After they had dined they sat together in the long Highland twilight
before her window in the Tower room where he had found her sitting when
he arrived. Her work basket was near her and she took a piece of sheer
lawn from it and began to embroider. And he sat and watched her draw
delicate threads through the tiny leaves and flowers she was making. So
he might have watched Alixe if she had been some unroyal girl given to
him in one of life's kinder hours. She seemed to draw near out of the
land of lost shadows as he sat in the clear twilight stillness and
looked on. As he might have watched Alixe.
The silence, the paling daffodil tints of the sky, the non-existence of
any other things than calm and stillness seemed to fill his whole being
as a cup might be filled by pure water falling slowly. She said nothing
and did not even seem to be waiting for anything. It was he who first
broke the rather long silence and his voice was quite low.
"Do you know you are very good to me?" he said. "How did you learn to be
so kind to a man--with your quietness?"
He saw the hand holding her work tremble a very little. She let it fall
upon her knee, still holding the embroidery. She leaned forward slightly
and in her look there was actually something rather like a sort of timid
prayer.
"Please let me," she said. "Please let me--if you can!"
"Let you!" was all that he could say.
"Let me try to help you to rest--to feel quiet and forget for just a
little while. It's such a small thing. And it's all I can ever _try_ to
do."
"You do it very perfectly," he answered, touched and wondering.
"You have been kind to me ever since I was a child--and I did not know,"
she said. "Now I know, because I understand. Oh! _will_ you forgive me?
_Please_--will you?"
"Don't, my dear," he said. "You were a baby. _I_ understood. That
prevented there being anything to forgive--anything."
"I ought to have loved you as I loved Mademoiselle and Dowie." Her eyes
filled with tears. "And I think I hated you. It began with Donal," in a
soft wail. "I heard Andrews say that his mother wouldn't let him know me
because you were my mother's friend. And then as I grew older--"
"Even if I had known what you thought I could not have defended myself,"
he answered, faintly smiling. "You must not let yourself think of it. It
is nothing now."
The hand holding the embroidery lifted itself to touch her breast. There
was even a shade of awe of him in her eyes.
"It is something to me--and to Donal. You have never defended yourself.
You endure things and endure them. You watched for years over an
ignorant child who loathed you. It was not that a child's hatred is of
importance--but if I had died and never asked you to forgive me, how
could I have looked into Donal's eyes? I want to go down on my knees to
you!"
He rose from his chair, and took in his own the unsteady hand holding
the embroidery. He even bent and lightly touched it with his lips, with
his finished air.
"You will not die," he said. "And you will not go upon your knees. Thank
you for being a warm hearted child, Robin."
But still her eyes held the touch of awe of him.
"But what I have spoken of is the least." Her voice almost broke. "In
the Wood--in the dark you said there was something that must be saved
from suffering. I could not think then--I could scarcely care. But you
cared, and you made me come awake. To save a poor little child who was
not born, you have done something which will make people believe you
were vicious and hideous--even when all this is over forever and ever.
And there will be no one to defend you. Oh! What shall I do!"
"There are myriads of worlds," was his answer. "And this is only one of
them. And I am only one man among the myriads on it. Let us be very
quiet again and watch the coming out of the stars."
In the pale saffron of the sky which was mysteriously darkening, sparks
like deep-set brilliants were lighting themselves here and there. They
sat and watched them together for long. But first Robin murmured
something barely above her lowest breath. Coombe was not sure that she
expected him to hear it.
"I want to be your little slave. Oh! Let me!"