Chapter VI

"You yourself know not how beautiful is your gift."
SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE.

It was Mrs. Melrose who opened Keith's telegram, and her elation may be conceived. Sheila was engaged, at the moment, on a new arrival; but directly she was free, her mother beckoned her mysteriously into the passage and handed her the envelope.

"I opened it, just to see if there was any answer," she explained with repressed eagerness, while Sheila stood frowning at the cryptic message that might mean ... anything, everything.

"I _wish_ you wouldn't open telegrams addressed to me, Mother," she said, none too graciously. It was the second time lately that Mrs. Melrose had been guilty of that dire offence; and she was one of the very few people who knew that Sheila could snap on provocation: a sufficiently illuminating comment on their relation.

"Well, really, dear, one doesn't _expect_ a wire to be a love-letter in disguise!" Sheila, who could be dense at times, missed the delicate implication that Keith's message amounted to a proposal of marriage. "Of course you must be free. I'll arrange it with Sister Nelson."

"Oh, please don't trouble. _I_ can arrange things all right."

And she did.

Some twenty minutes later, Mark's car drew up before the spacious, flat-fronted Georgian house; and Keith sprang out of it. To-day all his movements had a new alertness. He looked and felt five years younger.

Three shallow steps led up to the front door; and just as he reached these, Sheila came out in hat and coat, plainly prepared to join him. She looked paler than usual, but entirely mistress of herself.

"You got my wire?" he asked superfluously.

"Yes. Very mysterious! So I thought ... better be prepared for emergencies. Nothing wrong with Mums?"

"No. Mums is particularly well this morning. It's not on _her_ account I'm here."

The emphasised word brought a faint glow to her cheeks.

"Mark?" she asked, almost under her breath.

"Yes--Mark."

"You mean--he sent you?"

"No. The impulse was altogether my own. I am here because I believe in you, Sheila. Come for a stroll down the garden before we start back."

She came--bewildered, palpitating; prepared for almost anything but the actual event.

From the house of many windows, park-like grounds sloped gently down to the Wynch, broader and lazier here than at Wynchcombe Friars. The grass was bright with crocuses and early daffodils; and on the bare boughs overhead, half-opened leaf-buds gleamed like jewels in the sun.

Keith, as he turned, caught sight of Mrs. Melrose at an upper window, watching them go.

"Your mother has her eye on us," he remarked casually. "I believe she thinks I've come tearing over to make you an offer of marriage!"

"_You_!" Sheila confronted him in blank surprise.

"Don't be alarmed," Keith reassured her, with his whimsical smile. "I've already been guilty of it once this morning."

At that her eyes opened wider than ever, and he saw light dawn in their depths.

"Mums?"

He nodded.

"How simply splendid! It's been my pet, private dream for ages. But I was afraid...."

"So was I. Horribly afraid. Without reason, I am thankful to say."

A pause.

"I want ... to congratulate you," she said softly. "There's no one on earth like Mums. She's the youngest of us all. And ... Mark? Isn't he glad?"

"Mark's in no mood to be glad about anything," Keith answered, with a straight look. "That's why I am here. We haven't told him. We can't tell him ... yet. And we can't help him, either of us. Only you can do that."

She flushed hotly and looked down at the crocuses.

"I'm afraid you overestimate my powers. I've done all ... I can.'

"No, you've _not_ done all," he corrected her gently. "Or I should not be standing here. I take it that you ... care for Mark: that you have always cared."

She drew in her lips and answered nothing. Then she looked up at him, her secret unveiled. Strangely, it did not hurt her that he should know.

"I thought so," he remarked to her silence. "And on the strength of that conviction, I've come over to put the whole truth before you. It's no easy thing I'm going to ask of you, Sheila. But I believe in you--as I said."

He moved on in speaking, and she moved on beside him--wondering, fearing, yet longing to know all.

Plainly and straightforwardly he told of her mother's letter; quieting, with a tactful hand, her incidental burst of indignation. Personally, he assured her, he felt quite grateful to Mrs. Melrose, who, in trying to do him one good turn, had inadvertently done him another. That consideration calmed her a little and touched up her sense of humour.

"If she's been any help to you and Mums, I forgive her ... for that part of it," she said in a voice that quivered between a laugh and a sob. "But I won't forgive her ... about Mark ... _ever_."

And when Sheila said that, she meant it. She had never forgiven Bel. It was the streak of Northern granite in her disposition. Keith had purposely included those remarks that had roused his own anger. He had reckoned them his strongest cards. He now perceived them to be stronger than he had supposed, and he suffered a passing twinge of conscience. But the matter at stake was too vital to be tripped up by side issues: and he went on to tell her, in quiet forcible phrases, of Helen's distress, of Mark's devotion that appeared to confirm rather than weaken his flat refusal to sacrifice her on the altar of his own supreme need.

And Sheila heard him out in an unbroken silence. He could only gauge the effect of his revelation by her uneven breathing and an occasional movement of her lips.

When he had told all, he stood still and confronted her. "There, my dear," he said, a deep note of feeling in his voice. "It's a tragic tangle. And, for love of Mark and you ... and Helen, I'd go almost any length to unravel it. But there's only one who can do that. And now perhaps you can guess what it is I came to say."

She still remained silent, studying a patch of crocuses, realising acutely all that his request implied; shrinking, yet passionately longing to go in and win that which was her own. She had gone very pale again. But as realisation deepened, her face became one burning blush.

"Do you mean ... that I must offer ... myself?" she asked at length, addressing her question to the crocuses. "I--I almost did it yesterday. At least ... I'm sure he saw it in my eyes. And ... he slipped away."

"Yes. He would. I am afraid--if you really want to convince him, you must put aside all the conventionalities, all your natural reluctance, and ... show him your heart. _Make_ him believe. He only hesitates, remember, from the highest motives and because he has no conception how deeply you care.--Now, will you come along with me and put everything right for the four of us?"

There fell another tremendous silence. Keith knew well that he could scarcely have asked a harder thing of her. Second after second she stood there, her hands clenched, wrestling with her pride, her dumbness....

Then she said slowly, as if speaking to herself: "I can't ... I _can't_. It's against my whole nature. The words would never come. Oh _why_ ... won't he understand?"

"Because he is a very chivalrous gentleman," Keith answered with significant emphasis. "And if you really can't bring yourself to make a move, well ... I must go back alone and confess I was mistaken. Of course, _I_ can speak to him myself. But if I failed, I should fail fatally.--It is strange. I felt absolutely certain of you, Sheila.--Is that your final, considered answer? Am I to go?"

By a wise intuition he refrained from pleading or further argument, and his stern quietness stung her as no reproach would have done.

Suddenly she felt Mark himself tugging at her heart. She saw the look in his eyes, heard again those terrible words that haunted her brain. And was this to be the end? Were they all to be made miserable because there were bounds that her pride could not pass, a limit beyond which she could not or would not go?

Against that arbitrary decree all her deeper, truer nature rose up in revolt. There were no bounds ... no limits. In that critical moment of decision her childhood's creed of courage came timely to her aid.

She looked up at last: and Keith saw that he had prevailed.

"No. You are _not_ going back alone," she said, steadfastly meeting his gaze. "I was a coward to say ... I couldn't speak to him. I can. And I will."

"Ah--that's more like it!" There was vast relief in Keith's tone. "You've saved my reputation for omniscience. Now, come and save Mark from himself."

"_If_ I can," she murmured, with a catch in her breath; and they hurried back up the slope towards the house.

There on the steps they descried, afar off, the severely repressed figure of Mrs. Melrose radiating congratulations. Keith, the resourceful, felt suddenly nonplussed.

"Sheila, look there! We're done for."

"Not a bit of it," Sheila replied in her most matter-of-fact tone. "We're in a mortal hurry and we don't happen to notice her till we're in the car."

"Capital! Lucky I backed it well away from the entrance."

It was done--and neatly done. Keith was just turning the car when he ostentatiously caught sight of his would-be mother-in-law.

"Good morning, Mrs. Melrose," he called out cheerfully. "I'm sorry I can't stop. So good of you to spare her. She's badly wanted over there."

Mrs. Melrose, completely mystified and very much annoyed, fluttered a perfunctory hand and went back into the house wondering irritably what on earth had happened to Mr. Macnair.

That Lady Forsyth could have happened to him never so much as entered her head. There had been a good deal of talk at one time; but it had fizzled out for want of fuel. Her chief concern at the moment was to prevent Sheila from becoming entangled again with Mark. When he would have been a really suitable match, she had muddled things. Just like her! But now--position or no position--it wouldn't do at all----

And Sheila, with never a word of her intent, was speeding through the April sunshine, bent upon a permanent entanglement with Mark: one that no mother in creation could undo.

As the little car lightly tossed the miles aside, he? courage and purpose rose steadily.

Keith, for all his own eagerness, drove at a low speed. He knew well, from experience, how rushing through the air scatters and paralyses thought. They had but seven miles to cover; and he guessed rightly that Sheila needed a quiet breathing space to mobilise her spiritual forces for the brave adventure in hand. So they drove leisurely between woods and fields and uplands, quick with new life and young desires. And throughout that most companionable drive they scarcely exchanged a word.

Only when Keith handed Sheila out of the car, he retained her hand a moment in his own.

"Luck follows pluck," he said, smiling. "_I_ have no fear. But first we must find Helen."

They found her basking on the terrace with an open book in her lap. As a matter of fact, she had not read two pages. She had done literally nothing but await their arrival.

"Well, here she is," Keith said, as Helen sprang up to greet them. "My private trophy. How's Mark?"

"I haven't been near him. I began to think you would never come."

"Ungrateful!" he reproached her gravely. "We've done it all in record time. We deserve congratulation. Now--give her your blessing and don't keep her long."

While the blessing was in progress he left them. His own turn would come in time.

"Dearest one," Sheila murmured between her kisses, "I _do_ congratulate you with all my soul. He's a treasure. This morning.... But you shall hear all that ... afterwards." Then she stood back a little, blushing and smiling. "Mums, tell me true. Am I being very unspeakable ... after yesterday?"

"Very unspeakable!" The older woman slipped an arm round her and drew her through the open French window into the house. "God bless you, child," she added gravely, kissing her again. "You're being angelically a woman. But, darling ... are you quite, _quite_ sure...?" Her eyes completed the question. "I've had pricks of conscience, waiting here. Have you realised ... _every_thing?"

"Yes. Everything. Long ago," Sheila answered steadily, a hot wave of colour in her cheeks. "It simply doesn't count. Nothing counts ... except him."

"In that case I'm satisfied. But I couldn't forget what you said once at Inveraig."

"Oh, that! Fancy your remembering. But now--it's Mark. He's my share of the War. And ... gospel truth, Mums--I'd sooner 'mother' him than anything else on earth."

"Oh--if you can only make him understand _that_!" Tears stood in Helen's eyes. "It was not for nothing I christened you 'Queen of the Poor Things.'"

"Mums, how _dare_ you!" For a moment Sheila was really angry. "He's _not_ a poor thing. He's the most glorious thing that was ever made.--Now, let me fly upstairs. 'Valour will come and go!'"

Her low laugh had a break in it, and she hurried from the room.

Outside the studio, she paused to steady herself. No sound came from within; and she opened the door an inch or two.

"Mark," she called softly. "It's Sheila. Can I come in?"

"_Sheila!_" Amazement and smothered passion sounded in his voice. But there was fear in it also.

"Come in, of course," he added hastily, as if to cover both.

She found him by the open window, sitting at his easel, crayon in hand: and on the easel stood a delicate pastel study of herself. If courage had wavered a moment, it revived at that. She looked from him to the picture with lifted brows.

"Quite good," she said, slipping past the awkward explanation of her presence.

"It isn't. It's a wretched travesty!'" he answered bluntly. "But one must do something ... to keep going." He paused and scanned her face searchingly. She did not attempt to avoid his gaze. Her eyes were radiant, as if the windows of her soul were flung open to the sunrise.

Sudden fear came upon him and sudden remembrance of his mother's words. He had not fortified himself to resist this. Yet resist it he must.

"_Why_ have you come again so soon ... like this?" he asked, going straight to the point in his usual fashion.

"Because ... after yesterday..." She hesitated and drew in her lips. "There could be only one way to put things straight between us and make you unsay that bitter thing about the dead having the best of it. Mark, it haunted me. But ... I couldn't have brought myself to come, like this, so soon, except for Mr. Macnair and Mother's extraordinary letter to Mums."

"What letter? Has Mums anything to do with this?" Mark flashed out.

And Sheila was thankful she could answer truthfully: "No. It was all Mr. Macnair. He came over because of that letter--I'll tell you afterwards--and I found he knew ... about my caring. He was splendid. He made me see ... there was only this one way. He said--'Come!' And he encouraged me...."

"Keith encouraged you? It was no business of his." Mark had found his voice at last. He had forgotten the mysterious letter. There was only room in him for one hope, one fear. "Sheila ... what does it all mean? Are you----?"

"Yes, Mark"--her voice took its deepest, tenderest tone--"I am ... asking you to marry me, because I know, now, that you will never do it yourself. And I know, now, that you do ... care...."

"'_Care_?' ... I simply worship you. And, for that very reason, I will not take advantage of your heavenly impulse of devotion; though God knows I honour you for it. Broken things appeal so strongly to your heart. You have to make allowance for that."

"I have to make allowance for nothing."

Her tone was repressed now and her eyes veiled. Was she to repeat yesterday's ordeal, with aggravations?

"You don't understand," he forced himself to say. "You can't understand all it would mean. Sheila ... a man in my case has no right to offer, or to accept, marriage: and I ... I refuse to snatch happiness at your expense. Keith ought to have known me better by now.... You, of all people, tied to a cripple ... a sort of glorified hospital nurse! If I shrank from sacrificing a worthless woman like Miss Alison, is it likely I would sacrifice you...?"

But Sheila had endured enough.

"Oh, Mark, can't you see? Are you determined not to see?" she cried, her low voice tremulous with passion, her twilight blue eyes full of pain. "For her, it would have been a sacrifice. For me ... I--I can't find the word that's big enough. It's not that I don't understand--and admire your reluctance. But you have to understand too. Mark ... must I say all? Must I tell you that from the very beginning, since I was sixteen, there's been no one ... but you. There will never be. You are all I want on earth. You say ... you have no right. But remember, there's every hope.... Dr. Norton says so. And even if there was ... no hope, if you were three times as helpless as you are, I would still rather be _your_ hospital nurse than any other man's ... wife."

At that, with an abrupt movement, he turned away and hid his face in his hands.

"Oh, leave me ... leave me," he murmured desperately. "How _can_ I see clear, think clear, when you stand there ... tempting me----"

His voice broke. Silence fell--and lasted.

Sheila continued to stand there. Her hands were cold, her limbs shaking. If she left him now, his strong will would reassert itself. She could not go through this again. And there an end.

Pride argued: "In the face of flat refusal, you can go no further." But she saw Mark's shoulders heave ... once; and there could be no more argument; no more pride----

Without a word she went close up to him, slipped a hand round his head and drew it against her breast.

In that fashion she gave him her answer. Yet he made no sign, till two tears fell upon his hands that hid him from her. Then he uncovered his face and looked up into hers, as an earth-bound soul may look into heaven.

"Beloved," he whispered, "it's a desperate risk. You've no right ... I've no right...." But his arms were round her; and his head, that still leaned against her, felt the glad leap of her heart.

"We have the right, if we choose," she whispered, and stooped her face to his....

At last he drew her down on to his knee and set her a little away to reassure himself that the impossible had actually come to pass.

And she sat there smiling at him: too purely exultant to do anything but smile.

"You little thing--you little lovely thing!" he said in a low voice of rapture. "You're the first person that's ever cut right across my will and bowled me over. I swore to poor Mums last night that nothing would induce me----"

"And you were conquered by a little thing!"

Very tenderly she laid her cheek against his. "Most wholesome for you--and a triumph for me!" She paused, dwelling on him ... realising in her turn. "Mark, I wish I wasn't quite so small, then I could help you more, my own self. Lifting you--and that."

"Lifting me!" His eyes were misty with tenderness. "You've lifted me clean out of the nethermost hell. Isn't that enough in the way of assistance?"

"Yes--if I could believe----!"

"Well, you may believe. I'm not given to high-flown talk. You've saved me from being a curse to myself and every one belonging to me. That's the way Sheila-people are made!"

Then his face grew grave and the arm that was round her tightened its hold. "Mouse, it's difficult to speak of ... the hidden things. But I do want you to know what it means to me that you should have come, like this, refusing to let convention or my own limitations stand in the way of our great reality. It's readjusted the whole perspective of things, that was in great danger of getting out of gear altogether."

"Yes, I saw that," she answered, her eyes filling.

"Of course you did, angel of wisdom. And you've made me see--no end of things. There'll be some talk, no doubt, among the kind of people who must talk--or perish. But, when all's said, if you and I choose not to regard this irksome disability, no one else has any call to make a howl about it. After all it's nothing--less than nothing--in to-day's vast sum of tragedy. And there remains the great outstanding fact that it has saved me, so as by fire, from a woman whose love would have wrecked my life. Also--it has given me you, which is a long sight more than I deserve."

"No--_no_," she protested low and passionately.

"I say 'Yes!' And I mean it. But--there's one thing I wanted to tell you yesterday and couldn't, for fear of telling ... all the rest."

"You were very cruel yesterday." A quiver crossed her face, and he held her closer still.

"My darling, how could I dream you cared--like that! It knocked me to pieces. And now--I can only thank God all my days for Keith's insight and your courage. But ... what I'm trying to tell you is this. The deepest and best in me, that was yours in the beginning, _has been_ yours all along--buried under rubbish, but alive and untarnished by any contact with _her_. That's what I meant when I said she never touched the depths. Mouse--are you glad to know that?"

She only sat there gazing at him, mute homage in her eyes. "It's too much. I can't say it," she murmured at last. "And now--there's poor Mr. Seldon torn in two. Perhaps ... it's the same with him----"

"Seldon! Was it _her_ you were talking of? Poor devil! Is she going to marry him?"

"I don't even know if he's asked her. They seem to have talked round it all. She says ... you raised her standard. He implies ... I've done the same for him. That seems to make complications. So there they are----"

"And here _we_ are--God be praised!" Mark broke in, a note of triumph in his deep voice. "And we're going to achieve something between us, you and I, now you've made a live man of me again. There's a deal of work I can still do with a Sheila-wife to help me. How about dedicating the arts and crafts colony entirely to our own fellows disabled in this war. And those who are fit for it shall be put on to the land. My own disablement won't hamper me there. It's a mustard-seed of a notion. It may grow into a tree. There's a programme for you. All your doing! You've been my real source of inspiration from the first. And you always will be.--Don't cry about it, Beloved. It's too splendid for anything."

"Yes--that's why," she answered lucidly--and could no more. The great wave of joy that swelled up within her broke softly in a shower of tears. It was the pent-up emotion of months. And Mark drew her head against his shoulder, comforted and caressed her; kissed away her tears and held her to him without a word till she had regained her lost control.

Then: "You're not going back to-night; don't you think it!" he said in her ear.

"I don't think it," she answered, with a small shiver of happiness. "Mother would bite me to pieces."

"Well, that settles it. You're under my orders now: and you take your leave from to-day. You must write a note to explain. Macgregor can handle the little car. She almost drives herself, and he can bring any scrap of luggage you're wanting."

"Listen to the autocrat!" She sat upright now, beaming on him. "And I've got to write a note of explanation. And _you_ don't realise yet what that means."

"Why? Where's the mystery? That letter?"

"Yes. Interfering people are quite useful sometimes--by accident!"

"Well--let's hear. What's she been up to now?"

Thus invited, Sheila gave him a revised version of the letter that had achieved precisely what it set out to prevent. She omitted the most egregious remarks and skimmed lightly over the talk about herself and him; but before she had finished her recital, Mark's quick brain perceived whither it led.

"Of course, Mums took it straight to Keith," he broke in, exultantly, "and of course the good fellow had to blurt out the truth in self-defence. Well played, Mrs. Melrose! But why the dickens didn't they come straight up and tell me. Here I've been left in the dark for hours: and I'm supposed to be master of this house!"

"Well, you see," Sheila explained, dimpling, "Mr. Macnair was too busy rushing off to fetch me. And Mums couldn't bear to tell you when you were so unhappy."

Mark's eyes softened at that. "Just like her. How the woman spoils me! And I'm afraid you'll be as bad."

"I'm not so sure. I can be sterner than Mums. Mr. Macnair could tell you that...."

"Could he? I'll ask him. And he carried you off, like an elderly Lochinvar, under your mother's very eyes! Splendid chap, Keith!"

"Yes. But he ought to know you better by now," she reminded him gravely. "And he had no business to encourage me! But with Mother flinging me at his head, you can't blame the poor man if he was in a hurry to account for me by foisting me on to you.--And I'm going to tell Mother the whole truth," she concluded, colouring a little at thought of the ordeal. "That I knew you wanted me and wouldn't ask, so I came over and proposed to you ... and I'm not ashamed of the fact!--Oh, look, there they are on the terrace, too pleased with each other to bother about us."

For a few minutes Mark sat watching them with a very full heart. Keith was talking in his grave quiet fashion, and Helen walked close beside him, listening--absorbed.

"Seems a shame to interrupt them," Mark said softly. "But I want her. She's had worry enough on my account, bless her! And this is going to atone for it all."

Then at the top of his voice, he called out: "Hullo, Mother! Mums! Come along and report yourself at headquarters."

She stopped, turned, and stood a moment smiling up at him. His voice, his face told her all she needed to know.

"Come on--quick!" he repeated; and she came, as always, obedient to his summons.

THE END