The card-players sat in the recess; the lovers were outside. Urquhart was by himself on a divan. She thought that he was waiting for her.

With a book for shield against the lamp she took the chair he offered her. "Aren't they extraordinary?" she said. He questioned.

"Who is extraordinary? Do you mean the card-sharpers? Not at all. It's meat and drink to them. It's we who are out of the common: daintier feeders."

"No," she said, "it's not quite that. James's strong point is that he can keep his feelings in separate pigeonholes. I'm simply quaking with fear, because my imagination has flooded me. But he won't think about the risks he's running—until he is running them."

Urquhart had been looking at her until he discovered that James had his eye upon her too. He crossed his leg and clasped the knee of it; he looked fixedly at the ceiling as he spoke.

"I should like to know what it is you're afraid of," he said in a carefully literal but carefully inaudible tone. He did that sort of thing very well.

Lucy was pinching her lip. "All sorts of things," she said. "I suffer from presentiments. I think that you or James may be hurt, for instance—"

"Do you mean," said Urquhart—as if he had been saying "Where did you get this tobacco?"—"Do you mean that you're afraid we may hurt each other?"

She hung her head deeply.

"You needn't be. If you can fear that you must forget my promise." He saw her eyes clear, then cloud again before her difficulties.

"James, at least," she said, "has never done you any harm." It was awfully true. But it annoyed him. Damn James!

"None whatever," he answered sharply. "I wonder if I haven't done him any good."

Looking at her guardedly, through half-closed eyes, he saw that she was strongly moved. Her bosom rose and fell hastily, like short waves lipping a wharf. Her hands were shut tight. "You have been the best friend I ever had," she said. "Don't think I'm not grateful."

That came better. He tapped his pipe on the ash-tray at hand. "My dear," he said, "I intend to live on your gratitude. Don't be afraid of anything. Lascia fare a me." She rewarded him with a shy look. A rueful look, it cut him like a knife; but he could have screwed it round in the wound to get more of such pain. There's no more bitter-sweet torment to a man than the thanks of the beloved woman for her freedom given back to her.

He felt very sick indeed—but almost entirely with himself. For her he chose to have pity; of Macartney he would not allow himself to think at all. Danger lay that way, and he did not intend to be dangerous. He would not even remember that he was subject to whims. The thought flitted over his mind, like an angel of death, but he dismissed it with an effort. After all, what good could come of freebooting? The game was up. Like all men of his stamp, he cast about him far and wide for a line of action; for directly the Folgefond walk was over he would be off. To stay here was intolerable—just as to back out of the walk would be ignominious. No, he would go through with that somehow; but from Odde, he thought, he might send for his things and clear out. It did not occur to him that he might have to deal with Macartney. What should Macartney want that he had not? He had vindicated the law!

But the hour was come when Macartney was to know everything. Lucy was adorable, and he simply adored her; then in the melting mood which follows she sobbed and whispered her broken confession. He had the whole story from the beginning.

He listened and learned; he was confounded, he was deeply touched. He might have been humiliated, and so frozen; he might have been offended, and so bitter; but he was neither. Her tears, her sobs, her clinging, her burning cheeks, the flood of her words, or the sudden ebb which left her speechless—all this taught him what he might be to a woman who dared give him so much. He said very little himself, and exacted the last dregs from her cup. He drank it down like a thirsty horse. Probably it was as sweet for him to drink as for her to pour; for love is a strange affair and can be its own poison and antidote.

At the end he forgot his magnanimity, so great was his need of hers. "You have opened my eyes to my own fatuity. You have made me what I never thought I could be. I am your lover—do you know that? And I have been your husband for how long? Your husband, Lucy, and now your lover. Never let these things trouble you any more."

She clung to him with passion. "I love you," she said. "I adore you. If I've been wicked, it was to prove you good to me, and to crush me to the earth. Love me again—I am yours forever."

Later she was able to talk freely to him, as of a thing past and done. "It's very odd; I can't understand it. You didn't begin to love me until he did, and then you loved me for what he saw in me. Isn't that true?"

"I couldn't tell you," he said, "because I don't know what he did see."

"He thought I was pretty—"

"So you are—"

"He thought that I liked to be noticed—"

"Well, and you do—"

"Of course. But it never struck you."

"No—fool that I was."

"I love you for your foolishness."

"Yes, but you didn't."

"No," she said quickly. "No! because you wouldn't allow it. You must let women love before you can expect them to be meek."

He laughed. "Do you intend to be meek?"

Then it was her turn to laugh. "I should think I did! That's my pride and joy. You may do what you like now."

He found that a hard saying; but it is a very true one.

The departure was made early. Lucy came down to breakfast, and the boys; but Margery Dacre did not appear. Vera of course did not. Noon was her time. The boys were to cross the fiord with them and return in the boat. Lucy would not go, seeing what was the matter with Urquhart.

Urquhart indeed was in a parlous frame of mind. He was very grim to all but the boys. He was to them what he had always been. Polite and very quiet in his ways with Lucy, he had no word for either of his companions. James treated him with deference; Francis Lingen, who felt himself despised, was depressed.

"Jolly party!" said Lancelot, really meaning it, and made Urquhart laugh. But Lucy shuddered at such a laugh. She thought of the wolves in the Zoological Gardens when at sundown they greet the night. It made her blood feel cold in her veins.

"If no one's going to enjoy himself, why does anybody go?" she said at a venture. James protested that he was going to enjoy himself prodigiously. As for Lingen, he said, it would do him no end of good.

"I jolly well wish I could go," was Lancelot's fishing shot, and Lucy, who was really sorry for Urquhart, was tempted to urge it. But James would not have heard of such a thing, she knew.

Then they went, with a great deal of fuss and bustle. James, a great stickler for the conventions, patted her shoulder for all good-bye. Urquhart waited his chance.

"Good-bye, my dear," he said. "I've had my innings here. You won't see me again, I expect. I ask your pardon for many things—but I believe that we are pretty well quits. Trust me with your James, won't you? Good-bye." He asked her that to secure himself against whims.

She could do no more than give him her hand. He kissed it, and left her. The boat was pushed out. Urquhart took the helm, with Lancelot in the crook of his arm. He turned once and waved his cap.

"There goes a man any woman could love," she told herself. If she had a regret she had it not long. "Some natural tears they shed, but dried them soon."

They made a good landing, bestowed their gear in a cart, and set out for a long climb to Brattebo, which they reached in the late afternoon—a lonely farm on the side of a naked hill. They slept there, and were to rise at four for the snow-field.



CHAPTER XXII

CATASTROPHE

They were up and away before the light, taking only one guide with them, a sinewy, dark man with a clubbed beard on his chin. If they had had two it had been better, and Urquhart, who knew that, made a great fuss; but to no purpose. All the men were at the saeters, they were told; haymaking was in full swing out there. There was nothing to be done. Urquhart was put out, and in default of another man of sense made James his partner in griefs. "I know these chaps," he said. "When they are alone they lose their heads. The least little difficulty, they shy off and turn for home. I judge this man of ours to have the heart of a mouse. He don't want to go at all. If there are two of them they egg each other on. They talk it over. Each tries to be the bolder man."

"But is there going to be any difficulty?" James enquired, surveying the waste through his eyeglass. "I don't see why there should be."

"You never know," Urquhart said curtly; but presently he was more confidential. "Don't tell that ass Lingen; but it might be quite difficult to get off this place."

James stared about him. "You know best. But is it harder to get off than on?"

"Of course it is, my dear chap," said Urquhart, quite in his old vein of good-tempered scorn. "We are going up on the north side, where the snow is as hard as a brick."

"Ah," said James, "now I see. And we go down on the south, where it's as soft—"

"Where it may be as soft as a bran-mash. Or blown over into cornices."

James saw, or said that he did. In his private mind he judged Urquhart of trying to intimidate him. The vice of the expert! But he noticed that the guide had a coil of rope, and that Urquhart carried a shovel.

It was easy going until near noon, with no snow to speak about. They climbed a series of ridges, like frozen waves; but each was higher than the last, and took them closer to the clouds. When they lunched under the shelter of some tumbled rocks a drifting rain blew across the desolation.

"Jolly!" said James, but quite happily. Lingen shivered.

"My dear man," said Urquhart, "just you wait. I'll surprise you in a quarter of an hour's time." He spoke in his old way, as hectoring whom he tolerated. James noticed it, and was amused. He hadn't yet had time to be angry with this rascal; and now he began to doubt whether he should. After all, he had gained so very much more than he had lost. Honour? Oh, that be jiggered. Something too much of his own honour. Why, it was through Urquhart's attack upon Lucy that he had found out what Lucy was. Urquhart, at this time, was marching rather in front of him: James looked him over. A hardy, impudent rogue, no doubt—with that square, small head on him, that jutting chin—and his pair of blue eyes which would look through any woman born and burn her heart to water. Yes, and so he had had Lucy's heart—as water to be poured over his feet. By Heaven, when he thought of it, he, James Adolphus, had been the greater rogue: to play the Grand Turk; to hoard that lovely, quivering creature in his still seraglio; to turn the key, and leave her there! And Jimmy Urquhart got in by the window. Of course he did. He was not an imaginative man by nature; but he was now a lover and had need to enhance his mistress. How better do that than by calling himself a d——d fool (the greatest blame he knew)? It follows that if he had been a fool, Urquhart had not! Impudent dog, if you like, but not a fool. Now, for the life of him, James could not despise a man who was not a fool. Nor could he hate one whom he had bested. He did not hate Urquhart; he wasn't angry with him; he couldn't despise him. On the contrary, he was sorry for him.

But now the miracle happened, and one could think of nothing else. As they tramped through the cold mist, over snow that was still crisp and short with frost, the light gained by degrees. The flying fog became blue, then radiant: quite suddenly they burst into the sun. The dazzling field stretched on all sides so far as the eye could see. Snow and cloud, one could not distinguish them; and above them the arch of hyaline, a blue interwoven with light, which throbbed to the point of utterance, and drowned itself in the photo-sphere. The light seemed to make the sun, to climb towards the zenith, to mass and then to burst in flame. All three men took it in, each in his fashion. Lingen was greatly moved; Urquhart became jocular.

"Well," he said to Macartney, "what do you make of that? That's worth coming up for. That ought to extenuate a good deal." James was quick to notice the phrase.

"Oh," he said, "you can show me things. I'm very much obliged to you. This is a wonder of the world."

"Now what the deuce does he mean by that?" Urquhart thought to himself. Had Lucy told him anything? He didn't believe it. Impossible. Women don't tell.

They had seven miles of snow, pretty soft by now, and steadily up hill. They bent themselves seriously to it, and found no occasion for talk. There were crevasses—green depths of death—to be avoided. Their guide, light-eyed for scares, seemed to know them all, and reserved his alarm for signs in the sky invisible to the party. He mended the pace, which became rather severe. Francis Lingen was distressed; Macartney kept back to give him company. Urquhart forged on ahead with the guide.

By four in the afternoon one at least of them was gruelled. That was Lingen. "If we don't get down after all, it'll go hard with Poplolly," Urquhart said to James. James replied, "Oh, we must get down. That's all nonsense." Urquhart said nothing, and they went on.

They reached a point where their guide, stopping for a moment, looked back at them and pointed forward with his staff. "Odde is over there," he said, and Urquhart added that he knew whereabouts they were. "If it were clear enough," he told them, "you might see it all lying below you like a map; but I doubt if you'll see anything." They pushed on.

Before the last slope, which was now close at hand, the ground became very bad. The crevasses showed in every direction, raying out like cracks on an old bench. The guide was evidently anxious. He gave up all appearance of conducting his party and went off rapidly by himself. They waited for him in silence; but presently Urquhart said, "I bet you any money he won't want to go down."

"Don't he want to dine as much as we do?" said James.

"He doesn't want to break his neck," said Urquhart; "that's his little weakness."

"I sympathise with him," James said; "but I should like to know more before I turn back."

"You'll only know what he chooses to tell you," Urquhart answered. Lingen was sitting on the snow.

The guide came back with firm steps. His eyes sought Urquhart's naturally.

"Well?" he was asked; and lifted his stock up.

"Impossible," he said.

"Why impossible?" James asked Urquhart, having none of the language, but guessing at the word.

Urquhart and the man talked; the latter was eloquent.

"He says," Urquhart told them, "that there's a great cornice, and a drop of forty feet or so. Then he thinks there's another; but he's not sure of that. He intends to go back. I knew he did before he went out to look. It's a beastly nuisance."

James looked at Lingen, who was now on his feet. "Well," he said, "what do you feel about it?"

Lingen, red in the face, said, "You'll excuse me, but I shall do what the guide proposes, though I admit to great fatigue. I don't think it would be right, under the circumstances, to do otherwise. I feel a great responsibility; but I gather that, in any case, he himself would decline to go down. You will think me timid, I dare say."

"No, no," James said. "That's all right, of course. Personally, I should be inclined to try the first cornice anyhow. There's always a chance, you know."

Urquhart looked at him keenly. "Do you mean that?" he asked him.

"Yes," James said. "Why do you ask?" Urquhart turned away. When he faced James again he was strangely altered. His eyes were narrower; lines showed beside his mouth. Temptation was hot in the mouth. "We'd better talk about it," he said, and jerked his head sideways.

James walked with him a little way. "What's all this mystery?" he asked.

"I wonder if you know what you are doing," Urquhart said; "I wonder if you know what this means. Do you know, for instance, that I don't care a damn whether I break my neck or not, and on the whole would rather that you did than didn't? You ought to know it. But I'm asking you."

James kept his eyeglass to his eye. "I think you are talking nonsense," he said, "but I don't suppose you intend it for nonsense. You inspire me to say, taking you on your face value, that I shall try the first cornice. If it's a forty-foot drop, we ought to have rope enough."

Urquhart peered at him. "You mean what you say?"

"Certainly I do." Urquhart turned on his heel.

"All right," he said, and went over to the other two.

"Macartney and I are going down," he said to Lingen. "I don't at all blame you for going back, but I'll trouble you to see that this man does the needful to-morrow. The needful is to come out here as early as he can get over the ground, to see if we want him. He had better fire a gun, or shout. If we are alive we shall answer him. If we don't answer, he had better see about it. I don't want to scare you, but this is not a joke, and I can't afford to be misunderstood. Now I'm going to tell him all that in his own lingo."

Lingen took it very badly; but said nothing. Urquhart spoke vehemently to the guide, who raised his staff and appeared to be testifying to Heaven. He handed over the rope, the shovel, and the kit with an air of Pilate washing his hands.

"Now," Urquhart said to James, "we'll rope, and see if we can cut some steps through this thing. I've seen that done." James, dropping his eyeglass, said that he was in his hands. Everybody was quiet, but they were all in a hurry.

Lingen came up to say good-bye. He was very much distressed, nearly crying. The guide, on the other hand, was chafing to be off. "If that chap calls himself a guide," said Urquhart, "he ought to be shot." The guide thereupon threw up his hands with a gesture of despair. Lingen said that he couldn't possibly go until he had seen them down. The guide, who was sullen and nervous, remained to help them. Even that seemed to be against his convictions.

They fixed one of the stocks in a crevasse; Urquhart roped. Then he went forward to the edge, or what seemed to be the edge, and having crawled on his belly so far as to be almost invisible, presently was seen to be standing up, then to fall to it with the shovel. He seemed to be cutting steps, and descending as he worked. Gradually he disappeared, and the pull on the rope began. They paid out cautiously and regularly—all seemed well. He might have had twenty feet of it; and then there was a sudden violent wrench at it, and it came back limp in Macartney's hands.

"He's gone," he said. Then he shouted with all his might. No answer came. They all shouted; the echoes rang round the waste, driven back on them from the hidden mountain tops. In the deathlike hush which followed one of them thought to hear an answering cry. Lingen heard it, or thought that he did, and began to haul up the rope. When they had the end of it in their hands it was found to be cut clean. "He did that himself," James said, then added, "I'm going down. Give me out this rope—for what it's worth." To Lingen he said, "Get back as quick as you can, and bring up some men to-morrow." Then, having secured himself, he went down the flawless snow slope, and they paid out the cord as he wanted it. He had no particular sensation of fear; he knew too little about it to have any. It is imaginative men who fear the unknown. True, the rope had been cut once, and might have to be cut again. If Urquhart had had to cut, it was because it had been too short. And now it would be shorter. But there was no time to think of anything.

The snow seemed to be holding him. He had got far beyond Urquhart's ledges, was upon the place where Urquhart must have slid rapidly down. All was well as yet, but he didn't want to overshoot the mark. He kept his nerve steady, and tried to work it all out in his mind. If this were really a cornice it must now be very thin, he thought. He drove at it with his staff, and found that it was so. It was little more than a frozen crust. He kicked into it with his feet, got a foothold, and worked the hole bigger. Then he could peer down into the deep, where the shadows were intensely blue. It looked a fearful drop; but he saw Urquhart lying there, and went on. He descended some ten, or perhaps fifteen feet more, and found himself dangling in the air. He was at the end of the rope then. "I'll risk it," he said, and got his knife out.

He dropped within a few yards of Urquhart.



CHAPTER XXIII

JAMES AND JIMMY

Macartney found him lying very still; nothing, in fact, seemed to be alive but his eyes, which were wide open and missed nothing.

"You're hurt, I'm afraid. Can you tell me anything?"

Urquhart spoke in a curiously level tone. It seemed to give impartiality to what he said, as if he had been discussing the troubles of a man he hardly knew.

"Back broken, I believe. Anyhow, I can't feel anything. I'm sorry you came down after me."

"My dear fellow," said James, "what do you take me for?"

Those bright, all-seeing, steady eyes were fixed upon him. They had the air of knowing everything.

"Well, you knew what I did take you for, anyhow, and so it would have been reasonable—"

"We won't talk about all that," James said. "Let me cover you up with something—and then I'll see what can be done about moving you."

Urquhart spoke indifferently about that. "I doubt if you can get down—and it's a good step to Odde. Four hours, I dare say."

"Yes, but there would be a house nearer than Odde. If I could get some bearers—we'd get you comfortable before dark."

"Oh, I'm comfortable enough now," Urquhart said. James thought that a bad sign.

He unpacked the rucksacks, got out the brandy-flask, a mackintosh, a sweater and a cape. "Now, my dear man, I'm going to hurt you, I'm afraid; but I must have you on a dry bed; and you must drink some of this liquor. Which will you have first?"

"The brandy," said Urquhart, "and as soon as you like."

He helped as much as he could, groaned once or twice, sweated with the effort; but the thing was done. He lay on the mackintosh, his head on a rucksack, the cape and sweater over him. Macartney went to the edge of the plateau to prospect. A billowy sea of white stretched out to a blue infinity. The clouds had lifted or been vaporised. He could see nothing of Odde; but he believed that he could make out a thread of silver, which must be the fiord. It would take him too long to get out there and back—and yet to stay here! That meant that the pair of them would die. It is but just to him to say that no alternative presented itself to him. The pair of them would die? Well, yes. What else was there? He returned. Urquhart was waiting for him, intensely awake to everything.

"Old chap," said James, "that's no go. I didn't try the snow; but I can judge distances. It's a deuce of a way down, even if there is a way, and—"

"It's all right," Urquhart said, "there isn't a way. I'm cornered this time. But there's just a chance for you—if you work at it. It'll begin to freeze—in fact, it has begun already. Now if you can find the shovel, you might employ yourself finely, digging a stairway. You'll be up by midnight."

"Never mind about me," James said. "I'm going to keep you warm first."

But Urquhart was fretting. He frowned and moved his head about. "No, no, don't begin that. It's not worth it—and I can't have you do it. You ought to know who I am before you begin the Good Samaritan stunt. I want to talk to you while I can. I've got a good deal to tell you. That will be better for me than anything." Jimmy was prepared for something of the kind.

"I believe it will," he said. "Go on, then, and get it over."

It had been his first impulse to assure the poor chap that he knew all about it; but a right instinct stopped him. He would have to hear it.

So Urquhart began his plain tale, and as he got into it the contrast between it and himself became revolting, even to him. A hale man might have brazened it out with a better air. A little of the romance with which it had begun, which indeed alone made it tolerable, would have been about it still. A sicker man than Urquhart, who made a hard death for himself, would have given up the battle, thrown himself at James's feet and asked no quarter. Urquhart was not so far gone as that; a little bluster remained. He did it badly. He didn't mean to be brutal; he meant to be honest; but it sounded brutal, and James could hardly endure it.

He saw, too, as the poor chap went on, that he was getting angry, and doing himself harm. That was so. Every step he took in his narrative sharpened the edge of the fate which cut him off. He would have made a success of it if he could—but he had been really broken before he broke his back, and the knowledge exasperated him.

So he took refuge in bluster, made himself out worse than he was, and in so doing distorted Lucy. James was in torment, remembering what he must. He felt her arms close about his neck; he felt the rush of her words: "And oh, darling, I thought it was you—of course I thought so—and I was proud and happy—that you should like me so much! I looked at myself in the glass afterwards. I thought, 'You must be rather pretty.' ..." Oh, Heaven, and this mocking, dying devil, with his triumphs!

"Say no more, man, say no more," broke from him. "I understand the rest. I have nothing to say to you. You did badly—you did me a wrong—and her too. But it's done with, and she (God bless her!) can take no harm. How can she? She acted throughout with a pure mind. She thought that you were me, and when she found that you weren't—well, well, take your pride in that. I give it up to you. Why shouldn't I? She gave you her innocent heart. I don't grudge you."

"You needn't," said Urquhart, "since I'm a dead man. But if I had been a living one, who knows—?" He laughed bitterly, and stung the other.

"You forget one thing," said James, with something of his old frozen calm. "For all that you knew, ten minutes after you had left my house that day—the first of them—I might have benefited by your act—and you been none the wiser, nor I any the worse off. And there would have been an end of it."

Urquhart considered the point. James could have seen it working in his poor, wicked, silly mind, but kept his face away.

"Yes," Urquhart said, "you might; but you didn't." Then he laughed again—not a pleasant sound.

"Man," said James indignant, "don't you see? What robs me of utterance is that I have benefited by what you have done."

"It's more than you have deserved, in my opinion," Urquhart retorted. "I'll ask you not to forget that she has loved me, and doesn't blame me. And I'll ask you not to forget that it is I who am telling you all this, and not she." It was his last bite.

The retort was easy, and would have crushed him; but James did not make it. Let him have his pitiful triumph. He was not angry any more; he couldn't be—and there was Lucy to be thought of. What would Urquhart think of a Lucy who could have revealed such things as these? He would have judged her brazen, little knowing the warm passion of her tears. Ah, not for him these holy moments. No, let him die thinking honour of her—honour according to his own code. He put his hand out and touched Urquhart's face with the back of it.

"Let us leave it at this," he said; "we both love her. We are neither of us fit. She would have taken either of us. But I came first, and then came Lancelot—and she loves the law. Put it no other way."

"The law, the law!" said the fretful, smitten man.

"The law of her nature," said James.

He felt Urquhart's piercing eyes to be upon him and schooled himself to face them and to smile into them. To his surprise he saw them fill with tears.

"You are a good chap," Urquhart said. "I never knew that before." Macartney blew his nose.

No more was said, but the sufferer now allowed him to do what he would. He chafed his hands and arms with brandy; took off his boots and chafed his feet. He succeeded in getting a certain warmth into him, and into himself too. He began to be hopeful.

"I think I shall pull you through," he told him. "You ought to be a pretty hard case. I suppose you don't know how you came to fall so badly."

"Well, I do," Urquhart said.

"Don't tell me if you'd rather not."

"Oh, what does it matter now? It was a whim."

James smiled. "Another whim?"

"Yes—and another fiasco. You see, in a way, I had dared you to come."

"I admit that."

"Well, I hadn't played fair. I knew, and you didn't, that it was a bad job. You can't get down this way—not when the snow's like this."

"Oh, can't you?"

"I think not. Well, I ought to have told you. I was tempted. That's the worst thing I ever did. I ask your pardon for that."

"You have it, old chap," said James.

"You can afford to be magnanimous," Urquhart snapped out fiercely. "Damn it, you have everything. But I felt badly about it as I was going down, and I thought, 'They'll feel the break, and know it's all over. So I cut the painter—do you see?"

"Yes," said James, "I see." He did indeed see.

Urquhart began to grow drowsy and to resent interference. He was too far gone to think of anything but the moment's ease. James, on the other hand, was entirely absorbed in his patient. "I'm not going to let you sleep," he said. "It's no good making a fuss. I've got the kinch on you now." It was as much as he had. The air was biting cold, and the colder it got the more insistent on sleep Urquhart became.

James stared about him. Was this the world that he knew? Were kindly creatures moving about somewhere in it, helping each other? Was Lucy in this place? Had she lain against his heart two nights ago? Had he been so blessed? Had life slipped by—and was this the end? Which was the reality, and which the dream? If both had been real, and this was the end of men's endeavour—if this were death—if one slipped out in this cur's way, the tail between the legs—why not end it? He could sleep himself, he thought. Suppose he lay by this brother cur of his and slept? Somewhere out beyond this cold there were men by firelight kissing their wives. Poor chaps, they didn't know the end. This was the end—loneliness and cold. Yes, but you could sleep!...

* * * * *

Suddenly he started, intent and quivering. He had heard a cry. Every fibre of him claimed life. He listened, breathlessly. Above the knocking of his own heart he heard it again. No doubt at all. He turned to Urquhart and shook him. "They are coming—they are coming—we are going to be saved!" He was violently moved; tears were streaming down his face. Urquhart, out of those still, aware, dreadfully intelligent eyes, seemed to see them coming—whoever they were. He too, and his pitiful broken members, were calling on life.

James, on his feet, shouted with might and main, and presently was answered from near at hand. Then he saw Lingen and the guide wading through the snow. "They have found us," he told Urquhart; "it's Francis Lingen and the guide. How they've done it I don't pretend to guess."

"They've got around the cornice," Urquhart said. "It can be done I know." He seemed indifferent again, even annoyed again that he couldn't be allowed to sleep. James thought it a pose, this time.

Lingen, out of breath but extremely triumphant, met James.

"Thank God," he said. James with lifted brows waved his head backward to indicate the sufferer.

"He's very bad," he said. "How did you get him to come?" He meant the guide.

Flaming Lingen said, "I made him. I was desperate. I've never done such a thing before, but I laid hands on him."

"You are a brick," said James.

Lingen said, "It's something to know that you can throttle a man when you want to badly enough. I hadn't the slightest idea. It's a thing I never did before. I rather like it."

Throttled or not, the guide saved the situation. He saved it, undisguisedly, for his own sake; for he had no zest for helping to carry a bier over the Folgefond. They made a litter of alpen-stocks and the mackintosh, and so between them carried Urquhart down the mountain. No need to dwell on it. They reached the hotel at Odde about midnight, but halfway to it they found help.



CHAPTER XXIV

URQUHART'S APOLOGY

Macartney was right when he said to Lucy, in talking over the adventure, that Urquhart had no moral sense, though she had not then been convinced. But she was to be convinced before she had done with him.

He asked for her repeatedly, and with no regard at all to what had happened. At last he was told that if he excited himself she would leave the hotel. Vera Nugent told him that, having installed herself his nurse. Vera, who knew nothing but suspected much, guessed that Macartney had had as much of her brother as he cared about. As for Lucy, on the whole she despised her for preferring James with the Law to Jimmy without it. In this she did little justice to James's use of his advantage; but, as I say, she didn't know what had happened. All she could see for herself was that where she had once had a faible for Urquhart she was now ridiculously in love with her husband. Vera thought that any woman was ridiculous who fell into that position. She was not alone in the opinion.

However, the main thing was that Jimmy shouldn't fret himself into a fever. If he kept quiet, she believed that he would recover. There was no dislocation, the doctors told her, but a very bad wrench. He must be perfectly still—and we should see.

Lucy was not told how impatiently she was awaited. James, maybe, did not know anything about it. He felt great delicacy in telling what he had to tell her of the events of that day. But she guessed nearly everything, even that Urquhart had intended to break his own neck. "He would," she said, being in a stare; "he's like that." James agreed, but pointed out that it had nearly involved his own end likewise. Lucy stared on, but said, "That wouldn't occur to him at the time." No, said James, on the contrary. It had occurred to him at the time that if he cut the rope, he, James, would immediately turn for home. She nodded her head several times. "He's like that." And then she turned and hid her face. "It's all dreadful," she said; "I don't want to know any more." It was then that James pronounced upon Urquhart's absence of morality, and found out that she was very much interested in him anyhow.

She was curious about what had passed between him and James, for she was sure that there had been something. James admitted that. "It was very uncomfortable," he said; "I cut him as short as I could—but I was awfully sorry for him. After all, I had scored, you see."

She gave him a long look. "Yes, you scored. All ways. Because, it was only when I was angry with you that I—thought he might do." There could be no comment on that. Then she said, "I'm thankful that I told you everything before he did."

"So am I, by Jove," said James. He put his arm round her. "If you hadn't," he said, "I think I could have let him die." Lucy shook her head.

"No, you wouldn't have done that. He would have—but not you. If you had been capable of that you wouldn't have called me to come to you as you did—that day." He knew which day she meant, and felt it necessary to tell her something about it.

"On that day," he said, "though you didn't know it, I was awfully in love with you." She looked at him, wonderfully. "No, I didn't know that! What a donkey I was! But I was wretched. I simply longed for you."

"If you hadn't cried, you would never have had me." That she understood.

"You wanted to pity me."

"No, I had been afraid of you. Your tears brought you down to earth."

"That's poetry," said Lucy.

"It's the nature of man," he maintained.

She wanted to know if he "minded" her seeing Urquhart. He did, very much; but wouldn't say so.

"You needn't mind a bit," she told him. "He has terrified me. I'm not adventurous at all; besides—"

"Besides—?"

"No, no, not now." She would say nothing more.

* * * * *

An expedition was made to the foot of the snow-field—for the benefit of the boys. From a distance they saw the great cornice, and the plateau where James had watched by Urquhart. Lancelot was here confronted with irony for the first time. His loyalty was severely tried. By rights Mr. Urquhart ought to have rescued the lot. Not for a moment could he doubt of that. As for his father, accepted on all hands as a hero, there were difficulties in the way which he could not get over. He had to go very warily to work because of his mother; but he went as far as he could. Why was it that Mr. Urquhart was hurt and Father was not, when they both had the same drop? Lucy could only say that Father dropped better—or fell better. And then there was a pause. "What! With an eyeglass!" He allowed himself that—with her; but with Patrick Nugent he was short and stern. Patrick had said something of the same kind, as they were journeying home together. Why hadn't Lancelot's governor smashed his eyeglass when he dropped? Lancelot sniffed offence immediately, and snorted, "Hoo! Jolly good thing for him he didn't! It kept the cold out of his eye. It's like feeding a mouse when you're a prisoner in dungeons. Afterwards it comes and gnaws the rope. Pooh, any ass could see that." And so much for Patrick and cheek.

* * * * *

But the sick man, fretting in his bed, took short views. To see Lucy again had become so desirable that he could think of nothing else. She glanced before him as a Promise, and his nature was such that a Promise was halfway to a fulfilling. As strength grew, so did he wax sanguine, and amused himself by reconstructing his Spanish castle.

Vera Nugent gave him no encouragement; and perhaps overdid it. "Hadn't you really better let the woman alone? She's perfectly happy—in spite of you." He could afford to laugh at this.

"She doesn't know what happiness is. She thinks it is safety. I could teach her better."

"You've made a great mess of it so far," Vera said. He ignored that.

"You say that she's happy. I suggest that she is merely snug. That's what a dormouse calls happiness."

"Well, there's a good deal of the dormouse in Lucy," Vera said. "If you stroke her she shines."

"Silence!" he cried sharply out. "You don't know anything at all. I have had her radiant—like a moonstone. When am I to see her?"

"I'll tell her that you want to see her—but it would be reasonable if she refused."

"She won't refuse," he said.

* * * * *

James must be told, of course. He took it quietly. "Yes, on the whole—yes. I don't think you can refuse him that. It will try you."

"It will be horrid—but anyhow you know everything he can say."

"He doesn't know that I do. He'll build on that."

"Build!" said Lucy quickly. "What sort of building?"

"Oh, fantastic architecture. Bowers by Bendemeer. Never mind. Are you going?"

"Yes," said Lucy slowly. "Yes, I'll go now." She went to him and put her hands on his shoulders. Her eyes searched his face, and found it inscrutable. "You mind," she said, "I know you do. You ought not—but I'm glad of it."

He humbled himself at once. They parted as lovers part; but for the life of him he could not understand how she could find the heart to go. With himself, now, it would have been a point of honour not to go. He did not see that the more a woman loves the more love she has to spare.

Vera Nugent took her into the room, pausing outside the door. "You'll find him very jumpy," she said; and then, "My dear, you're so sensible."

Lucy, who knew that she meant precisely the opposite, said, "No, I don't think I am. I'm excitable myself. What do you want me to do?"

"Keep cool," said Vera. "He won't like it, but it's important." Then they went in. "Jimmy, here's Mrs. Macartney."

The quick eyes from the bed had been upon her from the first. It was immediately evident to her that she was not to be spared. She heard his "At last!" and braced herself for what that might mean.

"I should have come before if the doctors had approved—so would James and Lancelot," she said as briskly as she might. He took no notice of her addition. Vera Nugent, saying, "Don't let him talk too much," then left her with him.

She began matter-of-fact enquiries, but he soon showed her that she had not been brought in for such platitude. He played the mastery of the invalid without hesitation.

"Oh, I'm very sick, you know. They tell me that I shall be as fit as ever I was, if I behave—but really I don't know. I've a good deal behind me—and not much before—so that I'm comparatively indifferent how the thing goes.... Look here, Lucy," he said suddenly—and she stiffened at her name—"I have to talk to you at last. It's wonderful how we've put it off—but here it has come."

She said in low tones, "I don't see why we should talk about anything. I would much rather not. Everything is changed now—everything."

Urquhart began with a touch of asperity ill disguised. "Might one be allowed to enquire...?" Scared perhaps by his pomposity, he broke off: "No, that won't do. I'll ask you simply, what has happened? You liked me—to say no more. Now you don't. No, no, don't protest yet. Leave it at that. Well, and then there's Macartney. Macartney didn't know you existed. Now he doesn't see that any one else does. What has happened, Lucy?"

She was annoyed at his Lucy, annoyed that she could be annoyed, annoyed at his question, and his right to ask it—which she had given him. Mostly, perhaps, she was annoyed because her answer must sound ridiculous. Hateful, that such should be the lot of men and wives! She repeated his question, "What has happened? I don't know how to tell you. I found out, before we started—James found out— Please don't ask me to talk about it. Believe me when I say that everything is changed. I can't say more than that."

He didn't move his eyes from her. She knew they were there though she would not face them. "Everything isn't changed. I'm not changed. I don't know that you are, although you say so." She faced him.

"Indeed, I am. I hope you'll understand that." He frowned, his fever flushed him.

"You can't be. We can never be ordinary acquaintance. I have kissed you—"

"You had no right—"

"You have kissed me—"

"You are cruel indeed."

"I am not cruel—I don't pretend to excuse myself. The first time—it was the act of a cad—but I worked it all out. It couldn't fail; I knew exactly how it would be. You would of course think it was he. You would be awfully touched, awfully pleased—set up. And you were. I saw that you were when we all came into the room. You went over and stood by him. You put your hand on his arm. I said, 'You divine, beautiful, tender thing, now I'll go through the fire to get you....'"

Lucy had covered her face with her hands; but now she lifted it and showed him as it might be the eyes of an Assessing Angel.

"You went through no fire at all. But you put me in the fire." But he continued as if she had said nothing material.

"I had made up my mind to be satisfied. I thought if I could see you exalted, proud of what you had, that would be enough. But you found him out; and then you found me out too ... and we never spoke of it. But there it was, Lucy, all the time; and there it is still, my dear—"

Her face was aflame, but her eyes clear and cold. "No," she said, "it's not there. There is nothing there at all. You are nothing to me but a thought of shame. I think I deserve all that you can say—but surely you have said enough to me now. I must leave you if you go on with this conversation. Nothing whatever is there—"

He laughed, not harshly, but comfortably, as a man does who is sure of himself. "Yes, there is something there still. I count on that. There is a common knowledge, unshared by any one but you and me. He would have it so. I was ready to tell him everything, but he wouldn't hear me. It was honourable of him. I admired him for it; but it left me sharing something with you."

She stared at him, as if he had insulted her in the street.

"What can you mean? How could he want to hear from you what he knew already from me?"

Urquhart went pale. Grey patches showed on his cheeks and spread like dry places in the sand.

"You told him?"

"Everything. Two nights before you went."

He fell silent. His eyes left her face. Power seemed to leave him.

"That tears it," he said. "That does for me." He was so utterly disconcerted that she could have pitied him.

"So that's why he didn't want to hear me! No wonder. But—why didn't he tell me that he knew it? I taunted him with not knowing." He turned towards her; his eyes were bright with fever. "If you know, perhaps you'll tell me."

Lucy said proudly, "I believe I know. He didn't want to change your thoughts of me." He received that in silence.

Then he said, "By George, he's a better man than I am."

Lucy said, "Yes, he is." Her head was very fixed, her neck very stiff. She was really angry, and Urquhart had sense enough to see it. She got up to leave him, really angry, but unwilling to appear so. "You must forget all this," she said, "and get well. Then you will do wonderful things."

He said, "I've been a blackguard; but I meant something better."

"Oh, I am sure you did," she said warmly.

"I won't see Macartney, if he doesn't mind. Tell him from me that he's a better man than I am."

"He won't believe you," said Lucy.

"Oh, yes, he will," Urquhart held. "Good-bye. Love to Lancelot."

That melted her. "Don't give us up. We are all your friends now."

He wouldn't have it. "No. I am a neck-or-nothing man. It can't be. There's no cake in the cupboard. I've eaten it. Send Vera in if you see her about. Good-bye." She left him.

* * * * *

She went through the hall, with a word to Vera, who was writing letters there. "He asked for you."

Vera looked up at her. "He's excited, I suppose?"

"No, not now," said Lucy. Then she went into the sitting-room and saw the party at tea on the balcony. James paused in his careful occupations, and focussed her with his eyeglass. She went quickly to the table.

"Oh, let me do it, let me." And then she sighed deeply.

"Hulloa," said James, knowing very well. "What's up?"

She poured the tea. "Only that I'm glad to be here."

Glances were exchanged, quick but reassuring.

Lancelot said, "There's a ripping cake. Mr. Urquhart would like some, I bet you."

Lucy said, "He can't have any cake just yet." Upon which remark she avoided James's eye, and eyeglass, with great care. But on a swift afterthought she stooped and kissed Lancelot.



EPILOGUE

Really, the only fact I feel called upon to add is the following announcement, culled from a fashionable newspaper.

"On the 3rd June," we read, "at —— Onslow Square, to Mr. and Mrs. James Adolphus Macartney, a daughter."

That ought to do instead of the wedding bells once demanded by the average reader. Let it then stand for the point of my pair's pilgrimage.

I promised a romantic James and have given you a sentimental one. It is a most unfortunate thing that it should be thought ridiculous for a man to fall in love with his wife, for his wife to fall in love with him; and we have to thank, I believe, the high romanticks for it. They must have devilry, it seems, or cayenne pepper. But I say, Scorn not the sentimental, though it be barley-sugar to ambrosia, a canary's flight to a skylark's. Scorn it not; it's the romantic of the unimaginative; and if it won't serve for a magic carpet, it makes a useful anti-macassar.

The Macartneys saw no more of Urquhart, who, however, recovered the use of his backbone, and with it his zest for the upper air. He sent Lucy some flowers after the event of June, and later on, at the end of July, a letter, which I reproduce.

"Quid plura? I had news of you and greeted it, and am gone. I have hired myself to the Greeks for the air. I take two machines of my own, and an m. b. If you can forgive me when I have worked out my right we shall meet again. If you, I shall know, and keep off. Good-bye, Lucy.

"J. U.

"The one thing I can't forgive myself was the first, a wild impulse, but a cad's. All the rest was inevitable. Good-bye."

She asked Lancelot what Quid plura meant. He snorted. "Hoo! Stale! It means, what are you crying about? naturally. Who said it? That letter? Who's it from? Mr. Urquhart, I suppose?"

"Yes, it's from Mr. Urquhart, to say Good-bye. He's going to Greece, to fly for the navy."

"Oh. Rather sport. Has he gone?"

"Yes, dear, I think so."

"You'll write to him, I suppose?"

"I might."

"I shall too, then. Rather. I should think so."



THE END



* * * * *



Transcriber's Note:

1) Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained from the original.

2) The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these letters have been replaced with transliterations.

3) Passages in italics are indicated by underscore.

4) The following misprints have been corrected: vicacious corrected to vivacious (page 97) "s[oe]ters" corrected to "saeters" (page 268) missing text "w_" corrected to "where" (page 279)

5) Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.

THE END