England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- England -- Fiction
Was he becoming a mystic at last? As he walked by Robin's side on the
moor, as he dined with her, talked with her, sat and watched her at her
sewing, more than ever each hour he believed that her dream was no
ordinary fantasy of the unguided brain. She had in some strange way
seen Donal. Where--how--where he had come from--where he returned after
their meeting--he ceased to ask himself. What did it matter after all if
souls could so comfort and sustain each other? The blessedness of it was
enough.
He wondered as Dowie had done whether she would reveal anything to him
or remain silent. There was no actual reason why she should speak. No
remotest reference to the subject would come from himself.
It was in truth a new planet he lived on during this marvel of a week.
The child was wonderful, he told himself. He had not realised that a
feminine creature could be so exquisitely enfolding and yet leave a man
so wholly free. She was not always with him, but her spirit was so near
that he began to feel that no faintest wish could form itself within his
mind without her mysteriously knowing of its existence and realising it
while she seemed to make no effort. She did pretty things for him and
her gladness in his pleasure in them touched him to the core. He also
knew that she wished him to see that she was well and strong and never
tired or languid. There was, perhaps, one thing she could do for him and
she wanted to prove to him that he might be sure she would not fail him.
He allowed her to perform small services for him because of the dearness
of the smile it brought to her lips--almost a sort of mothering smile.
It was really true that she wanted to be his little slave and he had
imagination enough to guess that she comforted herself by saying the
thing to herself again and again; childlike and fantastic as it was.
She taught him to sleep as he had not slept for a year; she gave him
back the power to look at his food without a sense of being repelled;
she restored to him the ability to sit still in a chair as though it
were meant to rest in. His nerves relaxed; his deadly fatigue left him;
and it was the quiet nearness of Robin that had done it. He felt younger
and knew that on his return to London he should be more inclined to
disbelieve exaggerated rumours than to believe them.
On the evening before he left Darreuch they sat at the Tower window
again. She did not take her sewing from its basket, but sat very quietly
for a while looking at the purple folds of moor.
"You will go away very early in the morning," she began at last.
"Yes. You must promise me that you will not awaken."
"I do not waken early. If I do I shall come to you, but I think I shall
be asleep."
"Try to be asleep."
He saw that she was going to say something else--something not connected
with his departure. It was growing in her eyes and after a silent moment
or so she began.
"There is something I want to tell you," she said.
"Yes?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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