And the mantle of his satisfaction and content being suddenly rent into a thousand shreds by the knife edge of his intuition, he put both hands on her shoulders, looked down into the misery of her eyes, and very gently said one word.

“Because?”

“Because,” and she began to laugh without making any sound, her mouth twitching, her shoulders shaking, “because I am to be married to-day at noon!”

“To-day! but you said——­”

“I lied.”

“You lied—­to me!”

She made a little sound which reminded him of an animal agonising in a trap, whilst the fury of his own pain drove him to hurt her even more.

“Why—­lie?”

“Why?” her eyes blazed as she defied the storm, her hell and fate.  “Why?—­because I love you, because I love you so much that I wanted to cheat life out of one month of happiness.  And I have had it—­I have had it—­and I love you——­”

She flung her hands up to the stormy skies and brought them down, clenched against her breast.  “I love you, God hear me, I love you!”

And with a terrible cry that went wailing out to sea she fled away through the lash of the blinding storm.

CHAPTER XXIII

  “The lighted end of a torch may be turned towards the
  ground, but the flames still point upwards.”—­The Satakas.

The church was simply packed!

The lucky ones, almost all women, wedged tight and fast, crushed their beautiful clothes against their neighbours’ lovely raiment in the pews.

The unlucky ones stood in rows in the side aisles, just as their commoner sisters stand in rows upon the pavement edge to watch some passing show.

Some, less hindered by superfluous adipose tissue, had managed to seat themselves upon the tomb of one Sir William de Tracy, who had one time unduly concerned himself in the murder of a certain Thomas a Becket.

Indeed he built this church in atonement for his unseemly conduct, though something seems to have gone agley in the architectural penance, as the ghost of Sir William is to be met o’ nights upon the sands of Woolacombe—­so ’tis said.

Some of the still younger fry among the spectators, I mean worshippers in this solemn ceremony, clasped the heads in effigy of dead squire, or dame, or knight, in order to get the necessary purchase for the task of pulling themselves up for just one second in the supreme attempt to catch a glimpse of the principals in the parade.

Except for the setting of this beautiful house of God it might have been an entr’acte at some theatrical first night; same comments upon actors and audience; same criticism upon dress and morals; same yawning and fidgeting.

What had they not suffered and sacrificed to flatter the vulgar old millionaire!  Anyway they expected a good deal in return for the excruciating journey down by rail or car, the whole day lost out of the season in London town, and the wedding present.