The Terms of Surrender Part 18

"Don't be frightened," he said cheerfully, knowing how essential it was that she should not be startled into an exclamation which might betray her secret to the listening servants. "I heard from Dacre last night that you meant to meet Mr. Willard in New York, and I have reason to believe that you ought to depart by the first train. To do that, you must get away from the house in forty minutes. Can you manage it?"

She came nearer, seeking the truth in his warning eyes, carrying a brave front before the maids, but with fear in her heart, because she and her lover had eaten of the forbidden fruit, and now they were as G.o.ds, knowing good and evil.

"Mr. Dacre!" she repeated. "I suppose Mary Van Ralten told him what I said. But I don't quite understand. Why should I hurry my departure?"

Nothing in this that anyone might hear and deem significant. Power laughed, as though her air of slight alarm had amused him.

"Come into the veranda," he said. "You are not afraid of the morning air, and it is not on my conscience that I have robbed you of an hour's sleep, since you were up and around before I arrived."

When they were alone, though shut off from inquisitive ears by wire-screen doors only, he said, in a low voice:

"Don't say anything that will cause comment, but your father arrived at the Ocean House soon after midnight, and means to be here about nine o'clock. Our train leaves at seven. Will you use your own carriage, or shall I send a cab in half an hour? You will be ready, of course?"

Nancy was not of that neurotic type of womankind which screams or faints in a crisis. "Y-yes," she murmured. "In less time, if you wish."

"No need to rush things," he said coolly. "He is not to be called till eight. I heard him give the order."

"You _heard_ him!"

"Yes. Thanks to Dacre, when he arrived I was sitting in the veranda, well hidden, as it happened; so I planned to reach you this morning with a couple of hours in hand."

"But, Derry, I have a note written, and ready for the post. I can't explain now----"

"Put the note in your pocket, and deal with the new situation at leisure. There's only one thing I regret----"

"Regret! Oh, Derry, what is it?" And again the shadow of fear darkened her eyes, eyes of that rare tint of Asiatic blue known as blende Kagoul, a blue darker at times than any other, and again, bright, dazzling, full of promise, rivaling the clear sky on a summer's night.

"That I dare not take you in my arms and kiss you," he said. "You look uncommonly pretty in that negligee wrap."

She blushed, and put up a hand to rea.s.sure herself lest her hair might be tumbling out of its coils. Then she ran to the screen doors and pushed them apart.

"I can't wait another second," she said. "Please send that cab. Our own men will hardly be at the stables yet."

She waved a hand and vanished. Her hurried orders to the domestics came in the natural sequence of things, and caused no surprise. When she drove away from the house at twenty minutes of seven every member of her establishment believed that Mrs. Marten had gone to join her father in New York, but, for some reason communicated by her "cousin," was traveling by the first train of the day instead of the second. The only perplexed person left in "The Breakers" was Julie, the French maid, who thought she would find a holiday in Newport dull, and was, moreover, genuinely concerned because of the scanty wardrobe which her mistress had taken.

Oddly enough, Power, waiting with stoic anxiety outside the New York, New Haven & Hartford station, shared some part of Julie's thought when he saw Nancy's two small steamer trunks and a hatbox.

"Well!" he cried, helping her to alight. "Here have I been worrying about the capacity of the cab to hold your baggage, and you bring less than I!"

"Pay the man," she said quietly. Then, under cover of the approach of a porter with a creaking barrow, she added, "I am coming to you penniless and plainly clad as ever was Nancy Willard. You wish that, don't you?"

"You dear!" he breathed; but she had her full answer in the color that suffused his bronzed face and the light that blazed in his eyes.

He had experienced no difficulty in securing the small coupe of a Pullman car to Boston. In that train there was little likelihood of any chance pa.s.senger recognizing them. In actual fact, they had the whole car to themselves. Nancy, who could not banish the notion that the whole world was watching her, was nervous and ill at ease until the train pulled out of the station. She even started and flushed violently when the conductor came to examine their tickets, whereupon the man smiled discreetly and Power laughed.

"You're the poorest sort of conspirator," he said, when the door was closed on the intruder. "We had better admit straight away that we're a honeymoon couple, because everybody will know it the instant they look at you."

But he failed to charm away the terror that oppressed her spirit. She felt herself a fugitive from some unseen but awful vengeance, and her heart quailed.

"Derry," she said, almost on the verge of tears, "I'm beginning to be afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

Somehow, despite his utter lack of experience of woman's ways, he had guessed that this moment would arrive, and was, to that extent, prepared for it.

"Of everything. I--I know that I alone am to blame. It is not too late for you to draw back."

"Why do you think I might wish to draw back?"

"Because of the horrid exposure you must face in the near future."

"My only trouble is that I may not bear your share as well as my own, Nancy. The combined burden would lie light as thistledown on my shoulders. Let us be true to ourselves, and it will surprise you to find how readily the world, our world, will accept our view."

"In your heart of hearts, Derry, do you believe we are doing right?"

"When ethics come in at the door love flies out by the window. We are righting a grievous wrong, and, although our actions must, for a time, be opposed to the generally accepted code of morals, I do honestly believe that this is a case in which the end justifies the means."

"If I were stronger, Dear, we might have kept within stricter bounds."

"You might have gone to Reno, for instance, and qualified for a divorce by residence?"

"Something of the sort."

"I'll take you to Reno, if you like; but I'm going with you. Don't forget that he who has begun has accomplished half. Why are you torturing yourself, little woman? Shall I tell you?"

"I wish you would."

"Because," and his arms were thrown around her, and he kissed away the tears trembling on her lashes, "because, like me, you are really afraid lest we may be too happy. But life is not built on those lines, Deary.

It would still hold its tribulations if we could set the calendar back to an April night of three years ago, and you and I were looking forward with bright hope to half a century of wedded joy, with never a cloud on the horizon, and never a memory of dark and deadly abyss crossed in the bygone years. Let us, then, not lose heart in full view of the one threatening storm. Let us rather rejoice that we are facing it together.

That is how I feel, Nancy. I have never loved you more than in this hour, and why should I repine because of the greatest gift G.o.d can give to man, the unbounded love and trust of the one woman he desires? You are mine, Nancy, mine forever, and I will not let you go till I sink into everlasting night."

After that, an interlude, when words were impossible, else both would have sobbed like erring children. At last Nancy raised her eyes, and smiled up into her lover's face, and he understood dimly that, when a woman's conscience wages war with her emotions, there may come a speedy end to the unequal strife.

"Derry," she whispered, "have you realized that I don't know where you are taking me?"

So the battle had ceased ere it had well begun. Perhaps she was hardly conscious--if she were, she gave no sign--of the crisis dissipated by that simple question. It closed with a clang the door of retreat.

Henceforth they would dree their weird hand in hand. They would look only to the future, and stubbornly disregard the past. Shutting rebellious eyes against a mandate written in letters of fire, they would seek comfort in Herrick's time-serving philosophy:

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today Tomorrow will be dying."

The train slackened speed. They were nearing a wayside station, and they drew apart in confusion like a pair of lovers surprised in some quiet corner. But Power laughed softly, and Nancy caught a new note of content in his voice.

"A nice thing!" he cried. "The girl is safe aboard the lugger, and I don't even tell her to what quarter of the globe she is being lugged.

But the sailing directions are easy. We breakfast at Boston. Don't you dare say you cannot eat any breakfast!"

"I can, or I shall, at any rate," she retorted bravely.

"Then Boston will be the best place on earth at nine o'clock. Afterward we take the Burlington road, and cross Lake Champlain. There's a first-rate hotel on the west sh.o.r.e, and we stay there tonight. Tomorrow we plunge into the Adirondacks, and lose ourselves for as long as we please. How does that program suit my lady?"