Only on a fatal day to tell her his name, the name of that prisoner in the Tower that may not be spoken——
Only to send back a bicycle to a shop (but to trust her to guess that where a bicycle would be left a letter would also be left, and an appointment made at some secret hour between a thé dansant and bedtime that night).
Only to cut the knot that no power on earth could untie, to fetch that free-wheel back from the shop under cover of the darkness, and to be off and miles away before the sun rose again.
Was it well or ill that they had ever set eyes on one another?
And what the better now is Alec Aird if he does find them? The times have changed since Madge sat in her mother's carriage waiting until this servant, and not that one, opened the door. It is no good telling Madge he told her so. He can disown Jennie or he can take her back, but there is no middle way. The consul in the Rue St Philippe at St Malo cannot help him, and at the Mairie at St Briac they will run through the files of the permis de séjour in vain. He can whisper—he has whispered—in the ears of the police, and they may run the pair to earth, but it will not be to the earth of that magical island of theirs. And let Alec agonise in Agony Columns as much as he will. He can forgive her, or she can go unforgiven. All else is out of his hands.
And yet it need be no long voyage to that Isle. It is to be found in the near and dear heart. But only by those who envy not and vaunt not, who suffer long and are kind. If sin there has been it must have been taken away again—en souffrance, en espérance, avant qu'il est venu le jour. But then, when that day comes, it comes as it were with a smile through the lashes of its opening eye. It looks up with the mounting rays, and its eyebrow becomes the arch of heaven. C'est effacé, l'horrible passé. Il est venu le jour.
II
On a clear evening in the last days of August I found myself sitting in the Jardin des Anglais in Dinan, alone. The Airds were still at Ker Annic, Julia Oliphant still with them; but I, although their guest and under promise to return to them, had absented myself for a few days. I had done this as much for their sake as for my own. Alec was out all day, or if not out hardly to be seen by the rest of us. Julia and Madge were better together without me. So I had made no falsely delicate excuse. I had told them exactly what I am saying at this moment. And I think they had been grateful.
The garden looks east over the viaduct of Lanvallay, and above the misty violet that enshrouded the land a trail of pale shirley poppies was strung out over the sky—the leagues of cloud-tops caught by the last of the sun. The parapet in front of me hid all else as I sat. One or two people stood against it, looking out over the abyss; a few others moved slowly along the ramparts. The limes above me were already benighted, the dark mass of St Sauveur hidden behind them. The crowded vedettes had long since departed, and the comparatively few visitors who stay in Dinan were probably at the Café de Bretagne at the other side of the town.