for the older woman. She bent and kissed the child, clasping her
closely, murmuring fond words.
So for a time they remained. Then there came a soft, fluttering sigh,
and afterwards a great silence. And Frances knew that the child was
asleep.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MIRACLE
“You won’t leave us?” said Maggie tremulously. “Please, you won’t leave
us?”
“If I can be of the slightest use here of course I will stay,” Frances
answered, “for a time at least. But I can’t live on your kindness any
longer. That is absolutely certain. I am beginning to make money by my
sketches, and I must be allowed to pay my way.”
“You will talk that over with Mother, won’t you?” said Maggie. “I know
she doesn’t want you to go. None of us do.” She smiled tearfully.
“Somehow we feel as if all the luck of Tetherstones would go with you,
and there’s never very much of it at any time, as you may have noticed.”
“I shouldn’t say that,” said Frances. “Fortune favours the brave, you
know. You mustn’t let yourself lose heart.”
“I try not,” said Maggie. “But it’s very difficult sometimes. That night
you went away to Fordestown was so terrible, and then—and then losing
little Ruth! We thought there would have to be an inquest, but Dr.
Square is so good, and he managed everything for us. Of course our
darling was not like other children. We all knew that, and that we
shouldn’t have her always. But that doesn’t make it any easier, does
it?”
“My dear, don’t cry!” said Frances gently. “I am sure there is a happy
time in front of you. Just keep looking up! You will see very soon that
the clouds are breaking.”
“I wonder,” whispered Maggie. “Well, I must go. There’s heaps to be
done. Poor Mother is so tired when Father is ill.”
“Is he better this morning?” Frances asked.
“No, not much. He fainted three times during the night. Dolly of course
is splendid. She and Mother and Arthur divide the nursing between them.
At least, Arthur—or Oliver—is always within call in case of need. But
the rest of us are not much good. So we just run round the farm,” said
Maggie, preparing to depart.
“Is he fretting for little Ruth?” asked Frances.
Maggie’s eyes opened wide; she looked startled for a moment. Then: “Oh,
no! I doubt if he even thinks about her,” she said. “He never loved her
as we did. He doesn’t love anybody except Mother. That’s what makes it
so difficult.”
“I wonder if I could help with him,” said Frances.
“Oh, don’t think of it!” said Maggie. “It wouldn’t be fit for you.”
But Frances did think of it notwithstanding. The serious illness of the
old man, so quickly following the death of little Ruth, had stirred her
deepest pity for them all, and she longed to be of any use. They had
done so much for her in her hour of need, and it seemed to her a
heaven-sent opportunity to make some return.
The work of the farm went on as usual now that little Ruth had been laid
to rest. The general routine was unchanged. There was no sign of
mourning. It was only in their hearts that the child’s passing had left
a blank. The girls whispered together of her and sometimes wept, but no
special corner was empty because of her. Like a will-o’-the-wisp she had
dwelt with them and now had flitted away. All had loved her, all had
cared for her, all missed her. But now that she was gone not one of
them, save perhaps the white-haired grandmother, could say that the
removal of her daily presence had made any material difference. She had
ever been a thing of the spirit, flower-like, contented, asking nothing
of those around her, clinging closely only to one. And that one was the
least likely of all to make any outcry. Patient and steadfast, she went
her quiet way, and if she suffered, none knew it.
Frances had come to regard her with a deep reverence. She understood now
something of the nature of the bond that existed between mother and son.
They were cast in the same mould. They faced life with the same
determined fortitude. But whereas the one had definitely passed the age
of rebellion and unrest, the other was still in the prime of life,—a
gladiator to whom defeat was cruelly hard to bear. He might come to it
in time, that stillness of resignation, but not till the fires of life
had died down in his veins and there was nought of paramount importance
left to live for. Then she could imagine such a state of mind
supervening, but her whole soul revolted at the thought. And there were
times when she was fiercely glad that he had not been able to hide his
suffering from her.
She saw but little of him during that time, but on the day of her talk
with Maggie, she came upon him unexpectedly towards evening, leaning
upon the garden-gate in the gloaming, his pipe in his mouth.
He straightened himself to let her pass, and, the last glow of the
sunset being upon him, she saw again that sleepless look in his eyes
that had before so moved her.
She paused with the half-formed intention of making some casual remark;
but words that were wholly different from those she had intended to
utter came to her lips instead.
“How tired you are!” she said.
She saw his mouth take the old cynical curve. “But still not down and
out,” he said.
She realized at once that the subject was unwelcome, but she did not
turn from it. Some impulse moved her in the face of his distaste.
“I am wondering,” she said, “if perhaps I could be of use—relieve you
and your mother a little. I should be very proud if you would let me
try.”
He caught at the word as though it stung him. “Proud! Miss Thorold, your
pride is easily satisfied!”
She faced him steadily. “Mr. Dermot, I mean what I say—always. I owe
you a debt. I should like to repay it. But if you refuse to accept
payment, I will at least not add to it any further. If you will not
allow me to be of use to you, I shall leave to-morrow.”
His attitude altered on the instant, so suddenly that she was
disconcerted. He leaned towards her with an odd gesture of surrender.
“It is not a question of my allowing or disallowing,” he said. “You have
me in the dust. Do whatever seems good to you—now and always. You come
or go at Tetherstones exactly as you will.”
His manner had a baffling quality, but she did not question the
sincerity of his words; for she sensed a certain anxiety behind them
that thrilled her strangely.
“In that case,” she said, “will you let me stay—and help you?”
He did not answer immediately, and in the brief silence she realized
that he was putting strong restraint upon himself. Then: “You will
stay,” he said, “if you will deign to do so. As to helping me—as to
helping me—” he paused as if at a loss.
Something moved her to fill in the gap. “If you will trust me in the
sick-room,” she said, “I think I could be of use. May I not try?”
He drew a hard breath and turned half from her as though he would go
away. Roger, standing by and eagerly watching his every movement,
prepared to accompany him, and then, realizing his mistake, drooped his
head dejectedly and resigned himself to further inactivity.
Arthur spoke with his face averted. “It is not a question of trust, Miss
Thorold. It is you yourself that I have to consider. You don’t quite
know what you are asking, and it is difficult for me to tell you.”
“You need not mind telling me,” she said.
He made a gesture of impotence. “I’ve got to tell you. That’s the hell
of it. If you stay here, you’ve got to understand one thing. My father
is suffering from heart-disease, and, as you know, the heart and brain
are very closely connected. His brain is affected.”
“I am not surprised at that,” Frances said. “In fact, I had suspected it
before.”
He turned upon her with that goaded expression which but for its
suffering, might have intimidated her.
“What made you do that? What has he said to you?”
“Oh, nothing very much,” she answered gently. “I have thought him a
little vague from time to time. I noticed that he never seemed to regard
little Ruth as an actual belonging, for one thing.”
“Go on!” he said grimly. “You have noticed more than that.”
She faced him candidly. “‘Yes, I have. I have noticed a great lack of
sympathy between him and his family for which I could not imagine they
were to blame.”
“You never blamed me?” he said.
She hesitated. “I think I always knew that you were very heavily
handicapped in some way,” she said.
He nodded. “Yes, damnably. But I won’t attempt to deceive you of all
people, so far as I am concerned. I have a brutal temper, and I hate
him! I hate him from the bottom of my soul—just as he hates me!”
“Oh, stop!” Frances said, shocked beyond words by the deadly emphasis
with which he spoke.
He uttered a sound that was half-laugh and half-groan. “You’ve got to
know it. Yes, he is my father, but I only endure him for my mother’s
sake. I have wished him dead for years. I wish it more than ever now.”
“Oh, hush!” Frances said. “Please don’t say it! Don’t think it! You will
be so sorry afterwards.”
“Why should I be sorry?” he said sombrely. “Do you think I shall ever
regret him? He who has all my life stood in the way of my gaining
anything I hold worth having? It’s too late now. My chances are gone.
And I don’t complain—even to you. As I say, his brain is affected. He
suffers from delusions. I have got to bear with him to the end. So what
is the good?”
She could not answer him. Only, after a few seconds, she said quietly,
“I think I should be too sorry for him to—hate him.”
“I wonder,” said Arthur.
He stood for a few moments looking at her. Then, very abruptly: “Is that
by any chance the reason why you don’t hate me?” he said.
She met his look unflinching. “No,” she said. “At least not entirely.”
“There is another reason?” he questioned.
She bent her head.
“And I am not to know what it is?” His voice was low but it held
urgency.
Her hand was on the catch of the gate, but still she met his look. “Mr.
Dermot,” she said, “there is a French saying that applies very closely
to you and to me. Do you know what it is?”
“‘_Tout comprendre est tout pardonner_,’” he said.
She opened the gate. “Even so,” she said. “When that happens, you will
know why I have not hated you.”
She left him with the words, but not before the sudden fire of his look
had reached her soul. As she went away down the garden-path, she knew
that her limbs were trembling. But there was that in her heart which
filled her with a burning exultation. The stones were turning to bread
indeed.
CHAPTER IX
THE INVALID
“Don’t take any notice of anything he says!” whispered Nurse Dolly.
“Just sit beside him and keep him quiet! He’s got some queer fancies,
poor old man. Sure you won’t mind them?”
“Of course not,” Frances murmured back.
“That’s right. And give him some bromide if he gets tiresome! Otherwise,
that digitalis stuff. You understand, don’t you?”
“Perfectly,” said Frances.
“Then I’ll go,” said Dolly. “Be sure to call if you want anyone! I shall
only be in the next room. I expect he’ll be quite good. He likes you.
But don’t stand any nonsense from him! Because if once he gets the upper
hand, he’s difficult.”
“I am sure he will be good,” Frances whispered, with a pitying glance
towards the pallid face on the pillow.
“I daresay he will,” said Dolly. “He’s tired now. He may get a little
sleep. It’s very good of you, Miss Thorold. He won’t stand anyone else
near him, you know, except Mother. And it’s killing work for her.”
“If you only knew how glad I am to be of some use to you at last!”
Frances said.
Dolly smiled. “You’ve made all the difference to this establishment
already. There, I’ll go. Sure you’ve got everything you want?”
“Everything,” said Frances.
“Then good-bye! I’ll be back in two hours unless you call me sooner.”
She nodded a cheery farewell and departed, softly closing the door
behind her, leaving Frances to wonder at her endurance. For it did not
take more than the most casual glance to tell her that the girl’s eyes
were drooping with weariness.
“They are all amazing,” she said to herself, as she sat down in a low
chair within sight of the bed. “They never give in.”
It was the afternoon of the following day and she had gained her end
after a very brief talk with Mrs. Dermot who, somewhat to her surprise,
had put but slight obstacle in her way. The fact that she herself was
nearly dropping with fatigue possibly had some influence with her, but
Frances was inclined to think that Arthur had already given his vote in
her favour. For she had shown no surprise, only a wan gratitude that
went to her heart.
So for that afternoon the invalid was in her charge, and Frances was
strangely elated by the trust reposed in her. The grimness of
Tetherstones seemed to be mellowing day by day into a homely warmth that
was infinitely precious to her.
She had another reason also for elation on that golden afternoon of late
summer, though with regard to this her feelings were decidedly mixed. A
letter had been forwarded to her from Fordestown bearing a London
postmark, containing a further cheque for ten pounds from Montague
Rotherby, and a few words scrawled within telling her that her sketches
were sold and that the purchaser desired to see her in town with a view
to commissioning more. The message was of the briefest, wholly
business-like in tone. He wrote from a club, but he gave her an address
in Mayfair at which his friend—a Mr. Hermon—was to be found, and
offered to meet her himself and conduct her thither if she would fix a
date convenient to her.
It was an offer which she well knew she could not afford to refuse,
though she would have given much to have received it from any other
quarter. But since the means could not be of her choosing, since,
moreover, it was inevitable that she should meet and finally convince
Montague Rotherby that the concession he had so hardly won from her must
be relinquished, she braced herself to face the situation with a stout
heart.
“They are all so brave here,” she said to herself. “I mustn’t be the one
to shirk.”
And then rather wistfully she smiled at the thought of classing herself
as one of the inmates of Tetherstones—she who had fled in terror not so
very long before. She wondered how it was that they had all with one
consent refrained from any species of questioning upon that night’s
doings. Arthur again, no doubt! But Arthur himself—how had he come to
change his mind concerning her? Arthur who in his fury had so nearly
taken another man’s life!
She lacked the key to the puzzle and it was futile to turn it over and
over. The fact remained that in some fashion she had been vindicated,
and Arthur’s remorse was a thing upon which she could not bear to dwell.
She wondered if she would ever understand all, but she knew that already
she had pardoned.
The afternoon sunlight slanted in at the open window. From where she sat
she could see the steep rise of the moor that led up to the Stones. She
pictured them in their stark grandeur—those mystic signs of a bygone
age—the tetherstones of the prisoners and the terrible Rocking Stone
that none might move out of its place, but that even a child might sway.
How many of those striving ones had been ground to death in their
desperation, she wondered? And now the sun shone upon that fatal place
of sacrifice, and the giant harebells bloomed where the child who had
never known darkness had wandered and lain down to sleep. Her thoughts
dwelt tenderly upon little Ruth and her harebells—the flowers she had
never seen yet knew and loved so dearly—the flowers to which she had
likened her mother’s eyes!
A feeble voice spoke in the stillness and her mind flashed back to her
surroundings.
“Nan, my dear, is that you?” it said.
She heard the words and sat motionless, uncertain as to whether they
were intended for her or not. Then she saw that the tired old eyes were
looking straight at her, and she softly rose and went to the bed.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked.
He looked up at her, frowning a little, as if there were something about
her that he could not wholly understand. “Yes, dear, yes,” he said
finally. “Bring your little sketching-block and sit down beside me! I
should like to lie and watch you.”
“I haven’t been doing any to-day,” she said. “But I have a book here.
Would you like me to read to you?”
He shook his head restlessly. “No, no, no! I am too tired for books.
Bring your sketching! I should like that better than anything. The light
is good enough, isn’t it?”
“Oh, quite,” she said, “if you really wish it. But—” She stood
hesitating, uncertain whether to comply with his request; for the sketch
upon which she was just then engaged was one of little Ruth in the
corn-field. She was making it while the memory was still fresh within
her, and she planned to give it to Mrs. Dermot.
The old man broke in upon her irresolution. “Go and fetch it! Go and
fetch it! You know how I love to see you at work. They have kept you
away from me for a very long time, my darling. Run and fetch it and come
straight back!”
His manner was urgent though he smiled upon her with the words. She
decided swiftly that, whatever his delusion, it was better to humour
him. She went quickly from the room, and ran down the passage to her
own. Here she hastily collected her sketching materials, and was back
again within two minutes of her departure.
She found him anxiously watching the door, and she saw his eyes kindle
afresh at the sight of her. “How like you, my dear!” he said. “There is
no one else in the family who would have left me alone for a single
second. They are always watching me, always watching me. I don’t know
why.”
He spoke querulously.
She returned to her seat by his side.
“I expect they think you might want something and there would be no one
to give it to you,” she said. “Do you really want to see my latest
sketch? You are sure it interests you?”
“Yes—yes.” A touch of impatience sounded in the answer, but the next
moment a thin old hand came out and patted hers. “My little daughter!”
he said very fondly. “I can’t spare you to that brother of mine again.
He keeps you too long—too long.”
“I am very glad to be back,” said Frances gently.
She looked down at the ivory-coloured hand with its nervous, clutching
fingers, and was irresistibly reminded of the talons of a bird. When it
closed upon her own, she was conscious of a sense of chill that almost
amounted to shrinking. But still pity was uppermost in her mind, pity
for this frail old man whose hold on life was so weak and yet who seemed
to cling to it with such persistence.
His clasp relaxed after a moment. “Well, dear, let me see what you have
been doing!” he said wearily. “I must not talk very much to-day. My
heart is very tired. Have you more than one to show me?”
“No, only one,” she said. “There hasn’t been a great deal of time just
lately.”
“Ah!” He smiled. “The pomps and vanities! Is that it? You have been very
gay, I hear? And that handsome youngster—your cousin—what has he to
say for himself? You will never contenance any serious attention from
him, my darling, promise me! He is in love with you, of course. They all
are. You are so lovely—so lovely. But cousins, you know, cousins are
only brothers and sisters once removed. Uncle Theodore would never
permit it for a moment. Neither would I, dear. You know that. You are so
beautiful. You will look higher than a near relation with a wild record
like his. Pshaw! I am talking nonsense. You would never dream of
marrying him.”
“Never!” said Frances very decidedly, as he paused for her assurance.
“Thank you, dear, thank you,” he said. “Now let me see your sketch!”
She held it up in front of him, propped as he was upon the pillows, and
there fell a long silence while he scrutinized it. The picture was of
Ruth standing among the sheaves in the sunlight, with her flower-like
face upraised, and in her little hands a trailing bunch of the golden
corn.
The old man looked at it intently with drawn brows. Finally, with a
deliberation that was almost painful, he looked at her.
“Who is that child?” he said.
She hesitated for a second; then: “Don’t you remember little—Ruth?” she
said gently.
His frown deepened. “Little Ruth! You mean the blind child, I think—the
little girl who lives with us?”
“Yes,” said Frances.
“And this is that child?” He turned again to the sketch, gazing at it
fixedly. “But why have you made her like Nan?” he said, in a troubled
voice. “Nan wasn’t blind. She had eyes like bluebells.” His look came
back to her. “Thank you, Miss Thorold,” he said courteously. “You have a
very charming talent. Some day I hope you will allow me to conduct you
to the Stones. I should much like to see a sketch of them from your
brush, most especially of the Rocking Stone, regarding which there are
some very interesting traditions. You have heard of some of them
perhaps?”
“I have indeed,” said Frances, laying her sketch out of sight with a
feeling of relief. “I think it is rather a gruesome spot myself.”
“It is—it is,” agreed Mr. Dermot. “The Rocking Stone has even been
called the Slaughter Stone before now. If you ever visit it at sunset
you will see a curious phenomenon. It is streaked here and there with
crimson strata, to which the sunset light gives the appearance of
freshly shed blood.”
“Shall we talk of something else?” said Frances quietly.
He lifted his brows. “Certainly,” he said, with a touch of hauteur. “I
have no desire to discuss anything distasteful to you. In fact, our
worthy doctor has warned me that conversation of any description should
not be indulged in too freely. So pray take up your sketch and work, and
I will lie and watch you.”
There was a certain imperiousness in his tone which reminded her of
Arthur. She would gladly have left her sketch untouched, but she
realized that to do so would not make for peace. She took it up again
therefore without further words, and opening her box prepared to put in
some minute touches.
The consciousness of the old man closely watching her did not tend to
help her, but after a few minutes the fascination of her art asserted
itself, and she began to forget him. She worked for some time without
looking up, and the little blue-clad figure in the corn-field began to
stand out in delicate outline. She knew, as her brush moved dexterously
fashioning the image of her brain, that this was the best work she had
ever done, and the delight of it quickened her blood. The thought of
Rotherby’s letter came to her, and she made a mental note that she would
answer it that very day and accept the suggestion he had made. Now that
her chance had come to her, she could not afford to let it slip. She
must seize and hold it with both hands.
Her thoughts wandered back over the random words that old Mr. Dermot had
just uttered. The name of Theodore had stirred her memory. It was the
name of the Bishop of Burminster. She remembered how once in
conversation with Arthur she had spoken of him and discovered that he
knew him. Was it possible that they were related?
Another memory suddenly flashed across her—a vivid and strangely
compelling memory. The eyes of the blind child with their deep blue fire
of the spirit—the eyes of a visionary which had so pierced her that she
had almost turned away! She felt as if a scroll, hitherto sealed, were
being unrolled before her eyes; and so strong was the impression that
her fingers ceased from their task and she looked up.
In a moment she was aware of a startling change in the old man in her
charge. He had sunk down on the pillows, and his face was ghastly.
She got up quickly, seizing a bottle of restorative as she did so. Then
she saw that his lips were moving and was partially reassured.
As she poured a dose into the medicine-glass, he spoke aloud. “You need
not be alarmed. My heart is a little tired—a little tired. But it will
not stop yet.”
She bent over him, holding the glass to his pallid lips.
He drank and paused. “I shall soon be better,” he said, and gasped for
breath. A faint colour began to show once more in his face. He smiled at
her and drank again.
“I am so sorry,” she said, with deep self-reproach. “I ought to have
seen.”
“No—no,” he said, in his kindly, courteous fashion. “You must not blame
yourself for that. I think I will have a little sleep. I shall not last
much longer, but I shall live to see the Stones again—just once
again—my Stones—the place of sacrifice—where my three-fold vow has
been accomplished.” His voice began to trail off indistinctly. He closed
his eyes. “The place of sacrifice—” he murmured again, and then
followed an odd jumble of words in which “mother, father, and child”
came with unintelligible frequency until his utterance ceased
altogether.
Frances stood by his side, listening to his uncertain breathing while
other words sprang up all-unbidden in her mind, almost finding their way
to her lips.
“From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of
the devil,—Good Lord deliver us!”
CHAPTER X
THE WOMAN’S RIGHT
“He is still sleeping very peacefully,” said Mrs. Dermot, with a
grateful look at Frances. “You had a very composing effect upon him this
afternoon. I hope it did not tire you very badly.”
It was supper-time, and they had met at the table in the old
farm-kitchen, which Lucy and Nell had been spreading with the home
produce. It was the one meal of the day at which the whole family as a
rule assembled, but Dolly and Milly were absent on this occasion in the
sick-room, and Arthur and Maggie had not entered.
“It did not tire me at all,” Frances answered. “I was very, very glad to
be of any use. I hope you will let me do it again.”
“You are very good,” said Mrs. Dermot. “He will be better after this for
a time. A long, unbroken sleep always brings him back. Won’t you sit
down?”
“Did you sleep?” Frances asked.
“Oh, yes, Mother slept,” said Lucy. “I took in her tea, and she never
even knew.”
“She needed it badly enough,” put in Elsie. “She’s been up three nights
running.”
“Ah, well, I expect I shall rest to-night,” said Mrs. Dermot, with her
tired smile. “Oh, there you are, Arthur! I was just wondering. And
Maggie,—where is she?”
He had entered from the scullery. He stopped beside her chair. “Maggie?
I don’t know where Maggie is. Somewhere about, no doubt. How are you,
Mother? Better?”
She looked up into his face, and Frances saw the flash of sympathy
between them, realized for an instant the closeness of the bond at which
till then she had only guessed, and felt as if she had looked upon
something sacred.
“I am all right, dear,” said Mrs. Dermot. “I have had a most refreshing
sleep, thanks to Miss Thorold’s kindness. Your father will be much
better when he wakes.”
“Sit down, Arthur!” said Nell. “We want to begin.”
He glanced round with a quick frown. “Where is everybody?
Maggie—Oliver! Why don’t they come in? Go and call them, Elsie!”
“I don’t know where they are,” said Elsie. “I’ve milked the cows and fed
the horses and locked up. They went to market this morning, and I
haven’t seen them since.”
“Oh, rot!” he said. “They must have come back long ago. They are
probably dawdling round somewhere. Has no one seen them? Nell, haven’t
you?”
Nell shook her head. “We’ve been busy in the dairy, Lucy and I. Only
came in in time to get the supper. What’s it matter? They’ll turn up.”
He turned again to Elsie. “You say you locked up. Was the brown cob
back?”
“I didn’t go that way,” she said, with a touch of defiance. “It was only
the cart-horses I saw to. Joe was there too. Oliver always does the
cob.”
“What does it matter?” Nell said again. “Maggie can have her supper when
she comes in. There’s no reason to wait for her.”
“It does matter,” he returned sternly. “I won’t have any of you out on
the moors after dark, and you know it.”
“My good man!” said Nell. “What do you think we’re made of?”
He whirled upon her in a sudden tempest of wrath. “Don’t you dare to
gainsay me! I mean it. I—will—not—have—you—out—after—dark. Is
that plain enough? Damn it! Do you think I’ll be defied to my face?”
“My dear!” said Mrs. Dermot very gently.
He looked down at her and curbed himself. “I’m sorry, Mother. But a chit
like that—not eighteen!”
“I am eighteen,” asserted Nell, crimson-cheeked. “And I won’t be kept in
order by you. So there!”
He turned his eyes upon her, and she shrank in spite of herself. “You
will be kept in order by me,” he said. “You will go up to your room
now—do you hear?—and stay there for the rest of the night.”
“I!” said Nell. “What—now?” She stood gripping the back of the chair in
which she had been about to seat herself. Her face had gone from red to
white. Her eyes stared straight across the table at her brother.
He answered her without moving, but his single word fell like a blow.
“Now!”
There followed a terrific silence, during which it seemed to Frances
that the wills of the man and the girl were in visible conflict though
neither stirred or spoke. In the end there came a faint gasp from Nell,
and she turned to obey.
Lucy started up with hysterical crying. “I’m going too, then—I’m going
too!”
“You will stay where you are,” Arthur said, without turning his gaze
from the younger sister.
She dropped back sobbing in the chair, and Nell went wordlessly to the
door. Slowly she opened it, slowly passed out and closed it again.
Mrs. Dermot looked up at her son. “Elsie may take up her supper,” she
said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “She can do as she likes.” He moved to his
own place and sat down. His look came to Frances. “Sorry to treat you to
this exhibition,” he said. “But discipline must be maintained.”
She met his look with the utmost directness. “Did you say discipline or
tyranny?” she said.
She expected anger, was prepared for it, even desired it. But he only
smiled.
“Yes, you may call it that,” he said. “But it’s in a good cause. Nell is
getting above herself. She has got to learn. Lucy, sit up and behave
yourself! You’ve nothing whatever to cry about. Good heavens, child! Why
all this fuss?”
Lucy sobbed some inarticulate words into her handkerchief, and abruptly
Frances leaned forward. She spoke in a low tone, very urgently, to
Arthur.
“Let her run after Nell and fetch her back!” she said.
She could not have said exactly what prompted the request. It was not
primarily pity for either of the two girls. It was the man himself who
held her attention at that moment, and an overwhelming desire to move
that iron will out of its undeviating course.
But his reception of her interference was disconcerting. Instead of
displaying the opposition she had anticipated, he spoke again to the
still sobbing girl.
“Dry your eyes, you silly girl, and go tell Nell to come back!”
Lucy looked up with a gasp of sheer amazement, and Frances found herself
gasping too at the utter unexpectedness of his action. Arthur’s face
wore a cynical expression, but he showed no sign of impatience. “Go on!”
he said. “Go and fetch her back and be quick about it!”
Lucy got up and slipped from the room.
“Miss Thorold, may I give you some ham?” said Arthur.
Their eyes met, and she caught a quizzical gleam in his that sent an odd
feeling as of tension relaxed through her.
“Thank you,” she said.
He proceeded to carve the ham in silence, and as he did so there came
the sound of wheels and a horse’s feet outside.
“Here they are!” said Mrs. Dermot in a tone of relief.
“I knew they wouldn’t be long,” said Elsie.
Arthur’s face took an inscrutable look. He said nothing whatever.
Elsie carried round the plates and they began the meal. After a brief
pause Nell and Lucy came back into the room and silently resumed their
places; but a considerable interval elapsed before the opening of the
outer door into the scullery told of the entrance of the latest comers.
Maggie came in looking flushed and nervous. Oliver entered behind her,
swaggering a little, his bold eyes somewhat fierce.
“Hullo!” he said. “That’s right. I said you’d begin. We’d better sit
down as we are.”
Maggie’s place was next to her mother. He pulled out the chair for her,
and she dropped into it speechlessly.
“What have you been doing?” said Arthur.
He spoke quietly, but his tone was ominous. Maggie threw him one swift
glance and then lowered her eyes.
“Everything’s all right,” said Oliver, with a touch of aggressiveness.
“We thought we’d make a day of it. I’ll tell you all about it
presently.”
“You’ll tell me now,” Arthur said.
“Oh, all right.” Oliver stood with his hand upon the back of Maggie’s
chair. He bent suddenly over her. “Sure you want me to tell, Maggie?” he
said.
She put up a trembling hand in answer. Abruptly he stooped lower and
kissed her before them all.
The violent overturning of Arthur’s chair as he sprang to his feet
brought him upright again with a jerk. He broke in upon the other’s
furious oath with quick speech that yet was not wholly uncontrolled.
“Yes, you can damn as much as you please,” he said. “It won’t make a
ha’porth of difference now. She is mine—for better for worse—and you
can’t undo it. We were married to-day at Fordestown—after we’d sold the
pigs.”
“Married!” The single word fell with frightful force from Arthur’s lips.
He put his hand suddenly to his head.
Maggie crouched against her mother, and Mrs. Dermot, pale as death, put
her arm about her without a word.
Then across the silence, shrill as the piping of a bird, came Nell’s
voice. “Well played, Oliver! I wish you luck!”
He turned to her with his winning boyish smile and gripped her
outstretched hand across the table.
“Thanks, little ’un! You’re a brick, and I’ll always remember it.”
Elsie left her end of the table and came round to Maggie. Lucy cowered
in her chair and hid her face.
Arthur’s hand fell and clenched at his side. He spoke—not to Oliver,
but to Maggie.
“Is this true?”
She looked up at him with an effort. Through quivering lips she answered
him. “Yes.”
“You are—actually married—to this—damned—clod?”
Oliver straightened himself sharply. “I’ll answer that question,” he
said. “Come outside and I’ll show you the exact stuff he’s made of!”
But at that Maggie left her mother’s sheltering arm and got up. She
stood between the two men, breathing very fast.
“You shan’t fight about me,” she said. “You’ve nothing to fight about,
for I belong to Oliver and always shall, from now on. I’ve the right—as
every woman has—to choose my own mate, and I’ve chosen. That’s all
there is to it.”
There was a simple dignity about her as she uttered the words that
carried an irresistible appeal to Frances. Shaking as she was with
agitation, the girl asserted her right of womanhood with a decision that
none might question.
Arthur did not attempt to question it. He merely lifted a hand and
pointed to the door.
“All right,” he said. “You can go—you and your mate. And you will never
enter Tetherstones again.”
He did not look at Oliver. He had scarcely looked at him from the
outset. But at that the young man’s wrath boiled over, and he compelled
attention.
“You think that you and your blasted Tetherstones count a couple of
damns with either of us, do you?” he said. “You think that because poor
Nan broke her heart here, we’d be pining to do the same! You’re a damn’
fool, Arthur, that’s what you are. And now I’ve got what I want, I take
pleasure in telling you so. You’re too grand a swell to fight the likes
of me. You don’t fight your own labourers! No, I thought not. But you
can’t prevent ’em telling you the truth or taking a woman out of your
family and giving her happiness—common or garden happiness—in place of
this infernal mass of corruption you’re pleased to call your family
honour. I’ve got my honour too, but it’s not your sort, thank God. I’m
just a plain man, and I’ve no frills of any kind. But I’ve got the right
to marry the girl who loves me, and there’s no one on this earth can
come between us now. If they think they can, well, let ’em try, that’s
all. Just let ’em try!”
He moved with the words, and pulled Maggie to him, pressing her close to
his side. But his eyes remained upon Arthur, hot with anger and superbly
contemptuous of the other man’s superior strength.
Arthur stood motionless. His look was turned upon Oliver, but he made no
attempt whatever to check the fierce torrent of words so forcibly poured
out. To Frances he had the look of the gladiator sorely wounded yet
holding his ground for the sake of that honour which Oliver so bitterly
denounced. And her heart went out to the man in sudden wild rush of
sympathy that seemed to sweep away all rational thought. She found
herself on her feet and quivering with a burning desire to help him in
some way, though how she knew not. The deadly pallor of his face, the
awful fixity of his eyes, were more than she could bear.
He spoke—this time to Oliver but he did not deign to waste a single
word in answer to the furious challenge hurled at him.
“Let me see your marriage certificate!” he said.
His words fell with the utmost calm and Frances wondered if she were the
only one in the room who knew how cruelly deep was his wound.
Oliver drew a hard angry breath, as though he found himself unexpectedly
held in check by some force unknown. He stared for a moment, then with a
sullen air thrust a hand inside his coat. He brought out a paper which
he flung down in front of Arthur.
“There you are. You’ll find it all in order,” he said. “You won’t undo
that knot in a hurry.”
Arthur picked up the document, opened and scanned it, then held it in
silence before his mother. She laid an imploring hand upon his.
“Arthur—Arthur!” she said, an anguished break in her voice. “Don’t do
anything in a hurry! I can’t lose another of my girls like my darling
Nan.”
“I’m afraid you have lost her, Mother,” he replied, with a species of
grim gentleness, “since she has chosen to go.”
“I haven’t chosen to go!” burst from Maggie. She turned and flung her
arms closely about her mother. “If I have to go, it’ll be your doing,
not mine and not Oliver’s. He’s willing to stay. He’s told me so. In
fact, he was willing to go on here in the same old way, and not to tell,
only I felt I couldn’t bear it. He’s thought of me and my happiness all
through—all through. And we’ve loved each other for years. You don’t
know what love is. You can never possibly understand. But Mother
knows—Mother knows.”
“Yes, I know,” said Mrs. Dermot, and the tragedy of the quiet utterance
was as though she stood beside one dead.
There was a brief pause as of involuntary reverence, then Oliver spoke,
his voice steady and deferential. “It was only for the mother’s sake we
came back,” he said. “I’d sooner have gone to the other end of the world
myself. But—well, Maggie’s happiness was at stake, so I couldn’t.”
“Maggie’s happiness!” An exceedingly bitter note sounded in Arthur’s
voice. “Was it for Maggie’s happiness, may I ask, that you persuaded her
to do this thing?”
Oliver’s look flashed back to him. He stiffened himself afresh for
battle. Couldn’t he see, Frances asked herself desperately? Were they
all blind to the agony of this man’s soul?
“Yes, it was,” he flung back hotly. “It was for her happiness. Don’t you
dare to question that, Arthur Dermot! You’re not in a position to
question it. There’s not a woman on this earth who would trust her
happiness to you. And you know it.”
The blow went home. Frances felt as if it had been directed against
herself. She did not need to see the stricken look in Arthur’s eyes. She
knew without seeing, and on the instant she acted, for further inaction
was unedurable.
Before he could make any reply to the thrust, she was in the lists
beside him.
“You are wrong!” she said, and her voice rang clear and triumphant
before them all. “You are utterly wrong! I would!”
She turned to him quivering with the greatness of the moment to find his
eyes upon her with that in them which thrilled her to the soul.
She stretched forth a trembling hand. “I would!” she repeated, and this
time she spoke to him alone. “You know I would!”
He caught her hand and closely held it. “Yes, I know—I know!” he said.
Then curtly to Oliver, “That’s enough for the present. Sit down and have
some supper, you and Maggie too! We’ll discuss this thing in the
morning. Frances, sit here!”
He pulled forward a chair and she sat beside him at the head of the
table. But save for that one brief command he did not speak to her or
look in her direction again.
No one else ventured to address a word to her. Only Mrs. Dermot leaned
forward and gently pressed her hand.
CHAPTER XI
THE PERFECT GIFT
The thing was done. Frances stood alone in the old ivy-covered porch
looking out into the faint starlight and asked herself how she had come
to do it. It had been the impulse of the moment, and she well knew that
if she had taken time to consider she would never have acted upon it.
But a power that was infinitely greater than herself had urged her, and
she had had no choice.
Now it was over. The inspiration had departed, and she waited with a
certain chill apprehension for the coming of the man she loved. He had
gone up to the sick-room with his mother, and she had slipped away from
the rest, for she wanted to be alone when he came. He generally smoked
his pipe upon the porch when the day’s work was done, and evidently
Roger expected him to-night; for he shared her vigil, alert and
friendly, his head within reach of her hand.
It was a very peaceful evening, full of that wonderful moorland
fragrance so dear to her heart, so quiet that she could hear the
cart-horses munching the hay in their mangers in the stable across the
yard. From the kitchen quarters in the house behind her came the homely
clatter of dishes being washed up, accompanied by the chattering of
girlish voices. Elsie, Lucy and Nell were evidently discussing the
dramatic events of the evening. She wondered what they all thought of
her, if Maggie and Oliver imagined that she had made that amazing
declaration for their sakes. She wondered what Arthur thought. . . . A
curious feeling of depression came upon her. She felt as if she were
faced by an immensity too great to gauge. What had she done? What had
she done? Ah! His step at last! She turned with a hard-beating heart and
met him face to face.
She could not read his expression in the dimness, but she realized in an
instant that there was none of the lover’s ardour in his coming. And the
soul within her shrank like a frightened child. She stood before him
trembling.
He came to her and paused. “Shall we go into the garden?” he said. His
voice was low, constrained. She turned mutely, and they passed down the
winding path between the hollyhocks and sunflowers side by side.
On they went and on in utter silence till they came to the door in the
wall that led to the lawn and the cedar-tree. He opened it and she
passed through. The door closed with a thud and he walked beside her
again.
The silence widened and became a gulf between them. The dew lay like a
silver veil upon the lawn. She turned aside to the path leading to the
nut-trees. And here at last in deepest shadow he spoke.
“Frances!”
She paced on, as though some remorseless Fate compelled. She knew
then—it seemed to her that she had known all along—that the gulf was
such as could not be bridged.
She answered him with absolute steadiness. “You needn’t say any more.
Let us go back!”
He made a gesture with one hand that was almost violent. “It isn’t
always possible—to go back,” he said.
“It is quite possible in this case,” she said quietly. “Perhaps it will
make matters easier if I tell you that I found out by accident some time
ago that Maggie and Oliver were contemplating this step, and my
sympathies have been entirely with them all through.”
He gave a sharp start. “Maggie! Oliver! But why tell me this?”
“Doesn’t it make it easier for you?” she said.
“Why should it?” he demanded. And then abruptly, realizing the loophole
she had made for him, “Oh, damn it, Frances! Are you trying to throw
dust in my eyes—at this stage?”
“Not in the least,” she returned, and now her pride came back to her and
she lifted it grandly like a banner. “I am telling you the truth. My
sympathies are, and always have been, entirely with Maggie and Oliver. I
may be very presumptuous, but I can’t stand by and see a great wrong
done without making a very great effort to avert it. I have made my
effort, and whether successful or not I have at least managed to prevent
your acting in this matter without consideration. That is all I have to
say.”
She was holding her banner bravely now, masking her own humiliation and
his anguish of spirit also. For herein, it seemed to her, lay salvation
for them both. If she could check the flood-tide of passion which she
sensed in his restraint, if she could hold back the wild words that were
fighting for utterance, she would be doing him service. And in serving
him, she served herself. For thus has Love the Omnipotent ordained, that
in the service of another we should find our own deliverance.
Again the silence fell between them. They were walking more slowly now
in the gloom of the nut-trees. She realized that the tension was
partially relaxed, but she did not dare to lower her flag.
He spoke at last, his voice very quiet and sombre, with something of the
old iron ring. “What do you want me to do?”
They reached the end of the nut-walk and she turned. Her agitation was
wholly past, but her heart felt deadly cold within her.
“I want you,” she said, “to try to understand that Maggie and Oliver
have done no wrong, and to treat them with kindness.”
“Is that all?” he said.
She did not understand his tone. “Is it too much to ask?” she said.
“No, it is very little—less than nothing. Do you think I care a damn
what happens to either of them now?” His voice shook a little.
She turned her face towards him as she walked. “Yes, you do care,” she
said. “And that’s why it isn’t easy. But, Arthur, listen! There is no
one on this earth who has the shadow of a right to interfere between a
man and woman who love each other. When I say love, I don’t mean the
mere physical attraction which so many mistake for love. I mean that
holy thing, the love of the spirit, which nothing can ever change or
take away. That is too sacred to be tampered with, and no third person
should ever presume to touch it. It comes from God, and it should
command our utmost reverence,—even our homage.”
She spoke very earnestly, for somehow—in spite of that terrible
coldness at her heart—it seemed essential that he should see this thing
with her eyes. It lay with her—she knew it lay with her—to save him
from committing a great wrong, and to avert another sorrow from
Tetherstones.
But as they paced on towards the open starlight in front of them, his
silence seemed to hold but little hope. And the coldness grew and spread
within her, paralysing her. She knew if this effort failed, she could
not make another.
Arthur spoke at last. “Are you suggesting that they should go on exactly
as if this had not happened? If my father came to know of it,—it would
drive him crazy.”
“Your father need not know,” she said. “He is an old man. It rests with
you, not with him.”
“Ah!” He stood still suddenly. “That’s true. He can’t live for ever. How
many years have I told myself that, and yet I always forget it.
Frances!” His voice thrilled suddenly, and then as suddenly he stopped
himself. “No! I won’t say that to you. I’ll say just this. I see your
point, and—I’ll act on it if I find I can. Does that satisfy you?”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t!” he said sharply, and swung round to go on. “Don’t ever thank
me! Just—believe in me—if you can!”
“I can,” she said. “And I do.”
They came out upon the path that wound about the dewy lawn, and walked
back along it in silence.
To Frances it was as if there were nothing more to be said, and yet it
was in the words that had been left unspoken that the true meaning of
the interview lay. In some fashion she felt that a chapter in her life
had been closed. She knew what lay before her. Her only course was to
go, and she would not flinch from taking it. She would meet unswervingly
the difficulties and trials of the way. She would keep her banner
flying. For in that one word, her own name spoken as he had spoken it,
the coldness had melted from about her heart, and whatever came to her
now, she knew that, though inexplicably bound hand and foot like the
prisoners of the tetherstones, he had poured out to her that which is
greater than all things—the love of his whole soul—the perfect gift.
CHAPTER XII
THE PARTING
“I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us,” said Maggie. “And I’m very
sorry you’re going.” She spoke with great earnestness but the lilt had
come back to her voice and the light to her eyes. She held Frances’ hand
very tightly between her own. “You’ll come back some day?” she said.
“I shall certainly come back to the moors,” Frances said, “to make my
sketches.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Maggie. “Then you’ll let us know where you
are. I couldn’t bear not to. You’re going up to London now?”
“Only for a day or two—to see a friend who has found a purchaser for my
work. I shan’t stay,” said Frances.
“A friend?” Maggie gave her a curious look. “Is it—it isn’t—the friend
you went away to see at Fordestown?”
“Why shouldn’t it be?” said Frances.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Maggie coloured suddenly and vividly. “I just
wondered, that’s all. And then you’re coming back? You will come back,
won’t you?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if I came back to Mrs. Hearn,” said Frances. “But,
Maggie, tell me what makes you ask about Mr. Rotherby! What do you know
about him?”
“Oh, I can’t tell you that,” said Maggie quickly. “I shouldn’t have
asked. But Arthur knows him—and hates him. Please don’t let’s talk
about him—and I wouldn’t go to see him if I were you. He’s a bad man.
Ah, here comes Oliver to fetch you! Good-bye, dear Frances, and just a
hundred thousand thanks for everything.”
She responded warmly to Frances’ embrace, and returned to her
butter-making with a song on her lips and gladness in her eyes.
“Yes, I should just think we are grateful,” said Oliver, as he followed
Frances out. “Arthur has been as decent as he knows how, and it’s all
thanks to you. Hope you’ll make a match of it before long, Miss Thorold,
when better times come. You won’t want to wait as long as we did.”
They all treated her thus, as if her marriage to Arthur were a foregone
conclusion, cheerily disregarding the fact that neither she nor Arthur
had given them any justification for so doing. They had in fact barely
seen one another since that night in the garden, now two days past; and
she had even begun to wonder if he would let her go without a word of
farewell. Old Mr. Dermot was better, would soon be downstairs again,
they said, and his son had returned to his work on the farm, appearing
only at meals and then for very brief intervals.
She had taken leave of everyone else, save Oliver who was to drive her
to the station, and time was too short for lingering. She gave up hope
at last, as she climbed into the cart. Roger was nowhere to be seen, so
evidently his master was not in the vicinity. Perhaps he had not grasped
the fact that she was going! Perhaps he had forgotten the hour!
Perhaps—and somehow this was a supposition to which she clung
instinctively for comfort—perhaps he had decided that he could not face
the parting. In any case, he was not there, and her heart was heavy as
they trotted out on to the moorland road. She felt she could have
endured anything more easily than to be suffered to go without a sign.
The sky was dark with clouds that drove rapidly but unendingly before a
west wind. The chill of coming rain was in the air, and the great heads
of the tors were wrapped in drifting mist-wreaths. The scent of the bogs
came to Frances with a poignant sense of regret.
“I shall be home-sick for this when I get away,” she said.
“It does take hold of you, doesn’t it?” said Oliver.
Homely words that almost brought the tears to her eyes! Yes, it did take
hold of her. She was bound with a chain that she could never break. She
could not speak in answer. Her heart was too full.
She had said to Maggie that she expected to be in town for but a few
days, but a strong conviction was upon her that her absence would be
much longer than this. She even wondered if she would ever return. The
future was as a blank wall before her which she was utterly powerless to
penetrate. But she had regained her health, and she knew that courage
would return as soon as the last of her farewells was spoken.
So they trotted on over the moor with the clouds gathering thickly on
every side.
Rounding the curve of a hill, they came at length within sight of the
spot where she and Roger had sat together on that summer morning that
seemed so long ago, and she had first seen Roger’s master. Vivid as a
picture actually before her eyes, came the memory of that day, of the
solitary horseman riding in the blinding sunlight, of the brief incident
that had been their first introduction. She remembered her
indignation—her sweeping condemnation of the man. But he had done worse
things since, infinitely worse. Did she condemn him now? As if in
answer, another memory smote her—the memory of this man bowed to the
earth by a burden too great to be borne—the dumb agony of which she had
been a witness—and his tears—his tears!
Her own eyes suddenly swam in them. She turned her face away. She must
not break down now. She must not.
Some seconds passed before she could command herself to look again. They
were nearing the bend in the road by which she and Roger had sat.
“Hullo!” said Oliver suddenly.
She started. “What is it? Ah!”
A great wave of feeling, tumultuous, overwhelming, surged through her
and she could say no more. Arthur was waiting on his horse, motionless
as a statue, at the very spot that meant so much to her. Roger was with
him with pricked, expectant ears.
Oliver gave a chuckle and checked the cob. “Somehow I thought—” he
said. “Have I got to pull up?”
She did not answer him, for Arthur with an imperious wave of the hand
did that for her. He walked his horse forward as Oliver reined into a
standstill.
“You can ride my animal back,” he said. “I will take Miss Thorold to the
station.”
“You haven’t too much time,” said Oliver.
“Then get down and be quick about it!” said Arthur briefly.
To Frances he said nothing, and she attempted no word of greeting, even
when he mounted to the seat beside her.
A hasty farewell to Oliver, the starting forward of the cob, a cheery
bark from Roger scudding in front, and they were rounding the bend of
the road and alone. Before them, the drifting clouds parted suddenly
like a rent curtain, and a great shaft of light descended. They drove
straight into the brightness; but as they reached it the clouds drew
together again, and they were once more in gloom. The moor stretched all
about them like a wilderness.
Arthur spoke at last. “Why are you going?”
His voice was quiet; it held no special thrill of interest. She even
wondered as she made reply if he were greatly interested.
“It is better for me to go,” she said. “I am going to take up work in
earnest. I have had some encouragement. Several of my sketches have been
bought.”
“I have seen the one you gave to my mother,” he said. “It was good of
you to part with it.”
“I did it for her,” said Frances simply.
He nodded. “Nothing could have pleased her more. You say you have found
a purchaser for the others. You are hoping to get commissioned work?”
“I am hoping,” said Frances.
“And if you succeed, that will bring you back?” he said.
She hesitated. His tone told her so little.
“It might,” she said at length.
He drove on for some distance in silence. Then, with a restraint so
evident that she could not fail to realize that he was putting strong
force upon himself, he said, “I hope you will succeed. I hope you will
make your fortune. It’s a difficult world, but there are always some
lucky ones. You may be one of them. In any case, whether you are or not,
may I give you one word of advice?”
“What is it?” she said.
He answered her briefly, with a certain recklessness that somehow hurt
her. “Forget you ever met me! It’s no good—no good! Don’t weight
yourself with a burden that can only handicap you! If it’s your fate, as
well as mine, to grind your bread from stones, you’ll need all your
strength to do it. People like you and me can’t afford to waste any time
over—dreams.”
He cut the horse a savage flick over the ears with the last word and
they went forward on a downward slant at a startling pace.
Frances attempted no rejoinder of any sort. She understood him too well.
He had warned her not to return, at what cost to himself she would never
know, though possibly it was for his own sake as well as for hers that
he had done it. There was an insuperable barrier between them, and he
was not a man with whom any compromise would be possible. There were in
his nature fires which, it was evident, even he could not always keep
under control. Perhaps he realized that he could not. But he had spoken,
and she felt that he had spoken finally. It was not for her to question
his decision. She could only go onward now through a wilderness of utter
desolation.
Not till they had reached the outskirts of Fordestown and the grey moors
were left behind, did he speak again, and then it was to say in his
customary, clipped style, “We’ll not make a tragedy of this. Life’s too
short. It’s just good-bye and good luck! And that’s all.”
She forced herself to smile. “Except many, many thanks!” she said.
He stopped her quickly. “No, not that! Never that! Do you mind if I
don’t get down at the station? I don’t like to leave the horse.”
“Of course not,” she said.
They finished the journey in silence. He did not so much as help her to
descend. A porter came for her baggage, and at the last moment she stood
on the path, looking up at him.
“Good-bye!” she said.
He looked down at her, his face like an iron mask. “Good-bye—and good
luck! You haven’t any time to spare.”
He did not see the hand she began to offer, and it fell instantly. He
touched his cap with his whip and lifted the reins. In another moment he
was driving swiftly out of the yard.
She turned into the station with a curious sense of groping her way, and
heard the porter’s cheery voice at her shoulder. “It’s all right, miss.
You’ve got ten minutes to spare.”
“Thank you,” said Frances, and drew a hard, deep breath.
Ten minutes to spare! And then to take up the burden of life again!
PART IV
CHAPTER I
THE LAND OF EXILE
London and a cold grey pall of fog! Frances looked forth from the
carriage-window and suppressed a shiver. The grim ugliness of the great
buildings that bordered the line seemed to lay a clammy hand upon her.
The sordid poverty of the streets was as a knell sounding in her heart.
Somehow it seemed to her that there was a greater loneliness here than
could be found in any solitude of the moors. It was like a gaunt
spectre, menacing her.
The autumn day was fading into twilight, and a dreary drizzle had begun
to descend from the smoke-laden sky. She saw the gleam of it on the
platforms as the train ran into the teeming terminus. And the spectre at
her elbow drew closer. This was the land of exile.
She shook herself free, summoning to her aid that practical spirit which
had stood her in such good stead in the old days of her slavery. Was she
weaker now than she had been then, she asked herself? But she did not
stay to answer the question, for something within her uttered swift
warning. She knew that there were weak joints in her armour of which she
had never been aware before.
In any case it was not the moment to examine them. The long journey was
over, and she had reached her destination. The time for action had
arrived. She had made her plans, and it now remained for her to carry
them out. With the money that Rotherby had sent for her sketches, she
had enough to provide for that night at a hotel, and in the morning she
was determined to find a cheap lodging where she could remain pending
the settlement of the business that had brought her thither. Beyond
that, her plans were vague, but if the matter went favourably she hoped
to leave London again immediately. To live somewhere in the
country—anywhere in the country—where she could breathe pure air and
work; this was all she asked of Fate now. The reek of the town nauseated
her; it filled her with an intolerable sense of imprisonment. She had an
almost unbearable longing to turn and go back whence she had come. And
then suddenly a voice spoke at her side, greeting her, and she looked
round with a start.
“Didn’t you expect me?” said Rotherby.
He smiled his welcome in the glare and noise of the great station, and
two utterly antagonistic sensations possessed Frances at the sight of
him, a feeling of dread and a feeling that was almost gladness. Little
as she had desired to see him, the unexpected appearance of a familiar
face in all that host of strangers sent a quick thrill of relief through
her. The spectre that haunted her drew a little away.
She smiled back at him, and after a moment gave him her hand. “I never
expected you. What made you come?”
He laughed with a hint of exultation. His hand-clasp was close and
possessive. She drew her own away with a sudden, stabbing memory of that
which had been denied her that morning.
“You said you were coming,” he said.
“Yes, but I never said the train.”
He laughed again. “There was no need. Come along! Any luggage? I’ve got
a car waiting.”
“My things are all here,” she said. “But I am not going any further
to-night. I am going to get a room at the station hotel. To-morrow I can
find something cheaper.”
“Splendid!” he said lightly. “I’ll come and see you safely installed,
may I?”
She could not refuse, but she made her acceptance of his escort as
business-like as possible. Not for worlds would she have had him know
that any company just then was preferable to that of the spectre of her
desolation that stalked so close behind.
They went into the hotel, and she booked a room for the night, Rotherby
standing by her side, amused, not, it seemed, greatly interested, until
the business was accomplished.
Then, as she turned, he became at once alert and ready. She thought the
cynical lines were more deeply marked than ever about his mouth and
eyes, but his smile was wholly friendly.
“Look here!” he said. “You must dine with me and we’ll do a theatre
to-night. You’re looking like the maiden all forlorn, though I’m
relieved to see you’ve left the cow behind! I’ll be round about seven.
Will that do?”
She hesitated. “Do you know I think I would rather have a quiet talk
with you somewhere?” she said, with something of an effort. “I want to
hear all there is to hear—about my work.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of time,” he said. “As a matter of fact, the dealer
chap isn’t in town at the moment. I heard on the ’phone this morning.
He’ll soon be back though, so you needn’t be anxious.”
The news chilled her. “I had hoped to see him to-morrow,” she said.
“He’ll soon be back,” said Rotherby again, with careless confidence.
“Now what about this theatre? You’ll come? It’ll pass the time away.”
It was in her mind to refuse. She would have preferred to refuse. But in
the end she accepted. Perhaps it was the dread of a long evening of
solitary speculation and its attendant misgivings that actuated her.
Perhaps his insistence weighed with her; or perhaps like a child she was
overwhelmed by the sheer loneliness of her position. Whatever the
motive, she yielded, and having yielded, she thrust all regrets away. It
was as though after her long journey she had entered another world, and
she determined almost fiercely to take the advice that had been offered
her that morning and fling all handicaps aside. He had said it was no
good. He had told her not to return. Then she would go forward on this
new path and stifle the pain at her heart. It might be that in time she
would forget. O God, if she could but forget!
She parted from Rotherby in the vestibule of the hotel and went up to
her room. They were to meet again in little more than an hour, and she
spent the time in a feverish effort to banish thought and to banish also
that appearance of forlornness of which he had jestingly spoken.
She was very tired, but she would not own it, and when she met him again
she had captured that reserve of strength which dwells at the back of
jaded nerves, and an almost reckless charm was hers.
He gave her flowers, carnations and lilies, and she pinned them at her
breast, revelling in their sweetness, exotic though she knew them to be.
He took her to a restaurant, and the feeling of unreality followed her
thither, throwing a strange glamour over all things. He did not again
taunt her with being forlorn; for she held herself like a queen, and not
even the simplicity of her attire could make her insignificant.
“Gad!” he said to her once. “How wonderful you are!”
And she uttered a little laugh that surprised herself. “It is all
make-believe,” she said.
He did not ask her to explain, but his eyes followed her perpetually
with a kindling flame which mounted steadily higher, and when they left
the table his hand closed for a moment upon her arm.
She shook it off with a laugh and a shrug. “Every game has its rules,”
she said.
He laughed also, answering her mood. “Every woman makes her own,” he
said.
They went out into the gleaming streets and entered the waiting car. The
unaccustomed luxury was like a dream to Frances. It was no longer an
effort to put the past away from her. It had sunk of itself into the far
dim distance. Very curiously the only memory that remained active in her
mind was that of the purple flower that bloomed upon the coping of the
cloisters in the Bishop’s garden. The vision of that was fantastically
vivid, as it had been on that day of her first talk with Montague
Rotherby.
The pain at her heart had wholly ceased, and she wondered a little,
barely realizing that she had stilled it temporarily with this
anæsthetic of unreality. But a sub-conscious dread of its return made
her steep herself more and more deeply in its oblivion. After all, to
whom did it matter except herself? This man with his cynical eyes was
too experienced a player to be made a loser in one night. And she had so
little left to lose.
She sat in a box with him at the theatre, and though she quickly
absorbed herself in the play, she was aware of his undivided attention
from the beginning.
It even exasperated her at last, so that she turned to him after the
first act with a movement of impatience. “Does it interest you so
little,” she said, “that you can’t even be bothered to glance at the
stage?”
“I have seen it already three times,” he made answer, “and I am more
interested at the present moment in watching the effect it has upon
you.”
She uttered a laugh, but the words gave her an odd feeling of shock. The
play was a fashionable one, but though it compelled her deepest
interest, it held moments of disgust for her as well.
“I should never want to see this more than once,” she said at the end of
the second act.
Whereat he laughed. “Your education has been neglected,” he said. “We
all think like this now-a-days. The puritanical atmosphere of
Tetherstones has spoilt your taste.”
She was silent. Somehow the very word sent a pang to her heart.
He leaned slightly towards her, looking at her. “Tell me about your
sojourn at Tetherstones!” he said. “Were the farm people decent to you?
Were you happy there?”
There was a slighting note in his voice that she found intolerable. She
turned deliberately and met his look.
“You know the Dermots,” she said. “You know quite well that they are not
just—farm-people. Why should you conceal the fact?”
He made a careless gesture. “I know that one of them shot me in mistake
for a rabbit that night I waited for you,” he said. “I was never more
scared in my life. That was the son, I presume? Did he ever mention that
episode to you?”
“Never,” she said.
“No? Perhaps he wasn’t very proud of it. Perhaps he realized that the
rabbit fallacy wouldn’t carry him very far in a court of law. I fancy he
imagined that I was poaching on his preserves.” Rotherby spoke with a
sarcastic drawl. “Very unreasonable of him, what?”
She felt the burning colour rise in her face under his eyes, and she
averted her own. “Not being in his confidence, I really can hardly give
an opinion,” she said.
“Oh, you’re not in his confidence?” said Rotherby. “Somehow I didn’t
think you were, or you would hardly be so ready to take up the cudgels
in his defence. He’s a curious fellow. I knew him years ago. He had
brains as a young man, then somehow he got touched in the upper story
and got condemned to the simple life. That was how he came to take up
farming. An awful blow to the old man, I believe! I heard he was never
the same again afterwards. That is about as far as my information takes
me. I must admit that from a personal point of view I am not vastly
interested in the family. Did you find them interesting?”
“They were kinder to me than I can possibly say,” Frances said.
The careless information he had given her was like an obnoxious draught
that she had been compelled to swallow. But somehow, in spite of
herself, she had assimilated it. It explained so much which before had
been inexplicable. She remembered how she had more than once asked
herself if the lonely gladiator on that Devon moor were always wholly
responsible for his actions. And was this why he had told her only that
morning that it was no good—no good—that her love was nought but a
handicap to be overcome and cast aside?
Again she was conscious of the pain she had stifled waking within her.
Again she felt the chill presence of the haunting spectre. Then
Rotherby’s voice came to her again, and she turned almost with relief.
“They were decent to you, were they?” he said. “I presume that was why
you went back to them from Fordestown?”
She thrust her pain away out of sight of his mocking eyes. “No,” she
said quietly. “I went back to be with the little girl before she died.
She wanted me.”
He gave a slight start. “What? The blind child that used to run about
the lane? Is she dead? What from?”
“She was very fragile,” Frances said, and instinctively she spoke with
reverence. “She had a fall which caused an abscess at the base of the
brain, affecting the spine. The doctor had always known it might happen
at any time. She didn’t suffer—dear little soul.”
“A tragic family!” commented Rotherby, and dropped into silence.
He leaned back in his chair with his face in shadow, and for a space she
felt that his attention was no longer focussed upon her.
It gave her a certain sense of relief, for her thoughts would turn back
to those few cynical words of his and she needed time to recover from
the shock of them. Was it true? Was it true? Was this the key to the
riddle that had so often baffled her? Was it for this that she had seen
him writhing in agony of soul?
The curtain went up, and she jerked herself back to her surroundings.
She tried to immerse herself anew in the play, but her interest was
gone. The glamour had faded, and she knew that she was terribly,
overwhelmingly tired. A desire for solitude came upon her and with it,
inseparable from it, an intolerable sense of exile, a longing that was
almost anguish for the peace of the open moors, for the scent of the
bog-myrtle, and the rain. . . . She closed her eyes, and drew her
memories about her like a mantle. . . .
CHAPTER II
THE NIGHTMARE
Someone was speaking to her. A hand touched her. She looked up with a
start.
Rotherby was leaning over her. His eyes met hers closely, lingeringly,
with a caress in them which her tiredness barely comprehended.
“How tired you are!” he said. “Shall I take you home?”
Home! For a few moments her weary brain clung piteously about the word.
Then the pressure of his hand brought swift awakening. She sat up with a
jerk.
“Oh, is it over? Yes, I am very tired. Forgive me! Let us go!”
His hand still held her. He slipped it under her elbow, helping her to
rise.
She got up quickly, and freed herself. He put her cloak about her in
silence. They passed out of the box into the crowd that filled the
corridor.
“It’s pouring with rain,” said Rotherby, as they emerged into the
vestibule. “Wait while I get the car!”
He left her, and she took her stand at a corner of the steps, idly
watching the press of people that thronged past her on to the pavement.
Her sleep had left her slightly dazed, physically cold. The thought of
the dear Devon she had left only that morning had sunk very far below
the surface of her consciousness. It was as if years as well as distance
separated her from it, and all she knew now was the ache of weariness
and a certain dull disgust with everything about her. A man on the
pavement below her, wearing an ulster with a cap drawn down over his
eyes, evidently waiting for a conveyance, caught her passing attention
because the set of his shoulders was somewhat reminiscent to her of the
lonely horseman who had awaited her coming on the moor, but she was too
apathetic to bestow more than a cursory glance upon any, and she shrank
at the moment with something like panic from all things that might pain
her. She was too tired to endure any more that night.
Out of the press of hurrying people Rotherby detached himself and came
to her. “It’s all right. Take my arm! The car is just here.”
She obeyed him, for the throng was great, and her only desire to escape
the vortex of humanity and find the rest she so sorely needed. He
piloted her through the crowd. For a few seconds she felt the rain
beating upon her uncovered head, and then she was sunk upon the cushions
in the darkness of the car with Rotherby beside her, and the glittering
streets slipping past with kaleidoscopic rapidity.
The slashing of the rain upon the window-panes penetrated her
consciousness. “What a wet night!” she murmured.
“Yes, fiendish,” said Rotherby. “But I’ll soon have you out of it.
You’re dead beat, aren’t you?”
“Very, very tired,” she answered, and dropped back into silence.
The car slid on through the night. They turned out of the glaring
streets, and in the dimness Frances closed her eyes again. She did not
want to talk; and Rotherby’s mood seemed to coincide with hers, for he
sat in utter silence by her side.
She was hardly aware that the car had stopped when suddenly he spoke.
“You’ll come in here for a few minutes? I’ll tell the man to wait.”
She roused herself. “In where?”
He was opening the door. “It’s a half-way house where you can get some
supper. I have ordered it specially for you.”
“Supper!” She echoed the word, slightly startled. “Oh, really I don’t
want any. I would rather go straight back.”
He was already out of the car. He stood in the doorway, laughing.
“Please don’t keep me here in the rain to argue! Let’s do it inside! I
can’t let you go supperless to bed. It’s against my principles.”
He took her hand with the words, and his own had an imperative touch to
which she yielded almost before she realized it.
“I really don’t want anything,” she protested, but she was getting out
of the car as she spoke. “I never thought of such a thing.”
“Nonsense!” said Rotherby. “Then it’s a good thing I’m here to think for
you. I’ve got something rather interesting to tell you too. I’ve been
saving it up all the evening. Confound this rain! Let’s get into
shelter!”
He spoke a word to the man, and then took her arm and led her swiftly up
some steps to a lighted portico. They were actually inside before
Frances found her breath to speak again. “What is this place?”
“It’s a hotel of sorts,” he answered lightly. “I hope it meets with your
approval. It’s somewhat after the French style. Come up in the lift!”
She went with him, still possessed by that feeling of unreality which
had held her tired senses in thrall throughout the evening. The flowers
at her breast were crushed and faded, but the scent of them had all the
sweetness of a dream. Certain words floated through her memory—had she
heard them only that morning? “People like you and me can’t afford to
waste any time over—dreams.” Ah well, the night would soon be gone, and
she would wake in the morning to the old grim struggle. But till
then—like the memory of the purple flower upon the wall in the days of
her slavery—she would hold to her dream.
She passed out of the lift with Rotherby, and he unlocked a door that
led into a tiny hall.
“Take off your cloak!” he said; then, as she fumbled, unfastened it
himself and slipped it from her shoulders.
She felt his eyes upon her again, and was stabbed, as a dreamer is
sometimes stabbed, by a curious feeling of insecurity. Then he had
turned away, and was taking off his own hat and coat.
He closed the door by which they had entered and she heard the snap of a
patent lock. “We don’t want anyone else in,” he said.
She paused. “But isn’t it public? I thought you said it was a hotel.”
He opened another door, and switched on a light that showed her a
luxurious red-curtained apartment, with a polished table spread with
refreshments of all kinds, and an electric stove that burned with a hot
glow before a deep settee.
“This isn’t public,” he said. “It belongs to me.”
“Belongs to you!” She looked at him with eyes that were beginning to see
that which her numbed brain till then had failed to grasp. “What do you
mean?”
He made an airy gesture. “I mean that I have paid for it, that’s all.
See what a disappointment you would have given me if you had refused to
come in to supper!”
She stood staring at him. “I—don’t understand. You said—you did
say—it was a public place?”
He smiled his scoffing smile. “Did I? I don’t seem to remember it. It
doesn’t matter, does it? Sit down and have something! I prepared this as
a little surprise, my Circe. You’re not vexed?”
“Vexed!” she said, and paused, considering. “But—it’s so extraordinary.
I never dreamed——”
“No?” he said. “Well, you’ve been dreaming hard enough all the evening
anyway. Come, sit down! Sit down and let’s enjoy ourselves! There’s no
law against that, is there? Let’s see if I can open this champagne!”
He proceeded to open it, and she watched him pour it foaming into two
glasses on the table. The feeling that she had in some fashion been
tricked was gaining ground with her, and yet in his careless demeanour
she could detect no reason for alarm. He so evidently regarded the whole
affair as a joke.
He turned round to her suddenly. “I say, don’t look so shocked! There
really is no need. You can always marry me afterwards, you know, if you
feel so disposed. In fact, I think you are practically committed to
that, so let’s make the best of it!”
“What do you mean?” she said.
He lifted his brows cynically. “That’s what I have brought you here to
explain. But never mind that now! Drink some of this stuff! You’ll find
it quite good.”
He motioned her to the table, but she held back. If she had dreamed all
the evening, she was awake now, most suddenly and terribly awake. Her
brain felt strangely clear, as if it had been focussed upon one thing
only till it had crystallized to an amazing penetration. The vision upon
which she had gazed uncomprehendingly for so long had resolved itself
into a thing of horror which filled the whole of her consciousness.
She saw herself helpless as a prisoner chained to a rock, but superbly
she gathered her strength to meet the situation. She faced him like a
queen.
“You have made a mistake,” she said. “Let me go!”
He straightened himself sharply. She saw an ugly look cross his
face—the look of a man who is debating at which point to drive his
weapon home. Then again, carelessly, he laughed.
“Do let’s have supper first!” he said. “We can talk afterwards for any
length of time. I am sure you will find that sound advice. A good meal
is always a help.”
She stood motionless, her eyes unwaveringly upon him. “Let me go!” she
said again.
He came to her then, and though the smile was still upon his face, she
knew that, like herself, he was braced for battle.
“Why this tragic attitude?” he said. “And to what end? Don’t spoil the
occasion, my Circe! We are going to enjoy ourselves to-night.”
She flung down the gauntlet with a supreme disregard of consequences.
“You hound!” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I like you for that. Yes, I am a hound, but
I don’t appreciate an easy prey. I’ll conquer you now I’ve got you. But
I’m in no hurry. Sit down and let’s talk it over!”
Somehow that weakened her more than any violence. His utter assurance,
his easy acceptance of her contempt, his almost philosophical attitude
in the matter, all made her realize the hopelessness of her position. He
had deliberately trapped her, and he was not ashamed that she should
know it. She stood before him speechless.
“That’s better,” he said. “You’re getting a grasp of the situation,
bringing that business-like mind of yours to bear upon it. Now listen to
me! I love you. I can’t tell you why, but I do. I’ve always wanted you,
and I made up my mind a long while ago that I would have you. We began
well, and then you broke away. But you won’t break away this time. You
belong to me, and I am going to enforce my claim. Is that quite clear?”
“You have no claim,” she said through white lips.
“That is merely your point of view,” he rejoined, “and I do not share
it. You gave yourself to me, remember, and I never gave you any cause to
regret your action. If you had behaved reasonably, we should have been
married by this time, and all your troubles would have been at an end.
As it is,—” He paused.
“Well?” she said.
She saw his face harden. “As it is,” he said, “you have tried my
patience to the utmost limit, till I have come to the pitch when I will
stand no more trifling. Do you understand? To-night I am your master.
To-night—for the last time—I ask you, will you marry me? Think well
before you decide! To-morrow—possibly—you may be not only willing, but
anxious, but,” he shrugged his shoulders again—“I may have other plans
by that time.”
“Ah!” she said, and put a hand to her head.
The floor had begun to sway under her feet. His face, with its cruel,
set smile, had receded into distance. She was cold from head to foot,
with an icy coldness, and she thought her heart had ceased to beat. She
felt herself totter.
And then there came the grasp of his hand, holding her back as it seemed
on the very edge of the abyss. And instinctively she clung to the
support he offered, with gasping incoherent entreaty.
“Oh, hold me up! Save me! Don’t let me fall!”
“Sit down!” he said. “Here is a chair! Now drink! It’s all right. You’ll
be better in a minute.”
She felt the rim of a glass against her chattering teeth, and she drank
with her head against his arm.
The wine was like fire in her veins; the awful numbness passed.
“Better?” said Rotherby. “Come, this is rather a terrible fuss to make,
isn’t it? Drink a little more!”
She drank again, and then, as he released her, bent forward over the
table, hiding her face. A great shiver went through her and passed. She
sat bowed and silent.
After a few seconds he spoke again, his tone quite friendly, but with
that hint of mastery which made her realize how completely she was at
his mercy.
“Sit up and have some supper! You will feel much better for it.
Afterwards we will sit by the fire and talk.”
She raised herself slowly, propping her chin on her hands. She spoke,
haltingly, with difficulty, almost as if it were in a foreign language.
“If I give my promise—to—to—to—marry—you, will you—let me—go?”
“To-night?” he said.
“Yes, to-night.” She did not look at him; she was staring before her at
a picture on the opposite wall—a picture of heather-clad moors and
running streams—but with eyes that saw not.
There was a brief pause, then very suddenly the man behind her moved. He
bent and took her head between his hands, compelling her to face him.
“Why should I do that?” he said.
She met his look, though an irrepressible shudder went through her at
his touch. “Because,” she said, in the same slow, uncertain way, “you
are a man—and I—am a woman. I am at your mercy—now, but I shall not
always be. If you want to—to—hold me by any means—except
force—then—you will be merciful. No! Listen! I am at your mercy. I
know it. I own it. But—you are not all beast. If you will let me go, I
will promise to marry you—as soon as you wish. If you will not let me
go, you will have your way to-night. But after to-night—after
to-night——”
“Well?” he said, awed in spite of himself by her voice, her words, her
look, yet half-mocking still. “After to-night?”
“After to-night,” she said, and drew herself from his hold, facing him
with a gesture of freedom that was even regal, “you will never see me
again, because I swear to you—before God—that I shall be dead.”
He blenched a little, but in a moment recovered himself. “Pshaw! Words
are easy—especially with women. That threat doesn’t move me.”
“No.” She got up from her chair with a strange calmness. “It may
not—yet. But it will—it will. If you were all beast, you might not
care. But you are a man at heart, and so you will never forget it. And
you will care—terribly—afterwards.”
She turned from him with the words, walked to the settee before the
stove, and sat down, holding her hands to the warmth, ignoring his
presence utterly.
He did not follow her. There was that about her that made it impossible
just then. He had not thought that she had the strength so to dominate
the situation. It had been completely in his own hands, but somehow it
had passed out of his control. Wherefore? The sight of her weakness had
made the conquest seem so easy that he had almost despised her for it.
And now?
He turned sullenly from her, took up a glass and drank.
After many seconds he spoke. “The last time I saw you, you gave me to
understand that it was only your pride that kept you from marrying me.
That is not the reason you want to back out now.”
“I gave you my reason then,” she made answer, without turning. “I did
not love you.”
“You loved me once,” he rejoined, “before you threw me over.”
She uttered a short, hard sigh. “I hadn’t even begun to know the meaning
of the word.”
He flung round savagely. “There’s someone else in the field. I suspected
it before. Who is it? That maniac at Tetherstones?”
She leaned forward a little further to the glow. “It doesn’t really
matter,” she said. “Even if it were so, it wouldn’t really count, would
it?”
“It would not,” he rejoined curtly.
“So why discuss it?” said Frances.
Her weariness sounded again in her voice, but there was no weakness with
it, rather a species of solitary majesty upon which he could not
intrude. Yet, baffled, he still sought to penetrate her defences.
“You loved me once,” he repeated doggedly. “What did I ever do to
forfeit your love?”
She turned suddenly as she sat, and faced him, pale, with burning eyes
of accusation.
“I will tell you what you did. You desecrated my love. You killed it at
birth. You treated me then—as you are treating me now—dishonourably.
You gave me stones for bread, and you are doing it still. I think you
are incapable of anything else. Love—real love—is out of your reach!”
The fire of her words scorched him; he drew back. “Gad!” he said. “If
you’d lived in the old days, you’d have been burnt as a witch.”
“There are worse fates than that,” she answered very bitterly.
“There are!” he returned with a flash of anger. “And hotter hells! Well,
you’ve made your conditions. I accept them. You are free to go.”
He flung the words with a force and suddenness that struck her like a
blow. She sat for a few moments, staring at him. Then, with an effort,
she rose.
“Do you mean that?”
He came close to her. His face was drawn. Somehow she felt as though she
were looking at an animal through the iron bars of a cage.
He spoke, between his teeth. “Yes, I mean it. I will let you go—just to
show you that—as you kindly remarked just now—I am not—all—beast.
But—I hold you to your promise. Is that understood? You will marry me.”
She lifted her head with a certain pride. “I have said it,” she said,
and turned from him.
He thrust out a hand and grasped her shoulder. “You will say it again!”
he said.
She stopped. That grip of his sent panic to her heart, but she stilled
it with a desperate sense of expediency. Yet, for the moment she could
not speak, so terrible was the strain, and in that moment, as she stood
summoning her strength, there came the sound of an electric bell
cleaving the dreadful silence so suddenly that she cried out and almost
fell.
“Damnation!” Rotherby said. “See here! I shall have to go to the door.
You don’t want to be seen here. You’d better go into the other room.”
He indicated a door at the further end of the one in which they stood,
and she turned towards it instinctively.
He went with her, and opened it, switching on a light. She glanced
within, and drew back.
“Go in!” he urged. “I can’t help it. It’s only for a few seconds. I
won’t let anyone in. Quick! It’s the only way.”
She turned to him like a hunted creature, wildly beseeching quarter.
“You will let me go afterwards? You promise it? You swear it?”
“Of course I will let you go,” he said. “There goes that damn’ bell
again. You’ll be all right here, and I won’t keep you long.”
He almost pushed her into the room, and shut the door upon her. The bell
was pealing imperatively. She sank into a chair at the foot of the bed,
and wondered if this nightmare would ever pass.
CHAPTER III
THE AWAKENING
The door was shut, but there came to her the sound of voices in the
distance, and she listened intently, holding her breath. At any moment
he might return, at any moment the dread struggle might be resumed. He
had given her his word, but she did not trust him. She never had trusted
him; and the memory of his grip upon her shoulder gave her small cause
for confidence now. She glanced around her for a possible means of
escape, but the only other door in the room led into the little hall in
which even now Rotherby was parleying with his unwelcome visitor. The
impulse came to her to brave all risk of observation and walk straight
out while he was thus occupied, but a more wary instinct bade her pause.
If the visitor were an old friend, he might enter uninvited, and if that
happened the outer door would be left unguarded, and she could make her
escape unobserved, before Rotherby could get rid of him. This would be
far the easier course, and would offer fewer difficulties later. So,
with stretched nerves, prepared for immediate flight, she waited.
The opportunity came even sooner than she expected. Very suddenly she
heard the tramp of feet in the room she had just quitted, and in a
second she was on her feet.
But in that second she heard a voice raised abruptly like the blare of
an angry bull, and she stood rooted to the spot, listening, listening,
listening, with her hands clasped tight upon her heart.
Words reached her through the tumult of sound, words and the sounds of a
fierce struggle.
“Damn you, I’ll have an answer! I’ll kill you if you don’t speak. What?
You infernal skunk, do you think I’d stick at killing you? There’s
nothing I’d enjoy more.”
There followed a dreadful series of sounds as of something being banged
against the wall by which she stood, and then suddenly there came a
terrific blow against the door itself. A cry followed the blow—a
gurgling terrible cry, and it did for Frances what nothing else could
have done; it gave her strength to act.
She could have made her escape in that moment, but the bare thought was
gone from her mind. She sprang to the door, and threw it open. Then she
saw that which she had already beheld that evening, but with unseeing
eyes—the big man in the ulster who had waited just below her in the
rain at the theatre steps half-an-hour before.
He was holding Rotherby between his hands as he might have held a sack
of meal, and banging his head against everything hard in the vicinity.
Rotherby was struggling with gasping, broken oaths for freedom, but he
was utterly outmatched. As Frances flung open the door he fell backwards
at her feet, and the man who gripped him proceeded furiously to stand
over him and bang his head upon the floor.
“Oh, stop!” Frances cried in horror. “Oh, for God’s sake, stop!”
He stopped. Her voice seemed to have an almost miraculous effect upon
him. He stopped. But he knelt upon Rotherby, holding him down, and his
face, suffused with passion, was to her the most appalling sight she had
ever beheld.
There followed an awful silence, during which he remained quite
motionless, bent over his enemy. Rotherby was bleeding profusely at the
nose, but he was half-stunned and seemed unaware of it. His arms were
flung wide, and his hands opened and shut convulsively, in a manner that
made the onlooker shudder.
How long that fearful silence lasted she never knew. It seemed to
stretch out interminably into minutes so weighted with dread that each
was like an hour.
At last, when she could endure no longer, huskily, with tremendous
effort, she spoke. “Do you want—to kill him?”
He raised his head slowly and looked at her. His eyes were bloodshot and
the veins of his temples visibly throbbing, but the rest of his face was
ghastly white.
He looked at her, and she felt a quick, piercing pain at her heart that
made her catch her breath.
“I have wanted to kill him for years,” he said. “Do you value his life?
If not——”
It was terrible, it was monstrous; but it was real. He was asking
her—actually asking her, as a victorious gladiator in the arena—for
permission to despatch his victim. And even as he spoke, she saw his
right hand move towards the throat of the prostrate man.
She cried out wildly at the sight, in an anguish of horror. “Arthur,
no—no—no! That’s murder! Arthur,—stop!”
“He is worse than a murderer,” Arthur said in the same fatalistic tone.
“Ah, no!” she made gasping answer. “And you! And you!”
“And—you!” he said, with terrible emphasis.
She broke in upon him desperately, for the need was great. “He has done
me no harm. Let him go! You must—you must let him go.”
“Why?” he said.
“Because I ask you—I beg you—because—because—” She halted,
frantically searching for adequate words. “Oh, wait!” she besought him.
“Wait!”
His eyes regarded her immovably. “For your sake?” he said at last.
She wrung her hands together. “Yes—yes!”
He got slowly to his feet. “For your sake then!” he said. “Now tell
me—what you are doing here? And why did you cry out just now when I
rang the bell?”
His manner was absolutely quiet, but there was that in his look that
warned her that the danger was not past. She did not dare to tell him
the truth.
“I cried out,” she said, “because—I was startled. I hid in this room
for the same reason.”
“And—you came here—for what?” he said.
She glanced away to the spread table, for she could not meet his eyes.
“We had been to the theatre. I came in—for supper.”
“And he has behaved towards you absolutely as a gentleman should?” he
questioned, in the same level voice that made her think of a weapon
poised for striking.
“Yes—oh, yes!” she answered.
He was silent for a moment or two, and she knew that his look searched
her unsparingly. Then: “I don’t believe you are telling me the truth,”
he said. “But I shall soon know.”
He turned abruptly to the man on the floor. “Get up!” he said.
Rotherby had drawn his hands over his face. He rolled on to his side as
the curt command reached him, and in a few seconds, grabbing at a chair,
he dragged himself to his feet. But his face was ashen and he could not
stand. He dropped into the chair with a groan.
Frances went to the washing-stand, squeezed out a sponge in cold water
and brought it to him. He took it in a dazed fashion and mopped the
blood from his nose and mouth.
Arthur stood by, massive and motionless, his face set in iron lines. He
was like an executioner, grim as doom, waiting for his victim. He made
no comment when Frances brought towel and basin to Rotherby’s side and
helped him.
But at length, as Rotherby began to show signs of recovery, he waved her
to one side.
“Now, you! Let’s have your version! What are you and Miss Thorold doing
here?”
Rotherby looked at him through narrowed lids. His face was very evil as
he made reply. “I chance to live here.”
“I know that. And you’ll die here without any chance about it if you
don’t choose to give me a straight answer to my questions. What did you
bring her here for?”
“What the devil is that to you?” said Rotherby sullenly. “You go to
hell!”
Though he was beaten so that he could hardly lift his head, he showed no
fear, and for that Frances, who knew something of the temperament of the
man who had beaten him, accorded him a certain admiration. To be
punished as he had been punished, and yet to refuse submission proved a
strength with which she had hardly credited him.
At Arthur’s swift gesture of exasperation, she moved forward,
intervening. “Let me speak!” she said. “I will answer your questions.”
She stood between the two men, and again, vesting her with a majesty
which was not normally hers, there came to her aid the consciousness of
standing for the right. Whatever the outcome, she recognized that the
protection of Rotherby must somehow be accomplished. To save the one man
from death and the other from committing a murder, she braced herself
for the greatest battle of her life.
Arthur’s look came back to her. He regarded her sombrely, as though he
recognized in her a factor that must be dealt with.