Sorell sat on impatiently in the darkening garden,
hoping always that Connie would explain, would confess;
for he was certain that she had somehow schemed for
this preposterous reconciliation—if it was
a reconciliation. She wanted no doubt to heal
Falloden’s conscience, and so to comfort her
own. And she would sacrifice Otto, if need be,
in the process! He vowed to himself that he would
prevent it, if he could.
Connie eyed him wistfully. Confidences seemed
to be on her very lips; and then stopped there.
In the end she neither explained nor confessed.
But when he was gone, she walked up and down the lawn
under the evening sky, her hands behind her—passionately
dreaming.
She had never thought of any such plan as had actually
sprung to light. And she understood Sorell’s
opposition.
All the same, her heart sang over it. When she
had asked Radowitz and Douglas to meet, each unbeknown
to the other, when she had sent away the kind old
aunts and prepared it all, she had reckoned on powers
of feeling in Falloden, in which apparently only she
and Aunt Marcia believed; and she had counted on the
mystical and religious fervour she had long since
discovered in Radowitz. That night—after
Sir Arthur’s death—she had looked
tremblingly into the boy’s very soul, had perceived
his wondering sense of a special message to him through
what had happened, from a God who suffered and forgives.
Yes, she had tried to make peace.
And she guessed—the tears blinding her
as she walked—at the true meaning of Falloden’s
sudden impulse, and Otto’s consent. Falloden’s
was an impulse of repentance; and Otto’s had
been an impulse of pardon, in the Christian sense.
“If I am to die, I will die at peace with him.”
Was that the thought—the tragic and touching
thought—in the boy’s mind?
As to Falloden, could he do it?—could he
rise to the height of what was offered him? She
prayed he might; she believed he could.
Her whole being was aflame. Douglas was no longer
in love with her; that was clear. What matter,
if he made peace with his own soul? As for her,
she loved him with her whole heart, and meant to go
on loving him, whatever any one might say. And
that being so, she would of course never marry.
Could she ever make Nora understand the situation?
By letter, it was certainly useless to try!
Constance Bledlow stepped out of the Bletchley train
into the crowded Oxford station. Annette was
behind her. As they made their way towards the
luggage van, Connie saw a beckoning hand and face.
They belonged to Nora Hooper, and in another minute
Connie found herself taken possession of by her cousin.
Nora was deeply sunburnt. Her colour was more
garishly red and brown, her manner more trenchant
than ever. At sight of Connie her face flushed
with a sudden smile, as though the owner of the face
could not help it. Yet they had only been a few
minutes together before Connie had discovered that,
beneath the sunburn, there was a look of tension and
distress, and that the young brown eyes, usually so
bright and bold, were dulled with fatigue. But
to notice such things in Nora was only to be scorned.
Connie held her tongue.
