A Damaged Reputation Part 48

Brooke started, for this appeared astonis.h.i.+ngly apposite in view of the fact that he had, as she had once or twice reminded him, told her unnecessarily little about his Canadian affairs. The difficulty, however, was that he could not be sure she was correct.

"You naturally know what you would do, but, after all, that scarcely goes quite as far as one would like," he said.

Mrs. Cruttenden laughed softly. "Still, I fancy the rest are very like me in one respect. In fact, it might be wise of you to take that for granted."

Just then three figures appeared upon the path that came down to the stepping-stones across the river, and Brooke's eyes were eager as he watched them. They were as yet in the shadow, but he felt that he would have recognized one of them anywhere and under any circ.u.mstances. Then he strode forward precipitately, and a minute later sprang aside on to an outlying stone as a grey-haired man, who glanced at him sharply, turned, with hand held out, to one of his companions. Brooke moved a little nearer the one who came last, and then stood bareheaded, while the girl stopped suddenly and looked at him. He could catch the gleam of the brown eyes under the big hat, and, for the moon was above the beeches now, part of her face and neck gleamed like ivory in the silvery light. She stood quite still, with the flas.h.i.+ng water sliding past her feet, etherealized, it seemed to him, by her surroundings and a complement of the harmonies of the night.

"You?" she said.

Brooke laughed softly, and swept his hand vaguely round, as though to indicate the s.h.i.+ning river and dusky trees.

"Yes," he said. "You remember how I met you at Quatomac. Who else could it be?"

"n.o.body," said Barbara, with a tinge of color in her face. "At least, any one else would have been distinctly out of place."

Brooke tightened his grasp on the hand she had laid in his, for which there was some excuse, since the stone she stood upon was round and smooth, and it was a long step to the next one.

"You knew I was here?" he said.

"Yes," said Barbara, quietly.

Brooke felt his heart throbbing painfully. "And you could have framed an excuse for staying away?"

The girl glanced at him covertly as he stood very straight looking down on her, with lips that had set suddenly, and tension in his face. The moonlight shone into it, and it was, she noticed, quieter and a little grimmer than it had been, while his sinewy frame still showed spare to gauntness in the thin conventional dress. This had its significance to her.

"Of course!" she said. "Still, it did not seem necessary. I had no reason for wis.h.i.+ng to stay away."

Brooke fancied that there was a good deal in this admission, and his voice had a little exultant thrill in it.

"That implies--ever so much," he said. "Hold fast. That stone is treacherous, and one can get wet in this river, though it is not the Quatomac. Absurd to suggest that, isn't it? Are not Abana and Pharpar better than all the waters of Israel?"

Barbara also laughed. "Do you wish the Major to come back for me?" she said. "It is really a little difficult to stand still upon a narrow piece of mossy stone."

They went across, and Major Hume stared at Brooke in astonishment when Cruttenden presented him.

"By all that's wonderful! Our Canadian guide!" he said.

"Presumably so!" said Cruttenden. "Still, though, my wife appears to understand the allusion, it's more than I do. Anyway, he is my kinsman, Harford Brooke, and the owner of High Wycombe."

Brooke smiled as he shook hands with the Major, but he was sensible that Barbara flashed a swift glance at him, and, as they moved towards the house, Hetty broke in.

"You must know, Mr. Cruttenden, that your kinsman met Barbara beside a river once before, and on that occasion, too, they did not come out of it until some little time after we did," she said.

"That," said Cruttenden, "appears to imply that they were--in--the water."

"I really think that one of them was," said Hetty. "Barbara had a pony, but Mr. Brooke had not, and his appearance certainly suggested that he had been bathing. In fact, he was so bedraggled that Barbara gave him a dollar. She had, I must explain, already spent a few months in this country."

Brooke was a trifle astonished, and noticed a sudden warmth in Barbara's face.

"If I remember correctly, you had gone into the ranch, Miss Hume," he said, severely.

"No," said Hetty. "You may have fancied so, but I hadn't. I was the only chaperon Barbara had, you see. I hope she didn't tell you not to lavish the dollar on whisky. No doubt you spent it wisely on tobacco."

Brooke made no answer, and his smile was somewhat forced; but he went with the others into the house, and it was an hour or two later when he and Barbara again stood by the riverside alone. Neither of them quite knew how it came about, but they were there with the black shadows of the beeches behind them and the flas.h.i.+ng water at their feet. Brooke glanced slowly round him, and then turned to the girl.

"It reminds one of that other river--but there is a difference," he said. "The beeches make poor subst.i.tutes for your towering pines, and you no longer wear the white samite."

"And," said Barbara, "where is the sword?"

Brooke looked down on her gravely, and shook his head. "I am not fit to wear it, and yet I dare not give it back to you, stained as it is," he said. "What am I to do?"

"Keep it," said Barbara, softly. "You have wiped the stain out, and it is bright again."

Brooke laid a hand that quivered a little on her shoulder. "Barbara," he said, "I am not vainer than most men, and I know what I have done, but unless what once seemed beyond all hoping for was about to come to me, you and I would not have met again beside the river. It simply couldn't happen. You can forget all that has gone before, and once more try to believe in me?"

"I think," said Barbara, quietly, "there is a good deal that you must never remember, too. I realized that"--and she stopped with a little s.h.i.+ver--"when you were lying in the Vancouver hospital."

"And you knew I loved you, though in those days I dare not tell you so?

I have done so, I think, from the night I first saw you, and yet there is so much to make you shrink from me."

"No," said Barbara, very softly, "there is nothing whatever now--and if perfection had been indispensable you would never have thought of me."

Brooke laid his other hand on her shoulder, and, standing so, while every nerve in him thrilled, still held her a little apart, so that the silvery light shone into her flushed face. For a moment she met his gaze, and her eyes were s.h.i.+ning.

"Do you know that, absurd as it may sound, I seemed to know that night at Quatomac that I should hold you in my arms again one day?" he said.

"Of course, the thing seemed out of the question, an insensate dream, and still I could never quite let go my hold of the alluring fancy."

"And if the dream had never been fulfilled?"

Brooke laughed curiously. "You would still have ridden beside me through many a long night march, with the moon s.h.i.+ning round and full behind your shoulder, and I should have felt the white dress brush me softly where the trail was dark."

"Then I should have been always young to you. You would never have seen me grow faded and the grey creep into my hair."

Brooke drew her towards him, and held her close. "My dear, you will be always beautiful to me. We will grow old together, and the one who must cross the last dark river first will, at least, start out on the shadowy trail holding the other's hand."

It was an hour later when Barbara, with the man's arm still about her, glanced across the velvet lawn to the old grey house beneath the dusky slope of wooded hill. The moonlight silvered its weathered front, and the deep tranquillity of the sheltered valley made itself felt.

"Yes," said Brooke, "it is yours and mine."

Barbara made a little gesture that was eloquent of appreciation. "It is very beautiful. A place one could dream one's life away in. We have nothing like it in Canada. You would care to stay here always?"

"Any place would be delightful with you."

The girl laughed softly, but her voice had a tender thrill in it, and then she turned towards the west.

"It is very beautiful--and full of rest," she said. "Still, I scarcely think it would suit you to sit down in idleness, and all that can be done for this rich country has been done years ago."

"I wonder," said Brooke, who guessed her thoughts, "if you would be quite so sure when you had seen our towns."