第95章 The Awakening (13)

When he had disappeared beyond the last clump of shrubbery bordering the drive, she remembered the lantern she had left hanging in the barn, and, going to look for it, carried it upstairs to her room.In the afternoon, however, it occurred to her that Christopher would probably need the light by evening, and swinging the handle over her arm, she set out across the newly ploughed fields toward the Blake cottage.The stubborn rustic pride which would keep him from returning to the Hall aroused in her a frank, almost tender amusement.She had long ago wearied of the trivial worldliness of life; in the last few years the shallowness of passion had seemed its crowning insult, and over the absolute sincerity of her own nature the primal emotion she had heard in Christopher's voice exerted a compelling charm.

The makeshift of a conventional marriage had failed her utterly;her soul had rejected the woman's usual cheap compromise with externals; and in her almost puritan scorn of the vanities by which she was surrounded she had attained the moral elevation which comes to those who live by an inner standard of purity rather than by outward forms.In the largeness of her nature there had been small room for regret or for wasted passion, and until her meeting with Christopher on the day of her homecoming he had existed in her imagination only as a bright and impossible memory.Now, as she went rapidly forward along the little path that edged the field, she found herself wondering if, after all, she had worn unconsciously his ideal as an armour against the petty temptations and the sudden melancholies of the last six years.

As she neared the fence that divided the two farms she saw him walking slowly along a newly turned furrow, and when he looked up she lifted the lantern and waved it in the air.Quickening his steps, he swung himself over the rail fence with a single bound, and came to where she stood amid a dried fringe of last summer's yarrow.

"So you are none the worse for the night in the barn?" he asked anxiously.

"Why, I dreamed the most beautiful dreams," she replied, "and Ihad the most perfect sleep in the world.""Then the mice kept away?"

"At least they didn't wake me."

"I stayed within call until sunrise," he said quietly."You were not afraid?"Her rare smile shone suddenly upon him, illumining the delicate pallor of her face."I knew that you were there," she answered.

For a moment he gazed steadily into her eyes, then with a decisive movement he took the lantern from her hand and turned as though about to go back to his work.

"It was very kind of you to bring this over," he said, pausing beside the fence.

"Kind? Why, what did you expect? I knew it might hang there forever, but you would not come for it.""No, I should not have come for it," he replied, swinging the lantern against the rails with such force that the glass shattered and fell in pieces to the ground.

"Why, what a shame!" said Maria; "and it is all my fault."A smile was on his face as he looked at her.

"You are right--it is all your fault," he repeated, while his gaze dropped to the level of her lips and hung there for a breathless instant.

With an effort she broke the spell which had fallen over her, and, turning from him, pointed to the old Blake graveyard on the little hill.

"Those black cedars have tempted me for days," she said."Will you tell me what dust they guard so faithfully?"He followed her gesture with a frown.

"I will show you, if you like," he answered."It is the only spot on earth where I may offer you hospitality.""Your people are buried there?"

"For two hundred years.Will you come?"

While she hesitated, he tossed the lantern over into his field and came closer to her side."Come," he repeated gently, and at his voice a faint flush spread slowly from her throat to the loosened hair upon her forehead.The steady glow gave her face a light, a radiance, that he had never seen there until to-day.

"Yes, I will come if you wish it," she responded quietly.

Together they went slowly up the low, brown incline over the clods of upturned earth.When they reached the bricked-up wall, which had crumbled away in places, he climbed over into the bed of periwinkle and then held out his hands to assist her in descending."Here, step into that hollow," he said, "and don't jump till I tell you.Ah, that's it; now, I'm ready."At his words, she made a sudden.spring forward, her dress caught on the wall, and she slipped lightly into his outstretched arms.

For the half of a second he held her against his breast; then, as she released herself, he drew back and lifted his eves to meet the serene composure of her expression.He was conscious that his own face flamed red hot, but to all outward seeming she had not noticed the incident which had so moved him.The calm distinction of her bearing struck him as forcibly as it had done at their first meeting."What a solemn place," she said, lowering her voice as she looked about her.

For answer he drew aside the screening boughs of a cedar and motioned to the discoloured marble slabs strewn thickly under the trees.

"Here are my people," he returned gravely."And here is my ground."Pausing, she glanced down on his father's grave, reading with difficulty the inscription beneath the dry dust from the cedars.

"He lived to be very old," she said, after a moment.

"Seventy years.He lived exactly ten years too long.""Too long?"

"Those last ten years wrecked him.Had he died at sixty he would have died happy."He turned from her, throwing himself upon the carpet of periwinkle, and coming to where he lay, she sat down on a granite slab at his side.