A SENTIMENTAL TALK
Lois opened the gate and stole into the lane with the air of a guilty
child. She gave a little gasp as she came face to face with Saton, and
picking up her skirts, seemed for a moment about to fly. He stood
quite still--his face was sad--almost reproachful. She dropped her
skirt and came slowly, doubtfully towards him.
"I have come," she said. "I was forced to come. Oh, Mr. Saton! How
could you?"
His features were wan. There were lines under his dark eyes. He was
looking thin and nervous. His voice, too, had lost some of its
pleasant qualities.
"My dear young lady," he said, "my dear Lois, what do you mean? You
don't suppose--you can't--that it was through me in any way that--that
thing happened?"
"Oh, I don't know!" she faltered, with white lips. "It was all so
horrible. You pointed to him, and your eyes when you looked at him
seemed to shine as though they were on fire. I saw him shrink away,
and the color leave his cheeks. It was horrible!"
"But, Lois," he protested, "you cannot imagine that by looking at a
man I could help to kill him? I can't explain what happened. As yet
there are things in the world which no one can explain. This is one of
them. I know a little more than most people. It is partly temperament,
perhaps--partly study, but it is surely true that I can sometimes feel
things coming. From the first moment I looked into Guerdon's face at
dinner-time, I knew what was going to happen. Out there in the hall I
felt it. Once before in South America, I saw a man shoot himself. I
tell you that I was certain of what he was going to do before I knew
that he had even a revolver in his pocket. It comes to me, the
knowledge of these things. I cannot be blamed for it. Some day I shall
write the first text-book that has ever been written of a new science.
I shall evolve the first few rudimentary laws, and after that the
thing will go easily. Every generation will add to them. But, Lois,
because I am the first, because I have seen a little further into the
world than others, you are not going to look at me as though I were a
murderer!"
She drew a little breath, a breath of relief. Her hand fell upon his
arm.
"No!" she said. "I have been foolish. It is absurd to imagine that you
could have brought that about by just wishing for it."
"Why, even, should I have wished for it?" he asked. "Lord Guerdon was
a stranger to me. As an acquaintance I found him pleasant enough. I
had no grudge against him."
She drew him a little way on down the lane.
"I must only stay for a few minutes," she said. "If we walk down here
we shall meet nobody. Do you know what Mr. Rochester has suggested?"
"No!" Saton answered. "What?"
"He says that Lord Guerdon had always been uneasily conscious of
having seen you somewhere before. He says that at the very moment when
he was stricken down, he seemed to remember!"
"That does not seem to me to be important," Saton remarked.
"Can't you understand?" she continued. "Mr. Rochester seems to
think that Lord Guerdon had seen you somewhere under disgraceful
circumstances. There! I've got it out now," she added, with a wan
little smile. "That is why he feels sure that somehow or other you
did your best to help him toward death."
"And the others?" Saton asked.
"Oh, it hasn't been talked about!" she answered. "Everyone has left
the house, you know. I only knew this through Mary."
Saton smiled scornfully.
"My dear girl," he said, "I know for a fact that Lord Guerdon was
suffering from acute heart disease. He went about always with a letter
in his pocket giving directions as to what should become of him if he
were to die suddenly."
"Is that really true?" she asked. "Oh, I am glad! Lord Penarvon said
so, but no one else seemed sure."
"There is no need, even for an inquest," Saton continued. "I went to
see the doctor this morning, and he told me so. I am very, very
sorry," he went on, taking her hand in his, "that such a thing should
happen to spoil the memory of these few days. They have been wonderful
days, Lois."
She drew her hand quietly away.
"Yes!" she admitted. "They have been wonderful in many ways."
"For you," he continued, walking a little more slowly, and with his
hands clasped behind him, "they have been, perhaps, just a tiny little
leaf out of the book of your life. To me I fancy they have been
something different. You see I have been a wanderer all my days. I
have had no home, and I have had few friends. All the time I have had
to fight, and there seems to have been no time for the gentler things,
for the things that really make for happiness. Perhaps," he continued,
reflectively, "that is why I find it sometimes a little difficult to
talk to you. You are so young and fresh and wonderful. Your feet are
scarcely yet upon the threshold of the life whose scars I am bearing."
"I am not so very young," Lois said, "nor are you so very old."
"And yet," he answered, looking into her face, "there is a great gulf
between us, a gulf, perhaps, of more than years. Miss Lois, I am not
going to ask you too much, but I would like to ask you one thing. Have
these days meant just a little to you also?"
She raised her eyes and looked him frankly in the face. They were
honest brown eyes, a little clouded just now with some reflection of
the vague trouble which was stirring in her heart.
"I will answer you frankly," she said, "Yes, they have meant something
to me! And yet, listen. I am going to say something unkind. There is
something--I don't know what it is--between us, which troubles me. Oh,
I know that you are much cleverer than other men, and I would not have
you different! Yet there is something else. Would you be very angry, I
wonder, if I told the truth?"
"No!" he assured her. "Go on, please."
"I feel sometimes," she continued, "as though I could not trust you.
There, don't be angry," she went on, laying her fingers on his arm. "I
know how horrid it sounds, but it is there in my heart, and it is
because I would like to believe, it is because I want there to be
nothing between us of distrust, that I have told you."
They walked slowly on, side by side. His face was turned a little from
hers. She was bending forward, as though anxious to catch a glimpse of
his expression. Through the case hardening of years, her voice for a
moment seemed to have found its way back into the heart of the boy, to
have brought him at least a momentary twinge as he realized, with a
passing regret, the abstract beauty of the more simple ways in life.
Those few minutes were effective enough. They helped his pose. The
regret passed. A shadow of pain took its place. He came to a
standstill and took her hands in his.
"Dear little girl," he said, "perhaps you are right. I am not
altogether honest. I am not in the least like the sort of man who
ought to look at you and feel towards you as I have looked and felt
during these wonderful days. But all of us have our weak spots, you
know. I think that you found mine. Good-bye, little girl!"
She would have called him back, but he had no idea of lending himself
to anything so inartistic. With head thrown back, he left the footpath
and climbed the hill round which they had been walking. Not once did
he look behind. Not once did he turn his head till he stood on the top
of the rock-strewn eminence, his figure clearly outlined against the
blue sky. Then he straightened himself and turned round, thinking all
the time how wonderfully effective his profile must seem in that deep,
soft light, if she should have the sense to look.
She did look. She was standing very nearly where he had left her. She
was waving her handkerchief, beckoning him to come down. He raised his
hand above his head as though in farewell, and turned slowly away. As
soon as he was quite sure that he was out of sight, he took his
cigarette case from his pocket and began to smoke!