“I can guess,” whispered Frances.
His brooding eyes softened somewhat, but still he did not look at her. “Then you came. You changed everything. But that letter—you remember that lost letter? My father found it, recognized the writing, knew that my cousin was in the neighbourhood. That brought everything back. Somehow from the first he always connected you with Nan. There is a resemblance, though I can’t tell you where it lies. On the night my cousin came to meet you at the Stones—that ghastly night—he broke out. I think you know what happened. He tried to murder him, but he got away. Oliver was there, but he ought to have been earlier. I blamed him for that. The mischief might have been avoided. However, my cousin got away, and my father dodged us and came back to the house. There he left his gun, thinking he had killed his man. Then he must have seen the child. Possibly she spoke to him. I don’t know. But the lust for murder was on him that night. He followed her to the Stones, dodging us again, and saw her climb on to the Rocking Stone. He had made a great study of the Stones, and it was he who had discovered how to make the thing move. He used his knowledge on that occasion, and—and—well, you know what happened.” His arm tightened about her convulsively.
“Oh, don’t tell me any more!” Frances said.
He bit his lip and continued. “It all came out afterwards in his ravings, but we suspected foul play before. I was practically sure of it. Frances, it nearly killed my mother. I shall never forget her agony as long as I live.”
“My dear—my dear!” Frances said. But she was thinking of the man’s own agony which she had witnessed in the farm-kitchen on the night of little Ruth’s death.
He drew a hard breath between his teeth. “Then, as you know, he was taken ill. And I hoped he would die. My God! How I hoped he would die! That night with you in the garden—do you remember? The night you offered yourself to me! I could have fallen at your feet and worshipped you that night. But—I had to turn away. You understood, didn’t you? You knew?” A passionate note sounded in his voice.
“Oh yes, I knew,” Frances said.
He went on with an effort. “I was nearly mad with trouble myself after that. And afterwards—when you were gone and I heard from Maggie that you had been inveigled into going up to town alone to meet that scoundrel, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to follow you. I went to his rooms and I dogged him that night. I was like a man possessed—as much a murderer at heart as my father had ever been. If you hadn’t stopped me, I should have killed him. But—oh, Frances,—” his deep voice broke—“nothing was worth while after that lie of yours. If it hadn’t been for my mother I should have put an end to myself.”
She laid her cheek against his shoulder. “Arthur! Do you think I found it easy—to lie? It nearly killed me too.”
“Wait!” he said. “Hear it all! I came back. I found my father better. But I was at the end of my endurance. I couldn’t go on. I told my mother so. I told her he must be certified insane and put away. She said I was quite right, though I know it would have broken her heart to have done it. I told her I must go right away too—to save my own sanity. And she—God bless her—she understood without any words. She just told me to go. Then I had my cousin’s letter, telling me everything, vindicating you. I shouldn’t have believed him if I hadn’t known you. But—knowing you—I knew it was true. He asked for a meeting, and I agreed. Somehow I couldn’t help it. It seemed inevitable. You know how sometimes one is pushed by Fate. I was bound to agree. I don’t know what would have happened if I had met him. I might have killed him. I can’t say. But I had only my hands to do it with. I didn’t set out to kill him. And then—you came instead. You were frightened. You thought you had seen a devil. Do you know what it was you saw?”
“Your father!” she whispered.
“My father, yes. He had been wandering among the Stones, and I can only think that he had remembered about the child, and in a fit of mad remorse he had made up his mind to destroy the Rocking Stone,—possibly himself also. It is all surmise now. Anyhow, when you saw the Stone move, he must have been putting the charge underneath. And afterwards—when you and I were standing there—the murderous impulse must have seized him again. Perhaps he took me for Montague, and he may have thought you were Nan. I don’t know. It is impossible to say. Anyway, he fired the fuse, and blasted the Stone. God only knows how we escaped unhurt. But he—but he——”
“He was killed?” said Frances.
“Yes, instantly. When I came to myself, you were unconscious and he was lying dead among the stones. Oliver and some of the men heard the noise and came up. We carried you back. I thought you were dead, but Dr. Square said it was only shock, that in a few days, given absolute quiet, you might recover.”
“A few days!” said Frances, wonderingly.
“It happened a week ago,” he said. “You were semi-conscious once or twice, and then you seemed to sleep. That was what brought you back.”
“How amazing!” she said.
He turned for the first time and looked down into her upraised face. “I thought you would never come back,” he said, and in voice and look she gauged the misery to which he gave no words. “I never had any hope.”
The tears sprang to her eyes. She clung to him voicelessly for a few seconds. Then: “And I thought you were dead!” she whispered. “That was why I didn’t dare to ask!”
He took her shoulders between his hands, holding her slightly from him. “Frances, listen!” he said. “I’m going to be fair to you. I won’t take you—like this. You don’t know what I am—a hard man, melancholy, bitter, the son of a murderer, not fit for any woman to love, much less marry. I am going away—as I said. Maggie and Oliver will run the farm. My mother will stay on with them. The girls will either stay or find their own way in the world. I’ve come to see that it isn’t for me to hold them in any longer. Maggie made me realize that—you too. But I always had the thought of Nan before me. That was what made me so hard with them. But I’m going away now. And you will go back to the Bishop. He wants you. I believe he will be decent to you. I have heard from him about you. Some day—some day—you will find a man worthy of you. Not me—not Montague—someone you can give your whole heart to—and trust.”
He paused a moment. His face was quivering. She saw him again—a gladiator fighting his desperate battle, conquered yet still not beaten to earth, holding her from him, defying the irresistible, ready to make the last and utmost sacrifice, that she might suffer no hurt.
And then, with a gesture of renunciation, he dropped his hands from her and let her go.
“That’s all,” he said, and there was a tremor in his voice which thrilled her through and through. “You are free. I am going. Good-bye!”
He turned away from her with the words. He would have gone. But in that instant Frances spoke—in the language that comes from the heart and speaks to the heart alone.
“I am not free,” she said, “and you can never make me so. I am yours—as you are mine—for ever and ever. Nothing can ever alter that, because—God made it so.”
Then, as he stood motionless, she went close to him, twining her arm in his, drawing him to her.
“Ah, don’t you understand?” she said. “I love you—I have always loved you—I shall love you till I die.”
And then he yielded. He turned with a low, passionate sound that was almost of pain, and held her to him, bowing his head against her, beaten at last.
“You are sure?” he said, and she felt the sob he stifled. “Frances, you are sure? Before God—this is for your own sake—not for mine?”
She held him to her, so that the throbbing of her heart was against his own. “But you and I are one,” she said. “God made us so.”
The church-clock struck the hour again, and they looked at one another with the dismay of lovers for whom time flies on wings. Down the hill at the farm they heard Roger’s voice uplifted in cheery admonition. The cows were being driven back to pasture for the night, and Maggie’s song came lilting through the gloaming.
“Shall we go back to Tetherstones?” Arthur said.
And Frances nodded silently.
They left the place of sacrifice hand in hand.
THE END
A Selection from theCatalogue ofG. P. PUTNAM’S SONSComplete Catalogues senton application
A Selection from the
Catalogue of
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Complete Catalogues sent
on application
Lew Tyler’s WivesByWallace Irwin
Lew Tyler’s Wives
By
Wallace Irwin
Women often wonder just how much they mean in the lives of the men they marry, and how deeply they touch the hearts of the men they love. In “Lew Tyler’s Wives” Wallace Irwin shows us a very human American man, as full of frailty as of charm, and the women who loved him, Jessie, Coleen, Virginia. How he loved each of them, how much and how truly, is told with an understanding which men will envy, women long for if they’re Jessies, smile at if they’re Virginias, and resent if they’re Coleens.G. P. Putnam’s SonsNew YorkLondon
Women often wonder just how much they mean in the lives of the men they marry, and how deeply they touch the hearts of the men they love. In “Lew Tyler’s Wives” Wallace Irwin shows us a very human American man, as full of frailty as of charm, and the women who loved him, Jessie, Coleen, Virginia. How he loved each of them, how much and how truly, is told with an understanding which men will envy, women long for if they’re Jessies, smile at if they’re Virginias, and resent if they’re Coleens.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New YorkLondon
The Luck of the KidByRidgwell CullumAuthor of “The Heart of Unaga,”“The Man in the Twilight,” etc.
The Luck of the Kid
By
Ridgwell Cullum
Author of “The Heart of Unaga,”
“The Man in the Twilight,” etc.
This new Cullum novel is a tale of pioneer life on the Yukon-Alaska frontier; it has all the author’s familiar qualities—strength of story, vividness of description, rapidity of action, and sure development of character.Bill Wilder, the Canadian gold-king, is one of Cullum’s finest creations, and the reader will follow him breathlessly in his adventures with the fur trappers and gold prospectors, and in his search for “the lost white girl,” who proves to be “The Kid.” The story of the English missionary who loses his life on the gold trail, and the Indian servant who lives only to avenge his death, is a thrilling one, which gains in interest on every page.G. P. Putnam’s SonsNew YorkLondon
This new Cullum novel is a tale of pioneer life on the Yukon-Alaska frontier; it has all the author’s familiar qualities—strength of story, vividness of description, rapidity of action, and sure development of character.
Bill Wilder, the Canadian gold-king, is one of Cullum’s finest creations, and the reader will follow him breathlessly in his adventures with the fur trappers and gold prospectors, and in his search for “the lost white girl,” who proves to be “The Kid.” The story of the English missionary who loses his life on the gold trail, and the Indian servant who lives only to avenge his death, is a thrilling one, which gains in interest on every page.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New YorkLondon
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.
Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained.