The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel May Dell (best contemporary novels .txt) 📕

bent and laid his lips upon her hair.
She moved then sharply, and for a single instant she saw his face. It was enough, more than enough for her quick heart. In a moment the barrier between them was down. She raised herself and threw her arms around his neck.
"My dear! My dear!" she said.
"It's all right," he whispered back.
Her arms tightened. She clung to him passionately. "Trevor--darling, I didn't know! I didn't understand!"
"It's all right," he said again.
She pressed her face to his. "Trevor, don't fret, dear! I'm not worth it. And I--I'm coming back to you--if you will have me."
"I want you," he answered simply.
"Not just for his sake?" she pleaded. "Or even for mine?"
"For my own," he said.
She was silent for a little. Then impulsively, with something of her old, quick charm of movement, she turned her lips to his. "Trevor, I believe I should die without you."
"Poor child!" he said gently.
"No--no! Don't pity me! Love me--love me!"
He pressed her closer. "My Chris, no one ever loved you more."
"Yes," she whispered. "I know that now. And I shall never forget it. Trevor, I love you, too. You believe that?"
"I know it, dear," he said.
"And because I love you," she said, "I'm not afraid of you any more. Trevor, let us promise each other that nothing shall ever come between us again."
"Nothing ever shall," he said steadily.
"Nothing ever shall," she repeated softly. "And--and--Trevor--" She suddenly hid her face against his shoulder and became silent again.
"But you are not afraid of me?" he said.
"No, dear, no; not afraid." Her voice quivered notwithstanding. "Only foolish, you know, and--and--a little doubtful lest--lest--when I've told you--something--you shouldn't be quite--pleased."
"I am--quite pleased, dear," he said.
She raised her head. "Trevor! You know?"
He took her face between his hands. "My darling, yes."
She opened her eyes wide, searching his face. "But that--that wasn't your reason for--wanting me back?"
He looked straight down into her eyes, still holding her. "I wonder if I need answer that question," he said slowly.
She was silent for a moment, then stretched her hands to him with a gesture of complete confidence. "No, dear, you needn't. Just forgive me for asking--that's all."
He stooped at once without speaking, and the kiss that passed between them was the seal of a perfect understanding.
Not till some time later did the request he was expecting her to make find utterance. He had been giving her a few details of Bertrand's illness and death.
"He simply went in his sleep," he said, "scarcely an hour after you left him. Max and I were both with him, but he went so easily that we neither of us knew when it was. There was no suffering or distress of any sort. He just passed."
He spoke with great gentleness. He was keenly anxious to remove her fear of death. But he knew by the way her arm tightened about his neck that something of the awe of it was upon her even while he spoke.
"Trevor," she said, in a very low voice, "I almost think I would like to see him."
"Yes, dear."
"But--I can't go alone," she said. "Will you come too?"
"Of course," he said.
She rose to her feet. "Let's go now."
He rose also with her hand in his. "There is some stuff here Max gave me for you," he said. "Drink that first."
"Where is Max?" she asked.
"I sent him to bed, and Noel too."
"And you have been sitting up with me ever since?"
"It was only three hours," he said.
He gave her Max's draught with the words, as if to check all comment on his action, and Chris submissively said no more. But she held his hand very tightly as they went out together.
The dawn was just spreading golden over the sea when they entered the room where Bertrand lay asleep. The light of it poured in at the open window like a benediction. Outside, the two sentries still stood on guard. But within was no earthly presence, only the scent and sound of the sea, only the growing splendour of the day, only the quiet dead waiting for the Resurrection....
Chris's hand trembled within her husband's as she drew near. But later, when she looked upon the dear, familiar face, the awe went out of her own.
For Bertrand's sleep was very easy, serenely natural. It seemed to Chris that the man's vanished youth had come back to beautify his rest. For all the weariness she had grown accustomed to see had passed away. She even thought he smiled.
Back on a rush of memory came his words: "I know that all Love is eternal, and Death is only an incident in eternity."
Till that moment they had never recurred to her. From that moment she carried them perpetually in her heart.
She drew a little nearer. She bent above him. And it was to her as if the dead lips spoke: "Though I shall not be with you, you will know that I am loving you still. It will be as an Altar Flame that burns for ever. Believe me, Christine, Death is a very small thing compared with Love."
"I know it, I know it," whispered Chris.
When she stood up again, though her eyes were shining through tears, she was smiling also.
"Your friend and mine, Trevor," she murmured. "May I--may I kiss him just once? I never have before."
"Of course you may," he said.
She bent again, bent till her lips just touched the dead man's brow.
"I won't disturb you, _preux chevalier_," she whispered. "Only good-night, dear! Good-night!"
For a little while she stood looking down upon the dead man's rest; but at length she turned away, drawing her husband with her, and went to the open window.
Hand in hand they looked out upon a world in which "all things were made new." They spoke no word. They thought the same thoughts together, and no words were needed.
Only when they turned at length from the shimmering sunlight back into the quiet room, their eyes met. And in the silence Trevor Mordaunt bent with reverence and kissed the living, as she had kissed the dead.


CHAPTER XII
THE PROCESSION UNDER THE WINDOWS

Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp! The procession was passing under the windows.
Bertrand de Montville, the vindicated hero, was being borne to his soldier's grave on the hill by the fortress. Soldiers preceded him. Soldiers followed him. A mixed crowd of journalists--men from all parts of Europe--came after. And from the window above, his little pal looked down.
Max Wyndham stood beside her, the corners of his mouth drawn down and a very peculiar expression in his green eyes. He had amazed his French friend by refusing to follow the _cortege_. Even Chris did not know why, for he had clothed himself in an impenetrable cloak of reserve since Bertrand's death, and he was not apparently minded to lift it even for her benefit.
Yet she was glad to have him with her, for Noel had elected to go with Mordaunt; and though she was quite willing to be left alone, she found Max's presence a help. She had seen but little of him until the moment that they stood together looking down upon the passing procession.
It was a grey day. Down on the shore the long waves rolled in to break in wide lines of surf up the rock-strewn beach. The thunder of their breaking mingled with the roll of muffled drums. The full honours of a soldier's funeral were to be accorded to the man who had died before France could make amends.
Slowly the procession wound along the _plage_, and back upon Chris's memory flashed the day when she and Cinders had waited at the garden gate to see the soldiers pass. She saw again the handsome face of the young officer marching behind his men, the sudden animation leaping into it at sight of her, the eagerness with which he turned to greet her, his momentary hesitation at her request, his smiling surrender. What would have happened, she asked herself, if he had managed to resist her that day? Had that been the beginning of his downfall? Might he otherwise have passed on unscathed?
A sudden sense of coldness assailed her. The street below was empty. She stood alone. She leaned her head against the window-frame. How grey it was!
"Sit down!" said Max practically.
She started. "Oh, Max!" she said weakly.
"Here you are," he said, and guided her down into a chair. "That's the way. Now lean back and shut your eyes."
She obeyed him, without question, as she always did. A vague sense of consolation began to steal through her. His hand, holding hers, dispelled the loneliness.
After a while she opened her eyes and found him watching her. "Oh, Max," she said, "I'm so glad you are here."
"It seems as well," he rejoined, rather grimly. "Don't you think it's time you began to behave rationally?"
"Have I been very silly?" she asked.
"Very, I should say." He sat down on the arm of her chair, and drew her head to lean against him, a very rare demonstration with him.
She relaxed with a sigh. "I can't help it," she said wistfully. "I used to think life was just splendid--it was good to be alive. And now--I sometimes wish I'd never been born."
"Which is a mistake," said Max. "There's no time for that sort of thing. Besides, it's futile. Now, don't cry! That's futile, too, when there is anything else to be done. I don't suppose Trevor will be feeling particularly jolly when he gets back from this show--though there's something rather funny about it to my mind--and you'll have to cheer him up. I suppose you won't be upset if I smoke?"
"What can you see funny in it?" questioned Chris.
He lighted his cigarette before replying. "My dear girl," he said then, "I can't endow you with a sense of humour if you don't possess one. But all this pomp and circumstance has got its funny side, I assure you. Bertrand saw that; he was a philosopher. If he were here now, he would snap his fingers and laugh."
"He might," Chris admitted. "At least, he called it a dream in the midst of a great Reality."
"Which it is," said Max. "Get outside it all. Get above it if you can. And you will see. Come, you mustn't grizzle. You don't seriously suppose you've lost anything, do you?" He looked down at her suddenly, with a smile in his shrewd eyes. "I say, you must get rid of that idea," he said. "Even I know better than that. I believe in my own way I was almost as fond of him as you were. But I knew he was going long ago, and that nothing on earth could stop him. He knew it too. Between ourselves, I don't think he much wanted to stop. But there was nothing unwholesome about him. He wasn't a shirker. He played the game. And now you're going to play it, eh? You're going to buck up. You're going to give Trevor a sample of what the Wyndhams can do. I know we're a rotten tribe, but we've got our points. In Heaven's name, let's make the most of 'em!"
He bent abruptly and kissed her.
"Life's all right," he said. "And so's the world. But you've got to get used to the idea that it's not a place to stay in. It's no good sitting down by the wayside to cry. You've got to look on ahead and keep moving. It's the only possible way. If you don't, you get buried in every sand-storm."
Chris reached up her arms and clasped