SATON REASSERTS HIMSELF
Rochester asked only one question during those few days when he lay
between life and death. He opened his eyes suddenly, and motioned to
the doctor to stoop down.
"Who shot me?" he asked.
"It was an accident," the doctor assured him, soothingly.
Rochester said no more, but his lips seemed to curl for a moment into
the old disbelieving smile. Then the struggle began. In a week it was
over. A magnificent constitution, and an unshattered nerve, triumphed.
The doctors one by one took their departure. Their task was over.
Rochester would recover.
_"Who shot me?"_
The doctor had seen no reason to keep silence, and this question of
Rochester's had created something like a sensation as it travelled
backwards and forwards. Rochester had been shot in the left side, in
the middle of a field, where no accident of his own causing seemed
possible. One barrel only of his gun had been fired, and to account
for that a cock pheasant lay dead within a few feet of him. The
shooting-party were all old and experienced sportsmen. The gun which
Rochester had left leaning against the gate was discovered exactly as
he had left it there, loaded in both barrels. There was not the ghost
of a clue.
Only Lois kept to her room for three days, until she could bear it no
longer. Then she walked out a little way toward the woods, and met
Saton. He recognised her with a shock. He himself, especially now it
was known that Rochester would live, had rapidly recovered from the
fit of horrors which had seized him on that night. It was not so with
Lois. Her cheeks were ghastly pale, and her eyes beringed. She walked
like one recovering from a long illness, and when she saw Saton she
screamed.
He held out his hand, and noticed with swift comprehension her first
instinctive withdrawal.
"Bertrand!" she cried. "Oh, Bertrand!"
"What do you mean?" he asked, hoarsely.
"You know what I mean," she answered. "I don't want to touch you, but
I must or I shall fall. Let me take your arm. We will go and sit
down."
They sat side by side on the trunk of a fallen tree. A small stream
rippled by at their feet. The meadow which it divided was dotted
everywhere with little clumps of large yellow buttercups. She sat at a
little distance from him, and she kept her eyes averted.
"Bertrand," she murmured, "what does it mean? Tell me what I saw that
afternoon. You took up the gun. Was it an accident? But no," she
added, "it is absurd to ask that!"
"You saw me?" he exclaimed quickly. "You believe that you saw me touch
that gun?"
She nodded.
"I hated to go and leave you there," she said. "I waited about behind
those thick blackthorn trees, hoping that you might come my way. I saw
you creep up to the gun. I saw you raise it to your shoulder. Even
then I had no idea what you were going to do. Afterwards I saw the
smoke and the flash. I heard the report, and Mr. Rochester's cry as he
fell. I saw you slip a fresh cartridge into the gun, and go stealing
away. Bertrand, I have not slept since. Tell me, was it a nightmare?"
"It was no nightmare," he answered. "I shot him, and I wish that he
had died!"
She looked at him with horror.
"Bertrand," she faltered, "you can't mean it!"
"Little Lois," he answered, "I do. You do not understand what hatred
is. You do not understand all that it may mean--all that it may cause.
He is my enemy, that man, and I am his. It is a duel between us, a
duel to the death. The first blow has been mine, and I have failed.
You will see that it will not be long before he strikes back."
"But this is horrible!" she muttered.
"Horrible to you, of course!" he exclaimed. "Hatred is a thing of
which you can know nothing. And yet there it is. People might think
that he was my benefactor. He gave me money to go out and find
my level in the world, gave it to me with the bitter, cynical
advice--advice that was almost a stipulation--that if I failed, I
ceased to live. I did fail in every honest thing I touched," he
continued, bitterly. "Then I tried a bold experiment. It was the last
thing offered, the last wonderful chance. I took it, and I won. Then I
returned. I paid him back the money which he had lent me--I did my
best to seem grateful. It was of no use. He mistrusted me from the
first. In his own house I was the butt for his scornful speeches. I
was even bidden to leave. I ventured to speak to the woman with whom
he is slavishly in love, and he came to me like a fury. If I had been
a hairdresser posing as a duke, he could not have been more violent.
He wanted me to promise never to speak to her again--her or you. I
refused. Then he declared war, and, Lois, there are weak joints in my
armor. You see, I admit it to you--never to him. When he finds his way
there, he will thrust. That is why I struck first."
She shook her head sadly.
"Ah, but I do not understand!" she said. "He is very stern and very
quiet, but he is a just man. I have never known him to find fault
where there was none."
"There are faults enough in my life," Saton answered. "I have never
denied it. But I have had to fight with my back to the wall. I shall
win. I am not afraid of a thousand Mr. Rochesters. I am gathering to
my hands--no, I will not talk to you about that! Lois, I am more
anxious about you than Mr. Rochester. I am afraid that you will hate
me for always now."
"No!" she said. "I cannot do that, I cannot hate you. But I do not
wish to see you any more. As long as I live, I shall see you kneeling
there, with your finger upon the trigger of that gun. I shall see the
flash, I shall see him throw up his hands and fall. It was hideous!"
Saton passed his hand across his forehead. Her words had touched his
keen imagination. The horror of the scene was upon him, too, once
more.
"Don't!" he begged--"don't! Lois!"
"Well?" she asked.
"You will not speak of this to anyone?"
"No!" she answered, sadly, leaning a little forward, with her head
resting upon her clasped hands. "I don't suppose that I shall. If he
had died, it would have been different. Now that he is going to get
well, I suppose I shall try to forget."
"To forget," he murmured, trying to take her hand.
She drew it away with a shiver.
"No!" she said. "That is finished. I had to see you. I had to talk to
you. Go away, please. I cannot bear to see you any more. It is too
terrible--too terrible!"
A born cajoler of women, he forced into play all his powers. He
whispered a flood of words in her ear. His own voice shook, his eyes
were soft. He pleaded as one beside himself. Lois--Lois whom he had
found so sensitive, so easily moved, so gently affectionate--remained
like a stone. At the end of all his pleadings she simply looked away.
"Do you mind," she asked, "leaving me? Please! Please!"
He got up and went. Defeat was apparent enough, although it was
unexpected. Lois stole back to the house--stole back to her room and
locked the door.
Saton walked home across the hills, with white face and set eyes. He
looked neither to the right nor to the left, and when he arrived at
Blackbird's Nest, he walked straight into the long, old-fashioned room
on the ground floor, which he called his library, and where Rachael
generally sat.
She was there, crouching over the fire, when he entered, and looked
around with frowning face.
"Bertrand," she said, "I hate this country life. Even the sunshine
mocks. There is no warmth in it, and the winds are cold. I must have
warmth. I shall stay here no longer."
He threw a log on to the fire, and turned around.
"Listen," he said. "The girl Lois Champneyes--I have lost my hold of
her. She knows something about the accident to Rochester."
"Bungler!" the woman muttered. "Go on. Tell me how you lost your
power."
"I cannot tell," he answered. "I was in an unsettled mood. I think
that I was a little afraid. She spoke of that afternoon. It all came
back to me. I am sure that I was afraid," he added, passing his hand
across his forehead.
She leaned toward him and her eyes glittered, hard and bright, from
their parchment-like setting.
"Bertrand," she said, "you talk like a coward. What are you going to
do?"
"To bring her here," he answered hoarsely. "She has gone back to
Beauleys. She is passing up through the plantation, on her way to the
house, perhaps, at this very moment. She wore white, and she carried
her hat in her hand. There were rims under her eyes. She walks
slowly. She is afraid--a little hysterical. You see her?"
He pointed out of the window. The woman nodded.
"Sit down," she muttered. "We shall see."
He sank into a low chair, with his face turned toward the window. No
further words passed between them. They sat there till the sun sank
behind the hills, and the dusk began to cast shadows over the land.
A servant came and said something about dinner. Rachael waved her
away.
"In an hour, or an hour and a half," she said.
The shadows grew deeper. Rachael's face seemed unchanged, but
Saton had grown so pale that his fixed eyes seemed to have become
unnaturally large. Sometimes his lips moved, though the sounds which
he uttered never resolved themselves into speech. At last Rachael rose
to her feet. She pointed out of the window. Saton gave a little gasp.
"She is there?" he asked, breathlessly.
"She comes," Rachael answered. "See that you do not lose your power
again. I am exhausted. I am going to rest."
She passed out of the room. Saton went and stood before the low
window. Slowly, and with hesitating footsteps, Lois came up the path,
lifted the latch of the little gate, and stood in the garden, close to
a tall group of hollyhocks.
Saton went out to her.
"You have come to tell me that you are sorry?" he said.
"Yes!" she answered.
"You did not mean what you said?"
"No!"
"Come in," he whispered.
He laid his fingers upon her hand, and she followed him into the room.
She was very pale, and she was breathing as though she had been
running. He passed his arm around her waist.
"You are not angry with me any longer?" he whispered in her ear. "You
will kiss me?"
"If you wish," she answered.
He looked into her eyes for a moment. Then he took her into his arms.
"Dear Lois," he whispered, "you must never be so unkind to me again."