Chapter XXII

She could bear to live if Edward proved a martyr and not a traitor. Oh! let him be the other woman's husband if it must be--as long as Katharine knew him guiltless. She bent her brow and set her rare mental powers of clear thought, reasonable argument and logical deduction, to trace a mean between a biassed partisanship and common justice.... One had known such strange, abnormal things result from shellshock.... And Edward loved her.... Oh! most entirely loved her.... It would be possible to live on, empty of joy, bare of all happiness--if Edward were a martyr.... God send it might prove so....

She gripped the arms of her chair and shut her eyes, striving to reconstruct the situation, assembling all the evidence upon his side; trying to live through all those twilit months the life of the man with the jangled nerves, and the numbed and blunted brain.... Just, generous, noble-minded Katharine, incapable of pettiness, great in her desolation.... She opened her eyes, to encounter the sorrowful stare of his--and began to speak, calmly, almost cheerfully--drawing him on insensibly to talk to her of _that day_....

That day in September of the previous year, when in those trenches south of Loos the First Battalion of the "Tweedburghs" had been wiped out, almost to a man, for the second time in the War.

"Why should you want to hear that story again--and now?" he pleaded: "My God, don't ask me to tell it now! ..."

But she asked it with her steady eyes upon him; and he obeyed her with knitted brows and twitching lips and cold sweat upon his face:

"The Germans had started shelling our front-line parapet at 5.30 that morning.... At a rough calculation they pounded us with eleven hundred guns.... Half the battalion were in the front line, and half in supports. And we had been given instructions to hold those trenches at any cost...."

He licked his dry lips and threw her a dog-like glance of entreaty. But she waited inexorably and he went on:

"We had taken them by assault and we weren't willing to lose them. Our guns gave back Hell for leather, but we kept getting Super-Hell. News kept coming through to us at Battalion Headquarters, of casualties, fresh casualties.... Always killed--hardly ever wounded! ... My God--my God! ... And at last I and my Adjutant--Cameron-Bain--were left at Headquarters with a few orderlies, cooks and bottle-washers. We'd sent up practically every man through the barrage to help 'em carry on.... And all my officers were killed except two. Jameson and Kinray-Heptown, the officers in charge of the Advanced Line Wireless and Telephone Communications. Don't ask to hear the rest. What good can it do? ..."

"It is my right," she answered him, "to hear this story from you.... And I am waiting...."

So he went on:

"There came a minute when Cameron-Bain and I stared at each other blankly across a pit of horror. We found the Advanced Line Communications getting queer and dribbling into incoherency.... Then they stopped.... And we knew that the worst had happened--though we waited, hoping against hope that Kinray-Heptown would speak again. Then we tossed up a penny to decide which of us-- This hurts! ... Must I carry through with it to the end? ..."

Her great maternal heart wept tears of blood for him. But yes.... For his sake she compelled him to carry through....

"I called 'Tails' and won, though Bain swore I hadn't.... Then we shook hands and I went up through the German barrage. Trains of stretcher-bearers and wounded--our stretcher-bearers and our wounded--lay dead upon that horrible road.... And I got to Supports--and found them evacuated, except for the Dead--there were plenty of dead men! Gas was being sent over from our Advanced trench by somebody--the wind being in our favour--if nothing else was! But the German guns kept on sending over High Explosive--5.9 shell--and shrapnel: and the fire of their machine-guns--they were enfilading us from two angles--came at us like a solid wall of lead! ..."

He wetted his parched lips and rubbed his forehead. And still she waited for him to tell the rest.

"I got to the Advanced trenches.... Hardly even challenged! The few men left alive there looked at me as if I'd been a ghost. But they carried on, and I pushed through to the T. & W. dug-out, to find it had been blown in by a High Velocity Shell. Kinray-Heptown, our T.C.O., lay dead--sprawling over the table, his blood and brains and so on--all mixed up horribly with the _débris_. And his assistant--Jameson--was in the same case. But the Wireless and telephone installations were in working-trim,--so I took them both over--receiving and transmitting messages in Morse Code from the connected Advanced Posts through Cameron-Bain to Brigade Headquarters, until one by one they left off talking, and I took off the head-band and put down the receiver--"

He might have but now come in out of the rain, his haggard face so streamed with wet....

"Because I knew they were all dead and that I was alone.... Then a blaze of hot yellow light filled the place--and the table reared on its hind-legs--and Kinray-Heptown--dead as stone and covered with blood, and with his skull--you know!--I've told you!--Heptown stood bolt upright a second--and then went for me!"

He laughed, the loud, unnaturally harsh laugh that had startled Katharine on the night of his arrival....

"High Explosive plays queer tricks. Another 5.9 shell had landed in the dug-out--and I was pinned down with Heptown on top of me--and the heavy case of the Wireless outfit on top of him--and the corrugated zinc, and sandbags, and earth of the roof on top of all! And I lay there with his awful face crushed down on mine, and remembered," he laughed again harshly, "what a silly kind of ass he used to be.... Always running after new women and howling for sympathy--because he was such a poor devil, without a rap beyond his pay--and hadn't a living relative in the world...."

"Edward! O Edward! my poor love! ..."

He did not hear her voice of throbbing tenderness. He was passing through that unspeakable ordeal again:

"A dismal man. They called him 'Gummidge' in the Regiment, and the nickname fitted the beggar to a 'T.' How I crawled out from under him ... can't imagine for the life of me! Probably my tin hat saved me from smothering.... They say I'd not a rag on when they found me--yellow as a guinea from melinite and smeared with blood--not mine, but Heptown's! Poor devil!--not a rap beyond his pay--not a living soul belonging to him in the world! ..."

He shuddered, and knitted his hands together closely, and so sat rigid--battling with some invisible power that strove with him for mastery of will....

"Edward! ..."

She was kneeling by his chair,--her arms wrapped round about him, her cheek to his,--the swell and heave of her bosom close to his--her warmth and sweetness his--all his once more....

"All is quite clear to me now. You have not wronged me! You are blameless--my man of men! Listen, dear Edward! In some way strange to us, clear to neurologists--when you lay buried alive, pinned down helpless by the body of that poor dead officer, the horror of those dreadful minutes--or hours--stamped his personality--branded it, I might better say--upon your memory so that you could not forget it if you would! The story you told to that poor girl afterwards--your conviction that you were poor, unloved and friendless--all came from that--were part of the strange obsession. Dear, in my eyes you are quite blameless. Forgive me, Edward, if"--he felt the sob she bravely kept back--"in the first agony of hearing what you have told me--I let myself feel resentful towards you!"

"Katharine!"

He drew a great breath of relief, and his load was lightened. She believed.... Oh, wonder of wonders, she believed.... He faltered:

"Then you do not hate and despise me? ..."

Her swift kiss touched his hands. He heard her saying:

"On the contrary, I admire, I love, I worship you!--my hero, my martyr--my King--my man of men! ..."

"KATHARINE!"

In the rapture of that declaration Yaill would have embraced her; clasped her close to his starving heart and covered her with caresses. But she freed herself from him gently and with decision, though he pleaded humbly for a single kiss.

"Dear, when we say Good-bye, then I will kiss you. It is my right, I shall not waive my claim. We were husband and wife in soul if not in actuality--we are parted--not through any mutual change of feeling, but by an act of the inscrutable Will of God. You have a wife--it is for us to remember it!--and so I ask you to go away from here--"

"'Go!' ... Leave you now? ..."

His face grew hard and obstinate.

"Why should I leave you? Do we not love each other? Have we not, as you say yourself, been one in heart for all these years! ... We have done no wrong, so why should we suffer? And, if I leave you, where am I to go? Not back to that woman? ..."

A spasm contracted her white face to a pinched mask of jealousy. He hardly knew the voice that came through the clenched teeth and stiffened lips:

"Why not? She _is_ your wife!"

"My wife through a vulgar deceit. Don't say you hold her guiltless?"

"Almost, if she believed you!" she forced herself to say.

"And this is your love!" he snarled at her, stung to injustice.

She answered--and the voice was once more Katharine's:

"This is my love! ..."

He wheeled to the fireplace and stood in thought, resting his elbow on the mantelshelf. When he looked back at her it was to say:

"And if I obey you now and leave you, what are your plans? What do you intend to do?"

She told him:

"I had made up my mind--supposing you had left me this time without settling a definite date for our marriage--that I would get drafted out to the East to help Hilda. You remember Lady Donnithorpe? She was a great friend of mine, I have often told you, when we were girls together at Chalkcliff--fellow-pupils at the Convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart.... Sir Hugo is on the Staff of the Commander-in-Chief at Cairo. Hilda is Commandant of the Red Cross Hospital at Montana--seventeen miles from Alexandria--standing in wonderful grounds. It was formerly, or so I understand--a palace of the ex-Khedive. I could drive a car for them, or nurse--I have my certificate--"

"You seem to have got your plans all ready cut and dried--without much reference to me! ..."

His face was wrung as he looked round at her.

"Don't be cruel, Edward! Do not let me remember by-and-by--that on this day that sees me shorn of everything, you were unkind--for the first time...."

He gave a short, impatient groan.

"Who is unkind to both of us but yourself? But you shall be obeyed--I will leave Kerr's Arbour."

Each of the five words gave her its separate stab. She never winced, but said to him unfalteringly:

"There is a train from Cauldstanes at six o'clock. You could catch the King's Cross Express by changing at Carlisle...."

"And it is now four-thirty."

From habit he had glanced at the cheap watch strapped upon his wrist.... The heavy lines between his knitted brows deepened and a vein throbbed in his temple, as he stripped the poor trinket from his wrist and dropped it into the glowing heart of the fire. The glass burst with a sharp little crack--and the leather strap writhed among the hot, devouring flames so like some reptile dying in torment that Katharine turned her eyes away. As Yaill's hard, level voice went on saying:

"From Cauldstanes, six o'clock! ... Thanks! that train would suit me very well. Please no--don't ring!" Her hand had gone out to touch the stud of the bell beside the fireplace. "Don't trouble to order any kind of trap.... I had much rather walk. Some hard tramping in the frosty air will do me good.... Really.... I should prefer it! ..."

"But--your luggage!" She looked at him anxiously.

"My kit! ..." He could have laughed outright, but he controlled himself by main force, and went on in the same stiff, formal tone: "Send it to-morrow morning by an early train to my Club in Pall Mall. I shall take care to leave it properly addressed, so that you have no trouble of any kind--"

"Edward.... Be just ... be fair! Don't--torture me like this!"

The cry broke from Katharine barely of her volition. She caught him by the wrists.

"How am I torturing you?" he asked her coldly.

"What have you decided to do?" Her eyes were on a level with his, begging, commanding. "Tell me! ..." She caught him by the wrists. "Are you going back--to her? ..."

"No!"

Her hands had been like steel upon Yaill's wrists. Her eyes, tawny and fierce as those of an enraged lioness, were fixed upon his. The pang of pity she had felt for the poor giver of the destroyed watch was lost in her anguished sense of her own despoliation,--her own helpless impotence to hold her usurped rights.... But at that deep, stern No! from him her hands grew weak upon his wrists, and the lioness-fury in her eyes died out and left them tender....

"I have said to you that I cannot share my life with her--the woman I have married. I swear to you she shall want for nothing--be treated honourably! As to my plans--the most definite is to go to the Near East and find your brother Julian. Not to fight with Turks for the Holy Sepulchre. My faith is dead in me. When God gives me back You, then I will be friends with Him! Until then--"

"Oh, Edward, hush! ..."

"I will not shock you more, dearest of living women. Give me that one last kiss, and say: 'Good luck to you on your road!' For at the end of the road I may find your brother Julian. In some Turkish prison--enclosure or labour-camp, working under the lash. Now will you kiss--"

"Not here, dear Edward! ..."

She draped her head with the black-lace veil that had been her dead mother's, and smiled--how could she bear to smile?--as she held out her hand....

"We will say our Good-bye in the chapel.... Come, my dearest! ..."

He could not resist her look, her touch.... Together, they went out....

The fragrance of incense was sweet in the still place, the treasure-chamber of this Catholic dwelling; where you felt the Blessed Sacrament as a guarded Flame, a vital Essence, a Presence mysterious and impalpable, yet instinct with latent Power and conserved Force. When Katharine bowed in adoration of her Lord and Master, Yaill stood erect, silently defying Him,--with set jaws and scowling brows, and hard glittering eyes.

But when Katharine rose, and again took his hand, his icy armour melted. His eyes softened and he yielded to her touch like a big, docile child. She drew him to the small Communion-rail--knelt on the worn red cushion, and was silent; gathering strength to speak, fighting with her anguish; while the haggard frowning man stood stiffly waiting at her side.

A moment more and Katharine's low voice flowed out upon the silence. She said, to the Living Presence in the Veiled Tabernacle:

"My Saviour and my God, Thou seest at Thy Footstool two of Thy servants, who after long years of love and fidelity, and patient waiting and hopes often frustrated, are parted--for life perhaps--as if Death had come between. We do not know--"

The sweet voice wavered and then went on steadily:

"We do not know why we must suffer--we only know it is Thy Will. And we offer Thee--O give us strength to offer Thee! this agony of parting--in submission to Thy Majesty and in expiation of our sins--

"What sins?" Yaill asked her in a deep, stern voice.

She seemed not to hear, and went on speaking:

"The sins that we weak mortals have committed in our lives. And now to Thy care, Who didst offer Thyself a living Sacrifice for the redemption of the world upon the Altar of the Cross--I commend my beloved whom Thou hast taken from me! Preserve him in body and in soul from every sort of danger. Guide him, guard him--lead him upon his path in life.... And if--"

She heard Yaill's boot-heel grind upon the stone, and knew that he was trembling....

"Let this end! ..." he said below his breath. "Do you hear me! End now, Katharine! ..."

But she went on, fighting,--had he known the truth,--for the soul of him, her dearest:

"And if we may never be one on earth, O let us be one in Heaven! ..."

Yaill gritted his teeth savagely, and a rending sob tore through his frame. The tears were streaming down his face as he stammered out to her, gulping and choking:

"Lend me ... hanky ... Kathy! I can't find--"

She gave him her handkerchief as a mother might a child, and went resolutely on to the end of her prayer.

"And now before Thee, here present in the Blessed Sacrament as truly as when Thou didst walk with Thy Beloved upon this sorrowful earth,--I promise to be faithful to Edward Yaill my lover, in body and soul, through Life till Death, and in the Eternal Life! ..."

He gave a hoarse inarticulate cry and sank to his knees beside her. She turned and folded him in her arms, and his face sank on her bosom, and the black-lace veil that draped her head fell over his too. It smelt of violets. His scalding tears wetted her neck.... She lifted his face and kissed him,--with all her soul kissed him. But a fold of her mother's black-lace veil came between her mouth and his.