He took a step forward as if to grasp her hand, but she drew back.
"No," she said. "I did not expect – that – you would come to me in this way, and – it is not a decision which can be made lightly."
"No, great God, no," said Leicester. His voice was hoarse, and almost trembling. He never could have believed that he could have been so much moved. "It is everything to me – everything."
In his heart of hearts he believed that she would accept him, and yet the fear that she should not became a ghastly nightmare.
"Excuse me," she went on, "but I think I would like to be alone now. I want – "
"Yes," interrupted Leicester, taking his hat and gloves. "I understand. Good-afternoon."
She felt almost disappointed. Was he going away like this? Did he take it for granted that she would write him her decision? But she said nothing. A servant came in answer to her ring, and Leicester walked into the hall. To the servant his manners seemed that of a visitor who had been coldly received.
"Shall I call a carriage, sir?"
"No, I shall walk to the station."
The man opened the door, and he left the house without another word. He walked to the station almost like a man in a dream; he could hardly realise that what had taken place was an actual fact. He had proposed to Olive Castlemaine, and he had not been refused. He found he had twenty minutes to wait for a train back to London, but that did not trouble him. Nothing mattered now. A new element had come into his life; everything had changed. He was no longer a ship upon life's sea, he was a man who loved, and was loved. True, Olive had not said so much as this, but he had read enough of her character to know that had there not been strong hope for him, she would have refused him there and then.
He walked up and down the platform without seeing or hearing anything. One thought filled his mind, one hope filled his heart. Presently, when his train arrived, he had a vague idea that he was on the way to the City.
An hour later he arrived at his club. By this time the spell which the interview with Olive had cast over him had lost some of its power. Doubts began to arise, fears came into his heart. He was no longer sure of himself or of her. As the excitement passed away, the old longing for whisky came back to him. He was on the point of ordering it when he remembered what he had said to Olive.
"She has not yet promised you," said temptation. "Indulge freely while you may. You will be breaking no promise." He stretched out his hand to ring a bell, but as quickly withdrew it.
"No," he said, "I should be ashamed to meet her again if I did. I'll not be such a weak thing as that."
He scarcely slept that night. Hope and fear, joy and despair alternately possessed him, and in his darker hours the craving for drink dogged him. Once he went so far as to take a bottle of whisky from a cupboard, but when he realised what he was doing he opened the window and poured the contents into the street. Never in his whole life had a night seemed so long. Again and again did he switch on the electric light and try to read, only to throw one book after another from him in anger and weariness. When morning at length came, it brought no comfort. What had given him hope and joy the day before only filled his mind with doubt now. Besides, every fibre of his drink-sodden nature cried out for satisfaction. Life became almost unbearable.
"It's this uncertainty," he said. "If she had said yes, I could drive the craving from me as such an accursed thing should be driven, but while I am in doubt I seem like a feather in the wind."
As the thought passed through his mind, the humour of the situation possessed him. He laughed at himself. He, Radford Leicester, who for years had despised women, was now admitting that his whole future depended on the single word of one of the despised sex. What would his acquaintances say? This reminded him of Purvis and Sprague, and of the compact they had made, and then he felt like laughing no more. What if they should ever divulge what had taken place between them!
He seized a telegraph form, and wrote quickly: "Expect me to-night at six. Leicester." This dispatch he addressed to Olive Castlemaine, and after that he became more calm. It seemed to form another link between him and the woman he loved. He spent the morning in answering letters which had come from his constituency, and then, after lunch, he went to a livery stable and hired a horse. When he returned he hardly knew where he had been, but the owner of the horse knew he had been ridden hard, so hard that he resolved to make certain stipulations before trusting him again with such a valuable animal.
A few minutes before six Radford Leicester was again at The Beeches.
"Mr. Castlemaine is expecting you, sir," said the servant, as he took his hat and coat; "he will be down in a few minutes. Will you step this way, sir?"
It was the same room. He noted the chair where Olive had sat the day before, he remembered the quiet ticking clock on the mantelpiece, the fire-irons that were placed on the hearth. He recalled the words of the servant, "Mr. Castlemaine is expecting you, sir." Did that mean that Olive had deputed her father to speak for her? If so, it meant refusal. His heart grew cold at the thought. The door opened and Olive entered. Eagerly he looked at her, feverishly he tried to read her answer in her eyes.
She came up close to him, and then stood still. Her eyes were full of tears.
"Olive?" he said. Everything he meant seemed to be in her name as he uttered it. It was a question, it was an expression of his love, of his heart's longings.
"Yes," she replied.
He lifted her hand reverently to his lips and kissed it. He longed to take her in his arms, and to tell her of his heart's joy; he longed to kiss her lips, and tell her that he would give his whole life to make himself worthy of her trust. But something sealed his lips. What was it?
Is there, humanly speaking, a diviner power on earth than the love of a pure, womanly woman? Is there anything that can make a bad man ashamed of his badness, or lead a purposeless man to devote his life to some great and worthy cause, so really and truly as the love of a woman whom he knows to be worthy of the name of woman? If there is, I do not know of it. If the old, old story that sin came upon the race by a woman is true, it is more true that good women are God's greatest means of purifying the world of its sin. Radford Leicester had not been a good man. If he had not fallen as low as some, it was because of innate pride, and because his nature abhorred some of the grosser and coarser forms of sin. He had not been filled with high purposes, he had lived wholly for self; but as he kissed Olive's hand, such a contrition, such a shame as he had never known before, came into his heart. Proud man as he was, he found himself saying what he would have laughed to scorn a few months before.
"Thank you, Olive," he said, still holding her hand, "you have given me a new life to live." He hesitated a moment, and then went on speaking again. "I want to tell you this," he said. "Although I am unworthy of you, I will try and make myself worthy. That promise I made yesterday I will keep. Yes, I will keep it. And – and if there is a God, I will find Him."
He spoke the words reverently. There was not a touch of the cynic in his voice; it was even as he felt. God had used this woman to lead him the first step towards his salvation.
"You have no doubt, no fear, Olive?" he said.
"No," she said quietly, "not one. I believe you, I trust you implicitly."
"And you love me?"
"Yes," she said.
"Really and truly. You know what I mean?" He spoke quietly and slowly, but his voice trembled.
"How could I say what I have said – else?" There was a sob in her voice as she spoke, and yet the sob sounded like a laugh.
"Thank God!"
He did not believe, this man, that God existed, and yet it was the only way that he could express the great joy of his heart. Never, until then, had he known what happiness meant. The old, hopeless, purposeless past was forgotten; that night his history began anew.
After dinner that night, John Castlemaine and Radford Leicester talked long and earnestly. It was no light matter to the father to promise his child in marriage; moreover, although he admired Leicester, and while