Isla slept the dreamless sleep of complete exhaustion, but he fought
with the problem the night through, and in the morning he was no nearer
its solution. They did not meet at breakfast, but at ten o’clock she
sent him a message that she would see him in the drawing-room.
She met him, tranquil and calm-eyed, a little pale, but without trace of
stress or strain. Rosmead himself had a slightly haggard look.
"Good morning," she said quietly. "I think I shall wait until
to-morrow. To-day I shall go back to my old quarters in Cromer Street,
Bayswater, and I shall meet you to-morrow at the station."
"And am I not to see you to-day at all?" he asked, and his eyes
travelled hungrily over her face.
She shook her head.
"I don’t think so. If there is any more to be said there will be time
to say it to-morrow. You will help me to do the right thing, won’t you?
It is--it is what I look for in you."
The words were a rebuke to Peter Rosmead, but he took it well.
"I will do the right thing--yes," he answered humbly, "but only until we
get back to Glenogle. Then, I warn you, I’m going to fight for you with
all the powers I possess. I don’t know how it is going to be done, but
win you I shall. You have not come into my life only to go out of it
again."
She smiled as she turned away, and a strange, deep contentment, gathered
in her eyes. She asked no questions, troubled herself not at all about
what was coming. So far as she was concerned the fight was over, and
the issue lay with Peter Rosmead. Her trust in him was so large and
fine a thing that she was content to leave herself and her cause in his
strong, tender hands and to let him undertake for her.
They parted then, and they met no more until they entered the train
together at Euston next morning. But during the hours of that
interminable day there was no sense of distance or of separation between
them. The same sky covered them, they breathed the same air, they were
within call of each other; it sufficed.
Rosmead went early to the station, and he had made his full arrangements
for Isla’s comfort by the time she arrived. She smiled when she saw a
first-class compartment marked "reserved," but she made neither remark
nor demur. She had left him to legislate for her and would not cavil at
trifles. That she was happy for the moment there was no need to ask.
Many times that day when Rosmead looked at her dear face he registered a
mighty vow that the man did not live who would be able to keep her from
him. Drummond must take his defeat like a man. He was young, and there
were others to choose from. In all his life Rosmead had not, until now,
met a woman who could stir his pulses or make him long to lay his
freedom at her feet as a thing for which he had no further use.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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