Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: WITH THE UTMOST GENTLENESS HE LAID HIS HAND AGAIN UPON
HERS. "ARE YOU AFRAID TO SAY IT?" HE SAID. Drawn by E. L. Crompton.
(_See page_ 98)]
The
Hundredth Chance
BY
ETHEL M. DELL
AUTHOR OF
THE LAMP IN THE DESERT,
THE SWINDLER, ETC.
FRONTISPIECE BY
EDNA CROMPTON
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT. 1917
BY
ETHEL M. DELL
The Way of an Eagle
The Knave of Diamonds
The Rocks of Valpre
The Swindler
The Keeper of the Door
Bars of Iron
Rosa Mundi
The Hundredth Chance
The Safety Curtain
Greatheart
The Lamp in the Desert
The Tidal Wave
The Top of the World
The Obstacle Race
This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
I Dedicate This Book
to
My Old Friend
W. S. H.
In Affectionate Remembrance of Many Kindnesses
"The plowman shall overtake the reaper,
And the treader of grapes him that soweth seed."
Obadiah 9-13.
CONTENTS
_PART 1_
THE START
I.--Beggars
II.--The Idol
III.--The New Acquaintance
IV.--The Accepted Suitor
V.--In the Dark
VI.--The Unwilling Guest
VII.--The Magician
VIII.--The Offer
IX.--The Real Man
X.--The Head of the Family
XI.--The Declaration of War
XII.--The Reckoning
XIII.--The Only Port
XIV.--The Way of Escape
XV.--The Closed Door
XVI.--The Champion
XVII.--The Wedding Morning
XVIII.--The Wedding Night
XIX.--The Day After
XX.--A Friend of the Family
XXI.--The Old Life
XXII.--The Faithful Widower
XXIII.--The Narrowing Circle
XXIV.--Brothers
XXV.--Misadventure
XXVI.--The Word Unspoken
XXVII.--The Token
XXVIII.--The Visitor
XXIX.--Her Other Self
XXX.--The Rising Current
XXXI.--Light Relief
XXXII.--The Only Solution
XXXIII.--The Furnace
XXXIV.--The Sacrifice
XXXV.--The Offer of Freedom
XXXVI.--The Bond
_PART II_
THE RACE
I.--Husks
II.--The Poison Plant
III.--Confidences
IV.--The Letter
V.--Rebellion
VI.--The Problem
VII.--The Land of Moonshine
VIII.--The Warning
IX.--The Invitation
X.--The Mistake
XI.--The Reason
XII.--Refuge
XIII.--The Lamp before the Altar
XIV.--The Open Door
XV.--The Downward Path
XVI.--The Revelation
XVII.--The Last Chance
XVIII.--The Whirlpool
XIX.--The Outer Darkness
XX.--Deliverance
XXI.--The Poison Fruit
XXII.--The Loser
XXIII.--The Storm Wind
XXIV.--The Great Burden
XXV.--The Blow
XXVI.--The Deed of Gift
XXVII.--The Impossible
XXVIII.--The First of the Vultures
XXIX.--The Dutiful Wife
XXX.--The Lane of Fire
XXXI.--The New Boss
XXXII.--Old Scores
Epilogue: The Finish
The Hundredth Chance
PART I
THE START
CHAPTER I
BEGGARS
"My dear Maud, I hope I am not lacking in proper pride. But it is an
accepted--though painful--fact that beggars cannot be choosers."
Lady Brian spoke with plaintive emphasis the while she drew an elaborate
initial in the sand at her feet with the point of her parasol.
"I cannot live in want," she said, after a thoughtful moment or two.
"Besides, there is poor little Bunny to be considered." Another
thoughtful pause; then: "What did you say, dear?"
Lady Brian's daughter made an abrupt movement without taking her eyes
off the clear-cut horizon; beautiful eyes of darkest, deepest blue under
straight black brows that gave them a somewhat forbidding look. There
was nothing remarkable about the rest of her face. It was thin and
sallow and at the moment rather drawn, not a contented face, and yet
possessing a quality indefinable that made it sad rather than bitter.
Her smile was not very frequent, but when it came it transfigured her
utterly. No one ever pictured that smile of hers beforehand. It came so
brilliantly, so suddenly, like a burst of sunshine over a brown and
desolate landscape, making so vast a difference that all who saw it for
the first time marvelled at the unexpected glow.
But it was very far from her face just now. In fact she looked as if
she could never smile again as she said: "Bunny would sooner die of
starvation than have you do this thing. And so would I."
"You are so unpractical," sighed Lady Brian. "And really, you know,
dear, I think you are just a wee bit snobbish too, you and Bunny. Mr.
Sheppard may be a self-made man, but he is highly respectable."
"Oh, is he?" said Maud, with a twist of the lips that made her look
years older than the woman beside her.
"I'm sure I don't know why you should question it," protested Lady
Brian. "He is extremely respectable. He is also extremely kind,--in
fact, a friend in need."
"And a beast!" broke in her daughter, with sudden passionate vehemence.
"A hateful, familiar beast! Mother, how can you endure the man? How
can you for a single moment demean yourself by the bare idea of--of
marrying him?"
Lady Brian sighed again. "It isn't as if I had asked you to marry him,"
she pointed out. "I never even asked you to marry Lord Saltash,
although--as you must now admit--it was the one great chance of your
life."
Again Maud made that curious, sharp movement of hers that was as if some
inner force urged her strongly to spring up and run away.
"We won't discuss Lord Saltash," she said, with lips that were suddenly
a little hard.
"Then I don't see why we should discuss Giles Sheppard either," said
Lady Brian, with a touch of querulousness. "Of course I know he doesn't
compare well with your poor father. Second husbands so seldom do--which
to my mind is one of the principal objections to marrying twice. But--as
I said before--beggars cannot be choosers and something has got to be
sacrificed, so there is an end of the matter."
Maud turned her eyes slowly away from the horizon, swept with them the
nearer expanse of broad, tumbling sea, and finally brought them to rest
upon her mother's face.
Lady Brian was forty-five, but she looked many years younger. She was a
very pretty woman, delicate-featured, softly-tinted, with a species of
appealing charm about her that all but the stony-hearted few found it
hard to resist. She put her daughter wholly in the shade, but then Maud
never attempted to charm anyone. She had apparently no use for the
homage that was as the very breath of life to her mother's worldly
little soul. She never courted popularity. All her being seemed to be
bound up in that of her young brother who had been a helpless cripple
from his babyhood, and dependent upon her care. The ten years that
stretched between them were as nought to these two. They were pals; and
if the boy tyrannized freely over her, she was undoubtedly the only
person in the world for whom he entertained the smallest regard. She
had lavished all a mother's love upon him during the whole of his
fifteen years, and she alone knew how much had been sacrificed before
the shrine of her devotion. He filled all the empty spaces in her
heart.
But now--now that they were practically penniless--the great question
arose: Who was to provide for Bunny? Lady Brian had lived more or less
comfortably upon credit for the past five years. It was certainly not
her fault that this bruised reed had broken at last in her hand. She
had tried every device to strengthen it. And then too there had always
been the possibility that Maud might marry Lord Saltash, who was
extremely wealthy and--by fits and starts--very sedulous in his
attentions.
It was of course very unfortunate that he should have been connected
with that unfortunate scandal in the Divorce Court; but then everyone
knew that he had led a somewhat giddy life ever since his succession to
the title. Besides, nothing had been proved, and the unlucky affair had
fallen through in consequence. It was really too absurd of Maud to
treat it seriously, if indeed she had treated it seriously. Not being
in her daughter's confidence, Lady Brian was uncertain on this point.
But, whatever the circumstances, Charlie Saltash had obviously abandoned
his allegiance. And Maud--poor girl!--had no one else to fall back
upon. Of course it was very sweet of her to devote herself so
unsparingly to dear little Bunny, but Lady Brian was privately of the
opinion that she wasted a good deal of valuable time in his service.
She was twenty-five already, and--now that the crash had come--little
likely to find another suitor.
They had come down to this cheery little South Coast resort to recruit
and look around them. Obviously something would have to be done, and
done very quickly, or they would end their days in the workhouse.
Lady Brian had relations in the North, but, as she was wont to express
it, they were not inclined to be kind to her. Her runaway marriage with
Sir Bernard Brian in her irresponsible girlhood had caused something of
a split between them. The wild Irish baronet had never been regarded
with a favourable eye, and her subsequent sojourn in Ireland had
practically severed all connection with them.
Sir Bernard's death and her subsequent migration to London had not
healed the breach. She was regarded as flighty and unreliable. There
was no knowing what her venture might be, and, save for a very
occasional correspondence with an elderly bachelor uncle who was careful
not to betray too keen an interest in her affairs, she was left severely
alone.
Therefore she had too much pride to ask for help, sustaining herself
instead upon the kindness of friends till even this prop at length gave
way; and she, Maud and poor little Bunny (whose very empty title was all
he possessed in the world) found themselves stranded at Fairharbour at
the dead end of the season with no means of paying their way even there.
Not wholly stranded, however! Lady Brian had stayed at Fairharbour
before at the Anchor Hotel down by the fishing-quay--"the Anchovy Hotel"
Bunny called it on account of its situation. It was not a very
high-class establishment, but Lady Brian had favoured it on a previous
occasion because Lord Saltash had a yacht in the vicinity, and it had
seemed such a precious opportunity for dear Maud. He also had large
racing-stables in the neighbourhood of the downs behind the little town,
and there was no knowing when one or other of his favourite pastimes
might tempt him thither.
Nothing had come of the previous visit, however, save a pleasant,
half-joking acquaintance with Mr. Sheppard, the proprietor of the Anchor
Hotel, during the progress of which Lady Brian's appealing little ways
had laid such firm hold of the worthy landlord's rollicking fancy that
she had found it quite difficult to tear herself away.
Matters had not then come to such a pass, and she had finally extricated
herself with no more than a laughing promise to return as soon as the
mood took her. Maud had been wholly unaware of the passage between them
which had been of a very slight and frothy order; and not till she found
herself established in some very shabby lodgings within a stone's throw
of the Anchor Hotel did the faintest conception of her mother's reason
for choosing Fairharbour as their city of refuge begin to dawn in her
brain.
She was very fully alive to it now, however, and hotly, furiously
resentful, albeit she had begun already to realize (how bitterly!) that
no resentment on her part could avert the approaching catastrophe. As
Lady Brian pathetically said, something had got to be sacrificed.
And there was Bunny! She could not leave Bunny to try to earn a living.
He was utterly dependent upon her--so dependent that it did not seem
possible that he could live without her. No, she could see no way of
escape. But it was too horrible, too revolting! She was sure, too,
that her mother had a sneaking liking for the man, and that fact
positively nauseated her. That awful person! That bounder!
"So, you see, dear, it really can't be helped," Lady Brian said, rising
and opening her sunshade with a dainty air of finality. "Why his fancy
should have fallen upon me I cannot imagine. But--all things
considered--it is perhaps very fortunate that it has. He is quite ready
to take us all in, and that, even you must admit, is really very
generous of him."
Maud's eyes travelled again to the far sky-line. They had a look in
them as of a caged thing yearning for freedom.
"It is getting late," said Lady Brian.
Sharply she turned. "Mother," she said, "I shall write to Uncle Edward.
This is too much. I am sure he will not condemn us to this."
Lady Brian sighed a trifle petulantly. "You will do as you like, dear,
no doubt. But pray do not write on my account! Whatever he may be
moved to do or say can make no difference to me now."
"Why not?" Curtly her daughter put the question. The beautiful brows
were painfully drawn.
"Because," said Lady Brian plaintively, "it will be too late--so far as
I am concerned."
"What do you mean?" Again, almost like a challenge, the girl flung the
question.
Lady Brian began to walk along the beach. "I mean, dear, that I have
promised to give Mr. Sheppard his answer to-night."
"But--but--Mother--" there was almost a cry in the words, "you
can't--you can't have quite decided upon what the answer will be!"
Lady Brian sighed again. "Oh, do let us have a little common-sense!"
she said, with just a touch of irritation. "Of course I have decided.
The decision has been simply thrust upon me. I had no choice."
"Then you mean to say Yes?" Maud's voice fell suddenly flat. She
turned her face again to the open sea, a glint of desperation in her
eyes.
"Yes," said Lady Brian very definitely. "I mean to say Yes."
"Then Heaven help us!" said Maud, under her breath.
"My dear, don't be profane!" said Lady Brian.