The Uttermost Farthing | Page 6

holding to his
lips, dropped it, and then stood up. He pulled the blue silk shade over
the electric light globe which hung in the centre of the carriage; glanced
through one of the two tiny glazed apertures giving a view of the next
compartment; then he sat down by her, and in the half darkness
gathered her into his arms.
"Dear," he said, in a voice that sounded strange and muffled even to
himself, "do you remember the passage at Bonnington?"
As he held her, she had been looking up into his face, but now, hearing
his question, she flushed deeply, and her head fell forward on his breast.
Their minds, their hearts, were travelling back to the moment, to the
trifling episode, which had revealed to each the other's love.
It had happened ten years ago, at a time when Tom Pargeter, desiring to
play the rôle of country gentleman, had taken for awhile a certain
historic country house. There, he and his young wife had brought
together a great Christmas house-party composed of the odd,
ill-assorted social elements which gather at the call of the wealthy host
who has exchanged old friends for new acquaintances. Peggy's own
people, old-fashioned country gentry, were regarded by Pargeter as
hopelessly dowdy and "out of it," so none of them had been invited.
With Laurence Vanderlyn alone had the young mistress of the house
had any link of mutual interests or sympathies; but of flirtation, as that
protean word was understood by those about them, there had been
none.
Then, on Christmas Eve, had come the playing of childish games,
though no children were present, for the two-year-old child of the host
and hostess was safe in bed. It was in the chances of one of these games
that Laurence Vanderlyn had for a moment caught Margaret Pargeter in
his arms----

He had released her almost at once, but not before they had exchanged
the long probing look which had told to each their own as well as the
other's secret. Till that moment they had been strangers--from that
moment they were lovers, but lovers allowing themselves none of
love's license, and very soon Vanderlyn had taught himself to be
content with all that Peggy's conscience allowed her to think possible.
She had never known--how could she have known?--what his
acquiescence had cost him. Now and again, during the long years, they
had been compelled to discuss the abnormal relation which Peggy
called their friendship; together they had trembled at the fragile basis
on which what most human beings would have considered their meagre
happiness was founded.
More than once she had touched him to the heart by asserting that she
felt sure that the inscrutable Providence in which she had retained an
almost childish faith, could never be so cruel as to deprive her of the
only source of happiness, apart from her little son, which had come her
way; and so, although their intimacy had become closer, the links
which bound them not only remained platonic, but, as is the way with
such links, tended to become more platonic as the time went on.
Even now, as he sat there with the woman he loved wholly in his power,
lying in his arms with her face pressed to his breast, Vanderlyn's mind
was in a maze of doubt as to what was to be their relationship during
the coming days. Even now he was not sure as to what Peggy had
meant when she had seemed to plead, more with herself than with him,
for a short space of such happiness as during their long intimacy they
had never enjoyed.
All his acquaintances, including his official chief, would have told you
that Laurence Vanderlyn was an accomplished man of the world, and
an acute student of human nature, but now, to-night, he owned himself
at fault. Only one thing was quite clear; he told himself that the thought
of again taking up the thread of what had been so unnatural an
existence was hateful--impossible.
Perhaps the woman felt the man's obscure moment of recoil; she gently

withdrew herself from his arms. "I'm tired," she said, rather plaintively,
"the train sways so, Laurence. I wonder if I could lie down----"
He heaped up the cushions, spread out the large rug, which he had
purchased that day, and which formed their only luggage, for
everything else, by her wish, had been sent on the day before.
Very tenderly he wrapped the folds of the rug round her. Then he knelt
by her side; and at once she put out her arms, and pulled his head down
close to hers; a moment later her soft lips were laid against his cheek.
He remembered, with a retrospective pang, the ache at his heart with
which