It was not until March that Rufus realised that his dream was at an end. He had hoped against hope for weeks; had toiled on with steady persistency and tried to banish from his brain the thought of failure. The knowledge came suddenly, though he took a long journey to the North of England to seek it. When he turned his face toward home he knew that all his labour had been in vain.
Not that the invention on which he had bestowed so much toil and thought was worthless. On the contrary, he saw greater possibilities in it than ever before. But he had been forestalled. Another brain, as inventive as his own, and with far greater facilities for reducing theories to practice, had conceived the same idea and carried it into effect, while he was still painfully toiling in the same direction. When he looked at the work brought out by his competitor in the North, he felt as though there was no further place for him on earth.
"It is better than mine," he said to himself, sadly. "The main idea is the same, but he has shown more skill in developing it."
It was the advantage of the trained engineer over the untrained, of experience over inexperience. He had no feeling of bitterness in his heart against the man who had succeeded; he was of too generous a nature to be envious. The man who had won deserved to win.
He journeyed home like a man in a dream. The way seemed neither long nor short. The first faint odour of spring was in the air, but he did not heed it. His fellow passengers seemed more like shadows than real people. The world for him was at an end. He had no more to do. One question only was left to trouble him. How to put out life's brief candle without awakening any suspicion of foul play. He was more heavily stunned than he knew. Outwardly he was quite calm and collected, but it was the calmness of insensibility. For the moment he was past feeling; it was as though some powerful narcotic had been injected into his veins. He had an idea that nothing could ruffle him any more.
He had fretted a good deal at first over the loss of his good name. It seemed a monstrous thing that any man should have the power to rob him of what he valued more than all else on earth. That Gervase Tregony had deliberately bribed Tim Polgarrow and his own gardener to say he was drunk he had not the least shadow of a doubt, but he had no proof; and to accuse a man of inciting to perjury—especially a man in the position of Gervase Tregony—was a very dangerous thing. So he had to keep his mouth shut, and bear in silence one of the cruellest wrongs ever inflicted upon a man.
He was not at all sorry that he had disfigured the not too handsome face of Gervase Tregony for a few days. Indeed, he was human enough to feel that he would not mind paying another five pounds to be allowed to repeat the process. It was not "the assault" part of the affair that troubled him, nobody thought much the worse of him for that side of the episode. Gervase was not so popular in St. Gaved that he had many sympathisers.
But to be accused of drunkenness, and to have the accusation sworn to, and set down as proved, was as the bitterness of death to him. If there was any vice in the world he loathed it was drunkenness. It seemed to him the parent of so many other vices as well as the Hades of human degradation. It is true he was not a pledged abstainer. He never cared to pledge himself to anything, but in practice he was above reproach.
He knew, of course, why the charge of drunkenness had been tacked on to that of assault, without the former the latter would not hold water. It would be too humiliating to Gervase to admit that a sober man had beaten him in fair fight; hence the fiction that he was pounced upon suddenly and unawares by a man who was mad drunk. But the chief reason lay deeper still. He was not so blind that he could not see that Gervase was jealous of him, and sometimes he half wondered, half hoped, that he had reason to be jealous. It made his nerves tingle when he thought, that in the big house and before the Tregony family, Madeline Grover might have unwittingly let fall some word that could be construed into a partiality for him. It was a thought that would not bear to be looked at or analysed he knew. Nevertheless, it would flash across his brain, and that pretty frequently.
Hence, from Gervase's point of view the charge of drunkenness was what the man in the street would call "good business." He often pictured Gervase gloating over his triumph. If ever Madeline thought affectionately of him she would do so no longer. She would try to forget that he ever crossed her path, and, perhaps be sorry to the end of her days that she had shown him so much favour.
This was the bitterest part of the whole experience. That Madeline should think ill of him—the one womanthat all unwittingly he had learned to love—was more painful than all the rest put together. It was bad enough to be held up as an awful example in Church and Sunday-school and Temperance meeting, as he heard was the case. But all that he did not mind so much. He might live it down in time. But if Madeline was once within his reach, and this cruel slander drove her into the arms of Gervase Tregony, that would be a tragedy that could never be lived down, that would darken his life to the end of the chapter.
For several weeks he kept hoping that he would meet Madeline again. He wanted to have one more conversation with her. He hoped that her generous nature would allow him to put his side of the case; or, if that was denied him that he might be allowed to say with all the emphasis he could command, that the accusation was false. But she gave him no such opportunity. He watched for her in the streets of St. Gaved. He took long walks across the downs, he loitered in the road that led past the lodge gates, but never once did she show her face. She evidently meant to let him see that their acquaintanceship was at an end.
Then came the news that the whole family had gone abroad, and that no one knew when they would return to Trewinion Hall again. He heard the news with a dull sense of pain at his heart. The brightest—the most beautiful thing—that had ever come into his life had gone out again, and he was left like a man stricken blind in a land of sunshine.
Yet, strangely enough, his sense of grief and shame and loss increased his desire for life. He did not want to hide himself—to pass out into silence and forgetfulness. He wanted to live so that he might redeem his life from the shadow that had fallenupon it, and prove to Madeline Grover, however late in the day, how cruelly he had been wronged.
On his return from the North, however, this and every other feeling was swallowed up in a strange insensibility to pain, both mental and physical. The one thought that dominated him was that he must keep his pledge to Felix Muller. As an honourable man he was bound to do that, and perhaps the sooner he did it the better.
He had spent three-fourths of the money he had borrowed. He had a few assets in the shape of tools, the rest would have to be scrapped, and would only be worth the value of old iron. In case there were no mishaps over the insurance money, Felix Muller would be well repaid for the risks he had taken and the world would go on just as if nothing had happened.
After a good deal of cogitation he came to the conclusion that the easiest way out of life would be by drowning. He was not a very good swimmer. He soon got exhausted and so was careful never to venture out of his depth. It would be quite easy, therefore, for him to swim out into deep water or take a header from a rock when the tide was up and then quietly drown.
That would mean that he would have to wait until summer. Nobody in St. Gaved bathed in the sea in March. To avoid any suspicion of foul play he would have to follow his normal habits and preserve as far as possible a cheerful temper.
It was soon whispered through the town that Rufus's great invention had proved a failure. Some sympathised with him. Some secretly rejoiced. For, curiously enough, no man can live in this world and do his duty without making enemies. There are narrow, ungenerous souls in every community who regard the success of their neighbours as a personalaffront, who can see no merit in anyone, and who are never able to shape their lips to a word of praise or congratulation.
These people always complained that Rufus was a cut above his station. They said it would do him good "to be taken down a peg." But they were dreadfully sorry for the people whom he had induced to invest money in his wild-cat enterprise.
There were talks of his being made a bankrupt, and hints were thrown out that he might soon have to appear in a court of law on a worse charge than that of being drunk and disorderly. Moralists were able to see in his case striking illustrations of the truth that "the way of transgressors is hard." It was against the eternal order that a man should permanently prosper who had turned his back upon the faith of his fathers. His failure was heaven's punishment on him for neglecting church and chapel, and his fall into the sin of drunkenness was to be traced to precisely the same source.
Some of these things were repeated to Rufus by not too judicious friends, but they little guessed how deeply they hurt him. It was not his habit to betray his feelings. When he was most deeply stung he said the least.
A few days after his return Felix Muller drove over to see him. He came as usual after dark, and his excuse was that he had been to see clients in the neighbourhood.
Felix was full of sympathy and generous in his language of commiseration.
"We must still hope for the best," he said, after a long pause, looking into the fire with a grave and abstracted air. "You have several months yet to turn round in."
"It will be impossible for me to find the money except in the way we agreed upon," Rufus answered, without emotion.
"It may look so now," Muller answered, with pretended cheerfulness; "but in this topsy-turvy world there is no knowing what will turn up. I wish it were possible for me to allow you an extension of time."
"I fear it would not help me, if you could," Rufus said, absently.
"Well, perhaps it wouldn't, but all the same I should like to give you an extra chance or two if that were possible."
"I am not asking for any favours," Rufus said, indifferently. "I am getting things straight for you with as little delay as possible."
"And I shall loathe myself for being compelled to receive the money when you are gone."
Rufus looked at him for a moment with a doubtful light in his eyes.
"Why, what can it matter to you?" he questioned. "I thought you were a man without sentiment."
"I am in the main. I am just a man of business, and nothing else. Yet there's no denying I am fond of you. You are a man of my own way of thinking. May I not say you are a disciple of mine?"
"You may say what you like," Sterne replied, with a hollow laugh. "I believe you helped to destroy some of the illusions of my youth."
"And therefore you are grateful to me, and I am interested in you."
"I am not sure that I am particularly grateful," Rufus said, wearily, "What is there to be grateful for?"
"What is there to be grateful for?" Muller questioned, raising his eyebrows. "Surely it is somethingto have got out of the fogs of superstition into the clear light of reason. To have escaped from the bondage of creeds into the freedom of humanity. To have discovered the true value and proportion of things, to have been delivered from all fear of the future——"
"Are we not playing with words and phrases?" Rufus questioned, suddenly.
"My dear friend, what do you mean?" Muller asked in surprise.
"Suppose by reason and logic we can destroy everything until nothing is left? Is there any satisfaction in that? Is there any comfort in a philosophy of negations?"
"Explain yourself."
"Well, we will say for the sake of argument that we have proved there is no God and no future state. That all religions are myths and dreams. That matter explains everything, that thought is only sensation, that morality simply registers a stage in evolution, that death breaks up the elements which compose the individual, and they return to their native state. What then? Have we got any further? Are we not merely playing with words and phrases as children play with pebbles on the shore?"
"My dear fellow, whom have you been talking with lately?"
"That is nothing to the point," Rufus answered, with a touch of defiance in his voice. "What I want to know is, how or in what way we are better off than say the vicar and his curate?"
"My dear fellow, surely you can see that they are the puppets of an exploded superstition."
"Well, suppose they are. What are we the puppets of?"
"We are not puppets at all. We are free men."
"Words again," Rufus answered, with a pathetic smile. "We are as completely hemmed in by the forces that surround us as they are. As completely baffled by the riddle of existence. In what does our freedom consist? We have cast off one dogma to pin our faith to another."
"No, no; we are not dogmatists at all."
"Words again, Muller. You have your set of beliefs as clearly defined as the vicar has his. You have formulated your creed. That it is largely a denial of all he believes is nothing to the point. A negative implies a positive."
"Ah, but he believes in what affects the freedom of the human mind and the human will. He believes in a personal God, in human accountability to that Being; in a Day of Judgment; in a future state of rewards and punishments."
"And you believe in extinction?"
"Of course I do, and so do you."
"But is there any such thing as extinction? Can you destroy anything? If a thing ceases to exist in one form, does it not exist in another?"
"Of course, that is the eternal process, the undeviating order. At death you disintegrate and turn to dust. In other words you are resolved into your native elements, those elements are used up again in other forms, they feed a rose, give colour to the grass, pass into the plumage of a bird, or into the structure of an animal."
"But I am more than dust, Muller, and so are you. Your philosophy still leaves the riddle unsolved. I am coming round to the conviction that personality is not to be explained away by any such rough-and-ready method."
"I am sorry to hear you say so."
"Why should you be sorry?"
"Because when a man is in the grip of superstition there is no knowing what he will do or leave undone. So-called religion is made an excuse for so many things."
"For not committing suicide, for instance?"
"Exactly. If a man gets the stupid notion into his head that he is accountable to somebody for his life, or that he will have to give an account at some hypothetical judgment day, that man becomes a slave at once. He is no longer his own master. No longer free to do what he likes."
"My dear Muller," Rufus questioned, with a smile. "Are you free to do as you like? Is not the life of every one of us bounded by laws and conditions that we cannot escape?"
"Up to a point, no doubt. Freedom is not chaos. Liberty moves within legitimate bounds. Our philosophy is at any rate rational."
"Then you believe in a moral order as well as a physical?"
"The moral order man has evolved for himself. It is a concomitant of civilisation."
"Why not say he has evolved the physical order for himself? Would it not be just as reasonable? He may have evolved considerable portions of his creeds and any number of dogmas. But the moral order is no more a part of ecclesiasticism than earthquakes are. It is part of the universal cosmos before which we stand helpless and bewildered."
"My dear Sterne, you talk like a parson. Who has been coaching you?"
"No, no, Muller; the subject is too big and complex to be dismissed with a sneer."
"I expect I shall hear of you next playing the martyr for moral ideals," Muller said, with a slight curl of the lip.
"That seems to be the next item on the programme," Rufus answered, quietly; "for, after all, what is honesty—the just payment of debts—but a moral ideal."
"It belongs to that code of honour certainly that civilised peoples have shaped for themselves."
"Then you think I am bound to my pledge by nothing more weighty than that?"
"What could be more weighty? You could not escape from it without—without—but why discuss the impossible? You are a man of honour, that is enough."
"And when is the latest you would like the money, Muller?"
"It will need a month or two to clear up things," he said, evasively.
"And if I am too precipitate I might be suspected?"
"Exactly. You cannot be too wary. Companies have grown suspicious. There have been so many attempts of late to cheat them, and, of course, in the eye of the law robbing a company stands in precisely the same category as robbing an individual."
Rufus gave a start, and all the blood left his cheeks, and for several moments he stared at the fire in silence.
Muller rose from his chair, and began to brush his bowler hat with his hand.
"I'm frightfully sorry it's happened," he said, consolingly, "but, after all, it will soon be over."
"Ye—s."
"I advised you against it. I did not like the risk from the first."
"But you'll profit by the transaction?"
"My dear fellow, we're bound to make a little profit now and then or we should starve."
"Profit?" Rufus mused, as if to himself, "what shall it profit a man——"
"Perhaps you will advise me nearer the time?" Muller said, uneasily, and he moved towards the door.
"No. The papers will advise you."
"Well, good-night. I will not say good-bye; perhaps something may turn up yet." And he pulled open the door and passed out into the hall.
"Good-night," Rufus answered, and he turned back to his easy-chair and sat down.
Rufus sat staring into the fire for the best part of an hour, with eyes full of pain and questioning. Unwittingly Felix Muller had startled him out of the condition of semi-insensibility into which he had fallen. The dull apathy, mental and moral, passed from him like a cloud. He was keenly alive once more, keenly sensitive to every question that touched his personal honour. He was amazed that he should have failed to see the moral issue raised by Muller. Amazed that he had never considered the rights of the company in which he had insured his life.
Was it true, he wondered, that departure from the Christian faith, the relinquishing of the idea of accountability to a Supreme Being, lowered a man's moral standard? Would he have lost sight of the moral view if he had not drifted into the cold and barren regions of materialistic philosophy? He had prided himself on his personal honour, and yet had he not been sliding downwards, steadily and unconsciously, ever since he cast religion definitely aside? The Churches might concern themselves mainly with questions that were of little account. But, after all, they did keep alive the sense of God, the idea of accountability, the importance of right living.
If he had held on, for instance, to the faith of his childhood, would he have lost sight for a moment of the fact that to cheat a public company was just asdishonest as to cheat a private individual? Could he under any circumstances have entered into the compact he had? Would he not have sighted the moral issue in a moment?
He felt humiliated and ashamed. How could he patch the garment of his personal honour with stolen material. The conduct of Micawber in paying Traddles with his I.O.U. was nobility itself in comparison with his proposal to pay Muller by cheating an insurance company. The only question that had worried him until now was whether a man had any right to take his own life. And his materialistic philosophy had led him to the conclusion that in such a matter he was responsible to himself alone, that his life was his own to do what he liked with, to end it or use it, just as seemed good in his own eyes.
That might be true still for all he knew, though he was beginning to doubt. But on a question of common honesty there was no room for two opinions. Society was built up and held together by the recognition of certain fundamental principles. There was practically universal agreement on certain things. No argument was necessary. No one was asked to prove that fire was hot or that ice was cold, for instance. So with honesty and dishonesty. A man who tried to defend cheating would be ostracised.
But why had he failed to see this clear moral issue? That was the question that troubled him. He had struck a blow at his own integrity and was not conscious of it. Just as the worst kind of hell is to be in hell and not know it, so the most terrible state of depravity is to be depraved and to be unconscious of the fact.
Rufus felt such a sense of personal loathing as he had never known before. He saw himself as in amirror—not darkly, but clearly. He realised that in casting away the husks he had cast away the grain also, that in losing the sense of accountability he had obscured his vision of righteousness.
There were certain excuses to be made for himself he knew. He had been so certain of the success of his scheme that he had never given himself time to consider the alternative issue. It was only recently that the idea of failure had seriously crossed his mind. At the beginning he had refused to consider it even as a remote contingency. That the company would ever be called upon to pay the money was too absurd to be thought of.
In addition to that, there had been a vague idea somewhere at the back of his mind that a company and an individual were not in the same category, that they belonged to a different order of things.
A company was something impersonal—something that had neither morals nor conscience, that had neither a body to be kicked nor a soul to be saved. Hence the idea of cheating a company was on a par with trying to cheat a steamship or a railway engine.
He had never said this to himself. He had never really looked at the matter, but he was vaguely conscious that there had been some such feeling or idea in his mind. Why such an idea should have possessed his sub-consciousness he did not know. Now that he had become wide-awake to the real issue he was amazed.
Then there was another question that went hand in hand with the others. Why did his moral sense become acutely awake at this particular juncture? He had been getting back again to the old landmarks. He had been recovering his lost faith on many points. His visit to Tregannon and his many conversations withMarshall Brook had helped him to discern what was vital in religion. He had been separating, unconsciously, ecclesiasticism from Christianity. He disliked the former as much as ever, but the philosophy of Jesus seemed the noblest thing ever given to the world. If he had been asked if he believed in Jesus Christ and His teachings he would have said yes. Had he been asked if he believed in the Church and its teachings, his answer would have still been a negative, or, if an affirmative it would have been conditioned by so many reservations that he would not have been deemed suitable for church membership in any communion. Yet he was not far from the kingdom of God. The kernel of Christianity he accepted. He knew it and felt it. His quarrel was no longer with Christ, but with those who pretended to represent Him, with an organisation that in the main had lost His Spirit.
Was, then, the quickening of his moral sense the outcome of his recovered faith? If he had never known Madeline Grover, never read the books she lent him, never listened to the teachings of Marshall Brook, would he have troubled about the rights of an insurance company?
These were questions he could not answer. He had not found his bearings yet. He would need more time. Moreover, the question of all others that hammered at his brain and conscience was, should he pay back the money he owed Muller by fraud? Should he be dishonest in one direction that he might be honest in another? Should he pay a debt of honour by an act of flagrant dishonour? He knew that Muller would answer yes in a moment; that with him honesty and honour did not belong to the same category. He would have said that men might be perfectly honourable without being honest; that honesty, after all,was merely a matter of policy; that perfectly honourable men cheated every day.
But with his awakened moral sense Rufus could not see things in that light. What, therefore, was he to do?
He stole off to bed at length, but not to sleep. Hour after hour he lay wide awake, thinking, thinking. But he could see no way out of the difficulty. The more he puzzled his brain the more perplexed he became. He was on the horns of a dilemma from which there seemed no escape.
As a man of honour he was bound to hand back the money to Muller by the time appointed, and yet to do so he must take his own life and commit at the same time an act of roguery that would cover his name with infamy if men got to know. As far as his own life was concerned he was not in the mood to set much value upon it, and as the days passed away that mood deepened and intensified. He asked himself the question constantly, What had he to live for? The things that made life valuable had been taken from him. What was life without hope and without love? He was so absolutely stranded that even if he lived it would only be a miserable dragging out of existence.
Sometimes he gave way to absolute despair, and the very thought of death was a relief to him. Peace and quietness and rest were to be found only in the grave. Why not end the struggle at once? Why wait until summer came? He could gain nothing by waiting, and a few days more or less could make no difference. The sooner the fatal slip was taken the sooner would come relief.
And yet in the darkest days of despair his moral sense revolted. The idea of committing a fraud as the final act of his life seemed to jar every fibre of his being.It was not dying he shrank from, though death itself seemed a far more solemn thing than it had done for many years past. But he was no coward. He did not recoil even from suffering; but to die a cheat was what he could not bring himself to look upon with equanimity.
Again and again he would say to himself, "What does it matter? I have been a cheat in intention if not in act. The proposal was my own. I entered into the compact with my eyes wide open."
But such reasoning did not satisfy him. Even when he told himself that he had no character to lose, that even if the fraud were discovered it would only throw a little darker shadow upon his memory. It did not lessen his repugnance of the contemplated act.
So one day of misery succeeded another, and he fancied sometimes he would lose his reason altogether.
Fortunately for him his old place at the mine became vacant, and the manager, who had never lost faith in him, was only too glad to reinstate him.
"Don't be downhearted, Sterne," he said. "Our greatest successes are won through failure. You will win yet if you have only patience to wait and strength to persevere."
They were the first really friendly words that had been spoken to him, and the tears came into his eyes in spite of himself.
Captain Tom Hendy turned away his head. He did not like to see tears in a strong man's eyes, and he guessed that Rufus must have suffered terribly for a few friendly words to affect him so much.
"It is kind of you, Capt'n Tom, to say so much," Rufus said, at length, "but I am too hopelessly stranded ever to do very much."
"Oh, that is all my eye," Captain Tom answered, with a brusque laugh. "You know the old saying, 'Rome was not built in a day.'"
"Yes, I know the old saying, but I fear it won't help me very much. Still, I shall be glad to forget my disappointment for a while in my old tasks."
"Disappointment is the seed-ground out of which grow the fairest flowers," was the cheery answer.
Captain Tom was a Methodist local preacher, and was somewhat given to coining phrases that had a pleasant sound. Moreover, he had a big, kindly heart, a fact which was often unsuspected by those who did not know him.
"Can I begin work soon?" Rufus questioned, after a pause.
"On Monday morning. Jackson finishes on Saturday, so you can just take up the old threads as though there had been no break."
"You are really awfully kind," Rufus said, impulsively. "You see, I come back with a damaged reputation."
"Not much, sonny; not much. But, of course, your religious views predisposed people to believe the worst."
"Yes, I suppose so. It is a curious world."
"Well, it is in some respects; but in the long run people generally get what they deserve."
"You think so?"
"I am sure of it. There is a moral order that never varies. Don't you make any mistake, my boy. God is at the head of affairs, though you may think the world is run without a head."
"I don't know that I have ever said that."
"Well, not in so many words, perhaps. But you've drifted a long way. I've been awfully sorry. I'msorry still. But you'll get back. I've never lost faith in you. You've always been better than your philosophy. But I'm not going to blame you."
"You need not be afraid that I shall be offended."
"No, 'tisn't that. I know what it is to doubt, myself. I fancy sometimes it's only the people who never think who never doubt. The way into the Kingdom is through tribulation. So long as a man is honest in his doubts, I don't mind. It is the blatant scepticism of ignorance that one resents. I am sure you have been anxious to find the truth."
"I am still."
"Light will come in good time, my boy. Only be patient and humble," and Captain Tom turned away.
"One word more before you go," Rufus said, eagerly.
"Yes, sonny, a dozen if you like."
"I referred just now to my damaged reputation."
"You did. But you'll be able to live that down."
"That is not the point exactly. I was cruelly slandered in that matter. I was never drunk in my life, never, in the smallest degree, the worse for drink; and it would be a comfort to me if you could accept my word of honour on that point."
"Then it was not a momentary weakness—a sudden lapse as it were?"
"It was not. I have never tasted a drop of intoxicants since my leg was broken, and then it was given to me as a medicine by the doctor."
"But why should three men swear you were drunk?"
"One to damage my character. The other two were bribed."
"Have you proof of that?"
"No."
"Then you had better keep a still tongue."
"I have done so; but you have shown yourself so friendly that I could not help speaking. Besides, it is hard to keep silent under so great a wrong."
"But why should any man—especially a man in the young Squire's position—bribe others to swear your character away?"
"Because he feared I was coming between him and the girl he wanted to marry."
Captain Tom started and looked incredulous.
"Please don't think me egotistical," Rufus continued, with a painful blush. "I can assure you I have never aspired so high. But——"
"You saved her life."
"I had that good fortune, and she was grateful, and she showed her gratitude in many ways. One afternoon back in the winter I met her on the Downs, and we had a ramble together, and unfortunately the Captain saw us."
"And you think he was jealous?"
"I do. What led to the quarrel was, he charged me with loitering round Trewinion so that I might waylay her, and influence her against him."
"But why did you not mention that in court?"
"What would have been the good of it? He would have denied it on oath. Besides, I'd rather be accused of drunkenness than drag Miss Grover's name into such a sordid squabble."
"Oh, indeed!" and the Captain's eyebrows went up perceptibly.
"You'll excuse me talking so freely, Capt'n Tom," Rufus went on, "but it really does me good to open my heart to someone, and I know you'll respect my confidence."
"I wish you had come to me sooner my boy, though I never thought very seriously of the matter. I concluded it was a sudden lapse, and in all probability would never happen again."
"But it was nothing of the sort," Rufus said, with a touch of vehemence in his tone. "I am as innocent of the charge as you are."
"Then the men who witnessed against you are guilty of perjury?"
"Timothy Polgarrow is, without a doubt. Poor old Micah Martin may have fancied I was not sober. Besides, he would conceive it to be his bounden duty to accept his young master's word."
For several seconds Captain Tom remained silent, with his eyes fixed upon the ground.
"Such villainy ought to be exposed," he said, at length, raising his eyes suddenly.
"But how is it to be done?"
"I don't know, my boy," he answered, reflectively, "I don't know."
"You said just now that in the long run people got their deserts."
"I did, sonny, and I believe it."
"But where shall I come in? Suppose they do get their deserts, that won't compensate me."
The Captain's grave face relaxed into a broad smile. "Perhaps young Tregony's deserts will be in not getting the girl," he said, and he gave a loud guffaw.
"Well?"
"That may be where you come in. My stars, but if I were in your shoes, I'd make him jealous for something. By all accounts he hasn't got her yet."
"I don't know; I've heard nothing."
"Neither have I, for that matter. But if he had got her, it would have been in all the papers. You may be quite sure of that."
"Whether he has won her or failed can make no difference to me. I have no dreams in that direction."
Captain Tom lowered his eyebrows and puckered his lips. "Sonny," he said, "I've no wish to be inquisitive. But I've been a young man myself. Ah me! I'd like to be young again. Nothing is impossible to youth when there is a stout heart, a clear brain, and a clean conscience."
"Which only a few possess."
"Look here, sonny," Captain Tom said, after a pause, "you are too young to let the weeds of pessimism overrun the garden. Look up, that's my advice. You've had a big disappointment, I admit, and you've been shamefully slandered; but my belief is God has some big thing in store for you, if you will only wait patiently and trust in Him."
Rufus dropped his head, but did not reply. However despondent he might feel, or however tired of life, it would be a fatal policy to show it.
"We'll talk this matter over again some time," Captain Tom said at length. "Meanwhile, you keep your eyes open. My stars! but she's a girl worth winning!"
Rufus looked up with a start.
"I mean it," Captain Tom went on, with a laugh. "Besides, you got the first innings. If I were a sporting man, I know which horse I would back. My stars! but it would be no end of a joke!" and with another laugh, he walked away.
Rufus settled himself down to his work with as much outward cheerfulness as he could command. It was a great comfort to him to know that Captain Tom believed in him, and that the past would never be flung into his teeth by his employer. The work was not exacting and the pay was proportionate. There was no scope for enterprise or ambition, which exactly suited his mood. He had no ambition left. He was only marking time at best. Before the autumn leaves had carpeted the ground he would be at rest.
He faced the issue, most days, grimly and determinedly. There was no other alternative open to him. It seemed a greater wrong to defraud a friend than to take a few hundreds out of the coffers of a great and wealthy company. The company would not be perceptibly the poorer if it lost ten times the amount. It had accumulated funds for all contingencies. It lived by and for the purpose of taking risks. But to defraud Muller might be to ruin him. The money was not his own. The loss to him might mean bankruptcy and worse. Hence, as he was bound to commit a fraud whether he lived or died, it seemed the better part to commit the fraud that would give least pain and trouble, and dying, escape all consequences. It was a terrible alternative, and it filled him with self-loathing and contempt. He felt that he was a living falsehood, practising a daily hypocrisy. And yet what could he do?
The dry east winds of March had given place to April's genial showers. Spring was greening the landscape in all directions. The throstles sang in the elm-trees as though glad to be alive, and in the uplands the young lambs sported in the sunshine. Every morning, as Rufus walked over the hills to the mine, he felt the joy of life throbbing in his veins. It was good to live when the world was becoming so fair; good to smell the pungent odours of the earth, and feel the warmth of the ascending sun. There were moments when he forgot the sword that was hanging over his head, and he would revel in the yellow of the gorse and in the changing colours of the sea. Then he would come to himself with a gasp, and a look of horror would creep into his eyes.
In spite of himself the strain began to tell upon his health. The burden was becoming heavier than he could bear. In the company of others he simulated a cheerfulness that he never felt. If he spoke of the future, it was with a tone of well-feigned hopefulness in his voice. He pretended to have plans reaching into the next year and the year after that. He loathed himself for being so consummate a hypocrite. But for Muller's sake he would have to avoid waking the smallest suspicion.
It is not surprising, perhaps, that the further he got away from the first shock of disappointment, and the nearer he got to the redemption of his pledge, the stronger his passion for life became. It might be the beauty of the springtime that made him so eager to live. It might be the growing sense of the sacredness of life. It might be the increasing moral revulsion from the act itself. It might be the slow lifting of the veil from his spiritual vision, or it might be all these things combined. Certain it is that as the springadvanced and the earth became more and more beautiful, the thought of dying became more and more repugnant.
"There is no wealth but life," a great writer has said, and Rufus began to feel more and more the truth of that statement. He was an asset of his age and generation. He belonged to his own time. The treasure of a country was not its dollars but its life. To the individual himself life is his one real possession. Wealth and fame and distinction are nothing to the dead. Moreover, life without wealth, without recognition, without honour, is still worth possessing. It is a gladness merely to live and see the beauty of the earth and feel the warmth of the sun.
Rufus began to count the days till the end of August, which he reckoned would mark the limit of his pilgrimage. The time passed all too quickly. He gave himself as little sleep as possible, for sleep seemed to rob him of what little of life was left, and he was anxious to make the most of it.
Never a spring seemed so beautiful as that one. Never did the gorse flame so yellow on the moors, never did he see such sapphire in the deep. As the evenings grew longer he sat on the cliffs and watched the sunsets and ticked them off in his calendar as the day faded into night.
His eyes grew large and pathetic and his voice took a softer tone. Sometimes he found his thoughts shaping themselves into supplication. The universal instinct asserted itself unconsciously. He wanted guidance and he wanted forgiveness for what he proposed to do.
Marshall Brook came across to see him once or twice, and they had long walks and talks together, but he got no help out of their conversation anddiscussions. On the contrary, every talk seemed to make his task more and more difficult.
By slow and almost imperceptible steps he was coming back to the faith he had cast aside. He read the gospels with new interest, and saw in the books Madeline Grover lent him, and which he still kept, new and deeper meanings. But all this only put fresh thorns in his path. He wished sometimes that his philosophy of negations had never been disturbed, that he could still believe what he believed honestly enough when he entered into this fatal compact.
It seemed as though everything conspired to put difficulties in his path. He might be the victim of a malicious fate. He had told Muller that if he failed he should not want to live—that there would be nothing left worth living for. How little he knew! How little he guessed that that very day he would see a face that would change the world for him; that from that day a train of circumstances would be set in motion that would alter his entire outlook!
He was a different man to-day from what he was nine months ago. He looked at life and the world through different eyes. He had loved, and love had greatened him in spite of the fact that he had loved in vain. He had reasoned about temperance, and righteousness, and a judgment to come, and out of the chaos of his own thinking had appeared the faint glimmerings of an eternal order. He had suffered, and suffering had developed in him the grace of patience, and toughened the fibres of his moral nature. He had come under influences which had quickened his drooping moral sense and made him look with steadier eyes at the meaning and mystery of life.
He never more ardently desired to do the right thing, was never so absolutely compelled to do the wrong.He wished sometimes that he could take some one into his confidence, Captain Tom Hendy, for instance. With his clear vision and strong common sense he might see a way out of the difficulty. But to take anyone into his confidence would be to give the whole case away. For Muller's sake he would have to preserve an inviolable silence, and yet the very silence was becoming more and more intolerable.
Toward the end of April he paid what he deemed would be his last visit to Muller. It would be a relief to put some of his thoughts into speech. That, however, was not the main purpose of his visit. He had succeeded in putting all his affairs in order, in turning into cash everything that was saleable, and in discharging all outstanding obligations, and he was pleased to discover that he had still three hundred pounds left.
"I suppose this belongs to me," he said to himself, "to do what I like with," and he smiled sadly. Some men, under the circumstances, might have spent it in having what they would call a good time, but he was in no mood for feasting or mirth.
"I will take it back to Muller," he went on, "and lessen my obligation by that amount." So one Saturday afternoon, when they left off early at the mine, he donned his holiday suit, and trudged off into Redbourne to see his friend.
He found Muller in his office as he expected. Muller had no domestic ties, and he preferred his office, as a rule, to any other place in the world.
Muller looked up with a little start of surprise when Rufus entered. In the first place, he was not expecting him, and in the second place, he was shocked at his appearance.
"Hello, Sterne," he said, "what brings you into Redbourne to-day? Not to see a doctor, I hope," anda curious smile played round the corners of his mouth.
"I came to see you," Rufus answered, with a smile. "Doctors are of no use to me."
"Well, no," Muller replied, reflectively. "I presume you are right in that. But you look ill all the same—painfully ill."
"Do I? I was not aware. I feel about as usual."
"Not over cheerful, I presume. Well, I don't wonder. It's beastly hard luck. I think if I were in your place I should get the business over as quickly as possible."
"I have to consider your interests as well as my own feelings," Rufus answered, going to the window and looking down into the street.
"Well, yes, of course. If people suspected anything there might be old Harry to pay."
"Exactly. Then, you know, I have had a good many things to square up, and, on the whole, I have come out fairly well."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that out of the thousand pounds I borrowed of you, I have three hundred left."
"So much?"
"Three pounds, seventeen and ninepence over, to be exact. But what I propose to do is to hand over the three hundred pounds to you, and so lessen my obligation by that amount."
Muller started, and a puzzled expression came into his eyes.
"The burden will seem a little lighter," Rufus went on, looking down into the street again.
"I confess I do not quite understand," Muller said, adjusting his pince-nez. "You don't mean t—t——" Then he stopped, and waited for Rufus further to explain himself.
"I mean," Rufus answered, walking across the room, and dropping into a chair, "that if there is any profit arising out of the transaction you shall have the full benefit of it."
"Oh, thanks, old man; that is good of you," and Muller's face brightened instantly.
"There are always expenses, of course?"
"A great many expenses, I am sorry to say. But you have been very thoughtful. Extremely considerate, if I may say so, without flattery."
"Oh, you can flatter as much as you like," Rufus answered, with a mirthless laugh. "It would be much more to the purpose, however, if you could see some other way out of the difficulty."
Muller's countenance changed again in a moment.
"You like not the prospect?" he said, cynically.
"To be honest, I don't. As a matter of fact, I despise myself for not seeing at the beginning all the issues involved."
"What issues do you refer to?"
"Moral issues in the main. The repayment of this loan is with us both a question of honour."
"That is so. As an honourable man you cannot escape it."
"I see that clearly enough. What I failed to see at the first—either because I refused to entertain the idea of failure, or else because my moral sense had become dull—was that I was proposing to pay a debt by fraud."
Muller laughed uneasily. "I think I pointed that out to you quite clearly on the day we settled the matter."
"I have no recollection of it."
"I did so most distinctly. I said if the company scented suicide they would dispute the claim, or words to that effect."
"And seeing this clearly you were willing to become a party to the fraud?"
Muller's eyes blazed in a moment. "Look here, Sterne," he said, angrily, "this is above a joke. You know very well that the proposal was not mine. You badgered and bullied and persuaded and gave me no peace. I yielded at length, much against my will, to oblige you. I made you angry when I pointed out in the frankest and most explicit way the consequences of failure, and now, confound it, when you have failed you come and blame me."
"No, no; you misunderstand me," Rufus said, mildly. "I have no wish to blame you. The proposal was my own, I frankly admit, and you yielded very reluctantly. But the thing that puzzles me is that while we talked about honour we neither of us seemed to realise that the proposal involved a glaring act of dishonour."
"Do you refer to the insurance company?"
"I do."
"My dear fellow, would you consider it a dishonourable act to appropriate a pin from your neighbour's dressing-table?"
"Well, no. There is no value in a pin."
"Yes, there is. All values are relative. To the company concerned the amount involved is scarcely more than the value of a pin to your landlady."
"If I took a penny from her dressing-table it would be theft."
"You think that because the disc of copper represents a fixed amount of money. Call it theft if you like. So then taking a pin would be theft."
"Perhaps so."
"But a theft so small that in any moral or legal reckoning it would not count. It would not countbecause your landlady would not feel it. So the paltry amount under discussion would not be felt by the company."
"You call it a paltry amount, and yet it represents the value of a life."
"My dear fellow, human life is not of much account in this world. Governments—especially Christian Governments—sacrifice men by thousands for bits of barren territory that are not worth sixpence."
"The Creator, perhaps, sets more value on them."
"Use the word Nature and you talk sense. Only your suggestion is absolutely beside the mark. Nature puts no value on human life at all, no more than you do on the creeping things you trample to death at every step you take."
"Nature does not destroy. She only changes the form. Nothing is lost."
"Except life. That vanishes like the flame of a candle in a gust of wind."
"Vanishes! But do you know what the word means?"
"I think I do. But what is all this talk leading to? What have you got at the back of your brain? If you are going to funk the business, say so, and let me know the worst."
"I don't think I have suggested anything of the kind," Rufus replied, uneasily. "I frankly admit that I do not like the alternative, and wish that some other way of escape could be found."
"But if there is no other way?"
"Then I must meet my doom, and go into darkness disgraced and dishonoured."
"In a hundred years from now nothing will matter."
"You are not even sure of that. But, candidly, I am as ready to face death as most other men. Iam not aware that I have ever proved myself a coward, but I do abhor the thought of shrinking meanly out of life by a back door in order to cheat an insurance company."
"You should have thought of all this earlier."
"I know I should. I am simply amazed at myself. But I was so certain of success that I refused to look at failure, or the possible consequences of failure."
"Exactly. But that is not my fault. I am sorry for you. More sorry than I can express. But I am powerless to help you."
"And you are not concerned at my cheating the insurance company?"
"Not in the least. I am only concerned that you do not cheat me."
"But suppose I paid you interest on the seven hundred pounds for a year or two?"
"It is not the interest I want, but the principal, which I must have by the first of January next, or I'm up a tree."
"But could you not borrow the amount from some other client for awhile?"
"Where am I to get security? Why don't you ask me to make you a free gift of the amount in question?"
"I don't want any free gift. At the same time, I don't want to sacrifice my life if there is any chance of saving it."
"You seem to set great store by it."
"It is all I have. And of late I have not been able to shake off the conviction that I am responsible to God for it."
"I thought as much," Muller said, with a sneer.
Rufus raised his eyes questioningly.
"Turning Christian again with Christian results," he went on. "I caught an echo of the jargon thelast time I called on you, and feared you would turn coward, as all these religious people do."
"Don't let us quarrel, Muller," Rufus said, mildly. "I confess I had not much hope that you would be able to help me, so I shall return not greatly disappointed."
"I would help you a thousand times if I could," Muller replied, with a great burst of simulated friendliness, "but, alas! I cannot do impossibilities."
"Very good, I will not trouble you again."
"And you will not burst the thing up by awaking suspicion?"
"Not if I can help it."
"And take a word of advice. Get rid of those silly notions about accountability and all that rubbish. They don't become a man of your intellectual calibre."
"Thank you: we must follow the light that is in us. Good afternoon and good-bye."
"Good-bye," Muller said, lugubriously, grasping his outstretched hand. "I'm sorry, but I'm helpless."
Rufus did not reply nor did he look back, and a moment later Muller heard his footsteps slowly descending the stairs.
Rufus was conscious as he descended the stairs that his feelings towards Felix Muller had undergone considerable change. Felix was not the close and attached friend that he had imagined him to be. Of late he had revealed himself in a new light. It was no doubt true that he had taken considerable risks on his account, but he began to fear that these risks had not been taken on the score of friendship merely. It seemed to Rufus that the passion for speculation and the desire for gain had been the chief factors in the case.
"I think he might have helped me," Rufus said to himself, regretfully. "If he had really cared for my friendship he would have set my life before most things. I don't think my death will trouble him in the least."
At the street door he paused for a few moments, and contemplated the busy street stretching right and left. It was market-day, and the youth of the entire country side had poured itself into the town. Up and down they sauntered—lads and maidens—aimless, vacant, but entirely happy. Hands in pockets, arms round waists, straws between teeth, caps tilted to the back of heads. The world for them was the best of all possible places, and Fore Street, Redbourne, on a market-day the most wonderful place in the world.
Suddenly the crowd divided that a pair of horses drawing an open carriage might pass up the street.The carriage was empty. The coachman and footman sat stiff and erect in blue livery, and surveyed the scene with a look of pitying condescension on their faces.
Rufus watched the carriage pass with more than ordinary interest. It was Sir Charles Tregony's carriage and was evidently on its way to the station. Very likely the family were returning to-day, though to put five people into an ordinary landau would be a tight squeeze.
Rufus found his heart beating a little more rapidly than usual; the thought of seeing Madeline Grover again quickened his pulse unconsciously. In a moment the busy street faded, the noise died down into silence, and he was back in a quiet country lane, watching a carriage pass, with a strange lady sitting by the side of the driver. He would never forget that first vision of Madeline's face. He had never seen a face before that had so caught his fancy. He had never seen anything comparable to it since.
That was one of the red-letter days of his life. He fancied then that all the world lay at his feet. No dream of failure dimmed the sunshine for a moment. He was on the heights of Pisgah, with all the fair land of promise stretched out before him. Now he was in the valley of the shadow, having relinquished his last hope. It was a curious coincidence that Madeline should return that day of all days. Return, possibly, as the wife of Gervase Tregony. To see her sitting by his side would be the last drop in the cup of humiliation, the deepest note in the solemn dirge of his despair.
He looked at his watch. The down express from London was due in fifteen minutes, and it was generally well up to time.
"I think I will loiter round in town until they have gone," he said to himself. "I need not suffer the humiliation of seeing her the happy bride of that——fellow," and he plunged at once into the throng that jostled each other in the street.
But the desire to have another look at Madeline's face proved too strong for him.
"It cannot do me any harm," he said to himself, moodily. "Nothing can do me any harm now. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have done their worst."
Ten minutes later he was on the station platform waiting for the down express. Very few people were about. He lighted a cigarette, and strolled with apparent unconcern up and down the platform. He gave a little start when the signal dropped just in front of him. A couple of porters hurried across the line from the other platform, a newspaper boy appeared from somewhere round a corner, the people who had been walking up and down came to a sudden stop. The long train glided slowly round a curve, and came to a standstill.
Rufus drew to the off side of the platform, and watched the scene. Fifty heads were thrust out of nearly as many windows, but only half a dozen people alighted. Sir Charles and party had a compartment to themselves near the middle of the train. The Baronet alighted first—slowly and stiffly as though cramped with the long journey. Beryl jumped out after him with light springy step, then came Lady Tregony, ponderous, but jaunty still.
Rufus found his heart beating uncomfortably fast as he waited for Madeline to appear. The porter entered the compartment, and began handing out the wraps and umbrellas, then the footman hurriedaway to the luggage van. Rufus heaved a long sigh, partly of disappointment, partly of relief. Madeline had not returned with the others, neither had the Captain. That meant—what?
He could think of only one possible explanation. They were man and wife, and were travelling on their own account. Perhaps they had been married recently, and were now on their honeymoon. That seemed the most probable supposition. It was hardly likely they would be married on the Continent. They would wait till they got back to London, and after the ceremony the others would return, of course, to St. Gaved, and the Captain and his bride would wander where they listed.
He turned away from the station, and made his way slowly over the hill in the direction of St. Gaved. The Tregony carriage passed him before he had got very far, but no one noticed him. He kept his head bent low, and did not raise his eyes till the carriage had got a considerable distance.
It was dark long before he reached St. Gaved, and he was so tired that it was a pain to lift his feet from the ground. It was the first time he fully realised how weak he was. He did not feel ill, though people were constantly telling him how ill he looked; but he was conscious that the spring had gone out of him, that the fires of life were burning low.
When he went to bed that night there was an unspoken prayer in his heart that some illness would overtake him from which he would die. That would be a splendid solution of the whole difficulty. A severe illness would quench the passion for life, would dull all the sensibilities, would take the sting out of all earth's disappointments, and ring down the curtain so gently that he would not know when all the lights were turned out.
Perhaps, after all, he would be saved the sin and the shame of taking his own life, and with this thought in his mind he fell asleep.
The next day, however, brought back all the old pain in its acutest form. Once or twice he felt strongly tempted to let Felix Muller bear the brunt of his failure, and trust to the future and the chapter of accidents to enable him to discharge all his liabilities.
Muller was not considering him in any way. Indeed, he had shown himself exceedingly callous. The one thing that concerned him was getting his money back with compound interest. Well, he had got three hundred pounds of it back already. Suppose he kept him waiting for the rest?
But after a moment's reflection he would shake his head. "I should never be able to pay him back," he would say to himself. "Seven hundred pounds to a working man is an impossible sum. I should not be able to pay him interest at four per cent out of my earnings. Besides, what would he think? and it might mean bankruptcy and disgrace to him."
But the thought of what he would think was the principal crux. How contemptuous he would be. With what scorn he would regard him. How bitter and venomous would be his taunts, with what biting sarcasm he would refer to his courage and chivalry, with what lofty disdain he would speak of his honour and his regard for the truth.
Rufus would feel himself growing hot all over with shame. Shame that he let such a temptation have foothold for a single moment. Had he not pledged his word of honour, and was not that enough? Did it not outweigh every other consideration? If he departed from his word of honour he would never be able to hold up his head again, however long hemight live, and were a few shadowed years worth purchasing at so great a price?
So he debated the question now from one side and now from another, and still the days passed on, and he saw no escape from the doom he had prepared for himself.
Sometimes he woke in the night with a start, and with the cry upon his lips, "How can I do this great evil, and sin against God?" and for awhile the thought of his responsibility to a supreme Being would outweigh every other consideration. His pledged word, the thin veneer of honour which took no account of honesty, the anger and contempt of Muller, the irrevocable loss of reputation—would all seem as of no account in comparison with the anger of an offended God.
That he should grow pale, and thin, and hollow-eyed was inevitable. The constant nervous strain was exhausting the springs of life. The unresting activity of his brain was consuming his physical energies as with a fire. He was as free from disease as any child in St. Gaved, but he was unwittingly making himself an easy prey to any malady that might be prowling about.
Meanwhile St. Gaved was considerably exercised in its mind over the non-appearance of the Captain—as people still called him—and Miss Grover. Mrs. Tuke, who claimed to be on terms of great intimacy with Madeline, and who was prepared to champion her under any and every circumstance, was almost indignant that no reliable information could be extracted from any source.
The servants from the Hall came into the village as usual, and certain young men from St. Gaved, it was said, found their way occasionally into the Hall kitchen—though that was a point on which authenticinformation was difficult to obtain. But neither from the servants, nor from the young men in question, nor from the police, could anything be gathered as to the doings or the whereabouts of Gervase Tregony and Madeline Grover.
Gossip, of course, ran riot, and rumour changed its headlines every day, but the true state of affairs remained as much a mystery as ever. Rufus found himself as much interested in the floating gossip as Mrs. Tuke herself, and as eager to listen to the latest canard.
"It is said they ain't married at all," Mrs. Tuke remarked one evening, as she laid his supper on the table.
"But nobody knows," Rufus said, wearily, looking up from his book.
"Well, not for certain. But if they was married, don't you think as how it would have leaked out somehow?"
"They may have been married quietly without a dozen people knowing."
"But why should they be married on the sly? Sir Charles seemed mighty proud that the Captain was going to marry her before he turned up."