Winding Paths Part 80

What did the other women matter? He was hers - hers - hers. Why stop to question or demur? What did anything matter but that he had loved her so long and faithfully; and that at last she loved him?

In a stress of unendurable emotion, she got up unsteadily, and left the court.

A quarter of an hour later, Alymer finished his speech, and sat down instantly turning his head to look for her. Instead of the familiar, eager face of the first hour, he saw the empty s.p.a.ce, and his overwrought mind sank to a dull level of bitter disappointment.

She was not impressed, then - not even interested enough to stay until the end. Oh, what did it matter? She was hard - hard, he was a fool to love her so.

The jury went away and came back with their verdict of "Not guilty."

There was a rush and buzz of congratulations. He smiled, because he had to smile, and grasped outstretched hands because he had to grasp them. The moment it was possible to get away, he walked blindly and hurriedly to the entrance, and got into a taxi, before the waiting crowd had had time to recognise him.

"Where to?" a policeman asked him, and for a moment he was at a loss to know. Then he gave Hal's address. "Better have it out and done with,"

was his thought. Once for all he would make her tell him if it was hopeless, and if she said yes, he would go away and try to forget her in another country.

When he was shown into Hal's little sitting-room, he found her crouching on a footstool in the firelight, before the fire. He stood a moment or two and looked at her, and then he said in a slightly harsh voice:

"I suppose you hurried away because you were bored. I thought you would have stayed until the end. I was a fool. Nothing I do ever has interested you, or ever will."

Hal did not look round. She was staring into the flames, with her chin resting in her hands. When he paused she said calmly:

"I can't hear what you say so far away."

He moved across the room and stood on the hearth beside her, towering above her, with his eyes on the opposite wall.

"I don't know why I came here at all," he continued; "but it didn't seem any use going anywhere else. Why did you run away in the middle!

Did you want to punish my presumption for wis.h.i.+ng to try and distinguish myself before you, as well as save a woman's life and honour?"

A little smile shone in Hal's eyes, where the firelight caught them.

"I can't hear what you say, right up there, near the ceiling."

He looked down at the dark shapely head, and something in her poise and in her voice made his heart suddenly begin to thump rather wildly.

"I haven't got a beanstalk," she added.

He leaned a little towards her.

"And if you had?" he asked tensely.

"If I had, I would perhaps climb up it."

He leaned lower still, his heart thumping yet more wildly.

"If you climbed up a ladder like that, you would be bound to climb into my arms."

"Well - and what if I did?" she said.

THE END.