Such a chance did not come in Stratton's way again. "If I had drunk
that when Guest came and interrupted me--when was it? Two years and
more ago," sighed Stratton one night, "what an infinity of suffering I
should have been spared. All the hopes and disappointments of that
weary time, all the madness and despair of the morning when that
wretched convict came, all my remorse, my battles with self, the
struggles to conceal my crime--all--all spared to me; for I should have
been asleep."
A curious doubting smile crossed his face slowly at these thoughts; and,
resting his cheek upon his hand, with the light full upon his face, he
gazed straight before him into vacancy.
"How do I know that?" he thought. "Could I, a self-murderer, assure
myself that I should have sunk into oblivion like that--into a restful
sleep, free from the cares I had been too cowardly to meet and bear?
No, no, no; it was not to be. Thank God! I was spared from that."
"But mine has been a cruel lot," he continued; "stroke after stroke that
would have been kinder had they killed; for the misery has not been mine
alone. I could have borne it better if it had been so. Poor Myra--poor
girl! Yours has been a strange fate, too."
And his thoughts were filled by her pain-wrung features, and wild,
appealing look last time they met, when she had clung to him there, and
appealed to him to forget the past, for she would forgive everything and
take him to her heart and face with him the whole world.
He shuddered.
"Poor, blind, loving heart! ready to kiss the hand wet with her
husband's blood." It was too horrible--too terrible to bear.
He hid his face in his hands for a few minutes, but grew calmer as he
went on reviewing the past; and from time to time a slight shiver ran
through him, as he thought of what he had done, and the mad plan he had
made to utterly conceal his crime by fire.
"But that's all past now," he said at last, with a sigh of relief.
"That horror has been taken from my load, and I will, as a man, fight
hard to meet whatever comes. Heaven knows my innocence, and will find
me strength to bear it all; and, perhaps, some day, give me--give her
forgetfulness and rest."
He looked sharply up and listened, for he fancied that he heard a sound;
but a step faintly beating on the paving outside seemed to accord with
it, and he went on musing again about Brettison, wondering where he
could be, and how he could contrive to keep hidden away from him as he
did.
"If we could only meet," he said, half aloud--"only stand face to face
for one short hour, how different my future might be."
"No," he said aloud, after a thoughtful pause, "how can I say that?
_L'homme propose et Dieu dispose_. We are all bubbles on the great
stream of life."
He half started from his chair, listening again, for he felt convinced
that he heard a sound outside his doors, and going across, he opened
them softly and looked out, but the grim, ill-lit staircase and the hall
below were blank and silent, and satisfied that he had been mistaken, he
went back to his seat to begin musing again, till once more there was a
faint sound, and as he listened he became conscious of a strange,
penetrating odour of burning.
Stratton's face grew ghastly with the sudden emotion that had attacked
him, and for a few moments he sat trembling, and unable to stir from his
seat.
"At last!" he said in a whisper; "at last!" and, conscious that the time
had come for which he had longed and toiled so hard, he felt that the
opportunity was about to slip away, for he would be unable to bear the
encounter, if not too much prostrated by his emotion to rise from his
seat.
It was only a trick of the nerves, which passed off directly; and he
rose then, firm and determined, to cross gently to first one and then
the other door by his mantelpiece, where he stood, silent and intent,
breathing deeply.
Yes; there was no doubt now. He was inhaling the penetrating, peculiar
odour of strong tobacco; and at last Brettison must have returned, and
be sitting there smoking his eastern water-pipe.
Stratton drew softly back, as if afraid of being heard, though his steps
were inaudible on the thick carpet, and he stood there thinking.
"If I go," he said to himself, "he will not answer my knock." And
feeling now that Brettison might have been back before now unknown to
him, he tried to think out some plan by which he could get face to face
with his friend.
A thought came directly, and it seemed so childish in its simplicity
that he smiled and was ready to give it up; but it grew in strength and
possibility as he looked round and took from a table, where lay quite a
little heap that had been thrust into his letter-box from time to time,
four or five unopened circulars and foolscap missives, whose appearance
told what they were; and armed with these he opened his doors softly and
passed out, drawing the outer door to, and then stole on tiptoe
downstairs and out into the dimly lit square.
"He will not notice that it is so late," he said to himself, as he
looked up and saw just a faint gleam of light at Brettison's window,
where the drawn curtain was not quite closed.
Stratton paused for a moment, and drew a long breath before attempting
to act the part upon which he had decided. Then, going on some twenty
or thirty yards, he turned and walked back with a heavy, decided,
businesslike step, whistling softly as he went, right to the entry,
where, still whistling, he ascended the stairs to his door, thrust in
and drew out a letter-packet thrice, making the metal flap of the box
rattle, gave a sharp double knock, and then crossed the landing and went
the few steps, whistling still, along the passage to Brettison's door.
Here he thrust in, one by one, three circulars, with a good deal of
noise, through the letter-flap, gave the customary double knock, went on
whistling softly, and waited a moment or two; and then, as he heard a
faint sound within, gave another sharp double rap, as a postman would
who had a registered letter, or a packet too big to pass through the
slit.
The ruse was successful, and with beating heart Stratton stood waiting a
little on one side, as there was the click and grate of the latch, and
the door was opened a little way.
That was enough. Quick as lightning, Stratton seized and dragged it
wide, to step in face to face with Brettison, who started back in alarm
and was followed up by his friend, who closed both doors carefully, and
then stood gazing at the bent, grey-headed, weak old man, who had shrunk
back behind the table, whereon the pipe stood burning slowly, while the
unshaded lamp showed a dozen or so of freshly opened letters on the
table, explaining their owner's visit there.
Stratton did not speak, but gazed fiercely at the trembling old man, who
looked wildly round as if for some weapon to defend himself, but shook
his head sadly, and, with a weary smile, came away from his place of
defence.
"Your trick has succeeded, sir," he said quietly. "Seventy-two! Has
the time come? I ought not to fear it now."
Stratton uttered a harsh sound--half-gasp, half-cry.
"Well," continued Brettison, who looked singularly aged and bent since
they had last stood face to face, "you have found me at last."
Stratton's lips parted, but no sound came; his emotion was too great.
"It will be an easy task," said Brettison, with a piteous look at
Stratton. "No sounds are heard outside these chambers--not even pistol
shots."
There was an intense bitterness in those last words which made the young
man shrink, and as Brettison went on, "I shall not struggle against my
fate," he uttered a cry of bitterness and rage.
"Sit down!" he said fiercely. "Why do you taunt me like this? You have
been here before from time to time. Why have you hidden from me like
this?"
"I have my reasons," said Brettison slowly. "Why have you come?"
"You ask me that!"
"Yes. You have hunted me for months now, till my life has been
worthless. Have you come to take it now?"
"Why should I take your life?"
"To save your own. You believe I heard or witnessed--that."
He paused before uttering the last word, and pointed to the door on his
left.
Stratton could not suppress a shudder; but, as he saw the peculiar way
in which the old man's eyes were fixed upon his, a feeling of resentment
arose within him, and his voice sounded strident and harsh when he spoke
again.
"I had no such thoughts," he said. "You know better, sir. Come, let us
understand one another. I am reckless now."
"Yes," said Brettison coldly.
"Then, if you have any fear for your life, you can call for help; that
is, for someone to be within call to protect you, for what we have to
say must be for our ears alone."
Brettison did not answer for a few moments, during which time he watched
the other narrowly.
"I am not afraid, Malcolm," he said; and he seated himself calmly in his
chair. Then, motioning to another, he waited until Stratton was seated.
"Yes," he said quietly, "I have been here from time to time to get my
letters."
"Why have you hidden yourself away?" cried Stratton fiercely.
"Ah! Why?" said Brettison, gazing at him thoughtfully from beneath his
thick, grey eyebrows. "You want a reason? Well, I am old and
independent, with a liking to do what I please. Malcolm Stratton, I am
not answerable to any man for my actions."
Stratton started up, and took a turn to and fro in the dusty room before
throwing himself again in his chair, while the old man quietly took the
long, snake like tube of his pipe in hand, examined the bowl to find it
still alight, began to smoke with all the gravity of a Mussulman, and
the tobacco once more began to scent the air of the silent place.
Stratton's lips parted again and again, but no words would come. In his
wild excitement and dread of what he knew he must learn, he could not
frame the questions he panted to ask in this crisis of his life, and at
last it was with a cry of rage as much as appeal that he said:
"Man, man, am I to be tortured always? Why don't you speak?"
"You have hunted me from place to place, Malcolm Stratton, in your
desperation to find out that which I felt you had better not know; and
now you have found me--brought me to bay--I wait for you to question
me."
"Yes, yes," said Stratton hoarsely; and, with a hasty gesture, as he
clapped his hand to his throat, "I will speak--directly."
He rose again and paced the room, and it was while at the far end that
he said in a low voice:
"Yes; you know all."
"All."
"Tell me, then--why have you done this? Stop! I am right--it was you."
"You are right; it was I," said Brettison, smoking calmly, as if they
were discoursing upon some trivial matter instead of a case of life and
death--of the horror that had blasted a sanguine man's life, and made
him prematurely old.
"Tell me, then; how could you--how could you dare? Why did you act the
spy upon my actions?"
The old man rose quickly from his chair, brought his hand down heavily
upon the table, and leaned forward to gaze in Stratton's eyes.
"Answer me first, boy. Me--the man who loved you and felt toward you as
if you were a son! Why did you not come to me for help and counsel when
you stood in danger--in peril of your life?"
The gentle, mild face of the old botanist was stern and judicial now,
his tone of voice full of reproof. It was the judge speaking, and not
the mild old friend.
"Did you think me--because I passed my life trifling, as some call it,
with flowers, but, as I know it to be, making myself wiser in the works
of my great Creator--did you think me, I say, so weak and helpless a
creature that I could not counsel--so cowardly and wanting in strength
of mind and faith in you, that I would not have stood by you as a father
should stand by his son?"
Stratton groaned.
"Forgive me," he said feebly; "I was half-mad."
"Yes."
"How could I, crushed by the horror of having taken a fellow-creature's
life, cursed by the knowledge that this man was--But you cannot know
that."
"Take it, boy, that I know everything," said the old man, resuming his
seat.
"Then have some pity on me."
"Pity for your folly? Yes."
"Folly! You are right. I will take it that you know everything, and
speak out now. Brettison--"
He paused--he could not speak. But by a mighty effort he mastered his
emotion.
"Now think, and find some excuse for me. I was in my room there, elate
almost beyond a man's power to imagine; in another hour the woman whom I
had idolised for years was to be my wife. Recollect that, two years
before, my hopes had been dashed to the ground, and I had passed through
a time of anguish that almost unhinged my brain, so great was my
despair."
"Yes," said Brettison, "I recall all that."
"Then that man came, and I was face to face with the knowledge that once
more my hopes were crushed, and--he fell."
Stratton ceased speaking, and sat gazing wildly before him into the
past.
It was in a husky whisper that he resumed:
"I stood there, Brettison, mad with horror, distraught with the
knowledge that I was the murderer of her husband--that my hand, wet with
his blood, could never again clasp hers, even though I had made her
free."
The old man bent his head; and, gathering strength of mind and speech,
now that he was at last speaking out openly in his defence, Stratton
went on:
"It was horrible--horrible! There it is, all back again before my eyes,
and I feel again the stabbing, sickening pain of the bullet wound which
scored my shoulder, mingled with the far worse agony of my brain. I had
killed her husband--the escaped convict; and, above the feeling that all
was over now, that my future was blasted, came the knowledge that, as
soon as I called for help, as soon as the police investigated the
matter, my life was not worth a month's purchase. For what was my
defence?"
Brettison satin silence, smoking calmly.
"That this man had made his existence known to me, shown by his presence
that his supposed death was a shadow--that, after his desperate plunge
into the sea, he had managed to swim ashore and remain in hiding; the
dark night's work and the belief that he had fallen shot, being his
cloak; and the search for the body of a convict soon being at an end.
You see all this?"
Brettison bowed his head.
"Think, then, of my position; put yourself in my place. What jury--what
judge would believe my story that it was an accident? It seemed to me
too plain. The world would say that I slew him in my disappointment and
despair. Yes, I know they might have called it manslaughter, but I must
have taken his place--a convict in my turn."
"You thought that?"
"Yes, I thought that--I think it now. I could not--I dared not speak.
Everything was against me, and in my horror temptation came."
Brettison looked at him sharply.
"The hope was so pitiful, so faint, so weak, Brettison; but still it
would linger in my maddened brain that some day in the future--after
years, maybe, of expiation of the deed--I might, perhaps, approach her
once again. I thought so then. The secret would be between me and my
Maker, and in his good time he might say to my heart: `It is enough.
You have suffered all these years. Your sin is condoned--your
punishment is at an end.' I tell you I thought all that, and in my
madness I dared not let the thing be known. She would know it, too, and
if she did I felt that hope would be dead indeed, and that I had, too,
better die."
Stratton ceased speaking, and let his head fall upon his hand.
"Put yourself in my place, I say. Think of yourself as being once more
young and strong--the lover of one whom, in a few short hours, you would
have clasped as your wife, and then try and find excuse for my mad
action--for I know now that it was mad, indeed."
"Yes, mad indeed," muttered Brettison.
"Well, I need say no more. You know so much, you must know the rest.
They came to me, fearing I had been killed--robbed and murdered. They
found me at last, when I was forced to admit them, looking, I suppose, a
maniac; for I felt one then, compelled to face them, and hear the old
man's reproaches, in horror lest they should discover the wretched
convict lying dead, and no word to say in my defence. Nature could bear
no more. My wound robbed me of all power to act, and I fainted--to come
to, fearing that all was discovered; but their imaginations had led them
astray. They had found my wound and the pistol. It was an attempt at
suicide. Poor Guest recalled the first--I do not wonder. And they went
away at last, looking upon me as a vile betrayer of the woman I loved,
and sought in their minds for the reason of my despair, and the cowardly
act I had attempted to escape her father's wrath. Brettison, old
friend, I make no excuses to you now; but was I not sorely tried?
Surely, few men in our generation have stood in such a dilemma. Can you
feel surprised that, stricken from my balance as a man--a sane and
thoughtful man--I should have acted as I did, and dug for myself a pit
of such purgatory as makes me feel now, as I sit here making my
confession, how could I have gone through so terrible a crisis and yet
be here alive, and able to think and speak like a suffering man."
The silence in the room was terrible for what seemed an age before
Brettison stretched out his trembling hand and took that of the man
before him.
"Hah!"
Malcolm Stratton's low cry. It was that of a man who had long battled
with the waves of a great storm, and who had at last found something to
which he could cling.
There was another long and painful pause before Stratton spoke again,
and then he slowly withdrew his hand.
"No," he said; "we must never clasp hands again. I must go on to the
end a pariah among my kind."
Brettison shook his head.
"I have put myself in your place often," he said slowly, "and I have
felt that I might have acted much the same."
Stratton looked at him eagerly.
"Yes; my great fault in you is that you should not have trusted me."
There was again a long silence before Stratton spoke.
"I felt that I was alone in the world to fight my own battle with all my
strength," he said wearily.
"And that strength was so much weakness, boy. Mine, weak as it is, has
proved stronger far."
Stratton looked at him wonderingly.
"Yes; how much agony you might have been spared, perhaps, if you had
come to me. But I don't know--I don't know. You acted as you thought
best; I only did the same, and, not knowing all your thoughts, I fear
that I have erred."
Stratton sat thinking for a few moments, and then, raising his eyes:
"I have told you all. It is your turn now."
Brettison bowed his head.
"Yes," he said, "it is better that I should speak and tell you."
But he was silent for some time first, sitting back with the tips of his
fingers joined, as if collecting his thoughts.
"You remember that morning--how I came to say good-bye?"
"Yes, of course."
"I started, and then found that I had forgotten my lens. I hurried
back, and had just entered my room when I heard voices plainly in yours.
My book-closet door was open, that of your bath room must have been
ajar. I did not want to hear, but the angry tones startled me, and the
words grew so fierce--you neither of you thought of how you raised your
voices in your excitement--that I became alarmed, and was about to hurry
round to your room, when a few words came to my ears quite plainly, and,
in spite of its being dishonourable, I, in my dread that you were in
danger, hurried into the book-closet and was drawn to the thin, loose
panel at the end.
"There I was enchained; I could not retreat, for I heard so much of the
piteous position in which you were placed. My mind filled in the
blanks, and I grasped all.
"I need not repeat all you know--only tell you that, unable to master my
curiosity, I placed my eye to one of the cracks in the old panelling,
and could see the man's face--her husband's features--and I saw him
glance again and again at the money, and felt that he meant to have it,
though you seemed ignorant of the fact; and, dreading violence, I drew
back to go for help. But I could not leave. It meant a terrible
_expose_ and untold horror for your promised wife. I tell you I could
not stir, and the fact of my being a miserable eavesdropper died out in
the terrible climax you had reached."
Brettison paused to wipe his brow, wet with a dew begotten by the agony
of his recollections, before he continued:
"I stayed there then, and watched and listened, almost as near as if I
had been a participator in the little life drama which ensued. There, I
was with you in it all, boy--swayed by your emotions, but ready to cry
out upon you angrily when I saw you ready to listen to the wretch's
miserable proposals, and as proud when I saw your determination to
sacrifice your desires and make a bold stand against what, for your
gratification, must have meant finally a perfect hell for the woman you
loved. Then, in the midst of my excitement, there came the final
struggle, as you nobly determined to give the scoundrel up to the fate
he deserved so well. It was as sudden to me as it was horrible. I saw
the flash of the shot, and felt a pang of physical pain, as, through the
smoke, I dimly saw you stagger. Then, while I stood there paralysed, I
saw you fly at him as he raised his pistol to fire again, the struggle
for the weapon, which you struck up as he drew the trigger."
"Yes," said Stratton, "I struck up the pistol as he drew the trigger;
but who would believe--who would believe?"
"And then I saw him reel and fall, and there before me he lay, with the
blood slowly staining the carpet, on the spot where I had so often sat."
He wiped his brow again, while Stratton rested his elbows on the table
and buried his face in his hands, as if to hide from his gaze the scene
his friend conjured up from the past.
"Malcolm Stratton," continued the old man, rising to lay his hand upon
the other's head, "you were to me as a son. As a father loves the boy
born unto him, I swear I felt toward you. I looked upon you as the son
of my childless old age, and I was standing there gazing at you, face to
face with the horror of that scene, while, with crushing weight, there
came upon me the knowledge that, come what might, I must summon help.
That help meant the police; and, in imagination, I saw myself sending
you to the dock, where you would perhaps, from the force of the
circumstances--as you have told me you might--stand in peril of your
life. But still I felt that there was nothing otherwise that could be
done; and, slowly shrinking back, I was on my way to perform this act of
duty, when I heard a low, deep groan. That drew me back, and, looking
into your room once more, a mist rose between me and the scene, my
senses reeled, and I slowly sank down, fainting, on the floor."