mystery fared forth in the afternoon sunshine to resume the visit of inquiry to Villa Gilardoni, interrupted by the storm on the previous day, taking with her some papers in the cipher that stamped her with Heaven knows what iniquities in the eyes of Ermengarde, and consulting them as she went down the mule-path, as if they contained instructions or indications of what to do next.
The convent walk was no longer a sanctuary for meditation; she had been there in the morning and found men busy opening and cleaning and setting in order both the church and the monastery. At their suggestion she had gone in, inspected the empty cells, simply but sufficiently furnished with bed and table, desk and bookshelf—a book here, a pen there, pointed to recent suddenly interrupted occupation—and wondered over the quiet, harmless, and probably happy and useful lives of the men who had been thrust out, and how they fared now in the loud, perplexing world, and what disgust or disappointment might have driven some of them into this haven of stillness.
She had inspected and admired the church, beautifully and lovingly adorned, though so plain outside, and beautifully kept as if in constant use, and had been touched by the votive offerings hung about on the walls—ships chiefly, with here a gun, here a crutch and there a heart—all so quaint to unaccustomed eyes; and the thought of all the unsuspected heart-breaks and secret agonies of prayer, in that quiet mountain solitude alone, besides those throbbing and aching in the great, lonely, million-peopled world outside, rolled up like a huge tidal wave and crashed upon her heart. But that some prayers were answered, some secret agonies had happy ending, the quaint votive offerings bore witness, filling her with a hope full of peace, and assuring her that some day, ever so distant perhaps, but some day, before the ending of time, all humble, heartfelt prayers of earnest faith and unselfish love would at last bring forth some fruit.
What a different world to-day, sunning itself in splendour of blue and gold and green, to that of yesterday, when the darkness of storm and the chill lash of hail had been over all. Everything seemed made for happiness; the gladness of flowers blooming in every crack and crevice, pink rock-roses creeping about the rocky path, white and pink cistus starring the bushes on every slope, lavender spikes here, and tall purple and black iris there, masses of peach-bloom edging olive-woods, with many an unknown, unconsidered blossom, all turned sweet faces in gladness to the sunshine; all the deep dark verdure of gorge and mountain-flank, with vine and garden-growth about terrace and house, seemed as if breathing a deep and joyous and peaceful life round village and cot, while ever-soaring sunlit mountain-peaks rushed up with glad and silent aspiration into the pure dark sky, the hill-spurs at their feet thrusting many a noble, firm-based buttress far out into the dark splendour of a sapphire and turquoise sea. Even the clean-walled, smokeless town and white ribbon of road, over which toy vehicles and horses and tiny doll-men crawled along the torrent-brink, in oleander shade far below, seemed much too gay and gladsome to admit any shadow of tragedy or sting of pain.
And yet what heart-break, what despair, what loneliness of heart might be—nay, must be—there, hidden and silently borne with more or less valour; and how the very gladsomeness and glory of all this lovely earth seemed to put a sharper knife-edge on the pain, that turned and turned insupportably in the heart, Agatha mused in the weariness and dull apathy weighing her down after yesterday's sharp suffering.
What was life worth, after all, at best? How could people go on, year in, year out, under their tragic burdens and sordid pains? How many a weary year of sunless, monotonous suffering she would have to drag out, unless some merciful mischance befell her body and released her soul, she sighed, with a great yearning for the peace of not being—in the strong deep agony of youth, that has so many prospective years to endure in. And then, suddenly, at the turn leading to the convent cross, she came face to face with a figure hurrying with springing steps up the path by the deserted shrines, and the simultaneous surprised cry of "Ivor!" and "Agatha!" and the look flashed from eye to eye in one moment changed all the world and made everything clear to each, as they stood silent, each with both hands outstretched and clasping the other's.
There was a look never seen before in Ivor's face, and a soft gladness unknown in Agatha's; both faces were in clear sunlight outlined upon a rock-wall overhung by the quaint, goblin-handed boughs of prickly pear.