Why should he not desire to befriend the girl in her trouble? Was there any dishonor in the desire, and need the world know how much tenderness must needs be locked and hidden in his heart? He would not make love to her or court her love in turn. And yet was it not possible that he might succor her in her distress, comfort her, lighten her lot a little? He might even protect her from Dan’s brutality, should that savage give him a reasonable and an honorable excuse. Bess was married. So far there was an impenetrable barrier between them. He could not break the gate of fate, but he might touch her hands between the bars.
Nothing was more natural, therefore, to such philosophy than that Jeffray should signalize his return to the saddle by a pilgrimage through Pevensel in quest of Bess. The brisk delight of a canter over the purpling moors was itself a joy to a man who had been three weeks abed. How the larks sang, and how the broom flashed and glittered in the wind! The cloud galleons bellied out their white sails over the crests of the downs. The diverse greens, checkering the landscape, seemed dusted with gold-dust by the daughters of the dawn. The day brought back to him the warm, romantic splendor of the south, the memory of Sicilian skies and the isles of Greece, a-dream in the blue Ægean.
Richard rode down to the weir-pool, and found no life there save a heron standing in the shallows, the bird rising on its heavy wings and flapping away above the trees. He crossed at the ford and rode in and out among the ruins, scanning the ivied windows and searching behind the crumbling piers that were bearded with ferns. No Bess was there, though the very grasses seemed to smell of the sweet woodland odor of her clothes. Jeffray came into the refectory that was rendered the more mysterious by her dream, but found no red flower blooming, no swarthy girl waiting to lift up her face to his.
He abandoned Holy Cross at last, but loitered at the pool a moment. The water lay like glass above the curling cornice that thundered down into the crackling foam below. The grass-land was ablaze with gold, deep, dewy, the grass-land of a dream. Jeffray was wondering within himself whether he should take the path that led up towards the hamlet, in the hope that Bess might be coming to the ruins. Crossing the ford again, he plunged upward into the woods, not guessing at the moment that his heart’s desire was very near.
It was at the winding down of the path into a little dell in the midst of a larch-wood that Richard, with a sudden leap of the heart, saw a streak of color coming amid the trees. The tall, stiff trunks crowded all around the dell that lay like a green bowl under the vaultings of the boughs above. Wild hyacinths spread a blue mist over the lush, green grass, and a few late wind-flowers were scattered like snow-flakes under the trees.
Jeffray had reined in instinctively. Bess was coming down the path, walking with her head bowed down, breaking a dead bough in pieces between her hands. She wandered aimlessly from side to side, as though life had little purpose for her now. A red scarf covered her shoulders and was knotted over her bosom, her brown neck bare, the black masses of her hair shining in the sunlight, an errant strand or two falling down each cheek.
Jeffray’s black mare tossed her head, the rattling of the bit and bridle causing Bess to start and look up rapidly. She had come to a place where the knotted roots of a fir ran across the path, the ground falling away on the farther side and making a species of rough dais. She stood motionless, leaning forward slightly, her eyes fixed on Jeffray with wondering steadfastness. For a moment they looked at each other, with no sound to break the silence save the soughing of the wind in the tree-tops overhead.
Jeffray dismounted, left the mare loose, and went slowly towards Bess. Her eyes were still fixed steadily on his, yet she seemed to quail a little and grow pale as he drew near to her. Richard could see her trembling excitement, her hands opening and shutting spasmodically as she stood above him in all the swarthy splendor of her loveliness.
“Bess.”
She gave a sudden, low cry, twisted away from him, and, throwing her arms up against the trunk of the fir, leaned against it with her cheek against the rough, brittle bark. Jeffray’s hands fell limp to his sides. He stood looking at Bess helplessly, as though shocked and baffled by her deep distress, knowing not for the moment what to do or say.