The old Khân's forecast proved correct in every particular. By noon on
the day after the outbreak the ringleaders were safe in the lock-up
awaiting trial, and, save for the smouldering house and the yellow
flood of water sliding down the old channel, there was nothing to tell
of the past night's work. For the dead bodies had been carried to
their homes, and the women wailed over them discreetly behind mud
walls, as if they had died in their beds. All save John Raby's, and
that was making a dismal procession towards the nearest railway
station, preceded at a little distance by poor Belle, crushed and but
half-conscious of the truth. Philip, riding by the side of the litter,
felt there was something exasperating in the absolute insignificance
of the whole affair. It almost seemed as if some one must be to blame,
as if something could surely have been done to avert so terrible an
ending to what was, after all, but a storm in a tea-cup. But then
neither he, nor the authorities who had to inquire into the matter,
were in possession of that master-key to the whole position which was
to be found in Shunker Dâs's desire for revenge. For he had worked
carefully, leaving scarcely a trace behind him; and though Kirpo came
forward boldly to declare his responsibility, her palpable motive for
spite discredited her statements. Besides, at the very outset of the
inquiry, it became clear that John Raby's murder by Râmu had nothing
whatever to do with his action in regard to the water; and however
absurd the man's jealousy might seem, it was certainly sufficient to
explain the rancour with which Kirpo's husband had set himself to
conspire against the Englishman. It was evident therefore that the
latter had met his death, not from his harshness towards the people,
but from the good-nature with which he had originally espoused the
woman's cause. Both Philip Marsden and the Khân could only witness to
the freedom from all attempt at personal violence on the part of the
crowd, even when John Raby had thrown himself among the workers and
taken a spade from them by force; while the subsequent burning and
looting of the factory was evidently an after impulse caused by the
rage of the survivors at the loss of their companions. The whole
affair, in short, being one of those perfectly maddening mistakes and
misapprehensions which serve sometimes to emphasise the peculiar
conditions of life in our Indian Empire.
All this, or most of it, was in due time dinned into the widow's ears
by kindly but strange voices; for there was one familiar voice which
she dreaded to hear because the owner knew of something which the
others did not know: something she could not remember without despair.
So day after day she lay in the spare room of the head official's
house,--that spare room which shelters such an odd variety of guests,
the travelling Member of Parliament, the widow, the homeward and
outward bound, the dying, sometimes the dead--and when Philip's name
was mentioned she would turn her head away and beg to be left alone a
little longer, just a little longer. Hurt as he could not fail to be
at her avoidance of him, he understood the reason of it all too well,
and waited patiently. Then the last day of his leave came, and he sent
to say he _must_ see her before he left; so Belle, white as her
widow's cap, nerved herself for the interview with the man whom she
had preferred before her dead husband. That is how, in her abject
remorse, she put it to herself. She had chosen her lover. The natural
indignation at deceit, the generous instinct, the sense of injustice
which had forced her to the decision were all forgotten before the
memory of those minutes of delay. How could she meet Philip?--Philip,
round whose neck she had thrown her arms while defying the husband
whom she had sent alone to seek death! That Philip had refused to play
the part she gave him, that he had forced her to play a better one
herself, brought her no comfort. She was too much absorbed in the
scene as it affected her and the dead man to care what Philip had said
or done. The very fact of his entering into it at all was an offence.
She would not consider him in the least, except to tell herself that
she was also responsible to _him_ for the loss of his money. To this
additional self-reproach she clung firmly, as if to a protection, and
when she saw him pausing for half a second at the first glimpse of her
in her widow's weeds, she thrust it forward hastily, like a shield
against his sympathy.
"I am so sorry," she began coldly, "it was not his fault. He did his
best about the money, and now you have lost it all."
A sort of irritated amazement came over him. What did he care for the
money? Why should she be fretting over it when his thoughts were full
of her,--of her only? He looked into her grief-darkened eyes with a
certain impatience--the old impatience at seeing her unhappy--the old
eagerness to rouse her into hope. "Oh Belle! what does all that
matter? Don't look so miserable over it, for pity's sake!"
She drew her hand from his, slowly, with her eyes full on his face.
"You are fond of saying that. But how can I look anything else when I
killed my husband?"
"Belle!" The horrified surprise in his tone scarcely expressed his
bewilderment, for he had little experience of women or the morbid
exaggerations in which, at times, they find a positive relief. "Belle,
what do you mean? How can you say such things?"
"What is the use of hiding the truth from ourselves?" she answered
almost with satisfaction at her own self-torture. She had not meant,
at least she thought she had not meant, to broach the subject at all;
but now that it was begun she threw herself into it with out reserve.
"You know as well as possible that it was I who really killed him; I
who prevented your being in time to save him."
There was more pity than amazement in his voice now. "Have you been
tormenting yourself with that thought all these long days? Poor child!
No wonder you have been miserable. Belle, my dear, it isn't true. You
know yourself,--surely you must know it isn't true."
"I know nothing of the sort," she interrupted quickly, with a dull
hard voice. "I kept you, and you were too late. Nothing can alter
that. It is the truth."
"It is not the truth," he answered quietly. "If you had but let me see
you at first I might have spared you this unnecessary pain. Perhaps I
ought to have insisted on seeing you, but--" He went on after a slight
pause, "but I respected your wishes, because--"
"Because you knew I had reason to dread seeing you!" she broke in
passionately. "Because you knew it was I who killed him! Because you
were afraid! Don't deny it, Philip; you knew,--yes! you knew why."
He stood before her, manly and strong, pitiful yet full of vexation.
"I will not have you say such things--of me at any rate, Belle. I will
not even have you think them of me; or of yourself either. In your
heart of hearts you know they are not true. True!--they are lies,
Belle, wicked lies. You have been working yourself up in your
loneliness to believe something impossible, preposterous, and it is my
fault for letting you be lonely. I was not too late. No power on earth
could have saved John. I was there armed, ready; the Khân was there
also with drawn sword; yet we could not save him. No one could have
saved him. _That_ is the truth."
"If you had gone sooner," she murmured, pressing her hands tightly
together till the rings on them cut and hurt, as if she were glad of
pain, of something to appease her own self-condemnation; "if you had
not been delayed, you might have persuaded him to be more cautious."
Philip almost smiled, a smile of vexed surprise at her perversity. "My
dear Belle! Am I a man to preach caution when I am opposed? Was John a
man to listen to such caution when the time for action had come?
Nonsense! I don't wish to be hard, dear; I don't say, mind you, that
the remembrance of his anger is not very bitter--God only knows how
bitter--for you to bear. But, Belle, if he knows anything now, he
knows that he was wrong."
"He was not wrong; he was right. I chose you and forsook him."
Philip gave a little impatient shake of his head, then walked away to
the window feeling how hopeless it was to argue with a woman in
Belle's position. A man was absolutely helpless before such weakness
and such strength. Yet, after a pause, he returned to the attack by a
side route. "Besides," he said, coming back to where she was seated,
and standing beside her resting one hand on the back of her chair, "it
was not really you who delayed me. It was something else of which you
know nothing. If I had seen you I would have told you, but there was
no use mentioning it to others because the man had gone and there was
nothing to be done. It was Afzul kept me. He came to my room when I
went to fetch my revolver, and barred the door. He wanted me to listen
as you did. I think he was mad, but I had to fire ere he would let me
pass. You see it was he who delayed me, not you. One reason why I did
not mention it was this: the man was a deserter, but he had saved my
life and,--I think--I think he must have been mad."
But Belle made no answer. With her head resting on her hand she was
frowning slightly in pursuit of a fugitive memory. "Afzul!" she echoed
at last in puzzled tones. "I had quite forgotten; but surely he came
to me in the drawing-room. He gave me something and he said something;
surely about Dick! Could it have been about Dick?"
Her eyes sought Philip's for the first time with appeal, and he was
sorry to chill the interest in them with a negative. Yet what could
Afzul possibly have to say about poor Dick Smith? "Hardly, I should
think; I doubt if they ever met even at Faizapore. But this reminds
me,--you had something tight clasped in your hand when I found you
close to the river;--so close,--did they tell you how close it was to
death, my dear, when I came upon you lying--Oh, Belle, so close!"
"Something in my hand," echoed Belle coldly. "What did you do with
it?"
"Like you I had forgotten," said Philip, recovering from the break in
his voice. "I put it in the pocket of my coat when I was trying to
bring you back to consciousness in the hut. I dare say it is there
still. Shall I go and see?"
Her affirmative sent him away relieved at the more human interest in
her face. A minute afterwards he returned with a little brocaded
packet looking as if it had lain in damp lodgings. "I hope it isn't
hurt," he said lightly; "but having no servant here, my clothes have
dried as best they could, and it feels rather pulpy. Open it and see
what parting gift that inexplicable compound of fidelity and treachery
left behind him. He had a great admiration for you, Belle."
"It is not for me after all. It is for you," she replied after a
pause, as she smoothed out the long blue envelope which had been
rolled round a smaller packet. "At least I think so. The writing above
is smudged, but 'Marsden, 101st Sikhs' is quite clear. Look at it,
while I open the other."
He took the letter from her calmly, without a misgiving. His first
glance at it, however, roused a sudden doubt, a sudden memory; but ere
he had grasped the meaning of his own thoughts, Belle's hand was on
his arm, and her voice appealing to him in a new, glad tone of hope.
"Oh Philip, it is Dick's ring! I have seen him wear it,--so often; I
can't be mistaken. It is Dick's ring,--can he be alive,--is he,--do
you think he can be alive still?"
For an instant they stood so, she like a resurrection of her girlhood,
he stupidly staring at a curious dark stain blotting out part of the
address. Then the truth began to dawn upon him, and his hand clenched
in a growing passion. "No!" he said fiercely, and his voice was almost
a whisper at first. "No! This is his will,--the will I would not
take,--Afzul! My God! Afzul had it all the time! He must have been in
the Pass,--Ah! I remember,--the _subadar_,--those others, all _his_
enemies,--He must have killed the boy,--He must have killed the boy!"
His horror, his anger, burst bounds. He forgot everything else in the
wild hatred which rose up in him against the murderer, as he strode up
and down the room, silent for the most part, but every now and again
breaking out into a passionate regret. Why had he been so blind? To
think that all the time this man had nursed him, all the time he had
taken so many benefits from that hand, it had been red with poor,
brave Dick's blood. Why had he not shot the scoundrel when he had the
chance?
But Belle stood as he had left her, the fingers of her right hand
still caressing the ring which, half unconsciously, she had slipped to
the third finger of her left, where, over-large for the slender
resting-place, it almost hid the golden circlet of her wedding ring.
Her eyes, soft with a great tenderness, seemed to see nothing but a
young face eager in its plea for toleration. Dick, poor Dick! Had
anything better than his love ever come into her life? The sight of
her as she stood almost with a smile on her face brought a new element
into Philip's thoughts. All that time, while Belle had been beating
her wings against the cage, Afzul had been walking about with release
in his pocket. "It is God's will!" The scene in the verandah at
Saudaghur on the first night of their return from death recurred to
Philip's mind, as such forgotten incidents do when time has shown
their true significance, making him realise more clearly than he had
ever done before in all his life what mere shuttlecocks in the game of
Fate the strongest-willed may be at times. A certain defiant revolt
made him cross to where Belle stood and put his arm around her as if
to claim her. "The Fates have been against us, my darling," he
whispered passionately, "against us all along!"
She scarcely seemed to hear him, scarcely seemed to notice his touch.
In truth she had forgotten him, forgotten even her troubles. "Philip,"
she said, and there was a strange thrill in her voice, "if we had only
known, he could have told us what Dick did. It was something very
brave, I know; but if we could only be sure what it was."
Before the eyes full of a great tenderness which were raised to his,
he felt as far beneath her in his selfishness as she had seemed to him
but just now in her morbid weakness. How could he be angry with her?
How could he even blame her?
And yet when he left her room at length, he looked so dispirited that
the little Irish doctor coming in on his daily visit to Mrs. Raby,
felt impelled to clap him on the back and remark somewhat
inconsequently that "women, God bless 'em!" were only occasionally
responsible for their words; certainly not so when their nerves were
jangled and out of tune. Whereat Philip's pride rose at the very idea
that the bystanders understood, or thought they understood, the
position. Perhaps they were even now speculating how soon those two
would give up mourning and be married. The only drop of comfort came
from Mildred Van Milder, who had come to be with Belle, and take her
back to the little house at Missouri when she was fit to travel. And
her consolation consisted in a tearful remark that Belle had far
better have married Dick Smith. He was very young, of course, and had
no money, but Charlie Allsop hadn't any either, and yet she wouldn't
change him for all the legacies in the world. The news of the
discovery of Dick's will was a nine days' wonder, and even found its
way into the daily papers, much to Philip's annoyance. Otherwise the
fact itself was a distinct relief, since it gave Belle independence
and removed the fear of her choosing poverty in preference to his
help; a choice which in her present frame of mind seemed a foregone
conclusion. At the same time it was likely to raise a new crop of
difficulties, for three years had passed by since the money had fallen
in to the charity, and a long time must elapse before it could be
recovered; if indeed it could be recovered at all. Luckily the proving
of the will was not difficult, despite the peculiarities of its
custody. To begin with it was in Dick's own writing, and the old Khân
was able to speak with certainty as to having seen both envelope and
ring in the Pathan's possession, and bear out the fact that Philip had
taken the brocaded packet from Belle's hand in the hut. The question
as to how Afzul had come by it was, in Philip's opinion, all too
clear; especially when inquiry proved that the Pathan had at any rate
been on the Peiwar Pass about the time of the murder. So far good; the
remainder, however, was more puzzling, and Philip felt that Belle made
a wise decision in refusing to disturb any existing arrangements
until, as she put it, time should show what she ought to do. The
doctors strongly advised her going home to England as soon as the
advent of the rains should make the long railway journey to Bombay
possible. The complete change would give her the best chance of
recovering the shock, and she could then see with her own eyes how the
money had been spent, and what portion of it, if any, she would care
to leave in its present employment.
"I shall meet you in Delhi," he wrote in reply to the letter in which
she gave him her final decision, "and see you safe to Bombay. To begin
with, there are one or two little business formalities which require
my presence as executor, and then I must see you once more. There is
to be a punitive expedition over the frontier in spring; so leave will
be impossible until the cold weather after next, and that is a long
time. I may never see you again."
She read these words as she sate on the window-seat of the little
drawing-room where she had read the news of his death three years
before. Three years! Was it only three years, since, with her eyes
still wet with the tears she did not understand, she had gone out into
the mist and the rain to find that vision of a sunlit world at her
feet with John Raby standing at her side? And now he was dead, dead in
anger, while tears, far more bitter than those she had shed at the
thought of Philip's death, came to her eyes with the thought of seeing
him again. Yet the world seemed to have stood still otherwise; the
little room, the slanting pines, the drifts of cloud over the hills,
even Maud in the rocking-chair, and Mrs. Stuart still aggressive in
her tears and widow's caps--for the good lady had ordered a new one in
anticipation of Belle's visit, moved thereto by an ill-defined but
very kindly impulse of sympathy. But Belle did not know this; she only
saw that sameness which is almost irritating when we ourselves have
changed so much. She used to sit in the little room where she had
slept the night before her wedding, and wonder what she had done to
bring herself into this position; herein, for once, agreeing with
Philip, who far away with his regiment asked himself many and many a
time what either of them had done of which they needed to be ashamed.
Meanwhile the little household went on its monotonous way contentedly.
Charlie was at school, much improved, and glad of Belle's presence;
partly because he was fond of her, partly because she occupied his
room and thus prevented that weekly return home from Saturday to
Monday at which he was beginning to grow restive, since it was almost
as derogatory to dignity as being a home-boarder. Mrs. Stuart employed
herself in weeping placidly over Belle's misfortunes, and paying
visits to her friends, during which she darkly hinted that she had
always been against the match; for Mr. Raby had played _écarté_,
and though of course he had not lost his money that way, it was not
_comme il faut_ in a young civilian. Maud was growing older in the
rocking-chair, and inclined, as ever, to resent other people's tears.
"I don't think Belle is so much to be pitied after all," she cried
captiously. "Other people are not always having legacies left them,
and £30,000 means more to a widow than to a married woman. Besides,
she needn't remain a widow unless she likes; Philip Marsden has been
in love with her all the time." Whereat Mildred, signing her daily
letter to Charlie Allsop with a flourish which would have done credit
to the heiress of millions, interrupted her sister hotly. "I think
it's a beastly shame to say so all the same, Maudie. I dare say it's
true; but I'm sure if any one said such things of me when I was a
widow, I'd never marry the man. No, not if I liked him ever so much!
I'll tell you what it is: Belle has had a hard time of it; and if poor
Dick were only here, as well as his money, I believe she would marry
him and be happy."
"My dear girls!" expostulated their mother feebly, "her husband is not
six weeks dead till next Tuesday. If any one had suggested marriage to
me when poor Colonel Stuart--"
"Oh, that is different, mamma," retorted Mildred impatiently. "Belle
only married John by mistake. Lots of girls do the same thing. Mabel
has, with her Major; but then she will never find it out, so it
doesn't matter. Charlie says--"
"Oh, if Charlie says anything, that settles the matter," broke in Maud
peevishly. "I wish you two would get married, and then you would soon
cease to think each other perfection. For my part, I consider Belle is
not to be pitied. She has plenty of money, and by and by she will have
a baby to amuse her when she's tired of other things. What more can
any woman want? I'm very sorry for her now, but grief doesn't last
forever, and after all she never was in love with John. That's one
comfort."
Perhaps if Belle had been asked she might have denied the last
statement. If she had loved him, the past would certainly have been
less of a regret, the future less of a fear. What was to be the end of
it all? That question clamoured for answer as the big ship began to
slide from its moorings. Leaning over the taffrail, her eyes heavy
with unshed tears, she could see nothing but Philip standing
bareheaded in the boat which slipped landwards so fast. A minute
before his hands had been in hers, his kind voice faltering good-bye
in her ears. And now? Suddenly her clasped fingers opened in a gesture
of entreaty. "Philip!" she whispered. "Comeback, come back!"
But the swirl of the screw had caught the boat and Major Marsden was
in his place at the tiller-ropes, his face set landwards. The rowers
bent to their oars and so, inch by inch, yard by yard, the rippling
sunlit water grew between those two. Was that to be the end?