CHAYNE RETURNS
"Hullo," cried Captain Barstow, as he wandered round the library after
luncheon. "Here's a scatter-gun."
He took the gun from a corner where it stood against the wall, opened the
breech, shut it again, and turning to the open window lifted the stock to
his shoulder.
"I wonder whether I could hit anything nowadays," he said, taking careful
aim at a tulip in the garden. "Any cartridges, Skinner?"
"I don't know, I am sure," Garratt Skinner replied, testily. The
newspapers had only this moment been brought into the room, and he did
not wish to be disturbed. Sylvia had never noticed that double-barreled
gun before; and she wondered whether it had been brought into the room
that morning. She watched Captain Barstow bustle into the hall and back
again. Finally he pounced upon an oblong card-box which lay on the top of
a low book-case. He removed the lid and pulled out a cartridge.
"Hullo!" said he. "No. 6. The very thing! I am going to take a pot at the
starlings, Skinner. There are too many of them about for your
fruit-trees."
"Very well," said Garratt Skinner, lazily lifting his eyes from his
newspaper and looking out across the lawn. "Only take care you don't wing
my new gardener."
"No fear of that," said Barstow, and filling his pockets with cartridges
he took the gun in his hand and skipped out into the garden. In a moment
a shot was heard, and Walter Hine rose from his chair and walked to the
window. A second shot followed.
"Old Barstow can't shoot for nuts," said Hine, with a chuckle, and in his
turn he stepped out into the garden. Sylvia made no attempt to hinder
him, but she took his place at the window ready to intervene. A flight of
starlings passed straight and swift over Barstow's head. He fired both
barrels and not one of the birds fell. Hine spoke to him, and the gun at
once changed hands. At the next flight Hine fired and one of the birds
dropped. Barstow's voice was raised in jovial applause.
"That was a good egg, Wallie. A very good egg. Let me try now!" and so
alternately they shot as the birds darted overhead across the lawn.
Sylvia waited for the moment when Barstow's aim would suddenly develop a
deadly precision, but that moment did not come. If there was any betting
upon this match, Hine would not be the loser. She went quietly back to a
writing-desk and wrote her letters. She had no wish to rouse in her
father's mind a suspicion that she had guessed his design and was
setting herself to thwart it. She must work secretly, more secretly than
he did himself. Meanwhile the firing continued in the garden; and
unobserved by Sylvia, Garratt Skinner began to take in it a stealthy
interest. His chair was so placed that, without stirring, he could look
into the garden and at the same time keep an eye on Sylvia; if she moved
an elbow or raised her head, Garratt Skinner was at once reading his
paper with every appearance of concentration. On the other hand, her
back was turned toward him, so that she saw neither his keen gaze into
the garden nor the good-tempered smile of amusement with which he turned
his eyes upon his daughter.
In this way perhaps an hour passed; certainly no more. Sylvia had, in
fact, almost come to the end of her letters, when Garratt Skinner
suddenly pushed back his chair and stood up. At the noise, abrupt as a
startled cry, Sylvia turned swiftly round. She saw that her father was
gazing with a look of perplexity into the garden, and that for the moment
he had forgotten her presence. She crossed the room quickly and
noiselessly, and standing just behind his elbow, saw what he saw. The
blood flushed her throat and mounted into her cheeks, her eyes softened,
and a smile of welcome transfigured her grave face. Her friend Hilary
Chayne was standing under the archway of the garden door. He had closed
the door behind him, but he had not moved thereafter, and he was not
looking toward the house. His attention was riveted upon the
shooting-match. Sylvia gave no thought to his attitude at the moment. He
had come--that was enough. And Garratt Skinner, turning about, saw the
light in his daughter's face.
"You know him!" he cried, roughly.
"Yes."
"He has come to see you?"
"Yes."
"You should have told me," said Garratt Skinner, angrily. "I dislike
secrecies." Sylvia raised her eyes and looked her father steadily in the
face. But Garratt Skinner was not so easily abashed. He returned her look
as steadily.
"Who is he?" he continued, in a voice of authority.
"Captain Hilary Chayne."
It seemed for a moment that the name was vaguely familiar to Garratt
Skinner, and Sylvia added:
"I met him this summer in Switzerland."
"Oh, I see," said her father, and he looked with a new interest across
the garden to the door. "He is a great friend."
"My only friend," returned Sylvia, softly; and her father stepped forward
and called aloud, holding up his hand:
"Barstow! Barstow!"
Sylvia noticed then, and not till then, that the coming of her friend
was not the only change which had taken place since she had last looked
out upon the garden. The new gardener was now shooting alternately with
Walter Hine, while Captain Barstow, standing a few feet behind them,
recorded the hits in a little book. He looked up at the sound of
Garratt Skinner's voice and perceiving Chayne at once put a stop to the
match. Garratt Skinner turned again to his daughter, and spoke now
without any anger at all. There was just a hint of reproach in his
voice, but as though to lessen the reproof he laid his hand
affectionately upon her arm.
"Any friend of yours is welcome, of course, my dear. But you might have
told me that you expected him. Let us have no secrets from each other
in the future? Now bring him in, and we will see if we can give him a
cup of tea."
He rang the bell. Sylvia did not think it worth while to argue that
Chayne's coming was a surprise to her as much as to her father. She
crossed the garden toward her friend. But she walked slowly and still
more slowly. Her memories had flown back to the evening when they had
bidden each other good-by on the little platform in front of the Chalet
de Lognan. Not in this way had she then planned that they should meet
again, nor in such company. The smile had faded from her lips, the light
of gladness had gone from her eyes. Barstow and Walter Hine were moving
toward the house. It mortified her exceedingly that her friend should
find her amongst such companions. She almost wished that he had not found
her out at all. And so she welcomed him with a great restraint.
"It was kind of you to come," she said. "How did you know I was here?"
"I called at your house in London. The caretaker gave me the address," he
replied. He took her hand and, holding it, looked with the careful
scrutiny of a lover into her face.
"You have needed those memories of your one day to fall back upon," he
said, regretfully. "Already you have needed them. I am very sorry."
Sylvia did not deny the implication of the words that "troubles" had
come. She turned to him, grateful that he should so clearly have
remembered what she had said upon that day.
"Thank you," she answered, gently. "My father would like to know you. I
wrote to you that I had come to live with him."
"Yes."
"You were surprised?" she asked.
"No," he answered, quietly. "You came to some important decision on the
very top of the Aiguille d'Argentière. That I knew at the time, for I
watched you. When I got your letter, I understood what the decision was."
To leave Chamonix--to break completely with her life--it was just to that
decision she would naturally have come just on that spot during that one
sunlit hour. So much his own love of the mountains taught him. But Sylvia
was surprised at his insight; and what with that and the proof that their
day together had remained vividly in his thoughts, she caught back
something of his comradeship. As they crossed the lawn to the house her
embarrassment diminished. She drew comfort, besides, from the thought
that whatever her friend might think of Captain Barstow and Walter Hine,
her father at all events would impress him, even as she had been
impressed. Chayne would see at once that here was a man head and
shoulders above his companions, finer in quality, different in speech.
But that afternoon her humiliation was to be complete. Her father had no
fancy for the intrusion of Captain Chayne into his quiet and sequestered
house. The flush of color on his daughter's face, the leap of light into
her eyes, had warned him. He had no wish to lose his daughter. Chayne,
too, might be inconveniently watchful. Garratt Skinner desired no spy
upon his little plans. Consequently he set himself to play the host with
an offensive geniality which was calculated to disgust a man with any
taste for good manners. He spoke in a voice which Sylvia did not know, so
coarse it was in quality, so boisterous and effusive; and he paraded
Walter Hine and Captain Barstow with the pride of a man exhibiting his
dearest friends.
"You must know 'red-hot' Barstow, Captain Chayne," he cried, slapping the
little man lustily on the back. "One of the very best. You are both
brethren of the sword."
Barstow sniggered obsequiously and screwed his eye-glass into his eye.
"Delighted, I am sure. But I sheathed the sword some time ago,
Captain Chayne."
"And exchanged it for the betting book," Chayne added, quietly.
Barstow laughed nervously.
"Oh, you refer to our little match in the garden," he said. "We dragged
the gardener into it."
"So I saw," Chayne replied. "The gardener seemed to be a remarkable shot.
I think he would be a match for more than one professional."
And turning away he saw Sylvia's eyes fixed upon him, and on her face an
expression of trouble and dismay so deep that he could have bitten off
his tongue for speaking. She had been behind him while he had spoken; and
though he had spoken in a low voice, she had heard every word. She bent
her head over the tea-table and busied herself with the cups. But her
hands shook; her face burned, she was tortured with shame. She had set
herself to do battle with her father, and already in the first skirmish
she had been defeated. Chayne's indiscreet words had laid bare to her the
elaborate conspiracy. The new gardener, the gun in the corner, the
cartridges which had to be looked for, Barstow's want of skill, Hine's
superiority which had led Barstow so naturally to offer to back the
gardener against him--all was clear to her. It was the little round game
of cards all over again; and she had not possessed the wit to detect the
trick! And that was not all. Her friend had witnessed it and understood!
She heard her father presenting Walter Hine, and with almost intolerable
pain she realized that had he wished to leave Chayne no single
opportunity of misapprehension, he would have spoken just these words and
no others.
"Wallie is the grandson--and indeed the heir--of old Joseph Hine. You
know his name, no doubt. Joseph Hine's Château Marlay, what? A warm man,
Joseph Hine. I don't know a man more rich. Treats his grandson handsomely
into the bargain, eh, Wallie?"
Sylvia felt that her heart would break. That Garrett Skinner's admission
was boldly and cunningly deliberate did not occur to her. She simply
understood that here was the last necessary piece of evidence given to
Captain Chayne which would convince him that he had been this afternoon
the witness of a robbery and swindle.
She became aware that Chayne was standing beside her. She did not lift
her face, for she feared that it would betray her. She wished with all
her heart that he would just replace his cup upon the tray and go away
without a word. He could not want to stay; he could not want to return.
He had no place here. If he would go away quietly, without troubling to
take leave of her, she would be very grateful and do justice to him for
his kindness.
But though he had the mind to go, it was not without a word.
"I want you to walk with me as far as the door," he said, gently.
Sylvia rose at once. Since after all there must be words, the sooner they
were spoken the better. She followed him into the garden, making her
little prayer that they might be very few, and that he would leave her to
fight her battle and to hide her shame alone.
They crossed the lawn without a word. He held open the garden door for
her and she passed into the lane. He followed and closed the door behind
them. In the lane a hired landau was waiting. Chayne pointed to it.
"I want you to come away with me now," he said, and since she looked at
him with the air of one who does not understand, he explained, standing
quietly beside her with his eyes upon her face. And though he spoke
quietly, there was in his eyes a hunger which belied his tones, and
though he stood quietly, there was a tension in his attitude which
betrayed extreme suspense. "I want you to come away with me, I want you
never to return. I want you to marry me."
The blood rushed into her cheeks and again fled from them, leaving her
very white. Her face grew mutinous like an angry child's, but her eyes
grew hard like a resentful woman's.
"You ask me out of pity," she said, in a low voice.
"That's not true," he cried, and with so earnest a passion that she could
not but believe him. "Sylvia, I came here meaning to ask you to marry me.
I ask you something more now, that is all. I ask you to come to me a
little sooner--that is all. I want you to come with me now."
Sylvia leaned against the wall and covered her face with her hands.
"Please!" he said, making his appeal with a great simplicity. "For I love
you, Sylvia."
She gave him no answer. She kept her face still hid, and only her heaving
breast bore witness to her stress of feeling. Gently he removed her
hands, and holding them in his, urged his plea.
"Ever since that day in Switzerland, I have been thinking of you, Sylvia,
remembering your looks, your smile, and the words you spoke. I crossed
the Col Dolent the next day, and all the time I felt that there was some
great thing wanting. I said to myself, 'I miss my friend.' I was wrong,
Sylvia. I missed you. Something ached in me--has ached ever since. It was
my heart! Come with me now!"
Sylvia had not looked at him, though she made no effort to draw her hands
away, and still not looking at him, she answered in a whisper:
"I can't, I can't."
"Why?" he asked, "why? You are not happy here. You are no happier than
you were at Chamonix. And I would try so very hard to make you happy. I
can't leave you here--lonely, for you are lonely. I am lonely too; all
the more lonely because I carry about with me--you--you as you stood in
the chalet at night looking through the open window, with the
candle-light striking upward on your face, and with your reluctant smile
upon your lips--you as you lay on the top of the Aiguille d'Argentière
with the wonder of a new world in your eyes--you as you said good-by in
the sunset and went down the winding path to the forest. If you only
knew, Sylvia!"
"Yes, but I don't know," she answered, and now she looked at him. "I
suppose that, if I loved, I should know, I should understand."
Her hands lay in his, listless and unresponsive to the pressure of his.
She spoke slowly and thoughtfully, meeting his gaze with troubled eyes.
"Yet you were glad to see me when I came," he urged.
"Glad, yes! You are my friend, my one friend. I was very glad. But the
gladness passed. When you asked me to come with you across the garden, I
was wanting you to go away."
The words hurt him. They could not but hurt him. But she was so plainly
unconscious of offence, she was so plainly trying to straighten out her
own tangled position, that he could feel no anger.
"Why?" he asked; and again she frankly answered him.
"I was humbled," she replied, "and I have had so much humiliation
in my life."
The very quietude of her voice and the wistful look upon the young tired
face hurt him far more than her words had done.
"Sylvia," he cried, and he drew her toward him. "Come with me now! My
dear, there will be an end of all humiliation. We can be married, we can
go down to my home on the Sussex Downs. That old house needs a mistress,
Sylvia. It is very lonely." He drew a breath and smiled suddenly. "And I
would like so much to show you it, to show you all the corners, the
bridle-paths across the downs, the woods, and the wide view from Arundel
to Chichester spires. Sylvia, come!"
Just for a moment it seemed that she leaned toward him. He put his arm
about her and held her for a moment closer. But her head was lowered, not
lifted up to his; and then she freed herself gently from his clasp.
She faced him with a little wrinkle of thought between her brows and
spoke with an air of wisdom which went very prettily with the childlike
beauty of her face.
"You are my friend," she said, "a friend I am very grateful for, but you
are not more than that to me. I am frank. You see, I am thinking now of
reasons which would not trouble me if I loved you. Marriage with me would
do you no good, would hurt you in your career."
"No," he protested.
"But I am thinking that it would," she replied, steadily, "and I do not
believe that I should give much thought to it, if I really loved you. I
am thinking of something else, too--" and she spoke more boldly,
choosing her words with care--"of a plan which before you came I had
formed, of a task which before you came I had set myself to do. I am
still thinking of it, still feeling that I ought to go on with it. I do
not think that I should feel that if I loved. I think nothing else would
count at all except that I loved. So you are still my friend, and I
cannot go with you."
Chayne looked at her for a moment sadly, with a mist before his eyes.
"I leave you to much unhappiness," he said, "and I hate the
thought of it."
"Not quite so much now as before you came," she answered. "I am proud,
you know, that you asked me," and putting her troubles aside, she smiled
at him bravely, as though it was he who needed comforting. "Good-by! Let
me hear of you through your success."
So again they said good-by at the time of sunset. Chayne mounted into
the landau and drove back along the road to Weymouth. "So that's the
end," said Sylvia. She opened the door and passed again into the garden.
Through the window of the library she saw her father and Walter Hine,
watching, it seemed, for her appearance. It was borne in upon her
suddenly that she could not meet them or speak with them, and she ran
very quickly round the house to the front door, and escaped unaccosted
to her room.
In the library Hine turned to Garratt Skinner with one of his rare
flashes of shrewdness.
"She didn't want to meet us," he said, jealously. "Do you think she
cares for him?"
"I think," replied Garratt Skinner with a smile, "that Captain Chayne
will not trouble us with his company again."