The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ ask Alice to come too," he went on, "but I think she'd be bored! Perhaps you'll be bored too? I'm not having any very brilliant or wonderful people, just a few of the neighbours whom I feel I've rather neglected."

      Laura laughed. "Of course I shall enjoy coming!" she exclaimed.

      Oliver was standing by his mother. Suddenly he muttered, "Mother? Ask Lord St. Amant to come over and speak to you——"

      But before she could obey him, Lord St. Amant got up and quickly came over to where Mrs. Tropenell was sitting, leaving a vacant place by Laura.

      With his back to the two younger people he sat down close to Mrs. Tropenell, and all at once he saw that her dark eyes were full of tears. He took her hand and patted it gently. "I feel dreadfully de trop," he murmured. "Can't we go off, we two old folk, to your little room, my dearest? I'm sure you've something you want to show me there, or consult me about?"

      And while Lord St. Amant was saying this to his old love, the two on the other side of the room were silent, as if stricken dumb by the nearness each felt to the other.

      And at last it was Laura who broke the silence. "I think I must be going home," she said uncertainly.

      She looked across at her hostess. "I don't want to make Lord St. Amant think he ought to go too. Perhaps I can slip away quietly?"

      "I'll walk back with you."

      Oliver spoke with a kind of dry decision.

      He got up. "Mother? I'm taking Laura home. I shan't be long. Perhaps Lord St. Amant will stay till I come back. It's quite early."

      He turned to Laura, now standing by his side: "Say good-bye to them now. I'll fetch your shawl, and we'll go out through the window."

      Laura obeyed, as in a dream. "Good-bye, Aunt Letty. Good-night, Lord St. Amant—I shall enjoy being at the Abbey."

      She suffered herself to be kissed by the one—her hand pressed by the other. Then she turned as if in answer to an unseen signal.

      Oliver was already back in the room, her Shetland shawl on his arm. He put it round her shoulders, taking care not to touch her as he did so; then he opened the long French window, and stood aside for a moment while she stepped through into the moonlight, out of doors.

      They were now in the beech avenue, in a darkness that seemed the more profound because of the streaks of silvery moonlight which lay just behind them. But even so, the white shawl Laura was wearing showed dimly against the depths of shade encompassing her.

      All at once Oliver turned and said so suddenly that she, walking by his side, started: "Laura? Do you remember this time last year?"

      And as she answered the one word "Yes," he went on: "It was to-night, just a year ago, that I promised to become your friend. And as long as you were another man's wife, I kept my promise, at any rate to the letter. If you tell me to go away for the next three months, I will do so—to-morrow. If I stay, I must stay, Laura, as your lover."

      As she remained silent, he went on quickly: "Do not misunderstand me. I only ask for the right to love you—I do not ask for any return."

      She was filled with an exquisite, tremulous joy. But that side of her nature which was restrained, and which had been so atrophied, was ignorant of the generosities of love, and shrank from quick surrender. So all she said, in a voice which sounded very cold to herself, was, "But that, Oliver, would surely not be fair—to you?"

      "Quite fair!" he exclaimed eagerly—"quite fair. In no case would I ever wish to obtain what was not freely vouchsafed."

      He muttered, in a voice so low as to be scarcely audible, some further words which moved her strangely, and vibrated to a chord which had never before been touched, save to jar and to offend.

      "To me aught else were sacrilege," were the words Oliver Tropenell said.

      By now Laura's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. She could see her companion's tall, at once broad-shouldered and lean figure, standing at rights angles to herself, keeping its distance....

      Taking a step forward, she put out her right hand a little blindly, and laid it on the sleeve of his coat. Laura had always been an inarticulate woman, but with that touch, that fleeting moment of contact between them, something of what she was feeling took flight from her heart to his——

      "Laura?"

      He grasped her hands as he had grasped them three hours ago when they had first met in his mother's presence. And then again he breathed her name. But this time the touch of doubting, incredulous joy had passed into something ardent, exultant, possessive, and she was in his arms—her self-absorption, her fastidiousness, her lifelong shrinking from any strong emotion, swept away by a force which she had once only known sufficiently to abhor and to condemn, but which she now felt to be divine.

      And then Oliver Tropenell said a strange thing indeed. "To have secured this immortal moment, I would willingly die a shameful, ignoble death to-morrow," were the words he whispered, as he strained Laura to his heart, as his lips sought and found her lips....

      At last they paced slowly on, and Laura found herself secretly exulting in the violence of Oliver's emotion, and in the broken, passionate terms of endearment with which he endowed her. That her response was that of a girl rather than that of a woman was to her lover an added ecstasy. It banished the hateful, earthy shade of Godfrey Pavely—that shade which had haunted Oliver Tropenell all that evening, even in his mother's house.

      Just as they were about to step out from under the arch of the beech trees on to the high road, he again took her in his arms. "Laura?" he whispered. "May I tell my mother?" But as he felt her hesitating: "No!" he exclaimed. "Forget that I asked you that! We will say nothing yet. Secrecy is a delicious concomitant of love." She heard the added, whispered words, uttered as if to his own heart, "At least so I have ever found it." And they were words which a little troubled Laura. Surely she was the first woman he had ever loved?

      "Aunt Letty has a right to know," she murmured. "But no one else, Oliver, must know, till January is past." And then she hung her head, perchance a little ashamed of this harking back to the conventions of her everyday life.

      He was surprised to hear her say further and with an effort, "I would rather Lord St. Amant didn't know. We shall be staying at Knowlton Abbey together in December."

      "We shall," he said exultantly. "For that I thank God!"

      Then suddenly he released her from out of his strong encompassing arms, and stooping down very low he kissed the hem of her long black gown....

      After they had parted Oliver Tropenell waited on and on in the dark garden till he heard Lord St. Amant's car drive away. Then he walked quickly across the lawn and back into his mother's drawing-room.

      "Mother?" he said briefly. "Laura and I are going to be married. But we do not wish any one to know this till—till February."

      Even now he could not wholly banish Godfrey Pavely's intrusive presence from his Laura-filled heart.

      Chapter XXIII

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