Chapter II: Part I: The Immortal Flame (2)

“My dear, it will come true right enough,” he assured her, as they walked down the wide, spacious hall and entered the morning-room facing the ocean.

Lord Berriedale led his wife to a couch near an open window and made her lie down among a profusion of lilac-tinted cushions; then he placed a rug over her and turned to look out on the huge sheet of water spread out before them.

The invalid lay back and closed her eyes in deep content. “Neville, this is new life to me,” she whispered, restfully, breathing in the soft, warm air from the sea.

The sun was withdrawing from the morning-room; still, through a large end window a narrow streak of light fell on the wall, across a picture of an interior of a church, illumining a large black cross over the altar and making it stand out with startling prominence.

After a short pause Lady Berriedale looked up and her eyes lighted on the black cross so luminously clear in the sunlight.

“Neville!” she cried, half frightened, “look at that cross. See how it stands out from the picture--it seems to be moving toward me! Can it be a cross waiting for a--grave-- Oh, Neville--”

He came to her quickly. “Deary, you have overtired yourself this morning, and that makes your nerves bad and you imagine all these ghastly things. I am afraid I cannot let you go this afternoon; we shall have to wait till to-morrow.”

“No, no,” protested the invalid, “I am not really tired, only my nerves are silly--but just sit down beside me-- No, here; then you can hide that awful cross--”

Lord Berriedale sat down so that he obscured the ominous part of the picture and skilfully diverted his wife’s attention to other subjects.

“Did you see Rita driving that car this morning? Isn’t she getting on well! She will soon be able to go out alone.”

“Will that be safe? Are the roads good in this district?”

“I think so. When I was talking to Folkestone this morning on the ’phone he said they were excellent, on the whole. By the way, he wanted to call this afternoon, but I asked him to wait till to-morrow, as we were going out.”

His wife turned to him reproachfully. “Neville, how could you? Have you forgotten about Rita? Think how disappointed she will be! Why didn’t you ask him to lunch or dinner? You might have done that.”

“I am sorry, dear, I didn’t think of it. However, she will have plenty of opportunities of seeing him, now we are so close to his station. But do you really think he--cares?”

“Yes, I think so. They were a great deal together the last few months in London.”

“But--but”--the tapering fingers played with the fair mustache again--“was that--_his_ doing--”

“Oh, Neville, how blunt you are! Of course Rita is violently in love with him, and who can blame the poor child, he is so awfully handsome and fascinating? All the same, I trust no sister of mine should so far lower herself as to--”

Lord Berriedale retreated hastily before the cold dignity of the last words. “Of course I didn’t mean anything like that. No doubt he is quite infatuated, too, and of course Rita is an uncommonly pretty girl with her Spanish eyes and black hair. She is wonderfully like what you used to be.”

The woman at his side was appeased at once and a glad flush mounted under her sallow skin. “Neville, surely I was never as--pretty as Rita, was I?”

“Of course you were, only far prettier!” he assured her, with his most charming smile. Then he went on in a different tone: “It really would be a good thing if Rita married Folkestone. He is a decent fellow, comes of good stock, and has money enough to make any wife comfortable.”

“Yes, I am sure Rita would be ideally happy with him. So now, dearest, you won’t forget and spoil the young people’s fun, will you?”

“You talk as if we were quite old.” He laughed, but there was a forced note in his merriment.

“So we are, dear. I have turned twenty-nine and you will be thirty-eight next birthday.”

“Folkestone must be over thirty, too.”

“I believe he is just thirty.” Lady Berriedale turned her engagement-ring, blazing with diamonds, thoughtfully as she said, “I wonder if Isma will ever marry--”

Her companion rose and went over to a window. At the same time there was a knock at the door and Fred Cockhill Rex, Lord Berriedale’s secretary, entered. He was a round, dapper little man with scanty, nondescript hair; his face was pale with the peculiar pallor of great smokers, and it was overrun with a network of fine wrinkles. He had a prominent, sharp nose, long, thin lips, and pale-blue eyes which always seemed to be smiling, and the smile was a curious mixture of malice and amiability. However, most people only noticed the affability, perhaps because the secretary’s manners were so polished and good-natured they entirely disarmed suspicion. Rex was a great favorite with his employer and had been in his service for some years; but Lady Berriedale neither liked nor trusted him.

“What is it?” asked the tall, fair man at the window.

“One of the squatters in the neighborhood has rung up to see when it will be convenient for him to call; he is at the ’phone now.”

“Any afternoon next week will do,” replied Lord Berriedale, with not wholly concealed irritation.

“And the gardener wants to know about the conservatory--”

“All right, Rex, I’ll go and see him myself,” interrupted his lordship, cutting him short.

The two men left the room together, and when they had gone Lady Berriedale closed her eyes drowsily and was soon fast asleep.

VI

THE DEVIL’S ACRE

Soon after lunch Lord and Lady Berriedale went off in their big Rolls-Royce to call on Miss Folkestone.

After Rex had sent them off he went into the library and stood by the window smoking a Turkish cigarette as he watched the long cloud of dust whirling after the receding car.

“Going to see her already--h’m! a little indecent haste surely! And her ladyship there, too! Holy saints! what fools some women are! How they have managed to hoodwink her so long I can’t imagine! But she will shake off the winkers one of these days and see her adorable Neville in his true light.” The secretary slapped his fat thighs. “By George! we’ll have a fine show then!”

The door opened suddenly and a girl with a small, dainty figure bounced into the room. She moved rather gracefully, but in a quick, impetuous way.

Miss Brentford did not appear to be in a very happy frame of mind and was ready to be irritated by trifles.

She glanced at the man by the window and exclaimed, petulantly, “Rex, don’t you _ever_ stop smoking!”

“Of course I do. I give you my word of honor that I never smoke when I am asleep.”

“You dream about it then,” came the short retort.

“Indeed I don’t. Dreams are only for the lovesick and the dyspeptic. But,” he added, in a different voice, “why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfortable in the devil’s acre?”

The girl looked puzzled. “The devil’s acre! What on earth is that?”

“The library, of course.”

“I don’t see the connection.”

“Why, it is quite simple. God puts the dead into coffins and buries them in His acre; but the devil has other methods. He entombs living thoughts into books and buries them in libraries.”

“You are not very complimentary to books.”

“Indeed I am. The books will feel flattered, I assure you. They like to keep up with the times. Years ago it was an insult to call any one bad; now it is an insult to call them good.”

“I wonder why it is fashionable to be wicked?” mused Miss Brentford.

“Because most people haven’t brains enough to excel at anything else.”

“Still, respectability is very dull, don’t you think?”

The secretary smiled blatantly. “That depends on what you call dull. Of course it is only passion-flowers that bear passion-fruit: passion_less_ flowers alone bear--respectability.”

The girl blushed. “Now you are talking like a French novel.”

“And you are annoyed. That is always the way. The people who sneer most at respectability are generally the most prudish of all, just as the most harmless beings like to pose as incorrigibly bad!”

“You are quite wrong about that,” Rita said, half absently, her thoughts straying back to her grievance as she added, fretfully, “Fancy a whole afternoon and nothing to do.”

“You don’t mean to say you are getting bored already! Why didn’t you go with the others? That would have been more entertaining than moping at home.”

“Ugh! Do you think I want to spend the whole afternoon with Miss Folkestone? I hate that cold creature!”

“I don’t think she is cold, but she is undeniably beautiful,” observed Rex, apparently unconscious that he was pouring petrol on the fire. “Even women go quite mad over her.”

“I don’t think she is beautiful at all; she is too over-colored. Her hair is so yellow and her cheeks so red.”

“I should have termed the color in her cheeks a vivid pink.”

“Then she is too big,” went on Miss Brentford, glancing down at her own small, rather insignificant figure. “I don’t admire large women; they are heavy and clumsy.”

“I don’t think any one could accuse Miss Folkestone of being ‘heavy and clumsy’; I have heard her described as stately, handsome, magnificent, even called slender, but heavy, never!” replied the secretary, looking into the girl’s frowning face with smiling satisfaction. He always enjoyed making people angry--with some one else, and he was specially pleased to promote ill feeling toward Miss Folkestone, as he owed her a grudge for snubbing him severely on one occasion when he had made rather daring advances.

“Slender!” flashed his companion. “She is awkward and ungainly, and I don’t really think she is so much admired, after all, except by a few overstrung, nervy people like my sister--”

“And Captain Folkestone,” interjected the man, in his most silky tones.

The brunette flushed hotly. “He doesn’t like her at all--he can’t bear the sight of her!”

“Oh, is that so! Of course when he left London so soon after her departure and followed her here it made one naturally think that--”

“Oh, that was only because he is her only relative and he must look after her a little.”

“Yes, of course, and a woman like that would need a little supervision. These very fair women, though they look so cold and--virtuous, are really warmer and more dangerous than the ordinary kind.”

“Dangerous?”

However, the secretary was not to be drawn out any farther. He really felt he had said as much as was wise just then; he could drop other hints on future occasions. He would have greatly enjoyed giving the girl a full explanation at once, but dared not draw her attention to her brother-in-law’s indiscretions too clearly. Still, he might set his companion’s mind working in the right direction by throwing out vague hints and stimulating her already jealous hatred of Miss Folkestone, but this was as far as he thought it safe to go at present. However, with her suspicious nature and his suggestions to guide her, she might yet arrive at the truth, tell her sister, and then-- The malicious gleam in the small blue eyes deepened.

Shortly afterward Rita left the library. The secretary picked up a novel, seated himself in a deep armchair, and lighted another cigarette. As the pale-bluish ringlets floated into the atmosphere, he reflected. “She is in galloping consumption, and when she is out of the way”--he nodded meaningly, “they will marry, of course, but in the mean while we can make a fine scene. She has it in her to make a good one; by Jupiter! she has!” he chuckled. For some time he sat musing, turning the cigarette greedily between his fat fingers, then he laughed under his breath. “The beautiful Isma clumsy! Great Christopher! So that is what she thinks, the jealous little cat! As if she would have half a chance with Folkestone or any other man while that fair daredevil is about. The conceit of these insignificant little women!”

VII

ON FRIENDSHIP’S ALTAR

Isma Folkestone had gone up to the big cone-shaped headland on the northern side of her small bay. But she did not stand expectantly with dim hope in her heart, gazing out to sea, as she had done some weeks before. She sat with her back to the ocean, leaning wearily against a big boulder, her elbow on her knee and her softly curving chin resting in the pink palm of her hand, while her eyes looked with intense sadness on the vast plain below, where the little silver road stretched contentedly toward the slumbering hills.

The sun had set and left behind it a flood of molten gold that throbbed with an intensity almost human. But the world seemed strangely unresponsive to the pulsating beauty above. It lay back calm and dreamy as a tired child, blissfully unconscious of everything except its own delicious need of rest.

The still figure by the rock watched all while she tried to fight back the bitter despair in her heart. So it was in vain she had made the big flight and hidden in this immense loneliness by the giant headlands! It had all been useless! Her hiding-place had been discovered. The enemy had followed and was now confronting her with new vigor, fresh determination to track her down. She had considered her life broken before, but now she found how much valuable substance had remained among the ruins. There had been the hope of peace left her and the certainty that she had done with sordid things, that even memories could in time be flung away, but now-- She was not merely disquieted by recollections, but the hideous thing itself which had made the stinging memories had returned to her life and leeringly announced it had come to--conquer.

She looked long at the narrow track winding across the low flats. Then she suddenly whispered, “You little peaceful road creeping so leisurely over the tranquil plain, if only I could be like you and lie at rest among the friendly spider-flowers and sheltering she-oaks!”

She made a little movement with her hands, as if stretching them out to something which had turned its back on her.

* * * * *

Lord and Lady Berriedale had been with her that afternoon. Beatrice had been delighted with the little red house among the palms and greatly excited at seeing her again. Isma could still feel the convulsive embraces of the thin arms, she could still see the deepening of the hectic flush in the wan cheeks. Lady Berriedale had been ecstatically happy as they sat on the balcony behind the glowing veil of bignonia flowers. While the little dark woman talked incessantly, she had frequently sent frankly adoring glances at her grave, unresponsive husband. But his lack of enthusiasm did not seem to quench her fervor, for at times when disquieting thoughts troubled her she told herself that Neville was not impulsive, he had no Spanish blood in his veins like herself; he was English, reserved, and hated to show his emotions. But she would have awakened to the truth that afternoon if she had seen the passive expression in her husband’s dark eyes give place to a sudden flash of fire whenever he gazed unobserved at their beautiful hostess. However, the tall, fair man was guarded, and it was only from behind his wife’s chair he permitted the burning appeals to reach the girl, who responded only with the coldest disdain.

As Isma’s guests were leaving, Lady Berriedale had taken the girl’s slim hand in her own feverish ones and begged her to come to The Bluff every day. She would send a car for her, and insisted on her friend promising to come. The girl could not refuse the hollow, pleading eyes, encircled by those fatal shadows, and she had yielded. Yes, whatever happened, the sufferer should have all it was in her power to give during the inevitably short time granted her by destiny.

Now Isma sat fully considering what this promise would mean to herself. She shivered. Could any one be compelled to pay a costlier price for the gift she was laying on the altar of friendship? She had already been branded before the world because of her sacrifice to this friend. However, now a much greater demand was made upon her. When she had fled from danger might not people learn to believe in her sincerity in wishing to evade disaster? But when they heard about present developments--that she was constantly at The Bluff with the Berriedales, would not the world turn from her in disgust and conclude that her flight had merely been a step toward a deeper intrigue?

And what would Falcon think? That Lord Berriedale should pursue her might not wholly condemn her in his eyes; but if she resumed the old intimacy with his wife, and he found her constantly in the way of danger again, would he not irrevocably lose every vestige of respect for her?

“Good God!” she moaned, “why am I called on to make such a sacrifice to a dying woman? Can friendship demand such a stupendous offering?” Her head dropped. All at once she knew that friendship cannot only ask for all that one holds dear, but it can exact that life itself be laid in full surrender at its feet.

Isma rose slowly. The sunset had faded and a delicate gloom was creeping into the great spaces above her. She remembered when she stood looking into them some weeks ago and felt they held vast, lofty things, that she had expected somehow to come into touch with them; but now, though she was still conscious of their presence, they seemed utterly unapproachable and out of reach, for had she not been thrust back into the whirlpool? Lofty things were not for her!

She glanced up the coast-line. In the distance a big scarred bluff, its head a little tilted, stared with half-blind eyes out to sea.

The girl watched it for some moments. “Yes, that is life,” she muttered under her breath; “a half-blind staring into the greatness that broods above the whirlpool of earth, but never descends to the men and women who are in such desperate need of its infinite peace!” she exclaimed, bitterly, as she walked down the rough slope of the headland to her home among the palms.

The soft violet tints on the coast-line faded and a thick, uncompromising darkness strode in from the ocean and wrapped rocks, beaches, and cliffs in its austere mantle of night.

VIII

RING-BARKED

During the following weeks Isma did not visit her favorite cliff. She was back in the old life, almost daily seated in the purple-crested car with its mauve lining and silver fittings belonging to the Berriedales. It called for her constantly, and she was whirled to numerous beauty spots on the coast and inland with her friends.

The weather had been fine, and for weeks the sun had swept the turquoise heavens in golden majesty. Lady Berriedale had enjoyed the long days in the brilliant spring sunshine; she certainly looked better and was able to stand the outings without distressing symptoms of fatigue. Captain Folkestone joined all the excursions, but he was generally beside Miss Brentford, so Isma saw very little of him. She rigorously avoided being alone with Lord Berriedale and devoted herself entirely to the friend for whom she was making the colossal sacrifice.

So for a little while danger had been kept at bay and the girl had been able to avoid unpleasant encounters. But the fiery glances which found their way from the black eyes to her own told her that the scene she dreaded could not long be postponed. One day a picnic had been arranged to a beautiful lagoon some miles away, but on the morning of the trip Lady Berriedale did not feel well enough to go. It was impossible to put off the outing at such short notice, as some of the neighboring squatters and their families had been invited. But Isma refused to leave her friend, and after seeing the party off she joined her in the morning-room facing the ocean.

The invalid was lying on a couch, looking worn and ill. Her skin was sallow and parched, but near her cheek-bones were dark-red patches.

Miss Folkestone sat down beside her and took up some embroidery. “Perhaps you would rather I read to you?” she asked, as she threaded a needle with some jade-green silk.

Her companion did not reply for a moment; her big eyes were fastened on the picture with the large black cross over the altar. The sun had left the room some time ago, so no illumining rays picked out the fatal symbol and made it prominent and important. All the same, the patient watched it with peculiar interest. At last she said:

“No, I don’t want you to read to me just now, thank you. I want to talk-- There is something on my mind I want to ask you about.”

“Yes, dear--what is it?”

“Do you believe in omens, in forebodings?”

“I don’t know; I have never thought about them.”

“But don’t you think it feasible that big, dreadful events should be felt before they actually happen? Look how birds feel a storm coming and cry out in terror long before the gale is actually there. And if you have been in the vicinity of icebergs, you know how you feel the terrible cold long before they are visible, and on the same principle don’t you think big, horrible events are felt beforehand?”

“Yes, perhaps they are.”

“Well, lately I have had an awful feeling that”--she removed her large, solemn eyes from the painting and fixed them on Isma, and there was a peculiar glassy expression in them as she said--“that--death is near.”

The girl shuddered at the unearthly gravity in the gaze fastened on her and the hollow sound in the weak voice. She dropped her work and bent over her friend quickly.

“Deary,” she pleaded, anxiously, “don’t talk like that--please don’t!” She would have liked to make light of the premonition and brush it emphatically aside, but she was always strictly truthful, and falsehood on such an occasion seemed specially abhorrent to her.

However, the frail woman among the silk cushions could not have been turned aside by any protest. “Isma, I must tell you about it, for I cannot talk to Neville. Don’t you see it would grieve and upset him if I spoke of--leaving him?”

The girl looked suddenly away; the unconscious pathos of the last words went strangely to her heart, and at that moment she felt unutterably thankful that she had put her own happiness aside in order to keep her friend blind--keep her from knowing the truth which would break her heart.

“What is the matter, dear?” asked Lady Berriedale, a little fretfully, glancing toward the averted face.

Miss Folkestone turned to her quickly. “Oh, Beatrice, can’t you understand that I--?”

“Yes, of course I can!” interrupted the invalid, penitently, taking one of the girl’s hands. “Of course it is hard for you, too, and I know how deeply you will feel it. Still, do let me talk about it. It will help me-- It is so hard to brood over things--alone.”

“Then tell me all about it--just how you feel,” responded her companion, kissing the lined, damp brow.

“Well, several times lately I have had a most extraordinary sensation, as if some dreadful chilly presence was near me, something indescribably awful, and I know--it has been _death_ itself--”

The girl’s grip tightened on the wasted fingers. What was there to say in the face of the tragedy confronting her? She felt utterly powerless. For some moments she sat silent, casting about in her mind for words which might bring comfort. At length she said: “Do you think there is a real death? So many poets and writers say there is not, that what we call death is only--”

“No death!” interrupted the woman beside her. “Those people cannot know what they are talking about! Such sentiments are written by strong men in robust health, who have never been in the vicinity of the terrible Icy Presence,” she concluded, her eyes glistening with fevered brilliance.

“But, dear,” remonstrated Isma once more, “you are only having these feelings because this is one of your bad days. To-morrow you will be better and all will seem different.”

“Yes, I know; still, bad days are the times when Death reveals his presence and--takes a step nearer.”

“But to-morrow he will depart again.”

“No, Death never retreats. He may stand inert for a while, yet his cold, hollow gaze never leaves his prey for a moment.”

Miss Folkestone bent over her friend in deep distress. “Beatrice, do you think it wise to dwell on that subject? Isn’t it a pity to endow Death with too great importance?”

“Dear, Death has awful powers. You cannot know because you have never felt them. But think of it, he takes life--_life itself_. Isma,” she went on, impressively, “can’t you imagine what that means?”

“But does he take it? That is the question. If he did, he would be the Monarch of life and there would be no life beyond, as we are told there is.”

Lady Berriedale shook her head. “That does not follow. It seems to me Death takes life very much as an executioner does. However, he cannot interfere with what is beyond any more than an executioner can.”

Isma looked reflectively out of the window on the sunlit coast-line. “Perhaps Death is an executioner?” She turned an inquiring gaze on her friend. “Still, that makes us criminals, and criminals of the worst type, for only they are dealt with in such a terrible way.”

As her companion was silent, she went on. “Perhaps that is why this world is so sad and full of anguish. It may be a great prison-house, keeping the spirit-criminals of the universe till their sentence is carried out--”

She was suddenly interrupted, for Lady Berriedale had half raised herself and her shrill voice pierced through the room.

“Isma--Isma--I feel so ill! Quickly ring for Abbott and let her get me to bed!”

It was four o’clock in the afternoon when Lady Berriedale awoke from her long, heavy sleep. Her dark eyes opened slowly and strayed round the room as if she did not recognize her surroundings immediately. Then they lighted on the fair girl sitting beside her.

“Isma,” she said, moving her hand across her brow, “what a horrid day this has been for you!”

“No, no!” protested her companion, brightly. “I am only too glad to be with you.”

“You are a darling and no one in the world is as kind and good as you, except, of course, Neville.”

Miss Folkestone lowered her eyes and began to smooth the lacy pillow.

“Isma, I feel so much better now I could almost get up; still, perhaps it will be wiser to stay here. But, deary, would you mind going into the drawing-room and singing me some songs? If you leave the doors open I shall be able to hear--only sing me something full of life and beauty, something throbbing with romance, which makes one realize all we are meant to enjoy!”

The girl’s face brightened and she bent and kissed her friend happily. “Of course I shall love to sing to you!” She left the room, and as she crossed the hall the invalid called to her:

“Don’t forget to finish with my favorite from ‘Samson et Dalila.’”

“Very well,” Isma replied, entering the large drawing-room, which faced north and west so that from its many windows the extensive coast-line as well as the rolling plains could be seen.

Black, mauve, and purple predominated in the lavishly furnished room. On the black, highly polished floor lay a large velvety black carpet bordered with bunches of violets and mauve-ribbon true-lovers’ knots. The easy-chairs, divans, and high-backed settees were covered with shadow tissue and provided with a profusion of shirred purple, black, and mauve silk cushions, and the many deep-cream curtains had rows of wide mauve, black, and purple ribbons at their lower edges. The tables and mantelpiece were of polished ebony holding numerous vases filled with spring flowers. In front of the hearth lay two big shirred _bouffées_ and in the northern recess of the bay-windows stood the ebony grand piano. By it and close to a writing-desk were tall standard lamps with purple-beaded shades.

On the walls hung a fine collection of Australian pictures, big canvases by Streeton aglow with riotous sunlight; a few animated portraits by Longstaff--children’s heads, alive, warm, kissable; delicious water-colors from Lindsay’s brush, one or two very imaginative studies by Norman Carter, and some beautiful pastels by Florence Rodway.

Isma walked over to the piano.

As she sat down at the instrument the sunlight fell fall upon her luxuriant yellow hair and made her lime-colored frock strangely luminous. Her white fingers ran lightly over the keys, creating a delicate, smooth atmosphere into which she might pour the songs she loved. No true artist can bear to send forth a strain of favorite music into an unprepared world. The air must first be warmed, subdued, made a soft cradle for the tender song-notes to rest in.

Then Miss Folkestone began to sing. She had a rich contralto voice which harmonized strangely with her loveliness--it was curiously part of it. Some voices seem a thing apart, as if they had no connection either with the singer’s appearance or individuality; but Isma’s voice was herself, it throbbed with her vital personality and in it quivered her extravagant beauty.

The invalid had asked for romantic music, and love-song after love-song pulsated through the room. Isma sang with great feeling; it seemed as if every tender word, every passionate avowal, was a spontaneous utterance from her own heart.

At last the singer struck the fluttering, breathless chords of her friend’s favorite song, and into the afternoon radiance floated the thrilling words:

“Softly awakes my heart
As the flowers awaken
To Aurora’s tender zephyr!
But say, Oh, well beloved,
No more I’ll be forsaken.
Speak again, Oh, speak forever!
Oh, say that from Delilah
You never will part!
Your burning vows repeat;
Vows so dear to my heart.”

Then followed the refrain with its haunting music heavy with passionate sweetness.

“Oh, once again do I implore thee!
Oh, once again then say you adore me!
Oh, I here implore thee!
See, I implore thee!
Oh, once again then say you adore me!”

As the last notes of the second verse trembled into space a figure moved from the other end of the room; it was Lord Berriedale.

The dreaded encounter had come. There was no escape, for the fair man approaching her, his footsteps entirely muffled by the thick black carpet, was between herself and the only door leading from the apartment, and she was now aware that it had been noiselessly closed while she was singing.

Isma rose instinctively.

“You seem a little surprised to see me,” began the man, in soft tones. “I left the picnic early--had to come back and see how Beatrice was getting on, of course, but she is not needing either you or me at present, for she is fast asleep, so we can have our long-delayed tête-à-tête, as the others will not be back till dinner-time,” he said, coming up to her.

The girl made no outward sign that her heart was throbbing wildly. She was not afraid, but she loathed the inevitable scene before her.

“Isma,” said Lord Berriedale, as she made no reply, “do you think you have treated me very kindly, giving me this long chase across the world after you?”

“I did not wish you to follow me. In fact, I think it a great impertinence that you have done so!”

“But you knew I would come.”

“I had hoped that after a little time to reflect you would have--”

“Time to reflect indeed!” He interrupted her scoffingly. “As if I should stop for that! From the moment you left I began to make plans for pursuit, of course. Isma,” he took a step nearer, his eyes alight with something which made a cold shiver pass through the girl, “you know my love is not the kind which can be balked.”

“Lord Berriedale, I have forbidden you to mention love to me,” said Isma, with a sudden proud tilt of her head.

“That is most unfortunate, for it happens to be the very subject I have come to talk about.”

“Please let me pass. I want to go back to Beatrice.”

“I tell you she is asleep, so I am afraid you will have to put up with my society for the present.”

“You surely will not keep me here against my will?”

“I shall be sorry to do that, but you so rarely favor me with a talk I can’t afford to waste this splendid opportunity.”

“Lord Berriedale, I am your wife’s friend and guest. Please let me pass.”

He blocked the way more obviously. “Isma, to-day you must listen to me.”

“I will not listen!”

His eyes bored themselves into hers. “Do you think it wise to--play with me like this? Don’t you know it is dangerous to play with fire?”

“I am not playing, and you know it.”

“Believe me, it would be wiser of you not to try me too much. If you strain my powers of endurance too far, there is no telling to what lengths you may drive me. At present my only intention is to talk to you; but if you refuse to listen, can’t you see you only force me to use more desperate means of securing your attention?”

Miss Folkestone did not reply, yet her silence was not an acquiescence; rather it seemed a louder protest than any words could have been.

Still, the man would not be silenced.

“Isma, I heard you singing that last song. Do you realize what such words coming from your lips mean to me--?”

“I only sang them because Beatrice wished it. I had no idea you were listening,” she explained, coldly.

“You might have known I should come back early. I loathe picnics. Heavens! how they bore me! Fancy being dragged out with a lot of stupid people I have no more interest in than the pebbles on the shore! I only put up with those affairs because you are generally there and they are part of the scheme which keeps me near you.”

“Perhaps now that you have said all this, you will let me go back to Beatrice?” said Miss Folkestone, quietly.

“Let you go now? Why, I haven’t even begun to say what I want to. Isma,” his tones changed and he came still closer, “I can’t stand this any longer. Your coldness is intolerable! To see you daily, be near your maddening loveliness, witness your tenderness and devotion to another, while you give me only frosty indifference--how do you expect me to stand it? You put a greater strain on me than I can bear!” He spoke jerkily, his eyes burning upon her face.

“How often shall I have to tell you that I will not listen to such talk!”

“But you must listen. I can’t go on like this any longer. You must treat me differently. Be kind, Isma.” A note of pleading crept into his voice. “I only ask for kindness. Give me a little friendliness!”

“How can I give you friendliness when you talk to me as you do?” she said, fixing her steady gaze upon him.

“Most women like devotion--”

“I do not appreciate it from my friend’s husband.”

“But you could learn to value it--I could teach you.”

“Never!” cried the girl, indignantly. “Whatever you said, you could not teach me such treachery!”

“No, perhaps words could not teach you to--love, but--my arms--”

“How dare you suggest such a thing--how dare you insult me!” she flung at him, her face aflame, her superb eyes flashing.

The man before her turned white. “Great God! you are magnificent! It is worth while making you angry to see you like this!”

“You are cruel and heartless!”

“Cruel and heartless?” His black eyes narrowed till they were mere points of burning flame. “You should be the last being in the world to accuse me of that! Now you force me to prove to you that I am not heartless, that I--”

He came nearer and made a movement as if he would have caught her to him.

The girl drew back quickly and stood leaning against the light-tinted wall with its panels of purple flags, every vestige of color drained from her face, but entrancingly lovely in its proud, marble-like whiteness.

“Isma”--he spoke with difficulty--“you are enough to turn the sanest man love-mad!”

The girl stiffened and pressed herself against the wall as if she expected it to recede with her weight.

He was bending toward her now, his breast almost touching her own. His arms moved--

Her eyes dilated with horror and she drew a shuddering breath--

The door at the other end of the room had opened and Captain Folkestone’s pleasant voice said, in light, inquiring tones: “Is my cousin here. Lord Berriedale? Oh, Isma, I see you are there,” and after crossing the floor he continued: “There is a big thunder-storm coming, so our picnic broke up sooner than we expected. I am going home now,” he went on, addressing the girl, “and if you would like to come, there is room in my car. But we must hurry or we shall not escape the rain,” he urged, apparently unconscious of the tenseness of the situation he had interrupted.

“It is a splendid thing this thunder-storm should come along just now,” remarked Falcon, when his cousin had left the room. “These spells of--heat are very disastrous sometimes.”

“I should have thought you would consider the storm a confounded nuisance, breaking up the picnic,” replied the other man, with scarcely veiled irritation.

“That was a pity, of course! Still, such things are only trifling annoyances compared with the great misfortunes such storms may avert. That is the best of this country--if heat presumes too much, the revenger is always close at hand. I am speaking of thunder-storms, of course,” said the soldier, in a tone which was careless yet at the same time held an ominous meaning.

Isma appeared at the door just then and put an end to further conversation between the men, and after a rather formal good-by the cousins left The Bluff.

IX

THE THUNDER-STORM

On the way home Captain Folkestone was very silent. He sat at the wheel looking straight in front of him, tense, absorbed, white. Isma had expected him to hurl sarcasm at her or speak with fierce bitterness, but he did neither. He hardly looked at her, and yet she felt that he was acutely conscious of her presence. She caught glimpses of his face sometimes, when she glanced beyond him at the large, glittering beaches, obtruding headlands, and the darkened horizon, above which the sky was banked with huge inky clouds reflecting their threatening mien in the heaving waters below. Once as she looked a shaft of yellow fire flashed out from the dark, ominous masses, there was a slight hesitation, then followed a long, low growl which rumbled angrily over the cowering sea.

Isma started a little.

Her companion turned to her at once as if curiously aware of her slightest movement.

“Are you afraid?” he asked, in a voice she hardly recognized as his.

“No, thank you,” she replied, in tones which were not too even. “I am not afraid, only--”

“Yes?” he asked, not looking at her.

“Oh, I can hardly explain.” She shuddered slightly.

“Thunder-storms make you think of--corresponding upheavals in life?” he suggested, his grip on the wheel tightening.

She made no reply, but turned her face away and looked inland. A greenish, unearthly light lighted up the hills and the intervening stretch of bush--everywhere there were traces of the overhanging storm.

But it was not long before they approached The Palms.

As the machine slowed down Isma said, “Won’t you come in and wait till the storm is over?”

“No, thanks. I think I had better get home.”

“Well, if you won’t come in I will get out here. The rain may come down any moment and--”

From the lowering clouds burst a long, forked streak of light and a deafening clap followed almost immediately, shaking the earth beneath them.

“Go quickly,” she urged, springing out of the car. “The rain coming will be terrible.”

“_That_ kind of storm will not hurt me,” he said, grimly, walking over to the gate and opening it for her to pass through.

She held out her hand to him. “Thank you, Falcon,” she said, in a soft, low voice.

He raised his cap with an odd gravity and held her hand for a moment as he said good-by.

She walked away into the breathless stillness: under the palms. Then some impulse made her all at once stop and look back. It happened so quickly that the man leaning over the gate watching her had not time to move away, and she surprised a look in his eyes which made her heart give a sudden suffocating bound, while her gaze was riveted to his. But it was only a second before the mask dropped over her cousin’s face, and, raising his cap once more, he tore himself away, sprang into the car, and drove away.

As the girl reached the house great drops splashed heavily on the garden path; their vehemence increased till they pelted leaves and flowers with savage ferocity. Lightning flashed, thunder-clap upon thunder-clap rolled through the huge inky spaces. Between the wet, drooping palm leaves Isma saw her cousin’s motor climb up the steep ascent toward her favorite cliff.

The front door opened and Miss Livingston rushed out. “Come in quickly. Don’t stand out there in the awful rain. You are getting absolutely soaked!” she called, anxiously.

The girl came up the steps mechanically, and after replying to the usual questions about Lady Berriedale’s health, and how she had spent the day, went up to her own room.

* * * * *

That night Isma went to bed early, for she was tired, but she did not sleep till late. She lay listening to the torrential rain beating peremptorily on the stiff, resisting palm leaves. At times the downpour ceased and a rough wind rushed across the bay and charged madly at the loudly protesting trees.

The girl listened absently, her senses numbed by delicious stupor. She heard the sounds from without through the wide-open windows, but they seemed strangely distant; everything seemed far away; even the scene with Lord Berriedale in the drawing-room was remote now. Her mind was absorbed by a confused sweetness, caused by the look she had so unexpectedly caught in her cousin’s eyes. What did his expression mean? Why had he gazed after her like that? His eyes haunted her, causing a joyous languor to creep over her; she was unable to stir. At last, after hours of dreamy wakefulness, she fell asleep.

X

THE BELL-BIRD

Miss Livingston and Isma had just finished breakfast the following morning when Captain Folkestone’s car drew up at the front door and a moment later the owner entered the dining-room, his handsome face lighted up with his irresistible smile.

“I have come to carry off my cousin for the day,” he said, taking the old lady’s hand with the courtly charm which had brought him so much favor in the outer world. “She looked pale last night after her long day in the house, and now I am going to take her out in the sunshine--it is such a lovely morning after the storm.”

“But--” began the girl, astonished and hesitating.

“There are to be no ‘buts’ at all. Lady Berriedale is much better. I rang up before leaving home and let her know you would not be able to see her to-day--that I claimed you.”

Isma glanced at him gratefully. How tactfully he was managing the embarrassing situation so as not to rouse Lady Berriedale’s suspicions regarding her absence from The Bluff! Yet why this change of front toward herself? He had never treated her like this before. He was generally delightfully pleasant to others, but for her he had so far only reserved cold cynicism and pitiless scorn. Perhaps the change in his attitude was due to that long, mute look which had passed between them the night before.

When Isma came down ready for the outing she wore a full-length, pale, putty-tinted motor-coat, a Dutch-looking bonnet of sand-colored straw, with its narrow brim turned slightly back from her face and lined with deep bignonia-pink silk, and a long veil of the same hue draped her in its warm, colorous sheen.

Captain Folkestone breathed a little unevenly as he caught sight of her, then quickly smiling he exclaimed, lightly, addressing the governess to whom he had been talking: “Miss Livingston, do you wonder that we succumb at once at the sight of such bewildering loveliness? How on earth is a man to remain level-headed with this vision beside him?”

“Of course you can’t help being in love with my big, adorable Baby. No one can--”

“Falcon, don’t listen to her,” the girl interrupted, coloring and laughing as she went out to the car.

It was a glorious morning; every trace of the storm had disappeared. The sun shone, the earth glistened, birds sang, and the ocean broke into dazzling smiles, showing its white, gleaming teeth as it approached the shore. The air was fragrant with the smell of freshly washed things, the scent of flowers, and the pungent odors from the sea. The world was intensely young, with the exuberant youth of spring! The sunlight throbbed with a tense vitality; it was peculiarly alive with chirping notes, the flutter of happy wings, and the hilarious boom of waves.

“And may I ask where you are carrying me off to?” the girl queried, with a happy smile, as they sped toward the northern headland.

His blue eyes answered her smile as he said:

“We are going thirty miles up the coast and will lunch at a small hotel. I took the precaution to order our meal by ’phone, and then--”

The girl’s laugh interrupted him suddenly.

“You made very sure that I would come!” she said, the gleam still in her eyes.

“Of course I knew you would not be going to The Bluff to-day,” he began, in graver tones; then, seeing a cloud pass over her face at the mention of The Bluff, he added, more lightly, “But in any case, whatever engagements you had, I meant to carry you off.”

The brightness came back to her eyes again.

“Isn’t this a real Australian day!” she remarked, after a short silence. “It reminds me of one of Streeton’s pictures. Isn’t it marvelous the way he gets the Australian atmosphere and its vivid sunlight!”

“Yes, indeed! But then Streeton is one of our finest artists. He has reached the highest in art, when it ceases to be art and becomes nature.”

“You put it well! But doesn’t that rather sound as if you thought that things could not be at their best unless they had ceased to be themselves and become something else?”

“Everything at its highest is always something else.”

“I don’t quite see that.”

“Paint is not at its greatest as paint, but when it has ceased to be paint and becomes a flower, a sunset, or a beautiful girl’s head. And isn’t water at its highest when it ceases to be water and becomes cloud? Or coal when it becomes fire?”

“Yes, and a painter when he ceases to be a painter and becomes an artist.”

“What would you say was the difference between a painter and an artist?”

“I should say a painter is a skilled workman who sees the shell of his subject and can represent that, while an artist sees through a shell to the kernel and can reproduce it for others to see.”

“Yes, certainly, it is always far cleverer to see what isn’t there than what is! But talking about art,” he went on, “there is a picture in the Sydney Art Gallery which impressed me greatly as a boy--I have never forgotten it and I can see it still. It is one of Lister Lister’s called ‘The Ever-restless Sea.’ It is a fine piece of work. The sand is real sand, and there is splendid movement in the waves, they look so somberly restless! By the way,” he added, “why is the sea so restless?”

“Do you think it is restless? It does not strike me as that. It seems rather that the sea is so big, so strong, that it has to move because of its overwhelming exuberance. The crash and roar of the waves are only ways of letting off superfluous energy. The sea cannot help booming and thundering any more than a bird can help singing. The boom and crash are only songs of the sea.”

“And what are its songs about? Love?” He was looking at the girl again.

“I should hardly think so. They seem too boisterous, too loud and wild for that.”

“Sometimes love is very boisterous and--wild.”

“Real love?”

“Yes, certainly, and it can clamor louder in the heart than any wave on the shore.”

“Yes, that may be so,” replied Isma, a half-sigh escaping her unawares, though it did not escape the notice of her companion. “Still, it seems to me that love is too sacramental a thing for noisy vehemence.”

“That is one side of it, but it has others. When you stand on a cliff in a storm and watch the heaving waters below flinging themselves against the rocks--what swirling! What seething! The crushed waves positively boiling with the violence of their own passion. That, too, is like love.”

The girl looked away and made no reply, but her cousin felt the slight sigh which passed through her. A few moments afterward she began to talk brightly about other things.

The road did not run along by the coast all the way. Once they had to turn inland for miles, to cross a large river and travel another long distance before they could skim along by the sea again. Often they had to drive very slowly, as the track was rough, but the scenery was so beautiful that it was a delight to take a longer time passing it. The car pushed up steeply graded hills, went through colossal forests where giant gums, blackbutts, and turpentine-trees met overhead, where bronze-winged pigeons flashed among the leaves and the roadside was lined with cotton-bushes and lantana smothered in pink and cream blooms.

At the top of a small rise Captain Folkestone stopped the machine as he said, “I remember years ago you could hear the bell-bird just here--”

“Do you think they would keep to the same spot all that time?”

“Most likely. They hardly ever move away from their favorite locality.”

When the throbbing of the engine had subsided Isma and her cousin sat quietly listening, gazing expectantly into the green blur of foliage.

There was a great stillness in the forest; not a dull, dead silence, but a stillness keenly and eagerly alive, which held stirring forces and throbbed with unknown wonderful possibilities. Occasionally a leaf fluttered to the ground or a dry twig cracked, and sometimes a falling piece of bark rustled noisily among startled leaves.

But after a pause there came into the breathing quiet two liquid notes like the tinkle of a silver bell.

The man and woman started and looked at each other.

The idyllic tinkle sounded again--then again.

“Isn’t it wonderful to hear the fairy-bells again, as we used to call them when we were children!” cried the girl, under her breath.

“Yes, indeed,” replied Falcon, with a happy, reminiscent smile. “And I shall never forget how, as a boy, I rushed all over the bush in search of the bird--you know what a splendid ventriloquist it is--and it led me an awful dance, and often after I had been all over the place and come back to the starting-point I found the mischievous little imp must have been sitting in the same tree all the time, enjoying watching my chase! I used to call it the Australian will-o’-the-wisp! Other countries have a light for that purpose, but we, being different from the rest of the world, have another variety--our will-o’-the-wisp is a musical call, a silver bell tinkling in many directions, and leading those who will follow it widely astray.”

“What a splendid name for the bell-bird, the Australian will-o’-the-wisp!”

For a while the cousins were silent again, listening to the liquid notes dropping into the velvet-green stillness.

At last Falcon set the engine throbbing once more as he said:

“I wonder if, after all, the thing we pursue most ardently, most persistently, does not in the end turn out to be a--will-o’-the-wisp--?”

“If it happens to be as unreliable as the notes of a bell-bird!” replied the girl, laughing his sudden gravity away.