"Would I lose you now? Would I take you then?
If I lose you now that my heart has need,
And come what may after death to men,
What thing worth this will the dead years breed?"
THE TRIUMPH OF TIME.

Three days later the early morning post brought Arithelli a letter.

She sat up in bed eagerly to receive it, and with the heaviness of sleep still upon her eyes. As she read, the lace at her throat trembled with her quickened breathing, and her heart called back an answer to the tender, reckless phrases.

Vardri was idealist as well as lover, and graceful turns of expression came to his pen readily and without effort. In many pages of characteristic, hurried, irregular writing he set forth wild and unpractical schemes for their future.

He urged her to take the dangerous step of leaving Barcelona and cutting herself free of the bonds of her allegiance to the Cause.

If there was risk in going, he wrote, there was infinitely more risk in remaining.

If he abandoned his political views it was more than likely that his father would receive him. Their quarrel and parting four years ago had been solely on those grounds, and he was the only son, and there were large estates to be inherited.

If it were the price of gaining her he was prepared to renounce all his theories, socialist and revolutionist.

He had been able to save a little money lately, enough for their journey to Austria. He was sure of a welcome among the officials and work-people of his former home. The wife of the steward had been his mother's maid, and she and her husband would give him shelter till he could see his father and make terms.

If things turned out well then his life and Arithelli's would be one long fairy-tale, which should begin where all other fairy-tales ended. If his father refused to see him then surely they could both find some engagement in another circus or Hippodrome.

She had the advantage of the reputation she had gained here, and he could work in the stables again, and they would be free and together.

Arithelli kissed the letter, before she put it down, and lay back with her hands over her eyes, trying to think. She had begun her adventures by running away from home, and now for the second time her only course was flight. Even Emile had told her not to waste time in going. For her it seemed there was never to be any peace or rest.

If they could only find some haven away from all the world, she thought. A forest or desert, some unknown spot where there was air and space and natural savage beauty, a tent to dwell in, a horse to ride, complete freedom, the life of her remote ancestors, simple, dignified.

Once she had craved for change. Now she feared it. She knew what Vardri had ignored, that the moment they both left Barcelona they would become fugitives. If they were discovered they would be treated simply as deserters from the ranks of an army.

Instinctively her thoughts turned to Emile. It was he who must help her to decide. She slid out of bed, and commenced her toilet, while she recalled to mind the things that must be got through during the day. There was a manuscript to be delivered to Sobrenski, an article of Jean Grave's from Les Temps Nouveaux which she had copied for reproduction.

She finished dressing her hair, and pushed the window more widely open, for the sound of music in the distance had caught her ear.

Though it was now autumn, and in England there would have been mist and gloom and fogs, here the sun shone, and the air was sweet and mild.

The parching, exhausting heat of the summer was gone, and everything smelt fresh and clean, without any touch of winter cold.

Down below in the Calle Catriona the music swelled louder and higher till her attic room was filled with the dancing notes.

Along the pavement two men walked slowly with guitar and flageolet.

They walked turning in opposite directions, their heads thrown back, their feet keeping step, two black-haired, supple vagabonds of gypsy breed, who had come down to the city from their mountain home on the heights of Montserrat.

The guitar twanged merrily, the reed-like notes of the flute were true and clear as the song of a thrush. The melody turned and climbed and twisted, rose to a climax, and re-commenced again the same phrase. Arithelli listened, hypnotised and bewitched, as she always was by music.

Something wild and primitive in her responded to the shrill, sweet, insistent call. She had felt like that before, listening to the Tziganes on the Rambla, and it was as if the heart were being dragged out of her body. She thought of the childish story of the Piper of Hamelin. She could understand now what had made the children follow him with dancing footsteps, through street to street, on, on from dawn till dusk.

The guitar-player glanced up in passing and mocked her with laughing eyes. An orange-coloured scarf left his brown throat exposed, and there were gold rings in his ears. She kissed her hand and called down greetings in Spanish, and stood at the window, watching and listening and longing to run out into the street and follow as the children followed through the town of Hamelin.

All the joy of life was in those oft-repeated and alluring phrases, the fall of water, the hum of bees, the shiver of aspen leaves, the slow music of a breaking wave.

She strained to hear the last faint echoes till all sound was hidden by a turn of the road, and the brief enchantment was at an end, leaving her to the realities of life.

She dressed slowly, singing under her breath as she plaited her hair before AgnÈs SorÉl's mirror. Before she left the room she thrust the loose sheets of Vardri's letter between the folds of her blouse, leaving the envelope lying among the bed clothes.

Late in the afternoon one of the "comrades" brought her a cipher message, warning her of a meeting arranged to take place in the "Black Hole" up in the hills.

Half an hour after she left the Hippodrome she was in boy's clothes and riding out to the rendezvous to wait till the others appeared. She had hoped for the chance of a talk with Emile, but to her surprise he was not among those who mustered outside the town. She had never known him to be absent from a meeting before, but it was not her business to ask questions.

While the rest of the company occupied themselves with long and bloodthirsty orations, and hatched fresh schemes for the destruction of their fellow-creatures, and the regeneration of the whole earth, she went quietly about her duties as stable boy.

When she had finished she set the lantern at the furthest end of the stable, and pulling off her hat and black curly wig stretched herself wearily at full length on a truss of hay in a dark corner among the tethered horses. The ways of men she had begun to fear and hate, but of the beasts she had no fear, for they were always grateful to those who cared for them, and they also had suffered at the hands of their masters.

A lethargy had taken possession of her whole body, and her limbs felt heavily weighted. She closed her eyes and sank inertly into the bed of soft and fragrant hay.

Her loose shirt of faded dusky red had fallen open at the throat, and showed the dead-white skin. Her feet, in riding boots of brown leather, were crossed beneath the dark drapery of her cloak. A leather strap served as a belt for the slender hips that were more like those of a boy than a woman. The horses fidgeted and stamped, and a mule dragged at its halter with laid-back ears and vicious sidelong glances. Sometimes a stirrup or a bit clashed against another with a musical ring and jingle.

Arithelli heard nothing till she awoke to find herself in Vardri's arms, and being lifted into a sitting position with her back against the wall.

In answer to her sleepy murmur of surprise, a hand was laid over her mouth with a whispered—"Gare À toi petite! ne fais pas de bruit."

She sat up fully awake, and swept the veil of hair out of her eyes.

"Oh! it's you, mon ami! Is it time to go? I must get up and see to the horses."

But he held her kneeling by her side.

"No, no! Lie still, dear. There's time enough. Yes, Sobrenski is still talking. Can't you hear him? You had my letter safely?"

She laid her hand on her breast.

"It's here."

"Thank you! How long is it since I've seen you? It seems like a century. Those brutes up there were driving me mad with their cold-blooded arrangements for wholesale murder. The latest idea is to explode a bomb outside one of the big cafÉs when Alfonso comes here next week to inspect the troops. They might as well leave him alone. What harm has he done them? As long as they can see people flying into atoms with the help of a little nitroglycerine they are quite happy. Vengeance, vengeance! That is their eternal cry. Of course in Russia it's a different thing. One must either be an autocrat and slave-driver or a Nihilist out there, but here—they are mad, all of them! They have just settled to draw lots to-morrow night. I wonder who will have the 'honour' of becoming executioner? I suppose they can't do it to-night because Poleski isn't here."

Arithelli shook her head.

"That is not the reason. They have given Emile other work to do in
Russia. He is leaving here very soon. I thought you knew."

"Who told you that Poleski is going away? It may not be true."

"Emile himself. Oh! it's true enough. I don't know when he will go.
He doesn't know himself, but soon."

"Will you trust me to take care of you when Poleski is gone?"

"I'll trust you always."

"Promise me you'll come away with me. If you care you'll come. I'll give up the Cause for your sake. I've told you so in my letter and now I say it again."

"So I've made you a traitor. Sobrenski was right."

"My sweet, how can I live with violence and death and misery since I have known you? I want to get away from men and back to Nature to be healed. It doesn't follow that because I have grown to hate some of the revolutionist methods that I am against all their theories. I believe they are right in sharing things, in fighting for those who are trodden down by the rich, but you and I can still believe all that without becoming inhuman. Think of Sobrenski. He's a werewolf, not a man! Promise me that you'll come soon. Let me take you away before they make you one of their 'angels of vengeance,' as they call these women of the revolution."

Excitement and the feverish devil of consumption had turned his blood to fire. He would take no denial, pay no heed to Arithelli's entreaties for time to think, and to consult Emile.

For once he forgot to be gentle, and dragged her head back roughly, whispering passionate words, his face pressed against her own. For a moment he saw no longer the goddess on her ivory throne, but a woman of flesh and blood, warm, living, and fragrant and to be desired after a man's fashion.

Arithelli closed her eyes and leant back, yielding herself to his caresses. The pressure of his hand across her throat hurt her, but in some strange way it also gave her pleasure. Love, the schoolmaster, again stood by her side teaching her the lesson learnt sooner or later by all women, that pain at the hands of one beloved is a thing close akin to joy. She felt incapable of any struggle or resistance, bodily or mental. She had given her heart therefore her body was also his to use as he willed, and feeling her thus abandoned to him all the boy's chivalry was stirred anew, and the hunger for possession was lost in the desire to serve and protect.

Possibly if he had been forty instead of twenty-eight, he would perhaps have demanded a man's rights. Being, however, according to the world's standard, a fool and a dreamer, he chose to let the moment pass, to refuse what the gods offered, to think of Arithelli rather than of himself.

"I'm hurting you, dear." His voice shook a little, in spite of his efforts to control it.

"No. Nothing hurts now. And I'm glad you love me."

"I hurt you a minute ago. I was mad and a beast. Will you forgive me?
You are not frightened?"

"No. I was only thinking of the future of tomorrow."

"Let us forget to-morrow," the boy pleaded. "Can you not forget for once?"

"We have to-day, and each other. 'Aujourd'hui le Printemps, Ninon.' It's summer for us now, FatalitÉ! When one loves there is always summer."

He drew her out into the starlight as he heard the noise of the men pushing back their seats and moving about overhead.

Several voices were raised in angry altercation.

He raged inwardly as he thought how in a few minutes he would have to see her at the orders of them all, sent here and there, at everyone's call, and forced to work without either thanks or reward.

"Let me go in, dear," Arithelli said. "They will expect to find things ready."

But Vardri held her back.

"Let them expect! Give them the trouble of looking for you. They keep you up all night, so they can afford to waste a few minutes extra."

It was both a foolish and useless protest and Arithelli knew that she would pay afterwards for these snatched moments, but she did not grudge the price, for to her they seemed worth the payment required.

She was glad of the air too.

She turned a little in Vardri's arms, lifting her face to the soft night wind. The coolness and the dark were like the touch of a soothing hand.

The branches of the tree under which they stood rustled softly, and the undergrowth stirred with the startled movements of some awakened bird or small animal.

A bat flew past, almost brushing them with its velvet wings. From the marsh lands below the dangerous white mist hovered like a fairy veil.

"I love the night," Arithelli whispered. "It makes me want to do all sorts of things. Do you remember the story of Marguerite of France, who heard the gypsies singing under her window and leant out and called to them to take her away. I feel like that. Do you understand?"

Vardri drew her closer. "I know, my heart. Tell me more."

"There were some gypsies singing under my window this morning," Arithelli went on. "I wished I could have gone out and followed them 'over the hills and far away' like the children in the old rhymes. The Irish and Jewish people have always been wanderers. Perhaps that is why I am fated never to stay long in one place."

He answered her in the same mood.

"We'll start at once, shall we, FatalitÉ? We'll saddle two of the horses and ride, ride day and night till we come to Montserrat, and there we shall find your gypsies and their tribe. When you come to my country there'll be gypsies too, and they shall play and sing for you, and you'll know what music is for the first time."

"How foolish we are!" Her eyes were wet, but she was smiling. "If
Emile heard me talking like this he would be so angry."

"He talked like this once," Vardri replied. "Poleski was young too not so very long ago, and he loved someone."

"Yes, I know." She found it almost impossible to think of Emile as a lover in spite of the photograph she had found, and the words in his own writing upon his songs. She knew them by heart. "Emile À Marie. Sans toi la mort." And on another, "Etoile de mon Âme! Je vous adore de tout mon coeur, ton Emile."

Perhaps it was the memory of this passion of his youth that had made him kind to her.

While they talked and lingered, Sobrenski was descending the rickety ladder that served as a staircase.

He had noticed Vardri's exit from the room, as he noticed everything else. All the other men had been too excited to care whether one more or less was there or not. In the hot argument that raged in the upper room, the absence of one of the members of the Brotherhood was apparently forgotten.

Their leader, however, did not lose his head or his powers of observation even when matters of life or death were in the balance. Whatever he did was always done deliberately and in cold blood.

All the time he had been apparently presiding over the discussion he had also been thinking rapidly.

It would be to his ultimate advantage not to interfere with Arithelli and Vardri just now, but to let them be together, to see as much of each other as possible. It was as well that Vardri should become thoroughly infatuated, as then he would be certain to take some step that would bring things to a crisis. They would be sure to try to escape out of the country and hide themselves somewhere. They would not be the first people who had tried that sort of thing before.

In the course of his life he had known others who had flung the Cause and their vows to the winds from fear or passion and tried to hide themselves under some disguise.

If they happened to be clever and have plenty of money their escape had been fairly easy, and they had even been safe for perhaps a year or so. Then just as they had begun to feel secure and had grown careless, the vengeance of their own particular circle had overtaken them. There had been accounts in the newspapers of a mysterious tragedy to which no motive could be assigned, and for which no one could be brought to justice, and that was all.

They were all monotonously alike, these affairs!

Sobrenski had said little to anyone else of his suspicions.

No need to declare anyone a traitor till it was proven. Such things had a demoralising effect, and treachery was an infectious disease.

He descended the uneven rungs of the ladder, treading soft-footed as a cat.

There was no noise of talking, so of course she was asleep. SacrÉ, these lazy women! So she could not keep awake even for a lover!

The place was dark except for the glimmering light at the far end, and he was obliged to feel his way to avoid the mules, who had an evil trick of lashing out with their heels at anything in the vicinity.

At the foot of the steps he trod on a riding whip, which he recognised as one belonging to Vardri.

In the dim circle of light cast by the smoky lamp there was only a truss of hay disordered as if someone had lain upon it, and the manta, and other things belonging to Arithelli.

There was one thing more, a sheet of paper covered closely with an untidy scrawl.

The lynx eyes flashed, and Sobrenski bent eagerly forward.

Bad as the light was it had not taken him long to recognise the writing.

He held it close to the lamp, and smiled with satisfaction.

Nothing could be better from his point of view. In the first sentence there was all, even more, than he wanted.

He smoothed it out between his pointed fingers, folded it, and bestowed it carefully in an inside pocket.

It was just the kind of thing he would have expected from a girl of Arithelli's type,—to go about dropping letters. She had not method enough even to put on her clothes decently; they always looked as if they were falling off, and her hair as if it was coming down.

Sapristi! A fine agent for the Cause! and one fit to be trusted with important documents.

Poleski must have been quite mad when he suggested introducing her to the Brotherhood, and he himself deserved even more blame for having as much as listened to the suggestion.

A girl of that age, picked up from nowhere, and like the rest of her sex a mass of lies and vanity.

He held the lantern above his head, and peered round. Surely they had not been so utterly insane as to have attempted to escape to-night? All the horses and mules were there safe enough, and obviously they would not attempt to walk.

He strode towards the door, meeting them on the threshold, and in spite of himself could not help being impressed by the uncanny likeness between the two, in form and outline.

They had even the same trick of movement.

The thought of what he had found made him feel almost good-humoured, although he took good care that no one else should benefit by this unusual mood.

"You have found yourself a little distraction, hein?" he said, ignoring Arithelli's presence. "We are not up here for amusement all the same. There's nothing done. I supposed you had come down to see to the horses."

Vardri strolled across to a rack, and took down an armful of saddles and stirrups.

"I have," he answered laconically. "They'll be ready in five minutes."

Sobrenski turned to the girl, and spoke to her in an undertone. "What are you wasting time for? See to your work." Vardri raised his head from the adjustment of a girth.

"I'm doing Mademoiselle Arithelli's work. There is no need for her to trouble." His accents possessed both dignity and command. For an instant their positions were reversed. The leader smothered an oath; but said no more. He reflected that he could well afford to wait for his revenge. The game was absolutely in his own hands if only they had known it.

He could see that they were both perfectly unconscious of the fact that they had lost anything. When they discovered they would most likely conclude it had happened during the ride up.

When Arithelli had dragged herself up into her bedroom the sky was lighting with the dawn. They had mistaken the road and gone a mile or two out of the way, and one of the men had been thrown off and twisted his ankle, and made another halt and delay. She drew the curtains closely and lay down without undressing.

Before she slept she put her hand into her breast, and felt the rustle of the thin paper on which Vardri's letter had been written.

It was not until the landlady had nearly battered down her door that she stirred four hours later, and then she unfastened her blouse and drew out instead of the original two sheets, only one.

She did not feel particularly alarmed; supposing it had been put with the envelope that she had left about in the morning. Her things so often got lost, and it was Emile who generally found them.