Twenty-four hours after Claude turned to take the way of humiliation
down the hill, undeceived by Jim Breen's friendly tone and the hope of
future possibilities held out to him, Thor Masterman found himself
almost within sight of home. On arriving in the city late in the
afternoon he went to a hotel, where he took a room and dined. When he
had devised the means of letting Lois know that he was camping outside
her gates she might be sufficiently touched to throw them open. She
might never love him again; she might never have really loved him at
all; but he would content himself with a benevolent toleration. Like
her, he was afraid of love. The word meant too much or too little, he
was not sure which. It was too explosive. Its dynamic force was at too
high a pressure for the calm routine of married life. If Lois could find
a substitute for love, he was willing to accept it, giving her his own
substitute in return. All he asked was the privilege of seeing her, of
being with her, of proving his devotion, of having her once more to
share his life.
It was not to force this issue, but to play lovingly with the hope in
it, that when dusk had deepened into evening he took the open electric
car that would carry him to the village. He had no intention beyond that
of enjoying the cool night air and loitering for a few minutes in sight
of the house that sheltered her. She might be on the balcony outside her
room, or beneath the portico of the garden door, so that he should catch
the flutter of her dress. That would be enough for him--to-night. He
might make it enough for the next night and the next. After absence and
distance, it seemed much.
County Street was as he had known it on every warm summer night since he
was a boy, and yet conveyed that impression which every summer night
conveys, of being the first and only one of its kind. The sky was
majestically high and clear and spangled, with the Scorpion and the red
light of Antares well above the city's amber glow. Along the streets and
lanes dim trees rustled faintly, casting gigantic trembling shadows in
the circles of the electric lights. The breeze being from the east and
south, the tang of sea-salt mingled with the strong, dry scent of
new-mown hay and the blended perfumes of a countryside of gardens. All
doors were open as he passed along, and so were all windows. On all
verandas and porches and steps faint figures could be discerned,
low-voiced for the most part, but sending out an occasional laugh or
snatch of song. Thor knew who the people were; many of them were
friends; to some of them he was related; there were few with whom he
hadn't ties antedating birth. It was soothing to him, as he slipped
along in the heavy shadow of the elms, to know that they were near.
* * * * *
On approaching his father's house, which he expected to find dark, he
was astonished to see a light. It was a light like a blurred star, on
one of the upper floors. From what window it shone he found it difficult
to say, the mass of the house being lost in the general obscurity. The
strange thing was that it should be there.
He passed slowly within the gate and along the few yards of the
driveway, pausing from time to time in order to place the quiet beacon
in this room or in that, according to the angle from which it seemed to
burn. He was not alarmed; he was only curious. It was no furtive light.
Though the curtains were closed, it displayed itself boldly in the eyes
of the neighbors and of the two or three ornamental constables who made
their infrequent rounds in County Street. He could only attribute it to
old Maggs, who lived in the coachman's cottage at the far end of the
property, though as to what old Maggs could be doing in the house at
this hour in the evening, at a time when the parents were abroad and
Claude away on a holiday, he was obliged to be frankly inquisitive. An
investigating spirit was further aroused by the fact that in one of his
pauses, as he alternately advanced and halted, he was sure he heard a
footstep. If it was not a footstep, it was a stirring in the shrubbery,
as if something had either moved away or settled into hiding.
He was still unalarmed. Night-crimes were rare in the village, and
relatively harmless even when they were committed. The sound he had
heard might have been made by some roving dog, or by a cat or a startled
bird. Had it not been for the light he would scarcely have noticed it.
Taken in conjunction with the light, it suggested some one who had been
watching and had slunk away; but even that thought was slightly
melodramatic in so well-ordered a community. He went on till he was at
the foot of the steps, at a point where he could no longer descry the
glow in the upper window, but could perceive through the fanlight over
the inner door that, though the lower hall was dark, the electrics were
burning somewhere in the interior of the house.
He verified this on mounting the steps and peering into the vestibule
through the strip of window at the sides of the outer door. Turning the
knob tentatively, he was surprised to find it yield. On entering, he
stood in the porch and listened, but no sound reached him from within.
Taking his bunch of keys from his pocket, he detached his latch-key
softly, and as softly inserted it in the lock. The door opened
noiselessly, showing a light down the stairway from the hall above. He
could now hear some one moving, probably on the topmost floor, with an
opening and shutting of doors that might have been those of closets,
followed by a swishing sound like that of the folding or packing of
clothes. He entered and closed the door with a distinctly audible bang.
Listening again, he found that the sounds ceased suspiciously. Whoever
was there was listening, too. It was easy, by the light streaming from
above, to find the button and turn on the electricity in the lower hall,
whereupon the movement up-stairs began again. Some one came out of a
room and peered downward. He himself went to the foot of the stairs,
looking up. When the watcher on the third floor spoke at last it was in
a voice he didn't instantly recognize. He would have taken it for
Claude's, only that it was so frightened and shrill.
"Who's there?"
"Who are you?" Thor demanded, in tones that rolled and echoed through
the house.
There was a long, hesitating silence. Straining his eyes upward, Thor
could dimly make out a white face leaning over the highest banister.
When the question came at last it was as if reluctantly and shrinkingly.
"Is that you, Thor?"
Thor retreated from the stairs, backing away to the library, of which
the door was the nearest open one. He distinctly recorded the words that
passed through his mind. He might have uttered them audibly, so
indelible was the impression with which they cut themselves in.
"By God! I've got him."
Out of the confused suffering of two months earlier he heard himself
saying: "I swear to God that if I ever see Claude again I'll kill him."
He hadn't meant on that occasion deliberately to register a great oath;
the oath had registered itself. It was there in the archives of his
mind, signed and sealed and waiting for the moment of putting it into
execution. He had hardly thought of it since then; and now it urged
itself for fulfilment like a vow. It was a vow to cover not merely one
offense, but many--all the long years of nameless, unrecorded
irritations, ignored but never allayed, culminating in the act by which
this man had robbed him; robbed him uselessly, robbed him not to enjoy
the spoil, but to fling it away.
It was a moment of seeing red similar to many others in his life. For
the instant he could more easily have killed Claude than refrained from
doing it. That he should so refrain was a matter of course. Naturally!
He still kept a hold on common sense. He would not only refrain, but be
civil. If Claude were in need of anything or were short of cash he would
probably write him a check. It was the irony of this kind of rage that
it was so impotent. It was impotent and absurd. It might shake him to
the foundations of his being, but it would come to nothing in the end.
It both relieved and embittered him to foresee this result.
From the threshold of the library he called up to Claude, "Come down!"
The tone was imperious; it was even threatening. That degree of menace
at least he was unable to suppress.
Claude's steps could be heard on the stairs. They were slow and clanking
because the carpets were up and the house full of echoes. To Thor's
fevered imagination it seemed as if Claude dragged his feet like a man
wearing chains, going haltingly and clumsily before some ominous
tribunal. The sensation--it was more that than anything else--caused the
elder brother to withdraw into the depths of the library, where he
turned on a light.
The room, with its bare floors, its shrouded furniture, its screened
book cases, its blank pictures swaddled in linen bags, its long, gaunt
shadows, and its deadened air, suggested itself horribly and
ridiculously as a fitting scene for a crime. He might kill Claude with a
blow, and if he turned out the lights and shut the door and stole back
to his hotel no one would ever suspect him as the murderer. The idea
would have been no more than grotesque had it not acquired a certain
terror from the mingling of affection and anger and pity in his heart at
the sound of Claude's shrinking, clanking advance. In proportion as
Claude seemed to be afraid of him, he was the more aware that he was a
man to be afraid of. The consciousness caused him to get deeper into the
dimly lighted room, taking his stand at the remotest possible spot, with
his back to the empty fireplace.
But when Claude appeared coatless in the doorway, his head was thrown up
defiantly in apparent effort to treat Thor's entrance as unwarranted.
"What the devil are you doing here?"
Because of the semi-obscurity his face was white with a whiteness that
quickened Thor's sympathy into self-reproach.
"What are _you_ doing here?"
"That's my business." In making this reply Claude seemed to take it for
granted that they met on terms of hostility, though he added, less
aggressively: "If you want to know, I'm packing up. Taking the train for
New York at one o'clock to-night."
Thor endeavored to speak with casual fraternal interest. "What brought
you back?"
Claude took time to light a cigarette, saying, as he blew out the match,
"You."
"Me? I thought it might be--might be some one else."
"Then you thought wrong." He walked to a metal ash-tray which helped to
keep the covering that protected one of the low bookcases in its place,
and deposited the burnt match. He threw off with seeming carelessness as
he did so, "I know only one traitor, to make me keep returning on my
tracks."
Because the impulse to violence was so terrific, Thor braced himself
against it, standing with his feet planted apart and his hands clenched
behind him till the nails dug into the flesh. He could not, however,
restrain a scornful little grunt which was meant for laughter. "_You_
talk of traitors! I'd keep quiet about them, Claude, if I were you. You
make it too easy for an opponent."
"Oh, well," Claude returned, airily, "I'm used to doing that. I made it
infernally easy for an opponent--last winter. But, then, sneaking's
always easy to a snake, till you get your heel on him."
"And snarling's easy to a puppy, till you've throttled him."
"And bluster's easy to a fool, till you let him see you hold him in
contempt."
"As to holding in contempt, two can play at that game, Claude; and you
might find the competition dangerous."
Claude came nearer, the lighted cigarette between his fingers. "Not on
your life! That's one thing in which I'm not afraid to bet on myself."
He came nearer still, planting himself within a few paces of his
brother. His smile, his mirthless, dead-man's smile, held Thor's eyes as
it had held Lois's a day or two before. He made an effort to speak
jauntily. "Why, Thor, a volcano can't belch fire as fast as I can spit
contempt on you. There! Take that!"
With a rapid twist of the hand he threw the lighted cigarette into
Thor's face, where it struck with a little smarting burn below the eye.
Thor held himself in check by clenching his fists more tightly and
standing with bowed head. It was a minute or more before he was
sufficiently master of himself to loosen the grip with which his fingers
dug into one another, and put up his hand to brush the spot of ash from
his cheek. Being in so great fear of his passions, he felt the necessity
for speaking peaceably.
"What did you do that for, Claude? It's beastly silly."
"Oh no, it isn't--not the way I mean it."
"But why should you mean it that way? What have I ever done to you?"
"Good Lord! what haven't you done? You've--you've ruined me."
The charge was so unexpected that Thor looked more amazed than
indignant. "Ruined you?"
"Yes, ruined me. What else did you set out to do when you began your
confounded interference?"
"I didn't mean to interfere--"
Claude might have posed for some symbolical figure of accusation as,
with hands in his trousers pockets and classic profile turned in a
three-quarter light, he flung his words and directed his glances
obliquely and disdainfully at the brother who glowered with bent head.
"When you don't mean to go into a thing you keep out. That was your
place--out. Do you get that?--_out_. But you're never satisfied till
you've made as vile a mess of every one else's affairs as you've made of
your own."
Feeling some justice in the charge, Thor began to excuse himself. "If
I've made a mess of my own, Claude, it's because--"
"Because you can't help it. Oh, I know that. No one can be anything but
a damn fool if he's born one. All the more reason, then, why you should
keep away from where you're not wanted."
By a great effort Thor managed to speak meekly. "How could I keep away
when--?"
"When you're a rubber-neck bred in the bone. No, I suppose you couldn't.
But you hate a spy and a liar even when he can't be anything else; and
the worst of it is--"
"Oh, is there anything worse than that?"
"There's this that's worse, that your spying and your lying weren't bad
enough till you got me into a fix where I have to look like a cad,
when"--the protest in his soul against the rôle he was compelled to play
expressed itself in a little gasp--"when I'm--when I'm not one."
The elder brother found himself unable to resist the opportunity. "If
you look like a cad, I suppose it's because you've acted like a cad.
It's the usual reason."
"Oh, there's cad and cad. There's a fellow who gets snarled up in the
barbed wire because he runs into it, and there's another who
deliberately lays the trap for him. The one can afford to crawl away
with a grin on his face, while the other lies scratched and bleeding."
It seemed to Thor that there was an opening here for a timorous attempt
to cry quits. "If it comes to the question of suffering, Claude, it
isn't all on one side. You may be scratched and bleeding, as you say,
and yet you can get over it; whereas I'm lamed for life."
"Ah, don't come the hypocrite! If you're lamed for life, as I hope to
God you are, it's because you've got a bullet in the leg--which is what
any one hands out to a poacher."
The relatively gentle tone was again the effect of a surprise stimulated
to curiosity. "When was I ever a poacher?"
"You were a poacher when you went making love to a woman who belonged to
another man, while you belonged to another woman."
"Very well," Thor said, quietly, after a minute's thinking. "I accept
the explanation. But I never did it."
"Then you did something so infernally like it that to deny it is mere
quibbling with words."
"All the same, I insist on making the denial."
Claude shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not surprised at that. It's exactly
what your type of cur would do. Unfortunately for you, I've the proof."
"The proof of what?"
"Of your torturing a poor girl into saying she was willing to marry
you--and then throwing the words in her teeth."
It was from the flame in Thor's eyes that Claude leaped back a
half-pace, though he steadied himself against a small table covered up
from the accumulation of summer's dust by a piece of common calico.
Giving himself time enough to have deliberately counted twenty, Thor
subdued the impulse of the muscles as well as that of speech. "Who told
you that?" he asked, at last, in the tone he might have used of some
matter of no importance.
"Who do you think?"
"There's only one person who _could_ have told you--"
"Oh, you admit as much as that, do you? There is a person who could have
told me?"
"Yes, I admit as much as that--but you must have misunderstood her."
Thor's dignity and self-restraint were not without an effect that might
eventually have made for peace had not the brother's conscience been
screaming for a scapegoat on which to lay a portion of his sins. For him
alone the entire weight had become intolerable. Thor had been known to
accept such vicarious burdens before now. In the hope that he would do
so again, Claude answered, tauntingly:
"I didn't misunderstand her when she said you were making me a cat's-paw
to do what you wouldn't do yourself. What kind of stuff are you made of,
Thor? You go flaunting your money before a poor little girl who you know
can't resist it, and then, when you get her willing to do God knows
what, you push her off on me and want to pay me for the job of relieving
you of your dirty work. After you've dragged her in the dust she's still
considered good enough for me--"
"Stop!"
The roar of the monosyllable echoed through the empty house, while Thor
strode forward, the devil in him loose. With the skill of a toreador in
throwing his cloak into the eyes of an infuriated bull, Claude snatched
the calico strip from the table beside which he stood and flung it in
Thor's face. The result was to check the latter in his advance, giving
Claude time to dart nimbly to the other side of the room. As Thor stared
about him, dazed by his rage, he bore out still further the resemblance
to a maddened animal in the bull-ring.
Fear struggled in Claude's heart with the lust for retaliation. Like
Thor himself, he knew the minute to be one in which he could work off a
thousand unpaid scores that had been heaping themselves up since
childhood. For the time being it seemed as if he could not only make the
scapegoat bear his sins, but stab him to the heart while he did it.
"Stop?" he laughed, shrilly. "Like hell, I'll stop. Did you stop when
you went sneaking after Rosie Fay till you got her in a state where she
wanted to kill herself?" The red glare in Thor's eyes was an incentive
to going on. "Did you stop when you tried to father your beastly actions
off on me, and juggle me into marrying the girl you'd had enough of? Did
you stop when you fooled Lois Willoughby into thinking you a saint, and
breaking her heart when she found you out? Look at her now--"
With a smothered oath Thor charged as a wounded rhinoceros might
charge--in a lunge that would have borne his brother down by sheer force
of weight had not Claude eluded him lightly. Once more Thor shook
himself, stupefied by his passion, blinded by the blood in his eyes. He
needed an instant to place his victim, who, with white face and wild,
terrified glances, had found temporary shelter behind the barricade of
the heavy library table.
But before renewing his rush Thor marched to the door that led to the
hall, the only door to the room, locking it and pocketing the key. The
muttered, "By God, I'll have you now!" reached Claude's ears, bringing
to his lips a protest which had not burst into words before the huge
figure charged again. Behind his fortification Claude was alert, dancing
now this way and now that, as Thor brought his strength to bear on the
table to wrench it aside. But by the time that was done Claude was
already elsewhere, overturning tables and chairs in his flight.
Behind a sofa Claude intrenched himself again, a small chair raised
above his head as a weapon of defense. Thor sprang on the sofa, only to
receive the weight of the chair in his chest, staggering him backward
while Claude bounded off to another refuge. Both were cursing
inarticulately; both were panting in broken grunts and sobs; from both
the perspiration in that airless room and in the heat of the July night
was streaming as rain. The pursuit was like that of a leopard by a
lion--the one lithe, agile, and desperate; the other heavy, tremendous,
and sure.
In darting from point to point Claude found himself near a window, where
he fumbled with the fastening in the hope of throwing up the sash,
though wooden shutters defended the outside. Driven from this attempt,
he made for the locked door, pulling at it vainly on the chance that it
would yield. Seeing Thor bearing down on him with redoubled fury, he
obeyed the impulse of the moment and switched off the electricity as he
crept swiftly along the wall. In the darkness he stumbled to a corner,
where his labored breathing could not but betray his hiding-place. While
he crouched in the corner, making himself small, he knew Thor was
stalking him by the sound.
He was stalking him, and yet in the inky blackness of the room accurate
hunting down was difficult. It was like a duel between blind men. Thor
was moving uncertainly, pausing from second to second to fix the object
of his search.
In the mad hope of reaching the fireplace and creeping into the chimney,
Claude wriggled from his corner along the floor, keeping close to the
wainscot. As he did so he touched the legs of a footstool which
suggested its use at once. Controlling the thumping of his heart and the
pumping of his lungs as best he could, he got noiselessly to his feet.
Inch by inch, slinging the footstool by a leg, he moved toward the spot
from which Thor's panting breath seemed to proceed. If he could but
batter in that long skull he would be acquitted of responsibility on the
ground of self-defense. But he was afraid of anything that approached
the hand-to-hand. When it seemed to him that he could vaguely make out
the swaying of a figure in the darkness, he hurled the missile with all
his might--only to hear it crash into one of the covered pictures.
Claude was disappointed, and yet in the din of the shattering glass he
was able to escape again. He had lost all sense of direction. Even his
touch on the furniture didn't help him, since everything was now
displaced. Nevertheless, he continued to duck and dodge, to wriggle and
creep and elude. Once Thor's clutch was actually upon him, but he
managed to tear himself free with nothing worse than a long rent in his
shirt-sleeve. Again Thor seized him, but only to tear his collar from
the stud. A third time Thor's strong fingers were closing round his
throat, and yet after a momentary choking groan he had been able to slip
away. Never before had Claude supposed himself so strong. There was a
minute when he had felt Thor's hot breath snorting in his face, and
still was able to pick up a small, round table on which his mother
sometimes placed her tea-tray, sending it hurtling toward his pursuer,
checking him again. With a splutter of stifled oaths, Thor grasped the
piece of furniture, throwing it violently back. Claude rejoiced as it
crashed into a window and loosened the shutters outside. If he only knew
which of the windows it was, there might be a chance of his getting out
by it.
With this possibility before him he took heart again. The sound of the
breaking of the window enabling him to fix his whereabouts, he began
feeling his way toward the unexpected hope of exit. It became the more
urgent to reach it as he guessed by the fumbling of Thor's hands along
the wall that the latter was trying to find the electric button so as to
turn on the light. He groped, therefore, between the tables and
overturned chairs, getting as far from his enemy as possible. If only
his heart wouldn't pound as though about to burst from his body! If only
his breath wouldn't wheeze itself out with the gurgle of water through a
bottle-neck! He couldn't last much longer. He was so nearly spent that
if Thor kept up the attack he must wear him out. In the end he must let
those powerful hands close round his throat, as he had felt them close a
few minutes before, while he strangled without further resistance. He
felt oddly convinced that it would be by means of strangling that Thor's
quiet, awful tenacity of revenge would wreak itself.
* * * * *
During these horrible minutes Thor had the same conviction. All the
force of his excited nerves had seemed to be centering in his hands. If
he could only tear out that tongue which had hardly ever addressed him
except with a sneer since it had begun to lisp! Now that the amazing
opportunity was at hand, he wondered how he could have put it off so
long. That he should do the thing he was bent on might have been written
like a fate. It was like something he had always known, like something
toward which he had been always working. The tenderness with which he
had yearned over Claude ever since the days when they were children
seemed never to have had any other end in view.
So he stalked his prey while the minutes passed--five minutes--ten
minutes--perhaps more, perhaps less--he had lost all count of time. So
he stalked him--through the darkness, round and round, over tables and
chairs, into corners and out of them. The room was sealed; the house was
empty; the grounds were large. They might have been in some subterranean
vault. When the right moment came he would find the button by which to
turn on the light, and then....
Revulsion came from the fact that he had accidentally put his hand on
the button and lit up the spectacle of the room. At sight of it he could
have laughed. Nothing but the big library table and one of the heavy
arm-chairs stood on its legs. One of the windows had a gash like a grin
on its prim countenance, and one of the pictures sagged drunkenly from
its hook, a mere bag of gilded wood and glass. Cowering in a corner,
Claude was again arming himself with a chair. It was not his weapon, but
his whiteness, that stirred Thor to a pity almost hysterical. One of his
arms was bare where the shirt-sleeve had been torn from it; one side of
his collar sprang loose where it had been wrested from the stud; his
lips were parted in terror, his eyes starting from his head. The thing
Thor could have done more easily than anything else would have been to
fling himself down and weep.
As it was, he could only hold out his hands with a kind of shamed,
broken-hearted appeal, saving, "Claude, come here."
Though his trembling hands dropped the raised chair, Claude shrank more
desperately into his corner. When, to reassure him, Thor took a step
forward, Claude moved along the wall, with his back to that protection,
ready to spring and dodge again. If he understood Thor's advances, he
either mistrusted or rejected them.
"Don't be afraid," Thor tried to say, encouragingly, but after the
attacks of the past few minutes his voice sounded hollow and
unconvincing to himself.
In proportion as he went nearer Claude sidled away, always keeping his
back to the wall, with gasps that were like groans. He spoke but once.
"Open that door!" It was all he could articulate, but it implied a test
of the brother's sincerity.
Thor accepted it, striding to the threshold, turning the key
energetically, and flinging the door wide open. The quiet light burning
in the quiet hall produced something in the nature of a shock. He
stepped into the hall to wipe his brow and curse himself. He could never
win his own pardon for the madness of the past quarter of an hour.
Neither, probably, could he ever win Claude's, though he must go back
and make the attempt.
What happened as he turned again into the library he could never clearly
explain, for the reason that he never clearly knew. The minute remained
in his consciousness as one unrelated to the rest of life, with nothing
to lead up to it and nothing to follow after. Even the savagery of their
mutual onslaught had been no adequate preparation for what now took
place so rapidly that the mind was unable to record it. As he re-entered
the room Claude was standing by one of the low bookcases. So much
remained in the elder brother's memory as fact. The vision of Claude
raising his arm in a quick, vicious movement was a vision and no more,
since on Thor's part it was blurred and then effaced in a sharp, sudden
pain accompanied by a blinding light. Of his own act, which must have
followed so promptly as to be nearly simultaneous, Thor had no
recollection at all. By the time he was able to piece ideas together
Claude was senseless on the floor, while he was bending over him with
blood streaming down his face.
For the instant the brother was merged in the physician. To bring Claude
back to life after the blow that had stunned and felled him was
obviously the first thing to be done. Thor worked at the task madly,
tearing open the shirt, chafing the hands and the brow, feeling the
pulse, listening at the heart. Whether or not there was a response there
he couldn't tell; his own emotion was too overpowering. His fingers on
Claude's wrist shook as with a palsy; his ear at Claude's heart was
deafened by the pounding of his own. Meanwhile Claude lay limp and
still, dead-white, with eyes closed and mouth a little open. Thor had
seen many a man in a state of syncope, but never one who looked so much
like death. Was he dead? Could he be dead? Had the great oath been
fulfilled? He worked frantically. Never till that instant had he known
what terror was. Never had he beheld so clearly what was in his own
soul. As he worked he seemed to be looking in a mirror from which the
passion-ridden fratricide whom he had always recognized dimly within
himself was staring out. The physician disappeared again in the brother.
"O God! O God!" He could hear himself breathing the words. But of what
use were they? As he knelt and chafed and rubbed and listened they came
out because he couldn't keep them back. And he was accomplishing
nothing! Claude was as still and limp as ever. Not a breath!--not a
sign!--not a throb at the pulse!--and the minutes going by!
He dropped the poor arm that fell lifeless to the side, and threw back
his head with a groan. "O God--if you're anywhere!--give him back to
me!"
The broken utterance was the first prayer he had ever uttered in his
life, but, having said it, he went on with his work again. He went on
with new vigor and perhaps a little hope. He fancied he saw a change. It
was not much of a change--a little warmth, a little color, but no more
than might have been created by a fancy.
He ran for water to the nearest tap. In returning to the library his
foot struck something on the floor. It was the metal ash-tray which had
helped to keep the covering in place on one of the bookcases, and into
which Claude had thrown a match. The picture of a few minutes earlier
reformed itself--Claude standing just there, with the ash-tray under his
hand--the rapid motion of the arm--the paralyzing pain--the dazzling
light--and then the blow with which he must have hurled himself on
Claude, striking him to the floor. There was no time to coordinate these
memories now or to attend to the wound in his own forehead. The
explanation came of its own accord as he touched the ash-tray with his
foot while dashing back to Claude's side.
The change continued. There were positive signs of life. The mouth had
closed; there was the faintest possible quiver of the lids. When he
threw a little water into Claude's face there was a twitching of the
muscles and a slight protesting movement of the hand.
"Thank God!"
He couldn't note the involuntary expression of his gratitude, which had
nevertheless been audible. Claude had need of air. Taking him in his
arms, he lifted him like a baby and staggered to his feet. The body hung
loosely over his shoulder as he crossed the room and laid it on the
sofa. The broken window served its purpose now, for a little air was
coming in by it through the spot where the wooden shutter had given way.
Thor succeeded in forcing the shutter altogether, letting the light
summer breeze play into the marble face.
If he only had a little brandy! He summed up hurriedly the possibilities
in the house, coming to the conclusion that nothing of the sort would
have been left within reach. Even the telephone had been disconnected
for the summer. It would be, however, an easy thing to run to his
office. It would be easier still to run to his house, which was nearer.
Claude was breathing freely now. He could be safely left for the few
minutes which was all he needed to be away. With a simple restorative
the boy would soon be on his feet again.
He pushed the sofa closer to the open window, kneeling once more beside
it. Yes, the danger was past. "Thank God! Thank God!" The words were
audible again. It was deliverance. It was salvation. There was a
positive tinge of color in the cheeks; the eyes opened wearily and
closed again. Thor seized the two cold hands in his own and spoke:
"It's all right, old chap. Just lie still for a minute, till I go and
get you a taste of brandy. Be back like a shot. Don't move. You'll be
all right. Fit as a fiddle when you've had something to brace you up."
No answer came, but Thor sought for none. The worst was past; the danger
was averted. With the two cold hands still pressed in his own, he bent
forward and kissed the pale lips with a life-giving kiss such as Elijah
gave to the Shunamite woman's son. Under the warmth of the imprint
Claude stirred again as if making a response.
He ran pantingly like a spent dog--but he ran. He had no idea what time
it was. It might have been midnight; it might have been near morning. He
was amazed to hear the village clock strike ten. Only ten! and he had
lived a lifetime since nine.
He rejoiced to see a light in the house. Lois would be up. As he drew
near he saw it was the light streaming from her room to the upper
balcony outside it. When nearer still he caught the faint glimmer of a
white dress. She was sitting there in the cool of the night, as they had
so often sat together in the spring.
He called out as soon as he thought he could make her hear him. "Lois,
come down!"
The white figure remained motionless, so that as he ran he called again,
"Lois, come down!"
He could see her rise and peer outward. Still running, he called the
third time: "Lois, come down! I want something!"
There was a hurried "Oh, Thor, is it you?" after which the figure
disappeared in the light from the open window.
She met him at the door as he ran up the steps. There was no greeting
between them. He had just breath enough to speak. "It's Claude. He's
down there in the house. He's hurt. I want some brandy."
He was in the hall by this time, while she followed. His own appearance,
now that he was in the light, drew a cry from her. "But, Thor, you're
all cut--and bleeding."
He was now in the dining-room, fumbling at a drawer of the sideboard.
"Never mind that now. It doesn't hurt. I'll attend to it by and by. I
must get back to Claude. Is it here?"
"No; here." She produced the bottle of cognac from a cupboard, thrusting
it into his hands. "Now come. I'm going with you."
They stopped for no further explanation. That could wait. Thor was out
of the house, tearing down the empty street, while she followed scarcely
less swiftly. At that time of night they were almost sure to have the
roadway to themselves.
She lost sight of him as he turned in at the avenue, but continued to
press on. That there had been a struggle between the brothers she could
guess, though she let the matter pass without further mental comment.
The fact that filled her consciousness was that in some strange way Thor
was back--wild-eyed and bleeding. Whatever had happened, he would
probably need her now, accepting the substitute for love.
Half-way up the avenue she saw that both the inner and outer doors of
the house were open and that the electricity from the hall lit up the
porch and steps. Thor was still running, but at the foot of the steps he
surprised her by coming to a halt instead of leaping up them, two or
three at a time. Stopping abruptly, silhouetted in the spot of light, he
threw his hands above his head as if he had been shot and were
staggering backward. He hadn't been shot, because there was no sound. He
hadn't even been wounded, because as she sped toward him she could see
him stoop--spring away--return--and stoop again. She was about to call
out, "Oh, Thor, what is it?" when, on hearing her footsteps, he bounded
to his feet and ran in her direction. "Go back!" he cried, hoarsely. "Go
back! Go back, Lois, go back!"
But she hurried on. If there was trouble or danger she must be by his
side.
He wheeled around again to that over which he had been stooping, but
with a repetition of the movement of flinging up the hands. After that
he seemed to crawl away--to crawl away till he reached the steps, where,
pulling himself half-way up, he lay with his face hidden. The thing he
had seen was something fatal and final, leaving no more to be done. The
thought came to her that if there was no more for him to do, it was
probable that her work was just beginning and that she must keep herself
calm and strong.
She came to him at last and bent over his long, prostrate form. It was
racked and heaving. The sobbing was of a kind she had never heard
before--the violent, convulsive sobbing of a man.
Raising herself, she looked about for the cause of this grief, for a
second or two seeing nothing. The respite enabled her to renew her sense
of the necessity laid upon her to be helpful. Whatever was there, she
must neither flinch nor cry out. She must take up the task where he had
been forced to lay it down.
It was a bare arm from which the shirt-sleeve had been torn away that
caught her attention first--a bare arm with a spatter of blood on it. It
lay extended along the grass just beside the driveway. She was obliged
to take a step or two toward it before seeing that it was Claude's arm,
and that he himself was lying on the sward of the lawn, with a little
trickle of blood from his heart.
She was not frightened. She was not even appalled. She understood as
readily what she ought to do as if the accident had been part of every
day's routine. But as her glance went first to the dead brother and then
to the living one she knew that her substitute for love had been found.