Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces

by Charles Felix

  CHAPTER XXXV

  She was sitting in the very same place she had occupied when first hesaw her this morning, with the cypress tree and the roof making shadowsabove and about her; and now, as then, she rose when she heard the latchclick and came toward him with hands outstretched and eyes aglow andlittle gusts of colour sweeping in rose waves over throat and cheeks.

  "Oh, to think that you have solved it! To think that it is the end! Andto think that it was he--that dear, kind 'uncle' of whom they all wereso fond!" she said. "I could scarcely believe it when Captain Morfordbrought the news. It made me quite faint for the moment--it was sounexpected, so horrible!"

  "And after all, there was nothing to fear from that farm labourer whofrightened you so this morning, you see," he smiled, holding her twohands in his and looking down at her from his greater height. "Yet Ifind your crouching back in the shadow as if you were still frightenedto be seen. Are you?"

  "A little," she admitted. "You see, the road is a public one. People arealways passing, and--How good it was of you to come all this longdistance out of your way. Indeed, I am very, very grateful, Mr. Cleek."

  "Thank you," he said gravely. "But you need not be. Indeed, thegratitude should be all on my side. I said I would come if ever youwanted me, and you gave me an opportunity to keep my word. As for itbeing out of my way to come here, it is but a little distance to theThree Desires and a long one to Lady Chepstow's place, so it is you, notI, that have 'gone out of the way!' It was good of you to give me thisgrace--I should have been sorry to go back to town without sayinggood-bye."

  "But need you go so soon?" she asked. "Lady Chepstow will feel slighted,I know, if she hears that you have been in the neighbourhood and havenot called. She is a friend, you know, a warm, true friend--alwaysgrateful for what you did, always glad to see you. Why not stop on a dayor two and call and see her?"

  A robin flicked down out of the cypress tree and perched on the gatetop, looked up at Cleek with bright, sharp eyes, flung out a wee littletrill, and was off again.

  "I'm afraid it is out of the question--I'm afraid I'm not so deeplyinterested in Lady Chepstow as, perhaps, I ought to be," said Cleek,noticing in a dim subconscious way that the robin had flown on to thechurch door and perched there, and was in full song now. "Besides, shedoes not know of me what you do. Perhaps, if she did.... Oh, well, itdoesn't matter. Thank you for coming to say good-bye, Miss Lorne. It waskind of you. Now I must emulate Poor Jo, and 'move on' again."

  "And without any reward!" said Ailsa with a smile and a sigh. "Withoutexpecting any; without asking any; without wanting any!"

  He stood a moment, twisting his heel round and round in the gravel ofthe pathway, and breathing hard, his eyes on the ground, and his lipsindrawn. Then, of a sudden--"Perhaps I did want one. Perhaps I've alwayswanted one. And hoped to get it some day perhaps from--you!" he said.And looked up at her as a man looks but once at one woman ever.

  She had come a step nearer; she was standing there with the shadowsbehind her and the light on her face, warm colour in her cheeks, and asmile on her lips and in her eyes. She spoke no word, made no sound;merely stood there and smiled and, somehow, he seemed to know what thesmile of her meant and what the bird's note said.

  "Miss Lorne--Ailsa," he said, very, very gently, "if some day ... whenall the wrongs I did in those other days are righted, and all that a mancan do on this earth to atone for such a past as mine has been done ...if then, in that time, I come to you and ask for that reward, do youthink, oh, do you think that you can find it in your heart to give it?"

  "When that day dawns, come and see," she said, "if you wish to wait solong!"