"Here I am again, Glyddyr. How are your old chap?"
Glyddyr was seated in the cabin of his yacht, thinking over his
position, and of how long it would be before Claude would consent to the
marriage taking place.
He had no fear of his ultimate success, for he had seen enough of
Gartram to know that his will was law, and that, even if Claude were
thoroughly opposed to the match, she would be obliged to consent.
But he could not conceal from himself the fact that it might be a long
time first, press it on how he might; and till then he would be the
abject slave of the man in whose clutches he had placed himself.
He had not seen the boat leave the shore, where his men had gone to
obtain stores, and, taking advantage of its being at the harbour, Gellow
had stepped in, had himself rowed on board, and, walking along the deck
giving the little crew a supercilious look, he had gone down to where
Glyddyr was seated, and addressed him.
"What do you want?" was the reply, delivered in a surly voice.
"What do I want? Why, as the little ragged boy said in _Punch_,
`heverythink.' In my case, specially money."
Glyddyr made an impatient movement.
"Oh, it's a fact, dear boy. Times have not been rosy lately, and I've
got low in the banking account. So, as my dear old friend Glyddyr has
had his little slice of luck, I said I'd run down and tap him."
"What do you mean--what slice of luck?"
"The wind that blows no one any good, dear boy; but the ill wind must
have blown you a lot of good."
"What do you mean?"
"What did you put on her?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"I said nothing."
"Oh, yes. You said so, and you didn't mean it."
"I tell you I did not back the horse."
"But I sent you the last tip--one worth a hundred thousand pounds. I
was thinking of sending it to the Marquis, but he's a mean cuss, and I
knew you'd stump up handsome afterwards to the man who helped you.
Come--between friends, you know--what did you land?"
"I tell you I did not back the horse."
"Get along with you! None of your games. Come along, old fellow, let's
have it. What did you pocket?"
"Nothing."
"Glyddyr, my dear boy, don't say that you didn't get the telegram in
time."
"No; I got it in time."
"Oh, come, that's right; and you did back it. Get out with your talking
like that. You gave me a cold chill all down my back."
"Hang it, man, how many more times am I to speak? I tell you I did not
back the horse."
"What! You let such a chance go by? You actually fooled away money
like that!"
"I don't know what you mean by fooled away money."
"Why, it is fooling away money to let such a chance as that go by you."
"How was I to know it was a good chance?" cried Glyddyr savagely.
"Why, didn't I send it to you?"
"Yes; and how many times have you sent me tips which have turned out
frauds, and I've lost my money?"
"Well, but nobody can be sure, that's a certainty."
"No! Yours never were."
"Oh, but this is absurd. No. I see through your game. You're
gammoning me. You did work it all right."
"Hark, here," cried Glyddyr; "if you wish me to kick you out of my
cabin, say that again."
Gellow blew out his cheeks, and quickly sucked them in. Then he threw
his right leg over his left, and then he threw his left over his right,
balanced his ivory-handled crutch-stick, and ended by bringing the end
down upon the cabin floor in the attempt.
"Oh, very well," he said coldly, and the man's manner completely
changed. "I won't brave you to kick me out of my own cabin, Mr
Glyddyr. You see I could just sign a paper or two, and then I could
kick you out."
"What!"
"Without lifting my foot, sir. I've always been a gentleman to you, Mr
Glyddyr, and you've always been a bully to me. I wanted to be friends,
and I've helped you with money till I've pinched myself, and I've helped
you to throw your wife off the scent."
"She is not my wife."
"I don't know anything about that. Out of politeness one is bound to
believe a lady, and she says she is your wife, sir."
"It is false."
"Ah, well, that's nothing to me, sir. That's your own affair. Settle
it between you. Why, I consider that I've put two fortunes in your way,
sir. You've kicked over one; what are you going to do with the other?"
Glyddyr scowled at him.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Glyddyr. Like my confounded impudence to
ask. I'm off back to town. No message for Madame Denise, I suppose?"
"No."
"Very good, very good, sir. Good day."
"Good day," said Glyddyr shortly, and his visitor walked to the door of
the tiny saloon, set his hat jauntily on one side, and then turned and
came back, and rested his hands upon the back of the nearest seat.
"Oh, by the way, Mr Glyddyr, I think I did hint that I was rather short
of the ready. Be good enough to write me a cheque for a thou, on
account."
Glyddyr winced.
"I have no money in hand," he said abruptly.
"All nonsense, my dear sir; don't trifle with a man. You must be
rolling in coin. One thou, please."
"I tell you I have no money."
"Very well, then, my dear sir, very well; be good enough to get it. I
shall rely upon you, for I must have some within a week."
He turned right round and walked to the door again, and then turned and
said smilingly--
"Sorry to trouble you, but may your men row me ashore?"
"Yes, of course. But stop. Look here, Gellow."
"Very sorry to have worried you, Mr Glyddyr. One thou, please, within
seven days."
"But it will be inconvenient. I can't raise the money in the time. I--
look here. Why, confound the man! Here, Gellow!"
There was no reply, and angry, mortified, humbled by his impecunious
position, Glyddyr hurried on to the deck, and found that his visitor was
already in the boat, and several yards away from the yacht's side.
"Look here, Gellow," he cried.
"Eh? Please write. Can't stop. Be just able to catch the next train
and get in by to-morrow morning. Pull away, my lads; a shilling a-piece
for beer if you look sharp."
Glyddyr ground his teeth with rage as he gazed after his spider, and
felt how thoroughly he had been bound up like a fly of fashion in the
wretched schemer's web.
He could have yelled after him to come back, but his men were on deck
and in the boat which bore his tyrant away; and in those moments the man
seemed to live a life of repentance for having placed himself in the
power of such a creature as this. As it was, he could only stand
looking at the receding boat in a nonchalant manner, and then turn
slowly round, and descend to the cabin.
"What am I to do?" he said to himself. "I must write to him
apologetically, and ask for time. No; I can't do it. I'd sooner suffer
anything than be humbled further by the wretched cad!"
He flung himself in an easy-chair, and began to agitate it to and fro,
grinding his teeth the while with rage.
"If I could only borrow the money! If I could only get hold of enough
to clear myself from this brute, I could--"
He stopped short, and sat staring before him through one of the little
open round port windows over the glittering sea, at the Fort, which
stood up clearly cut and grey in the vivid sunshine; and as he gazed at
the great castellated building, a strange idea came to him, one which
made him picture the interior of that study as it appeared to him on the
occasion of his entering through the window to find Gartram lying there
insensible upon the floor.
"A thousand within seven days," he muttered to himself, and once more he
glanced sharply round to see whether he was overheard.
He rose and paced the little cabin, only a few strides and a turn, but
no idea came.
One moment he was for following Gellow, and pleading to him for time,
the next the thought seemed too degrading, and he shrank from having to
plead and humble himself before the common, insolent man who had him in
his power.
"If he would only leave me alone I should soon be in a position to clear
myself off, for Gartram is as rich as Croesus."
As that thought came to him, he saw again the interior of the study and
the open safe.
"And of course that is a mere nothing," he thought; "the eccentric old
fellow would not have much of his money there. A thousand pounds. Why,
it would be a trifle to him, and if I asked him he would lend it in an
instant."
Glyddyr stopped short in his argument there.
"Would he lend it in an instant?"
"No," said Glyddyr to himself directly afterwards. "He is too keen and
hard a man. His idea is that I am above all money troubles, and if I
try him it will be like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.
No; it would be ruin to attempt that and destroy all."
With the impression upon him, though, that, he would get out of his
dilemma by Gellow repenting, knowing as he did that the sharp, sordid
money-maker would calculate his chances of repayment too accurately to
run any risks, Glyddyr returned on deck, to find that the gig had just
returned from the shore after landing his incubus.
Springing in, he signed to the men to give way, and had himself rowed
across to the rough pier, where he hesitated for a few minutes as to
what he should do.
The sight of Chris Lisle striding along the cliff road decided him. A
malicious look came into his face, and, thrusting his hands down in his
pockets, he began to saunter along the pier, taking the short cut which
led to Gartram's private path, cut in a zig-zag up the cliff face, a
direction which would only be taken by one going up to the Fort.
It was meant for Chris to see, and he saw it, suffering just as his
rival intended, for there was a painful sting in the thought that this
stranger should be free to come and go, while he, who had had the run of
the place from boyhood, should be forbidden to approach.
Chris was no dissembler, there was no diplomatic concealment of the
feelings in his actions; he suffered, and he showed that he did as he
encountered Glyddyr at the intersection of their ways, and retorted with
a fierce look of anger when Glyddyr passed him with a supercilious smile
full of contempt.
"How I could enjoy wringing that dog's neck!" said Chris to himself.
"He is going up there to the Fort to be made welcome and caressed, and
treated as if he belonged to them, and--Oh, it does make me feel
savage!"
He turned up into the stiff slope running away to the cliff top, and in
a short time was where he could look down on the Fort and get glimpses
of the garden, where, to his infinite rage and pain, he soon after
caught the glint of a white dress, then of one of the palest blue, and
directly after there was a third party to form a trio, which sauntered
up and down till he could bear it no longer, and walked right on.
"It's of no use," he said to himself; "I must see Claude and ask her
what it all means. I can't go on like this, seeing that man go to and
fro as if he were accepted. It is too hard to be borne."
He threw himself down at the top of the cliff, and lay gazing out to sea
as he tried to settle his next proceedings. One thing was certain; he
must see Claude, and come to a thorough understanding about their
future. Then perhaps he could wait.
But how was he to obtain an interview?
Mary Dillon.
No; she had refused point blank to act against her uncle's wishes,
though she sympathised with both of them.
Claude would not meet him, nor yet correspond, but had told him to wait.
"And who can wait at a time like this?" he cried. "If she only would
not be quite so obedient," he continued, though all the time he knew in
his heart that he loved her the more for her fulfilment of her fathers
commands.
No; it was of no use to think that she would consent to meet him by
appointment, and there was no one person whom he cared to trust.
"It is so degrading," he said, "to have to place yourself and her at the
mercy of some common, vindictive kind of creature, who has to be paid."
He was out of sight of the garden now, and its occupants, for he shrunk
from watching Claude and her companion; but he was still well within
view of a portion of the Fort and its defences.
"It is all very well," he thought, as he threw himself back, with his
straw hat off, and his hands behind his head; "but if a clever, resolute
burglar made up his mind to get into the old man's stronghold after all
was locked up, how easy it would be. Why, I could climb up the sea-face
quickly enough, and over the south wall, and then there is nothing to
hinder one but the moat, across which a man might wade in a pair of
fishing-stockings."
A curious tingling sensation here attacked Chris Lisle, and the colour
mounted into his cheek at the thoughts which came rushing through his
brain.
Suppose he played the part of burglar, not to obtain any of the old
man's hoarded-up coin, but that which was the sole desire of his life?
Claude would never consent to a meeting, but if he took her by surprise,
and once more clasped her in his arms, she could not really be so very
angry, for she loved him; of that there could, after all, be no doubt,
and for the sake of that sweet delight he would risk her displeasure.
It would only be right, for he would be showing her how his heart was
hers, and hers alone.
The cliff face? A bit dangerous, but he could do it easily, even the
wall. Bah! he could climb a higher wall than that, while as to the drop
of water in Gartram's moat, if he couldn't have waded it, he could have
swam it, and would a thousand times so as to be once more near her.
"It's a puzzle," said Chris aloud. "Why, I ought to have done it long
enough ago. How was it I didn't think of it before?"
There was no mental answer to this, and his thoughts took another
direction. He was comparatively a rich man now, but somehow he did not
feel disposed to go and speak out again to Gartram, whose first question
would be, "And, pray, how did you get this money?"
The cash had in each case been paid over to him the settling day with
quite commercial promptitude, and lay at his bankers at Toxeter; but
somehow Chris felt no richer, and the exultation he had expected was not
there. Forty thousand pounds all his own, but he did not feel proud of
it, and had sat up a night in his own room thinking of how little
difference it made to a man, and, on the whole, feeling rather
disappointed than otherwise at the result of his speculation.
But when was it to be? That night? The next night?
"I'll try till I do meet her, and if the old man sees me, and flies at
me--
"I wonder whether he keeps that revolver loaded?" said Chris, half
aloud, as he rose and began to descend the cliff. "Bah! If he does, he
couldn't hit me in the dark, and hurry of his aim."
All the same, though, his active imagination was hard at work, showing
him a series of dissolving views, in one of which a gallant youth was
wading a deep fosse, with an irate parent standing on the bank, firing
shot after shot, till in the dim light there was a fall and a splash as
the aforesaid gallant youth fell back into the moat as he was crawling
out, and not found until the next day.