ORION had fully justified Blaise’s opinion of his capabilities. As though the great horse had gathered that there was trouble abroad to which he must not add, he had needed neither whip nor spur as he carried his master with long, sweeping strides over the miles that lay betwixt Staple and the Moor. He was as fresh as paint, and the rush through the cool night, under a rider with hands as light as a woman’s and who sat him with a flexible ease, akin to that of a Cossack, had not distressed him in the very least.
Now they were climbing the last long slope of the white road that approached the bungalow, the reins lying loosely on Orion’s neck.
The mist had lifted a little in places, and a watery-looking moon peered through the clouds now and again, throwing a vague, uncertain light over the blurred and sombre moorland.
Tormarin had no very definite plan of campaign in his mind. He felt convinced that he should find Jean at the bungalow. If, contrary to his expectation, she were not there, nor anyone else to whom he could apply for information as to her whereabouts, he would have to consider what his next move must be.
Meanwhile, his thoughts were preoccupied with the main fact that she had failed to return home. If she had accepted Burke’s invitation to the bungalow, believing that Judith and the Holfords would be of the party, how was it that she had not at once returned when she discovered that for some reason they were not there?
Some weeks ago—during the period when she was defiantly investigating the possibilities of an “unexploded bomb”—it was quite possible that the queer recklessness which sometimes tempts a woman to experiment in order to see just how far she may go—the mysterious delight that the feminine temperament appears to derive from dancing on the edge of a precipice—might have induced her to remain and have tea with Burke, chaperon or no chaperon. And then it was quite on the cards that Burke’s lawless disregard of anything in the world except the fulfilment of his own desires might have engineered the rest, and he might have detained her at the bungalow against her will.
But Blaise could not believe that a t锚te-脿-t锚te tea with Burke would hold any attraction for Jean now—not since that day, just before the visit to London, when he and she had been discussing the affairs of Nick and Claire and had found, quite suddenly, that their own hearts were open to each other and that with the spoken word, “Beloved,” the misunderstandings of the past had faded away, to be replaced by a wordless trust and belief.
But if it had attracted her, if—knowing precisely how much the man she loved would condemn—she had still deliberately chosen to spend an afternoon with Burke, why, then, Blaise realised with a swift pang that she was no longer his Jean at all but some other, lesser woman. Never again the “little comrade” whose crystalline honesty of soul and sensitive response to all that was sweet and wholesome and true had come into his scarred life to jewel its arid places with a new blossoming of the rose of love.
He tried to thrust the thought away from him. It was just the kind of thing that Nesta would have done, playing off one man against the other with the innate instinct of the born coquette. But not Jean—not Jean of the candid eyes.
Presently, through the thinning mist, Tormarin discerned the sharp turn of the track which branched off from the road towards the bungalow, and quickening Orion’s pace, he was soon riding up the steep ascent, the moonlight throwing strange, confusing lights and shadows on the mist-wet surface of the ground.
Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the roan snorted and wheeled around, shying violently away from the off-side bank. A less good horseman might have been unseated, but as the big horse swerved Tormarin’s knees gripped against the saddle like a vice, and with a steadying word he faced him up the track again, then glanced keenly at the overhanging side of the roadway to discover what had frightened him.
A moment later he had jerked Orion to a sudden standstill, leapt to the ground and, with the reins over his arm, crossed the road swiftly to where, clad in some light-stuff that glimmered strangely in the moonlight, lay a slender figure, propped against the hank.
“Blaise!” Jean’s voice came weakly to his ears, but with a glad note in it of immense relief that bore witness to some previous strain.
In an instant Tormarin was kneeling beside her, one arm behind her shoulders. He helped her to her feet and she leaned against him, shivering. Feeling in his pockets, he produced a brandy flask and held it to her lips.
“Drink some of that!” he said. “Don’t try to tell me anything yet.”
The raw spirit sent the chilled blood racing through her veins, putting new life into her. A faint tinge of colour crept into her face.
“Oh, Blaise! I’m so glad you’ve come—so glad!” she said shakily.
“So am I,” he returned grimly. “See, drink a little more brandy. Then you shall tell me all about it.”
At last, bit by bit, she managed to give him a somewhat disjointed account of what had occurred.
“I think I must have been stunned for a little when I fell,” she said. “I can’t remember anything after stepping right off into space, it seemed, till—oh, ages afterwards—- I found myself lying here. And when I tried to stand, I found I’d hurt my ankle and that I couldn’t put my foot to the ground. So”—with a weak little attempt at laughter—“I—I just sat down again.”
Blaise gave vent to a quick exclamation of concern. “Oh, it’s nothing, really,” she reassured him hastily. “Only a strain. But I can’t walk on it.” Then, suddenly clinging to him with a nervous dread: “Oh, take me away, Blaise—take me home!”
“I will. Don’t be frightened—there’s no need to be frightened any more, my Jean.”
“No, I know. I’m not afraid—now.”
But he could hear the sob of utter nerve stress and exhaustion back of the brave words.
“Well, I’ll take you home at once,” he said cheerfully. “But, look here, you’ve no coat on and you’re wet with mist.”
“I know. My coat’s at the bungalow. I left in a hurry, you see”—whimsically. The irrepressible Peterson element, game to the core, was reasserting itself.
“Well, we must fetch it———”
“No! No!” Her voice rose in hasty protest. “I won’t—I can’t go back!”
“Then I’ll go.”
“No—don’t! Geoffrey might be there——”
“So much the better”—grimly. “I’d like five minutes with him.” Tormarin’s hand tightened fiercely on the hunting-crop he carried. “But he’s more likely lost his way in the mist and fetched up far enough away. Probably”—with a short laugh—“he’s still searching Dartmoor for! you. You’d be on his mind a bit, you know! Wait here a minute while I ride up to the bungalow——”
But she clung to his arm.
“No, no! Don’t go! I—I can’t be left alone—again.” The fear was coming back to her voice and Blaise, detecting it, abandoned the idea at once.
“All right, little Jean,” he said reassuringly. “I won’t leave you. Put my coat round you”—stripping it off. “There—like that.” He helped her into it and fastened it with deft fingers. “And now I’m going to get you up on to Orion and we’ll go home.”
“I shall never get up there,” she observed, with a glance at the roan’s great shoulders looming through the mist. “I shan’t be able to spring—I can only stand on one foot, remember.”
Blaise laughed cheerily.
“Don’t worry. Just remain quite still—standing on your one foot, you poor little lame duck!—and I’ll do the rest.”
She felt his arm release its clasp of her, and a moment later he had swung his leg across the horse and was back in the saddle again. With a word to the big beast he dropped the reins on to his neck and, turning towards Jean, where she stood like a slim, pale ghost in the moonlight, he leaned down to her from the saddle.
“Can you manage to come a step nearer?” he asked.
She hobbled forward painfully.
“Now!” he said.
Lower, lower still he stooped, his arms outheld, and at last she felt them close round her, lifting her with that same strength of steel which she remembered on the mountain-side at Montavan. Orion stood like a statue—motionless as if he knew and understood all about it, his head slewed round a bit as though watching until the little business should be satisfactorily accomplished, and blowing gently through his velvety nostrils meanwhile.
And then Jean found herself resting against the curve of Blaise’s arm, with the roan’s powerful shoulders, firm and solid as a rock, beneath her.
“All right?” queried Blaise, gathering up the reins in his............