ears quite close to them in order to hear.
"Hold my hand," he said.
Mackintosh gave a gasp. His heart seemed wrenched. He took the old man's
hand, so cold and weak, a coarse, rough hand, and held it in his own.
And thus he sat until he nearly started out of his seat, for the silence
was suddenly broken by a long rattle. It was terrible and unearthly.
Walker was dead. Then the natives broke out with loud cries. The tears
ran down their faces, and they beat their breasts.
Mackintosh disengaged his hand from the dead man's, and staggering like
one drunk with sleep he went out of the room. He went to the locked
drawer in his writing-desk and took out the revolver. He walked down to
the sea and walked into the lagoon; he waded out cautiously, so that he
should not trip against a coral rock, till the water came to his
arm-pits. Then he put a bullet through his head.
An hour later half a dozen slim brown sharks were splashing and
struggling at the spot where he fell.
III
_The Fall of Edward Barnard_
Bateman Hunter slept badly. For a fortnight on the boat that brought him
from Tahiti to San Francisco he had been thinking of the story he had to
tell, and for three days on the train he had repeated to himself the
words in which he meant to tell it. But in a few hours now he would be
in Chicago, and doubts assailed him. His conscience, always very
sensitive, was not at ease. He was uncertain that he had done all that
was possible, it was on his honour to do much more than the possible,
and the thought was disturbing that, in a matter which so nearly touched
his own interest, he had allowed his interest to prevail over his
quixotry. Self-sacrifice appealed so keenly to his imagination that the
inability to exercise it gave him a sense of disillusion. He was like
the philanthropist who with altruistic motives builds model dwellings
for the poor and finds that he has made a lucrative investment. He
cannot prevent the satisfaction he feels in the ten per cent which
rewards the bread he had cast upon the waters, but he has an awkward
feeling that it detracts somewhat from the savour of his virtue. Bateman
Hunter knew that his heart was pure, but he was not quite sure how
steadfastly, when he told her his story, he would endure the scrutiny
of Isabel Longstaffe's cool grey eyes. They were far-seeing and wise.
She measured the standards of others by her own meticulous uprightness
and there could be no greater censure than the cold silence with which
she expressed her disapproval of a conduct that did not satisfy her
exacting code. There was no appeal from her judgment, for, having made
up her mind, she never changed it. But Bateman would not have had her
different. He loved not only the beauty of her person, slim and
straight, with the proud carriage of her head, but still more the beauty
of her soul. With her truthfulness, her rigid sense of honour, her
fearless outlook, she seemed to him to collect in herself all that was
most admirable in his countrywomen. But he saw in her something more
than the perfect type of the American girl, he felt that her
exquisiteness was peculiar in a way to her environment, and he was
assured that no city in the world could have produced her but Chicago. A
pang seized him when he remembered that he must deal so bitter a blow to
her pride, and anger flamed up in his heart when he thought of Edward
Barnard.
But at last the train steamed in to Chicago and he exulted when he saw
the long streets of grey houses. He could hardly bear his impatience at
the thought of State and Wabash with their crowded pavements, their
hustling traffic, and their noise. He was at home. And he was glad that
he had been born in the most important city in the United States. San
Francisco was provincial, New York was effete; the future of America
lay in the development of its economic possibilities, and Chicago, by
its position and by the energy of its citizens, was destined to become
the real capital of the country.
"I guess I shall live long enough to see it the biggest city in the
world," Bateman said to himself as he stepped down to the platform.
His father had come to meet him, and after a hearty handshake, the pair
of them, tall, slender, and well-made, with the same fine, ascetic
features and thin lips, walked out of the station. Mr Hunter's
automobile was waiting for them and they got in. Mr Hunter caught his
son's proud and happy glance as he looked at the street.
"Glad to be back, son?" he asked.
"I should just think I was," said Bateman.
His eyes devoured the restless scene.
"I guess there's a bit more traffic here than in your South Sea island,"
laughed Mr Hunter. "Did you like it there?"
"Give me Chicago, dad," answered Bateman.
"You haven't brought Edward Barnard back with you."
"No."
"How was he?"
Bateman was silent for a moment, and his handsome, sensitive face
darkened.
"I'd sooner not speak about him, dad," he said at last.
"That's all right, my son. I guess your mother will be a happy woman
to-day."
They passed out of the crowded streets in the Loop and drove along the
lake till they came to the imposing house, an exact copy of a château on
the Loire, which Mr Hunter had built himself some years before. As soon
as Bateman was alone in his room he asked for a number on the telephone.
His heart leaped when he heard the voice that answered him.
"Good-morning, Isabel," he said gaily.
"Good-morning, Bateman."
"How did you recognise my voice?"
"It is not so long since I heard it last. Besides, I was expecting you."
"When may I see you?"
"Unless you have anything better to do perhaps you'll dine with us
to-night."
"You know very well that I couldn't possibly have anything better to
do."
"I suppose that you're full of news?"
He thought he detected in her voice a note of apprehension.
"Yes," he answered.
"Well, you must tell me to-night. Good-bye."
She rang off. It was characteristic of her that she should be able to
wait so many unnecessary hours to know what so immensely concerned her.
To Bateman there was an admirable fortitude in her restraint.
At dinner, at which beside himself and Isabel no one was present but her
father and mother, he watched her guide the conversation into the
channels of an urbane small-talk, and it occurred to him that in just
such a manner would a marquise under the shadow of the guillotine toy
with the affairs of a day that would know no morrow. Her delicate
features, the aristocratic shortness of her upper lip, and her wealth of
fair hair suggested the marquise again, and it must have been obvious,
even if it were not notorious, that in her veins flowed the best blood
in Chicago. The dining-room was a fitting frame to her fragile beauty,
for Isabel had caused the house, a replica of a palace on the Grand
Canal at Venice, to be furnished by an English expert in the style of
Louis XV; and the graceful decoration linked with the name of that
amorous monarch enhanced her loveliness and at the same time acquired
from it a more profound significance. For Isabel's mind was richly
stored, and her conversation, however light, was never flippant. She
spoke now of the _Musicale_ to which she and her mother had been in the
afternoon, of the lectures which an English poet was giving at the
Auditorium, of the political situation, and of the Old Master which her
father had recently bought for fifty thousand dollars in New York. It
comforted Bateman to hear her. He felt that he was once more in the
civilised world, at the centre of culture and distinction; and certain
voices, troubling and yet against his will refusing to still their
clamour, were at last silent in his heart.
"Gee, but it's good to be back in Chicago," he said.
At last dinner was over, and when they went out of the dining-room
Isabel said to her mother:
"I'm going to take Bateman along to my den. We have various things to
talk about."
"Very well, my dear," said Mrs Longstaffe. "You'll find your father and
me in the Madame du Barry room when you're through."
Isabel led the young man upstairs and showed him into the room of which
he had so many charming memories. Though he knew it so well he could not
repress the exclamation of delight which it always wrung from him. She
looked round with a smile.
"I think it's a success," she said. "The main thing is that it's right.
There's not even an ashtray that isn't of the period."
"I suppose that's what makes it so wonderful. Like all you do it's so
superlatively right."
They sat down in front of a log fire and Isabel looked at him with calm
grave eyes.
"Now what have you to say to me?" she asked.
"I hardly know how to begin."
"Is Edward Barnard coming back?"
"No."
There was a long silence before Bateman spoke again, and with each of
them it was filled with many thoughts. It was a difficult story he had
to tell, for there were things in it which were so offensive to her
sensitive ears that he could not bear to tell them, and yet in justice
to her, no less than in justice to himself, he must tell her the whole
truth.
It had all begun long ago when he and Edward Barnard, still at college,
had met Isabel Longstaffe at the tea-party given to introduce her to
society. They had both known her when she was a child and they
long-legged boys, but for two years she had been in Europe to finish her
education and it was with a surprised delight that they renewed
acquaintance with the lovely girl who returned. Both of them fell
desperately in love with her, but Bateman saw quickly that she had eyes
only for Edward, and, devoted to his friend, he resigned himself to the
role of confidant. He passed bitter moments, but he could not deny that
Edward was worthy of his good fortune, and, anxious that nothing should
impair the friendship he so greatly valued, he took care never by a hint
to disclose his own feelings. In six months the young couple were
engaged. But they were very young and Isabel's father decided that they
should not marry at least till Edward graduated. They had to wait a
year. Bateman remembered the winter at the end of which Isabel and
Edward were to be married, a winter of dances and theatre-parties and of
informal gaieties at which he, the constant third, was always present.
He loved her no less because she would shortly be his friend's wife; her
smile, a gay word she flung him, the confidence of her affection, never
ceased to delight him; and he congratulated himself, somewhat
complacently, because he did not envy them their happiness. Then an
accident happened. A great bank failed, there was a panic on the
exchange, and Edward Barnard's father found himself a ruined man. He
came home one night, told his wife that he was penniless, and after
dinner, going into his study, shot himself.
A week later, Edward Barnard, with a tired, white face, went to Isabel
and asked her to release him. Her only answer was to throw her arms
round his neck and burst into tears.
"Don't make it harder for me, sweet," he said.
"Do you think I can let you go now? I love you."
"How can I ask you to marry me? The whole thing's hopeless. Your father
would never let you. I haven't a cent."
"What do I care? I love you."
He told her his plans. He had to earn money at once, and George
Braunschmidt, an old friend of his family, had offered to take him into
his own business. He was a South Sea merchant, and he had agencies in
many of the islands of the Pacific. He had suggested that Edward should
go to Tahiti for a year or two, where under the best of his managers he
could learn the details of that varied trade, and at the end of that
time he promised the young man a position in Chicago. It was a wonderful
opportunity, and when he had finished his explanations Isabel was once
more all smiles.
"You foolish boy, why have you been trying to make me miserable?"
His face lit up at her words and his eyes flashed.
"Isabel, you don't mean to say you'll wait for me?"
"Don't you think you're worth it?" she smiled.
"Ah, don't laugh at me now. I beseech you to be serious. It may be for
two years."
"Have no fear. I love you, Edward. When you come back I will marry
you."
Edward's employer was a man who did not like delay and he had told him
that if he took the post he offered he must sail that day week from San
Francisco. Edward spent his last evening with Isabel. It was after
dinner that Mr Longstaffe, saying he wanted a word with Edward, took him
into the smoking-room. Mr Longstaffe had accepted good-naturedly the
arrangement which his daughter had told him of and Edward could not
imagine what mysterious communication he had now to make. He was not a
little perplexed to see that his host was embarrassed. He faltered. He
talked of trivial things. At last he blurted it out.
"I guess you've heard of Arnold Jackson," he said, looking at Edward
with a frown.
Edward hesitated. His natural truthfulness obliged him to admit a
knowledge he would gladly have been able to deny.
"Yes, I have. But it's a long time ago. I guess I didn't pay very much
attention."
"There are not many people in Chicago who haven't heard of Arnold
Jackson," said Mr Longstaffe bitterly, "and if there are they'll have no
difficulty in finding someone who'll be glad to tell them. Did you know
he was Mrs Longstaffe's brother?"
"Yes, I knew that."
"Of course we've had no communication with him for many years. He left
the country as soon as he was able to, and I guess the country wasn't
sorry to see the last of him. We understand he lives in Tahiti. My
advice to you is to give him a wide berth, but if you do hear anything
about him Mrs Longstaffe and I would be very glad if you'd let us know."
"Sure."
"That was all I wanted to say to you. Now I daresay you'd like to join
the ladies."
There are few families that have not among their members one whom, if
their neighbours permitted, they would willingly forget, and they are
fortunate when the lapse of a generation or two has invested his
vagaries with a romantic glamour. But when he is actually alive, if his
peculiarities are not of the kind that can be condoned by the phrase,
"he is nobody's enemy but his own," a safe one when the culprit has no
worse to answer for than alcoholism or wandering affections, the only
possible course is silence. And it was this which the Longstaffes had
adopted towards Arnold Jackson. They never talked of him. They would not
even pass through the street in which he had lived. Too kind to make his
wife and children suffer for his misdeeds, they had supported them for
years, but on the understanding that they should live in Europe. They
did everything they could to blot out all recollection of Arnold Jackson
and yet were conscious that the story was as fresh in the public mind as
when first the scandal burst upon a gaping world. Arnold Jackson was as
black a sheep as any family could suffer from. A wealthy banker,
prominent in his church, a philanthropist, a man respected by all, not
only for his connections (in his veins ran the blue blood of Chicago),
but also for his upright character, he was arrested one day on a charge
of fraud; and the dishonesty which the trial brought to light was not of
the sort which could be explained by a sudden temptation; it was
deliberate and systematic. Arnold Jackson was a rogue. When he was sent
to the penitentiary for seven years there were few who did not think he
had escaped lightly.
When at the end of this last evening the lovers separated it was with
many protestations of devotion. Isabel, all tears, was consoled a little
by her certainty of Edward's passionate love. It was a strange feeling
that she had. It made her wretched to part from him and yet she was
happy because he adored her.
This was more than two years ago.
He had written to her by every mail since then, twenty-four letters in
all, for the mail went but once a month, and his letters had been all
that a lover's letters should be. They were intimate and charming,
humorous sometimes, especially of late, and tender. At first they
suggested that he was homesick, they were full of his desire to get back
to Chicago and Isabel; and, a little anxiously, she wrote begging him to
persevere. She was afraid that he might throw up his opportunity and
come racing back. She did not want her lover to lack endurance and she
quoted to him the lines:
_"I could not love thee, dear, so much,_
_Loved I not honour more."_
But presently he seemed to settle down and it made Isabel very happy to
observe his growing enthusiasm to introduce American methods into that
forgotten corner of the world. But she knew him, and at the end of the
year, which was the shortest time he could possibly stay in Tahiti, she
expected to have to use all her influence to dissuade him from coming
home. It was much better that he should learn the business thoroughly,
and if they had been able to wait a year there seemed no reason why they
should not wait another. She talked it over with Bateman Hunter, always
the most generous of friends (during those first few days after Edward
went she did not know what she would have done without him), and they
decided that Edward's future must stand before everything. It was with
relief that she found as the time passed that he made no suggestion of
returning.
"He's splendid, isn't he?" she exclaimed to Bateman.
"He's white, through and through."
"Reading between the lines of his letter I know he hates it over there,
but he's sticking it out because...."
She blushed a little and Bateman, with the grave smile which was so
attractive in him, finished the sentence for her.
"Because he loves you."
"It makes me feel so humble," she said.
"You're wonderful, Isabel, you're perfectly wonderful."
But the second year passed and every month Isabel continued to receive a
letter from Edward, and presently it began to seem a little strange
that he did not speak of coming back. He wrote as though he were
settled definitely in Tahiti, and what was more, comfortably settled.
She was surprised. Then she read his letters again, all of them, several
times; and now, reading between the lines indeed, she was puzzled to
notice a change which had escaped her. The later letters were as tender
and as delightful as the first, but the tone was different. She was
vaguely suspicious of their humour, she had the instinctive mistrust of
her sex for that unaccountable quality, and she discerned in them now a
flippancy which perplexed her. She was not quite certain that the Edward
who wrote to her now was the same Edward that she had known. One
afternoon, the day after a mail had arrived from Tahiti, when she was
driving with Bateman he said to her:
"Did Edward tell you when he was sailing?"
"No, he didn't mention it. I thought he might have said something to you
about it."
"Not a word."
"You know what Edward is," she laughed in reply, "he has no sense of
time. If it occurs to you next time you write you might ask him when
he's thinking of coming."
Her manner was so unconcerned that only Bateman's acute sensitiveness
could have discerned in her request a very urgent desire. He laughed
lightly.
"Yes. I'll ask him. I can't imagine what he's thinking about."
A few days later, meeting him again, she noticed that something troubled
him. They had been much together since Edward left Chicago; they were
both devoted to him and each in his desire to talk of the absent one
found a willing listener; the consequence was that Isabel knew every
expression of Bateman's face, and his denials now were useless against
her keen instinct. Something told her that his harassed look had to do
with Edward and she did not rest till she had made him confess.
"The fact is," he said at last, "I heard in a round-about way that
Edward was no longer working for Braunschmidt and Co., and yesterday I
took the opportunity to ask Mr Braunschmidt himself."
"Well?"
"Edward left his employment with them nearly a year ago."
"How strange he should have said nothing about it!"
Bateman hesitated, but he had gone so far now that he was obliged to
tell the rest. It made him feel dreadfully embarrassed.
"He was fired."
"In heaven's name what for?"
"It appears they warned him once or twice, and at last they told him to
get out. They say he was lazy and incompetent."
"Edward?"
They were silent for a while, and then he saw that Isabel was crying.
Instinctively he seized her hand.
"Oh, my dear, don't, don't," he said. "I can't bear to see it."
She was so unstrung that she let her hand rest in his. He tried to
console her.
"It's incomprehensible, isn't it? It's so unlike Edward. I can't help
feeling there must be some mistake."
She did not say anything for a while, and when she spoke it was
hesitatingly.
"Has it struck you that there was anything queer in his letters lately?"
she asked, looking away, her eyes all bright with tears.
He did not quite know how to answer.
"I have noticed a change in them," he admitted. "He seems to have lost
that high seriousness which I admired so much in him. One would almost
think that the things that matter--well, don't matter."
Isabel did not reply. She was vaguely uneasy.
"Perhaps in his answer to your letter he'll say when he's coming home.
All we can do is to wait for that."
Another letter came from Edward for each of them, and still he made no
mention of his return; but when he wrote he could not have received
Bateman's enquiry. The next mail would bring them an answer to that. The
next mail came, and Bateman brought Isabel the letter he had just
received; but the first glance of his face was enough to tell her that
he was disconcerted. She read it through carefully and then, with
slightly tightened lips, read it again.
"It's a very strange letter," she said. "I don't quite understand it."
"One might almost think that he was joshing me," said Bateman, flushing.
"It reads like that, but it must be unintentional. That's so unlike
Edward."
"He says nothing about coming back."
"If I weren't so confident of his love I should think.... I hardly know
what I should think."
It was then that Bateman had broached the scheme which during the
afternoon had formed itself in his brain. The firm, founded by his
father, in which he was now a partner, a firm which manufactured all
manner of motor vehicles, was about to establish agencies in Honolulu,
Sidney, and Wellington; and Bateman proposed that himself should go
instead of the manager who had been suggested. He could return by
Tahiti; in fact, travelling from Wellington, it was inevitable to do so;
and he could see Edward.
"There's some mystery and I'm going to clear it up. That's the only way
to do it."
"Oh, Bateman, how can you be so good and kind?" she exclaimed.
"You know there's nothing in the world I want more than your happiness,
Isabel."
She looked at him and she gave him her hands.
"You're wonderful, Bateman. I didn't know there was anyone in the world
like you. How can I ever thank you?"
"I don't want your thanks. I only want to be allowed to help you."
She dropped her eyes and flushed a little. She was so used to him that
she had forgotten how handsome he was. He was as tall as Edward
and as well made, but he was dark and pale of face, while Edward was
ruddy. Of course she knew he loved her. It touched her. She felt very
tenderly towards him.
It was from this journey that Bateman Hunter was now returned.
The business part of it took him somewhat longer than he expected and he
had much time to think of his two friends. He had come to the conclusion
that it could be nothing serious that prevented Edward from coming home,
a pride, perhaps, which made him determined to make good before he
claimed the bride he adored; but it was a pride that must be reasoned
with. Isabel was unhappy. Edward must come back to Chicago with him and
marry her at once. A position could be found for him in the works of the
Hunter Motor Traction and Automobile Company. Bateman, with a bleeding
heart, exulted at the prospect of giving happiness to the two persons he
loved best in the world at the cost of his own. He would never marry. He
would be godfather to the children of Edward and Isabel, and many years
later when they were both dead he would tell Isabel's daughter how long,
long ago he had loved her mother. Bateman's eyes were veiled with tears
when he pictured this scene to himself.