X + 

Elizabeth stood on the bottom step of the stairs, her hand on the open door, her eyes sleepy and astonished. “You,” she said. + 

Andrews turned the cup round and round in his hands, embarrassed now, almost wordless. “I’ve come back,” he said. + 

She stepped down into the room and Andrews watched with fascinated eyes the swing of her gait, the manner in which she flung her chin up as she moved. “Oh, yes, I can see that,” she said with a slight smile. “Here, give me that cup. You’ll break it.” + 

Andrews put his hand with sudden resolution behind his back. “No,” he said, “I want this cup. This was the cup we both drank from.” + 

“That’s not the one,” Elizabeth answered quickly, and as Andrews gazed at her in astonishment, she twisted her lower lip between her teeth. “I remember that one,” she added, “because it had a chip out of the rim. Tell me⁠—what are you doing here?” + 

“I’ve got news,” Andrews said. He spoke with reluctance. A great unwillingness to tell her swept over him. For when he had given her his news what possible excuse had he to stay? + 

“Will it wait till after breakfast?” she asked, and when he nodded she began with no more said to lay the table. + 

Only when they were seated did she speak again. “You must have been up early?” He grunted assent, afraid to hear the question which would bring out his news. + 

“Has anything happened since I’ve been away?” he asked. + 

“No,” she said, “nothing ever happens here.” + 

“The door was unbolted. Do you think that’s safe?” + 

“It was unbolted when you first came,” she replied, and watching him with candid eyes, “I did not want you to have a less warm welcome when you came back.” + 

He looked up sharply in a kind of poignant hope, but her candour repelled it. All her meaning seemed on the surface, none beneath it. “Did you know I would come back?” + 

She frowned a little as though puzzled. “But surely that was the understanding. We parted friends, didn’t we?” + 

“You are very generous.” Her voice for some reason made him bitter, but she did not notice his sarcasm. “I don’t understand you,” she answered. “You say very puzzling things.” + 

“Oh, I am not like you,” Andrews said. “I don’t know that I want to be. You are so clear, so terribly sane. I’m twisted.” + 

“Am I very clear?” she asked. She laid down her knife and, resting her chin on one hand, stared at him curiously across the table. “Could you tell, for instance, that I was anxious for you to return? It’s lonely here. When I came down the other morning I was sorry that you’d gone. I felt guilty. I shouldn’t have persuaded you to go to Lewes. I had no right to make you risk yourself. Do you forgive me?” + 

Andrews jumped up from the table and, walking over to the fireplace, turned his back on her. “You are laughing at me,” he said. + 

Elizabeth smiled. “You are twisted,” she said. “Why should you think that? No, we are friends.” + 

He turned round with scarlet face. “If you say that word again⁠—” he threatened. Watching her white, puzzled, yet calm, face quietened him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have only had one friend and I betrayed him. I don’t want to betray you.” + 

“You will not betray me,” she said. “You left your knife.” + 

“I thought you might need it.” + 

“You knew that you might need it.” + 

He turned his back again and kicked the coals in the fire. “I was a fool,” he muttered. “Just sentimentality. That means nothing.” + 

“I thought it brave,” she said. “I admired you tremendously for that.” + 

Again Andrews coloured. “You are laughing at me,” he said. “You know that you despise me, that I’m a coward.” He laughed. “Why, I’ve betrayed you twice in Lewes, and I’m betraying you now if you only knew it. Don’t mock me by pretending admiration. You women are cunning. No one but a woman would think of that turn to the screw.” His voice broke. “You win. You see it’s successful.” + 

Elizabeth rose from the table and came and stood beside him at the fire. “How have you betrayed me?” she asked. + 

Andrews without looking up answered, “Once with a woman.” + 

There was a pause. Then Elizabeth said coldly. “I don’t understand how that’s a betrayal of me. Of yourself perhaps. What other betrayal?” + 

“It came out in Court that you sheltered me.” + 

“In court?” she asked. Her voice trembled for a reason which he could not understand. “Were you there?” + 

“I was in the witness box,” he said gloomily. “Don’t praise me. It was only partly you. And the other parts were drink and a harlot. What do you say to that?” + 

“Well done,” she said. + 

He shrugged his shoulders. “You go on too long. You are not as cunning as I thought you. I’m getting used to that mockery. You must change your tack.” + 

“That woman,” Elizabeth asked, “who was she? What was she like?” + 

“She was my equal.” + 

“I thought you said she was a harlot. Tell me⁠—was she better looking than I?” + 

Andrews looked up in astonishment. Elizabeth was watching him with an anxious smile. “I’d never compare you,” he said. “You belong to different worlds.” + 

“Yet I should like to know.” + 

He shook his head. “I can’t. I could only compare your bodies, and I can’t see yours for you.” + 

“I’m like other women surely?” she asked sadly. + 

“No,” he said, his voice soaring in sudden enthusiasm. “Like no other woman.” + 

“I see,” her voice was cold again. “Well, tell me more of your betrayals. Why am I betrayed because you loved this woman? You are the kind of man who does that frequently, I imagine.” + 

“Not love,” he said. + 

“Is there any difference? Men are very fond of splitting hairs.” She glanced as he had done at the kitchen table as though to her also it stood for a certain ever-present jealous spirit. + 

“Which did he feel?” she asked. + 

“Did he wish to hurt you or did he wish, even if unsuccessful, to do unselfishly?” + 

“Then his was both,” she said. “Tell me⁠—you spoke of a third betrayal. What was that?” + 

The moment had come. “I came here to warn you, and I’ve been putting it off and putting it off.” + 

“To warn me?” Her chin went up in a kind of defiance. “I don’t understand.” + 

“Carlyon and the rest mean to punish you for sheltering me. They are coming here today or tomorrow.” He told her Cockney Harry’s message. “Apparently it was not a trap,” he added. + 

“But you thought it was,” she said curiously, “and yet you came?” + 

He interrupted her. “You must go now at once.” + 

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” + 

“I hated the idea of your going,” he said simply, “and so I spoilt the only decent thing I’ve done.” + 

“And did you think I should really go?” + 

“You must,” he said, and then seeing her flash to meet the unwelcome word, he added quickly, “You must take what money you have and go anywhere⁠—to London perhaps⁠—until this blows over.” + 

“No,” Elizabeth said, “I don’t see the necessity.” + 

“Good God,” Andrews protested, “must I make you go?” + 

“Why should I run away? I have that,” and she pointed at the empty gun where it stood in its accustomed corner. + 

“It’s empty.” + 

“I have cartridges.” + 

“You don’t know how to use it. You told me so.” + 

“But you do,” she said. + 

Andrews stamped his foot furiously. “No,” he said, “no. I’ve run enough risks for you. You women are all the same, never satisfied.” + 

“You mean you won’t stay and help.” + 

“You don’t know what you are asking,” he said. “I’m afraid of them. I’m more afraid of pain than of anything else in the world. I’m a coward. I’m not ashamed of it, I tell you.” + 

She smiled with a sad yet humorous twist to the mouth. “Forget that idea,” she said. + 

He stamped his foot again with childish petulance. “It’s not an idea. It’s a fact. I’ve warned you. Now I’m going.” He did not look at her, lest his resolution might waver, but walked like a drunken man with exaggerated straightness to the door. + 

“I stay,” he heard her say behind him. He swung round and said with desperation, “You can’t use the gun without me.” + 

“I had no need to use it on you,” she answered. + 

“Those men are different. They are not cowards.” + 

“They must be cowards,” she said with unanswerable logic, “if they intend to revenge themselves on me.” + 

Outside the sun allured him with pale gold. What woman dared to compete with the sun in beauty or yet in sense of peace? Its colour seemed to sleep along the ground and in its sleep to glow with an untranslatable and secret dream of an exalted place. Go, go, go, reason told him, and watching the dozing countryside even his heart felt the same urge. He appealed to that critic which had so often in the past tried in vain to drive him along a noble course, but the critic was silent, stood aside, seemed to say, “Here is your last and great decision. I will not influence you.” Before his eyes like a shoulder turned on him in disdain rose the down over which he had first come in blind terror a century ago. If only I could be blind with fear again, he thought, how happily could I fly from here. Even the girl behind him was silent now, leaving him, as all the world seemed to leave him, to make his own decision. And he was not accustomed thus to use his will. “I’m going,” he said again irresolutely, in the vain hope that Elizabeth might waver, but she remained silent. He wondered a little at himself. He was surely bewitched, for never before had his feet found it hard to leave danger behind him. To help them he tried to call up before his eyes a vision of what might happen to him if he fell into the hands of Hake or Joe, when even into Carlyon’s meant death. But instead he saw again a glow of yellow candle light and Elizabeth’s face contorted in a scream. It was no good. He could not leave her. The door which he had opened he again slammed to, shot the bolt and came back into the centre of the room with hanging head. + 

“You’ve won again,” he said. “I’ll stay.” + 

He looked up at her with angry resentment. Her eyes were glowing, but he noticed even at that moment that the glow was on the surface only and altered the nature of the drowsing depths no more than moonlight on a pond can transmute more than the face of the dark metallic water into silver. + 

“Listen,” he said, “since we’ve chosen to be fools we must make the best of it. Have you tools and wood? I want to mend the top bolt of the door.” She led him into the shed, where he had slept first, and found him wood, nails, a saw, a hammer. Clumsily, for he was not used to working with his hands, he made a bolt and fastened it in place. “That helps to shut us in,” he said. She was standing close beside him and he was on the point of taking her in his arms. Then a thought stopped him. I have the living against me, he thought, I do not want the dead also. To prevent a return of the temptation he tried to busy himself with means to their defence. “The cartridges?” he asked. “Where are they?” She brought them and he loaded the gun, leaving the others spread out on the table ready to the hand. Then he walked to the window, examined the outlook, entered the shed and reassured himself that the window was too high from the ground for a flank attack to be successful. “We are ready for them,” he said dully. He was oppressed by a question. If Carlyon should be the first to come, could he shoot? He glanced out of the corners of his eyes at Elizabeth. It was she or Carlyon. He would have to shoot, and yet he prayed that it might be Hake or Joe who would offer himself to his bullet. + 

“How far is your nearest neighbour?” he asked. + 

“Not more than a mile,” she said. “He keeps a farm⁠—and a cellar.” + 

“You mean he’s a friend of these men?” Andrews asked. “Surely if he heard shots he would send to Shoreham?” + 

“You have lived very much on the sea, haven’t you?” Elizabeth said. “You do not know this borderland, not close enough to the coast to be patrolled, not far enough away to have no dealings with smugglers. Here we are in the pocket of the Gentlemen.” She unexpectedly clapped her hands. “What fun, after all, it is,” she said. + 

“Fun,” he exclaimed. “Don’t you realise that it means death for someone?” + 

“You are so afraid of death,” she said. + 

“I’m afraid of extinction,” Andrews said, resting his hand on the barrel of the gun, in which he found comfort. “I am all that I have. I’m afraid of losing that.” + 

“There is no danger,” she said. “We go on.” + 

“Oh, you believe in God,” Andrews murmured, “and all that.” He kicked his heels in an embarrassed fashion, not looking at her, blushing a little. “I envy you,” he said. “You seem so certain, so sane, at peace. I’ve never been like that⁠—at least only for a very little, while listening to music. I’m listening to music now. Go on talking to me. While I hear you all this chaos,” he put his hand to his head, “is smoothed out.” He looked up at her suspiciously, expecting her laughter. + 

Elizabeth asked with a small puzzled frown, “What do you mean by chaos?” + 

“It is as though,” Andrews said slowly, “there were about six different people inside me. They all urge different things. I don’t know which is myself.” + 

“The one who left the knife and the one who stays here now,” she said. + 

“But then, what of the others?” + 

“The devil,” she answered. + 

He laughed. “How old fashioned you are.” + 

She put herself in front of him. “Look at me,” she said. Hesitatingly he looked up and seeing her face glowing (the only word for that radiance, which gave her face the appearance of a pale crystal holding a sun or a star) the desire to take her in his arms was almost irresistible. But I must not, he told himself. I will not spoil these hours with her. I have spoiled everything I have touched. I will not touch her. He thrust his hands deep in his pockets and baulked desire gave his face a sullen, hostile look. “Tell me how you could return to warn me,” Elizabeth asked, “when you do not believe in immortality. You risked death.” + 

“Sentimentality,” he said with a grin. + 

A faint puzzled frown dimmed for a moment the radiance. “Why do you always make little of the good you do,” she asked, “and make much of the bad?” + 

He bit his lip angrily. “If you want to know why I came,” he said, “I’ll tell you. Remember it’s your fault if all this peace is spoiled.” + 

“No one can spoil my peace,” she said. “Tell me.” + 

He came closer and grinned at her angrily, as though he was going to do her a great wrong and hated her for that reason. “I came,” he said, “because I loved you.” He looked for a smile or even for a laugh, but she watched him gravely, and the increase in her colour was so faint that it might have been imagined only. + 

“I thought that was it,” she said without moving, “but why this secrecy?” + 

He stared at her in amazement. The candour in her eyes struck him with a kind of fear. “Must it remain in the past tense?” she said. “You loved me. Is that all? Is it untrue now?” + 

He moistened his lips, but could not speak. “If you cannot say you love me,” she said with a slow but not mocking smile, “say again that you loved me an hour or two ago.” + 

“Do you mean⁠—” he said. His hands moved out towards her hesitatingly, fingers afraid of the irrevocability of contact. Then with a leap of the heart he found his voice. “I love you,” he said. “I love you.” He held her now but at a distance. “I love you, too,” she said, her eyes closed and her body trembling a little. He shut his eyes so that they might be together in a darkness, which would be empty of everything but themselves. Stumbling blindly through that darkness their mouths at first lost and then found each other. After a while they began to speak in whispers lest the darkness should be shattered by sound. + 

“Why were you so long?” + 

“How could I expect⁠—I was afraid.” + 

“Am I worse than death? You were not afraid of that.” + 

“I don’t fear it any longer. You are filling me with yourself. That means courage, peace, holiness.” + 

He opened his eyes. “Do you know they gave you a surname in court. It seemed so strange that you should have any other name than Elizabeth. A surname seems to tie you down to earth. I’ve already forgotten it. Open your eyes and tell me that this isn’t a dream.” + 

She opened them. “How you talk,” she said, “who were so silent about what really mattered.” + 

“I’m excited,” he said. “I want to laugh and shout and sing. I want to get wildly drunk.” + 

He took his arms away and began to move restlessly round the room. “I am so happy,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this before. What a curious feeling it is⁠—happiness.” + 

“This is only the beginning,” Elizabeth said. “We have eternity.” + 

“We have at any rate all our lives. Don’t squander time for that ‘perhaps.’ Promise you’ll live long and slowly.” + 

She laughed. “I’ll do my best.” + 

“Come here,” Andrews said and when she came he gazed at her with wonder. “To think that I can say come and you’ll come. You shouldn’t though. I wish you could realise how unworthy I am of you. Don’t laugh. I know every man says that. But it’s true of me. I’m a coward. It’s no use shaking your head. You can never wholly trust me. I told you that I was with a woman last night. I’m dirty, I tell you, soiled.” + 

“Did you love her?” + 

“You are very young after all, aren’t you? Men don’t go with harlots for that.” + 

“Then it doesn’t touch me. Look,” she spread out her arms and her chin again tilted upwards with that instinctive fighting gesture, “I will stand now forever between you and them.” + 

A shadow crossed Andrews’s face. “Forever is a long word. You must stay with me always. You must not die before me. If you did I should fall away.” He laughed. “Here am I talking of death on the birthday of my life.” He glanced apprehensively at the place where the coffin had lain. “He won’t come between us, will he?” he implored. “His must be a jealous spirit.” + 

“Only a spirit,” Elizabeth said. “We must pity him. He was kind to me in his way. He said that if he could not have me he would never let another man love me.” Her fingers softly caressed the edge of the table. “Poor spirit,” she whispered. “So soon defeated.” + 

The thought of the dead man set up a chain of associations in Andrews’s mind. “It was Mrs. Butler,” he said, “who brought your name up in court. Will she be coming here?” + 

“Not for four days,” Elizabeth said. + 

“And we’ll be gone then from here. Where shall we go?” But it was not material facts of sustenance, of earning a living which passed, image by image, through Andrews’s brain. He thought of the seasons they would see together; of summer, blue sea, white cliffs, red poppies in the golden corn; winter, to wake in the morning to see Elizabeth’s hair across the pillow, her body close to his, and outside the deep, white silence of snow; spring again with restless hedgerows and the call of birds. They would hear music together⁠—organs in dim cathedrals speaking of sad peace, the heartache of violins, the piano’s cold dropping notes, like water spilt slowly down a long echoing silence. And always the music of her voice, which seemed to him in this new foolish, drunken happiness more lovely than any instrument. + 

“We will not go yet,” she said, obstinate lines round her mouth. “What was it your Cockney Harry said? They will come today or tomorrow. We will face them first and then we will go.” + 

He shrugged his shoulders. “If you will. I will pay any price, I think, for this happiness.” + 

“You have not told me your story yet,” she said. + 

He hesitated. “We should be keeping a look out.” + 

She pouted her lips scornfully. “They will not come before dusk,” she said. “Let’s sit down here on the floor by the fire.” She smiled. “I’m tired of being old and wise. I want to be childish and be told a story.” + 

She curled into the crook of his arm and he told her of the past two days; of how he had watched the smoke from the cottage chimney and thought it a flock of white birds round a saint (“I was thinking most unsaintly thoughts of you,” she interrupted); of the soft-eyed cattle who drank with him at the blue dew-pond and of the bird which sang. He spread out the story of his walk slowly with meticulous detail, unwilling, as he had been in reality, to arrive in Lewes. But when he reached that part of his story he found a kind of flagellant pleasure in emphasizing his cowardice, his drunkenness and his lust. “I could not draw your picture,” he said wryly. “I was a fool to think that I could ever draw you.” He told her of Lucy, the scene in the court, the acquittal, and of Cockney Harry’s arrival. “I put you out of mind,” he said. “I was afraid to come and warn you. I went upstairs to sleep with that woman.” + 

“But then you came,” Elizabeth said. + 

“Yes, but if only I had come at once, while I was comparatively clean.” + 

“Forget all that,” she said. “Everything is changed now. We have only the future not the past.” + 

“I am afraid,” he said, “of the past breaking in.” + 

“Don’t be afraid.” She suddenly pressed her mouth to his with a kind of vehement ferocity. “That is our dedication. If we are very close there will be no room for the past.” + 

“Don’t tempt it,” he implored. + 

“You are so superstitious. It is always so with those who don’t believe in God.” + 

He put up his hands to her face and pulled it down to him. “How sane and even you are,” he said. “I can’t believe that you are younger than I am. You seem so wise. Dear sanity.” + 

“Dear madness,” she replied. + 

“Tell me,” Andrews said, “aren’t you afraid of this thing that has happened to us⁠—this falling in love. It’s terribly changing. So strong that I feel that it could fling me at any moment into Heaven or hell.” + 

“I’m not afraid.” + 

“And yet for you it’s so much worse,” he said. “It must bring you pain.” + 

“I’m not afraid of that kind of pain,” she said. “You exaggerate it so. When there is anger I fear the anger⁠—the kind of turmoil in the mind⁠—but not the pain it may inflict.” + 

“What do you fear most of all?” + 

“Hate,” she said. + 

“For years,” Andrews said, “I’ve longed for a peace, a certainty, sanity. I thought I could get it perhaps in music, weariness, a number of things. I have it now. You are all of that. Do you wonder I want you? It would be worse than before if I should lose you now. You remember the parable about the swept room and the devils which entered worse than the first. You must possess me, go on possessing me, never leave me to myself.” + 

As he talked he felt his exaltation wavering on its height. You’ll never stay the course, his heart mocked him. These are fine sentiments. They are not yours, you coward, drunkard, bully. These are the trumpets preparing for another betrayal. It seemed impossible, watching the peaceful depths of her eyes, to imagine that any man could give her a more permanent happiness than she already possessed within herself. He tried to imagine that astonishingly young wise face growing slowly older in a married tranquillity, lines appearing, the dark hair turning grey, the wisdom deepening. It was a blasphemy, he thought, to imagine for one moment that any man could satisfy a face with such sad eyes. The eyes were not sad, he felt, plunging deeper into a youthful romanticism, for any grief of her own. For herself there was a white tranquillity kindling into laughter round the mouth and on the surface of the eyes⁠—laughter which could be in turn flippant, mocking, deep. It was, and he laughed at himself for sentimentality, a pity for the ways of the world and a too impetuous anxiety of the spirit to loose the body and plead for them before a divine tribunal. + 

Elizabeth broke his thoughts by rising with a slight shake of her body as though to dispel vague dreams. “Wake up,” she said. “However much you protest I am going to be practical.” She fetched the gun from where it stood against the wall. “Show me how you loaded this,” she said. + 

Andrews took the gun in his hands, pulled out the cartridge, then looked up struck by suspicion. “Why do you want to know?” he asked. “I’m going to be here to shoot for you. Do you think,” he hesitated, feeling shamefacedly the justice of such a thought, “that I may run away?” + 

Elizabeth coloured. “I never dreamed of such a thing,” she said angrily. “Listen and believe this if you never believe another word I speak. I trust you absolutely.” + 

“Thank you,” Andrews said. + 

“I will tell you,” Elizabeth continued, with hesitation, “what I was thinking. I can’t bear you to imagine that I distrusted you. It was only this⁠—I realised that I was being selfish again, as I was selfish when I sent you to Lewes. There’s little danger for me, but great danger for you. They want your life⁠—they only want to frighten me. If they find me alone ready and armed they will go away, but they will not give up easily if you are here. Don’t interrupt, but listen. Leave me now before it is dusk. The road will be clear. Make your way to London. I can lend you money. We will arrange a meeting place where I can join you in a few days.” + 

“I won’t leave you,” Andrews said. The temptation had been conquered, he was astonished to find how completely. “Either you must come with me now or we both stay.” + 

“I won’t go,” she said obstinately. “Besides I’m no strong walker. The two of us would move slowly and be more easily pursued. Better face them within four walls than in the open.” She laughed. “Look at me. I am not stout, muscular, am I? I have always believed myself slim. Don’t disillusion me. Can you imagine me running for miles, scrambling over hedges, wading through ditches? I’d be a hopeless handicap.” + 

“Well, I stay,” he said with equal obstinacy. + 

She watched him for a moment with a puzzled frown as if she were trying to devise some new method of appeal. “You are brave, you know,” she said. + 

“It’s not that,” Andrews replied, “I haven’t the courage to leave you.” + 

He moved over to where the cups were hung in an orderly row above the sink. “Let’s pretend we have been married for years,” he said, “and do pleasant ordinary things, cook food, wash up, talk to each other as though we had seen each other yesterday and would see each other tomorrow. This fresh love is too heady, too exalted as yet for me, too close to pain.” + 

“The other will come too soon,” Elizabeth said, “I do not want these ordinary things. You will know me so well in a year.” + 

“I wish I could believe that,” Andrews said. + 

“Let’s keep the freshness while we can, even if it’s painful,” Elizabeth whispered with sudden vehemence. “Don’t you see how quickly the time is going. It’s only a few hours till dusk. Oh, I know there’s no danger, but I’m a little frightened all the same. It’s hate again, hate coming.” + 

“The door’s bolted.” + 

Elizabeth stamped her foot in a sudden petulance. “Have your way,” she said. “We’ll pretend what you wish, be indifferent now when we are fresh, have not when we may.” + 

“I didn’t say indifferent,” Andrews said. He caught her in his arms. “This is how I shall kiss you in five years’ time.” + 

She laughed. “If I am sane, you are mad,” she said. “Was there ever such an alliance? Come, take that cloth and dry those cups.” + 

It was early in the afternoon when Elizabeth declared that she must go into the village and buy food. “I shall be gone at least an hour,” she said and told him what he might do to occupy himself, what plates might be laid ready on the table, what corners swept. At first he tried to prevent her going and when she insisted that love was not enough for a young man to feed upon, he insisted that he must accompany her. + 

“No,” she said. “You must guard the fort. Besides,” she looked at him with narrowed, faintly suspicious eyes, “if the neighbourhood knows that there’s a man sleeping here⁠ ⁠…” + 

He cursed the neighbourhood, for under its gaze her sanity always seemed to touch earth, to grow cautious, careful, respectable. He could not somehow square her courage and candour with respectability, and this he told her. + 

“Do you want me to join your harlots?” she said. “Haven’t I promised to give myself to you? But not tonight, not till we are married.” + 

“How wise you are,” he said in anger less against her than against his inability to value those things in which she had such faith. “Must I make a settlement also? You can’t love me if you have to wait till a form of words is mumbled over us. Or are you afraid that I shall desert you tomorrow and you’ll lose that precious respectability?” A sense of his own injustice made him pelt her the more fiercely with his words. + 

“You don’t understand,” she said. “It’s not what you call respectability. It’s a belief in God. I can’t alter that for you. I’d leave you first.” + 

“What has He done for you?” + 

Her candour was very evident to him in the manner in which she met his challenge. She did not sweep it aside in a vague rush of words, as some pious women would have done. She was silent, seeking an answer. He saw her eyes sweep the bare room in a pathetic quest. Up and down they peered, up and down, and at last with a faint note of apology she brought out the brief reply, “I am alive.” + 

“Why so am I,” he said. “But I’m not grateful.” + 

“There was this morning,” she said, “and the future.” + 

“Don’t let’s pay gratitude in advance,” he said. + 

“But all the same,” her chin tilted upwards, “I’ll do what I think is right.” Without looking at him again she unhooked a basket from a nail in the wall and unbolted the door. With her back turned she said, “I love you, but if you can’t take my terms, you must go.” She slammed the door behind her and ran quickly down the path towards the road. + 

It was a couple of hours before she returned, long enough for Andrews to think over his words, grow repentant, curse himself for spoiling this first rapturous time in quarrelling. He did what she had commanded and was more than ordinarily scrupulous in the fulfilment of the tasks, regarding them as a penance for his hasty words. He knew that Elizabeth would take more than half an hour to reach the village, and yet an hour had hardly gone before he began to grow anxious, to torture himself with the idea of a possible meeting between Elizabeth and his enemies on the road. It was useless to tell himself that no harm could come to her in broad daylight. He was haunted still by his first image of the cottage, when it had raised itself suddenly before him in the dark in apparent isolation. + 

Now that he had nothing with which to occupy himself he was restless, walked hither and thither in the room, began even to speak aloud to himself. “To let her go in anger,” he said. “It was the act of a brute. Suppose that something should happen to her now before I can tell her how wrong I am. It was not respectability, it was holiness she showed.” With his eyes on the place where the coffin had lain he began to address the spirit of Mr. Jennings, not in any real belief that any portion of the dead man survived, but rather as an insurance against a very remote possibility. “Look after her,” he implored, “if you can. You too loved her.” It seemed to him that the spirit, if indeed it existed, had an unfair advantage in guardianship. It could travel with greater speed than the lagging flesh and to places where the body could not follow. Besides, Andrews thought with a whimsicality, partly sincere, he will have the ear of either God or the devil. The thought of Mr. Jennings, however, and this play with the idea of immortality brought Andrews’s errant steps to an abrupt standstill. Mr. Jennings in the flesh had sworn that no other than himself should touch Elizabeth, and he, Andrews, in the humility of his return had given the jealous spirit a promise which he had broken. Was a spirit now on the side of his enemies, he wondered, to rob him of the glorious prize he craved? There are no spirits, he told himself in scornful reassurance. He kicked with a childish petulance the leg of the table as though to put a daring seal on his disbelief, for the table now to him represented the open coffin which, as it might seem, had come between Elizabeth and him on their first meeting with a prompt, instinctive enmity. + 

At that moment (he had heard no footsteps) the latch was raised and Elizabeth entered. With a shamefaced grin Andrews drew back his foot, but Elizabeth had noticed nothing. He could see that she brought news. There was an excited flush on her face and her eyes sparkled. + 

“News,” she said, “such news. Can you guess?” She put the basket down on the table and stood watching him with hands on hips. + 

He could not wait to hear the news however. Minutes, since she had left him, had taken on an exaggerated value. “Forgive me,” he implored, “I was a fool and a brute. You were right. Be patient and try to teach me your holiness.” + 

“Oh that,” she said and with the words brushed the whole angry past to Lethe. “But I’ve news.” Her eyes sparkled. “We’ve won. Wasn’t I right to stay here?” + 

The relief, the sudden cessation of anxiety and double fear, was too much for Andrews to believe. “Not caught?” he asked. + 

“No, but soon. They are on the run⁠—and away from here. That man, what did you call him, Cockney Harry has been seen near Chichester. And those men, who were acquitted, they are locked up again on a charge of smuggling. Only the half wit has escaped.” + 

“But I don’t understand. They were released. Why should they be running?” + 

“Ah, there’s the triumph. Fresh evidence. They can’t try them again for murder, but smuggling’s another matter.” Elizabeth too must have been afraid, for with excited relief she piled the words on one another. “They’ve found their ship.” + 

Andrews took a step forward. “Carlyon,” he whispered, his voice dry with anxiety, a mad unreasoning anxiety for Carlyon’s safety. + 

“They’ll catch him soon.” Her easy, careless confidence jarred on him. + 

“The Good Chance,” he said softly. “He loved the ship. Now I’ve robbed him of it.” He was silent for a moment picturing Carlyon and how he would receive the news. It would not be with tears or any loud grief. He knew that. He could see the rather too prominent chin jerked upwards, the low and too receding brow furrowed in puzzlement, while the brain sought some way of retrieving the devastating loss. Next, he knew, would come anger and the thought of revenge⁠—punishment Carlyon would call it. + 

Elizabeth’s voice, the triumph gone, recalled his thoughts. “I’m sorry,” she said. He looked up and seeing her standing there so soon robbed of the exhilaration of her news a pity and tenderness quite alien to desire filled him. He wanted to touch her, but only as one would touch a child who was sad at some pleasure taken away. What after all was his friendship for Carlyon compared with this? Love Carlyon who dared to threaten this⁠—child? Hate him rather. + 

“I’m heavy footed,” Elizabeth said. “I forgot that you’d been friends.” + 

“No, no,” he protested. “But this news is not good for us. Carlyon will be desperate. He wouldn’t harm a woman, but now that he’s lost his ship he’ll have no authority except his strength. I know Joe.” + 

“But the man at Chichester⁠ ⁠…” + 

“One of them only. It may be a blind to decoy the officers away. Remember they meant to come here tonight. And look⁠—it’s not as light as it was half an hour ago.” He walked to the door and looked out. The down was golden in sunlight, but a shadow veiled its base and insidiously advanced even as he watched. + 

“Come away from the door,” Elizabeth said in a voice that trembled very slightly. + 

“No danger,” Andrews replied. “They wouldn’t trust to a shot. If it missed we’d be warned. No, they’ll try and creep up when it’s dark. How long before the dark?” + 

“Two hours, perhaps, if we are lucky.” + 

“There’s no luck where I am,” Andrews said, looking out of the door. “There’s a wind driving clouds towards the sun. It will be dark long before two hours have passed.” + 

He walked slowly back and stood still in the centre of the room, watching Elizabeth but making no attempt to go to her. “Listen,” he said, “it’s possible that these men will get me.” He spoke dully and apprehensively. “I’ve always left things too late, so I want to tell you now that I love you as I’ve never loved anyone or anything in the world before. Even myself. I was a blind fool this afternoon to quarrel in these few certain hours. I’m sorry. I think I’m beginning to understand. I’ll ask for you only when we’re married and that as a favour which I don’t deserve. You were right. You are holy. I don’t see how I can ever touch you without soiling you a little, but, my God,” his voice became vehement and he took a step towards her, “I’ll serve you, how I’ll serve you.” + 

With some idea of teaching death and darkness how to bear her likeness, he shut his eyes and held within his mind her image as she listened to him speak, chin raised, a slight flush upon her face, eyes flinching a little at the pain of happiness. He heard her answer him, words dropping with a soft, tender, cooling touch, into the heat of his brain. + 

“And I want you to know,” she said, “that I’ve loved you or known it ever since I found the knife you had left. But I’m not holy. I’m ordinary like anyone else. I’m no fanatic. Only my heart wants to be good. But my body, this common, ordinary body, doesn’t care for that. It wants you, even though it’s frightened. But it must wait. Help me for just a few hours.” + 

Andrews opened his eyes at the mention of hours and glanced at the window behind him. “I want to hear one more thing,” he said. “Say that you forgive me for bringing you into this mess.” + 

“I’m glad,” she said simply. “But if it wasn’t for me you’d never have gone to Lewes. Forgive me.” + 

“I forgive you,” Andrews said with a reluctant smile, “for making me do the only right thing I’ve ever done.” + 

They came across the floor to each other and for a while stood closely pressed together with no word said. Veil after veil of dusk was drawn across the room. A sudden creaking of the old table in the silence reminded them of evening oncoming. Andrews, whose whole attention had been fixed on memorizing the lines of Elizabeth’s face, the brow, the neck, the eyelashes, the chin, stepped back and turned with a nervous movement towards the window. “I never thought it would come so soon,” he said, and both knew that he meant the dark. His heart was beating with an unpleasant insistence and his legs were weak about the knees. “Why did we stay?” he asked with a sense of disillusionment, as though he had just discovered that his past courage was bravado merely. + 

“Are you afraid?” Elizabeth asked with reproach. + 

“No, no,” he protested. “It’s just this dusk. It came so suddenly. As though a hand had snuffed the light.” He walked backwards and forwards in the room. Magic was no bedfellow for danger, he thought. They could not lie together. + 

“I hate this waiting,” he said slowly. “I wish they’d come,” but inwardly he prayed desperately for courage and clutched the image of Elizabeth like a jewel to his heart. He saw that she was standing by the window looking out. He noted with surprise that her fingers were clenched fiercely upon her dress as though even upon her the waiting grew a strain. + 

He beat his hands together. “Of course there’s no use in worrying.” His voice broke nervously. “It’s early evening. They won’t come yet.” He saw her lean forward and press her face against the window pane. “Do you see anything?” he cried. + 

“No, nothing,” she said, fingers still clenched, but speaking softly as she would speak to a child fearing the dark. + 

“Then for God’s sake,” Andrews said irritably, “don’t make sudden movements.” It was extraordinary how consciousness of dark had robbed the room of magic, even of tenderness, and instead there was only fear and irritation. “We’ve been talking too long,” he said, “instead of keeping watch.” + 

With her back still turned Elizabeth said slowly, “Too long? I thought a lifetime would not be long enough.” + 

“I don’t mean that,” he protested. “Oh we’ll be lovers again soon, but now⁠—we mustn’t waste time.” + 

She turned and regarded him with a kind of sorrowful tenderness. “Suppose we are wasting time now,” she said, “we’ve had such a few hours with each other. We can’t tell how many more we shall have. Let these men go hang. Speak to me, take no notice of the dark. The dark is made for lovers. Speak to me. Don’t listen or watch any longer.” + 

“You are mad,” Andrews said. + 

“You said I was sane.” + 

Andrews suddenly sat down at the table and buried his face in his hands. O God, he prayed silently, if you are God give me courage. Don’t let me start all over again by betraying her. I thought I’d won out of this cowardice at last. + 

Elizabeth left the window and came to his side. He felt her fingers on his hair, twisting it, pulling it this way and that in a whimsical fashion. He heard her laugh. “Don’t worry,” she said, “it’s not worth it.” + 

He looked up at her and said in a voice trembling on the brink of complete uncontrol, “I’m afraid. I’m a coward.” + 

“The old story,” she said mockingly, but she was watching him with half-veiled nervous anxiety. “I know it’s untrue.” + 

“It’s not. It’s not.” + 

“Lewes⁠—the knife⁠—your warning,” she reminded him. + 

He brushed them on one side. “I’m afraid, terribly afraid. Suppose I fail you when they come, run away?” + 

“You won’t. I tell you you are no coward. It’s a delusion you’ve been living under.” She put her fingers under his chin and forced it up, so that she could watch his eyes. “You’ve proved your courage three times to me,” she said slowly. “You’ll do it once more and then you’ll know and be at peace. You’ve wanted peace. That’s the way to it. Dear silly fool, you’ve worried always about your courage. That’s what was wrong.” + 

He shook his head, but she was obstinate, obstinate as though she were defending something on which she had put the whole of her own faith, and with a trace of fear, as though she were afraid to have it proved that she was mistaken. A sudden stiffening of her body frightened him. “Did you hear something?” he whispered and the trembling in his voice reached his own consciousness and showed him in a flash of despair the gap which separated two moments divided by but minutes in time⁠—the magic seconds when they had stood together as lovers, brave and equal, and now, fear, humiliation, inequality. + 

“No,” Elizabeth said, “I heard nothing. I only want to see how dark it gets. We must light a candle soon.” She walked to the window and glanced outside. Then she turned quickly. Her fingers, but Andrews did not notice them, were clenched. “Listen,” she said. “We shall need water before tonight. You must go with a pail now before it is dangerous to the well. The pail is in the corner there. Bring it.” Her voice was brisk and commanding and Andrews obeyed. + 

At the door, watching the night which grew outside like a dark flower opening rapid petals, she directed him. “Down that path,” she said, “behind those trees. Two minutes’ walk, no more.” Still examining the night she commanded, “Go now⁠—now.” + 

He hesitated a moment and she turned on him fiercely. “Won’t you do even a small thing for me?” she cried and pushed at him with her hands. Dumb, caught up by her command, he made a blind motion towards her, which she repelled. “A farewell for two minutes’ absence?” she mocked. “I’ll kiss you when you return soon.” + 

Pail in hand he walked down the path, but a soft, somehow imploring, echo of that “soon” brushed him on the cheek and made him turn. A white flower upon a slender stem which trembled in the dusk was what he seemed to see. Indeed the image was not fancy only, for one hand extended itself across the dark to find support against the door. It was too dark to see her face, but in her eyes he could imagine the smile well-known to him, because he could not see the fear. + 