The Great Amulet

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His tone had a touch of constraint, and a lone silence fell.

The strange solitude about them was no stranger than the enchantment of
being alone in it together; and there was that in their hearts that
made speech difficult.

They sat looking northward toward the moonlit hollow where the station
camp clustered close to the forest's edge. Behind the camp--a mass of
unbroken shadow--it climbed up and upward to the mystery of a sky,
powdered with the gold-dust of faint stars, on which its jagged outline
was printed black as ink. Beyond that again, one majestic
snow-peak,--like a stainless soul rising out of a tomb,--gleamed in the
light of an increasingly brilliant moon. The crowd round the bonfire
had crumbled into a hundred insignificant seeming units; and the fire
itself, no longer aspiring to the stars, glowed like an angry eye in
the dusky face of the glade.

Presently Quita spoke.

"There is so endlessly much to say, that I don't know where to begin.
And after all, I am utterly content just to feel that you are there;
that I have really got you back at last."

"You have had me, body and soul, these five years," he answered simply.
"It is I who have gained you, by some miracle of your womanhood that I
shall never fathom."

"If you set it down to your own manhood, you might be nearer the mark.
You are very much too humble, Eldred; and I love you for it,--always
did."

"Always?"

"I verily believe so."

"Good God! I never misjudged you, did I? If you . . . cared _then_,
why ever did you leave me?"

"Because you gave me no time to take it in. But I am sure now that the
germ was there. I think your . . . kisses must have waked it into
life. That was why they upset me so. And when I came back, I meant
to . . . Oh why should we rake it all up again? It hurts too much."

"But I must know everything now, Quita. You meant to tell me,--was
that it?"

"Yes. Though I own it was rather late in the day. Then you sprang it
upon me with that letter. I detest the man who wrote it, and I always
shall. There was just enough of truth in it, and in your bitter
reproaches, to make me feel the hopelessness of lame explanations.
Besides, your anger frightened me, though I didn't show it; and I
simply acted on a blind impulse to escape from the unknown things
ahead; to get back to the love and work I could understand."

"My poor darling! What a blackguard I was to you!"

"Hush! You are not to say that."

"I will. It's true. But . . . didn't you care a great deal for the
other chap?"

"I imagined I did. Girls can't always analyse new feelings of that
sort. I can see now that it was chiefly mental sympathy between us, on
my side at least. But I only discovered that when the real thing
came--in a flash."

"When was that?" he asked on a note of eagerness.

"One May morning on the Kajiar road! I knew then that I must have
cared always, without guessing it. But your coolness roused my pride;
and I vowed that if you had wiped me out of your heart, I would die
sooner than let you suspect my discovery. Yet all the while I longed
for you to know it; and in the end, goaded by your blindness, and your
astonishing want of conceit, I break my pride into a hundred little
bits. _Ai-je ete assez femme_?" she concluded with a whimsical smile.

One of her hands lay on the grass beside him. He covered it with his
own.

"And was the amazing discovery responsible for the Garth episode?" His
tone had a hint of anxiety.

"For the latter part of it, yes; though we have been friends all the
winter. He is at least moderately intelligent; and an intelligent
egoist is always interesting. Besides, companionship is the breath of
life to me, you understand; and I seldom manage to make friends with
women."

"The other kind of friendship is an edged tool."

"And therefore irresistible! It's like fencing with the buttons off
the foils."

"You speak from much practical experience?"

"Yes. I have had my share of it. But please believe me, Eldred,"--she
hesitated,--"I have been as loyal to you in word and deed, all these
years, as if I had borne your name, and lived under your roof. In
spite of my weakness for edged tools, I have never let any man tell me
that he loved me since you told me so yourself, in the dark ages. And
if a few have wanted to do so, I could hardly help that, could I?"

"No more than you could help breathing or sleeping," he answered with a
slow strong pressure of her hand.

"I know I ought not to have let Major Garth see so much of me after I
saw how it was with him, but--since it's the whole truth to-night--I
confess your aloofness hurt me so, that I wanted to see if I could
rouse you to a spark of feeling by hurting you back, and I chose the
weapon readiest to my hand."

"You struck deep with it. Does the knowledge give you any
satisfaction?"

"It fills my cup of shame to overflowing. Yet,--come to think of
things, you did much the same without realising it."

"Which makes a vast difference, surely?"

"Not to me, _mon ami_. It is only God who judges by the intention;
possibly because He never suffers from the action."

"Quita! That's irreverent!"

"Is it? I'm sorry if it sets your Scottish prickles on end! Are
you . . . a very religious man, Eldred?"

"I believe in God," he answered simply.

A short silence followed the statement. Then Quita spoke.

"But you see, don't you, dear man, that I spoke truth. My pain was
none the less sharp because you inflicted it unwittingly. It's one of
the things people are apt to forget."

"Your pain? Before God I never dreamed that any act of mine could give
you a minute's uneasiness; though Mrs Desmond . . ."

"Don't begin about Mrs Desmond, please!" She drew her hand away with a
touch of impatience. "She is everything that is perfect, of course.
But I hate her; and I believe I always shall."

Lenox turned on his elbow and looked up into her face.

"My dear . . . I can't let you speak so of my best friend. We owe her
everything, you and I. You shall hear about it all one of these days.
And apart from that, she is . . ."

"Yes, yes. I can see what she is, clearly enough. A superbly
beautiful woman, outside and in, who possesses a good deal of influence
over you. I can be just to her, you see, if I am . . . jealous."

"Jealous? Nonsense. The word is an insult to her, and to me."

She reddened under the reproof in his tone.

"Forgive me. I didn't mean it so. I am only afraid that after close
intimacy with her you will find--your wife rather a poor thing by
comparison. Just the 'eternal feminine' with all an artist's egoism,
and more than the full complement of faults."

She spoke so simply, and with such transparent sincerity, that again he
turned on her abruptly; his smouldering passion quickened to a flame.

"Quita . . . you dear woman . . . if I could only make you
realise . . . !"

But long repression, and the knowledge that was poisoning his perfect
hour, constrained him to reticence. He dared not let himself go.

"I think I do realise . . . now . . ." she whispered, stirred to the
depths by the repressed intensity of his tone.

"Then don't belittle yourself any more. I forbid it. You understand?"

Again he heard the low laugh on which her soul seemed to ride. Then,
leaning impulsively down to him, she put her bare arms round his
shoulders from behind, and rested her cheek upon his hair.

The man held his breath, and remained very still, as if fearful lest
word or movement should break the spell. After five years of unloved
loneliness, this first spontaneous caress from his wife, with its
delicate suggestion of intimacy, seemed to break down invisible
barriers and set new life coursing in his veins.

"You forbid it?" she echoed, on a tremulous note of happiness. "And
you have the right to. You, and no one else in all the world! You
laughed at me in the old days--do you remember?--for clutching at my
independence. Well, I have had my surfeit of it now; and I am
desperately tired of standing alone . . . darling."

She paused before the unfamiliar word, unconsciously accentuating its
effect, and Lenox, taking her two hands in one of his own, kissed them
fervently. The moment he dreaded was upon him, and in the face of her
impassioned tenderness he scarcely knew how to meet it.

"You should not stand alone one minute longer, if I could have my
will," he said in a repressed voice.

She lifted her head and looked at him.

"And why can't you have your will? What are we going to do about it,
Eldred?"

"Nothing in a hurry," he answered slowly. "We paid too dearly for that
last time."

"But, _mon cher_ . . . we have waited five whole years."

"That is just the difficulty. Five years of overwork and bitterness of
spirit are not to be wiped out in a single hour; even such an hour as
this. The man you married had not gone through the fire, and been
badly burned in the process."

He paused. The irony of their reversed positions stung him to the
quick, and she sat watching his face. The pallor of moonlight
intensified its ruggedness, its deep indentations of cheek and brow.
She began to be aware that the dropped stitches of life cannot always
be picked up again at will; that there is no tyrant more pitiless than
the Past; and a vague dread took hold of her, sealing her lips.

"We have got to look facts in the face to-night," Lenox went on with
the doggedness of his race. "I'm a poor hand at discussing myself.
It's an unprofitable subject. But I can't let you rush headlong into a
reunion that may prove disastrous . . . for you. To-night's revelation
has astounded me. It isn't easy to get one's bearings all at once; but
before we take any further irretrievable step I am bound, in
conscience, to tell you how the land lies. When you--repudiated me, I
accepted your decision as final. I never dreamed of your coming back;
and I acted accordingly. I took to work as I might have taken to
drink, if I had been made that way; with the natural result that
I . . . smoked a great deal too much, and slept too little. I saw no
earthly reason to husband my strength, or my life; and in consequence,
I have gained something of a reputation for tackling dangerous and
difficult jobs. There's plenty more work of the kind ahead, with the
forward policy in full swing; and one can't go back on all that has
been done. You see that, don't you?"

"Yes. But couldn't I ever go with you?"

He smiled. "I believe you have grit enough! But it would be unheard
of. Besides . . . there is another trouble, and a very serious one,
blocking the way."

"You will tell me what it is?"

He did not answer at once. To blacken himself deliberately in the eyes
of the woman he loves is no light ordeal for a man; and Lenox shrank
from it with the peculiar sensitiveness of a nature at once humble and
proud; the more so since to-night had brought home to him the
heart-breaking truth that in "the devil's wedlock of evil and pain" one
can never suffer alone.

But a great love had been given him, and a force stronger than his will
impelled him to speak truth, even at the cost of losing it.

"Yes . . . I will tell you what it is," he said slowly, looking
straight before him. "You have the right to know."

And in a few blunt words, unsoftened by excuse or justification, he
told her, not the fact only, but his dread of its far-reaching effect.

"And it seems plain as daylight to me," he added bitterly, "that a man
so cursed has no right to multiply misery by taking a woman into his
life. That was the real reason why I kept clear of you latterly, and
tried to thank God that you did not care."

He could not trust himself to look round at her face, but he felt her
lean close to him again. For the unobtrusive strength of the man stood
revealed in his confession; and it is woman's second nature to admire
strength.

"Eldred, . . . my husband," she breathed, her voice breaking on the
word. "How cruelly you must have suffered! And it was all _my_ fault."

There spoke the woman!--intent upon the individual; blind--wilfully or
otherwise--to the larger issues involved.

"It was _not_ your fault," he answered with smothered vehemence. "And
in any case, don't you see, it's no question of blame, but of
consequences. And we dare not shut our eyes to them. For this
business of marriage is a complicated affair. What's more, I believe
the wrench of immediate separation, with the comparative freedom it
involves, would come less hard on you in the long-run, than actual
marriage with a man of my stamp.--Oh, you would find me a sorry bargain
all round, I assure you," he concluded with a short, hard laugh. "And
you will do well to think twice before you burn your boats for me!"

She slid lower down the slope, and laid one hand on his knee.

"I don't choose to think twice; and I _have_ burnt my boats as it is!
Besides . . . you will be strong to conquer your trouble, now you know
that all my happiness depends upon it." She paused for an appreciable
moment. "We seem to have changed places since that long-ago morning,
Eldred. It is I who want--to begin now--on any terms."

He put out his arm, and drew her very close to him.

"Feckless as ever!" he chided without severity. "You dismissed me on
an impulse; and now you would take me back again with the same
stupendous disregard for results. It is very evident you need some one
to look after you, and teach you common-sense."

"I have told you already _who_ it is that I need. Isn't that enough?"

The thrill in her low tone set all the man in him on fire. The
influence of the hour was strong upon him.

"My God!" he muttered under his breath. "How can mere flesh and blood
hold out against you?"

"Must you hold out against me--even after what I said?"

She nestled nearer, and stray tendrils of hair softly brushed his
cheek. His lips whitened, but he set them close. Her touch, the
perfume of her passion, had their exalting effect on him. Her weakness
challenged his strength.

"Yes; I must," he answered quietly. "For your sake, my dear, and for
my own self-respect. I am fighting this thing, you understand, with
every weapon at my command. And until I see my way clear out on the
other side, I will not--I dare not--take you back. Now come. It is
high time you were asleep. We can't stay out here together all night."

"We have every right to . . . if we choose," she murmured, still
rebellious.

"You forget, I am to teach you common-sense! There is to-morrow to be
thought of, and your long ride back to Dalhousie."

A small shiver ran through her.

"I am afraid of to-morrow. I shall wake up and feel as if all this had
been a dream. When shall I see you again . . . alone?"

"I will come up and call on you the day after!" he said, assuming a
deliberate lightness in sheer self-defence. "Don't let me find Garth
there, though; or I warn you I shall not be accountable for my
behaviour!"

He rose on the words, and lifted her to her feet. They descended the
slope in silence, walking a little apart, as if accentuating the fact
that their reunion in this June night of enchantment and faint stars
was an incomplete thing after all.

The moon was near her zenith; and, outside the formless dark of the
forest, the great glade held her radiance as a goblet holds wine. Past
the half-hidden temple of the holy lake they moved leisurely towards
the cluster of tents that showed like a pallid excrescence at the
forest's edge. To-night again, as on that earlier unforgettable day,
they seemed the only living beings in a world of shadows and folded
wings; and the decree of separation, coming at such a moment, put a
severe strain on their self-control.

Fifty feet from Quita's tent they stood still.

She held out her hands. He pressed them closely between his own, that
were strangely cold, and lifted them to his lips. Then she swayed
forward unsteadily; and in an instant her face was hidden against his
shoulder, her whole frame shaken with soundless sobs.

A woman in tears sets even a case-hardened man at a disadvantage; and
Lenox, confronted with the phenomenon for the first time in his life,
experienced a sense of helpless bewilderment, coupled with a vague
conviction of his own brutality in having brought this happy-hearted
wife of his to such a pass. He could not guess that after a week of
ceaseless tension, played out with no little fortitude, this moment of
unrestraint came as a pure relief to her overwrought nerves; a relief
that verged upon ecstasy, since her husband's arm was round her, his
hand mechanically stroking her hair.

"Hold up, hold up," he urged her gently. "This sort of thing will
never do."

But control, once lost, is ill to regain. His words produced no
visible affect, for in her momentary abandonment, she could not see his
face; or guess at the struggle that was enacting behind its curtain of
self-mastery. And now, to discomfiture was added an overpowering
temptation to trample on all scruples of conscience; to take that which
was his, without further let or hindrance; and put an end to their
distracting situation once for all.

"Quita, . . . my darling wife . . . !" he broke out desperately. "For
Heaven's sake pull yourself together. You are torturing me past
endurance. Do you suppose it is an easy thing . . . to let you go?"

She raised her head at that, compressing her lips to still their tremor.

"Forgive me, . . . dearest. It was stupid of me to make a fuss. I
will go now; and I promise not to behave like this again."

She deliberately drew his head down to her own; and they kissed, once.
Then she left him, something hurriedly; and he stood transfixed looking
after her, till the falling flap of the tent hid her from view.

There could be no thought of sleep for Eldred Lenox that night.

Till the moon slipped behind the pines, and the sentinel snow-peak in
the North caught, and flung back, the first glimmer of dawn, he paced
the empty glade from end to end. His mouth and throat were parched.
His every nerve clamoured for the accustomed narcotic. But pipe and
tobacco-pouch reposed in his breast-pocket--untouched.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Ah, Love, but a day,
And the world has changed!"
--Browning.

An early return journey had been advocated by all experienced weather
prophets of the mushroom colony of Kajiar. The great monsoon was
already rolling up from the coast-line, and at any moment might break
in thunder over the hills.

By eight of the morning tent-poles were swaying and falling on all
sides: and the wide glade that had slept in silver when Quita parted
from her husband, was astir from end to end. From every corner came
the brisk insistent tapping of hammers on tent-pegs; the shrill
neighing of ponies, and shriller chatter of coolies, bargaining for
payment in advance; repudiating loads a few ounces overweight, and
tragically prophesying death on the road if the illegal incubus were
not removed.

Peremptory bugle-notes rang out upon the air; and mounted Englishmen,
galloping hither and thither, scattered commands right and left in a
series of deep-chested shouts.

Striking camp,--breaking up! It is the key-note of Anglo-Indian life.
The chord of change unchanging sounds unceasingly in travel-weary ears.

But experience breeds proficiency; and the native servant is an adept
in the art of so oiling the wheels that his master shall accomplish his
appointed pilgrimage with the least possible damage to his much-tried
nervous system.

Zyarulla, the indomitable, was a man of this order. In his opinion the
Sahib had no concern whatever with the minor details of the march: an
opinion with which the Sahib in question had not the smallest desire to
quarrel. And on this particular morning Lenox had little attention to
spare even for the sorting and bestowal of his priceless
manuscripts,--so impatient was he to verify the dream-like happenings
of the night; to look into his wife's eyes and feel the answering
pressure of her hand. Swallowing a hasty cup of tea and a banana while
he dressed, he hastened out to the place of their parting seven hours
earlier.

Afar off he caught sight of her, standing, in habit and _terai_, on the
open space where her tent had been, supervising the departure of her
last load of luggage, and listening patiently to tales of coolie
villainy and extortion poured forth by her Kashmiri ayah, on a high
note of vituperation.

He checked his advance for the pure pleasure of watching her from a
distance: and when the ayah,--denouncing as she ran,--hurried off in
the wake of her refractory army, he went briskly forward and held out
his hand.

She gave him her own without a word, and for a full minute of time they
stood thus, hands and eyes inter-locked, oblivious of the noisy world
about them, which, happily for them, was absorbed in matters of far
greater moment.

"Can't I help you?" Lenox asked; and the simple question, with all that
it implied of his renewed right of service, thrilled her like a caress.

"I wish you could. But I've got through most of it already."

"That's bad luck. Maurice not much use on these occasions, I suppose?"

"Not the smallest use, bless him! He says I have more talent for it
than he! But call him Michael, _cher ami_, only to me."

"Michael then, by all means--Quita.--You can't think what it is to me
to be able to call you by your name again," he added with sudden
fervour.

She laughed and blushed deliciously.

"I noticed that you never called me by--the other one," she said,
looking intently at a distant tree.

"Good Lord, no--I'd have bitten my tongue out sooner!"

He could not keep his eyes from her face; and as the blush died down
its pallor smote him.

"Did you sleep at all?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes; for an hour or two. Did you?"

"Didn't even lie down."

"Oh, _mon pauvre_----!"

"Hush!--Don't trouble your dear head about that,"

"But I must. It breaks my heart----"

He laughed. "That's worse than ever! You've got to keep your heart
intact--for me."

His eyes travelled from her face to her unadorned left hand. Hers
followed them; and a half smile parted her lips.

"Where d'you keep them?" he asked under his breath.

Still smiling, she unfastened two buttons of her habit and vouchsafed
him a glimpse of gold and diamonds. "They live on a chain--in there,"
she explained softly.

"You have worn them, then, after a fashion?"

"Yes: since I learnt to love--my bondage!"

"Did you really never wish that I might be conveniently wiped out, even
in the early days?"

"No, never:--and I am thankful now that I _can_ say 'No' with perfect
truth."

She drew in a long breath of ecstasy. The morning cheerfulness of the
world at large, the music of her own pulses, and of the man's voice,
vibrant with things inexpressible, filled her with a very oppression of
happiness.

"Oh, Eldred," she breathed. "It still feels like a dream. Let's talk
sheer prose just to make it feel real!--Are you and the Desmonds riding
back with Colonel and Miss Mayhew?"

"Yes."

"So are we."

"And Garth?"

"I suppose so. But I want _you_ to ride with me. Will you--darling?"

She added the entreaty of her eyes to the last word, and he hesitated.

"It will look a little odd, and sudden, of course. But I don't see why
I shouldn't."

"Nor do I. We can at least begin our courtship--can't we?--to prepare
people for what is to come! Besides--if it isn't you, it will be Major
Garth, and . . . I'm a little afraid of him after last night."

"Why? What the devil did he do?"

"Nothing--nothing definite. He only spoke rather strangely before I
sent him away; and I don't want to be alone with him, if I can help it.
You see, he . . . he cares for me, Eldred; and I am afraid he thinks
now that I--care for him. Oh, I feel contemptuously wicked! But I
have been rather desperate this week, all on account of you; and I
really think it's your business to protect me from the consequences!"

"Of course it is my business, and my privilege to protect you," he
answered fervently. Her confession of dependence was sweeter to him
than honey in the honeycomb. "But you gave me an almighty snubbing the
other day when I made a clumsy attempt at it."

"Make allowances, _mon cher_, and don't fail me now."

"Fail you?" He flashed a reproachful glance at her. "I hope I may
never do that, while there's breath in my body! Trust me to be at your
right hand when we start. Mrs Desmond will have wit enough to
capture--your friend, if she sees that I want you."

"Why? Does she know all about it?"

"Just the bare facts. I told her myself."

"And he?"

"Certainly. They are one, those two, if ever man and woman achieved
the miracle."

"Does that account for his flattering attentions to me since Chumba?"

"Quite possibly."

"But that wasn't fair play! He is such a grand fellow; and I was so
proud of my small conquest!"

Her lighter mood was even more irresistible than her seriousness had
been: but Lenox palled himself together.

"Tell him so, and you'll make your conquest at once, if you've not made
it already! Hullo--there is the last breakfast bugle. Shall we go in
together? If I am doomed to fall in love with you, I may as well set
about it at once!"

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