The Stronger Passion

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 637, 13 April 1929, Page 22

The Stronger Passion

~&y

Author of ' The Great Anvil. The Best Gift of All." For Love or for Gold. &c . &c

Rowan Glen .

CHAPTER Vlll.—Continued. Inflexible of purpose as ever, and, as ever, counting her merely as a pawn in the grim game which he was playing, he took her upstairs to what he called the picture gallery. It was a great, high-ceilinged room, running almost the whole length of the house, and in it were most of Arnavrach’s treasures. “I love good pictures,” he said as he lifted one of the two lamps and held it high. “I’m no art critic. I’m interested merely because the things appeal to me and because some of the portraits here are of folk of my own blood.” Together they went slowly round the room, and it was when Blaine, I who had, unknowingly, demonstrated a i new shyness—was commenting on the beauty of a small canvas showing a strip of river-side, that Macßae, setting the lamp down, turned to her. “Elaine,” he said gravely, “I don’t know how I’ve been so patient.” She did not but continued to look at the picture. “Patient?” she repeated. “What do you mean?” “You’re fencing with me. You must know what I mean. I’m taking what hope I can from the fact that you haven’t objected to my using your first name. If you’d only say ‘Blair’ in return, the hope would grow. You: haven’t forgotten, have you, what I told you that night when we were caught in the mist oh Ben Alsh?” “No,” she answered slowly. “I haven’t forgotten.” “Then ” He paused, because he had heard laughing voices outside the room. “Hush!”; Elaine cautioned him. “There’s someone coming.” He frowned and the irritation which had brought the frown was genuine. “I’ll have to wait again,” he whispered. “Lord! how I wish those people hadn’t turned up! I don’t know whether I should be feeling happy or miserable.” He could not tell from her face how the words had impressed her, and ere he could speak again, Rollingward and Lilian Manton came into the room. Neither, of the girls noticed it, but Macßae knew, and was not displeased by the knowledge, that the still boy-

ishly-mannered Rollingward had taken rather more wine than was wise. .• Chagrin showed in his eyes as he 1 faced Macßae and Elaine, but it passed | almost instantly, and he returned to ! his laughing, almost boisterous mood. “So here you are!” he exclaimed, ! with a w'ell done air of good humour. “Sir Charles was right—he said you’d be nosing around about the pictures because you’d been speaking about them to Elaine all through dessert. Have you finished the inspection, MacRae, or are you only starting? If you’re starting, Miss Manton and T will line up and follow you around. If you have finished, I’ve a suggestion to make.” Macßae laughed. “We’ve finished, so let’s hear the suggestion,” he said. “Do you want to play billiards? Or do wou want to go out into the garden? Or do you want to have music?” “Music?” said Rollingward. “There’s an idea in that, because Elaine can play and sing like an angel when she cares. But what we’d really thought about, Miss Manton and I, was getting one of your boats and going out on the loch.” Macßae glanced at Elaine. He thought that she smiled faintly. “I want all you folk to enjoy yourselves,” he said, “so if you feel like going on the loch, why, of course, we’ll go. But what about the others I’ve four guests somewhere below.” “Oh, they’re all right,” Rollingward assured him. “They’ve settled down to bridge. They’re well away—doubling each other like fun. . . . Your father’s partnered with the minister, Elaine, and he’s getting purple in the face because he can’t curse* aloud. Cameron’s what’s called a worthy soul, but he’s gambling tuppenceha’penny a hundred for the first time in his life and he’s making the most terrific bloomers. . . . Now then, what about that row?” Again Macßae turned to EJaine. This time she nodded. “Let’s go,’-’ she said. “After all, we’d done the art gallery before those rowdy young people came.” “Yes,” he agreed, his eyes halfclosed as he watched her. “Yes, we’d done that. I’d wanted to discuss another treasure with you, but that will have to wait.” “Treasures?” Rollingward echoed. “Listen to the man! Why, he’s got everything in the world. I’ll tell you what, Macßae, if ever you feel like selling this house and the island—freehold, of course—l’ll buy. I’ve always wanted to have a little kingdom of my own.” “How mad you are, Maurice!” Elaine laughed. “One of thes£ days you’ll- have the place in Sussex—and what’s called ‘a seat in the Upper House.’ You’ll be no end of a swell.” “I know,” he returned, “but the Sussex place has all kinds of other places touching it. What I’m after is an island like this.” It was he, who, wine-elated, led them downstairs, from the house, and toward the t’iny landing stage where a. boat was waiting. Duncan Graham, who had been summoned to act as boatman, had shipped the oars; Elaine and Rollingward had seated themselves in. the bows, and Macßae was about to help Lilian Manton aboard when a man came toward them at a shambling He was one of the island’s few crofters and he addressed Macßae by the latter’s island name. ' “Laird,” he started, “Im sorry for to come to you when you’re -with your friends, but Mrs. Cairns at the house told me I should. You’re a doctor, sir, as we know, and we’re needing one sore at my cottage the now.” “What’s the matter, Stewart?” MasRae asked. “I’ll come, of course; but —it must be something sudden?” “Y,es, sir; it’s my wee girl. She must have got feared-like, or something. Anyway, when we thought she was asleep she started to come downstairs and fell. The wife and I went to her, but she’s lying there like as though she was dead. If you’d come, sir, it ’ud be terrible kind o’ you.” “Right!” Macßae agreed. “Don’t go away, Stewart. I'm not sure where your cottage is. I’ll come with you.” • “And I’ll come, too,” Lilian Manton said. . “I want to, Blair. Don’t forget that I was a V.A.D. once. I might be of use. You never know. You others” —she turned to Rollingwood and Elaine —“mustn’t let this stop you. Go out for your row. We’ll be meeting at the house before the bridge players have finished.” It was arranged so suddenly that there was no time for protests, and Lilian at least, was glad to see the boat being pulled out into the calm loch while she and Macßae followed the agitated crofter toward his cottage. When they reached it, Macßae, for the first time in bitter years, exercised that professional skill which a fellow-Scot —a surgeon like himself, but a score of years older —had called “uncanny.” While he tended the hurt child, Lilian Manton, her services unneeded, watched him through softlylighted eyes, holding something greater than admiration. What the future was to offer her, she neither guessed then nor cared. She told herself that she loved this man, and that nothing beyond that love mattered. She had a theory, shared by others whose mentality was deeper than her own, that no love could be perfected till it was answered. She greatly wanted to have an answer to hers. Perhaps she had read into Blair Macßae’s consistent attitude of interest and kindliness things which he had not wished, nor intended that she should sead, but when, the surgeon’s work well done, they were on their homeward way, she blundered into a i

confession for which, later, she despised herself. Tripping over a protruding tree trunk, Macßae had fallen, and, because the pain of a damaged knee jagged at him, remained motionless for a matter of moments. While it lasted, the pain was agonising, and he did not hear the girl’s murmured words of anxiety. She helped him to rise, and even when he told her that no serious injury had been done and that the pain had passed, she kept an arm about his shoulders. Only then did he realise that, in speaking to him, she had used an expression of endearment; only then did he note the indefinable shining quality in her dark eyes. It was she who swayed now; he who caught at her. Uneasy, facing a wonder which to him was beyond belief, he spoke haltingly. “Yes,” he said, answering a question of hers. “Yes, we’d better sit down for a bit. I can feel only a twinge or two now, but we could do with a rest. It was rather a forced march to that cottage and you look tired.” At a corner in the track they seated themselves on the dry moss beneath a great fir tree, and Macßae spoke hesitatingly. “What’s the trouble, Lilian?” he asked. “Why, my dear girl, you look upset—ill almost. What is it?” His voice had held so uniquely solicitous a note that she, who believed herself to love him, caught at it, in emotional exultation. “Don’t you know, Blair?” she said. “Can’t you see?” He had been holding her lightly, but

now iris arm caught at her. It was a purely nervous action and uncontrolled by reason. He liked her and admired her, but he had never loved her and, as he knew, never would. But Lilian could not guess at those nebulous thoughts which were passing through his mind. All she knew was that he was holding her close, and that he represented all that she held most dear in the world. “Blair,” she whispered, “it’s all wrong, I suppose, for me to say it, but' you’ve seen, haven’t you, how I care? I’ve known it all along, I think. I knew it on Ben Alsh last week when I thought yon might be lost in *the mist and killed. I knew it to-night when I saw you working over that child.” Suddenly he understood. Suddenly his face grew fire-hot and his arms lax. “Why. Lilian,” he said. “T hadn’t guessed.” Something in his face told her the truth. For her, too, it was a moment of realisation. She knew that emotion had beaten reason; knew that she had blundered, as few women blunder. But because she was brave, she completed the half truth, and did so eye to eye with him and unashamedly trusting him, even while half-cdntemp-tuous of herself.

“I’ve let you know, Blair,’” she ended. “I'm not regretting it. We’D be just the same after this as we were before. But from now on you’ll have the knowledge that at least one woman has loved you well. There may be others—l don’t know about. that.” For the first time since he had gone to prison Macßae's softer nature was touched. The wonderful thing had happened —a woman loved him and had confessed that love! He felt humbled and shamed, and in part the shame came because he knew that the girl who had spoken to him of her love, regretted having spoken. “My dear,” he said, "what can I say? Only that it’s a mad worldpeopled as it seems to me by those who’re either making trouble all the time, or being troubled. “I’ll never forget this as long as l live. I know you well enough to know how proud you are, and y ov know me well enough to know that I’ll respect that pride. “I’m not a marrying sort, There was a time when I lived only for my work. Women —marriage didn’t enter into my scheme of things-To-day ” “Yes—to-day?” she prompted. i “To-day I live only to enjoy dj?' self. I’m finished with work. r* finished God help me! wit® thoughts of love. There are oth* T th ughts in my brain now, but y»* must know that you’ve humbled a l ® to-night; made me feel that there be greater things than the thin** are dominating me and torcM me on to the goal I have in sights j almost against my will." j (To be continued.)