THE LAST LINK
A thing hereditary in the race comes unawares.
Jem came straight into the room, and there seemed to be no one in it for
him but Dora. She went to meet him with outstretched hand, and her eyes
were answering the questions that she read in his.
He took her hand and he said no word, but suddenly all the misery of the
last year slipped back, as it were, into a dream. She could not define
her thoughts then, and they left no memory to recall afterwards. She
seemed to forget that this man had been dead and was living, she only
knew that her hand was within his. Jem looked round to the others
present, his attitude a judgment in itself, his face, in its fierce
repose, a verdict.
Mark Ruthine had gently pushed Seymour Michael into the room and was
closing the door behind them. Mrs. Agar did not see the General, who was
half-concealed by his junior officer. She could not take her eyes from
Jem's face.
“This is fortunate,” he said; and the sound of his voice was music in
Dora's ears. “This is fortunate, every one seems to be here.”
He paused for a moment, as if at a loss, and drew his brown hand down
over his moustache. Perhaps he felt remotely that his position was strong
and almost dramatic; but that, being a simple, honest Englishman, he was
unable to turn it to account.
He turned towards Seymour Michael, who stood behind, uncomfortably
conscious of Mark Ruthine at his heels. It was not in Jem to make an
effective scene. Englishmen are so. We do not make our lives
superficially picturesque by apostrophising the shade of a dead mother.
Jem gave way to the natural instinct of a soldier by nature and training.
A clear statement of the facts, and a short, sharp judgment.
“This man,” he said, laying his hand on the General's shoulder, and
bringing him forward, “has been brought here by us to explain something.”
White-lipped, breathless, in a ghastly silence Anna Agar and Seymour
Michael stared at each other over the dainty tea-table, across a gulf of
misused years, through the tangle of two unfaithful lives.
Then Jem Agar began his story, addressing himself to Dora, then, and
until the end.
“I was not with Stevenor,” he said, “when his force was surprised and
annihilated. I had been sent on through an enemy's country into a
position which no man had the right to ask another to hold with the force
allowed me. This man sent me. All his life has he been seeking glory at
the risk of other men's lives. After the disaster he came to me and
relieved my little force; but he proposed to me a scheme of exploration,
which I have carried through. But even now I shall not get the credit;
_he_ will have that. It was a low, scurrilous thing to do; for he was my
commanding officer, and I could not say No.”
“I gave you the option,” blurted out Michael sullenly.
Jem took no notice of the interruption, which only had the effect of
making Mark Ruthine move up a few paces nearer.
“He made a great point of secrecy,” continued Agar, “which at the time I
thought to be for my safety. But now I see otherwise; Ruthine has pointed
it out to me. If I had never come back he would have said nothing, and
would thus have escaped the odium of having sent a man to certain death.
I only made one condition--namely, that three persons should be informed
at once of my survival, after the disaster to Stevenor's force. Those
three persons were my brother Arthur, my step-mother, and Miss Glynde.”
He paused for a moment, and Dora's clear, low voice took up the
narrative.
“I met General Michael,” she said, “in London, some months ago. I met him
more than once. He knew quite well who I was, and he never told me.”
Thus was the first link of the chain riveted. Seymour Michael winced. He
never raised his eyes.
Mark Ruthine moved forward again. He did so with a singular rapidity, for
he had seen murder flash from beneath Jem Agar's eyebrows. He was
standing between them, his left hand gripping Jem's right arm with an
undeniable strength. Dora, looking at them, suddenly felt the tears well
to her eyes. There was something that melted her heart strangely in the
sight of those two men--friends--standing side by side; and at that
moment her affection went out towards Mark Ruthine, the friend of Jem,
who understood Jem, who knew Jem and loved him, perhaps, a thousandth
part as well as she did; an affection which was never withdrawn all
through their lives.
It was Ruthine's voice that broke the silence, giving Jem time to master
himself.
“It is to his credit,” he said, also addressing Dora, “that for very
shame he did not dare to tell you that he had sent Agar on a mission
which was as unnecessary as it was dangerous. When he sent him he must
have known that it was almost a sentence of death.”
Then Jem spoke again.
“As soon as I got back to civilisation,” he said, “I wrote to him as
arranged, and I enclosed letters to--the three persons who were admitted
into the secret. Those letters have, of course, never reached their
destination. General Michael will be required to explain that also.”
At this moment Arthur Agar gave a strange little cackling laugh,
which drew the general attention towards him. He was looking at his
half-brother, with a glitter in his usually soft and peaceful eyes.
“There are a good many things which he will have to explain.”
“Yes,” answered Jem. “That is why we have brought him here.”
It fell to Arthur Agar's lot to forge the second link.
“When,” he asked Jem, “did he know that you had got back to safety and
civilisation?”
“Two months ago, by telegram.”
The half-brothers turned with one accord towards Seymour Michael, who
stood trying to conceal the quiver of his lips.
“He promised,” said Arthur Agar, “to tell me at once when he received
news of your safety.”
It was singular that Seymour Michael should give way at that moment to a
little shrinking movement of fear--back and away, not from Jem, who
towered huge and powerful above him, but from the frail and delicate
younger brother. Mark Ruthine, who was standing behind, saw the movement
and wondered at it. For it would appear that, of all his judges, Seymour
Michael feared the weakest most.
And so the second link was welded on to the first, while only Anna Agar
knew the motive that had prompted Michael to suppress the news. She
divined that it was spite towards herself, and for once in her life, with
that intuition which only comes at supreme moments, she had the wisdom to
bide her time.
Then at last Seymour Michael spoke. He did not raise his eyes, but his
words were evidently addressed to Arthur.
“I acted,” he said, “as I thought best. Secrecy was necessary for Agar's
safety. I knew that if I told you too much you would tell your mother,
and--I know your mother better than either you or Jem Agar know her. She
is not fit to be trusted with the most trifling secret.”
“Well, you see, you were quite wrong,” burst out Mrs. Agar, with a
derisive laugh. “For I knew it all along. Arthur told me at the first.”
Her voice came as a shock to them all. It was harsh and common, the voice
of the street-wrangler.
“Then,” cried Seymour Michael, as sharp as fate, “why did you not tell
Miss Glynde?”
He raised his arm, pointing one lean dark finger into her face.
“I knew,” he hissed, “that the boy would tell you. I counted on it. Why
did you not tell Miss Glynde? Come! Tell us why.”
Mark Ruthine's face was a study. It was the face of a very keen sportsman
at the corner of a “drive.” In every word he saw twice as much as simple
Jem Agar ever suspected.
“Well,” answered Mrs. Agar, wavering, “because I thought it better not.”
“No,” Dora said, “you kept it from me because you wanted me to marry
Arthur. And you thought that I should do so because he was master of
Stagholme. You wanted to trick me into marrying Arthur before”--she
hesitated--“before--”
“Before I came back,” added Jem imperturbably. “That was it, that was
it!” cried Seymour Michael, grasping at the straw which might serve to
turn the current aside from himself.
But the attempt failed. No one took any notice of it. Jem was looking at
Dora, and she was looking anywhere except at him.
It was Jem who spoke, with the decisiveness of the president of a
court-martial.
“That will come afterwards,” he said. “And now, perhaps,” he went on,
turning towards Seymour, “you will kindly explain why you broke your word
to me. Explain it to these l---- [sic.] to Miss Glynde.”
Seymour Michael shrugged his shoulders.
“Why, what is the good of making all this fuss about it now?” he
explained. “It has all come right. I acted as I thought best. That is all
the explanation I have to offer.”
“Can you not do better than that?” inquired Jem, with a dangerous
suavity. “You had better try.”
Dora was looking at Jem now, appealingly. She knew that tone of voice,
and feared it. She alone suspected the anger that was hidden behind so
calm an exterior.
Seymour Michael preserved a dogged silence, glancing from side to side
beneath his lowered lashes. He had not forgotten Jem's threat, but he
felt the safeguard of a lady's presence.
“I can offer an explanation,” put in Mark Ruthine. “This man is mentally
incapable of telling the truth and of doing the straight thing. There are
some people who are born liars. This man is one. It is not quite fair to
judge him as one would judge others. I have known him for years, have
watched him, have studied him.”
All eyes turned towards Seymour Michael, who stood half-cringing,
trembling with fear and hatred towards his relentless judges.
“Years ago,” pursued Ruthine, “at the outset of life, he committed a
wanton crime. He did a wrong to a poor innocent woman, whose only fault
was to love him beyond his deserts. He was engaged to be married to her,
and meeting a richer woman he had not the courage to ask to be released
from his engagement. It happened that by a mistake he was gazetted 'dead'
at the time of the Mutiny. He never contradicted the mistake--that was
how he got out of his engagement. He played the same trick with Jem
Agar's name. I recognised it.”
Then the last link of the chain was forged.
“So did I,” said Anna Agar. “I was the woman.”
Before the words were well out of her mouth Mark Ruthine's voice was
raised in an alarmed shout.
“Look out!” he cried. “Hold that man; he is mad!”
No one had been noticing Arthur Agar--no one except Seymour Michael, who
had never taken his eyes from his face during Ruthine's narration.
With a groan, unlike a human sound at all, Arthur Agar had rushed forward
when his mother spoke, and for a few seconds there was a wild confusion
in the room, while Seymour Michael, white with dread, fled before his
doom. In and out among the people and the furniture, shouting for help,
he leapt and struggled. Then there came a crash. Seymour Michael had
broken through the window, smashing the glass, with his arms doubled over
his face.
A second later Arthur wrenched open the sash and gave chase across the
lawn. In the confusion some moments elapsed before the two heavier men
followed him over the smooth turf, and the ladies from the window saw
Arthur Agar kneeling over Seymour Michael on the stone terrace at the end
of the lawn. They heard with cruel distinctness the sharp crackling crash
of the Jew's head upon the stone flags, as Arthur shook him as a terrier
shakes a rat.
Instinctively they followed, and as they came up to the group where
Ruthine was kneeling over Seymour Michael, while Jem dragged Arthur away,
they heard the Doctor say--
“Agar, get the ladies away. This man is dead. Look sharp, man! They
mustn't see this.”
And Jem barred their way with one hand, while he held his half-brother
with the other.