Chapter XIV

She was sitting on a stony bank covered with wild thyme, just above the road; her soft mauve blouse and the little stone-coloured toque on her head were in exact tone with their setting. Over her knees hung a long, bright spray of gladiolus flowers.

In the suddenness of the meeting, the grave dejected look on her bent face smote Giles with the vehemence of a blow. Now that what he had set himself to attain was unexpectedly within his reach, he felt as if he could not face her.

He stopped. Had she seen him? Should he go back? He half turned in his painful indecision, shuffling his feet on the dusty road.

Jocelyn raised her head. He could see her face, the eyes stared at him, unnaturally soft and large, and there was a pitiful curve at the corners of her mouth.

He felt no more indecision or dread, he felt nothing but the helplessness and pathos of her face. He brushed his hand over his eyes, walked across the road, and stood close to her, with his head bent down and his face hidden under the wide-brimmed peasant’s hat.

Without saying a word she put out her hand, and her slender fingers fell like bars of ice across his burning palm. Then she said--

“Will you come with me up the hill a little? If there is peace anywhere, it will be among the olives.”

His heart beat violently, giving him a sense of suffocation.

They left the dusty road, and mounted the banks silently, twisting in and out up the narrow path over slopes covered with yellow broom and magenta gladiolus, with snowy garlic flower, purple vetch, and masses of mauve wild thyme. The scent from the pine needles and the sage-plant rose from the cooling earth as the heat of the vivid, glaring day gave way under the clouds driven up by the rising wind.

At first, as they climbed the steep ascent, a rush of relief, a joyous flowing of his blood at being near her again, carried him away past all power of reason and doubt. It was happiness, just to see her slender figure swaying, as she mounted two paces in front of him, to hear her lightly-drawn breath, to catch the perfume of her hair, the half glimpse of her profile as the path twisted. But long before they stopped there had come a returning agony of doubt. What would she say when she at last spoke? What were they to be to each other in the future? Had he sinned beyond forgiveness? With one step he felt a mad spasm of hope, with the next the dull throb of a blank despair; and always with him, like the cloud left by a bad dream, was the grim shadow of his wife’s awakening beside the little table, in that darkened room.

They were high up now among the olives, and neither had spoken. A gloomy, purple hue had spread like a pall over the broken ridges of the mountains, which ran inland to the west. It shaded up from the surf-girt, murky sea, and deepened on the sides of the hills till it crowned the summit with a hard, blue line against the veiled sky. Upon the remote greyness of the westward sea the hidden sun threw a narrow streak of yellow light. Where the sun had travelled, far as the gloomy horizon, the violet waters brooded in long, broken ridges, and inshore little white waves hissed at the borders of shallow, turquoise pools.

The wind was sighing a mournful tune in gentle crescendo through the patient olives, whose knotted stems creaked a sad accompaniment. In the sinister colouring the vivid green of a tiny fig-tree made a single bright spot whereon the eye rested gratefully.

At the foot of a little tower, grey, ruined, and flanked by two towering cypresses, Jocelyn stopped, and, leaning against the broken stair, looked long and steadily over the sea. One small singing-bird was lifting the feeble requiem of the day’s departed glory, and from the valley came an occasional crowing of cocks; these, and the sigh of the wind, were the only sounds. Presently she spoke--

“I like that angry white blaze on the sea,” she said. Giles heard the even tones of her voice with wonder, but they served to steady him.

“Yes, it’s beautiful.” He was standing beside her, a tall figure, holding his hat in his hand, and taking deep breaths like a man that has come to the surface of water, after a long dive. He found it difficult to believe that he was actually at her side talking commonplaces, and he made a great effort to brace himself to meet what was coming. His impulse was to fling himself at her feet, but he stood straight and stiff, gnawing his moustache, and clenching his hands. Presently Jocelyn said, without looking at him--

“We have something to say to each other, haven’t we?”

“Yes. What made you come?”

“Your face at the station.”

“Ah!”

To both of them the interchange of question and answer seemed very strange and unreal. There was another silence. Of the two faces, side by side, staring visionless over the sea, the man’s showed the ravages of emotion most; perhaps because he was older, perhaps because it was his nature to take things harder. The little bird still lifted its voice; there was a curious pathos in the feeble twittering.

Jocelyn said suddenly, lifting her eyes to his--

“I have suffered so. I have cried till I think I shall never cry again. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I didn’t want to hurt you so. I couldn’t help it. Poor eyes!”

Her hand stole up, and touched his face. With the words and the touch of her hand, his self-control suddenly left him, and he shook with dry, silent sobs, burying his face deep in his hands. It was characteristic of him that he broke down most at the touch of tenderness.

Jocelyn pulled his head down on to her shoulder, stroking his hair and his cheek with her fingers, and murmuring--

“There, there!” as a mother cries to her child. All the hardness had gone out of her face, it was very tender, and her eyes were pure and deep-coloured with a wonderful pity.

Making a great effort, Giles mastered himself; he put his arms round her, and stood rocking himself to and fro gently, his face buried in her hair. There was no passion in his embrace, only pity, and gradually peace.

It was a long time before either spoke again.

“My darling, forgive me!” he said at last in a faint, husky whisper, barely heard in the moaning of the wind.

“Dear, there is nothing to forgive--it was my fault--I tempted you.”

Giles shuddered.

“No, no!” he said, and he pressed her convulsively in his arms.

The words came presently from him with an effort--

“Tell me, darling! Is it all pity you have for me now? Is there any love left?--tell me the truth,” but he could not look at her, he dreaded the answer too much.

Jocelyn drew herself gently away from him, till only the touch of his fingers rested on her arms.

“I don’t know,” she said; “it isn’t as it used to be--I can’t tell.”

He sighed.

“It isn’t as it used to be--how can it be? I think something has died in me. But, dear--I know that if I did not love you, I couldn’t pity you. I couldn’t be sorry for you. I’m sure of that--I could only hate you.”

“Thank God!” he said, breathing deeply. It was like the lifting of a great weight from his chest; but as he straightened himself, the spectre of his wife’s awakening in the darkened room suddenly started up before him.

“Promise me,” he said with an eager ring in his voice, “_whatever comes_, you won’t shut me quite away from you! Promise you’ll let me share your suffering! _Promise me_--”

She shuddered, and her eyes contracted.

“I promise,” she whispered.

“Thank you, Sweet, that is sacred,” he said.

He drew her again towards him, and would have kissed her lips; but she bent her forehead to him instead, and he kissed it reverently.

The wind was rising steadily, it swept through the trees, and whistled mournfully in the hollows of the ruined tower.

Jocelyn was shivering in her light blouse.

“Let me go home, there is a storm coming, and I am so tired.” She spoke like a frightened child.

He answered mechanically like a man in deep thought.

“Poor little one, yes, yes, at once.” He was holding his watch in his hand, and looking over her shoulder down the hill side, measuring time against distance. He was thinking there would still be a chance--his wife might have gone on sleeping. If he could only get back to the room in time? and he muttered to himself, absorbed in his sudden desire to get back before it was too late.

“Yes,” he said, “we must go down before the storm breaks. Come, darling,” and he led the way down the winding path rapidly.

When they reached the road, he said--

“Can you go home alone? You will be quite safe on the road, and I have something to do--very important, terribly important. I must go. Let me see you to-morrow. I will come, may I? Good-bye! good-bye! Poor child, you look so tired.” He put his hands gently on either side of her face, looking into her eyes.

“Remember your promise!” he said, and kissed her lips passionately; then, as if some invisible force had plucked him from her, he turned suddenly and walked along the road at full speed, his head bent down, and without once looking back.

Jocelyn gazed after him surprised and trembling. The tide of her emotions had run out and left her spent and heavy with a sense of coming disaster.