So the minutes sped. Alicia Edwards gave a sigh of satisfaction, for the bleeding had ceased, but Aura, feeling the faint death tremor which re-unites the vibration of life to the vibration of the star-shine, looked up, her fear gone in grave wonder.
"I think," she said softly, "she is dead."
"Go you into the house, my darlin', an' change that there poor dress, I'll manage now," choked Martha, ever ready with her tears.
Aura looked down with a faint shiver at the crimson stain. So that was the end of love.
CHAPTER XVI
It was not more than six hours ago that Aura had looked at Ned's iris, had sat in the dawn with Gwen's head in her lap, yet it seemed to the girl who had never seen death before, who had never before realised what Love meant, as if whole aeons had passed over her head. In truth they had; for Love and Death make up Life, since Birth comes to us without remembrance.
The morning had passed by in dizzy haste. There had been much to do, and do quickly, so that her grandfather should not be disturbed by even knowing of the tragedy. This was the more easy of compass, seeing that since his last seizure he had not been coming downstairs till late. So, ere he appeared, there had been time for folk to come and go, time even for old Adam to rake over the gravel disturbed by so many feet. There was no trace, in fact, of what had happened when Aura passed by the spot on her way to the hills. Parkinson's persistent hysterics had been the most troublesome factor in the problem of concealment, but Martha had at last, losing patience, locked her away in one of the cottage bedrooms, and left her there with the callous remark, "She'll come round by herself, and if she don't, 'oo cares?"
Who, indeed, did care about anything? Martha and Adam went about their work as usual; her grandfather knew nothing; even Ted was away.
Aura felt terribly lonely for the first time in her life; the more so because it seemed to her as if part of her very self had rebelled against that other self which, for one-and-twenty years, had lived such a frank, clear life. For all those years she had carried no burden; but now Love and Death claimed to come with her. She could not separate them even in her thoughts. One seemed to her destruction of the body, the other destruction of the mind.
So when leisure became hers at last she took up the thread of life where it had been broken by the intrusion into it of Gwen's death, and started to climb the hills, as she would have done at dawn. It was her natural instinct always. Other girls might shut themselves up in their rooms to think, might sit with their feet on the fender and dream. She had to go out, to feel the fresh breeze on her face, before her mind would work at all.
As she sat on the rocky sheep shelter, whither her feet had taken her almost unconsciously, since it was her favourite outlook, the winter sun beat down on her fiercely, warming her through to the heart. She could feel her very veins pulsing; their rhythm seemed almost to sing in her ears.
How warm it was! but in the shadows behind the big boulders--ay! and in the tiny shade of each blade of grass, each twig of bracken, the frost still lingered white, for the air was freeezing.
Sunshine and frost! Fire and ice!
That was exactly what she felt like herself! She was half fire, half ice; for a fierce virginity of mind fought desperately against the intrusion of that glad new impulse of self-surrender she had felt when she saw Ned's iris.
That, she supposed, was Love; but what was that sort of love worth if it brought death with it to--to herself--to her mind?
She felt indescribably smirched and stained. As she glanced at the fresh white serge skirt she was wearing she seemed to see on it still that crimson blood. It was horrible! It would be there always for her, scarlet as sin, no matter how white as wool it seemed to others.
Poor Gwen! That was the end of it all. She had, no doubt, yielded to Love. Had she had any terror of it at first? Had she also felt the degradation of it?
So, as she sat, more dreaming than thinking, a voice called her. She started to her feet, remembering in a flash that other man's voice which had called "Gwen" in that very place--the man whom she had called coward--whom she had smitten with the lily she held.
It was not an opportune moment for Ned Blackborough, who, having come over to Cwmfaernog with congratulations, had, after hearing from Martha of the tragedy, followed the girl straight to her favourite outlook with the sort of instinctive knowledge of what she would do, which he had always seemed to possess. At the present moment this was in itself an offence to Aura. What right had he to pry into her mind?
"What is wrong?" he asked, checked in his quick sympathy by the expression on her face. Another offence, since what right had he to know anything was wrong.
"Nothing," she answered curtly; "only I came here for quiet and it seems as if I am not to have it!"
He stared at her for a second; then, with a shrug of the shoulders, turned to go, thereby bringing to her a pang of remorse; since when had he not been courteous, not been kind?
His quick return, therefore, and the reckless obstinacy which showed on his face relieved her.
"A cat may look at a king, Miss Graham," he said coolly. "I came to say I was sorry. I am. And as I fail to see that your birthday has any monopoly over New Year's Day, I will wish you many happy returns of the latter. May your temper never grow worse."
She had to smile. The sudden outburst of truth was so like Ned when anything occurred to ruffle or disarrange the smooth covering of convention.
"Thank you," she replied quite frankly, feeling curiously at her ease; "I did not mean to be rude, but----"
"I know," he said simply, and paused. And she knew so well that he knew, that, though her lip quivered for a second she said no more.
There was no need to say more.
It was so curious to have him sitting there beside her. Now that he had come all the trouble had gone; she was once more absolutely at her ease.
"And thanks also for the iris," she said after a pause, feeling glad to escape from the tragedies of life. "It is jolly; but I wish you hadn't dug the poor thing up."
"I did not dig it up," he replied coolly.
"You didn't--then how----"
"I wired to Covent Garden for another, and it came down in charge of such a superior person that I almost had to ask him to dine; so 'the most beautiful thing in the most beautiful place in the world' remains beside the sphinx as----" he paused.
"As what?" she asked.
He had come half-prepared to speak of his love, and there was about her face to-day a curious half-forlorn puzzled look which made him feel inclined to take her in his arms and kiss it away--"As a remembrance of you, naturally," he replied.
She sat down on the nearest stone feeling just a little dizzy, and clasping her hands across her knees stared out at the pale blue misty valley, and the pale blue winter sky beyond.
"But why should you want something to remember me by?" she said slowly. "I shall always remember you without anything."
Her freedom from conventional cloakings in speech was at all times a trifle disconcerting, and he felt inclined to reply "That is very kind of you," or make some other banal remark of the sort which might bring convention back. Then he cursed himself for a low beast, and followed her unconsciousness as closely as he could.
"Perhaps I wanted to remember the exact words you said," he suggested.
"But you do remember them," she answered aggrievedly; "that is what I complain of. You remember every little thing I say--and it is most uncomfortable. I cannot think why you should."
He took his fate in his hand. "Can't you--I can----. It is because I happen to love you."
She sat still for a second, then turned and looked at him with narrowing eyes. "I don't see what that has to do with it! You knew what I was thinking about the very first time we met, and you could not possibly have been in love with me then."
Her seriousness made him laugh outright. It was the most delicious piece of comedy to be sitting there talking of his love as if it did not belong to him, while his pulses--stay! were they bounding, or had they quieted down to a curious content?
"I am not so sure," he replied gravely. "There is such a thing, you are doubtless aware, as love at first sight."
"Not for sensible people, and I think we are sensible," she argued grudgingly. "I know, at any rate, that I was not in love with you for a long time afterwards."
The whole world seemed to spin round with Ned....
"Then you are--oh! my dear, my dear!" ...
"Please don't!" she cried, hastily drawing back from his outstretched hands; "I hate being touched. Besides that has nothing to do with what I want to find out. Why, from the very beginning, did you always understand? That can have nothing to do with love ... not, at least, with love like Gwen's"--the last sentence came thoughtfully in a lower key.
"But our love will be different, dear," he said almost solemnly. "If you will marry me, Aura, I will try to understand to the very end--so help me God."