Graeme, in the riot of happy possibilities evoked by the disclosure of
Mr. Pixley's perfidy, would have been content to sit there for ever,
since Margaret was at his side. It was enough to know that she was
there. He did not need to turn his head to enjoy the sight of her with
gross material vision. Every tight-strung fibre of his being told him
of her nearness, in ways compared with which sight and sound and touch
are gross and feeble travesties of communication. Their spirits surely
reached out and touched in that silent communion before the rainbow
fire.
There were many things he wanted to ask her now. But they could wait,
they could wait. The Doubting Castles he had built in his despair had
had no foundations. He was building anew already, and now with rosy
hope and golden faith, and the topstones of his building mingled with
the stars.
He woke of a sudden to a sense of lack of consideration for her in his
own enjoyment. Doubtless she was tired out, and was only kept from
following Miss Penny's example by his crass stupidity in sitting there
in that stolid fashion.
"Pray forgive me!" he said, as he rose quietly. "You must be tired,
too. I will take the other room and you can join Miss Penny."
"I'm not the least tired. I never felt more awake in my life. Surely
the wind has fallen."
He went to the door and opened it and looked out.
"It is only a lull. It will probably blow up again stronger than
ever," and as he turned he found her at his elbow.
"Let us go outside," she said, and he could have taken her into his
arms. Instead, he tiptoed across the room and got her cloak, and
placed it on her shoulders with a new, vast sense of proprietorship.
He knew just how she felt. Even that room of rare delights was not
large enough just then for her and for him. The whole wide world, and
the illimitable heights of the heavens, could scarce contain that
which was in them. Their hearts were full, and that which was in them
was that of which God is the ultimate perfection. And in their ears,
in the gaps of the storm, was the roaring thunder of the great white
waves as they tore along the black sides of Brecqhou.
"Tell me more about those letters," she said briefly. "What did you
write?"
"I wrote, nominally, to inform you of Lady Elspeth's sudden call to
Scotland, but actually to tell you how sorely I regretted the sudden
break in our acquaintance which had become to me so very great a
delight."
"And when you got no answer?"
"I waited and waited, and then I had a sudden fear that you might be
ill. And to satisfy myself I called on Mr. Pixley at his office. He
told me you were quite well, that you had had my letters, and had
handed them to him."
"Anything more?"
"Yes,--he said you were shortly to marry his son."
"That is what he wished,--and that is why I am here."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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