The Moon out of Reach Part 81

"Yes, I'm ready," she answered in a low voice.

"Have you realised all it means? I'm none too amiable at the best of times"--grimly. "And my temper's not likely to improve now I'm tied by the leg. You'll have to fetch and carry, and put up with all the whims and tantrums of a very sick man. Are you really sure of yourself?"

"Quite sure."

His hawk's eyes flashed over her face, as though he would pierce through the veil of her grave and tranquil expression.

"Even though Peter Mallory's free to marry you now?" he demanded suddenly.

"Peter!" The word came in a shrinking whisper. She threw out her hands appealingly. "Roger, can't we leave the past behind? We've each a good deal"--her thoughts flew back to that dreadful episode in the improvised studio--"a good deal to forgive. Let us put the past quite away--on the top shelf"--with a wavering little laugh--"and leave it there. I've told you I'm willing to be your wife. Let's start afresh from that. I'll marry you as soon as you like."

After a long pause:

"I believe you really would!" said Roger with a note of sheer wonderment in his voice.

"I've just said so."

"Well, my dear"--he smiled briefly--"thank you very much for the offer, but I'm not going to accept it."

"Not going to accept it!" she repeated, utterly bewildered. "But you can't--you won't refuse!"

"I can and I do--entirely refuse to marry you."

Nan began to think his mind was wandering.

"No," he said, detecting her thought. "I'm as sane as you are. Come here--a little closer--and I'll tell you all about it."

Rather nervously, Nan drew nearer to him.

"Don't be frightened," he said with a strange kindness and gentleness in his voice. "I had a visitor this morning who told me some unpalatable truths about myself. He asked me to release you from your engagement, and I flatly refused. He also enlightened my ignorance concerning Peter Mallory and informed me he was now free to marry you.

That settled matters as far as I was concerned! I made up my mind I would never give you up to another man." He paused. "Since then I've had time for reflection. . . . Reflection's a useful kind of thing. . . . Then, when you came in just now, looking like a broken flower with your white face and sorrowful eyes, I made a s.n.a.t.c.h at whatever's left of a decent man in this battered old frame of mine."

He paused and took Nan's hand in his. Very gently he drew the ring he had given her from her finger.

"You are quite free, now," he said quietly.

"No, no!" Impulsively she tried to recover the ring. "Let me be your wife! I'm willing--quite, quite willing!" she urged, her heart overflowing with tenderness and pity for this man who was now voluntarily renouncing the one thing left him.

"But Mallory wouldn't be 'quite willing,'" replied Roger, with a twisted smile. "Nor am I. And an unwilling bridegroom isn't likely to make a good husband!"

Nan's mouth quivered.

"Roger--" she began, but the sob in her throat choked into silence the rest of what she had meant to say. Her hands went out to him, and he took them in his and held them.

"Will you kiss me--just once, Nan?" he said. "I don't think Mallory would grudge it me."

She bent over him, and for the first time unshrinkingly and with infinite tenderness, laid her lips on his. Then very quietly she left the room.

She was conscious of a sense of awe. First Maryon, and now, to an even greater degree, Roger, had revealed some secret quality of fineness with which no one would have credited them.

"I shall never judge anyone again," she told Kitty later. "You can't judge people! I shall always believe that everyone has got a little patch of goodness somewhere. It's the bit of G.o.d in them. Even Judas Iscariot was sorry afterwards, and went out and hanged himself."

She was thankful when she came downstairs from Roger's bedroom to find that there was no one about. A meeting with Lady Gertrude at the moment would have been of all things the most repugnant to her. With a feeling of intense thankfulness that the thin, steel-eyed woman was nowhere to be seen, she stepped into the car and was borne swiftly down the drive. At the lodge, however, where the chauffeur had perforce to pull up while the lodge-keeper opened the gates, Isobel Carson came into sight, and common courtesy demanded that Nan should get out of the car and speak to her. She had been gathering flowers--for Roger's room, was Nan's involuntary thought--and carried a basket, full of lovely blossoms, over her arm.

In a few words Nan told her of her interview with Roger.

Isobel listened intently.

"I'm glad you were willing to marry him," she said abruptly, as Nan ceased speaking. "It was--decent of you. Because, of course, you were never in love with him."

"No," Nan acknowledged simply.

"While I've loved him ever since I knew him!" burst out Isobel. "But he's never looked at me, thought of me like that! Perhaps, now you're out of the way--" She broke off, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Into Nan's mind flashed the possibility of all that this might mean--this wealth of wasted love which was waiting for Roger if he cared to take it.

"Would you marry him--now?" she asked.

"Marry him?" Isobel's eyes glowed. "I'd marry him if he couldn't move a finger! I love him! And there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him."

She looked almost beautiful in that moment, with her face irradiated by a look of absolute, selfless devotion.

"And I wouldn't rest till he was cured!" The words came pouring from her lips. "I'd try every surgeon, in the world before I'd give up hope, and if they failed, I'd try what love--just patient, helpful love--could do! One thinks of a thousand ways which might cure when one loves," she added.

"Love is a great Healer," said Nan gently. "I'm not sure that _anything's_ impossible if you have both love and faith." She paused, her foot on the step of the car. "I think--I think, some day, Roger will open the door of his heart to you, Isobel," she ended softly.

She was glad to lean back in the car and to feel the cool rush of the air against her face. She was tired--immensely tired--by the strain of the afternoon. And now the remembrance came flooding back into her mind that, even though Roger had released her, she and Peter were still set apart--no longer by the laws of G.o.d and man, but by the fact that she herself had destroyed his faith and belief in her.

She stepped wearily out of the car when it reached Mallow. She was late in returning, and neither Kitty nor Penelope were visible as she entered the big panelled hall. Probably they had already gone upstairs to dress for dinner.

As she made her way slowly towards the staircase, absorbed in rather bitter thoughts, a slight sound caught her ear--a sudden stir of movement. Then, out of the dim shadows of the hall, someone came towards her--someone who limped a little as he came.

"Nan!"

For an instant her heart seemed to stop beating. The quiet, drawling voice was Peter's, no longer harsh with anger, nor stern with the enforced repression of a love that was forbidden, but tender and enfolding as it had been that moonlit night amid the ruins of King Arthur's Castle.

"Peter! . . . Peter! . . ."

She ran blindly towards him, whispering his name.

How it had happened she neither knew nor cared--all that mattered was that Peter was here, waiting for her! And as his arms closed round her, and his voice uttered the one word: "Beloved!" she knew that every barrier was down between them and that the past, with all its blunders and effort and temptations, had been wiped out.

Presently she leaned away from him.

"Peter, I used to wonder _why_ G.o.d kept us apart. I almost lost my faith--once."

Peter's steady, blue-grey eyes met hers.