The Helpmate Part 21

"How you could be capable of caring for me--like that--and yet--"

"But the two things are so entirely different. It's impossible to explain to you how different. Heaven forbid that you should understand the difference."

"I understand enough to know--"

"You understand enough to know nothing. You must simply take my word for it. Besides, the one thing's an old thing, over and done with."

"Over and done with. But if the two things are so different, how can you be sure?"

"That sounds awfully clever of you, but I'm hanged if I know what you mean."

"I mean, how can you tell that it--the old thing--never would come back?"

It _was_ clever of her. He realised that he had to deal now with a more complete and complex creature than Anne had been.

"How could it?" he asked.

"If _she_ came back--"

"Never. And if it did--"

"Ah, if it did--"

"It couldn't in this case--my case--your case--"

"Her case--" she whispered.

"Her case? She hasn't got one. She simply doesn't exist. She might come back as much as she pleased, and still she wouldn't exist. Is _that_ what you've been afraid of all the time?"

"I never was really afraid till now."

"What you're afraid of couldn't happen. You can put that out of your head for ever. If I could mention you in the same sentence as that woman you should know why I am so certain. As it is, I must ask you again to take my word for it."

He paused.

"But, since you have raised the question--and it's interesting, too--I knew a man once--not a 'bad' man--to whom that very thing did happen. And it didn't mean that he'd left off caring for his wife. On the contrary, he was still insanely fond of her."

"What did it mean, then?"

"That she'd left off showing that she cared for him. And he cared more for her, that man, after having left her, than he did before. In its way it was a sort of test."

"I pray heaven--" said Anne; but she was too greatly shocked by the anecdote to shape her prayer.

Majendie, feeling that the time, the place, and her mood were propitious for the exposition, went on.

"There's another man I know. He was very fond of Edie. He's fond of her still. He'll come and sit for hours playing backgammon with her. And yet all his fondness for her hasn't kept him entirely straight. But he'd have been as straight as anybody if he could have married her."

"But what does all this prove?"

"It proves nothing," he said almost pa.s.sionately, "except that these two things, just because they're different, are not so incompatible as you seem to think."

"Did Edie care for that man?"

"I believe so."

"Ah, don't you see? There's the difference. What made Edie a saint made him a sinner."

"I doubt if Edie would look on it quite in that light. She thinks it was uncommonly hard on him."

"Does she know?"

"Oh, there's no end to the things that Edie knows."

"And she loves him in spite of it?"

"Yes. I suppose there's no end to that either."

No end to her loving. That was the secret, then, of Edie's peace.

Anne meditated upon that, and when she spoke again her voice rang on its vibrating, sub-pa.s.sionate note.

"And you said that I gave you rest. You were different."

He made as if he would draw nearer to her, and refrained. The kind heart of Nature was in league with his. Nature, having foreknowledge of her own hour, warned him that his hour was not yet.

And so he waited, while Nature, mindful of her purpose, began in Anne Majendie her holy, beneficent work. The soul of the place was charged with memories, with presciences, with prophecies. A thousand woodland influences, tender timidities, shy a.s.surances, wooed her from her soul.

They pleaded sweetly, persistently, till Anne's brooding face wore the flush of surrender to the mysteries of earth.

The spell was broken by a squirrel's scurrying flight in the boughs above them. Anne looked up, and laughed, and their moment pa.s.sed them by.

CHAPTER X

"Are you tired?" he asked.

They had walked about the wood, made themselves hungry, and lunched like labourers at high noon.

"No, I'm only thirsty. Do you think there's a cottage anywhere where you could get me some water?"

"Yes, there's one somewhere about. I'll try and find it if you'll sit here and rest till I come back."

She waited. He came back, but without the water. His eyes sparkled with some mysterious, irrepressible delight.

"Can't you find it?"

"Rather. I say, do come and look. There's such a pretty sight."