第49章

THE rain held off, and an hour later, when she started, wild gleams of sunlight were blowing across the fields.

After Harney's departure she had returned her bicycle to its owner at Creston, and she was not sure of being able to walk all the way to the Mountain.The deserted house was on the road; but the idea of spending the night there was unendurable, and she meant to try to push on to Hamblin, where she could sleep under a wood-shed if her strength should fail her.Her preparations had been made with quiet forethought.Before starting she had forced herself to swallow a glass of milk and eat a piece of bread; and she had put in her canvas satchel a little packet of the chocolate that Harney always carried in his bicycle bag.She wanted above all to keep up her strength, and reach her destination without attracting notice....

Mile by mile she retraced the road over which she had so often flown to her lover.When she reached the turn where the wood-road branched off from the Creston highway she remembered the Gospel tent--long since folded up and transplanted--and her start of involuntary terror when the fat evangelist had said:

"Your Saviour knows everything.Come and confess your guilt." There was no sense of guilt in her now, but only a desperate desire to defend her secret from irreverent eyes, and begin life again among people to whom the harsh code of the village was unknown.The impulse did not shape itself in thought: she only knew she must save her baby, and hide herself with it somewhere where no one would ever come to trouble them.

She walked on and on, growing more heavy-footed as the day advanced.It seemed a cruel chance that compelled her to retrace every step of the way to the deserted house; and when she came in sight of the orchard, and the silver-gray roof slanting crookedly through the laden branches, her strength failed her and she sat down by the road-side.She sat there a long time, trying to gather the courage to start again, and walk past the broken gate and the untrimmed rose-bushes strung with scarlet hips.A few drops of rain were falling, and she thought of the warm evenings when she and Harney had sat embraced in the shadowy room, and the noise of summer showers on the roof had rustled through their kisses.At length she understood that if she stayed any longer the rain might compel her to take shelter in the house overnight, and she got up and walked on, averting her eyes as she came abreast of the white gate and the tangled garden.

The hours wore on, and she walked more and more slowly, pausing now and then to rest, and to eat a little bread and an apple picked up from the roadside.Her body seemed to grow heavier with every yard of the way, and she wondered how she would be able to carry her child later, if already he laid such a burden on her....Afresh wind had sprung up, scattering the rain and blowing down keenly from the mountain.Presently the clouds lowered again, and a few white darts struck her in the face: it was the first snow falling over Hamblin.The roofs of the lonely village were only half a mile ahead, and she was resolved to push beyond it, and try to reach the Mountain that night.She had no clear plan of action, except that, once in the settlement, she meant to look for Liff Hyatt, and get him to take her to her mother.She herself had been born as her own baby was going to be born; and whatever her mother's subsequent life had been, she could hardly help remembering the past, and receiving a daughter who was facing the trouble she had known.

Suddenly the deadly faintness came over her once more and she sat down on the bank and leaned her head against a tree-trunk.The long road and the cloudy landscape vanished from her eyes, and for a time she seemed to be circling about in some terrible wheeling darkness.Then that too faded.

She opened her eyes, and saw a buggy drawn up beside her, and a man who had jumped down from it and was gazing at her with a puzzled face.Slowly consciousness came back, and she saw that the man was Liff Hyatt.

She was dimly aware that he was asking her something, and she looked at him in silence, trying to find strength to speak.At length her voice stirred in her throat, and she said in a whisper: "I'm going up the Mountain.""Up the Mountain?" he repeated, drawing aside a little;and as he moved she saw behind him, in the buggy, a heavily coated figure with a familiar pink face and gold spectacles on the bridge of a Grecian nose.

"Charity! What on earth are you doing here?" Mr.Miles exclaimed, throwing the reins on the horse's back and scrambling down from the buggy.

She lifted her heavy eyes to his."I'm going to see my mother."The two men glanced at each other, and for a moment neither of them spoke.

Then Mr.Miles said: "You look ill, my dear, and it's a long way.Do you think it's wise?"Charity stood up."I've got to go to her."

A vague mirthless grin contracted Liff Hyatt's face, and Mr.Miles again spoke uncertainly."You know, then--you'd been told?"She stared at him."I don't know what you mean.Iwant to go to her."

Mr.Miles was examining her thoughtfully.She fancied she saw a change in his expression, and the blood rushed to her forehead."I just want to go to her,"she repeated.