The Fire Within by Patricia Wentworth

away only a month, and he looked like a stranger. His attitude was that
of a very weary man. His head rested on his hand, and he looked all the
time at Mary in the rosy glow which bathed her. When she looked up at
Edward, he saw the look, saw the light shine down into her dark eyes
and sparkle there. Not a look, not a smile was lost, and whilst he
watched Mary, Elizabeth watched him. Elizabeth was very glad of the
dimness that shielded her. It was a relief to drop the mask of a
friendly indifference, to be able to watch David with no thought except
for him. Her heart yearned to him as never before. She divined in him a
great hunger—a great pain. And this hunger, this pain, was hers. The
longing to give, to assuage, to comfort, welled up in her with a
suddenness and strength that were almost startling. Elizabeth took her
thought in a strong hand, forcing it along accustomed channels from the
plane where love may be thwarted, to that other plane, where love walks
unashamed and undeterred, and gives her gifts, no man forbidding her.
Elizabeth sat still, with folded hands. Her love went out to David,
like one ripple in a boundless, golden sea, from which they drew their
being, and in which they lived and moved. A sense of light and peace
came down upon her.
    Edward's voice was filling the room. It was quite a pleasant voice,
and if it never varied into expression, at least it never went out of
tune, and every word was distinct.
    “Ah, well, I know the
sadness
      That tears and rends your heart,
    How that from all life's gladness
      You stand, far, far apart—“ sang Edward, in tones
of the most complete unconcern.
    It was Mary who supplied all the sentiment that could be wished for.
She dwelt on the chords with an almost superfluous degree of feeling,
and her eyes were quite moist.
    At any other time this combination of Edward and Lord Henry Somerset
would have entertained Elizabeth not a little, but just now there was
no room in her thoughts for any one but David. The light that was upon
her gave her vision. She looked upon David with eyes that had grown
very clear, and as she looked she understood. That he had changed,
deteriorated, she had seen at the first glance. Now she discerned in
him the cause of such an alteration—something wrenched and twisted.
The scene in her little brown room rose vividly before her. When David
had allowed Mary to sway him, he had parted with something, which he
could not now recall. He had broken violently through his own code, and
the broken thing was failing him at every turn. Mary's eyes, Mary's
voice, Mary's touch—these things had waked in him something beyond the
old passion. The emotional strain of that scene had carried him beyond
his self-control. A feverish craving was upon him, and his whole nature
burned in the flame of it.
    Edward had passed to another song.
    “One more kiss from my darling one,” he sang in a slightly
perfunctory manner. His voice was getting tired, and he seemed a little
absent-minded for a lover who was about to plunge into Eternity. The
manner in which he requested death to come speedily was a trifle
unconvincing. As he began the next verse David made a sudden movement.
A log of wood upon the fire had fallen sharply, and there was a quick
upward rush of flame. David looked round, facing the glow, and as he
did so his eyes met Elizabeth's. Just for one infinitesimal moment
something seemed to pass from her to him. It was one of those strange
moments which are not moments of time at all, and are therefore not
subject to time's laws. Elizabeth Chantrey's eyes were full of peace.
Full, too, of a passionate gentleness. It was a gentleness which for an
instant touched the sore places in David's soul with healing, and for
that one instant David had a glimpse of something very strong, very
tender, that was his, and yet incomprehensibly withheld from his
understanding. lt was one of those instantaneous