"Peter won't go to-morrow," asserted Kitty. "I've settled that. I wired him to come down here—I sent the wire the minute after breakfast. He'll be here to-night."

"Pooh! He'll take no notice of a telegram like that! A man doesn't upset the whole of his plans to go abroad because a pal in the country wires him 'to come down'!"

"Precisely. So I worded my wire in a way which will ensure his coming," replied Kitty, with returning spirit.

Barry looked, at her doubtfully.

"What did you put on it?"

"I said: 'Bad accident here. Come at once.' I know that will bring him. . . . And it has the further merit of being the truth!" she added with a rather shaky little laugh.

"That will certainly bring him," agreed Barry, a brief flash of amusement in his eyes. It was so like Kitty to dare a wire of this description and chance how her explanation of it might be received by the person most concerned. "But suppose Trenby declines point-blank to release Nan?" he pursued. "What will you do then—with Peter on your hands?"

"Well, at least Peter will understand what Nan is doing and why she's doing it. Given that he knew the whole truth, I think he'd probably run away with her. I know I should—if I were a man! Now, will you go and see Roger, please?"

"I suppose I shall have to. But it's a beastly job." Barry's usually merry eyes were clouded.

"Beastly," agreed Kitty sympathetically. "But it's got to be done."

Ten minutes later she watched her husband drive away in the direction of Trenby Hall, and composed herself to wait patiently on the march of events.

* * * * * *

Barry looked pitifully down at the big, helpless figure lying between the sheets of the great four-poster bed. Except for an unwonted pallor and the fact that no movement of the body below the waist was visible, Roger looked very much as usual. He waved away the words of sympathy which were hovering on Barry's lips.

"Nice of you to come so soon," he said curtly. "But, for God's sake, don't condole with me. I don't want condolences and I won't have 'em." There was a note in his voice which told of the effort which his savage self-repression cost him.

Barry understood, and for a few minutes they discussed, things in general, Roger briefly describing the accident.

"Funny how things happen," he observed. "I suppose I'm about as expert a driver as you'd get. There was practically nothing I couldn't do with a car—and along come a dog and a kiddy and flaw me utterly in two minutes. I've had much nearer shaves a dozen times before and escaped scot-free."

They talked on desultorily for a time. Then suddenly Roger asked:

"When's Nan coming to see me? I told Isobel to 'phone down to Mallow this morning."

"You're hardly up to visitors," said Barry, searching for delay. "I don't suppose I ought to have come, really."

Roger looked at him with eyes that burned fiercely underneath his shaggy brows.

"I'm as right as you are—except for my confounded back," he answered. "I've not got a scratch on me. Only something must have struck me as the car overturned—and a bit of my spinal anatomy's gone phut."

"You mayn't be as badly injured as you think," ventured Barry. "Some other doctor might give you a different report."

"Oh, he's quite a shining light—the man who came down here. Spine's his job. And his examination was thorough enough. There's nothing can be done. My legs are useless—and I'm a strong, healthy man who may live to a ripe old age."

He turned his head on the pillow and Barry saw him drag the sheet between his teeth and bite on it. He crossed to the window, giving the man time to regain his self-command.

"Well, what about Nan?" Roger demanded at last harshly. "When's she coming?"

Barry faced round to the bed again.

"I came to talk to you about Nan," he replied with reluctance. "But—"

"Talk away, then!"

"Well, it's very difficult to say what I have to tell you. You see, Trenby, this ghastly accident of yours makes a difference in—"

Roger interrupted with a snarl. His arms waved convulsively.

"Lift me up," he commanded. "I can't do it myself. Prop me up a bit against the pillows. . . . Oh, get on with it, man!" he cried, as Barry hesitated. "Nothing you do can either help or hurt me. Lift me up!"

Obediently Barry stooped and with a touch as strong as a man's and as tender as a woman's, lifted Roger into the desired position.

"Thanks." Roger blurted out the word ungraciously. "Well, what about Nan?" he went on, scowling. "I suppose you've come to ask me to let her off? That's the natural thing! Is that it?" he asked sharply.

"Yes," answered Barry simply. "That's it."

Rogers face went white with anger.

"Then you may tell her," he said, pounding the bed with his fist to emphasise his words, "tell her from me that I haven't the least intention of releasing her. She's a contemptible little coward even to suggest it. But that's a woman all over!"

"It's nothing of the sort," returned Barry, roused to indignation by Roger's brutal answer. He spoke with a quiet forcefulness there was no mistaking. "Nan knows nothing whatever about my visit here, nor the purpose of it. On the contrary, had she known, I'm quite sure she would have tried to prevent my coming, seeing that she has made up her mind to marry you as soon as you wish."

"Oh, she has, has she?" Roger paused grimly. A moment later he broke out: "Then—then—what the devil right have you to interfere?"

"None," said Barry gravely. "Except the right of one man to remind another of his manhood—if he sees him in danger of losing it."

The thrust, so quietly delivered, went home. Roger bit his under lip and was silent, his eyes glowering.

"So that's what you think of me, is it?" he said at last, sullenly.

The look in Barry's eyes softened the stern sincerity of his reply.

"What else can I think? In your place a man's first thought should surely be to release the woman he loves from the infernal bondage which marriage with him must inevitably mean."

"On the principle that from him who hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath, I suppose?" gibed the bitter voice from the bed.

"No," answered Barry, with simplicity. "But just because if you love a woman you can't possibly want to hurt her."

"And if she loved you, a woman couldn't possibly want to turn you down because you've had the damnedest bad luck any man could have."

"But does she love you?" asked Barry. "I know—and you know—that she does not. She cares for someone else."

Roger made a sudden, violent movement.

"Who is it? She has never told me who it was. I suppose it's that confounded cad who painted her portrait—Maryon Rooke?"

Barry smile a little.

"No," he answered. "The man she loves is Peter Mallory."

"Mallory!"—in blank astonishment. Then, swiftly and with a gleam of triumph in his eyes: "But he's married!"

"His wife has just died—out in India."

There was a long pause. Then:

"So that's why you came?" sneered Roger. "Well, you can tell Nan that she won't marry Peter Mallory with my consent. I'll never set her free to be another man's wife"—his dangerous temper rising again. "There's only one thing left to me in the world, and that's Nan. And I'll have her!"

"Is that your final decision?" asked Barry. He was beginning to recognise the hopelessness of any effort to turn or influence the man.

"Yes"—with a snarl. "Tell Nan"—derisively—"that I shall expect my truly devoted fiancee here this afternoon."



CHAPTER XXXVII

THE GREAT HEALER

It was late in the afternoon when the Mallow car once more purred up to the door of Trenby Hall and Nan descended from it. She was looking very pale, her face like a delicate white cameo beneath the shadow of her hat, while the clinging black of her gown accentuated the slender lines—too slender, now—of her figure. She had not yet discarded her mourning for Lord St. John, but in any case she would have felt that gay colours could have no part in to-day.

Kitty had told her of Barry's interview with Trenby and of its utter futility, and, although Nan had been prepared to sacrifice her whole existence to the man who had suffered so terrible an injury, she was bitterly disappointed that he proposed exacting it from her as a right rather than accepting it as a free gift.

If for once he could have shown himself generous and offered to give her back her freedom—an offer she would have refused to accept—how much the fact that each of them had been willing to make a sacrifice might have helped to sweeten their married life! Instead, Roger had forced upon her the realisation that he was unchanged—still the same arrogant "man with the club" that he had always been, insisting on his own way, either by brute force or by the despotism of a moral obligation which was equally compelling.

But these thoughts fled—driven away by a rush of overwhelming sympathy—when her eyes fell on the great, impotent hulk of a man who lay propped up against his pillows. A nurse slipped past her in the doorway and paused to whisper, as she went:

"Don't stay too long. He's run down a lot since this morning. I begged him not to see any more visitors to-day, but he insisted upon seeing you."

The nurse recalled very vividly the picture of her patient when she had endeavoured to dissuade him from this second interview—his white, rather drawn face and the eyes which blazed feverishly at her beneath their penthouse brows.

"You've got to let me see my best girl to-day, nurse," he had said, forcing a smile. "After that you shall have your own way and work your wicked will on me."

And the nurse, thinking that perhaps a visit from his "best girl" might help to allay the new restlessness she found in him, had yielded, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

"Oh, Roger!" With a low cry of dismay Nan ran to the bed and slipped down on her knees beside it.

"It's a rotten bit of luck, isn't it?" he returned briefly.

She expected the fierce clasp of his arms about her and had steeled herself to submit to his kisses without flinching. But he did not offer to kiss her. Instead, pointing to a chair, he said quietly:

"Pull up that chair—I'm sorry I can't offer to do it for you!—and sit down."

She obeyed, while he watched her in silence. The silence lasted so long that at last, finding it almost unbearable, she broke it.

"Roger, I'm so—so grieved to see you—like this." She leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped tightly together. "But don't give up hope yet," she went on earnestly. "You've only had one specialist's opinion. He might easily be wrong. After a time, you may be walking about again as well as any other man. I've heard of such cases."

"And I suppose you're banking on the hope that mine's one of them, so that you'll not be tied to a helpless log for a husband. Is that it?"

She shrank back, hurt to the core of her. If he were to be always like this—prey to a kind of ferocious suspicion of every word and act of hers, then the outlook for the future was dark indeed. The burden of it would be more than she could bear.

Roger, seeing her wince, gestured apologetically.

"I didn't mean quite all that," he said quickly. "I'm rather like a newly-caged wild beast—savage even with its keeper. Still, any woman might be forgiven for preferring to marry a sound man rather than a cripple. You're ready to go on with the deal, Nan?"

"Yes, I'm ready," she answered in a low voice.

"Have you realised all it means? I'm none too amiable at the best of times"—grimly. "And my temper's not likely to improve now I'm tied by the leg. You'll have to fetch and carry, and put up with all the whims and tantrums of a very sick man. Are you really sure of yourself?"

"Quite sure."

His hawk's eyes flashed over her face, as though he would pierce through the veil of her grave and tranquil expression.

"Even though Peter Mallory's free to marry you now?" he demanded suddenly.

"Peter!" The word came in a shrinking whisper. She threw out her hands appealingly. "Roger, can't we leave the past behind? We've each a good deal"—her thoughts flew back to that dreadful episode in the improvised studio—"a good deal to forgive. Let us put the past quite away—on the top shelf"—with a wavering little laugh—"and leave it there. I've told you I'm willing to be your wife. Let's start afresh from that. I'll marry you as soon as you like."

After a long pause:

"I believe you really would!" said Roger with a note of sheer wonderment in his voice.

"I've just said so."

"Well, my dear"—he smiled briefly—"thank you very much for the offer, but I'm not going to accept it."

"Not going to accept it!" she repeated, utterly bewildered. "But you can't—you won't refuse!"

"I can and I do—entirely refuse to marry you."

Nan began to think his mind was wandering.

"No," he said, detecting her thought. "I'm as sane as you are. Come here—a little closer—and I'll tell you all about it."

Rather nervously, Nan drew nearer to him.

"Don't be frightened," he said with a strange kindness and gentleness in his voice. "I had a visitor this morning who told me some unpalatable truths about myself. He asked me to release you from your engagement, and I flatly refused. He also enlightened my ignorance concerning Peter Mallory and informed me he was now free to marry you. That settled matters as far as I was concerned! I made up my mind I would never give you up to another man." He paused. "Since then I've had time for reflection. . . . Reflection's a useful kind of thing. . . . Then, when you came in just now, looking like a broken flower with your white face and sorrowful eyes, I made a snatch at whatever's left of a decent man in this battered old frame of mine."

He paused and took Nan's hand in his. Very gently he drew the ring he had given her from her finger.

"You are quite free, now," he said quietly.

"No, no!" Impulsively she tried to recover the ring. "Let me be your wife! I'm willing—quite, quite willing!" she urged, her heart overflowing with tenderness and pity for this man who was now voluntarily renouncing the one thing left him.

"But Mallory wouldn't be 'quite willing,'" replied Roger, with a twisted smile. "Nor am I. And an unwilling bridegroom isn't likely to make a good husband!"

Nan's mouth quivered.

"Roger—" she began, but the sob in her throat choked into silence the rest of what she had meant to say. Her hands went out to him, and he took them in his and held them.

"Will you kiss me—just once, Nan?" he said. "I don't think Mallory would grudge it me."

She bent over him, and for the first time unshrinkingly and with infinite tenderness, laid her lips on his. Then very quietly she left the room.

She was conscious of a sense of awe. First Maryon, and now, to an even greater degree, Roger, had revealed some secret quality of fineness with which no one would have credited them.

"I shall never judge anyone again," she told Kitty later. "You can't judge people! I shall always believe that everyone has got a little patch of goodness somewhere. It's the bit of God in them. Even Judas Iscariot was sorry afterwards, and went out and hanged himself."

She was thankful when she came downstairs from Roger's bedroom to find that there was no one about. A meeting with Lady Gertrude at the moment would have been of all things the most repugnant to her. With a feeling of intense thankfulness that the thin, steel-eyed woman was nowhere to be seen, she stepped into the car and was borne swiftly down the drive. At the lodge, however, where the chauffeur had perforce to pull up while the lodge-keeper opened the gates, Isobel Carson came into sight, and common courtesy demanded that Nan should get out of the car and speak to her. She had been gathering flowers—for Roger's room, was Nan's involuntary thought—and carried a basket, full of lovely blossoms, over her arm.

In a few words Nan told her of her interview with Roger.

Isobel listened intently.

"I'm glad you were willing to marry him," she said abruptly, as Nan ceased speaking. "It was—decent of you. Because, of course, you were never in love with him."

"No," Nan acknowledged simply.

"While I've loved him ever since I knew him!" burst out Isobel. "But he's never looked at me, thought of me like that! Perhaps, now you're out of the way—" She broke off, leaving her sentence unfinished.

Into Nan's mind flashed the possibility of all that this might mean—this wealth of wasted love which was waiting for Roger if he cared to take it.

"Would you marry him—now?" she asked.

"Marry him?" Isobel's eyes glowed. "I'd marry him if he couldn't move a finger! I love him! And there's nothing in the world I wouldn't do for him."

She looked almost beautiful in that moment, with her face irradiated by a look of absolute, selfless devotion.

"And I wouldn't rest till he was cured!" The words came pouring from her lips. "I'd try every surgeon, in the world before I'd give up hope, and if they failed, I'd try what love—just patient, helpful love—could do! One thinks of a thousand ways which might cure when one loves," she added.

"Love is a great Healer," said Nan gently. "I'm not sure that anything's impossible if you have both love and faith." She paused, her foot on the step of the car. "I think—I think, some day, Roger will open the door of his heart to you, Isobel," she ended softly.

She was glad to lean back in the car and to feel the cool rush of the air against her face. She was tired—immensely tired—by the strain of the afternoon. And now the remembrance came flooding back into her mind that, even though Roger had released her, she and Peter were still set apart—no longer by the laws of God and man, but by the fact that she herself had destroyed his faith and belief in her.

She stepped wearily out of the car when it reached Mallow. She was late in returning, and neither Kitty nor Penelope were visible as she entered the big panelled hall. Probably they had already gone upstairs to dress for dinner.

As she made her way slowly towards the staircase, absorbed in rather bitter thoughts, a slight sound caught her ear—a sudden stir of movement. Then, out of the dim shadows of the hall, someone came towards her—someone who limped a little as he came.

"Nan!"

For an instant her heart seemed to stop beating. The quiet, drawling voice was Peter's, no longer harsh with anger, nor stern with the enforced repression of a love that was forbidden, but tender and enfolding as it had been that moonlit night amid the ruins of King Arthur's Castle.

"Peter! . . . Peter! . . ."

She ran blindly towards him, whispering his name.

How it had happened she neither knew nor cared—all that mattered was that Peter was here, waiting for her! And as his arms closed round her, and his voice uttered the one word: "Beloved!" she knew that every barrier was down between them and that the past, with all its blunders and effort and temptations, had been wiped out.

Presently she leaned away from him.

"Peter, I used to wonder why God kept us apart. I almost lost my faith—once."

Peter's steady, blue-grey eyes met hers.

"Beloved," he said, "I think we can see why, even now. Isn't our love . . . which we've fought to keep pure and clean . . . been crucified for . . . a thousand times better and finer thing than the love we might have snatched at and taken when it wasn't ours to take?"

She smiled up at him, a tender gravity in her face. Her thoughts slipped back to the little song which seemed to hold so strange a symbolism of her own life. The third verse had come true at last. She repeated it aloud, very softly:

"But sometimes God on His great white Throne Looks down from the Heaven above, And lays in the hands that are empty The tremulous Star of Love."

Peter stooped and kissed her lips. There was a still, quiet passion in his kiss, but there was something more—something deep and intransmutable—the same unchanging troth which, he had given her at Tintagel of love that would last "through this world into the next."



THE END