Barnabas spoke very gently but, as she stared up at him, a movement of his horse brought him into the light of the lanterns and, in that moment, her breath caught, for now she beheld him as she had seen him once before, a wild, desperate figure, bare-headed, torn, and splashed with mud; grim of mouth, and in his eyes a look she had once dreamed of and never since forgotten. And, as she gazed, Barnabas spoke again and motioned with his pistol hand.
"Get back into the chaise, my lady."
"No!" she answered, and, though her face was hidden now, he knew that she was weeping. "I'm going on, now—to Ashleydown, to save Ronald, to redeem the promise I gave our mother; I must, I must, and oh—nothing matters to me—any more, so let me go!"
"My lady," said Barnabas, in the same weary tone, "you must get back into the chaise."
"And let Ronald die—and such a death! Never! oh never!"
Barnabas sighed, slipped the pistol into his pocket and dismounted, but, being upon his feet, staggered; then, or ever she knew, he had caught her in his arms, being minded to bear her to the chaise. But in that moment, he looked down and so stood there, bound by the spell of her beauty, forgetful of all else in the world, for the light of the lanterns was all about them, and Cleone's eyes were looking up into his.
"Barnabas," she whispered, "Barnabas, don't let me go!—save me from—that!"
"Ah, Cleone," he murmured, "oh, my lady, do you doubt me still? Can you think that I should fail you?
"Oh, my dear, my dear—I've found a way, and mine is a better way than yours. Be comforted then and trust me, Cleone."
Then, she stirred in his embrace, and, sighing, hid her face close against him and, with her face thus hidden, spoke:
"Yes, yes—I do trust you, Barnabas, utterly, utterly! Take me away with you—tonight, take me to Ronald and let us go away together, no matter where so long as—we go—together, Barnabas." Now when she said this, she could feel how his arms tightened about her, could hear how his breath caught sudden and sharp, and, though she kept her face hid from him, well she knew what look was in his eyes; therefore she lay trembling a little, sighing a little, and with fast-beating heart. And, in a while, Barnabas spoke:
"My lady," said he heavily, "would you trust yourself to—a publican's son?"
"If he would not be—too proud to—take me, Barnabas."
"Oh, my lady—can't you see that if I—if I take you with me tonight, you must be with me—always?"
Cleone sighed.
"And I am a discredited impostor, the—the jest of every club in
London!"
Cleone's hand stole up, and she touched his grimly-set chin very gently with one white finger.
"I am become a thing for the Fashionable World to sharpen its wits upon," he continued, keeping his stern gaze perseveringly averted. "And so, my lady—because I cannot any longer cheat folks into accepting me as a—gentleman, I shall in all probability become a farmer, some day."
Cleone sighed.
"But you," Barnabas continued, a little harshly, "you were born for higher and greater fortune than to become the wife of a humble farming fellow, and consequently—"
"But I can make excellent butter, Barnabas," she sighed, stealing a glance up to him, "and I can cook—a little."
Now when she said this, he must needs look down at her again and lo! there, at the corner of her mouth was the ghost of the dimple! And, beholding this, seeing the sudden witchery of her swift-drooping lashes, Barnabas forgot his stern resolutions and stooped his head, that he might kiss the glory of her hair. But, in that moment, she turned, swift and sudden, and yielded him her lips, soft, and warm, and passionate with youth and all the joy of life. And borne away upon that kiss, it seemed to Barnabas, for one brief, mad-sweet instant that all things might be possible; if they started now they might reach London in the dawn and, staying only for Barrymaine, be aboard ship by evening! And it was a wide world, a very fair world, and with this woman beside him—
"It would be so—so very easy!" said he, slowly.
"Yes, it will be very easy!" she whispered.
"Too easy!" said he, beginning to frown, "you are so helpless and lonely, and I want you so bitterly, Cleone! Yes, it would be very easy. But you taught me once, that a man must ever choose the harder way, and this is the harder way, to love you, to long for you, and to bid you—good-by!"
"Oh! Barnabas?"
"Ah, Cleone, you could make the wretchedest hut a paradise for me, but for you, ah, for you it might some day become only a hut, and I, only a discredited Amateur Gentleman, after all."
Then Barnabas sighed and thereafter frowned, and so bore her to the chaise and setting her within, closed the door.
"Turn!" he cried to the postilion.
"Barnabas!"
But the word was lost in the creak of wheels and stamping of hoofs
as the chaise swung round; then Barnabas remounted and, frowning
still, trotted along beside it. Now in a while, lifting his sombre
gaze towards a certain place beside the way, he beheld the dim
outline of a finger-post, a very ancient finger-post which (though
it was too dark to read its inscription) stood, he knew, with
wide-stretched arms pointing the traveller:
TO LONDON. TO HAWKHURST.
And being come opposite the finger-post, he ordered the post-boy to stop, for, small with distance, he caught the twinkling lights of lanterns that swung to and fro, and, a moment later, heard a hail, faint and far, yet a stentorian bellow there was no mistaking. Therefore coming close beside the chaise, he stooped down and looked within, and thus saw that Cleone leaned in the further corner with her face hidden in her hands.
"You are safe, now, my lady," said he, "the Bo'sun is coming, the
Captain will be here very soon."
But my lady never stirred.
"You are safe now," he repeated, "as for Ronald, if Chichester's silence can save him, you need grieve no more, and—"
"Ah!" she cried, glancing up suddenly, "what do you mean?"
"That I must go, my lady, and—and—oh, my dear love, this harder way—is very hard to tread. If—we should meet no more after tonight, remember that I loved you—as I always have done and always must, humble fellow though I am. Yes, I think I love you as well as any fine gentleman of them all, and—Cleone—Good-by!"
