Chapter VII: Part II: I (3)

He sat for a long time bowed and unmovable; then at last, with another ejaculation, he set the motor throbbing down the headland.

VII

THE STARING CLIFF

Isma passed a wakeful, restless night.

When she came down to breakfast, rather late the next morning, she found a note from Falcon saying there had been serious trouble on one of his northern stations; that he would have to go and settle the difficulty himself, and would therefore be unable to see her that day. He also said that he had rung up and inquired after Lady Berriedale and explained that he and his cousin would be unable to see her till the following morning. In conclusion he begged her on no account to go to The Bluff in his absence. The note was very brief; he had evidently written it in a hurry before starting on his long journey, and sent it over by a special messenger.

The girl strolled out under the palms and read the letter again.

So she would not see Falcon for a whole day! The news brought a sickening dullness to her heart. How colorless the day stretched out before her! It seemed as if all light and warmth had gone out of it--it would only be to her now a succession of weary hours of clamoring emptiness. She looked into the sunlit atmosphere, which seemed to have paled. The world around her had all at once faded, its brightness departed; the big, fan-shaped palm leaves had grown uninteresting and dull; even the profusion of roses in the garden looked colorless and without beauty.

And Falcon’s absence had caused this terrible change in everything!

She rose suddenly, as if she would have fled from something which filled her with panic. But she sat down again. What was the use of running away? She could not escape. Months ago it had been possible to take flight. It had been awful to cut herself away from Falcon, but it had been possible--now it could no longer be done. The color ebbed away from her cheeks as she realized this. If her life depended on it she could not go away, could not leave him now. If even one day without the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, a look into his dear eyes, was a hideous blank, what would a lifetime away from him be like!

She shivered.

She could not live without him; he had become an absolute necessity. He was to her what the sun was to the world, the giver of light, warmth, and life itself. Falcon had become her _life_; she was utterly dependent upon him for everything which made existence tolerable.

She looked down on the diamonds glittering on the third finger of her left hand. She was wearing his ring. At present she and her cousin met constantly; they drove together to and from The Bluff, saw each other daily--the engagement which had caused her so much pain had at least brought her that; but this state of things could not go on forever. Some day soon she would have to return his ring. After that, of course, they would not meet. People who had been engaged and broken it off could not go on seeing each other; that was impossible. And even if in the distant future they might resume the intercourse afforded by their relationship, what comfort could such a cold, lifeless thing bring her?

She sat, pale and wide-eyed, looking unseeingly at the radiant world about her.

She thought again of the previous day--how beautiful it had been and how terrible! Every detail came back to her--her fancies, the deep exaltation she had felt as she and the man she loved sped into the quivering white heart of summer! Her own heart had been aflame with a heat as intense and white as the blazing force throbbing in the illumined spaces, and even when the thought came to her that it might bring anguish which blistered and blighted, her elation had not diminished. She had felt strong and able to bear, if need be, a sorrow which could crush a world. But Falcon had been with her then, and that had made all the difference!

She remembered, too, when they passed the sun-scorched plains she had remarked that it seemed a grand thing to be bleached into that spiritual whiteness, and her cousin had said, with a little sigh, that she could not know how such a scorching hurt. All at once it struck her, though it had not occurred to her at the time, that Falcon had spoken as if he knew, knew only too well what an experience of that kind meant. So Falcon had cared--cared like that!

She sat up quickly.

Of course she was quite aware he could not have reached his mature manhood without love having come into his life. She was used to seeing him extremely nice to women, and she had guessed that some one must at some time or other have touched his heart; but that he should have felt any emotion strong enough to make him connect it with powers that bleached and scorched had not suggested itself to her, and the thought made her suddenly feel cold.

Who could the woman be he had loved like that? Her mind ran quickly over his women friends in London; but she could not recall any one he had specially singled out. However, Falcon was so reserved and sensitive he would not show his feelings to others. In any case, the affair must have ended in disappointment, as he had not married. She had often wondered why he had remained single; this must be the reason. Poor Falcon, so he, too, had undergone this awful scorching, and was evidently suffering still, or why had he sighed? Yet, why had he spoken to her yesterday about Paradise and summer in the way he did? Why had he asked for her kisses? Why the burning kiss on her fingers weeks ago? Why so many other things?

She was deeply perplexed.

Perhaps he was trying to fill the aching void, trying to see if she could not bring him comfort and teach him to forget! There could be no other explanation of his conduct.

Isma drew a gasping breath. The pain within almost strangled her.

She got up and began to walk about among the palms; it was impossible to keep still.

And he was her summer, her light, warmth, her life--everything! She could not do without him, she could not! She clasped her hands together in anguish. What was she to do?

Her wonderful eyes looked suddenly blank with agony. Falcon loving another woman--like that! She felt giddy and faint.

She sank down on the seat in a heap, her face deathly white, her nostrils quivering. A half-stifled moan escaped her trembling lips. She could not bear this blinding pain--

She looked up as one dazed and stunned.

She was like the plains they had passed yesterday, helpless and powerless, lying passive and defenseless while the Flame God scorched her by his cauterizing power.

She groaned aloud and closed her eyes.

“Love bleached--love bleached,” she murmured under her breath in suffocating tones.

She had admired the spiritual whiteness of the flats yesterday. Green fields had seemed earthly and material in comparison with them. Falcon was right: the bleaching hurt, it was death-agony to have the green changed to white!

Then she suddenly thought of Beatrice. That frail little woman had suffered--this; had even said she was glad the grief had come, for it had been the explosion to propel her spirit upward; that before it came her soul had lain on a dust-heap, but the dynamite of sorrow had shot her out of the dust.

All at once Isma realized that her soul had also lain in the dust. It had reared its head once or twice and looked up wonderingly, but had soon lain down again and forgotten. However, was this splintering agony the explosion which would send her soul on its upward flight?

* * * * *

That night Isma went up to her favorite cliff.

She stood for some time gazing out to sea over the great expanse of soft, lilac-colored water, toward the misty, opal-tinted horizon. Ocean and sky seemed peculiarly blended into one. It looked as if the sky had descended and that the ocean was slowly rising out of itself, spiritualized into the unexplored dome of heaven.

The girl watched absently. Then she turned a little and glanced up the coast-line and caught sight of the distant bluff with its tinted face and its half-blind eyes gazing out to sea. She remembered watching it some months ago. Had it been lying staring into space ever since? Why was it so preoccupied? Other headlands stood complacently absorbed in themselves. But this far-away block of stone had turned its back entirely on earth and gazed beyond the coast-line and the heaving waves into the unfathomable spaces above.

Isma looked toward it with deeper interest. Had that silent, rocky monster found what it was seeking, what it had stared itself half blind to find, or was it still pursuing its quest with undaunted persistence? How bare, how uncompromising it looked! It seemed as if it had worn off every blade of grass, every vestige of foliage, in its relentless search.

Its crude barrenness suddenly fascinated her. She saw in it a resemblance to her own life. Had she not been stripped of everything that was dear to her, everything that could make her life glad and beautiful? She had possessed so much, but gradually everything had been torn from her till, naked and bare, her soul stood alone in a vast desolation.

Would her spirit, too, learn to turn its back on earth and stand ever gazing into the spaces beyond the boundary-line of time? What would she find in these mighty spaces?

What was the distant headland seeking? Or had it already obtained satisfaction? And was that the reason it could be so silent and unstirring, so oblivious to its own cruel nakedness, its austere isolation?

Would such a satisfaction come to her if she gazed long enough in the same direction? Was life only one incessant fumbling for something beyond the border-land of earth and sky? What was this elusive something which needed this terrible, concentrated seeking, this cruel stripping of earth glamours, before it could be found? It must be something colossal, something overwhelmingly satisfying, if it were worth the cruel rigors by which alone it could be obtained.

Then suddenly she knew that the great, majestic something hiding in the lofty spaces, who required this all-concentrating seeking, was the Infinite Himself.

She had not thought much about Him before; she had taken Him for granted, as she had taken great abstract things for granted. But now He became a person, a living reality. Her spirit had all at once pressed upward, seen Him, found Him!

She knew now that, all unconsciously to herself, she had been groping for Him all her life, that all souls fumble for Him even though they may not be aware of it; but that very few press up to Him until they had been bleached white by sorrow.

Now she knew He permeated all. His majesty hung like a trailing robe illumining the throbbing atmosphere. He was everywhere. He was everything. How dense she had been not to comprehend Him before!

As she looked into the shimmering spaces it seemed all at once as if her soul had become a filmy fragment of the luminous beauty above her and that it rose timidly, but eagerly, and touched the royal, majestic garments of the Infinite. And somehow she was aware that He felt her pressure and that for the rest of her life there would be some wonderful bond between them! He would never forget the touch, and she could not; it had been like touching the mainspring of life, coming in contact with the Power Station of the universe, the gigantic Power House that set all the machinery of stars, moons, suns, and comets in motion and kept them ever supplied with the forces they needed for their brain-reeling circuits. She had touched _That_, and it was not a that; it was a Person, a living, vital, magnetic Being, approachable, sensitive to touch, waiting for appeal, and eager to be sought!

She stood transfixed with wonder and amazement; so this was--God!

Why did not everybody talk about Him, rave about Him? Why had no one ever told her about Him!

And it was possible to lay a detaining hand on this great, wonderful Being and speak to Him. Yes, prayer was laying a detaining hand on God and speaking to Him--she--knew it now!

She lingered for some time on the cliff, then at last very reluctantly she turned to go.

VIII

THE DAWN

Isma began to descend the headland; in her heart burned a great exaltation and in her eyes shone an infinite peace. A solemn, majestic twilight crept up from the plain below, wrapping its dusky mantle about the far-away hills and the imposing cliffs.

It was getting late; she began to hurry down to the road which climbed from the flats over the lower shoulder of the headland.

As she was half-way down the steep slope she saw a tall figure coming up toward her.

Could Falcon have returned earlier than he expected? He did not think he could reach home till midnight or the next morning. Her heart gave a joyous bound. But no, this was not her cousin’s strong, broad-shouldered figure.

All at once she stood still, for she had recognized the man--it was Lord Berriedale.

For a moment a horrible fear seized her. The thought of the utter loneliness of the place, Falcon miles and miles away, not a house in sight, her home too far away for protection, no one able to hear her call, made her waver in alarm. But she shook her fears from her. Why should she be afraid? Were not the spaces above her filled with the Infinite to Himself, the God she had just discovered? Nothing could harm her in His presence. Her lofty peace returned.

The man had climbed rapidly and reached her now.

“Good evening, Isma,” he said, a little out of breath, and the girl noticed he looked strangely excited. “Isma,” he continued, with curious agitation, “I have come to--take you--away.”

She glanced at him quickly. “Is Beatrice worse?” she inquired, anxiously.

“No, she is not worse. But we are not going to The--Bluff--”

“Whatever do you mean?” the girl asked, perplexedly.

“Why, just this, that I can’t stand things as they are any longer and that I am going to--take you away.”

“Take me away?” she repeated, in uncomprehending astonishment.

“Yes, away from everything and everybody and have you all to myself,” he said, with feverish doggedness.

“But you surely can’t be in earnest--”

“Of course I am. I have never been so much in earnest about anything.”

“But--but--” she still spoke with vague bewilderment.

“There are to be no more ‘buts’; the car is here, our suit-cases in it. I have ordered rooms--”

“Our suit-cases--mine?” Her eyes had widened.

“Yes. Everything is arranged. I went to your house first, you know, saw Miss Livingston, who directed me here. I told her Beatrice was much worse and that I am going to take you back with me and asked her to put you up a few things, and she packed your suit-case, and your coat and hat and everything are in the car.”

“Lord Berriedale, have you gone quite mad?” she exclaimed, regarding him in utter amazement.

“Yes, I think I am mad, but it is all with love for you. I only know that I want you and that I am going to have you.”

Isma had turned very pale. She began to realize that the man before her was desperate. Whatever could she do with him?

However, before she could reply, he continued, rapidly: “Isma, if you will only come with me I promise to make you happy! I know you are afraid of a conventional law which binds me at present to--another. But I tell you conventions are nothing; they are only like obstacles in a race made to be leaped over by those who have courage and dash enough to take them! And you need not fear the censure of the world. Society always applauds those who audaciously clear the barriers placed to scare away the feeble from their desired goal.”

“You are quite mistaken, Lord Berriedale. Conventions are not like hurdles in a race; they are protecting fences, keeping people from slipping into horrible ditches.” She spoke evenly and calmly.

“Even pitfalls may be safely crossed. I will see that you do not get hurt. I swear it! We will soon be able to marry and in a few years go home, and then everything will be all right.”

“I absolutely refuse to believe you can be serious, that you really mean to insult me by making such an outrageous proposition!” Isma suddenly seemed to have grown taller.

“Of course I am serious--”

“But even if you have forgotten about Beatrice, your wife and my friend, there is--my cousin.”

He laughed mirthlessly. “Now don’t refer to that sham engagement of yours. Good Lor’! Isma, what do you take me for? Do you think I am taken in by that hoax! Why, any fool can see it is only a fake, one of your cousin’s ingenious devices to shield you from--scandal.”

“You have no right to say that.”

He took a step nearer and looked her full in the face. “You know it is the truth. Now, Isma, can you give me your word of honor that you are really going to _marry_ your cousin? Is your engagement a real one, with kisses and hot embraces?”

There was no sound in the dimness but the flutter of dusky wings and the deep thud of waves crashing against the rocks far below them on the seaward side of the cliff.

“So he has not even kissed you! I knew it!”

“I refuse to answer your impertinent questions.”

“They are not impertinent. I have a right to find out; for if you are not another man’s property, it is all the more reason why you should be mine.”

“Still, I do belong to my cousin, for I--love him.”

The man confronting her laughed again. “Do you really expect me to believe that, when you don’t even allow him to kiss you? No, Isma, women do not treat men they love the way you treat him.”

“All the same, I am speaking the truth. I love him with all my heart.” She made the confession with superb dignity.

“But, Isma, I can teach you to forget him. If you are taken from him, you will in time love me. I can always make women love me, if I try.”

“You could never make me forget him, and I could never love you in any case.”

“Isma, I can make you care. Only give me a chance. Come away with me where I can have you to myself--”

“Please don’t repeat that horrible insult.”

“And do you mean to say you blankly refuse to link your future with mine?”

“It is unnecessary to answer such a question. And now I really must go home.” She made a movement toward the road, but he stepped in front of her and blocked the way.

“You don’t suppose I shall let you go, do you? After all this waiting and these weeks of torment I mean to have what I want now, and if I cannot have it with your consent I must take it without. But, Isma”--he had spoken bruskly; now he added, in a softer tone--“I do not want to hurt you, do not want to use force.”

“Force?” she questioned, incredulously. “Nowadays a man cannot take a woman and run away with her against her will. It can’t be done.”

“I did not mean that. There are other ways of gaining my end.”

What could he mean? Would he embrace and caress her as he had commenced to do on the night of the picnic? Her heart beat with sudden alarm; the thought of his touch was revolting. Still almost instantly she grew calm again. God was there, brooding over the earth. He would protect her.

As there was no reply, her companion said, “Isma, don’t drive me to anything that might be--distasteful to you.”

“I don’t understand you,” she said, confident he was powerless to hurt her.

“Then I will explain. It comes to this. I mean to have you at any cost. If you will not do as I ask, I will keep you here all night, and when to-morrow comes--you will be glad enough to--comply with my terms.”

She drew a hard breath. “Lord Berriedale, is it possible you can be such a fiend as to deliberately set about ruining my reputation? Haven’t you hurt me enough already?”

“I don’t _want_ to do it; that is just what I am trying to make clear to you. But if you refuse my request--can’t you understand there is nothing else for me to do? You see,” he continued, “though that fool engagement of yours does not mean anything, it has annoyed me a good deal. I can’t stand seeing you regarded as another man’s property. You have dangled that confounded cousin of yours before me too long, and now the engagement must come to an end.”

“But--I should not break off my engagement because of--that.”

“No, but he will.”

“No, he will not. He would believe me when I told him the truth,” she cried, in panting anger.

“What truth?” inquired her companion, with a leering smile.

“That--that--”

“My dear Isma, when to-morrow comes you will not want to meet your cousin’s searching eyes.”

She gasped in the darkness. “Have you become a demon as well as a maniac?” she asked, her eyes wide and dark with horror.

“I may be both to-night; still I--love you! And Isma,” he went on, “if you want to know who loves you most you can find out now. After to-night your cousin will never come near you again; he will not touch you or have anything more to do with you--that is the extent of his affection! Now mine is different! I would take you stained, smirched, any way, anyhow, as long as I had you. Your cousin will only take you if he can have flower, bloom, and all. I would receive you even if all the bloom had been rubbed away. Still, of course--I would rather have you as you are--”

While he was speaking she had crushed back her dread. She refused to believe that God could forsake her; her soul had pressed up toward Him, she had touched Him, He would not forget that touch!

“But you cannot have--me at all.” There was no fear in her voice; it was serene and unwavering.

Lord Berriedale looked at her wonderingly. Was her courage unconquerable or did she fail to realize her imminent danger?

“What is to stop me? I am stronger than you.”

“God,” she said, raising her face suddenly. “Don’t you believe in Him?”

“God,” he repeated, taken aback. “I dare say there is such a Being. I wouldn’t refute the theory; but what has He got to do with it?”

“He will take care of me.”

“Do you think He has time to patrol these lonely shores looking after one woman? He is too much occupied with stars, suns, and millions of worlds.”

“He is everywhere,” she said, with quiet solemnity. “He is here filling these great spaces, bending over the world. I have found that out to-night. He is great enough to look after everybody. He has fought even for one woman who needs Him on these lonely shores.”

“Time will tell. However, I did not come here to talk theology; I have arranged a far more interesting program.”

The dusk had deepened; but even in the semi-darkness Isma looked beautiful. The suggestion of white skin, flashes of luminous eyes, the slender lines of her form, the grace of shoulders and hips, were made mystically alluring by the veiling shadows.

“Great Cæsar! you are lovely!” the man cried, a wild gleam in his eyes.

Then he made a movement as if he would have caught her to him, but she recoiled in horror, her face blanched to a deathlike pallor.

Was Lord Berriedale right? Had God no thought for one individual? Was He too much occupied with worlds and stars to notice her pitiless plight!

She heard the gulping of the waves on the other side of the headland. It seemed as if they were trying to attract her attention, hoarsely calling her to them.

If God would not protect her, the sea might; in its cold arms she would be safe. Of course that would mean she could never see Falcon again, yet if the Infinite did not send her help she would not be able to look into her cousin’s clean, questioning gaze in any case. There was no alternative but--the waves.

She turned quickly and rushed up the steep slope that led to the cone-shaped summit.

But her companion guessed her intention. In a moment he was beside her and laid hold of her arm.

“Isma,” he said, in a voice shaking a little, “you shall not do that, you shall not! Isma,” he went on, facing her, “would you really rather be embraced by the cold waves of death than by--me?”

For a moment her confidence had wavered, and in her desperation she would have thrown herself into the sea. Now her trust returned. God could not, would not leave her in the lurch. He must protect her!

The man before her repeated his question.

“A thousand times yes,” she answered, with a courage and dignity he could not comprehend.

“But you have no choice.” He laughed, in an ugly, blood-curdling way. “To-night we shall see who is the stronger, your--God or the demon in me.”

In the dimness his eyes suddenly glittered upon her with ungoverned rage and something even more hideous.

She shuddered and drew back, but he sprang forward and clutched her to him.

She closed her eyes in terror and everything reeled into an agonized blackness. But instantly she pulled herself together. No, she must not faint, must not lose courage; even on the brink of ruin help would be sent her; the man holding her in the strangling embrace would not be allowed to conquer.

She opened her eyes and as she looked over his shoulder her attention was arrested by two points of light rushing madly across the plain. It was a motor, driven at a frenzied speed toward the cliff.

Some human being was near, help was at hand! If only she could reach the road before the car passed the top of the track and turned down the other side of the headland! But how was she to get away from the iron grip which held her?

Another desperate prayer-rocket flashed from her soul.

In the struggle they had moved and Lord Berriedale suddenly stumbled over a large stone. His hold on Isma relaxed for a second. She wrenched herself away. He fell heavily to the ground and she ran frantically toward the road.

The car was mounting the steep ascent now. In a few minutes it would reach the summit of the hill; she rushed on faster. To call would be useless; no voice could be heard from a distance above the loud panting of the machine. She hastened her flying steps. She must not stumble; if she fell-- But no, she would not fall on the rough, uneven slope-- He who was helping her would see to that!

A few more steps and she had reached the road and stood, a white, ghostlike figure, a few yards in front of the rapidly approaching motor.

There was a quick clapping on of brakes, the car stopped almost instantly, and a well-known form leaped from the driver’s seat.

It was Falcon! She was safe!

She took a step forward, made a little appealing movement; then his arms caught her and gathered her to him.

“Oh, Falcon!” she moaned, piteously, the swift relief and the sense of the awful horror she had been through mingling in the cry.

“Good Heavens! Isma, whatever has happened?” her cousin asked, in terrible agitation.

But she did not reply. She stood leaning against him, her body shaking with long, sobbing breaths.

“Isma, what has happened? For God’s sake, tell me!” he implored, with frantic concern. “Is it--Berriedale again?”

She shuddered and suddenly clung to him.

He breathed in a tense, jerky way as he drew her closer and asked no more questions.

They stood for some time in deep, agitated silence, heart throbbing against heart, frenzied anxiety mingling with remembered terrors and quivering relief; a silence which held clinging arms, enfolding protection, a strength steadying weakness.

Then gradually into the stillness crept an exquisite peace. The girl’s shuddering sobs abated. The ghastly horrors, the hideous scene on the cliff receded, and Isma was conscious only of the man who held her. She was resting against his breast and in his embrace was something stronger than protection. A great joy stole into her heart; her breathing became deep, even, calm.

“Are you feeling better now?” asked Falcon, at length, bending over her.

He felt the long sigh of utter contentment that passed through her.

“You are--too good to me, Falcon,” she whispered, in a voice heavy with happiness.

“This has--comforted you?”

Something in his tone roused her.

“Oh, Falcon, you know it,” she breathed, tremulously, dropping her head to his shoulder.

His breast heaved as he strained her to him.

Her languorous serenity had gone. A wild joy rushed into her soul! He loved her! She knew it now! There was famine in his arms, an insatiable hunger. His touch reminded her of the drought-stricken plains, his words about the pain of being scorched came back to her. He had been terribly scorched; she could feel how cruelly he had burned and suffered. The knowledge strangely excited her and set her aflame with a desperate yearning to satisfy his parched emotions. And with her longing to comfort him she became more acutely conscious of his nearness; the delight of lying pressed against his breast grew into an agonized sweetness almost too intense to be borne! The strength went out of her limbs, her whole body trembled with an ecstasy of weakness.

“Good God! Isma, how shall I ever let you go!” he ejaculated, as he crushed her to him afresh.

He had drawn her away from the glare of the motor-lamps and the soft darkness enveloped and isolated them. They stood panting, moved with an agitated rapture, conquered by their emotions, cemented together by an anguish of love.

There were footsteps approaching, but in their delirious oblivion they had not heard them. Now Lord Berriedale spoke close beside them.

Dazed, they drew slowly apart.

“Sorry--very sorry to--disturb you,” he was saying, “but I am afraid I must trouble you to drive me home, Folkestone.”

Instantly Isma and her lover became conscious of their surroundings. They were standing on the cliff road beside the car. Their minds began to pick up the threads of the past. The horrible experience the girl had passed through came back to her, only softened and robbed of its power to hurt her.

Falcon remembered the long, harassing day he had spent, the terrible speed at which he had traveled all those hot sun-scorched hours, beset by fear and awful foreboding that urged him ever at a more frantic pace toward the girl who might need him! He had not stopped at his own home on the way, but was rushing straight on to The Palms when Isma’s terror-stricken form arrested him on the road.

But he must reply to the man who had just spoken.

“I wonder you dare to come near me, Berriedale,” he said, trying to control his anger. “Don’t you know that I am the last man you should encounter just now?”

“You are not a brute, Folkestone, and I am badly hurt--arm smashed, knee injured as well; can’t possibly drive my car back, and I am alone to-night.”

Isma came up to him quickly. “Lord Berriedale, did you get hurt--when you--fell?”

“No,” he answered her, hastily, “not then, only as I was trying to reach the track I must have got out of my course a bit, for I stepped into air and landed on some jagged rocks--that did the damage.”

“Come here into the lamplight and let us see what is the matter,” said Captain Folkestone, moving to the front of the motor.

But the injured man refused. “No, thanks,” he said, decidedly. “I am not going to have Miss Folkestone harassed with that sight. However, if you will be kind enough to let me sit down and take me home at once I shall be grateful.”

Falcon opened the door of his motor and Lord Berriedale limped into the nearest seat, and they noticed his left hand held the right arm bent against his chest.

Captain Folkestone started the engine quickly, Isma sat down beside him, and silently they stole down the steep descent.

The girl looked into the soft darkness where the cliffs stood out like phantom battlements against the dim summer-night sky. The air was warm and laden with languorous fragrance from the bush and the pungent odor from the sea. Far down in the swarthy gloom she could hear the passionate sighs of the waves as they cast themselves against the rocks.

As they approached The Palms, Isma said, without looking at her cousin: “Falcon, will you let me come with you to The Bluff? I may be of some use and--I--” she added, in a lower voice--“I want to come.”

“No, not to-night,” he said, reluctantly. “You see, I may be very late getting back. I must get Berriedale to bed and wait till the doctor arrives. It would be too much for you; you are tired--”

“But you are tired, too, after that long, strenuous day. Please let me come,” she urged, turning to him.

“No, I mustn’t be so selfish. You need a good sleep--”

They had reached the avenue.

Falcon sprang out to help the girl to alight and walked over to the gate with her. There she stopped him, saying: “Now don’t come any farther. I shall be all right. Take him home quickly. He is in great pain.”

“I think I had better come up to the house with you.”

“No, no, please don’t. Get Lord Berriedale home as soon as possible. He must be suffering dreadfully.”

She held out her hand to him as she said, in moved tones: “Falcon, I can’t express all I want to say to-night. I--”

“Neither can I--just now.”

He pressed her hand in a deep, intimate way in the darkness and his touch was an embrace.

“Good night,” she whispered.

“Good night,” he said, stooping over her. “Isma, I am coming to you to-morrow for my summer and--my Paradise.”

Isma was still by the gate when the throb of the machine had died into silence. She stood riveted to the spot where her lover’s hand had touched her and where he had bidden her the brief but significant good night. She felt dazed and numb, yet curiously alive. So much had happened since she left the palm avenue some hours before. The night had been crowded with events. First, there had been the exalted experience on the cliff--the never-to-be-forgotten finding of God! The headland had been a lofty temple, a sacred Bethel where the spaces had revealed to her the presence of the Infinite.

Then had come the horror of her encounter with Lord Berriedale. She shivered again as she thought of it. But the fearful wrestling with evil had given her new confidence in God. He had not forsaken her. He had sent Falcon to rescue her, save her! Her eyes suddenly shone in the darkness. This beautiful, dreadful evening had also brought her the revelation of her cousin’s love. Her breathing fluttered and one hand went up as if to steady her throbbing heart. The thought of their time together on the road overwhelmed and bewildered her.

Above her the palm leaves murmured drowsily and at intervals she heard the dull crash of sleepy waves as they tumbled headlong and confused on the dreaming sand.

The girl also began to feel oddly confused. She tried to think clearly, but could not. Everything had all at once become blurred and unreal; nothing was real any more except the burning pressure of Falcon’s arms and--her great trust in the Infinite.

She made her way slowly toward the house. She was very tired. She must go to bed, sleep long, and dream of her lover’s embraces and the watching, caring--God.

IX

CRUCIFIED!

It was nine o’clock. The sun streamed into Isma’s room, but the girl was still fast asleep, her long hair billowing like a cloud of flaxen gold around her.

Miss Livingston opened the door gently and entered the room with a breakfast tray.

“Still asleep, Baby?” she said, softly moving nearer the bed and gazing with admiring devotion on the fresh, luxuriant beauty of the sleeper.

“I brought your breakfast up, deary,” she said, a little louder, placing the tray on a small table near the bed, and as the girl stirred and opened her long-fringed eyelids, heavy with sleep, she continued, “so you came back, after all, last night. Minnie heard you come in. Here is a letter for you,” she added, as Isma, now awake, held out gleaming white arms for her morning embrace.

“You had better read the note, dearest. It came from The Bluff just now and the man--”

Her companion sat up, tore open the envelop, and read its contents hurriedly. As she read the rich bloom faded a little from her cheeks.

“Lord Berriedale had an accident on the cliff last night,” Isma explained to the elder woman when she had put down the note. “He stepped into one of those deep, rocky hollows and was very much hurt. Falcon drove him home. Beatrice says his right arm is badly fractured, a nerve is injured, and the doctor doesn’t think he will ever get the use of his arm again. Also one knee is sprained. Of course Beatrice is dreadfully upset. I must get up and go to her immediately. I won’t wait for breakfast.”

“You needn’t hurry so much as that. The chauffeur has to find Lord Berriedale’s car. It appears he left it somewhere up on the cliff road last night. That will take a little while, so you will have plenty of time for breakfast. By the way, I thought Falcon had gone up north. How did he happen to be in this neighborhood, too?”

“He must have hurried terribly to get back so early--”

“I suppose he came to look after you. Isma, I wonder do you half appreciate his wonderful care of you? It is really marvelous the way he watches over you. I have never seen such devotion! And you are so horribly cruel to him. Fancy, all the time you have been engaged you have not given him one single evening. It is a wonder he puts up with it!”

The girl laughed happily. “Are you going to lecture me on that subject, too! But there is no need now, I assure you. For the future I am not going to neglect him, I promise you!”

When Isma was ready to start she said to Miss Livingston: “If Falcon comes over this morning, please explain that Beatrice sent for me, and ask him to come back this afternoon. I shall be home by three o’clock; but tell him I don’t want him to come to The Bluff for me. I want to see him here.”

Lady Berriedale was lying on a couch in the sunny morning-room when Miss Folkestone arrived. She stretched her hand out to the girl and said, in a choked little voice: “You are a dear to come. I want you specially to-day, for you will be able to--comfort Neville. I--cannot.”

Isma bent and kissed the tremulous lips. “Beatrice dear, don’t say such things. Of course you can comfort--him.”

The frail, agitated woman took the girl’s cool hands between her own feverish ones and pressed them solemnly. “Isma, you don’t know what it means to see the man I worship suffering as Neville is suffering and being unable to make things easier for him! You can have no idea what it is like to stand aside helpless and inert--lie in here because I am not wanted--there.” She made a pathetic little gesture in the direction of her husband’s room. Then all at once she turned her large, burning eyes on her companion. “But _you_ can soothe him, _you_ can comfort him.” She waved the girl’s attempt at protest impatiently aside. “No, Isma, it is no use bolstering me up with false hope. I have had my eyes opened. Neville told me--this morning”--she lowered her eyes and the flush in her cheeks deepened--“what he--meant to--do-- All. Only, Isma”--she glanced up imploringly--“don’t judge him too harshly. Remember he was desperate, beside himself, mad with longing and love! Life had become unbearable without you. Can’t you understand? But he does love you, he does--in the same hot, impetuous way that I--love him.” She stopped suddenly, choking, then, making a great effort to control her voice, she continued, “Isma, do you really--love your cousin, for--if you don’t--”

The girl started. “You know I do, Beatrice.”

“You have said so, but you have not acted like it, and that made me think that if, after all--you didn’t--care for him, there might be--hope for--Neville--later,” she finished with supreme courage.

“Beatrice, how can you--suggest such a thing?” cried the girl, her eyes wide with pain. “It is too terrible! Besides, I swear to you I love Falcon. There was a misunderstanding between us, but it has been cleared away now--”

“Ah, I see. I am glad for your sake. Still--how I wish it might have been--otherwise for--Neville.”

“Beatrice, you surely can’t wish that!” Isma exclaimed, unutterably touched by the depths of her friend’s selfless devotion.

“I do wish it, Isma; I mean it. I should feel happier when I--go if only you might have--cared for him.”

Great tears sprang into the golden-gray eyes and splashed down the girl’s softly curving cheeks.

“Beatrice,” she whispered, “I can’t bear it--I can’t!”

“You see, I love him--and you,” said her companion, simply.

After a sad, tremulous pause Lady Berriedale continued: “Isma, will you go to him now? He--needs you.”

Miss Folkestone drew back quickly. “Not that, Beatrice--not that!” she pleaded, in alarm.

“Yes,” persisted the woman on the couch, eagerly. “I want you to do it, Isma. Do it for my sake if you will not do it for--his.”

“Oh no, Beatrice, don’t ask that,” she replied, still struggling against the inevitable.

“Now, Isma, be kind. You will have so much happiness in the future, can’t you at least spare him a little sympathy?”

Her companion saw it was useless to try to escape the ordeal. “Very well, if you insist on it, I will go, but only if you come with me.”

The invalid rose from among the cushions and, leaning on the arm of her tall, strong friend, they walked together to the injured man’s apartment.

On the threshold Lady Berriedale stood still and said, “Isma has come to see you, Neville”; then she pushed the girl gently into the room and closed the door behind her.

Lord Berriedale lay white and large-eyed among a pile of elaborate pillows, his damaged arm, bandaged and in splints, resting stiffly on the coverlet. His face was drawn and its pallor accentuated by his black eyes and his pale-blue silk sleeping-suit.

A light flittered over his features as Isma came toward him. The color had died out of her cheeks, but her face looked peculiarly calm.

The man on the bed moved his left hand as if he would have held it out to her, then suddenly checked himself.

“I suppose you would rather not shake hands,” he said, a little awkwardly.

“It is hardly necessary,” replied his visitor, in a voice that harmonized with the serenity of her expression.

He gazed at her with questioning scrutiny. “I wonder why you have come?” he reflected, aloud.

“Because Beatrice wished it and because you are in--pain.”

He laughed in a hollow, mocking way. “And so you are sorry for me because of--this.” He pointed scornfully to the bandaged arm. “A slight hurt like that will rouse your pity, but when I am racked body and soul in the inferno itself you pass me by unmoved!” He tried to raise himself, dragging at the injured arm in his effort to reach out and draw a chair nearer the bed.

“Don’t--please don’t move,” said Isma, hastily, moving the chair closer and sitting down beside him.

“What does it matter about these wretched limbs!” He laughed again. “The pain in them is a mere pin-prick, a pleasure, a delight, compared to--the other!”

“Please don’t refer to that,” replied the girl, looking away.

“I thought you had come to give me a little--sympathy!”

“So I have.”

“Then give it to me about the thing I need it most.”

The fierce appeal in his voice made her glance at him. He looked haggard and his eyes seemed strangely glazed.

Miss Folkestone sighed suddenly.

“Isma,” he began, regarding her intently, “are you--sorry at last?”

“I am,” she replied, steadily.

“You don’t--hate me quite as much as--usual?”

“I should never have hated you at all if--” She ceased speaking and looked down at her hands moving restlessly in her lap.

“I have been a consummate ass! I might have known _you_ were not won the way I have always tried to--gain you,” he said, bitterly. “Your cousin was wiser than I, after all. Last night I thought him a perfect fool for not making better use of his opportunities; but I see now he knew what he was about; he could wait, and that is where I have failed!”

“Is that the--_only_ thing you have--found out?” Her clear eyes looked questioningly into his.

“No,” he replied, a faint color creeping into his pallid face, “I have been more than a--fool--I have been--”

She stopped him with a gesture. “You need not say it.”

“Isma,” he said, after a silence, “I should like to ask you to--forgive me; but I suppose that is too much to expect--”

She did not reply at once, so he continued: “I meant to-- Well, you know what I--intended last night--but please remember that I was maddened with longing for you. I couldn’t endure the talk of your marrying your cousin, couldn’t tolerate seeing him near you--though he had little enough for an engaged man, Heaven knows! But you made it all up to him last night, didn’t you! Can you imagine what it meant to me to see you together--like that! The sight has been with me ever since. I can’t forget it; it has been burned into the very tissues of my brain! Isma, I am being punished--fearfully punished--”

“I am so--very sorry,” murmured his companion, confused and troubled.

But the man did not seem to hear her.

“I wonder,” he reflected, aloud, “how many men you have driven to distraction.”

“Lord Berriedale, I have not come to discuss these things with you,” she said, with gentle firmness.

Again he did not heed her. “Isma, why don’t you understand? Why have you no sympathy with the poor devils you are sending--to hell!”

The girl shivered. “How can you say that to me! I have never given men any--encouragement!”

“I know it. It is not your fault, of course. It is your magnetic, extravagant womanhood, your bewildering loveliness, which does the damage! You are no coquette; no one knows this better than I. You are the purest, the most noble woman I have ever come across; still, you draw us to our destruction all the same. Your personality is like champagne that goes to the head--”

“Lord Berriedale, please don’t talk like that or I shall have to leave you. You mentioned beauty of character. Why are you so blind? Why can’t you see that the most beautiful, most self-sacrificing woman who ever lived is the one linked to your life? She is the personification of selflessness and goodness! If you had heard what she said to me this morning, I think it would have touched even your heart and made you rejoice that you had been given such a wife!”

The man beside her sighed deeply. “Beatrice is good,” he assented, “and if I had only been her brother-- But her husband--” A shudder passed through his frame. “Isma, you can’t know what it means to be--that to a woman you feel toward as a--sister, while your whole vitalized manhood clamors for--some one else! Isma, it is--hell--_hell_!” He reiterated the last word in a voice which made the listening girl turn cold. She thought all at once what it would mean to surrender her womanhood to any one but Falcon. It would be ghastly! So the man beside her had suffered like _that_!

Instantly she stretched out her hand to him and he clasped it eagerly. “Isma, do you understand--at last?”

“I think so,” she replied, very softly.

Lord Berriedale released her hand and took a pocketbook from under his pillow, opened it, and took out a few loose papers on which were written some verses.

“This is a Danish poem,” he said, handing her the sheets. “A friend of mine translated it and gave me a copy. The translation is a very rough one, but the meaning is clear. Read it and you may understand a little more fully what I have been through.”

Isma read:

CRUCIFIED

As I looked over the earth
I saw cross beside cross.
I saw them raised,
I heard them fall;
Bloodstained were they all.
Crosses for the living
I saw they were.
Crucified they hung,
Pair beside pair.
Strange moans rang into the air,
Sobbing their torment by day and night.
Crucified they hung
To the same brutal wood,
Man to woman,
Soul to soul!

Not wedded by heart-bonds,
Not tied by love’s rapture,
Condemned to suffer lifelong years,
Bleeding together, hand by hand!
Blanched they hung on the same ghastly tree
Hand to hand,
Foot to foot,
Knee to knee.
Who suffered most
God alone knew!

If one hand is clenched in rebellious revolt,
And the pair struggle who are tied together,
The nails cut deeper into the wound--!
The flesh must be ripped
If one will be freed.
And yet forever the scar will burn!
Man and woman,
You _must_ learn
Those nails will hold
Till life shall end!

Never again the gap will heal,
Never will close the bleeding wounds,
Even after days and years.
The torment you shared,
The blood ye bled
At the same moment,
Will bind you together
Till the slumbers of death!

Once bound, ye hang
Hopelessly chained
Foot to foot,
Hand to hand,
Bearing the nail-prints
Till life’s solemn end--
Crucified! Crucified!
To the same fatal wood
Man to woman,
Soul to soul!

For a long time she did not raise her eyes from the paper, but when at last she looked up tears glistened in her lashes and her lips trembled. “Is it like that?” she breathed, a sob in her voice.

“Yes,” he murmured, an odd glassiness in his gaze.

Impulsively the girl bent over him. “I forgive you--now,” she whispered.

“Because you have seen--the cross?”

“Yes,” she faltered.

Lord Berriedale looked out of one of the windows at the stirring, sunlit ocean, and the curious fixedness in his glance made Isma think suddenly of the bare cliff she had watched the night before, gazing abstractedly out to sea.

“Lord Berriedale,” she said, softly, “perhaps it is only from the cross that we learn to look beyond the scenes of earth--”

“Yes, perhaps so. But what do we find--there?” he asked, almost wearily.

A very bright color leaped into the girl’s face and she dropped her eyes for a moment in reverent shyness. Then she lifted them suddenly and said, in a low, clear voice, “There we find--God.”

The man turned to her. “And--God protected you, after all--last night. He did not fail you and--He was stronger than the demon in me. Isn’t it strange,” he continued, looking down on his bandaged limb, “that the arm which held you so cruelly will never be of--use to me--again.”

She gazed at him with dazzling tenderness.

“I am sorry--so very grieved. Still--perhaps from your cross you, too, will find--the Infinite.”

He shaded his eyes with his hand, and they were both silent for some minutes.

“Perhaps,” he murmured, at last.

Then with another gentle pressure on his fingers Isma stole softly out of the room.

X

MIGRATING BIRDS

When Isma left Lord Berriedale’s room she walked out on the balcony and stood looking over the vast country that stretched beyond the garden and avenue.