Part 183

"That is an impossible woman. You are kind to me in your thoughts. And--you have not understood me after all."

"What have I not understood, Philippa?"

"My--my heart and mind."

"Both are wonderful, matchless----"

"You are wrong! There is your mistake. They are not wonderful; and both may be matched by the hearts and minds of any woman! ... Has it never occurred to you that I am very human?"

He remained silent; they walked on for a while, turned, and retraced their steps along the border of clove pinks.

"Have you gone over all your papers?" he asked in a hesitating voice.

"Yes."

"Is there anything I can do to help you--advise--aid----"

She turned almost impatiently:

"Always you are thinking of my well-being, my worldly benefit. It is for that you give me your companionship, your protection. I--I don't know--sometimes I think I have never been--so--lonely----"

Her voice broke; she turned sharply from him and stood with slender hands clenched in the starlight.

"Philippa?" he said gently, in his kindly, even voice. And it seemed to break the barrier to her reserve.

"Oh!" she faltered. "--It is something else a woman--hopes for--something different--when her heart--is empty----"

He dared not understand her, dared not touch her. He heard himself saying: "There is nobody but you, Philippa," and dared not speak--dared not say what he should have said before either he or she had learned who she really was.

Perhaps a faint idea of what held him to an aloofness, a formality unaccustomed, occurred to her during the strained silence. Perhaps she divined, vaguely, what might be in his mind.

After a while she turned, not looking at him, and took his arm! It was the first time she had done so since that day when he painted her.

Even yet she could scarcely realize, scarcely comprehend the great change which had come to her. She knew it was true; she understood that it must be the truth--that she was no longer nameless--not the foundling, not the lonely child of chance who had looked out blankly over the world, without aim, without interest, having nothing to expect, nothing to hope for from a world which had not even bestowed upon her a name.

And now--now, suddenly hazard had snatched aside that impenetrable curtain which, as long as she could remember, had hung between her and all that she desired most passionately to know.

From the loose, half palsied lips of a murderer had fallen the words she had never expected to hear. He had gone to his death, shambling, doddering, mumbling to himself. But the papers which had belonged to him had confirmed every word he uttered.

She knew now who she was, Philippa de Chatillon. She knew how her mother had died; and her father.

As yet, the wonderment of it all had not been too deeply embittered by the tragedy. It was still only wonder, and a striving to realize--a dream, strange, terrible, beautiful by turns; but still a dream to her.

Something far more real, more vivid, more vital, possessed her. She knew it; felt it always now. The consciousness of it shared with her the veiled emotions which the solving of her life's mystery evoked.

As she stood there in the brilliant starlight, both arms wound around one of his in the old, unconscious way, Halkett came into the garden, walking swiftly:

"The car is here. Don't come to the door. I had rather say good-by and God bless you here in this garden--where I first knew you, Philippa--where you and I became friends, Warner.... So--good-by. If I come out of it, I'll come to you--to both of you, I hope."

"Yes," said Philippa calmly.

He took her hand, held it, looked at Warner, and took the hand he offered.

"Good-by!"