OUT OF THE NIGHT
It was very late that night, and the sea-mist had turned to a drifting
rain when the squire sitting reading in his library at the Court was
startled by a sudden tapping upon the window behind him.
So unexpected was the sound in the absolute stillness that he started
with some violence and nearly knocked over the reading-lamp at his elbow.
Then sharply and frowning he arose. He reached the window and fumbled at
the blind; but failing to find the cord dragged it impatiently aside and
peered through the glass.
"Who is it? What do you want?"
A face he knew, but so drawn and deathly that for the moment it seemed
almost unfamiliar, peered back at him. In a second he had the window
unfastened and flung wide.
"Dick! In heaven's name, boy,--what's the matter?"
Dick was over the sill in a single bound. He stood up and faced the
squire, bare-headed, drenched with rain, his eyes burning with a
terrible fire.
"I have come for my wife," he said.
"Your wife! Juliet!" The squire stared at him as if he thought him
demented. "Why, she left ages ago, man,--soon after tea!"
"Yes, yes, I know," Dick said. He spoke rapidly, but with decision. "But
she came back here an hour or two ago. You are giving her shelter.
Saltash brought her--or no--she probably came alone."
"You are mad!" said Fielding, and turned to shut the window. "She hasn't
been near since she left this evening."
"Wait!" Dick's hand shot out and caught his arm, restraining him. "Do you
swear to me that you don't know where she is?"
The squire stood still, looking full and hard into the face so near his
own; and so looking, he realized, what he had not grasped before, that it
was the face of a man in torture. The savage grip on his arm told the
same story. The fiery eyes that stared at him out of the death-white
countenance had the awful look of a man who sees his last hope shattered.
Impulsively he laid his free hand upon him. "Dick--Dick, old
chap,--what's all this? Of course I don't know where she is! Do you think
I'd lie to you?"
"Then I've lost her!" Dick said, and with the words some inner vital
spring seemed to snap within him. He flung up; his arms, freeing himself
with a wild gesture. "My God, she has gone--gone with that scoundrel!"
"Saltash?" said the squire sharply.
"Yes. Saltash!" He ground the name between his teeth. "Does that surprise
you so very much? Don't you know the sort of infernal blackguard he is?"
The squire turned again to shut the window. "Damn it, Dick! I don't
believe a word of it," he said with vigour. "Get your wind and have a
drink, and let's hear the whole story! Have you and Juliet been
quarrelling?"
Dick ignored his words as if he had not spoken. "You needn't shut the
window," he said. "I'm going again. I'm going now."
It was the squire's turn to assert himself, and he seized it. He shut the
window with a bang. "You are not, Dick! Don't be a fool! Sit down! Do
you hear? Sit down! You're not going yet--not till you've told me the
whole trouble. So you can make up your mind to that!"
Dick looked at him for a moment as if he were on the verge of fierce
resistance, but Fielding's answering look held such unmistakable
resolution that after the briefest pause he turned aside.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said, and tramped heavily across to the hearth. "Put
up with me if you can! God knows I'm up against it hard enough to-night."
He rested his arms on the mantelpiece and laid his head down upon them,
and so stood motionless, in utter silence.
The squire came to him in a few seconds with a glass in his hand. "Here
you are, Dick! This is what you're wanting. Swallow it before you talk
any more!"
Dick reached out in silence and took the glass. Then he stood up and
drank, keeping his face averted.
Fielding waited till at last, without turning, he spoke. "I've always
known it might come to this, but I never realized why. I suppose anyone
but a blind fool would have seen through it long ago."
"What are you talking about?" said the squire. "I'm utterly in the dark,
remember."
Dick's hands were clenched. "I'm talking of Juliet and--Saltash. I've
always known there was some sort of understanding between them. He
flaunted it in my face whenever we met. But I trusted her--I trusted
her." The words were like a muffled cry rising from the depths of the
man's wrung soul.
"Sit down!" said the squire gruffly, and taking him by the shoulders
pushed him into the chair from which he himself had so lately risen.
Dick yielded, with the submission of utter despair, his black head bowed
against the table.
Fielding stooped over him, still holding him. "Now, boy, now! Don't let
yourself go! Tell me--try and tell me!"
Dick drew a hard breath. "You'll think I'm mad, sir. I thought I was
myself at first. But it's true--it must be true. I heard it from her own
lips. Juliet--my wife--my wife--is--was--Lady Joanna Farringmore!"
"Great heavens!" said the squire. "Dick, are you sure?"
"Yes, quite sure. She was caught--caught by Yardley at the meeting
to-night. She couldn't escape--so she told the truth--told the whole
crowd--and then bolted--bolted with Saltash."
"Great heavens!" said the squire again. "But--what was Saltash
doing there?"
"Oh, he came to protect her. He knew--or guessed--there was something
in the wind. He came to support her. I know now. He's the subtlest devil
that ever was made."
"But why on earth--why on earth did she ever come here?"
questioned Fielding.
"She was hiding from Yardley of course. He's a cold vindictive brute,
and I suppose--I suppose she was afraid of him, and came to me--came to
me--for refuge." Dick was speaking through his hands. "That's how he
regards it himself. She was always playing fast and loose till she got
engaged to him. It was just the fashion in that set. But he--I imagine
no one ever played with him before. He swears--swears he'll make her
suffer for it yet."
"Pooh!" said Fielding. "How does he propose to do that? She's your
wife anyhow."
"My wife--yes." Slowly Dick raised his head, stared for a space in front
of him, then grimly rose. "My wife--as you say, sir. And I am going to
find her--now."
"I'm coming with you," said Fielding.
"No, sir, no!" Dick looked at him with a tight-lipped smile that was
somehow terrible. "Don't do that! You won't want to be--a witness
against me."
"Pooh!" said the squire again. "I may be of use to you before it comes to
that. But before we start let me tell you one thing, Dick! She married
you because she loved you--for no other reason."
A sharp spasm contracted Dick's hard features; he set his lips and
said nothing.
"That's the truth," the squire proceeded, watching him. "And you know it.
She might have bolted with Saltash before if she had wanted to. She had
ample opportunity."
Dick's hands clenched at his sides, but still he said nothing.
"She loved you," the squire said again. "Lady Jo--or no Lady Jo--she
loved you. It wasn't make-believe. She was fairly caught--against her
will possibly--but still caught. She's run away from you now--run away
with another man--because she couldn't stay and face you. Is that
convincing proof, do you think, that she has ceased to love you? It
wouldn't convince me."
Dick's clenched hands were beating impotently against his sides.
"I--can't say, sir," he said, between his set teeth.
The squire moved impulsively, laid a hand on his shoulder. "Dick, I've
seen a good deal--suffered a good deal--in my time; enough to know the
real thing when I see it. She's loved you as long as she's known you,
and it's been the same with you. You're not going to deny that? You
can't deny it!"
Dick made a quick gesture of protest. For a moment the tortured soul
of the man looked out of his eyes. "Does that make it any better?" he
said harshly.
"In my opinion, yes." Fielding spoke with decision. "She may have taken
refuge with Saltash, but that doesn't prove anything--except that the
poor girl had no one else to turn to. You had failed her--or anyhow you
didn't offer to stand by."
"I couldn't!" The words came jerkily, as if wrung from him by main
force. "For one thing--the men were out of hand, and it was as much as
I could do to hold them. She told them, I tell you--stood up and told
them straight out--who she was. And they loathe the whole crowd. It
was madness."
"Pretty sublime madness!" commented the squire. "And then Saltash took
her away. Was that it?"
"Yes." Dick spoke with intense bitterness. "It was the chance he was
waiting for. Of course he seized it. Any blackguard would."
"But you thought she might have come here?" pursued the squire.
"I thought it possible, yes. I told Yardley it was so. He of course
sneered at the bare idea. I nearly choked him for it. But I might have
known he was right. She wouldn't risk--my following her. She wanted to
be--free."
"Why? Is she afraid of you then?" Fielding's voice was stern.
Dick threw up his head with the action of a goaded animal. "Yes."
"Then you've given her some reason?"
"Yes. I have given her reason!" Fiercely he flung the words. "You want to
know--you shall know! This evening she found out something about me which
even you don't know yet--something that made her hate me. I was going to
tell her some day, but the time hadn't come. She said if she had known of
it she would never have married me. I didn't realize then--how could
I?--how hard it hit her. And I made her understand that having married
me--it was irrevocable. That was why she ran away with Saltash. She
didn't--trust me--any longer."
"But, my good fellow, what in heaven's name is this awful thing that even
I don't know?" demanded the squire. "Don't tell me there has ever been
any damn trouble with another woman!"
"No--no!" Dick broke into a laugh that was inexpressibly painful to hear.
"There has never been any other woman for me. What do I care for women?
Do you think because I've made a blasted fool of myself over one woman
that I--"
"Shut up, Dick!" Curtly the squire checked him. "You're not to say
it--even to me. Tell me this other thing about yourself--the thing I
don't know!"
"Oh, that! That's nothing, sir, nothing--at least you won't think it so.
It's only that during the past few years some books have been published
by one named Dene Strange that have attracted attention in certain
quarters."
"I've read 'em all," said the squire. "Well?"
"I wrote them," said Dick; "that's all."
"You!" Fielding stared. "You, Dick!"
"Yes, I. I meant to have told you, but so long as my boy lived, my job
seemed to be here, so I kept it to myself. And then--when she came--she
told me she hated the man who wrote those books for being cynical--and
merciless. So I wrote another to make her change her mind about me before
she knew. It is only just published. And she found out before she read
it. That's all," Dick said again with the shadow of a smile. "She found
out this evening. It was a shock to her--naturally. It's been a
succession of obstacles all through--a perpetual struggle against odds.
Well, it's over. At least we know what we're up against now. There will
be no more illusions of any sort from to-day on." He paused, stood a
moment as if bracing himself, then turned. "Well, I'm going, sir. Come if
you really must, but--I don't advise it."
"I am coming," said the squire briefly. His hand went from Dick's
shoulder to his arm and gave it a hard squeeze. "Confound you! What do
you take me for?" he said.
Dick's hand came swiftly to his. "I take you for the best friend a man
ever had, sir," he said.
"Pooh!" said the squire.