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Updated: May 10, 2025
Then her heart stood still; a chill aura swept through her and she shivered. The dark figure nearing her was not Lenox. It was Garth. But that all power of initiative seemed gone from her, she must have turned and fled. Instead she stood her ground, without motion or speech; and he, still misreading her, held out his arms. "Quita . . . darling . . ." he began, his voice thick with passion.
Quita sat looking after him, her stillness belying the clash of emotions at her heart.
Her cheeks flamed; and she almost snatched away her hands. "Yes. I am quite satisfied," she said, in a changed voice. "And I think it's high time we went back." Then she left him, a shade too rapidly for dignity, and sprang into the cart, before he could get near enough to help her up. "Quita . . . why did you do that? What's wrong?" he asked, lamely enough as he gathered up the reins.
And Quita, being in a fanciful mood, saw in this "good gigantic smile" of the rain-soaked earth a happy omen; an assurance that so would the mists rise from her own life, and the sunlight prevail. A sudden recollection of the buffalo "Mèla" set her smiling.
Possibly something of this occurred to Desmond; for after the first few miles he deserted his wife now and again, and walked by Quita; exorcising the spirit of self-torment that haunts the imaginative, as he of all men best knew how to do.
But it is at just such crises that habit reveals itself as the hand of steel in a silken glove; and before she could open her lips, Jock Lenox had stretched out a ghostly arm from his grave in Aberdeen, and shut to the door of his nephew's heart. Quita glanced hurriedly from the discarded letter to her husband's face. "My dear, . . . what has gone wrong? You look terrible. Have you had bad news?"
"The devil take Mrs Norton. Odious woman!" "No, it's you that will have to take her!" she answered, laughing. "And it's not my fault that you won't have your beautiful Honor on the other side to keep the balance true." Quita enjoyed her little dinner, and saw to it that others did likewise. She was a natural-born hostess.
His wound, though only keeping him on the sick-list a week, had given him a good deal of pain, intermittent fever, and broken nights, which he had made light of that Quita might feel free to devote herself to Richardson, whose first bout of fever had been severe. But when pain and heated blood had subsided, the broken nights remained.
And for " he broke off short. She tried to speak, but tears were clutching at her throat; and after a moment's pause, he went on: "There is a great black something deep down in me, Quita, that rises up now and then, like a spiritual fog, and blots all the light and colour out of life.
"If we push along briskly we may get in with dry skins yet," he said, scanning the sky, where a vanguard of tattered cloud trailed aimlessly across the blue. "And I was actually hoping we might get caught!" Quita confessed on a mock note of apology. "It would make such a thrilling finale: and I delight in your Indian storms." Colonel Mayhew laughed and shook his head.
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