“I told mother I should be home by nine.”

“Well, you told her wrong.  D’you think I’m going to chuck away an hour of this day for a thousand mothers?”

When they sauntered out into the night again at ten o’clock, the Haven had nearly gone to sleep and the rain was past.  In the silence they heard the river rushing through the sluices to the sea; and then they set their faces homeward.

But they had to pass the old store-house.  It loomed a black, amorphous pile heaved up against the stars, and the man’s footsteps dragged as he came to the gaping gates and silent court.

He stopped and she stopped.

His voice was gruff and queer and half-choked.

“Come,” he said, “I’m in hell, and you’ve got to turn it to heaven.”

She murmured something, but he put his arm round her and they vanished into the mass of silent darkness.

It was past midnight when they parted at the door of Sabina’s home and he gave her the cool kiss of afterwards.

“Now we are one, body and soul, for ever,” she whispered to him.

“By God, yes,” he said.

CHAPTER XII

CREDIT

The mind of Raymond Ironsyde was now driven and tossed by winds of passion which, blowing against the tides of his own nature, created unrest and storm.  A strain of chivalry belonged to him and at first this conquered.  He felt the magnitude of Sabina’s sacrifice and his obligation to a love so absolute.  In this spirit he remained for a time, during which their relations were of the closest.  They spoke of marriage; they even appointed the day on which the announcement of their betrothal should be made.  And though he had gone thus far at her entreaty, always recognising when with her the reasonableness of her wish, after she was gone, the cross seas of his own character, created a different impression and swept the pattern of Sabina’s will away.

For a time the intrigue of meeting her, the planning and the plotting amused him.  He imagined the world was blind and that none knew, or guessed, the truth.  But Bridetown, having eyes as many and sharp as any other hamlet, had long been familiar with the facts.  The transparent veil of their imagined secrecy was already rent, though the lovers did not guess it.

Then Raymond’s chivalry wore thinner.  Ruling passions, obscured for a season by the tremendous experience of his first love and its success, began by slow degrees to rise again, solid and challenging, through the rosy clouds.  His love, while he shouted to himself that it increased rather than diminished, none the less assumed a change of colour and contour.  The bright vapours still shone and Sabina could always kindle ineffable glow to the fabric; but she away, they shrank a little and grew less radiant.  The truth of himself and his ambitions showed through.  At such times he dinned on the ears of his heart that Sabina was his life.  At other times when the fading fire astonished him by waking a shiver, he blamed fate, told himself that but for the lack of means, he would make a perfect home for Sabina; worship and cherish her; fill her life with happiness; pander to her every whim; devote a large portion of his own time to her; do all that wit and love could devise for her pleasure—­all but one thing.