orion had fully justified blaise’s opinion of his capabilities. as though the great horse had gathered that there was trouble abroad to which he must not add, he had needed neither whip nor spur as he carried his master with long, sweeping strides over the miles that lay betwixt staple and the moor. he was as fresh as paint, and the rush through the cool night, under a rider with hands as light as a woman’s and who sat him with a flexible ease, akin to that of a cossack, had not distressed him in the very least.
now they were climbing the last long slope of the white road that approached the bungalow, the reins lying loosely on orion’s neck.
the mist had lifted a little in places, and a watery-looking moon peered through the clouds now and again, throwing a vague, uncertain light over the blurred and sombre moorland.
tormarin had no very definite plan of campaign in his mind. he felt convinced that he should find jean at the bungalow. if, contrary to his expectation, she were not there, nor anyone else to whom he could apply for information as to her whereabouts, he would have to consider what his next move must be.
meanwhile, his thoughts were preoccupied with the main fact that she had failed to return home. if she had accepted burke’s invitation to the bungalow, believing that judith and the holfords would be of the party, how was it that she had not at once returned when she discovered that for some reason they were not there?
some weeks ago—during the period when she was defiantly investigating the possibilities of an “unexploded bomb”—it was quite possible that the queer recklessness which sometimes tempts a woman to experiment in order to see just how far she may go—the mysterious delight that the feminine temperament appears to derive from dancing on the edge of a precipice—might have induced her to remain and have tea with burke, chaperon or no chaperon. and then it was quite on the cards that burke’s lawless disregard of anything in the world except the fulfilment of his own desires might have engineered the rest, and he might have detained her at the bungalow against her will.
but blaise could not believe that a t锚te-脿-t锚te tea with burke would hold any attraction for jean now—not since that day, just before the visit to london, when he and she had been discussing the affairs of nick and claire and had found, quite suddenly, that their own hearts were open to each other and that with the spoken word, “beloved,” the misunderstandings of the past had faded away, to be replaced by a wordless trust and belief.
but if it had attracted her, if—knowing precisely how much the man she loved would condemn—she had still deliberately chosen to spend an afternoon with burke, why, then, blaise realised with a swift pang that she was no longer his jean at all but some other, lesser woman. never again the “little comrade” whose crystalline honesty of soul and sensitive response to all that was sweet and wholesome and true had come into his scarred life to jewel its arid places with a new blossoming of the rose of love.
he tried to thrust the thought away from him. it was just the kind of thing that nesta would have done, playing off one man against the other with the innate instinct of the born coquette. but not jean—not jean of the candid eyes.
presently, through the thinning mist, tormarin discerned the sharp turn of the track which branched off from the road towards the bungalow, and quickening orion’s pace, he was soon riding up the steep ascent, the moonlight throwing strange, confusing lights and shadows on the mist-wet surface of the ground.
suddenly, without the slightest warning, the roan snorted and wheeled around, shying violently away from the off-side bank. a less good horseman might have been unseated, but as the big horse swerved tormarin’s knees gripped against the saddle like a vice, and with a steadying word he faced him up the track again, then glanced keenly at the overhanging side of the roadway to discover what had frightened him.
a moment later he had jerked orion to a sudden standstill, leapt to the ground and, with the reins over his arm, crossed the road swiftly to where, clad in some light-stuff that glimmered strangely in the moonlight, lay a slender figure, propped against the hank.
“blaise!” jean’s voice came weakly to his ears, but with a glad note in it of immense relief that bore witness to some previous strain.
in an instant tormarin was kneeling beside her, one arm behind her shoulders. he helped her to her feet and she leaned against him, shivering. feeling in his pockets, he produced a brandy flask and held it to her lips.
“drink some of that!” he said. “don’t try to tell me anything yet.”
the raw spirit sent the chilled blood racing through her veins, putting new life into her. a faint tinge of colour crept into her face.
“oh, blaise! i’m so glad you’ve come—so glad!” she said shakily.
“so am i,” he returned grimly. “see, drink a little more brandy. then you shall tell me all about it.”
at last, bit by bit, she managed to give him a somewhat disjointed account of what had occurred.
“i think i must have been stunned for a little when i fell,” she said. “i can’t remember anything after stepping right off into space, it seemed, till—oh, ages afterwards—- i found myself lying here. and when i tried to stand, i found i’d hurt my ankle and that i couldn’t put my foot to the ground. so”—with a weak little attempt at laughter—“i—i just sat down again.”
blaise gave vent to a quick exclamation of concern. “oh, it’s nothing, really,” she reassured him hastily. “only a strain. but i can’t walk on it.” then, suddenly clinging to him with a nervous dread: “oh, take me away, blaise—take me home!”
“i will. don’t be frightened—there’s no need to be frightened any more, my jean.”
“no, i know. i’m not afraid—now.”
but he could hear the sob of utter nerve stress and exhaustion back of the brave words.
“well, i’ll take you home at once,” he said cheerfully. “but, look here, you’ve no coat on and you’re wet with mist.”
“i know. my coat’s at the bungalow. i left in a hurry, you see”—whimsically. the irrepressible peterson element, game to the core, was reasserting itself.
“well, we must fetch it———”
“no! no!” her voice rose in hasty protest. “i won’t—i can’t go back!”
“then i’ll go.”
“no—don’t! geoffrey might be there——”
“so much the better”—grimly. “i’d like five minutes with him.” tormarin’s hand tightened fiercely on the hunting-crop he carried. “but he’s more likely lost his way in the mist and fetched up far enough away. probably”—with a short laugh—“he’s still searching dartmoor for! you. you’d be on his mind a bit, you know! wait here a minute while i ride up to the bungalow——”
but she clung to his arm.
“no, no! don’t go! i—i can’t be left alone—again.” the fear was coming back to her voice and blaise, detecting it, abandoned the idea at once.
“all right, little jean,” he said reassuringly. “i won’t leave you. put my coat round you”—stripping it off. “there—like that.” he helped her into it and fastened it with deft fingers. “and now i’m going to get you up on to orion and we’ll go home.”
“i shall never get up there,” she observed, with a glance at the roan’s great shoulders looming through the mist. “i shan’t be able to spring—i can only stand on one foot, remember.”
blaise laughed cheerily.
“don’t worry. just remain quite still—standing on your one foot, you poor little lame duck!—and i’ll do the rest.”
she felt his arm release its clasp of her, and a moment later he had swung his leg across the horse and was back in the saddle again. with a word to the big beast he dropped the reins on to his neck and, turning towards jean, where she stood like a slim, pale ghost in the moonlight, he leaned down to her from the saddle.
“can you manage to come a step nearer?” he asked.
she hobbled forward painfully.
“now!” he said.
lower, lower still he stooped, his arms outheld, and at last she felt them close round her, lifting her with that same strength of steel which she remembered on the mountain-side at montavan. orion stood like a statue—motionless as if he knew and understood all about it, his head slewed round a bit as though watching until the little business should be satisfactorily accomplished, and blowing gently through his velvety nostrils meanwhile.
and then jean found herself resting against the curve of blaise’s arm, with the roan’s powerful shoulders, firm and solid as a rock, beneath her.
“all right?” queried blaise, gathering up the reins in his left hand. “lean well back against my shoulder. there, how’s that?”
“it’s like an arm-chair.”
he laughed.
“i am afraid you won’t say the same by the end of the journey,” he commented ruefully.
but by the end of the journey jean was fast asleep. she had “leant well back” as directed, conscious, as she felt the firm clasp of blaise’s arm, of a supreme sense of security and well-being. the reaction from the strain of the afternoon, the exhaustion consequent upon her flight through the mist and the fall which had so suddenly ended it, and the rhythmic beat of orion’s hoofs all combined to lull her into a state of delicious drowsiness. it was so good to feel that she need fight and scheme and plan no longer, to feel utterly safe... to know that blaise was holding her...
her head fell back against his shoulder, her eyes closed, and the next thing of which she was conscious was of being lifted down by a pair of strong arms and of a confused murmur of voices from amongst which she hazily distinguished lady anne’s heartfelt: “thank god you’ve found her!” and then, characteristically practical, “i’ll have her in bed in five minutes. blankets and hot-water bottles are all in readiness.”
it was the evening of the following day. jean, tucked up on a couch and with her strained ankle comfortably bandaged, had been reluctantly furnishing blaise with the particulars of her experience at the bungalow. she had been very unwilling to confide the whole story to him, fearing the consequences of the tormarin temper as applied to burke. a violent quarrel between the two men could do no good, she reflected, and would only be fraught with unpleasant results to all concerned—probably, in the end, securing a painful publicity for the whole affair.
fortunately blaise had been out when judith had rung up earlier in the day to inquire if jean had returned to staple, or he might have fired off a few candid expressions of opinion through the telephone. but now there was no evading his searching questions, and he had quietly but determinedly insisted upon hearing the entire story. once or twice an ejaculation of intense anger broke from him as he listened, hut, beyond that, he made little comment.
“and—and that was all,” wound up jean. “and, anyway, blaise”—a little anxiously—“it’s over now, and i’m none the worse except for the acquisition of a little more worldly wisdom and a strained ankle.”
“yes, it’s over now,” he said, standing looking down at her with a curious gleam in his eyes. “but that sort of thing shan’t happen twice. you’ll have to marry me—do you hear?”—imperiously. “you shall never run such a risk again. we’ll get married at once!”
and jean, with a quiver of amusement at the corners of her mouth, responded meekly:
“yes, blaise.”
the next minute his arms were round her and their lips met in the first supreme kiss of love at last acknowledged—of love given and returned.
there is no gauge by which those first moments when two who love confess that they are lovers may be measured. it is the golden, timeless span when “unborn to-morrow and dead yesterday” cease to hem us round about and only love, and love’s ecstasy, remain.
to blaise and jean it might have been an hour—a commonplace period ticked off by the little silver clock upon the chimneypiece—or half eternity before they came back to the recollection of things mundane. when they did, it was across the kindly bridge of humour.
blaise laughed out suddenly and boyishly.
“it’s preposterous!” he exclaimed. “i quite forgot to propose.”
“so you did! suppose”—smiling up at him impertinently—“suppose you do it now?”
“not i! i won’t waste my breath when i might put it to so much better use in calling you belovedest.”
jean was silent, but her eyes answered him. she had made room for him beside her, and now he was seated upon the edge of the chesterfield, holding her in his arms. she did not want to talk much. that still, serene happiness which lies deep within the heart is not provocative of garrulity.
at last a question—the question that had tormented her through all the long months since she had first realised whither love was leading her, found its way to her lips.
“why didn’t you tell me before, blaise?”
his face clouded.
“because of all that had happened in the past. you know—you have been told about nesta——”
“ah, yes! don’t talk about it, blaise,” she broke in hastily, sensing his distasteful recoil from the topic.
“i think we must a little, dear,” he responded gravely.
“you see, nesta was not all to blame—nor even very much, as i’m sure”—with a little half-tender smile—“my mother tried hard to make you believe.”
jean nodded vigorously.
“she did. and i expect she was perfectly right”
he shook his head.
“no,” he answered. “the fault was really mine. my initial mistake was in confusing the false fire with the true. it—was not love i had for nesta. and i found it out when it was too late. we were poles apart in everything, and instead of trying to make it easier for her, trying to understand her and to lead her into our ways of looking at things. i only stormed at her. it roused all that was worst in me to see her trailing our name in the dust, throwing her dignity to the winds, craving for nothing other than amusement and excitement. i’m not trying to excuse myself. there was no excuse for me. in my way, i was as culpable and foolish as she. and when the crash came—when i found her deliberately entertaining in my house, against my express orders, a man who ought to have been kicked out of any decent society, why, i let go. the tormarin temper had its way with me. i shall never forgive myself for that. i frightened her, terrified her. i think i must have been half mad. and then—well, you know what followed. she rushed away and, before anyone could find her or help her, she had killed herself—thrown herself into the seine. quite what happened between leaving here and her death we were never able to find out. apparently since her marriage with me, her sister had gone to paris, unknown to her, and had taken a situation as dame de compagnie to some frenchwoman, and nesta, though she followed from italy to paris, failed to find her there. at least that is what margherita valdi told me in the letter announcing nesta’s death. then she must have lost heart. so you see, morally i am responsible for that poor, reckless child’s death.”
“oh, no, no, blaise! i don’t see that”—pitifully.
“don’t you? i do—very clearly. and that was why, when i found myself growing to care for you, i tried to keep away.”
he felt in his pocket and produced a plain gold wedding ring. on the inside were engraved the initials “b.t. and n.e.,” and a date.
“that was my talisman. alargherita sent it back to me when she wrote telling me of nesta’s death. whenever i felt my resolution weakening, i used to take it out and have a look at it. it was always quite effective in thrusting me back into my proper place in the scheme of things—that is, outside any other woman’s life.” there was an inexpressible bitterness in his tones, and jean drew a little nearer to him, her heart overflowing with compassion. he looked down at her, and smiled a thought ironically. “but now—you’ve beaten me.” his lips brushed her hair. “i’m glad to be beaten, belovedest... i knew, that day at montavan, what you might come to mean to me. and i intended never to see you again, but just to take that one day for remembrance. i felt that, having made such an utter hash of things, having spoiled one woman’s life and been, indirectly, the cause of her death, i was not fit to hold another woman’s happiness in my hands.”
jean rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.
“i’m glad you thought better of it? she observed.
“i don’t know, even now, that i’m right in letting you love me——”
“you can’t stop me,” she objected.
he smiled.
“i don’t think i would if i could—now.”
jean leaned up and, with a slender, dictatorial finger on the side of his face, turned his head towards her.
“quite sure?” she demanded saucily. then, without waiting for his answer: “blaise, i do love your chin—it’s such a nice, square, your-money-or-your-life sort of chin.”
something light as a butterfly, warm as a woman’s lips, just brushed the feature in question.
he drew her into his arms, folding them closely about her.
“and i—i love every bit of you,” he said hoarsely. “body and soul, i love you! oh! heart’s beloved! nothing—no one in the whole world shall come between us two ever again!”
