"There is one other thing--a favor."
"Yes?"
"Leave the shutter of the room I came in by unfastened, and keep vigil
there tonight."
She looked at him curiously, but nodded assent.
"And now," said Mr. Satterthwaite, slightly conscious of anticlimax, "I
really must be going. God bless you, my dear."
He made a rather embarrassed exit. The stalwart Spanish girl met him in
the passage and opened a side door for him, staring curiously at him
the while.
It was just growing dark as he reached the hotel. There was a solitary
figure sitting on the terrace. Mr. Satterthwaite made straight for
it. He was excited and his heart was beating quite fast. He felt that
tremendous issues lay in his hands. One false move--
But he tried to conceal his agitation and to speak naturally and
casually to Anthony Cosdon.
"A warm evening," he observed. "I quite lost count of time sitting up
there on the cliff."
"Have you been up there all this time?"
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded. The swing door into the hotel opened to let
someone through, and a beam of light fell suddenly on the other's
face, illuminating its look of dull suffering, of uncomprehending dumb
endurance.
Mr. Satterthwaite thought, _It's worse for him than it would be for me.
Imagination, conjecture, speculation--they can do a lot for you. You
can, as it were, ring the changes upon pain. The uncomprehending blind
suffering of an animal--that's terrible._
Cosdon spoke suddenly in a harsh voice. "I'm going for a stroll after
dinner. You--you understand? The third time's lucky. For God's sake
don't interfere. I know your interference will be well-meaning and all
that--but take it from me, it's useless."
Mr. Satterthwaite drew himself up. "I never interfere," he said,
thereby giving the lie to the whole purpose and object of his existence.
"I know what you think--" went on Cosdon, but he was interrupted.
"You must excuse me, but there I beg to differ from you," said Mr.
Satterthwaite. "Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may
imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong."
"Well, perhaps that's so." Cosdon was doubtful, slightly taken aback.
"Your life is your own," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Nobody can alter
or influence the use you mean to make of it. Let us talk of a less
painful subject. That old villa, for instance. It has a curious charm,
withdrawn, sheltered from the world, shielding heaven knows what
mystery. It tempted me to do a doubtful action. I tried one of the
shutters."
"You did?" Cosdon turned his head sharply. "But it was fastened, of
course?"
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "It was open." He added gently, "The
third shutter from the end."
"Why," Cosdon burst out, "that was the one--"
He broke off suddenly, but Mr. Satterthwaite had seen the light that
had sprung up in his eyes. He rose--satisfied.
Some slight tinge of anxiety still remained with him. Using his
favorite metaphor of a drama, he hoped that he had spoken his few lines
correctly. For they were very important lines.
But thinking it over, his artistic judgment was satisfied. On his way
up to the cliff, Cosdon would try that shutter. It was not in human
nature to resist. A memory of twenty-odd years ago had brought him to
this spot; the same memory would take him to the shutter. And afterward?
"I shall know in the morning," said Mr. Satterthwaite, and proceeded to
change methodically for his evening meal.
* * * * *
It was somewhere round ten o'clock that Mr. Satterthwaite set foot once
more in the garden of La Paz. Manuel bade him a smiling "Good morning,"
and handed him a single rosebud which Mr. Satterthwaite put carefully
into his buttonhole. Then he went on to the house. He stood there for
some minutes looking up at the peaceful white walls, the trailing
orange creeper, and the faded green shutters. So silent, so peaceful.
Had the whole thing been a dream?
But at that moment one of the windows opened and the lady who occupied
Mr. Satterthwaite's thoughts came out. She came straight to him with
a buoyant, swaying walk, like someone carried on a great wave of
exultation. Her eyes were shining, her color high. She looked like a
figure of joy on a frieze. There was no hesitation about her, no doubt
or tremors. Straight to Mr. Satterthwaite she came, put her hands on
his shoulders, and kissed him--not once but many times. Large, dark,
red roses, very velvety--that is how he thought of it afterward.
Sunshine, summer, birds singing--that was the atmosphere into which he
felt himself caught up. Warmth, joy, and tremendous vigor.
"I'm so happy," she said. "You darling! How did you know? How _could_
you know? You're like the good magician in the fairy tales."
She paused, a sort of breathlessness of happiness upon her.
"We're going over today--to the Consul--to get married. When John
comes, his father will be here. We'll tell him there was some
misunderstanding in the past. Oh! he won't ask questions. Oh! I'm so
happy--so happy--so happy."
Happiness did indeed surge from her like a tide. It lapped round Mr.
Satterthwaite in a warm, exhilarating flood.
"It's so wonderful to Anthony to find he has a son. I never dreamed
he'd mind or care." She looked confidently into Mr. Satterthwaite's
eyes. "Isn't it strange how things come right and end all beautifully?"
He had his clearest vision of her yet. A child--still a child--with her
love of make-believe--her fairy tales that ended beautifully with two
people "living happily ever afterward."
He said gently, "If you bring this man of yours happiness in these last
months, you will indeed have done a very beautiful thing."
Her eyes opened wide--surprised. "Oh!" she said. "You don't think I'd
let him die, do you? After all these years--when he's come to me. I've
known lots of people whom doctors have given up and who are alive
today. Die? Of course he's not going to die!"
He looked at her--her strength, her beauty, her vitality--her
indomitable courage and will. He too had known doctors to be mistaken.
The personal factor--you never knew how much and how little it counted.
She said again, with scorn and amusement in her voice, "You don't think
I'd let him die, do you?"
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite at last, very gently. "Somehow, my dear, I
don't think you will."
Then, at last, he walked down the cypress path to the bench overlooking
the sea and found there the person he was expecting to see. Mr. Quin
rose and greeted him--the same as ever, dark, saturnine, smiling and
sad.
"You expected me?" he asked.