"I assure you," she exclaimed brightly, "I am quite safe here. I am not in the least wet, my old coat has done me good service—voyez—my feet are dry, and all I would ask is a light to cheer me while you are absent, but that I cannot have and I must be content. Although that unnatural dark is over, the shades of the true night will soon be falling and it is lonely here. So the sooner you go the better."
"But where can I go? Will it not be better to remain here with you until Father Rielle returns?"
"I think not—he is slow—that priest! See—if you go now, you will surely overtake him. Keep to your right after regaining the road and you will soon find the lake."
"Well, then, I will go," said Ringfield rising. "But if I might speak to you now, might tell you all I hope and fear and think almost continually, if I might ask you, too, to think about it, and tell me—tell me—it is so difficult for me to say what I wish to—you seem so gay, so satisfied, so——" His voice broke off, for her face changed ominously, and the strongest argument he could have adduced, the folding of her to his heart, the silent embrace which should make her his, was still denied him. To the outsider there might have been a touch of humour in the situation, but not so to either person concerned. She echoed his last words.
"Satisfied! Me! You think I am that? My God, yes, I have to say it in English—it means more! I—satisfied! Happy—you will say next, I suppose. Me—happy and satisfied. I'm the most miserable woman on God's earth! I have had ideals, aspirations—but how could I fulfil, achieve them, living in this place and with my temper, my heredity. Look at Henry. I tell you he is mad—mad and worse! Think of having lived with him! Think of Clairville! You do not know half of what I have gone through!"
A dreadful thought, a dreadful question occurred to Ringfield as he marked the dark wave of hair on Miss Clairville's brow, and again he saw the child in the basket chair at Hawthorne, but he frantically stifled the thought and forbore to question, and the next moment she was weeping and pushing him towards the door.
"Go now," she sobbed. "Go before it gets darker. You might lose your way. Go—go."
He went out at once, pulling the door after him as well as he could and ran through the hollow till he reached the road, where it seemed brighter. The rain gave signs of falling less steadily, when, as often occurs after a protracted storm, there came a lull, followed by one terrific and astounding burst and explosion of thunder, accompanied by a vivid blue and orange blaze and afterwards complete silence and a great calm. The storm now rolled onward, having spent itself in that locality; but knowing from the sound that some place or object had been struck, Ringfield stopped, stepped behind a mass of boulders and juniper bushes and looked back down into the little hollow. The barn was apparently uninjured but the noble pine had suffered. The ripping, tearing sound he had heard was explained by the sight of a broad orange-coloured strip or band that ran longitudinally from the top of the tree to the bottom, indicating where the bark had been peeled off by the force of the fierce current. As he stood gazing thus at the seared and stricken pine, the door opened from the side of the barn and Miss Clairville slowly stepped out, followed by a man in whom, with an exclamation of extremest repulsion and surprise, Ringfield clearly recognized Edmund Crabbe.
The shock of this and the full meaning of it set Ringfeld's nerves and pulses tingling, and he stepped farther back into the shade as he watched them. They advanced to the great pine, examined it, and he could see that Crabbe's arm went around her waist. The guide himself seemed, even at that distance, to be more neatly dressed than usual, he wore a tweed cap with coat to match and did not look as if he had been drinking, but as with him that was the sign that he was about at his worst, Ringfield could only turn away in disgust and pursue his way to Clairville. It was not a pleasant thought that Crabbe must have been in the loft, while a somewhat tender scene had been enacted, and he suddenly felt a contempt and pity for the woman who could play two men at the same time in such barefaced fashion. Then, as lovers will, he rebuked himself for this; perhaps Crabbe had taken refuge in the loft without her knowledge, and the great final crash had brought him down; perhaps she had known he was there, but was ashamed of producing him in a semi-drunken condition, perhaps—then Ringfield saw the distant lights of the Manor House and hastened towards them. A little farther on he overtook the priest, leading Poussette's horse and buggy, and it was not long before they were able to take off their wet clothes at madame's fire and exchange confidences about the storm.
In the large kitchen were also Mr. and Mrs. Abercorn, Dr. Renaud and
Poussette, and the priest, who was naturally held accountable for
Pauline's safety, reported her as resting comfortably in the barn.